by Miwa SUZUKI As Pope Francis, the head of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, prepares to visit Japan, AFP looks at the religions the Japanese have followed for centuries. What’s the main religion? There is no state religion in Japan but the nation’s principal religions are Shinto and Buddhism. The two are closely intertwined — […]
by Catherine MARCIANO / Richard CARTER Pope Francis arrives in Japan on Saturday, where he is expected to deliver a robust anti-nuclear message of peace in the only country to have suffered an atomic bomb attack. The 82-year-old Argentine is fulfilling a long-cherished ambition to preach in Japan, where years ago he hoped to be […]
A Chinese defector involved in spying operations in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Australia has provided a trove of intelligence on China’s political interference operations to Australian officials, according to a media report Saturday. The Nine network newspapers said the defector, named as Wang “William” Liqiang, had given Australia’s counter-espionage agency the identities of China’s senior […]
The former CIA officer who may have devastated US intelligence collection in China by giving up its network of informants to Beijing agents was sentenced on Friday to 19 years in prison. Jerry Chun Shing Lee, a naturalized US citizen who worked for the Central Intelligence Agency from 1994 to 2007, was arrested in January […]
Several Indonesian ministries are banning pregnant, disabled, or LGBT job hunters in favour of what one called “normal” applicants, the Ombudsman said Friday, slammed as “arbitrary and hateful restrictions” by a rights group. The report comes as the world’s biggest Muslim majority country takes applications from millions of candidates who are applying for some 200,000 […]
by Laurent Thomet and Helen Roxburgh President Xi Jinping said Friday that China wants to reach an initial trade deal with the United States but is “not afraid” to fight back when necessary. It is rare for Xi to speak so directly about the trade war, and his comments come two days after US President […]
President Donald Trump, by withholding military aid from Ukraine to demand dirt on a potential 2020 election rival, went beyond anything done by disgraced predecessor Richard Nixon, the Democratic chair of the House impeachment panel alleged Thursday. “What we’ve seen here is far more serious than a third-rate burglary of the Democratic headquarters,” House Intelligence […]
Sri Lanka’s divisive Rajapaksa clan consolidated their grip on power on Thursday as newly elected President Gotabaya Rajapaksa swore in his brother Mahinda as prime minister. The siblings are credited with destroying in brutal fashion ethnic Tamil separatists to end Sri Lanka’s civil war a decade ago when Mahinda was president and Gotabaya effectively ran […]
Shares in German payments firm Wirecard fell Wednesday on revelations that a 2017 audit of its troubled Singapore unit could not be completed, but the firm denied a media report blaming accounting “irregularities”. Hitting back at Tuesday’s allegations by the German financial daily Handelsblatt, Wirecard said auditors from Ernst and Young (EY) could not finalise […]
