Day: January 8, 2023

Japan’s Kishida Highlights Security Concerns on Trip to Europe, US

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Tokyo —  Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida begins a weeklong trip Monday to strengthen military ties with Europe and Britain and bring into focus the Japan-U.S. alliance at a summit in Washington, as Japan breaks from its postwar restraint to take on more offensive roles with an eye toward China. Kishida’s talks with U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday will highlight his five-nation tour that also takes him to France, Italy, Britain and Canada — some of the Group of Seven nations Japan has stepped up defense ties with in…

Paxlovid Not on ‘Approved Drug List’ for China’s Health Insurance

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Beijing —  China will not include Pfizer Inc’s Paxlovid in an update to its list of medicines covered by basic medical insurance schemes as the U.S. firm quoted a high price for the COVID-19 drug, China’s Healthcare Security Administration (NHSA) said Sunday. The COVID-19 antiviral drug is currently covered by the country’s broad health care insurance scheme under temporary measures the regulator introduced in March last year as outbreaks rose. But authorities held talks with Pfizer in recent days to decide whether to include it in the latest version of…

From ‘thumping’ to reclamation in the South China Sea, US accusations put China on the defensive. Is that the plan?

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The Philippines was especially alarmed because the first two reefs are under water at high tide and thus lie on the Philippine continental shelf and in its exclusive economic zone (EEZ). It did not want a second Mischief Reef, a submerged feature it claims but which China occupied in 1994 and built up into a military base. The Philippines said it would reinforce its military presence in the area. A day before the Bloomberg report, the US State Department released a statement of support for the Philippines in response to…

7.0-Magnitude Quake Strikes Pacific Nation of Vanuatu 

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Sydney, Australia —  Frightened villagers fled to higher ground fearing a tsunami when a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck late Sunday just off the coast of the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu. The violent quake’s epicenter was in the sea just off the northern bay of the largest island Espiritu Santo, some 400 kilometers (250 miles) north of the archipelago’s capital Port Vila. Kayson Pore, a 22-year-old student from the village of Hog Harbour in Espiritu Santo, said he was looking for crab on the beach with half a dozen friends when…

As China Reopens Its Borders, Mixed Feelings at Home and Abroad

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HONG KONG — Over the past three years, Zhou Wanhui, a Hong Kong resident, has visited her parents in China just three times. Though they live only two hours away by train, Covid restrictions made it so difficult to cross the Hong Kong border into mainland China that one of Ms. Zhou’s trips included a three-hour flight to Shanghai and nearly a month of quarantine in two cities. Families like Ms. Zhou’s — kept apart for weddings and funerals, birthdays and graduations — are finally preparing for less arduous reunions.…

Interview: Pol Pot was ‘strikingly charming…until we began to talk’

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Nate Thayer, an American journalist who was the last Western correspondent to interview the Khmer Rouge’s genocidal leader Pol Pot, died early this month in Massachusetts, aged 62. In September 2006, Sok-ry Som and Kem Sos of RFA Khmer interviewed Thayer, who had spent years in the jungles of Cambodia chronicling the Khmer Rouge’s 1975-1979 rule, during which an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians perished. The conversation with Thayer–who discusses his interviews with Pol Pot and other senior Khmer rouge figures including No. 2 leader and chief ideologist Nuon Chea, Kaing Guek…

Workers clash with police in mass protest at Chinese Covid test kit plant

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One internet user who claimed to be a temporary worker at the factory said in an online post that workers were asked to leave the production line on Friday morning and assemble at a square, where they were told to leave early for their Lunar New Year holidays. When asked about their wages, they were told they would be distributed within days but only to workers with a contract. Advertisement She said workers contacted their recruitment agencies but did not get satisfactory answers. Thousands of people were in the area…

Not long now before Covid is endemic in China – just like the rest of the world, expert says

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China is battling unprecedented waves of Covid-19 infections after pivoting from its long-standing zero-Covid policy towards living with the virus. But the death toll remains unknown with Chinese authorities not reporting daily Covid cases since December 25. 03:47 First travellers arrive and depart from Beijing as China reopens international borders The Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention says it will report only severe cases and death numbers will be given just once a month. Advertisement China has been accused of under-reporting Covid-19 deaths, something it denies. It also says…

Boat With 185 Rohingya Refugees Lands in Indonesia’s Aceh

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JAKARTA, INDONESIA —  A boat with 185 Rohingya refugees landed on the shores of Indonesia’s Aceh province on Sunday, a local disaster agency official said, following hundreds who arrived late last year fleeing desperate conditions in refugee camps in Bangladesh. Over half of those who arrived around 2:30 p.m. Sunday were women and children, Ridwan Jamil, head of Aceh Besar disaster agency, told Reuters. Photos Ridwan shared showed the refugees sitting in groups and lying down on the sand. Hundreds of Rohingya have reached Aceh in the past few months,…

Workers Clash With Police at COVID Test Kit Factory in China

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BEIJING —  Scores of workers have clashed with police at a COVID test kit factory in China, video spreading on social media showed Sunday, as the country navigates a path out of its hardline virus policy. Footage geolocated by AFP to an industrial park in the southwestern city of Chongqing shows people tossing crates at a group of uniformed men, sending a shower of what appear to be test kits flying. Another clip shows a crowd in front of a line of police at night as loudspeakers play a warning…