Asia News Stories
China lifts steep Australian wine tariffs as relations improve
China says it will lift steep tariffs on Australian wine imposed more than three years ago in the latest sign of improving relations between the two countries. The anti-subsidy and anti-dumping levies were first imposed in 2020 along with a host of other trade barriers during a diplomatic feud over...
photo: Creative Commons / Maksym Kozlenko https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Maxim75
Organized crime gangs are netting up to $3 trillion annually as Southeast Asia human trafficking ...
Human trafficking-fueled fraud is exploding in Southeast Asia with organized crime rings raking in close to $3 trillion in illicit revenue annually, the head of Interpol has said in comments that reveal the huge profits being earned by cartels. One international organized crime group makes $50...
photo: AP / Apichart Weerawong
Myanmar’s widening war headed for junta’s heartland
Even before the end of a dry season that has dramatically upended the military balance in Myanmar, the broad and profoundly sobering contours of conflict over the remainder of 2024 and into 2025 are already taking shape. Recent months have seen large swathes of the nation’s borderlands fall under...
photo: AP / Thein Zaw
Curfew announced for under-18s in Australia’s Alice Springs after unrest
Alice Springs has announced an overnight curfew for all residents under the age of 18, after violent brawls in the remote central Australian town. Northern Territory Chief Minister Eva Lawler said an emergency would apply to the city centre and 58 additional police officers would be deployed to...
photo: Creative Commons / Jpueller
Chinese workers killed in suicide bomb blast as Pakistan grapples with attacks on Beijing’s interests
Five Chinese workers and their local driver were killed in a suicide bomb blast in northwest Pakistan on Tuesday, authorities said, the latest in a string of terror attacks that the South Asian country’s military and government say aims to disrupt Islamabad’s close ties with Beijing. Senior police...
photo: AP
Democratic dawn in Cambodia’s autocratic darkness
We left Cambodia either during the Vietnam War or after the fall of the Khmer Rouge –a regime that killed over two million citizens between 1975 and 1979. The plight of the Khmer people continues as people live in fear of attacks for expressing views that don’t align with the Cambodian...
photo: AP / Heng Sinith
Tajik terror shadow falls over Russia
It has emerged that the four gunmen charged in the murder of at least 139 concert-goers at Moscow’s Crocus City Hall theater were all citizens of the small post-Soviet nation of Tajikistan in Central Asia. Does their nationality have anything to do with their alleged terrorism? Many Russians...
photo: AP / Russian Emergency Ministry Press Service via AP
Anies Baswedan challenges Indonesia presidential election, calls for rerun
Anies Baswedan, who lost February’s presidential election in Indonesia, has told a court the poll was unjust and fraught with interference, as he laid out his challenge to the outcome and called for a re-run. Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto emerged the as winner in the February 14 election with 60...
photo: AP / Achmad Ibrahim
Conflict, climate, corruption drive Southeast Asia people trafficking: UN
Conflict, climate and the demand for low-paid labour in countries such as Thailand and Malaysia, with corruption as a “major enabler”, are driving the growth of the people smuggling trade in Southeast Asia, according to a new report from the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Tens of...
photo: AP / Suzauddin Rubel
China’s maritime power cause for action and alarm
The People’s Liberation Army Navy is now, and has been for several years, larger than the US Navy with over 370 ships currently in commission. What’s more, in a few years, if it continues its current building rate, it will reach around 450 ships, making it larger than the US Navy and the Japanese...
photo: US Navy

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