Taipei lifts ban on food imports from Fukushima

Today's headlines: China's second-hand goods market booms; Hong Kong stockpiling food for fear of Covid restrictions; the US offers millions of euros for information on the Isis leader in Afghanistan; Iraq's parliament postpones Presidential elections; a high school teacher in St Petersburg is fired for reading dissident poets to students. 

TAIWAN - JAPAN

Taipei today announced the lifting of the ban on food imports from prefectures around the city of Fukushima, in force since 2011 following the disaster at the nuclear power plant. The decision follows those of the United States, Australia and Thailand. The aim is to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (Cptpp), of which Tokyo is a member. 

CHINA

China's second-hand goods market has grown from 300 billion yuan in 2015 (just over 41 billion euros) to a trillion yuan in 2020, and is set to continue. Products cover all categories, reflecting a demand that has changed, especially among younger people. The boom is also encouraged by the rapid growth of online sites dedicated to transactions.  

IRAQ

Parliament has postponed the election of the new President of the Republic until a date to be decided. This decision confirms the political stalemate in Baghdad, with the main faction [linked to the Shiite leader al-Sadr] boycotting the session. By convention, the seat belongs to a member of the Kurdish minority. 

AFGHANISTAN

The United States is prepared to offer up to 8.5 million for information on the whereabouts or identification of Sanaullah Ghafari. He is the leader of the Afghan cell of the Islamic State, rooted in the Khorasan province, Iskp (Isis-K). He was allegedly involved in the August bomb attack on the Kabul airport that killed 170 Afghan civilians and 13 US personnel. 

HONG KONG

Residents stormed supermarkets and neighbourhood shops in search of fresh food, vegetables, noodles and other essentials. With an increase in Covid-19 cases and flights to mainland China interrupted, there is a strong fear of a supply crisis. Hong Kong, a metropolis of 7.5 million people, is 90% dependent on imports for food. 

THAILAND

Bangkok wants to create tourist corridors with Beijing and Kuala Lumpur to revive a sector brought to its knees by a two-year pandemic. Chinese and Malaysian visitors were the most numerous before the global health emergency, more than a third of Thailand's total of 40 million visitors in 2019. They contributed more than .5 billion to the country's coffers. 

RUSSIA

In St Petersburg, a high school teacher, Serafima Saprykina, was fired for reading to students poems by Aleksandr Vvedensky and Daniil Kharms, dissident writers killed in Stalinist camps. The high school headmaster, Svetlana Lebedeva, called the writers "enemies of the people and collaborators of the fascists". For Saprykina, this is a sign that "the terror of 1937 is returning".

KYRGYZSTAN - CHINA

Kyrgyz President Sadyr Zhaparov returned from Beijing, where he had talks with Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Olympics, and announced that China would supply Kyrgyzstan with an additional five million doses of Covid-19 vaccine and offered 50 million yuan in security aid.

• Asia
• Today