The frustration that erupted into deadly violence in the French territory last week has been building for years
In the middle of the main road in Rivière-Salée, north of Nouméa, sits a burnt-out car. After days of rioting, young men with masked faces wave a Kanak flag as vehicles pass. All around is desolation. Shops with gutted fronts, burnt buildings, debris on the pavements and roads. Gangs of young people roam the area.
The violence that erupted last week is the worst in New Caledonia since unrest involving independence activists gripped the French Pacific territory in the 1980s.
Yonaguni is a tourist hotspot – but its location just 100km from Taiwan means residents must wrestle with the creeping militarisation of their home
In the minds of many Japanese people, Yonaguni is a sleepy paradise of crystal-clear sea and pristine beaches, where miniature horses graze on clifftops and empty roads dissect fields of sugar cane; where tourists dive with hammerhead sharks and marvel at the Ayamihabiru – the world’s largest Atlas moth.
But this tiny island, located far closer to Taipei than Tokyo, now finds itself at the centre of regional tensions triggered by a new round of Chinese aggression towards Taiwan.
Local authorities will be allowed to turn unsold homes from developers into affordable housing
China will cut mortgage rates and allow local authorities to turn unsold homes from developers into affordable housing, in a series of drastic measures by Beijing aimed at propping up the country’s faltering property market.
The People’s Bank of China said it would scrap the minimum rate of interest and reduce down-payment ratios to 15% for first-time buyers and 25% for second homes. It will also create a 300bn yuan (£32.8bn) facility to support local state-owned companies to buy homes at reasonable prices, it said in a series of statements on Friday.
Photographer Dougie Wallace has been looking at the impact of the decriminalisation of cannabis in Thailand, from Khaosan Road to the beach resorts, such as Krabi and Phuket, that attract tourists
The decriminalisation of cannabis in Thailand in June 2022 has led to an explosion in marijuana shops across the country – especially in its tourist areas. It is sold at trendy dispensaries in Bangkok, at beachside bars across resort islands and even on river cruises. On bustling streets, green leaf logos glow in neon above shop fronts, and small stalls, set up with rows of glass jars, dot the pavement.
Cannes film festival The choreography is impressive as people are hurled through walls, thrown off rooftops and otherwise beaten to a pulp, but the editing is frenetic and the characters cartoonish
Hong Kong’s Kowloon Walled City – once the most densely populated place on Earth – is the perfect movie setting: a Piranesian labyrinth of squalid high rises and dark, cramped alleys, teeming with crooks, lowlifes, addicts and impoverished families running small businesses, legit and otherwise. This 1980s-set action epic lovingly, meticulously recreates the notorious neighbourhood (which was demolished in 1994), but sadly, the backdrop is more interesting than the story.
At heart it’s a tale of a Chinese immigrant caught between rival gangs. Street fighter Chan Lok-kwan (Raymond Lam) is initially scammed by local triad boss Mr Big (a cigar-smoking caricature from veteran Jackie Chan sidekick Sammo Hung). Chan retaliates by stealing a package and, after a great bus-top chase scene, he stumbles accidentally into the Walled City, a no-go area for Mr Big’s goons as it’s ruled by local boss Cyclone (Louis Koo). As well as running a barber shop, and smoking like a chimney even though he is dying of a lung disease, Cyclone rules over the giant slum like a benign dictator, collecting rents but also looking out for its citizens and maintaining some kind of order. He and the rest of the Walled City community take Chan under their wing, and this hard-working orphan starts to feel at home for the first time – until a highly unlikely twist of fate puts all the factions on a path to all-out gang warfare.
Azerbaijani flags have sprung up at demonstrations in Pacific territory, while separatists from French territories have been invited to Baku
France’s government says it has no doubt that Azerbaijan is stirring tensions in New Caledonia, despite the vast geographical and cultural distance between the Caspian country and the French Pacific territory.
Days of unrest in the French Pacific territory – sparked by a plan to change voting rules – have left five dead
Tensions remained high in Nouméa, the capital of New Caledonia, on Friday after days of riots as the French government’s representative said areas of the Pacific territory have “escaped” state control.
Louis Le Franc, high commissioner of the Republic in New Caledonia, announced new security deployments. The number of police and gendarmes on the island will rise to 2,700 from 1,700 by Friday evening.
Cannes film festival Lou Ye’s docu-realist film starts as sophisticated comedy, morphs from looking like a zombie apocalypse to intimate drama, and evolves into a tribute to how a nation handled trauma
Out of agony and chaos, Chinese film-maker Lou Ye has created something mysterious, moving and even profound – a kind of multilayered docu-realist film, evidently inspired by a real-life situation in film production. As well as everything else, the film meditates on what it means to be “unfinished”. Very few of us will leave this life with a satisfied sense of everything achieved, complete, squared away. To be mortal is to feel that things have ended without being finished. It is possibly his best film since the courageous Tiananmen Square drama Summer Palace from 2006 – and set near Wuhan, the city in which his 2012 film Mystery was set in the days when that place was internationally known – if at all – simply for being almost scarily vast and impersonal.
It is 2019 and a film director and his crew gather in a production studio and excitedly unbox a big 00s-era computer, containing the digitised video and audio files for a film he had had to abandon 10 years before – without even having a title – because he had refused to bow to his producers’ demands to soften the content. It is a story of a gay man’s passion for another man who is involved with someone else. Getting the unfinished film now is clearly the end result of legal wrangling. (Lou has evidently had access to genuine footage from a real production.)
Russian leader praises ‘comradely’ talks with Chinese president ahead of concert to mark 75 years of ‘friendship’
Russia and China have announced they will deepen their already close military ties, as Vladimir Putin met Xi Jinping in Beijing on his first foreign trip since being inaugurated for a new term as Russia’s president.
It is the latest in a string of statements and signals that the warm relationship between the two countries is as strong as it has ever been.
Vladimir Putin has said that Russia-China cooperation is not directed against any other power and is a stabilising factor for the world, during his meeting with Xi Jinping.
It is of crucial significance that relations between Russia and China are not opportunistic and are not directed against anyone. Our cooperation in world affairs today acts as one of the main stabilising factors in the international arena.”
In our new journey we intend to remain good neighbours, trusted friends and reliable partners, consistently strengthening the relationship between our two nations … defending international equality.”
State of emergency in place because of deadly unrest over bill that will let French people vote in provincial elections after 10 years of residence
Armed forces were protecting New Caledonia’s two airports and port and hundreds of French police were on their way to the Pacific territory after a third night of violent riots that have killed four people.
In three municipalities of the French collectivity, gendarmes faced about 5,000 rioters, including between 3,000 and 4,000 in the capital, Noumea, said France’s high commissioner, Louis Le Franc.
During the two-day visit the leaders will take part in a gala evening celebrating 75 years since the Soviet Union recognised the People’s Republic of China
Russian president Vladimir Putin has arrived in Beijing for talks with Xi Jinping that the Kremlin hopes will deepen a strategic partnership between the two most powerful geopolitical rivals of the United States.
State news agency Xinhua confirmed his arrival on Thursday for what China’s state press has described as a state visit from an “old friend”. The two leaders will take part in a gala evening celebrating 75 years since the Soviet Union recognised the People’s Republic of China, which was declared by Mao Zedong in 1949.
Deadly clashes have erupted over move to increase number of French nationals eligible to vote in Pacific territory
Deadly violence has erupted in New Caledonia, a French overseas territory in the South Pacific, after lawmakers in Paris approved a constitutional amendment to allow recent arrivals to the territory to vote in provincial elections.
The amendment, which some local leaders fear will dilute the vote of the Indigenous Kanak people, is the latest flashpoint in a decades-long tussle over France’s role in the island.
Macron holds crisis meeting amid unrest over plan to increase number of French nationals eligible to vote in Pacific territory
France has said it will impose a state of emergency in New Caledonia for at least 12 days, after a second night of unrest over changes to voting rights in the overseas territory that has resulted in the deaths of at least four people.
More than 130 people have been arrested and more than 300 injured, according to the french high commission.
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