China
Canada leads call on China to allow Xinjiang access – statement
More than 40 countries urged China on Tuesday to allow the U.N. human rights chief immediate access to Xinjiang region to look into reports that more than a million people have been unlawfully detained there, some subjected to torture or forced labour. The joint statement on China was read out by Canadian Ambassador Leslie Norton on behalf of countries including Australia, Britain, France, Germany, Japan and the United States to the U.N. Human Rights Council. Beijing denies all allegations of abuse of Uyghurs and describes the camps as vocational training facilities to combat religious extremism. “Credible reports indicate that over a million people have been arbitrarily detained in Xinjiang and that there is widespread surveillance disproportionately targeting Uyghurs and members of other...
White House considering talks between Joe Biden and China’s Xi Jinping
The White House will consider arranging talks between President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, as the two countries spar over issues including human rights, a top U.S. official said on Thursday. Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan said that the two leaders are due to “take stock of where we are in the relationship.” Beijing fumed over a communique issued at Biden’s urging by the Group of Seven leaders on Sunday. It scolded the country over human rights in its Xinjiang region and Hong Kong while also demanding a full and thorough investigation of the origins of the coronavirus in China. “Soon enough we will sit down to work out the right modality for the two presidents to engage,” Sullivan told reporters on a conference call. “It could be a phone call, it cou...
ICC swears in Karim Khan as new chief prosecutor
British lawyer Karim Asad Ahmad Khan has been sworn in as the new chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague. He will perform his duties “honourably, faithfully, impartially and conscientiously,’’ Khan promised before the judges in The Hague on Wednesday. The representatives of the court’s 123 state parties had elected Khan in February. The 51-year-old succeeds Fatou Bensouda, 60, who must step down after nine years under the court’s rules. Khan wants to significantly improve the performance of the prosecution. Proceedings must become more effective and trials before the court more successful, he said in a brief statement. According to him, the criminal court is a sign of hope for justice. “It is an awful testament of the horror of mankind in this 21 century, as we s...
COVID-19: Hard choices made by Nigeria responsible for successful impact – President Buhari
President Muhammadu Buhari has said the hard choices made by his administration to tackle the coronavirus pandemic ravaging the world have yielded successful impacts. The president, who addressed Nigerians in a nationwide broadcast on Saturday to mark the 2021 Democracy Day, was referring to some measures, including travel restrictions across the states of the federation and beyond, compulsory use of nose masks, hand washing protocols and other relevant protocols instituted to limit spread of the virus. Mr Buhari said; “Our response to the pandemic involved making hard choices in balancing livelihoods and public health concerns. “You are all living witnesses to how successful this has been due to a number of proactive measures put in place. Our response to COVID-19 is globally acclaimed. “...
UK: Some countries are using coronavirus vaccines as a geopolitical tool
British foreign minister Dominic Raab said on Friday there was no doubt some countries were using vaccines as a diplomatic tool to secure influence but Britain did not support so-called vaccine diplomacy. Raab was speaking to Reuters on the sidelines of a G7 summit in Cornwall, southwestern England, that was likely to be dominated by the West’s attempts to reassert its influence as the world looks to rebuild from the COVID-19 pandemic. Western diplomats fear Russia and China are using their vaccines to gain influence across the world, especially in poorer countries that do not have their own production or the means to buy shots on the international market. Asked whether he was concerned that China and Russia could use vaccines in exchange for influence, Raab said: “There’s no doubt there’s...
German foreign minister: EU veto ‘hostage’-taking on foreign policy must end
Germany’s foreign minister said on Monday the European Union should abolish the right of individual member states to veto foreign policy measures as the 27-nation bloc could not allow itself to be “held hostage”. His comments, which came days after a more junior official criticised Hungary by name, reflect growing frustration in Berlin at the way in which EU member countries can prevent the bloc from acting in matters on which almost all members agree. “We can’t let ourselves be held hostage by the people who hobble European foreign policy with their vetoes,” Heiko Maas told a conference of Germany’s ambassadors in Berlin. “If you do that then sooner or later you are risking the cohesion of Europe. The veto has to go, even if that means we can be outvoted.” His remarks amount to a highly u...
NAF chief: Armed forces committed to end insecurity
The Chief of the Air Staff (CAS), Air Marshal Oladayo Amao, yesterday declared that the Armed Forces remained committed to ending the crisis of insecurity ravaging the nation. He said the expected delivery of six A-29 Super Tucano fighter jets by the United States in July and two drones from China, would be a “game changer” in the war against insurgency. The position of the air force chief is coming on a day the Minister of Transportation, Hon. Rotimi Amaechi, sought the assistance of the Chief of Army Staff, Maj. Gen. Farouk Yahaya, to provide security for train stations and railway construction sites across the country. Speaking at the graduation ceremony of 1,031 recruits of the Nigerian Air Force (NAF), Basic Military Training Course 41/2020, Amao affirmed that “the NAF in consonance w...
Guatemalan president says graft fighter biased, ahead of Harris visit
Guatemala’s President Alejandro Giammattei criticized the country’s best-known graft prosecutor for what he said was a left-wing politicization of the fight against corruption, a view at odds with strong U.S. backing for his work. Speaking in an interview with Reuters late on Tuesday, Giammattei nonetheless expressed hope that a visit to Guatemala next week by U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris will produce shared strategies to create prosperity in rural areas prone to emigration. Harris, a Democrat, is in charge of Washington efforts to tackle the causes of mass migration from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, collectively dubbed the Northern Triangle, including a focus on corruption and poor governance that she says limit opportunities. There is a $4 billion U.S. aid package to the reg...
Myanmar military tribunal orders 20-year jail terms for torching Chinese-linked factories
A Myanmar military tribunal has sentenced 28 people to 20 years in jail with hard labour for arson attacks on two factories, state media reported, after a string of mainly Chinese-financed factories were torched during unrest in Yangon in March. The army-run Myawady news portal said the offenders had targeted a shoe plant and a garment factory in the industrial Hlaing Tharyar suburb of Myanmar’s biggest city. Martial law was imposed in the suburb after the blazes, with dozens killed or wounded when security forces opened fire on anti-military protesters, media and an activist group said. The Chinese embassy in Myanmar said at the time that many Chinese staff were injured and trapped in the arson attacks and called on Myanmar to protect Chinese property and citizens. A total of 32 Chinese-i...
‘Patriots rule Hong Kong’ as sweeping pro-Beijing electoral rules passed
Hong Kong’s legislature approved the biggest overhaul of its political system in the quarter century since British rule on Thursday, in a decisive step to assert Beijing’s authority over the autonomous city. The changes will reduce the proportion of seats in the legislature that are filled by direct elections from half to less than a quarter. A new body will be empowered to vet candidates and bar those deemed insufficiently patriotic towards China from standing. “These 600-or-so pages of the legislation come down to just a few words: patriots ruling Hong Kong,” said Peter Shiu, a pro-Beijing lawmaker. Most of the changes were announced by China in March, though Hong Kong authorities later contributed further details, such as redrawing constituency boundaries and criminalising calls for bal...
Taiwan says request to drop word ‘country’ preceded BioNTech vaccine deal collapse
Germany’s BioNTech asked Taiwan to remove the word “country” from an announcement they planned to make on a COVID-19 vaccine sale to the island, its health minister said on Thursday, giving details of the deal whose axing was blamed on China by Taipei. Taiwan and China are engaged in an escalating war of words after Beijing offered the shots to the Chinese-claimed island via Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group Co Ltd, which has a contract to sell them in Greater China. Taiwan Health Minister Chen Shih-chung told a daily news briefing the government had signed and sent back a “final contract” agreed with BioNTech after months of negotiations, and the two sides were on the verge of issuing a press release on Jan. 8. But four hours later “BioNTech suddenly sent a letter, saying they strongly ...
Taiwan reports largest incursion yet by Chinese air force
Twenty-eight Chinese air force aircraft, including fighters and nuclear-capable bombers, entered Taiwan’s air defence identification zone (ADIZ) on Tuesday, the island’s government said, the largest reported incursion to date. While there was no immediate comment from Beijing, the news comes after the Group of Seven leaders issued a joint statement on Sunday scolding China for a series of issues and underscored the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, comments China condemned as “slander”. Chinese-claimed Taiwan has complained over the last few months of repeated missions by China’s air force near the self-ruled island, concentrated in the southwestern part of its air defence zone near the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands. The latest Chinese mission involved 14 J-16 ...