SOUTH KOREA
Justice minister named PM
President Park Geun-hye yesterday selected Minister of Justice Hwang Kyo-ahn to serve as prime minister. Hwang, 58, was named after his predecessor, Lee Wan-koo, was implicated in a major bribery scandal and forced to quit last month after serving just two months. As a former prosecutor and with two years under his belt as minister of justice, Hwang was deemed fit to follow through on Park’s pledge of an anticorruption drive, presidential press secretary Kim Sung-woo told reporters. The prime minister is a largely symbolic post in South Korea, where power is concentrated in the presidency. The main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy described Hwang’s nomination as “very disappointing,” saying the justice ministry’s political independence had been weakened on his watch.
SOUTH KOREA
Third MERS case confirmed
Ministry of Health and Welfare officials yesterday confirmed the country’s third case of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), with the two latest cases found in people who had been in contact with the first patient after he returned from the Middle East. Authorities have also isolated as a precaution 64 people who are family members or medical workers treating those three patients, Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Yang Byung-guk said. Test results came back positive for a 63-year-old woman, the wife of the first confirmed case, as well as for a 76-year-old man who shared a hospital room with him, the ministry said. The first man was diagnosed with the disease on Wednesday after a trip to Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Yang told a news conference. Shin Hyoung-shik, an infectious disease specialist in charge of treating the patients, said the latest two confirmed cases had fevers, but no sign of breathing difficulties.
NEW ZEALAND
Exodus to Australia reverses
Australia’s warmer climate and higher wages have long lured droves of New Zealanders across the Tasman Sea with the aim of making a better life in the “lucky country.” However, with Australia’s economy stumbling and New Zealand’s improving, the trend has begun to reverse. New Zealand figures released yesterday showed that last month, for the first time in 24 years, 100 more people moved east from Australia to New Zealand than moved in the opposite direction. The trend has been emerging for some time. Two years ago, a net 34,000 New Zealanders moved to Australia. That fell to 11,000 last year and to 1,900 in the most recent data for this year. An agreement between Australia and New Zealand allows citizens of both nations to live and work in either country.
CHINA
Anti-Japan show probed
The State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television (SAFRT) is to investigate an anti-Japan TV show viewers have criticized as vulgar over a scene showing a woman making use of a grenade concealed in her crotch to kill Japanese soldiers, state media outlets said yesterday. Ties between the neighbors have been shadowed for years by what Beijing calls Japan’s refusal to admit to wartime atrocities committed by Imperial Japanese soldiers in China between 1937 and 1945. The 58-episode show featuring the offending scene is called Fight the Devils Together, and started airing on May 7, but broadcasts have since halted, Xinhua news agency reported. Telephone calls by reporters to seek comment from the media watchdog went unanswered yesterday.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese