Lao authorities have rescued more than 1,680 victims of human trafficking from the Chinese-run Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone between its establishment in 2007 and the end of August this year, Radio Free Asia has learned. The victims included Lao workers and foreign nationals from more than 20 different countries, a member of the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit of Bokeo province who, like other sources in this report, requested anonymity for safety reasons, told RFA Lao. The Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone in northern Laos is a gambling and tourism hub…
Day: December 19, 2022
US trade chief says new tools needed to counter China’s ‘20-year distortions’ affecting global economy
“We need a new playbook on China that serves our interests,” she said. Tai stressed that the Biden administration was not working from a clean slate when it came to realigning trade policies towards China. Advertisement “China’s growth and development over the past 20 years in particular has profoundly changed the global economy and created pressures and distortions that we need to correct for,” she said. “That frame guides how we must responsibly manage this economic relationship.” Tai’s remarks came as trade relations between the world’s two largest economies remain…
Philippine Coast Guard recovers wreckage from another Chinese space rocket
The Philippine Coast Guard says it has recovered suspected debris in Manila-claimed waters from the launch of another Chinese space rocket. Last month, Manila accused the China Coast Guard of forcibly confiscating similar rocket debris salvaged by a Philippine coast guard ship. The newest debris was found on Saturday in South China Sea waters off the western province of Zambales, according to the local coast guard (PCG). “The recovered metal and plastic debris measures two meters long and four meters wide and is believed to be from a Long March 5b…
INTERVIEW: ‘Our culture is disappearing now’
Marwayit Hapiz is a renowned Uyghur artist whose vivid oil paintings of everyday Uyghur life and customs are enjoyed in China’s far-western Xinjiang region, as well as in Germany, where she has lived since 1996. She was encouraged to pursue the arts at a young age by a mother who was a master embroiderer and a father who was a musician and singer, and she began painting as a teenager. During the early 1990s, Hapiz taught courses on painting at Xinjiang Normal University in Urumqi (in Chinese, Wulumuqi) until she immigrated…
Tibetan monk sentenced to 3 years by Chinese authorities
Chinese authorities have sentenced a Tibetan monk to three years in prison after his participation in a campaign that discouraged local residents from killing and selling animals, sources told Radio Free Asia. Monlam Gyatso, a Tibetan monk, writer, and teacher from Raktam village, Serta county in Qinghai province’s Kardze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, had been held for more than a year in an undisclosed location before his sentencing in October earlier this year, sources added. One source inside Tibet, speaking to RFA on condition of anonymity for security reasons, said Monlam…
Australia news live: Penny Wong heads to China; South Australia braces for largest flood in 50 years
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Vietnamese legal expert arrested for providing information to ‘foreign entities’
A Vietnamese legal expert has been arrested for providing classified information to “foreign entities” in a move possibly linked to his support for personal property rights in the one-party communist state, RFA has learned. Hoang Ngoc Giao, director of the Institute for Policies on Law and Development under the Vietnam Union of Science and Technology, was taken into custody on Dec. 16 and charged with espionage under Clause 1, Article 110 of Vietnam’s Penal Code. Speaking to RFA by telephone, a former government official confirmed the arrest, which was not…
A wave of covid-19 reveals flaws in China’s health system
Within the next month, China’s medical institutions will face their “darkest hour”. This warning by Zhang Wenhong, a prominent doctor, has been circulated by state media. It reflects a view that not long ago would have been treated as heresy in “zero-covid” China. But with the virus now sweeping the country, including its hospitals, talk of crushing it has ceased. People are queuing for hours at fever clinics. Medical staff are falling sick in droves. In the coming weeks deaths will rise rapidly as the disease takes its toll on…
Objection by DRC sours ‘paradigm-changing’ Cop15 biodiversity deal
It was almost a special moment in the early hours of Monday morning in the Palais des congrès in Montreal. China and Canada, two squabbling adversaries, had united for the good of the planet to help the world at Cop15 forge a once-in-a-decade deal to halt the destruction of Earth’s ecosystems. From the emphasis on indigenous rights to conserving 30% of Earth for nature, there is good reason to believe the Kunming-Montreal agreement could be a truly historic, hopeful turning point in humanity’s relationship with nature after decades of destruction…
Beijing initially ‘covered up’ COVID-19 outbreak that sparked current death wave
Beijing is currently facing an extraordinary wave of deaths as COVID-19 rips through the population, amid a widespread lack of data as mass, compulsory testing is abruptly halted across the country, residents and officials told Radio Free Asia. As China moves away from the grueling lockdowns, mass tracking of citizens and daily testing that characterized Communist Party leader Xi Jinping’s zero-COVID policy, a high-ranking official in the party’s law enforcement arm said that a family member of his had died recently, and the family had had to wait five days…