TUVALU
NZ is doing its part: Ardern
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has declared that “Australia has to answer to the Pacific” on climate change, saying that her nation is doing what it can to limit global emissions to 1.5oC and expects other nations to do the same. Ardern stopped short of saying that New Zealand would throw its weight behind the smaller Pacific nations who are urging Australia to commit to a rapid transition from a coal-based economy at this year’s Pacific Islands Forum. “Issues around Australia’s domestic policy are issues for Australia,” she said, when asked about Australia’s coal use. “We will continue to say that New Zealand will do our bit and we have an expectation that everyone else will as well — we have to,” she added.
AUSTRALIA
Pig semen smugglers jailed
Two pig farmers in Perth are to be jailed after being convicted of illegally importing Danish pig semen concealed in shampoo bottles. Torben Soerensen has been sentenced to three years in prison, while Henning Laue faces a two-year sentence after pleading guilty to breaching quarantine and biosecurity laws. The semen was used in GD Pork’s artificial breeding program.
VIETNAM
Chinese survey ship returns
A Chinese survey vessel has re-entered disputed waters in the South China Sea, according to ship tracking analysis, after a tense month-long standoff in the same area that inflamed tensions between Hanoi and Beijing. Last month, Chinese geological survey ship Haiyang Dizhi 8 entered waters surrounding the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島), which are claimed by Taiwan, China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei and Indonesia. The ship remained for several weeks with a number of Chinese Coast Guard ships. Las week, Hanoi said the ship had left, but on Tuesday it had returned, the US-based Center for Advanced Defense Studies said. The ship and at least two Chinese coast guard vessels remained in the area early yesterday, center senior analyst Devin Thorne said.
MALAYSIA
UK teen autopsy conducted
Doctors are conducting an autopsy to determine the cause of death of a 15-year-old British teen whose naked body was found nine days after she disappeared from a nature resort. Nora Anne Quinn’s body was discovered on Tuesday beside a small stream about 2.5km from the Dusun eco-resort in Negeri Sembilan state, where she went missing on Sunday last week. The body was airlifted to a hospital, where she was positively identified by her parents. In a statement yesterday, her family thanked the rescue team, adding that their hearts are broken and that “the cruelty of her being taken away is unbearable.”
RUSSIA
Village evacuation canceled
The military on Tuesday told residents of a village near a navy testing range to evacuate, but canceled the order hours later, adding to the confusion caused by a missile explosion at the range on Thursday last week that led to a brief spike in radiation that frightened residents and raised questions about the military’s weapons program. The initial notice from the military told residents of Nyonoksa to move out temporarily, citing unspecified activities at the range, but a few hours later, the military said that the planned activities were canceled and rescinded the request to leave, said Ksenia Yudina, a spokeswoman for the Severodvinsk regional administration.
China’s military news agency yesterday warned that Japanese militarism is infiltrating society through series such as Pokemon and Detective Conan, after recent controversies involving events at sensitive sites. In recent days, anime conventions throughout China have reportedly banned participants from dressing as characters from Pokemon or Detective Conan and prohibited sales of related products. China Military Online yesterday posted an article titled “Their schemes — beware the infiltration of Japanese militarism in culture and sports.” The article referenced recent controversies around the popular anime series Pokemon, Detective Conan and My Hero Academia, saying that “the evil influence of Japanese militarism lives on in
DIPLOMATIC THAW: The Canadian prime minister’s China visit and improved Beijing-Ottawa ties raised lawyer Zhang Dongshuo’s hopes for a positive outcome in the retrial China has overturned the death sentence of Canadian Robert Schellenberg, a Canadian official said on Friday, in a possible sign of a diplomatic thaw as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney seeks to boost trade ties with Beijing. Schellenberg’s lawyer, Zhang Dongshuo (張東碩), yesterday confirmed China’s Supreme People’s Court struck down the sentence. Schellenberg was detained on drug charges in 2014 before China-Canada ties nosedived following the 2018 arrest in Vancouver of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou (孟晚舟). That arrest infuriated Beijing, which detained two Canadians — Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig — on espionage charges that Ottawa condemned as retaliatory. In January
Two medieval fortresses face each other across the Narva River separating Estonia from Russia on Europe’s eastern edge. Once a symbol of cooperation, the “Friendship Bridge” connecting the two snow-covered banks has been reinforced with rows of razor wire and “dragon’s teeth” anti-tank obstacles on the Estonian side. “The name is kind of ironic,” regional border chief Eerik Purgel said. Some fear the border town of more than 50,0000 people — a mixture of Estonians, Russians and people left stateless after the fall of the Soviet Union — could be Russian President Vladimir Putin’s next target. On the Estonian side of the bridge,
Jeremiah Kithinji had never touched a computer before he finished high school. A decade later, he is teaching robotics, and even took a team of rural Kenyans to the World Robotics Olympiad in Singapore. In a classroom in Laikipia County — a sparsely populated grasslands region of northern Kenya known for its rhinos and cheetahs — pupils are busy snapping together wheels, motors and sensors to assemble a robot. Guiding them is Kithinji, 27, who runs a string of robotics clubs in the area that have taken some of his pupils far beyond the rural landscapes outside. In November, he took a team
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