Month: April 2023

Macao —  Hundreds of thousands of mainland Chinese visitors have descended on the world’s biggest gambling hub of Macao for the Labor Day holiday, packing tightly into its narrow cobblestone streets and placing bets in its glitzy casinos. The surge in visitors comes after China and its special administrative region Macao lifted strict COVID-19 restrictions in January, allowing visitors to stream into Macao for the first time in more than three years. More than 100,000 visitors arrived in the former Portuguese city each day on Saturday and Sunday, local media…

Bangkok —  A second ethnic Uyghur man has died this year from among the 50 or so Thailand has been holding in detention center limbo since 2014, amplifying calls from rights groups for their release and resettlement. The World Uyghur Congress announced the death of Mattohti Mattursun, also known as Muhammad Tursun, on April 24. It says the 40-year-old was transferred from the Suan Phlu Immigration Detention Center in Bangkok to a local hospital on April 21 but died the same day. Another Uyghur man being held at the same…

China’s manufacturing activity contracted in April, official figures showed, as global demand for goods slowed and Communist party leaders warned that a post-Covid recovery in the world’s second-largest economy had yet to gain solid footing. The National Bureau of Statistics’ purchasing managers’ index fell to 49.2 points compared with 51.9 in March, falling below analyst expectations of 51.4 in a Reuters poll. China’s non-manufacturing purchasing managers’ index, which includes the services and construction sectors, was 56.4, down from 58.4 in March but still showing expansion since President Xi Jinping ended…

China’s manufacturing activity contracted in April, official figures showed, as global demand for goods slowed and Communist party leaders warned that a post-Covid recovery in the world’s second-largest economy had yet to gain solid footing. The National Bureau of Statistics’ purchasing managers’ index fell to 49.2 points compared with 51.9 in March, falling below analyst expectations of 51.4 in a Reuters poll. China’s non-manufacturing purchasing managers’ index, which includes the services and construction sectors, was 56.4, down from 58.4 in March but still showing expansion since President Xi Jinping ended…

A dispute over airline routes between the US and China has emerged as a further sticking point in efforts to improve relations between the countries after Joe Biden and Xi Jinping agreed stabilising ties was necessary in November. The US has offered to grant Chinese airlines the same number of weekly flights between both countries as American carriers — but only if they agree not to fly over Russia, according to six people familiar with the talks. Moscow banned US carriers from flying over the country after Washington prohibited Russian…