Villagers have discovered the mutilated, charred bodies of five locals, who were arrested in Indaw township in Myanmar’s northerly Sagaing region a month earlier, according to an official from the Indaw Revolution anti-junta militia. He identified the men as 25-year-old Nyi Nyi; 25-year-old Law Shote; 38-year-old Aung Min Thike; 38-year-old Nay Lin Tun; and 48-year-old Poe Shan, all from Man He village. The men, discovered in a nearby forest Monday, were arrested when a junta column entered the village on March 24. The Indaw Revolution official, who declined to be…
Day: April 26, 2023
China Offers to Act as Mediator in Russian War With Ukraine
China says it wants to act as a mediator in the Russia’s war on Ukraine. Both Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed they spoke by phone Wednesday, a conversation Kyiv has been asking for. VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports. VOA
US, South Korea Declare Enhanced Partnership to Deter North Korea
The United States and South Korea signed a landmark agreement Wednesday that gives Seoul a greater decision-making role in U.S. contingency planning against a possible North Korea nuclear attack, in exchange for Seoul agreeing not to pursue its own nuclear weapons program. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from the White House. VOA
Ping An to tighten screws on HSBC in push for structural reform
Over the past few years, Ping An has operated behind the scenes in attempting to persuade HSBC to spin off its businesses in Asia. The Chinese insurer seems to be changing tack. Until now, Ping An has focused on private talks with the bank over a structural revamp, in the hope that unshackling Asia from the rest of the global group will unlock higher returns. The bank’s largest shareholder made a rare public comment last November to back its case. The polite dialogue took a turn last week when both…
China’s Search Engines Have More Than 66,000 Rules Controlling Content, Report Says
China’s internet censorship is well known, but a report has quantified the extent of it, uncovering more than 66,000 rules controlling the content that is available to people using search engines. The most diligent censor, by at least one measure, is Microsoft’s search engine Bing, the only foreign search engine operating in the country, according to the report, which was released on Wednesday by the Citizen Lab, a cybersecurity research group at the University of Toronto. The findings suggested that China’s censorship apparatus had become not only more pervasive, but…
Chinese vice-president’s coronation appearance would be ‘outrageous’, say Tories
Senior Conservative MPs have labelled the expected attendance of China’s vice-president at King Charles’s coronation as “outrageous”. Han Zheng, who was recently appointed as president Xi Jinping’s deputy, is expected to represent China at the May event, Politico reported. Former Tory leader and longstanding China critic Sir Iain Duncan Smith described him as “responsible for trashing” China’s Hong Kong treaty with Britain by overseeing a crackdown on the territory’s freedoms. Tim Loughton, a member of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, said his presence would be “an insult to the freedom-loving…
Biden warns North Korea that a nuclear attack would mean end of the regime
U.S. President Joe Biden warned North Korea on Wednesday that any nuclear attack on the United States or its allies would result in an end to the isolated regime while promising closer cooperation with South Korea on deterring the nuclear threat. “Look, a nuclear attack by North Korea against the United States or its allies or partisans or partners is unacceptable and will result in the end of whatever regime [takes] such an action,” Biden said during a press conference following a summit with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol,…
Illegal gold mining up ten-fold in Kachin state since Myanmar coup
Illegal gold mining has increased ten-fold in Myanmar’s Kachin state since the military seized power in a coup more than two years ago, a new report and sources said, amid a decrease in federal oversight in the region. Illegal mining of gold, as well as jade and rare earth minerals, is rampant in Kachin state, where successive governments have failed to regulate the industry for generations. However, the number of unsanctioned operations has ballooned since the military’s Feb. 1, 2021, takeover amid conflict between junta troops and armed resistance forces…
Charles Lieber, Ex-Harvard Professor, Sentenced in China Ties Case
Background Dr. Lieber, now 64, had been chairman of Harvard’s chemistry and chemical biology department. For his work on nanotechnology, he had been seen by some as a contender for the Nobel Prize. Since 2008, prosecutors said, his laboratory at Harvard had received research grants totaling $18 million from the Department of Defense and the National Institutes of Health. But he also secretly accepted money from China, which had established a government initiative, the Thousand Talents program, to gain access to scientific knowledge and expertise, often paying scientists lavishly. When…
Uyghur death in Thai refugee detention center raises alarm among rights groups
The death of a Uyghur detainee held in a refugee detention center in Thailand has intensified calls from human rights organizations for Thai authorities to provide better living conditions and health services for Uyghur inmates and to allow them to apply for asylum. Mettohti Metqurban, 40, a Uyghur refugee from China’s Xinjiang region, died in the Bangkok facility last week due to suspected liver failure — the fifth Uyghur to perish in a Thai immigration detention center since 2018, and the second one to die this year. Rights organizations have…