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 The government of Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison is deploying a "dangerous election tactic" with its comments about joining the United States in any war over Taiwan, the opposition party's foreign affairs spokesperson said on Tuesday.

Australia's Minister for Defence Peter Dutton earlier this month said it was "inconceivable" that Canberra would not join the United States in military action should China attack Taiwan, the democratically ruled island Beijing views as a wayward province. read more

Penny Wong, the foreign affairs spokesperson for the opposition Labor party, said Dutton's comments were part of the government's strategy for an election that must happen before May 2022.

"Amping up the prospect of war against a superpower is the most dangerous election tactic in Australian history – a tactic employed by irresponsible politicians who are desperate to hang on to power at any cost," Wong said in a speech to the Australian National University on Tuesday.

Wong said Morrison's government has in recent weeks sought to portray Labor as pro-China.

Relations with China, already rocky after Australia banned Huawei from its nascent 5G broadband networking in 2018, cooled further after Canberra in 2020 called for an independent investigation into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, first reported in central China in 2019.

China responded by imposing tariffs on Australian commodities, including wine and barley and limited imports of Australian beef, coal and grapes, moves described by the United States as "economic coercion".

Wong said Taiwan is the greatest risk to stability in the Indo-Pacific region, and any conflict there would be "catastrophic for humanity". (Reuters)

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison's legislative agenda came under risk on Tuesday after a conservative lawmaker in his coalition government threatened to withhold support if the government does not abolish mandatory COVID-19 vaccine rules.

Australia's two largest states, New South Wales and Victoria, have banned unvaccinated people from entering places such as restaurants and shops, citing a threat to public safety, while also requiring that they work from home.

George Christensen - a backbench lawmaker from the junior National party - threatened to abstain from voting on government legislation in the House of Representatives unless those rules are scrapped.

Morrison's government has a single vote majority in Australia's lower house. Without Christensen's vote, Morrison would have to rely on opposition support to pass legislation into law.

The prime minister is hoping to pass several pieces of key legislation in the final sitting period of the year in a bid to improve his standing in the polls ahead of an election that must be held by May 2022.

"Until federal action is taken against vaccine discrimination, I will be voting according to my conscience, or abstaining from votes ... rather than just voting with the government," Christensen said in a statement.

While Morrison has said he opposes mandatory vaccination orders, except for health workers, he has not usurped state leaders on the issue.

More than 80% of Australians over the age of 16 have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose, while in many parts of the country, nearly all adults have opted for inoculation.

Border rules, swift lockdowns and tough social distancing rules have helped Australia to keep its coronavirus numbers far lower than many other comparable countries, with around 200,000 total cases and nearly 2,000 deaths. (Reuters)

Singapore is aiming to realise at least 2 million tonnes of carbon capture potential by 2030 as part of a broader effort to make its Jurong Island oil refinery hub more sustainable, its Economic Development Board said on Tuesday.

Many industries are looking at the process of capturing carbon dioxide emissions through storage or for reuse, as a way to reach green goals. But the process is still in development.

Singapore is aiming to create a testbed for the technology on Jurong Island, where the likes of Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) and Exxon Mobil (XOM.N) own petrochemical plants.

Both Shell and Exxon have flagged their interest in building carbon capture and storage facilities in Southeast Asia.

Singapore's EDB also set a 2030 target for the energy and chemicals sector to increase the output of sustainable products by 1.5 times from 2019 levels.

By 2050, Singapore is aiming to increase the output by four times from 2019 levels.

Governments and companies are accelerating the hunt for ways to cut emissions and curb global warming by mid-century, by shifting away from fossil fuels and rapidly ramping up investment in renewables.

Shell said on Tuesday it plans to build a pyrolysis oil upgrader to turn plastic waste into chemical feedstock at its petrochemical complex in Singapore, part of its shift from oil and gas to renewables and low-carbon energy. (Reuters)

Rights groups including the United Nations have criticised the arrest of a prominent activist in Indian-administered Kashmir on terror funding charges.

Khurram Parvez was arrested late on Monday by India's federal National Investigation Agency (NIA), an Indian official briefed on the situation told Reuters.

His residence and office were searched and a mobile phone, laptop and books seized, he added.

A spokesperson for the NIA confirmed Parvez's arrest on Tuesday.

He is being held under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, that allows for detention of up to six months without trial.

His lawyer, Parvez Imroz, could not immediately be reached for comment.

Mary Lawlor, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, called Parvez's arrest "disturbing".

"He's not a terrorist, he's a human rights defender," she said in a tweet.

Parvez, one of Kashmir's best known activists, is head of Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society, a group of rights organisations working in the region.

He was arrested and detained on similar charges in 2016, after being prevented from boarding a flight to attend a UN human rights forum in Geneva. He was eventually released without being convicted of any crime.

The Muslim-majority Kashmir region has been the source of decades of tensions between nuclear-armed neighbours India and Pakistan.

Both countries claim the Himalayan territory in full but rule it in part, and have fought two wars against each other there.

India has long faced allegations of rights abuses in its portion of the territory, charges New Delhi denies.

It tightly controls access to Kashmir for foreign observers, including the UN. (Reuters)