Category: News

A soldier with India’s special forces has been killed in the latest border showdown with Chinese troops on their contested Himalayan border. The death is the first reported from two incidents in 48 hours on the border which has heightened tensions between the giant nations just two months after a battle that left at least […]

Support for the Yes and No campaigns in New Zealand’s referendum on legalising and taxing cannabis is split at 49.5% each, six weeks out from voting day. The No campaign, which aims to keep the status quo, has a slight edge in the poll by news outlet Stuff when only registered voters are counted, leading […]

Australian journalist Cheng Lei is at risk of torture by Chinese authorities, human rights observers have said. On Monday the Australian government revealed Chinese authorities had detained Cheng, a Chinese-born Australian citizen and business news anchor for CGTN, China’s English-language state media channel. The government has not been told why she has been detained, and […]

The largest province in Solomon Islands has announced plans for an independence referendum as tensions with the country’s national government over China policy rise. Malaita, a province of 200,000 people in the country’s east, “will soon conduct a provincial-wide referendum on the topic of independence”, a statement from premier Daniel Suidani said on Tuesday. In […]

The US-Senegalese music mogul Akon has said he is pressing ahead with lofty plans to create a futuristic Pan-African smart city in Senegal next year, built in the mould of Wakanda – the fictional, technologically advanced African nation depicted in the Marvel blockbuster Black Panther. The 800-hectare (2,000 acre), surrealist, solar-powered “Akon City”, backed by […]

Microplastic pollution causes significant damage to populations of soil-dwelling mites, larvae and other tiny creatures that maintain the fertility of the land, research has found. The study notes that discarded bags, cups, threads and other forms of plastic waste are concentrated more in the earth than the oceans, with similarly dire consequences for the abundance […]