Oct
4
2014
Hot, tired and emotional, Kit Wong couldn’t control his tears. Awake all night, watching television footage of Hong Kong’s riot police launching tear gas and pepper spray against young democracy protesters sheltering behind flimsy umbrellas, the 26-year-old travel agent was appalled.
Oct
3
2014
Weary protesters tried to force a showdown with the Hong Kong government last night, warning they would occupy various government buildings if their demands were not met. Yet the government refused to negotiate and police refrained from forcing thousands of protesters to vacate the three key protest sites they have occupied since Sunday.
Oct
2
2014
Protests in Hong Kong continued to grow yesterday while the authorities adopted a less confrontational strategy towards the demonstrating crowds who have brought parts of the city to a standstill since the weekend.
Oct
1
2014
Crowds at the main protest site in Hong Kong built quickly yesterday, with many thousands of pro-democracy protesters determined to crash or crash through today’s significant date – the 65th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China.
Sep
30
2014
Hong Kong was braced for more thousands-strong protests last night, following a weekend of chaos with police repeatedly launching tear-gas attacks to push back crowds of passionate pro-democracy demonstrators.
Sep
25
2014
The commercial roll-out of the world’s first dengue vaccine is in sight, but tropical disease experts are already questioning the breakthrough vaccine’s drawbacks. Often known as “breakbone fever”, with symptoms of excruciating joint pain, high fevers, and, in severe cases, internal bleeding – dengue is carried by mosquitos.
Sep
20
2014
Scott Neeson frowns as he reads the message on his computer screen. Another child has been beaten and raped. “Oh, it’s Siem Reap again,” he says grimly, referring to the town in Cambodia’s north, near the wildly popular Angkor Wat temples. He reads on, noting that the child has been airlifted to a hospital in …read more
Sep
5
2014
The current outbreak of dengue fever in central Tokyo underscores recent World Health Organisation warnings that climate change is increasingly extending the range of potentially fatal tropical diseases like malaria and dengue. Dr Rabindra Abeyasinghe, a World Health Organisation entomologist based in the Philippines, told the Nikkei Asian Review that global warming is continuing to …read more
Aug
2
2014
Here in Bill Smith’s office there’s a very fat text, maybe 10 centimetres thick, bound in pale pink paper. It’s one of thousands of so-called “confessions”, extracted by torture at the notorious Tuol Sleng prison run by the Khmer Rouge in Phnom Penh. The text sits in a bookcase stacked with fat folders bulging with …read more
Jun
21
2014
Far North Queensland’s wet season begins with a drumroll of heavy raindrops splattering on roofs and sidewalks and the inevitable arrival of hordes of newly hatched mosquitoes. Floating in and around houses and yards, these tiny blood-suckers are on a relentless search for unprotected human flesh.