Year: 2022

58 Weak Rohingya Land on Indonesian Beach After Weeks at Sea

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BANDA ACEH, Indonesia —  Dozens of hungry and weak Rohingya Muslims were found on a beach in Indonesia’s northernmost province of Aceh on Sunday after weeks at sea, officials said. The group of 58 men arrived on Indrapatra beach at Ladong, a fishing village in Aceh Besar district, early Sunday, said local police chief Rolly Yuiza Away. Villagers who saw the group of ethnic Rohingya on a rickety wooden boat helped them to land and then reported their arrival to authorities, he said. “They look very weak from hunger and…

Activists to revisit controversial ‘Where is Peng Shuai’ protests at January Australian Open

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Activists plan to reprise their controversial “Where is Peng Shuai?” protest at next month’s grand slam, with the support of three-time Australian Open winner Martina Navratilova. At this year’s Open in January, Tennis Australia was criticised for initially confiscating the shirts, citing a ban on “commercial or political” material. The decision was later reversed. Protesters say hundreds of new “Where is Peng Shuai?” shirts have already been printed with plans to hand out 1,000 to tennis fans outside the Australian Open gates. Peng disappeared from public view for several weeks…

Former Rebel Leader Becomes Nepal’s New PM 

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KATHMANDU —  The leader of former communist rebels became Nepal’s new prime minister Sunday with the support from his ex-opponent and other smaller political parties. The announcement was made by the office of President Bidhya Devi Bhandari after the Maoist communist party leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal met her to stake his claim for the prime minister following last month’s elections in a major twist in politics in the Himalayan nation. Dahal has the support of more than half the members of the newly elected House of Representatives, the lower house…

Boat with ‘dehydrated and exhausted’ Rohingya refugees lands in Indonesia

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Dozens of “dehydrated and exhausted” Rohingya refugees – all males – landed on the coast of Aceh Besar regency in Indonesia on Christmas Sunday after being at sea for about a month, local officials said. These 57 men were not part of a group of close to 200 Rohingya refugees and Bangladeshi migrants who were stranded on another boat believed to be drifting in waters north of Aceh province, according to an Indonesian NGO. As many as 20 people aboard the other boat have reportedly died at sea.    The FB Tarikul…

China’s COVID-19 Surge Raises Odds of New Coronavirus Mutation 

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Could the COVID-19 surge in China unleash a new coronavirus mutant on the world? Scientists don’t know but worry that might happen. It could be similar to omicron variants circulating there now. It could be a combination of strains. Or something entirely different, they say. “China has a population that is very large and there’s limited immunity. And that seems to be the setting in which we may see an explosion of a new variant,” said Dr. Stuart Campbell Ray, an infectious disease expert at Johns Hopkins University. Every new…

2023: China’s year to reinforce Russia ties and repair links with Europe, Asia

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He sought to portray US President Joe Biden’s alliance-based approach on China as “power politics and bullying” and urged Washington to “change its course” by rejecting bloc confrontation and zero-sum competition. “As the United States has stubbornly continued to see China as its primary competitor and engage in blatant blockade, suppression and provocation of China, China-US relations plunged into serious difficulties,” he said. Advertisement Wang blasted US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Taiwan visit in August as intimidation by a hegemonic power, and said Beijing “strongly deterred anti-China elements” in the…

Covid Is Spreading Rapidly in China, New Signs Suggest

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Since China abandoned its restrictive “zero Covid” policy about two weeks ago, the intensity and magnitude of the country’s first nationwide outbreak has remained largely a mystery. With the country ending mass testing, case counts are less useful. The government has a narrow definition of which deaths should count as caused by Covid. Anecdotal evidence, like social media postings of hospital morgues overcrowded with body bags, is quickly taken down by censors. Now, a picture is emerging of the virus spreading like wildfire. One province and three cities have reported…

China’s Zhejiang Has 1 Million Daily COVID Cases, Expected to Double

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BEIJING —  China’s Zhejiang, a big industrial province near Shanghai, is battling around a million new daily COVID-19 infections, a number expected to double in the days ahead, the provincial government said Sunday. Despite a record surge of cases nationwide, China reported no COVID deaths on the mainland for the five days through Saturday, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said Sunday. Citizens and experts have called for more accurate data as infections surged after Beijing made sweeping changes to a zero-COVID policy that had put hundreds of…

China’s Foreign Minister Signals Deeper Ties With Russia

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BEIJING —  Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi defended his country’s position on the war in Ukraine on Sunday and signaled that China would deepen ties with Russia in the coming year. Wang, speaking by video to a conference in the Chinese capital, also blamed America for the deterioration in relations between the world’s two largest economies, saying that China has “firmly rejected the United States’ erroneous China policy.” China has pushed back against Western pressure on trade, technology, human rights and its claims to a broad swath of the western…

China stops declaring daily Covid cases as wave strains hospitals, funeral services

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The NHC had released daily figures on Covid-19 infections since January 21, 2020 – during China’s first coronavirus outbreak in the central city of Wuhan. The daily releases had served as authoritative references to the scale of outbreaks under China’s erstwhile strict zero-Covid policy – with details on infections, whether confirmed and asymptomatic, domestic and imported – and the death toll. Advertisement However, the figures have become meaningless since compulsory testing was abandoned as part of easing several zero-Covid measures earlier this month. China reported 4,128 cases and no new…