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US President Joe Biden and the leaders of three major Asia-Pacific countries (Australia, India and Japan), an alliance known as the Quad, discussed “aggression” and “coercion” against members of the group by China in their first summit on March 12, 2021. In a strong reaction to the Quad’s virtual meeting, Chinese fo…
Former Hong Kong opposition lawmaker Ted Hui Chi-fung described a move by the Chinese central government to overhaul the city’s electoral system as the "death of democracy" for the former British colony. Hui was speaking in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. He had been in the UK since he fle…
Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala , Director-General, World Trade Organization and Julia Gillard, former Prime Minister of Australia took part in a webinar discussion on women and leadership presented by the South China Morning Post on International Women's Day 2021. Among the issues discussed was the so-called 'glass cliff', …
A pair of black swans have been spotted in Victoria Harbour over several weeks in February 2021, surprising passers-by including one birdwatcher who captured the birds’ movements with a drone. The swans, which were first seen at a pier in Yau Ma Tei early in the month and last in the sea off Quarry Bay on February 2…
Baarack the sheep received a long-overdue trim after he was found in a forest in Australia. It was not clear for how long he had gone without a shearing.
A Fijian rugby league team has sung to pay tribute to hotel staff as their mandatory 14-day coronavirus quarantine in Sydney, Australia came to an end. The 33-member team of the Kaiviti Silktails had to undergo self-isolation before they continued practising for their first full season in the Ron Massey Cup competit…
Covid-19 vaccines will not be compulsory for athletes attending the Tokyo Olympics but they are encouraged to get inoculated, said International Olympic Committee vice-president John Coates. Speaking to the press on February 25, 2021, he revealed details about the operational arrangement of the Games, which is set f…
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A five-year-old koala in eastern Australia has received the world's first prosthetic foot specially designed for the marsupial, from a local dental prosthetist. The male koala named Triumph was born without a right foot and had struggled to walk and climb. He was rescued in 2017 by veterinarian nurse Marley Christia…
Dave Pearson was almost killed by a bull shark in 2011 when he was surfing off Australia’s east coast. After living with the trauma of the incident for a year, Pearson formed a group called “Bite Club” to connect shark attack survivors with each other. Since then, the 58-year-old has been reaching other victims to h…
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Chinese-Australian journalist Cheng Lei was formally arrested in China on February 5, 2021, after being detained for six months. Cheng, who worked as a TV anchor at CGTN has been formally arrested for “illegally supplying state secrets overseas”. Before her detention, she had written a number of Facebook posts criti…
Tse Chi Lop, the alleged ringleader of Asia’s biggest crime syndicate and one of the world’s most wanted fugitives, was arrested at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport in the Netherlands on January 22, 2021. The Chinese-born Canadian national was detained after Australia issued an Interpol request and warrant for his arres…
An out-of-control bush fire has raged through an area near the Western Australia city of Perth since January 2, 2021. Thousands of hectares of land have been destroyed and hundreds of residents have been evacuated from Red Gully, about 130km (80 miles) north of the state capital which is home to more than 2 million.
Hong Kong replaced a traditional fireworks display over Victoria Harbour with a live-streamed virtual display to welcome 2021 amid the Covid-19 pandemic. This is the second year in a row that New Year fireworks have been cancelled. The previous year’s show was called off due to citywide anti-government protests.
Shachuhaku is a Japanese term for “staying overnight in a vehicle”, and refers to a leisure activity that is popular in places like Australia that has more recently caught on in Japan. Now a growing number of Hongkongers are hitting the road to camp in their cars, in part because many cannot travel abroad for holida…
Amid the ongoing trade tensions between China and Australia, South China Morning Post reporter Su-Lin Tan moderates a panel discussion involving Navigate Commodities Managing Director Atilla Widnell and Australian trade consultant Daryl Guppy. They discuss how speculative trading in iron ore derivatives is driving u…
Australia will launch a formal appeal to the World Trade Organization (WTO) seeking a review of China’s decision to impose hefty tariffs on imports of Australian barley, Australia Minister for Trade Simon Birmingham said on December 16, 2020. China is the Australian barley growers' largest market. China effectively …
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said China’s recent decision to place restrictions on Australian coal imports was a “responsible action towards Chinese domestic industries and customers”. Speaking at a press conference on December 16, 2020, Wang said any export restrictions were being handled by relev…
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on December 10, 2020, there was "a strong possibility" the UK and the European Union would fail to safeguard free trade past the end of the year. Johnson urged businesses and the public to “get ready” for a no-deal Brexit as Britain leaves the EU single market and customs ar…
A Japanese capsule carrying the first extensive sample taken from an asteroid has been retrieved on the morning of December 6, 2020. Having landed in Australia, the return of the samples marked the end of the six-year mission of the Hayabusa2 unmanned spacecraft.
China’s Deputy Ambassador to Australia said that Prime Minister Scott Morrison overreacted to a Chinese official’s tweet which included a fake image while accusing Australian soldiers of committing war crimes in Afghanistan. Chinese envoy to Australia Wang Xining made his remark about Morrison’s response on December…
Firefighters in Australia have been battling massive bush fires that have been burning for six weeks across Fraser Island, as the country experiences a record-breaking heatwave following the hottest November on record. Over 70,000 hectares of the unique forests on the popular tourist spot had been destroyed, as of N…
Interview with former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr to discuss the reasons behind the deteriorating relationship between Beijing and Canberra. Carr served between 2012-13 and was involved in preliminary discussions for the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement (ChAFTA), which was signed in 2015.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian rebuked the United States and its “Five Eyes” allies over their condemnation of a Beijing ruling that led to the immediate ousting of Hong Kong opposition lawmakers, warning they risked “having their eyes poked out” for meddling in China’s internal affairs. The Five Eye…
Sony’s PlayStation 5 officially went on sale on November 12, 2020 in six markets including Japan, Australia and North America, with launches elsewhere on November 19. As the launch date for China has yet to be announced, Chinese scalpers were taking orders with the price up to four times the retail price.
Wheat exported from Australia is expected to join a list of goods banned by China, which has already halted imports of barley, sugar, red wine, timber, coal, lobster, copper ore and copper concentrates from the country. Starting from November 6, 2020, the items will be barred from China even if the goods were alread…
Dozens of swimmers in Sydney, Australia were filmed swimming near a large school of salmon, and seemingly unaware that sharks were also among the fish. Drone footage shot at the city’s Bondi Beach on October 23, 2020, showed the school of salmon and what were believed to be a pair of grey nurse sharks in the area fo…
Conservation group WWF Australia plans to use drones to distribute seeds in bushland areas devastated by recent fires, in a project that organisers hope will also double the population of koalas. Each day the aircraft will scatter about 40,000 seeds for plant species including Eucalyptus trees, which koalas depend o…
More than 35,000 koalas were killed in Australia’s 2020 bushfires. But even before the fires, the animals were already endangered in the nation's most populous state of New South Wales because of logging and urban sprawl.
The virus that causes Covid-19 can survive on plastic banknotes, phone screens and stainless steel for up to 28 days, according to a study published on October 7, 2020, by Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific And Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).
Pakistan has blocked the popular social media app TikTok which is owned by Chinese tech giant ByteDance. The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority said on October 9, 2020, that it was receiving complaints against “immoral and indecent” content on the video-sharing platform. India has already blocked TikTok, which fac…
Professional surfer Matt Wilkinson encountered a shark at Sharpes Beach in southeastern Australia on October 7, 2020. Dramatic drone footage showed the creature swimming up behind him as he paddled through the waves on his surfboard.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo calls on key Asian allies to stand against the Chinese government’s “exploitation, corruption and coercion” in the Indo-Pacific as he held talks in Tokyo on October 6. Pompeo was speaking at the start of discussions with his Japanese, Indian and Australian counterparts -- the so-cal…
SCMP Chief News Editor Yonden Lhatoo calls out Australian authorities for using travel warnings to play politics rather than protect citizens.
China has banned two Australian academics from entering the country, after Australia revoked the visas of two Chinese scholars on national security grounds, Chinese state media has reported. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said on September 24, 2020 that China had the sovereign right to decide which f…
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A rescue operation was under way after a mass whale stranding off Australia's southern island state of Tasmania on September 21, 2020. Around 270 whales were found trapped on two sandbars near the west coast town of Strahan. Scientists estimated dozens of the animals had already died. On September 22, a member of th…
With a ban on international travel enforced in Australia during the Covid-19 pandemic, some locals have chosen to join tours to catch a glimpse of the migrating humpback whales off the coastal town of Eden. The mammals return to Antarctica from the warmer waters off Australia each year from September.
China has accused Australian authorities of interrogating four Chinese journalists based in Australia on June 26, 2020, as well as raiding their residences. In a press conference on September 9, China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Zhao Lijian urged Australia to stop its “brutal and rude acts”. Zhao said th…
Australia’s last two accredited correspondents in mainland China have been rushed out of the country as diplomatic relations between the trading partners worsen. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Bill Birtles and Michael Smith from the Australian Financial Review landed in Sydney on September 8, 2020. They w…
A Hong Kong court on September 3, 2020, acquitted media tycoon Jimmy Lai Chee-ying of criminal intimidation. Prosecutors had alleged Lai, founder of the Apple Daily newspaper, intimidated a reporter from rival publication Oriental Daily. The reporter claimed the incident happened in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park on June…
A waddle of penguins head to their burrows on Phillip Island in Australia, but this time they’re not being disturbed by swathes of eager tourists. With a state-wide lockdown being imposed in response to a resurgence in coronavirus cases, the flightless birds get to head home in peace without the overbearing stares o…
Hundreds of thousands of viewers tuned in online to watch penguins on Phillip Island in Australia waddle back to their burrows from the sea. Phillip Island Nature Parks is normally a popular tourist attraction but it remains closed to the public amid a state-wide coronavirus lockdown.
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The image of a Chinese junk with its distinctive, vibrant red sails floating in Victoria Harbour is a symbol of Hong Kong recognised around the world. But the boats traditionally used in Chinese waters since the Han dynasty (206BC-AD220) have all but disappeared. Only one authentic traditional sailing junk, the Dukl…
As Australia continues to battle a spike in coronavirus cases, the city of Melbourne put a curfew in place on August 2, 20210. The six-week curfew will require people to stay home from 8pm to 5am. Melbourne’s home state, Victoria, has seen a spike in new cases in recent weeks, with 671 new infections reported on Aug…
Many Australian citizens have found themselves unable to return home as stringent caps on international arrivals went into effect to halt the spread of Covid-19. The Australian government now limits the number of incoming passengers to just 4,000 per week, with most flights restricted to no more than about 30 people…
