Category: Radio Australia

Saipan’s generators fear hospital power loss

The main island of the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas, Saipan, is now down to less than half of its electricity generation – with the utility warning the hospital and airport can now lose power at any time. The executive director of the Commonwealth Utilities Corporation, Antonio Muna, broke the news yesterday to cabinet. For an update on the situation, Adam Connors spoke moments ago to the governor’s spokesman Charles Reyes.

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Status of Samoa test in question

Numerous media reports over the past week have alluded to an International Rugby Board memo questioning the official status of today’s Test between the All Blacks and Manu Samoa. Although Samoa is the twelfth best team in the IRB’s official rankings, and even shares one-third of its players with the world’s number one team, they have only ever met in four Tests – the last being in 2001. As well as being vastly under-represented in international Tests, they suffer from their players being contracted for other competitions as they face the world’s best.

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China push to change Taiwan’s Olympics name

It’s just over twenty days to go to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and one team in particular is having a hard time making sure China can get its name right. Chinese Taipei is the somewhat-apolitical and agreed name for Taiwan’s representatives in international competitions since 1989. The Beijing International Media Centre, as well as the host nation’s Taiwan affairs spokesman, have again strained relations by inserting new Chinese characters into its official name. The changes are subtle, but important.

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Rights abuser up for office in Indonesia

In the same week that a major report on Indonesian military involvement in human rights abuses in East Timor, another former Indonesian military commander has announced his candidacy for next year’s presidential election. Both Prabowo Subianto and the current president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, entered Indonesia’s Military Academy at the same time, and both became three-star generals within a month of each other. But that’s where many of the similarities end.

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China TV leads push against foreign miners

An Australian mining company with a majority holding in China’s second-largest gold mine has been the focus of a scathing attack on Chinese state television. The claims have shocked the firm, and voiced a none-too-hidden view that foreign investment in Chinese mining could be unwelcome.

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Bringing skateboarding to Afghanistan

Three skateboarders from the Australian city of Melbourne have big plans for a cool new skatepark. This isn’t particularly new… except this skatepark is to be built in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, and the locals don’t even have a word for “skateboard” in the most common language of the area, Dari.

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Indonesia blockbuster sinks Titanic

Indonesia is currently experiencing a movie phenomenon not seen since the theatre-filled days of Titanic. That film sold more than three million tickets in Indonesia during its three-month run in 1997. But the locally-written and produced Ayat-Ayat Cinta is set to eclipse the box office any day now – and in under a month. The difference, this time, is that a very Islamic love story is front-and-centre of this new blockbuster.

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Taiwan opposition burned by Tibet protest

Up until early last week, the two major parties contesting Taiwan’s presidential election were singing a very similar tune when it came to closer economic ties to mainland China. But in election rallies over the weekend, it became clear that the impact of China’s crackdown in Tibet is reverberating across the Taiwan Strait, possibly destablising the China-friendly opposition frontrunner.

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