Overseas News

Pilots first heard about a Chinese live-fire naval exercise near Australia last week when already in the air, receiving messages that forced some to change paths through a busy air corridor, satellite text messages to and from pilots seen by Reuters show.

The incident highlights how airlines are increasingly having to react at short notice to geopolitical disruptions and military hazards, such as missile and drone barrages between Israel and Iran last year.

It also shows how China's military, in its first drills in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand, is raising tensions by being more assertive across the Indo-Pacific region, according to Western defence analysts, including near Taiwan.

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Archived

Australian mining billionaire Andrew Forrest has called on European governments to make Russian assets and “elite interests” pay for the war in Ukraine, as his charity made another multimillion-dollar donation to the war-torn country.

Following the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion, Minderoo Foundation announced another $5 million funding package to de-mine agricultural areas, launch peace-building activities and financially support households.

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“While philanthropy can play a crucial role, governments across Europe should redouble their efforts to make Russian assets and elite interests pay for the war of aggression they have waged on Ukraine.

“Looking forward, Ukraine has the capability to draw on her deep pools of talent, vast natural resources and remarkable resilience to drive a powerful economic recovery. I look forward to working with president Zelensky and his team to recover Ukraine’s peaceful growth.”

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The comments come as the US and Ukraine are reportedly on the cusp of inking a critical minerals deal Zelensky hopes will secure the support of Washington and bring an end to the war.

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Archived

Beijing prison officials slashed jailed Chinese-Australian writer Yang Hengjun’s access to food and hygiene products late last year in a move that triggered official complaints from Australia’s top diplomat in China.

Yang was detained by Chinese authorities six years ago this week and was handed a suspended death sentence last February after being found guilty of mysterious espionage offences.

Yang’s supporters, who say he has been subjected to torture-like conditions since his arrest, are calling on the federal government to forcefully speak out about his treatment even if it offends the Chinese government.

Sources familiar with Yang’s prison conditions said his monthly spending allowance was cut from 200 Chinese yuan ($44) to 100 yuan ($22) in November for three months because eyesight problems meant he could not carry out his assigned chores.

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Yang, who was suffering from the flu at the time, said he had not eaten fruit for several months and that he felt humiliated to have to ask fellow prisoners for basic food products such as soup.

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Yang also reported that he could not afford to buy toothpaste despite suffering serious dental issues.

The Chinese-born pro-democracy blogger and academic worked for China’s Ministry of State Security before becoming an Australian citizen in 2002. His case was heard in secret in May 2021, with the details of the espionage charges never disclosed to the public.

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According to a 2018 Time Magazine report, incarcerated firefighters were four times more likely to sustain injuries compared with professional firefighters working on the same fires.

Using a statistical method called capture-recapture analysis, the researchers sought to assess the death toll from Israel’s air and ground campaign in Gaza between October 2023 and the end of June 2024.

They estimated 64,260 deaths due to traumatic injury during this period, about 41 per cent higher than the official Palestinian Health Ministry count. The study said 59.1 per cent were women, children and people over the age of 65. It did not provide an estimate of Palestinian combatants among the dead.

In short:

The fires started in Los Angeles and its surrounding communities earlier this week, and have resulted in the loss of thousands of homes and buildings.

Satellite images show the aftermath of the blazes, with houses and neighbourhoods left completely destroyed.

What's next?

Firefighters are continuing to battle blazes around the county while the City of Los Angeles houses residents in evacuation shelters.

In short:

Donald Trump has refused to rule out using military force to gain control of the Panama Canal and Greenland.

Trump also said he would try to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the "Gulf of America".

What's next?

Trump takes office on January 20.

KEY POINTS

• Justin Trudeau has announced he will resign as Canada's prime minister.
• He had been under pressure to quit amid polls showing the party will be crushed at the next election.
• Trudeau said he will stay on in his post until the party chooses a replacement.

Archived link

A leading US expert on China has urged Australia to be bolder in its dealings with Beijing and less afraid of upsetting the ruling Chinese Communist Party — or risk the political consequences of perceived weakness.

Oriana Skylar Mastro, assistant professor of political science at Stanford University and a United States Air Force reservist who serves as a strategic planner at Indo-Pacific Command, wrote one of the most definitive books of 2024 on the economic and military rise of China and its future strategy.

‘Upstart: How China Became a Great Power’, offers unique insights into Beijing’s rapid emergence from poverty to wealth and its current global ambitions as it challenges an international order that has long been based on the dominance of US military and financial might.

Plumbing authoritative Chinese sources, Ms Mastro charts Beijing’s leap over just three decades from having about 3 per cent of global GDP to becoming the second largest economy in the world and the biggest manufacturer and exporter.

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In an interview in Canberra, Ms Mastro urged the Australian Government to maintain a firm tone with Beijing.

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Moving forward, Australia should not be too “risk averse” over actions or opinions that could “provoke” China in an effort to pre-empt retaliatory measures, she said.

“The one thing I think is really important is deterring Chinese aggression,” she said, adding that Canberra was too unwilling to take necessary steps to protect itself out of fear of goading China’s leadership.

“If you deter China, you are restricting their options. They’re going to be unhappy. So, you can either have a China that is deterred from aggression and problematic behaviour, but is unhappy, or one that is happy and gets to do whatever it wants. You can’t really have both,” Ms Mastro argued.

“In Canberra, I see a lot of recognising that China is unhappy about something, and thinking and assuming that that is then going to lead to China to take unfavourable policies towards Australia,” she said.

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“And what that means is the strategy is, ‘let’s just make sure we don’t do something that upsets China’.”

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"So, every country has to make a decision — in Australia, too, about the degree of sovereignty that they’re willing to give up in order to avoid conflict with China.”

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“I think we don’t even have the imagination to realise the degree to which our government sovereignty protects our everyday existence,” she said.

“Having a country like China be able to reach that deeply and touch our everyday lives is something that, while we don’t physically see a PLA (People’s Liberation Army) person in front of us enforcing some sort of law, the outcome is exactly the same.”

Shortly after the interview, a review calling for a funding cut to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), raised alarm in Canberra that it was being targeted for its hawkish analysis of the operations of the Chinese Communist Party.

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Summary

• Kamal Adwan hospital patients and others told to leave
• Palestinian health ministry says contact with staff lost
• Israel says it has taken steps to reduce harm to civilians
• Israel says militants were operating inside hospital

A growing number of Chinese are fleeing their home country, where rising authoritarianism under the rule of Xi Jinping and the difficulties of a faltering economy has prompted some people to look for a way out. The phenomenon has become so widely discussed online that it has its own nickname: runxue, or run philosophy, a coded term for emigration.

Some are relocating on student or business visas, joining growing diaspora communities in places like Japan or Thailand. But tens of thousands of others who don’t qualify or have the resources for such pathways are fleeing in other unconventional and often dangerous ways, known as zouxian, or walking the line.

Most head for the US, trekking from South America through the hostile jungle of the Darian Gap. In September the Guardian revealed a small but growing number were also flying into the Balkans to find smugglers to take them to Germany. Now, another emerging high-stakes escape route has been revealed, through the Indonesian archipelago to a smuggler’s boat destined for Australia.

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Experts say the arrival of Chinese people on this route signals growing discontent at home.

Some Chinese migrants in the US and Europe have said tightening restrictions on political, religious and social freedoms during Xi’s rule led them to flee. Others cited stifling public health policies during the pandemic, and the economic downturn, housing crunch, and youth unemployment crisis that followed.

Meredith Oyen, an associate professor at the University of Maryland at Baltimore County, specialising in Chinese migration, says politics and economics are push factors.

“The zero-Covid policy ended up destroying a lot of small businesses and a lot of middle class people’s economic life … The combination of that and the draconian nature of some of those policies led to frustrations and more political dissatisfactions.

“Even if you’re not driven by political repression, the experience of bankruptcy in China is political, it has more blowback on your life compared to places like the US. So it feels like if you’re just going to be languishing in China and you don’t see hope for recovery in a way that makes you a welcome member of society, you might as well risk it.”

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China does not release statistics on people leaving, but the UN’s refugee agency – which has registered around a third of all displaced people and refugees – recorded 137,143 asylum seekers from China in 2023, five times the number registered a decade earlier at the start of Xi’s rule. By July this year it had grown to 176,239.

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Last week, a Chinese resident commented on a Douyin video about zouxian [a term used in mainland China usually for Chinese trying to escape to the U.S. via the -dangerous- Darien Gap in Latin America] to Australia. “I’m at the end of the road. I can’t survive any more. I want to go. I want to go very much,” he said.

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In short:

Luigi Mangione has pleaded not guilty to state murder and terror charges.

Mr Mangione is accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside a Manhattan hotel.

What's next?

Prosecutors say the state case is expected to run parallel to a federal prosecution.

In short:

The Red Cross, citing government sources, says at least 14 people have died after a magnitude-7.3 earthquake struck off Vanuatu on Tuesday.

Locals have reported "mass casualties" and say Port Vila's hospital is overwhelmed.

What's next?

Australia is sending "immediate" assistance including urban search and rescue teams.

In short:

A woman who threw a banana milkshake at British politician Nigel Farage during this year's UK election campaign has been handed a suspended 13-week jail sentence.

Victoria Thomas Bowen was also ordered to pay about $300 in compensation and complete 120 hours of community service work.

What's next?

The 25-year-old will not serve time behind bars unless she commits another criminal offence within the next 12 months.

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/17595490

In a significant political move on December 12, the Czech Chamber of Deputies' Foreign Affairs Committee adopted a resolution challenging China's interpretation of United Nations Resolution 2758. The resolution champions Taiwan's participation in international organizations, as per an official statement released by the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC).

The resolution, led by Czechia IPAC Co-Chair Rep. Eva Decroix and backed by key committee members, addresses Beijing's sovereignty claims over Taiwan derived from the UN resolution. It denounces China's military provocations in the Taiwan Strait and calls on the European Union to support Taiwan's inclusion in global forums.

This is the sixth parliamentary motion under IPAC's "Initiative 2758," aimed at countering China's influence and promoting Taiwanese representation on the world stage. Echoing initiatives from other regions like the EU and Canada, this resolution reaffirms a widening international consensus supporting Taiwan.

(this is a few days old)

This week, in an announcement [link corrected] that stunned New Zealand’s research community, the country’s center-right coalition government said it would divert half of the NZ$75 million Marsden Fund, the nation’s sole funding source for fundamental science, to “research with economic benefits.” Moreover, the fund would no longer support any social sciences and humanities research, and the expert panels considering these proposals would be disbanded.

Universities New Zealand, which represents the nation’s eight universities, called the planned disinvestment in social science and humanities “astonishing.” It was among several academic groups and many scientists calling for the government to reverse the unexpected decision.

In announcing the change, Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins said the fund should focus on “core science” that supports economic growth and “a science sector that drives high-tech, high-productivity, high-value businesses and jobs.”