An independent report into Australia’s Black Summer bushfires has recommended sweeping changes to land clearing practices and the creation of an international research center to investigate extreme fire behavior. The 2019-2020 disaster was unprecedented in scale. The Gospers Mountain fire north of Sydney was the largest forest fire ever recorded in Australia, burning more than 500,000 hectares. More aggressive hazard reduction, or controlled burn-offs that can reduce the severity of future bushfires, would make Australia safer, according to an independent panel.However, previous research has shown that as conditions get hotter and drier, it becomes less effective.  But the report wants landowners in high-risk areas to increase prescribed burning.  It also said that climate change was one of many factors that made last summer “so extraordinary”. The fires were fueled by record-breaking temperatures and a long drought across southern and eastern Australia. New South Wales state premier Gladys Berejiklian says global warming is making the country more vulnerable. “The next fire season is already upon us, so the government has taken every action we can already in response to the recommendations that we received.  We do also have to also accept that in addition to the issues that have been canvassed this morning, our climate is changing and those who wrote the report actually acknowledge that our climate is changing,” Berejiklian said.  The New South Wales state government has accepted each of the panel’s 76 recommendations. The report has called for more scientific research into fighting fires, including the use of artificial intelligence and drones to help put them out quickly.   It said the answer was not more fire trucks or firefighters.  Critics of the inquiry have reportedly said it was lackluster and contained no significant recommendations.  The Black Summer fires killed more than 30 people and destroyed thousands of homes. For the first time ever catastrophic fire conditions had been forecast for Australia’s biggest city, Sydney.    Ominously, the panel warned that Australia should expect to see similar conditions, or worse, to happen again.  
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Families and survivors had their first chance to confront the white supremacist who slaughtered 51 worshippers in a mass shooting at two New Zealand mosques as his four-day sentencing hearing began Monday. “You killed your own humanity, and I don’t think the world will forgive you for your horrible crime,” said a tearful Maysoon Salama, the mother of 33-year-old Atta Elayyan, who was killed in March 2019 attacks. “You thought you can break us. You failed miserably.” The gunman, 29-year-old Australian Brenton Harrison Tarrant, pleaded guilty in March to 51 counts of murder, 40 counts of attempted murder and one count of terrorism — the first terrorism conviction in New Zealand’s history. He could become the first person in New Zealand to be sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, the toughest sentence available. Tarrant was brought into the Christchurch High Court shackled and wearing a gray prison outfit. In the dock, unshackled and surrounded by five officers, he showed little emotion throughout the hearing. He occasionally looked around the room, tapped his fingers, and watched the survivors as they spoke. The courtroom was only half full due to coronavirus distancing requirements, while many others watched from adjacent courtrooms where the hearing was streamed. Survivors and family members occasionally wept and comforted each other. Two dozen victims and family members told the court about the pain of losing husbands, wives, sons and brothers. Some had family members around them for support, others spoke through translators or on pre-recorded videos from abroad. One of those was grandmother Saira Patel, who spoke from Melbourne in Australia and described the moment she thought she would die in the Linwood mosque. “I stretched both my arms toward my husband so we would die together,” she said.Saira Patel, who spoke on a pre-recorded video from Melbourne about her husband Musa Patel, who was killed in the 2019 mosque shootings, during the sentencing hearing for Australian Brenton Harrison Tarrant at the Christchurch High Court.But it was her husband of 36 years, Musa, who was shot in the back. When paramedics arrived, she said, they told her to push on the bullet hole to lessen the bleeding, but her hands kept slipping with all the blood. When they took over, she said, she held her husband’s warm hands until they dropped. He had died. “I’m still searching for my husband’s beautiful face in the crowds, but he’s nowhere to be seen,” she said. Some speakers raised their voices in anger when they addressed the gunman. One said nothing less than the death penalty would be fair. Janna Ezat, whose son Hussein Al-Umari was killed, looked at Tarrant and spoke softly. “I forgive you,” she said. “The damage is done, Hussein will never be here. I only have one choice and that is to forgive.” Monday’s hearing began with prosecutors outlining the attacks in a 26-page summary of facts, the first detailed account by authorities about what happened that day, including the revelation that Tarrant had intended to burn down the mosques. Crown prosecutor Barnaby Hawes said Tarrant moved to New Zealand in 2017 and began buying an arsenal of high-powered weapons, as well as 7,000 rounds of ammunition. Two months before the attacks, Tarrant flew a drone directly over the Al Noor mosque, recording an aerial view of the grounds and buildings and taking note of the entry and exit doors, Hawes said. Hawes said the gunman planned his attacks for when the maximum number of worshippers were present, and that 190 people were in the Al Noor mosque for Friday prayers on the day of the attacks. In his car, the gunman had six guns — two AR-15 rifles, two other rifles, and two shotguns, the court heard. He also brought with him four modified gas containers that he planned to use to burn down the mosques after he finished shooting, Hawes said. The gunman later told police he wished he had used them and that he wished he’d shot more people. Hawes also detailed the bravery of Naeem Rashid, who was killed at the Al Noor mosque. “He ran at the defendant from the southeastern corner of the room. When Mr. Rashid was approximately 1 meter from the defendant, the defendant swung the AR-15 around and fired four shots at point-blank range,” Hawes said. “Mr. Rashid crashed into the defendant and the defendant went down on one knee,” Hawes said, adding that Tarrant was able to get back up and shoot Rashid again. At the second mosque, Abdul Aziz chased Tarrant down the driveway screaming at him, prosecutors said, and threw a discarded rifle at his car, shattering a window. Aziz was not injured. Tarrant has dismissed his lawyers and is representing himself during the sentencing, raising fears he could try to use the occasion as a platform to promote his racist views. He can choose to speak once the survivors have spoken, although the judge will likely shut down any attempts he makes to grandstand. New Zealand abolished the death penalty for murder in 1961, and the longest sentence imposed since then has been life imprisonment with a minimum 30-year non-parole period. Justice Cameron Mander will decide on the gunman’s sentence at the end of the hearing. The attacks targeting people praying at the Al Noor and Linwood mosques shocked New Zealand and prompted new laws banning the deadliest types of semi-automatic weapons. They also prompted global changes to social media protocols after the gunman livestreamed his attack on Facebook, where it was viewed by hundreds of thousands of people. Prosecutors said that after Tarrant left the Linwood mosque he planned to drive to the town of Ashburton and attack a third mosque. But he was rammed by two police officers, dragged out of his car and arrested. Gamal Fouda, the imam of the Al Noor mosque who survived the shooting, told the court that the gunman’s actions were misguided.”We are a peaceful and loving community who did not deserve your actions,” Fouda said. “Your hatred is unnecessary. If you have done anything, you have brought the world community closer with your evil actions.” 
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Taiwan is well-positioned to seize potential capital outflows triggered by the enactment of a new security law in Hong Kong and the intensifying trade frictions between the United States and China, three analysts told VOA.This will pave the way for the island to create a niche as a regional corporate financing or high net worth asset management center, although mounting challenges lie ahead for it to deregulate its financial industry in achieving the goal, the analysts added.The goal is in line with President Tsai Ing-wen’s, who told local business tycoons last week that her administration plans to liberalize the local economy soon by becoming an Asian financial hub.Hong Kong’s capital flight “Under its new security law, Hong Kong’s role as a regional financial hub has been greatly weakened when it comes to its function in both wealth management and corporate financing,” said Hwang Dar-yeh, dean of the privately run Academy of Promoting Economic Legislation. “(Any capital flight), especially by Chinese-speaking investors, is likely to next go to Singapore or Taipei. So, now presents a great opportunity for Taipei to pursue that goal.”TaiwanTaiwan is unlikely to immediately compete with Singapore or Hong Kong — two major financial hubs in Asia that respectively ranked fifth and sixth in the latest Global Financial Centers Index.Lagging behind most of the world’s 108 financial centers, Taipei ranked 75th in the index, released in March by London-based consultancy Z/Yen Group and the China Development Institute, based in Shenzhen.Taipei’s geostrategic importance Hwang said Taipei enjoys a higher geostrategic importance than Singapore now that Taiwan and the United States seek to diversify and move away from their traditional reliance on trade with China.Under these circumstances, Taiwanese companies based in China may consider going public in Taiwan, or individuals with a high net worth may opt to exit Hong Kong and park their assets elsewhere, including Taipei, according to Hwang.Since 2019, Taiwan’s financial regulator has launched several relaxation policies, including deregulating offshore banking units and allowing more new products in financial institutions’ wealth management portfolios, for clients with a net worth of more than $34 million.It is also seeking to accommodate China-based Taiwanese companies, which have been impacted by the U.S.-China trade war and repatriated more than $340 billion to Taiwan as of the end of June, official statistics showed.More needs to be done Schive Chi, former chairman of Taiwan Stock Exchange Corporation, said Taiwan needs to do more to catch up.“Insufficient product lines or capital flows, which aren’t totally free, will limit Taiwan’s scale (and scope) of developing (its financial market). There’s plenty of opportunity up for grabs, but whether you can seize (it) is another story,” Schive told VOA in a phone interview.Both Hwang and Schive said Taiwan should improve its financial infrastructure by attracting financial talent from overseas, introducing innovative policies and allowing the island’s currency exchange rate to free-float with no interference from the central bank — overall, an open, transparent and free market in which foreign investors will take an interest.Preferential tax rates Taiwan also needs to impose preferential tax rates, which are competitive enough to attract foreign investors, said William Lin, a professor of banking and finance at Tamkang University in Taipei.Lin said the size of assets under management in Singapore has greatly outgrown that of Taiwan in the past two decades after Singapore introduced a preferential tax regime, including having its withholding tax waived in 2000.Compared to Singapore, Taiwan has a number of upper-handed advantages should it try to boost wealth management businesses, he said.“We have many advantages. First of all, Taiwan’s size of local capital is bigger than that in Singapore. We’ve totaled an idle capital of NT$6 trillion ($340 billion), including NT$2.4 trillion ($81.6 trillion of excess savings) in the banking sector. With a small population of 23 million people, the local insurance sector’s annual premium income is the seventh largest in the world,” Lin said.Other than capital, Taiwan’s tech prowess, hardworking labor, and talent pool in innovation-oriented and biotech industries will prepare it to tap emerging opportunities from the region’s wealth management and corporate finance landscape, he said.Tsai’s administration has targeted seven innovative industries, including smart machinery, green energy and biomedicine, to help upgrade the local economy from contract manufacturing to a high value-added model.
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