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By Sean CHANG and Amber WANG Typhoon Haikui toppled hundreds of trees, damaged coastal roads and dumped torrential rain across Taiwan Monday before it weakened into a severe tropical storm and headed for southern China. Haikui had initially appeared to depart the island but made a second landfall early Monday in southwest Kaohsiung before moving out into the Taiwan Strait. There were no reports of deaths. More than 100 people suffered injuries during the typhoon, […]
SEOUL, Sept 2, 2023 (AFP) – North Korea staged a “simulated tactical nuclear attack” drill at the weekend with mock atomic warheads attached to two long-range cruise missiles that were test-fired into the ocean, state-controlled media reported Sunday. The Korean Central News Agency said the operation early Saturday was a “counteraction drill” in response to joint military activity by US and South Korean forces that KCNA said has escalated tensions in the region. “A firing […]
SYDNEY, Sept 2, 2023 (AFP) – Australia will send a delegation of industry, government, academic, media and arts representatives to Beijing for a dialogue with their Chinese counterparts next week to stabilise its relationship with China, Canberra’s foreign ministry said Saturday. Trade, investment, people-to-people links as well as regional and international security are among the issues up for discussion in next Thursday’s talks, Foreign Minster Penny Wong’s office said. The high-level dialogue had been held […]
SRIHARIKOTA, India, Sept 2, 2023 (AFP) – The latest mission in India’s ambitious space programme blasted off Saturday on a voyage towards the centre of the solar system, a week after the country’s successful unmanned Moon landing. Aditya-L1 launched shortly before midday, with a live broadcast showing hundreds of spectators cheering wildly against the deafening noise of the rocket’s ascent. “Congratulations to our scientists and engineers,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on X, formerly known […]
BANGKOK, Sept 1, 2023 (AFP) – Temperature records are being toppled across Asia, from India’s summer to Australia’s winter, authorities said Friday, in fresh evidence of the impact of climate change. The sweltering temperatures match longstanding warnings from climate scientists and come as countries from Greece to Canada battle record heat and deadly wildfires. In India, the world’s most populous country, officials said this August was the hottest and driest since national records began more […]
HONG KONG, Sept 1, 2023 (AFP) – Typhoon Saola roared ashore in southern China early Saturday as a weakened but still dangerous threat that has lashed Hong Kong and forced millions to hunker down for one of the region’s strongest storms in decades. Tens of millions of people across Hong Kong, Shenzhen and other southern Chinese megacities had braced for the menace of a cyclone rated as a super typhoon. And while it delivered a […]
Sri Lanka’s police force said Friday it had sacked an officer who entertained protesters with an impromptu piano performance after they stormed the island nation’s presidential compound last year. Constable R. M. D. Dayaratne was deployed to help protect the colonial-era residence on the day it was taken over by protesters who forced then-president Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country. Instead, he sat at a grand piano in the compound and played a song to […]
KUPANG, Indonesia, Aug 31, 2023 (AFP) – A deep, 5.4-magnitude earthquake struck the eastern Indonesian island of Timor on Thursday, a US monitor said, shaking residents and forcing them to flee outside but causing no reported casualties or damage. The quake struck at a depth of around 54.6 kilometres on the northwest of Timor island near the city of Kupang at around 6:30 pm local time (1030 GMT), according to the US Geological Survey. It […]
BATAM, Indonesia, Aug 30, 2023 (AFP) – Dozens of Chinese nationals were arrested in Indonesia on suspicion of running an online love scam syndicate that ensnared hundreds of victims in China, police said Wednesday. Acting on a tip-off from their Chinese counterparts, Indonesian police arrested 83 men and five women at an industrial park in Batam city in Riau Islands province on Tuesday. Police said the syndicate blackmailed hundreds of victims in China, many of […]
GENEVA, Aug 29, 2023 (AFP) – Hundreds of thousands of people are being coerced in Southeast Asia by criminal gangs into carrying out online scams, often under the threat of torture, the United Nations said Tuesday. Many have been trafficked into working in online criminality and face serious violations such as torture or sexual violence, the UN said in a report. “People who are coerced into working in these scamming operations endure inhumane treatment while […]
KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 30, 2023 (AFP) – Kuala Lumpur rejected Wednesday a new Chinese map that claims waters off Malaysia’s coast in the South China Sea, in the latest war of words between the Asian allies over Beijing’s assertiveness in the waterway. China claims sovereignty over almost the entire South China Sea — through which trillions of dollars in trade pass annually — despite an international court ruling that Beijing’s entitlement has no legal basis. […]
