Year: 2022

Lonely, Single and Over 50? China Has a Game Show for That.

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The introductory music was thumping, the male dating show contestant had walked onstage, and now came the interview portion, where female guests asked questions. One of the women launched right in. “Hello, sir,” said the 59-year-old woman, Yu Xia, scrutinizing the prospect intently through her rectangular glasses. “Is your child a son or a daughter? You said your wife died three years ago — have you come out from that shadow? And your health, it’s pretty good, right?” Welcome to one of China’s hottest new genres of television: dating shows…

Book Review: ‘Ghost Music,’ by An Yu

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GHOST MUSIC, by An Yu Not much is known about the inner life of mushrooms, but we can guess at the presence of a sort of subterranean sociality from the extensive networks of underground filaments that link individual organisms to a vast community of plants, tree roots and other fungi. Although the mushroom’s cap and stalk are its most obvious features, they are only the visible signs of a deeper life — the way that the tip of an iceberg hints at the bulk obscured below, the white and black…

Chinese City Seeing Half a Million COVID Cases A Day, Official Says

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BEIJING —  Half a million people in a single Chinese city are being infected with COVID-19 every day, a senior health official has said, in a rare and quickly censored acknowledgement that the country’s wave of infections is not being reflected in official statistics. China this month has rapidly dismantled key pillars of its zero-COVID strategy, doing away with snap lockdowns, lengthy quarantines and travel curbs in a jarring reversal of its hallmark containment strategy. Cities across the country have struggled to cope as surging infections have emptied pharmacy shelves,…

‘Serpent’ Serial Killer Charles Sobhraj Arrives in France After Release

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PARIS —  French serial killer Charles Sobhraj, responsible for multiple murders in the 1970s across Asia, arrived in France on Saturday after almost 20 years in prison in Nepal. Nepal’s top court ruled on Wednesday that he should be freed on health grounds and deported to France within 15 days. On Friday, he was released and put on a flight at Kathmandu airport to take him to Paris via Doha. While on the flight to Doha, he insisted to an AFP journalist that he was “innocent.” Sobhraj’s life was chronicled…

China Expresses ‘Resolute Opposition’ to US Defense Act

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shanghai —  China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Saturday expressed “strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition” towards the U.S. National Defense Authorization Act, which was signed into law by U.S. President Biden the day before. It charged that the $858 billion military spending measure, which authorized up to $10 billion in security assistance and fast-tracked weapons procurement for Taiwan, contained provisions that “cause serious damage to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.” China considers Taiwan its territory and has never renounced using to force to bring the island under its…

Rabuka Confirmed as Fiji Prime Minister After Close Election

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MELBOURNE, Australia —  Sitiveni Rabuka was confirmed as Fiji’s next prime minister Saturday, more than two decades after the former military commander first held the office in a term lasting nearly seven years. The 74-year-old won the nomination by one vote over incumbent Frank Bainimarama at a sitting of the Fijian Parliament in Suva. Rabuka, the head of the People’s Alliance Party, was elevated to the position after forming a majority coalition with two other parties following last week’s close and contentious election. He will be officially sworn in later…

Chinese city seeing half a million Covid cases a day – local health chief

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Half a million people a day are being infected with Covid-19 in a single Chinese city, a senior health official has said, in a rare and quickly censored acknowledgment that the country’s wave of infections is not being reflected in official statistics. A news outlet operated by the ruling Communist party in Qingdao reported the municipal health chief as saying that the eastern city was seeing “between 490,000 and 530,000” new Covid cases a day. The coastal city of about 10 million people was “in a period of rapid transmission…

China Sanctions 2 US Citizens Over Action on Tibet

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Beijing —  China has sanctioned two U.S. citizens in retaliation for action taken by Washington over human rights abuses in Tibet, the government said Friday, amid an ongoing standoff between the sides over Beijing’s treatment of religious and ethnic minorities. The Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Todd Stein and Miles Yu Maochun, along with their close family members, would be banned from entering China. Any assets they had in China would be frozen and they would be barred from contact with people or organizations within China. The notice…

Myanmar’s casualties of war face a perilous journey

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It was pitch black when Ku Phe Law stepped on a landmine and shattered his legs during a skirmish with Myanmar junta troops in eastern Kayah State earlier this year.  Drifting in and out of consciousness, the Karenni Nationalities Defence Force (KNDF) soldier was then taken on a grueling eight-hour car journey in a bid to save his life. “It was quite far and it took a long time to reach. I don’t know what happened next,” said the 23-year-old, recalling how he ended up in a clinic close to…

China’s Stretched Health System Braces for Peak in COVID Infections

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BEIJING/SHANGHAI —  China is expecting a peak in COVID-19 infections within a week, a health official said, with authorities predicting extra strain on the country’s health system even as they downplay the disease’s severity and continue to report no new deaths. In the face of a surging outbreak and widespread protests against its “zero-COVID” regime of lockdowns and testing, China began dismantling it this month, becoming the last major country to move toward living with the virus. Its containment measures had slowed the $17 trillion economy to its lowest growth…