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António Guterres to attend Pacific Islands Forum (Pif) in Tonga with climate crisis and unrest in New Caledonia among issues to watch
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, will attend a Pacific leaders’ summit this week in Tonga with a focus on climate change in the region, one of the world’s most vulnerable to rising sea levels and temperature changes.
The annual meeting of leaders is the top political decision-making body of the region. The week-long summit culminates in the leaders’ retreat, where key decisions are made, which may include an endorsement of a regional policing initiative promoted by Australia. The future for New Caledonia is among other big issues to be addressed at the Pacific Islands Forum (Pif) which began in Tonga on Monday.

Intensifying struggles with China are playing out on the doorstep of the almost 400 Philippine civilians on remote Thitu Island
From the sandy beaches of Thitu Island, blue waters stretch for as far as the eye can see. It feels like a tranquil paradise: there’s no noisy road traffic, air pollution or crowds. But Thitu is not a luxury retreat, it’s a tiny island in the remote Spratly chain and one of the world’s most fiercely contested maritime sites.
Thitu has been occupied by the Philippines since 1974 and is home to 387 civilians. However, China also claims the island and much of the surrounding South China Sea. Thitu and its people are on the frontline of an against their superpower neighbour.

Ken Jeong, Sherry Cola and Andrew Lopez sit down with NBC’s Vicky Nguyen at New York’s Gotham Comedy Club to talk about representation and the growing star power of Asian American actors and comedians ...

Some think the drama, “Zero Day,” helps Taiwan confront an increasingly plausible scenario. Others say the show is alarmist and a tool of the government.

Far from acting as a broker, Beijing is playing both sides in a state torn by brutality and chaos
Things fall apart, if you let them – and ethnically, religiously, ideologically fractured Myanmar, formerly Burma, has never been a model of harmonious, integrated nationhood. Yet since the 2021 military coup and ensuing civil war, new and old divisions have grown rapidly. Western and neighbouring states supporting a democratic restoration now face a more fundamental, urgent challenge: how to prevent .
A break-up would send destabilising shock waves coursing across the Bay of Bengal, Bangladesh and all of south-east Asia. The humanitarian implications for its 54 million people are dire. A collapse would boost separatist forces and non-state actors elsewhere. And it would severely dent China’s claims to regional leadership. If President Xi Jinping cannot manage Myanmar, what price ?
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The former Californian prosecutor used her time in the Senate wisely and as a member of the intelligence committee, she gained expertise
Most Americans pay scant attention to foreign policy and national security issues when voting for president – or so pollsters say. Yet how Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, the two possible White House successors to Joe Biden, view the world is of considerable interest to foreign audiences, not least people in Britain who hope, for example, that Keir Starmer’s government will not be faced with collapsing US support for Ukraine, a Russian victory and an existential crisis within Nato.
Such destabilising, dangerous outcomes appear entirely possible should Trump, a neo-isolationist ultranationalist Republican and appeaser of dictators, secure a second term. But how does Harris, who accepted the in Chicago last week, view the world and its many problems and challenges? If, as we hope, she prevails on 5 November, what Harris thinks and does as leader of the foremost global democracy, economy and military power will have profound, far-reaching impacts.

Actor B.D. Wong told the AAPI caucus at the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday what he said to his multiracial son at his bar mitzvah. “I told him, in front of everybody, ‘You are not half of ...

Like a lot of people, Ellen Lo Hoffman was shocked and disturbed by the shooting death of Michael Brown, a Black teenager, at the hands of a Ferguson, Mo., police officer a decade ago this month.

Census Bureau Director Robert Santos met with Minnesota community members last month, and said his office would not change how it classified several ethnic groups.

Craze for the four-player game known as guandan may lead to the formation of cliques, Communist party warns
As recently as last year, Chinese state media was hailing guandan as the card game that “can get you a promotion in China”.
The country was holding open tournaments, and workers were encouraged to use it as a social and professional networking tool.

Manila alleges ‘harassment’ in past week, including deploying flares just 15 metres away from its aircraft in latest confrontation on strategic waterway
The Philippine government accused China on Saturday of firing flares just metres away from one of its aircraft as it flew patrols over the South China Sea in the past week.
A Chinese fighter jet “engaged in irresponsible and dangerous manoeuvres” on 19 August as the plane from the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) made a “maritime domain awareness flight” near Scarborough Shoal, the National Task Force for the West Philippine Sea said.