https://www.scmp.com/rss/328643/feed Hari Raj has worked as a journalist and editor in Melbourne, Beijing, Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong, where he is currently based. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Home for Christmas! What a hope that is to raise. What a sound bite. It’s almost as if a federal election has to be called by next May, and the Australian government last week decided to wind back its own increasingly unpopular closed-borders policy with enough time to take credit for it before the polls. It has been a long, hard 18 months since Australia shut itself off from the world. There are more than 45,000 Australians stranded overseas who have registered for government help to return,... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3150809/home-christmas-asylum-seekers-australias-actions-border-inhumane?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3150809/home-christmas-asylum-seekers-australias-actions-border-inhumane?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 30 Sep 2021 21:00:18 +0000 The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, released on Monday, is a horrifying prognosis of the catastrophic effects of human activity on the planet. The portrait it paints is vivid; a rise in global temperature of 1.5 degrees Celsius will result in more serious and frequent weather events, including fires, floods, and droughts. Most people, and most governments, would take what the UN has dubbed a “code red for humanity” as a clarion call for immediate action to... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3144858/scott-morrisons-stance-climate-change-code-red-itself?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3144858/scott-morrisons-stance-climate-change-code-red-itself?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 12 Aug 2021 23:00:13 +0000 It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Well into the second year of the pandemic, it seemed like Australia had Covid-19 under control. But this week almost half the country’s population – more than 12 million people – is in lockdown, as the states of New South Wales, Queensland, and Western Australia as well as the Northern Territory rush to curb the spread of the highly infectious Delta variant. Saying Australia’s vaccine roll-out has been bungled is like saying the ocean is a little bit wet. Less... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3139473/are-australias-closed-borders-roadblock-post-pandemic-life?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3139473/are-australias-closed-borders-roadblock-post-pandemic-life?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 02 Jul 2021 01:00:21 +0000 Every four years, when the World Cup rolls around, most football fans are willing to pay the price of sleep deprivation and sorely tested relationships. But there have been other, far steeper, costs for next year’s edition in Qatar. In February, reports emerged that more than 6,500 migrant workers from India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka had died in the Middle East nation since 2011, when it won the right to host the tournament. A significant proportion of those who died were... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3128825/fifa-2022-world-cup-deaths-qatar-ugly-side-beautiful-game?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3128825/fifa-2022-world-cup-deaths-qatar-ugly-side-beautiful-game?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 09 Apr 2021 02:30:12 +0000 From the handling of protests in 2019 to last year’s controversial national security law, Beijing’s response to external outrage or objection over Hong Kong has been consistent: this is a purely internal affair. But while Canberra satisfyingly turned that logic against the Chinese government last week – in response to Beijing’s criticism after fugitive Hong Kong ex-lawmaker Ted Hui was allowed to enter Australia – this was certainly no moral victory. Speaking to national broadcaster the ABC on... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3125985/ted-huis-arrival-australia-has-scored-political-points-against?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3125985/ted-huis-arrival-australia-has-scored-political-points-against?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 19 Mar 2021 00:00:13 +0000 In between the lockdowns and quarantines, the days and months when time dilated into infinity, and the dawning hope of vaccines, there has been one constant: essential workers. The term is wide-ranging, encompassing frontline health care workers alongside the people employed in supermarkets and petrol stations, sanitation workers, and those who deliver food and the flood of packages we’ve all ordered online. The inclusion of these previously disparate jobs under a pandemic-induced banner of dire... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3117725/essential-workers-risk-their-lives-keep-our-societies-running?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3117725/essential-workers-risk-their-lives-keep-our-societies-running?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 15 Jan 2021 01:00:20 +0000 Australia has fought alongside the United States in every major American military action of the last century, from World War I to the Middle East. And Canberra has spent billions on involvement in Afghanistan, after following Washington’s lead, but we have no idea what it truly cost. Some indication has been provided by reports of Australian troops’ behaviour there, which have trickled out in recent years thanks to the work of journalists and whistle-blowers. The country’s federal police last... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3111518/australias-war-crimes-afghanistan-show-cost-celebrating-military?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3111518/australias-war-crimes-afghanistan-show-cost-celebrating-military?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 27 Nov 2020 00:30:15 +0000 Australia is on fire. The sun sits low over Sydney, an angry red wound in the sky, glowering amid its shroud of soot. Visibility in the city is somewhere between ludicrous and non-existent; at times the Opera House looks like it’s an appropriate shade of sepia, a nostalgic reminder of clearer eyes and lungs, and the Harbour Bridge winks in and out of sight as the smoke roils. The area burned in Queensland and New South Wales is 2.9 million hectares, according to the latest reports – about 40... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3041815/australias-bush-fires-burning-issue-scott-morrison-refuses?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3041815/australias-bush-fires-burning-issue-scott-morrison-refuses?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 12 Dec 2019 23:00:18 +0000 Yogyakarta contains multitudes. The Indonesian city is a tumult of culture shot through with rich veins of history – it’s still ruled by a functional monarchy; it has been home to storied, spectacular Buddhist and Hindu holy sites for well over a millennium; and is internationally renowned for everything from literature to silversmithing. All the same, the city is now better known for being an education hub. Besides its four state universities, Yogyakarta is home to more than a dozen private... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/lifestyle-culture/article/3026062/indonesias-yogyakarta-targets-chinese-students-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/lifestyle-culture/article/3026062/indonesias-yogyakarta-targets-chinese-students-and?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 07 Sep 2019 04:30:11 +0000 Malaysia’s protracted negotiations over China-financed mega projects such as the multibillion-dollar East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) have not dampened trade between the two countries, and it is still hungry for business from China, according to its deputy minister of international trade and industry. Dr Ong Kian Ming also said Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad’s recent decision to attend the second official summit on China’s Belt and Road Initiative in April – making him the first world leader to... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/2187969/mahathirs-malaysia-still-open-business-china-despite-stalled?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/2187969/mahathirs-malaysia-still-open-business-china-despite-stalled?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 27 Feb 2019 23:34:26 +0000 For a government that has spent so much time and money trying to stop asylum seekers from trying to reach its shores by boat, Australia has spent much of the past week making quite a lot of noise about an empty vessel. The announcement that A$6.7 million (US$4.8 million) would be spent on sailing a replica of Captain Cook’s ship, the HMS Endeavour, around the country for the next 14 months has been met with something between raised eyebrows and well-deserved opprobrium – and not just because it... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2183687/stand-down-under-why-debate-over-australia-day-and-captain-cook?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2183687/stand-down-under-why-debate-over-australia-day-and-captain-cook?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 25 Jan 2019 22:03:23 +0000 Is Australia really that racist? Yes, it is ­– and it’s important to get that out of the way first. When it comes to discussions of Australia’s chronic inadequacy in dealing with matters of race and immigration, there is a tendency to drift toward the sort of avuncular exasperation best deployed at rain-haunted barbecues and crotchety grandparents. It’s somewhere between flat-out denial and a much-needed coping mechanism for weeks such as this one, when the Australian Senate actually voted on a... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2169395/australia-really-racist?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2169395/australia-really-racist?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 21 Oct 2018 07:30:30 +0000