WASHINGTON — It was expected to be a routine phone call between U.S. President Donald Trump and one of Washington’s closest allies. Instead, last Saturday’s discussion between Trump and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull reportedly became heated, spilling into a rare display of public diplomatic disagreement over a deal under which the U.S. would resettle refugees […]
BANGKOK — Governments and business in Asia are preparing to place greater focus on regional trade and economic prospects, following the U.S. decision to withdraw from the 12 nation Trans Pacific Partnership agreement or TPP. Analysts say alternative multilateral trade pacts including the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which includes China, may fill the ‘vacuum’ left […]
SYDNEY—Australia and New Zealand have condemned Japan’s move to send a whaling fleet to the Southern Ocean. It comes a year after an international court ruled that Tokyo’s whale hunt in the Southern Ocean should stop. Last year, the U.N.’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) found that Japan’s whaling program in the Southern Ocean was […]
The two leaders of the Bali Nine, who were convicted and sentenced to death in 2006, faced a firing squad shortly after midnight on the penitentiary island of Nusakambangan in Java. Two Australians, Myuran Sukumaran, 33, and Andrew Chan, 31, joined six other drug offenders in front of a 12-man firing squad in a jungle […]