Australia and New Zealand yesterday said they would unite to push for more democracy in the troubled South Pacific as they condemned a crackdown on critics by Fiji's military-installed government.
The two neighbors, both major donors to their smaller island neighbors, said they would also present a united front internationally on climate change after Australia agreed in December to sign the Kyoto climate change pact.
"You'll see that reflected in the combined positions we take across the many meetings which will occur across the international community in the two difficult years which lie ahead," Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said after meeting his New Zealand counterpart Helen Clark in Canberra.
Both leaders condemned the Fijian government's decision this week to expel the Australian publisher of the Fiji Sun newspaper over a series of articles accusing Finance Minister Mahendra Chaudhry of tax evasion.
"It's inconceivable that you can hold open, free and fair elections if you have media intimidation," Clark said.
Fiji's military commander Commodore Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama, who seized power in a coup in December 2006, has promised to hold elections next year.
Fiji Sun publisher Russell Hunter, 59, said he would continue to run the paper from Sydney.
"I want to be back in Fiji as soon as possible, but for the time being I am working from Sydney," Hunter said. "If I have a computer, telephone and a modem I can do it from just about anywhere in the world."
Seven people sustained mostly minor injuries in an airplane fire in South Korea, authorities said yesterday, with local media suggesting the blaze might have been caused by a portable battery stored in the overhead bin. The Air Busan plane, an Airbus A321, was set to fly to Hong Kong from Gimhae International Airport in southeastern Busan, but caught fire in the rear section on Tuesday night, the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said. A total of 169 passengers and seven flight attendants and staff were evacuated down inflatable slides, it said. Authorities initially reported three injuries, but revised the number
One of Japan’s biggest pop stars and best-known TV hosts, Masahiro Nakai, yesterday announced his retirement over sexual misconduct allegations, reports said, in the latest scandal to rock Japan’s entertainment industry. Nakai’s announcement came after now-defunct boy band empire Johnny & Associates admitted in 2023 that its late founder, Johnny Kitagawa, for decades sexually assaulted teenage boys and young men. Nakai was a member of the now-disbanded SMAP — part of Johnny & Associates’s lucrative stable — that swept the charts in Japan and across Asia during the band’s nearly 30 years of fame. Reports emerged last month that Nakai, 52, who since
EYEING A SOLUTION: In unusually critical remarks about Russian President Vladimir Putin, US President Donald Trump said he was ‘destroying Russia by not making a deal’ US President Donald Trump on Wednesday stepped up the pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to make a peace deal with Ukraine, threatening tougher economic measures if Moscow does not agree to end the war. Trump’s warning in a social media post came as the Republican seeks a quick solution to a grinding conflict that he had promised to end before even starting his second term. “If we don’t make a ‘deal,’ and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other
‘BALD-FACED LIE’: The woman is accused of administering non-prescribed drugs to the one-year-old and filmed the toddler’s distress to solicit donations online A social media influencer accused of filming the torture of her baby to gain money allegedly manufactured symptoms causing the toddler to have brain surgery, a magistrate has heard. The 34-year-old Queensland woman is charged with torturing an infant and posting videos of the little girl online to build a social media following and solicit donations. A decision on her bail application in a Brisbane court was yesterday postponed after the magistrate opted to take more time before making a decision in an effort “not to be overwhelmed” by the nature of allegations “so offensive to right-thinking people.” The Sunshine Coast woman —
RSS