Former Australian reporter in Beijing said his 14-year-old daughter was threatened with detention

 A former ABC reporter in Beijing said Monday that he and his 14-year-old daughter were threatened with detention before they left China two years ago.

Matthew Carney said he had not revealed the 2018 incident until now because he had wanted to avoid “negative consequences” for Australian Broadcasting Corp.’s operations in China. Two weeks ago reporters for the state-funded ABC and The Australian Financial Review newspaper became the last two Australian journalists working for Australian media to leave China due to threats of detention.

Carney was the ABC’s China bureau chief in 2018 when Australia passed laws outlawing covert foreign interference in domestic politics, which he said “outraged” China. Carney said the laws started “three months of intimidation and all types of threats” for him and his family.

Carney told his story in an interview aired on ABC radio and in an account posted on the news organization’s website Monday. There was no immediate response from China. Carney said he was told to bring this 14-year-old daughter, Yasmine, to a Beijing Public Security facility where interrogations and detentions were the norm.

A woman official told him that he and his daughter were being investigated for a “visa crime.” “Your daughter is 14 years old. She is an adult under Chinese law and as the People’s Republic of China is a law-abiding country she will be charged with the visa crime,” Carney said he was told.

He said the woman said his daughter could be detained “with other adults” in an undisclosed location. “She was obviously very skilled in interrogation and in ramping up the fear and the panic,” Carney said. Carney said he offered to leave China with his wife and three children the next day, but was told he could not leave the country while he was under investigation.

With his visa due to expire within days, the official said he could be placed in detention. After consultation with the Australian Embassy and the ABC, Carney said he decided to confess his guilt and apologize for the “bizarre visa violation,” on condition that his daughter was allowed to stay with the family.

Their confessions were video recorded and the woman told him she would write a report to “the higher authority” for judgment. With the family’s visas about to expire, the official said the judgment could be weeks away. But he got a phone call the next day and was told two-month extensions had been granted to their visas.

He said he thought it was “some bizarre theater” to send a message to himself and Australia’s government that “A, if you do bad reporting, B, if your government is going to introduce harsh laws we don’t agree with, well then there is a price to be paid?”

“In retrospect, that’s what I think it was, thank God. They didn’t follow through on their threats,” Carney said. Carney said he made the sudden decision to leave China after a Chinese woman threatened to sue him for defamation over a story he reported about Chinese attempts to engineer better citizen behavior.

He had legal advice that that he would be banned from leaving once legal proceedings were initiated against him. Australia updated its travel advice in July to warn its citizens of potential arbitrary detention on security grounds in China.

Chinese-Australian spy novelist and blogger Yang Hengjun has been detained in China since he arrived on a flight from New York in January last year in what some suspects is a Chinese reaction to deteriorating bilateral relations. The 55-year-old has since been charged with endangering state security.

The Chinese foreign ministry said the day the last two Australian journalists working for Australian media in China left the country that Australian citizen Cheng Lei, a business news anchor for CGTN, China’s English-language state media channel, had been detained on suspicion of national security crimes.

Australia says security agencies acted on evidence in Chinese journalist raid

Sydney, Australia: Australia’s security agencies acted on evidence related to a foreign interference investigation when a raid was conducted on Chinese journalists in Australia in June, the country’s trade minister said on Friday.

The incident, involving four Chinese state media journalists, was revealed by China’s foreign ministry this week, in the wake of two Australian journalists departing China after questioning by Chinese police. Relations between Australia and top trading partner China are at a low ebb after Beijing was angered by Canberra’s call for an investigation into the origins of the coronavirus, responding with trade reprisals, and Australia toughened national security tests for foreign investment.


Trade Minister Simon Birmingham said the Australian security agencies had acted according to the law. “We appropriately respond in relation to any foreign interference concerns that are raised in Australia,” he told the ABC News Breakfast television programme, when asked about the incident. “We do it purely in relation to the evidence,” he added.

Birmingham denied suggestions the June raid had provoked a retaliation from Beijing which saw exit bans placed on journalists from the Australian Broadcasting Corp and the Australian Financial Review newspaper in China last week, and the pair seeking consular protection.

China has accused the Australian embassy of obstructing law enforcement when it sheltered the two journalists who were wanted for questioning in the country and returned to Australia this week. Birmingham denied this and said Australian embassy officials had respected China’s processes to negotiate an outcome.


“The embassy engaged diligently to ensure the safety of the two individuals concerned, but they also engaged cooperatively with Chinese officials to ensure the resolution of the matter, which included the opportunity for Chinese authorities to interview the individuals concerned,” he told ABC radio. Another Australian citizen, Chinese television anchor Cheng Lei, was detained by Chinese authorities in August.

China Vs Australia: China Detains High-Profile Australian Journalist and television anchor

Sydney, Australia: China has detained an Australian journalist working for its state-run English-language television network CGTN, Australia's foreign minister said on Monday.

The detention of journalist Cheng Lei is a new blow to deteriorating relations between the two countries that have seen China warn its citizens of travelling to Australia and vice-versa. Foreign Minister Marise Payne said Australia was informed on August 14 that Cheng was being held by Beijing authorities. Australian consular officials spoke to Cheng in her detention facility via video link on August 27 and were in touch with her family, Payne said in a statement.

She provided no further details, but public broadcaster ABC said Cheng's friends became concerned after she stopped responding to messages in recent weeks. The CGTN website page which described Cheng as an anchor on the network's Global Business programme was no longer available after news of her detention emerged.

The ABC said Cheng was being held under "residential surveillance at a designated location", a form of detention that allows investigators to hold and question a suspect for up to six months without them being formally arrested. The broadcaster published a statement by Cheng's family in Melbourne expressing confidence that "In China, due process will be observed and we look forward to a satisfactory and timely conclusion to the matter."



"We ask that you respect that process and understand there will be no further comment at this time," the statement said. Ties began to sour between Australia and China- its biggest trading partner- more than two years ago when Australian authorities began to move against what was seen as China's growing political interference and influence peddling in the country.

Beijing was particularly infuriated by Australia's leading role in international calls earlier this year for an investigation into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, which began in the Chinese city of Wuhan. Since then, China has taken steps to curb key Australian imports and encouraged Chinese students and tourists to avoid the country.

Cheng is the second high-profile Australian citizen to be detained in Beijing after writer Yang Hengjun was arrested in January 2019 on suspicion of espionage. Earlier this year Australia warned its citizens they faced the risk of arbitrary detention if they traveled to China.

Philippines: Chinese Ambassador blamed media coverage for antitrust against China

Philippines: Filipinos' strong distrust of China may have been the result of "distorted" media reports about activities of Beijing, the country's envoy said Friday.

"It's normal for Filipino people to have some different views about China, but what I want to emphasize is that after my arrival here since late last year, I have been surprised many times by those distorted media coverage and those reports which do not give the whole picture of China and China-Philippine relations," Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Huang Xilian told CNN Philippines' The Source.

He did acknowledge concerns on maritime issues, which have been the main point of disagreement by the two states. A poll done by the Social Weather Stations in July showed a "bad" -36 trust rating towards China, against a +42 rating towards the United States and +27 for Australia. Huang said the survey results was due to a lack of understanding amid allegedly lopsided news reports putting China in bad light.


"I’ve been thinking about this. One is because of a lack of understanding, and lack of understanding leads to lack of confidence and lack of trust," the foreign envoy said. "I have also found with concern that most of our Filipino friends, they understand China through the perspective of West media. Obviously, some of the West media have bias about China so that caused a misleading role to Filipinos who try to understand China," he added.

Huang repeatedly called locals as "Filipino friends," downplaying the territorial dispute in the West Philippine Sea as something where the two nations can "agree to disagree." The SWS survey showed three out of five Filipinos believed that China held back information on COVID-19, which may have hampered prevention and treatment efforts worldwide.


He then cited efforts to improve people's impressions towards China, citing millions of Chinese tourists visiting the country and the promotion of cultural and people-to-people exchanges.

President Rodrigo Duterte has actively taken a friendly stance towards Beijing since assuming office in 2016. However, critics say China is not to be trusted as it refuses to recognize the July 2016 arbitral ruling which dismissed Beijing's sweeping claims in the South China Sea, and instead continues its incursions and reclamation activities in the disputed waters. (courtesy:cnn)

TV reporter Lana Murphy using swear word during live broadcast, apologises

Australia: A TV reporter in Australia was caught on camera using a swear word during a live broadcast and the moment was widely shared on social media.

Lana Murphy, a Nine News Melbourne journalist accidentally used the f-word on air as she fumbled to get the name of a place right. The television reporter was talking about the spread of the coronavirus in Victoria when she stumbled mid-sentence, laughed and was heard muttering “f**ck my life” causing the camera crew to break into laughter. She then tried to keep calm by laughing it off and fixing her hair in preparation for another take, when the camera quickly cut back to the studio where anchor Alicia Loxley took over without reacting to the incident.
However, Loxley later apologised to viewers for the blunder. “We’d like to apologise for an earlier report which inadvertently included some bad language,’’ she said. As the segment from the afternoon bulletin started doing rounds across social media platforms, the reporter issued an apology on Twitter and also explained what went wrong after many wondered why the gaffe wasn’t edited out.

Some ‘live-cross’ segments are pre-recorded before they are broadcast live on the show, and a wrong version was selected for the bulletin. “Unfortunately the wrong version (clearly) of a pre-record made it to air but thankfully I have a great boss and I’ll be back on your screens tomorrow,” she wrote.

About 3 billion animals harmed in Australian bushfires: WWF

Sydney, Australia: Nearly 3 billion koalas, kangaroos and other native Australian animals were killed or displaced by bushfires in 2019 and 2020, a study by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said, triple the group's earlier estimates.

Some 143 million mammals, 2.46 billion reptiles, 180 million birds and 51 million frogs were impacted by the country's worst bushfires in decades, the WWF said on Tuesday, July 28. When the fires were still blazing, the WWF estimated the number of affected animals at 1.25 billion. The fires destroyed more than 11 million hectares (37 million acres) across the Australian southeast, equal to about half the area of the United Kingdom.

The total number included animals which were displaced because of destroyed habitats and now faced lack of food and shelter or the prospect of moving to habitat that was already occupied. 

Researchers said the destruction will see some species become extinct before their existence is even recorded. The main reason for raising the number of animal casualties was that researchers had now assessed the total affected area, rather than focusing on the most affected states, they said.

After years of drought made the Australian bush unusually dry, the country battled one of its worst bushfire seasons ever from September 2019 to March 2020, resulting in 34 human deaths and nearly 3,000 homes lost.