24/09/2025

WEDNESDAY | SEPT 24, 2025

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US lawmaker warns of misunderstanding risk

Queries over body returned without heart

SYDNEY: Australian officials have demanded answers from Indonesian counterparts after the body of a young man who died in Bali was repatriated without his heart. Queensland man Byron Haddow, 23, was found dead in the plunge pool of his villa this year. His body was returned to Australia four weeks later, where a second autopsy found he was missing his heart. A spokesperson for Australia’s Foreign Ministry said yesterday they were providing consular assistance to Haddow’s family but could not comment further owing to privacy obligations. “They just rung us to ask if we were aware that his heart had been retained over in Bali,” mother Chantal Haddow told Australia’s Channel Nine. “Just when I thought I couldn’t feel any more heartbroken, it was another kick in the guts.” “I feel like there was foul play. I think that something’s happened to him.” The forensic doctor who performed the original autopsy rejected claims of wrongdoing. “For forensic purposes, his heart was tested and was kept behind when the family repatriated the body home,” Dr Nola Margaret Gunawan told The Sydney Morning Herald on Monday. “I have given the autopsy result and explanation to the family. They have accepted my explanation.” – AFP Mum found guilty in suitcase murders case AUCKLAND: A South Korean-born New Zealand woman was convicted yesterday of murdering her two children, whose bodies were discovered in suitcases in an abandoned storage locker. Hakyung Lee admitted killing the children, aged eight and six, but had pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder on the grounds of insanity. She chose to represent herself throughout the trial, assisted by two lawyers. The court heard Lee gave the children an overdose of prescription medicine in 2018 before wrapping their bodies in plastic bags and putting them in the suitcases. Their father had died of cancer in late 2017. Lee stood with her head bowed and showed no reaction as the jury delivered their unanimous verdict. Neither the prosecution nor defence spoke to the media as they left the court. The children’s remains were discovered in 2022 by a family going through the contents of a storage locker they had bought at an online auction. New Zealand police launched a murder investigation and Lee, who had moved to South Korea in 2018, was extradited to face trial in November 2022. Lee will be sentenced on Nov 26. – Reuters

o China urged to talk more about military

two sides need to talk so they “don’t stumble in any sort of conflicts”. The bipartisan congressional delegation comes just days after Presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump spoke by telephone. Trump said he would meet Xi on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea at the end of next month and that he would travel to China next year. He said Xi would also visit the United States and the two leaders would speak again by telephone. Smith’s group on Monday held talks with Vice-Premier He Lifeng, in which they discussed trade, the hot button issues of fentanyl, critical minerals and TikTok. The White House has said a US version of TikTok would feature a homegrown model of the app’s prized algorithm, potentially clearing one of the main obstacles to keeping the Chinese-owned platform online in the United States. Asked about the TikTok issue, Smith said: “My understanding is that I don’t think that has been 100% resolved.” The delegation will also meet National People’s Congress Chairman Zhao Leji and Foreign Minister Wang Yi. – AFP

BEIJING: The leader of a US congressional delegation to China warned yesterday of the “risk of a misunderstanding” between the two countries’ militaries as advances in defence technology move at breakneck speed. Adam Smith, the most senior Democrat on Washington’s Armed Services Committee, told journalists in Beijing that China needs to talk more about its military with other global powers “for basic de confliction”. “We’ve seen this with our ships, our planes, their ships, their planes coming entirely too close to one another,” he said at a news conference at the US Embassy in Beijing. “We need to have a better conversation about de-conflicting those things.” The four-person delegation also includes other members of the committee – Democrats Ro Khanna and Chrissy Houlahan – as well as Republican congressman Michael Baumgartner, a member of the The 1 gigawatt (GW) facility in Ningxia is part of a network across northern and western China that uses the bulk and shade of solar panels to stop and reverse the spread of deserts. Owner Ningxia Baofeng, a major participant in the coal chemical industry, plans to build 30GW of solar generation, some of which will be used to stop desertification, according to Liu Yuanguan, the company’s vice-chairperson. A similar 1GW project in nearby Majiatan is already active, he said. “The panels are like mini umbrellas,” Liu said. “They cast shadows on the plants and soil so there will be less evaporation.” Roughly a quarter of China is classified as “desertified” and campaigns to contain and reclaim the sands stretch back to the 1970s. Solar panels set up over the deserts are a growing part of the arsenal. Solar was included in a September revision to the country’s flagship “Three Norths” anti-desertification programme, which began in 1978 and will run until 2050, although the concept has cropped up in other planning documents. The standard approach is to use panels to provide shade for desert hardy seeds and shrubs introduced underneath while barriers around

Smith ... We need to have a better conversation about de-conflicting those things. – AFPPIC

“remove disruptive and restrictive factors” between them. Smith said: “AI and drone warfare and cyber and space is moving so rapidly and innovation is happening so quickly. “The risk of a misunderstanding of capabilities on one side or the other is great,” he said, adding the

Foreign Affairs Committee. The group on Monday met Chinese Defence Minister Dong Jun, with whom they talked about the importance of “working through our differences” and more candid dialogue, according to a statement from the US side. Dong called on the visitors to

China enlists solar panels to halt desert sands YINCHUAN: In arid northern China, dozens of workers prune goji berry bushes that stretch out under the protective shade of thousands of solar panels.

Workers collect goji berries next to solar panels at Ningxia Baofeng’s agri-solar installation. – REUTERSPIC

progress is hard-won. Total area of desertified land was 26.8% of China last year, down from 27.2% a decade earlier. At the Baijitan nature reserve several hours away from Baofeng’s site, decades of work has reclaimed about 800 sq km. Wiping out deserts is not the goal, according to the site’s director Wang Xiaoling, instead they hope to minimise harm. – Reuters

deserts also preserves farm land. In 2023, China issued rules barring solar panels from arable land and state media has criticised the construction of solar panels on prime farm land. Between 2025 and 2030, China plans to install 253GW of solar to rehabilitate roughly 7,000 sq km, about four times the size of Greater London, according to state media. Whether using solar panels or other methods like tree planting,

the sites slow wind speeds and stop the sand shifting. It can take up to five years to get results, according to the Ningxia government. Projects like Baofeng’s remain a tiny portion of the hundreds of gigawatts of solar panels China installs each year, but Beijing has announced plans to rapidly grow the number of projects which use solar to fight desertification. The construction of solar panels in