Asia Pacific (AsianTalk)
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- It brings you the opinions of the people who matter and keeps you up to date with the latest news, including in depth coverage of major events in corporate and financial circles in the Asia Pacific.
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- Genres: AsianTalk
- Location: Melbourne, Australia
- Language: Multilingual
Last updated 428 days ago
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INDONESIA: Newmont in another stoush with Jakarta
Tue, Mar 4
The Indonesian Government and the world's biggest gold miner, Newmont are heading for the courts, and it's not the first time. Both have agreed to international arbitration to resolve a dispute over the partial sale of one of the company's mines in the country.
EAST TIMOR: Police optimistic rebels will be arrested
Mon, Mar 3
United Nations police in East Timor say they are optimistic that the surrender of a rebel leader suspected of being involved in the assassination attempt on the country's President will lead to the arrests of those behind last month's attacks.
INDONESIA; Resolution over bird flu samples
Fri, Feb 29
An impasse over bird flu samples between the Indonesian Government and the World Health Organisation appears to be over. Jakarta has effectively ended the year-long dispute by sending samples of the virus to the W-H-O in the United States for analysis. The disagreement started when the Australian government, led by then Prime Minister John Howard, said it wouldn't share a new vaccine with the Indonesians. But now, it's the Rudd government which is being put on the spot over the vaccine.
VIETNAM: Shortage of skilled workers
Thu, Feb 28
As Vietnam continues to record high economic growth, it's facing a critical shortage of up to 65,000 highly skilled workers .. needed to fill positions created by five global IT giants that use the country as a base for operations.Vietnam's deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan was in Melbourne to highlight the need for assistance in skills training. He's also called for Australia's help with education reforms in an effort to raise the international standard of education in Vietnam.
VIETNAM: Anniversary of Australian ties
Wed, Feb 27
This week thirty-five years ago, Australia's Whitlam government established diplomatic relations with Hanoi. It was an extraordinary turnaround for the two nations after more than a decade of conflict. Indeed, the last elements of the Australian Army did not even leave Vietnam until June 1973 - several months after diplomatic relations were established.
FIJI: Deported newspaper publisher arrives in Sydney
Tue, Feb 26
The deported publisher of the Fiji Sun Newspaper is in no doubt he was forced to leave Fiji because of his newspapers reporting of tax evasion allegations against an interim minister. The publisher, and Managing Editor of the "Fiji Sun" newspaper, Russell Hunter, arrived in Sydney after being declared a prohibited immigrant.
AUSTRALIA: US alliance focus shifts to Afghanistan
Mon, Feb 25
The United States has reluctantly acquiesced to Australia's troop withdrawal from southern Iraq later this year and moved the alliance focus to Afghanistan. Australia says it won't add any further to the 1,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, but will look at more aid and sending extra Australian police.
PAKISTAN: Opposition parties pledge coalition
Fri, Feb 22
They were once bitter rivals but now two of the driving forces in Pakistani politics are pledging to work together. The two opposition leaders - former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and the widowed husband of slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, Asif Ali Zardari - have announced they'll form a coalition government.
AUSTRALIA: US Defence Secretary to arrive for talks
Thu, Feb 21
The United States Defence Secretary, Robert Gates has set out on a tour that will take him to Indonesia, Australia and India, and on to Turkey. Mr Gates talks in Canberra at the weekend will be very different in tone and subject matter than his other stops, because of the 55-year-old American alliance with Australia.
AUSTRALIA: Choice of armed neutrality or US alliance
Wed, Feb 20
An Australia defence expert is warning that the rise of China's will mean Australia ultimately has to choose between armed neutrality or an even closer alliance with the United States.
EAST TIMOR: Woman accused of president kidnap plot
Tue, Feb 19
Police in East Timor have released the Australian woman arrested yesterday in relation to the attacks on the country's leaders last week. Authorities suspect the East Timorese Australian dual citizen, Angelita Pires, was involved in the planning of what is now being called an attempted kidnapping of the President, Jose Ramos Horta.
PHILIPPINES: High court challenge to condom ban
Mon, Feb 18
Twenty Filippino citizens are hoping to overturn a government ban on access to free contraception and family planning services.
ETIMOR: Australian PM visits Dili
Fri, Feb 15
Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has wound up a lightning visit to East Timor with a strong message of support for the nation and good wishes for the President Jose Ramos Horta. The President is still recovering from gunshot wounds in Darwin hospital in Australia's Northern Territory.
AUST: Review of government support for automotive industry
Thu, Feb 14
The Australian government is plannning to subsidise foreign companies to produce green cars just one week after Japan's Mitsubishi announced it was pulling out of the country. The plan has been welcomed by the trade unions and the main industry lobby group. A major policy review is to be held first to determine how best to support local expansion of the highly competitive industry.
AUSTRALIA: Parliament officially apologises to Aborigines
Wed, Feb 13
Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has delivered a historic apology to Aboriginal peoples, and has especially said sorry to the so-called Stolen Generations; those Aborigines taken from their families and brought up in white society from the mid-19th century through to the 1970s. Members of parliament and those in the public gallery gave Mr Rudd a standing ovation, for a speech that promised to turn a new page in Australian history. Mr Rudd also proposed a joint commission with the...
ETIMOR: Dili 'quiet' under state of emergency
Tue, Feb 12
It's been a quiet day on the streets of the East Timorese capital Dili, with a 48-hour state of emergency still in place after the attempted assassination of President Jose Ramos Horta on Monday. As news of the assassination attempts on President Ramos Horta and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao sank in across the country, the focus is now shifting to the investigation into the attacks. Police have yet to make any arrests in relation to Monday's attacks.
ETIMOR: Dili tense after attack on President Ramos-Horta
Mon, Feb 11
The East Timorese President Jose Ramos-Horta has been flown to the northern Australian city of Darwin, where he's been receiving emergency medical treatment for gunshot wounds. Doctors at Royal Darwin Hospital say they're hopeful he'll make a full recovery. Dr Ramos-Horta was shot at least twice in the stomach on Monday morning outside his Dili home, during a gun-battle between his bodyguards and a raiding force led by the rebel leader Major Alfredo Reinado. Major Reinado was killed in the...
PAKISTAN: Bhutto inquiry confirms assassin was suicide bomber
Fri, Feb 8
A British Police report into the assassination of Benazir Bhutto says the Pakistani opposition leader was killed by a suicide bomb not by gunfire. It also found there was just one, not two attackers. Bhutto was murdered during an election rally last year shortly after she returned from exile to contest forthcoming elections. Her death has further destabilised the troubled nation whose leader President Pervez Musharraf is under growing pressure to step down. The Government's insistence from...
AFGHANISTAN: Britain 'planned to train Taliban defectors'
Thu, Feb 7
US Secretary of State Condaleezza Rice has flown into London for talks on how to rescue the crumbling NATO alliance in Afghanistan. It comes as relations between London and Kabul hit a new low, over reports of a secret Britain plan to train Taliban defectors in troubled Helmand province. Those reports may explain why two British nationals working for the UN and EU were expelled from Afghanistan late last year. Kabul's resulting anger is also reported to be partly why it knocked back senior...
AUST: Interest rate rise puts pressure on households
Tue, Feb 5
Australia's central bank has responded to inflation pressure with another rise in official interest rates - the third in seven months. And it might not be the last, and that's bad news for house-holders and businesses with high debt levels. Australians have amassed record levels of personal debt - even approaching those in the United States. But unlike in the US, where rates are coming down, the Bank's Board of Directors wasn't swayed by evidence of increasing financial stress in some sectors...
PAKISTAN: Senior al Qaeda leader 'killed in missile strike'
Mon, Feb 4
A senior al Qaeda leader in Afghanistan has been killed in a US missile strike in Pakistan. Abu Laith al-Libi is considered one of al-Qaeda's most senior field commanders in Afghanistan.
PAKISTAN: Senior al Qaeda leader 'killed in missile strike'
Fri, Feb 1
A senior al Qaeda leader in Afghanistan has been killed in a US missile strike in Pakistan. Abu Laith al-Libi is considered one of al-Qaeda's most senior field commanders in Afghanistan.
CHINA: Millions hit by worst snowfall in 50 years
Thu, Jan 31
China is enduring its worst snowfalls in half a century. The bad weather has paralysed air, rail and road transport one week ahead of the busy Chinese New Year holiday. The rain and heavy snow over the past two weeks has affected up to 80 million people in 14 provinces from Xinjiang in the Northwest to Fujian in the South. Premier Wen Jianbo rushed to Hunan to calm tens of thousands of angry passengers stranded at the city's main railway station.
BURMA: Prominant pro-democracy leaders charged
Wed, Jan 30
The jailed Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has reportedly held her first meeting in three months with members of her National League for Democracy party. The talks were held on Wednesday at a military facility outside Ms Suu Kyi's Rangoon home, where she's spent 12 of the past 18 years under house arrest. Meantime, the military authorities have filed criminal charges against ten activists arrested last August for organising protest rallies. Those rallies turned into mass...
INDONESIA: Courts set to continue hunt for Suharto's billions
Tue, Jan 29
Days after Suharto's death, Indonesian authorities have indicated his children may yet be brought to justice. Prosecutors have been told to name at least one of his children as defendants in a corruption case against him.
INDIA: Bird flu outbreak hits West Begal
Mon, Jan 28
Health officials in India are carrying out a mass cull of more than two million birds and poultry in India's eastern state of West Bengal, as the country battles its worst-ever outbreak of birdflu. Officials are nervously watching for any sign of the virus spreading to poultry in the huge city of Kolkata. Many householders and small farm-owners have resisted the cull, and there've been reports of villagers attacking veterinary workers, or trying to hide poultry to stop their birds from being...
CHINA: Fifth consecutive year of double-digit economic growth
Fri, Jan 25
The latest figures on China's surging economy show it expanded by a blistering 11.4 percent last year, its fastest pace in 13 years. It was also China's fifth consecutive year of double-digit growth. But the booming economy's helping send inflation levels dangerously high.
AUSTRALIA: Markets rebound despite higher inflation
Wed, Jan 23
Asian stock markets rose on Wednesday in response to the US Federal Reserve's biggest interest rate cut in almost a quarter of a century. Japan's Nikkei closed up 2 percent, while the Hang Seng in Hong Kong added 8 percent. But early trading in Europe was more subdued, and many analysts say the new American rate of 3.5 percent isn't low enough to stave off a recession, or restore market confidence. In Australia, the share market recorded its biggest gain since last August, despite inflation...
ASIA: Another day of historic market losses
Tue, Jan 22
Analysts are already calling yesterday "Black Monday" - and there was no respite today for Asian traders, as the region's markets took another dive amid fears of a full-blown US recession. Sydney had its worst day in 20 years; China shed 7 percent - and both the Mumbai and South Korean exchanges were briefly suspended after hefty early losses. At close of play all eyes were nervously on the United States, where a $US150 billion tax-cut package is under consideration, aimed at staving off...
INDIA: Welfare scheme failing to provide jobs
Mon, Jan 21
In India a multi-billion-dollar welfare drive is promising 100 days of work to every rural family that signs up with the scheme. But just per cent of households who signed up are getting a jobs.
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