Month: May 2023

Russia Denounces West Over Drone Strike on Moscow

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A day after a drone strike on Moscow, Kremlin officials jumped on the refusal of Ukrainian allies to denounce the attack as proof that Russia’s real war was with the West. The Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, said Russia “would have preferred to hear at least some words of condemnation” from Western capitals. “We will calmly and deliberately think how to deal with this,” he said. While none of Ukraine’s allies went so far as to endorse the drone attack, Britain’s foreign secretary said on Tuesday that Kyiv had “the…

Myanmar troops torch Sagaing region village a second time

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Disaster has once again hit a community in northwestern Myanmar’s war-torn Sagaing region. Junta troops on Monday burned down 17 homes in Mon Taing Pin village in Ye-U township, a former local lawmaker and resident said.  It was the same army battalion that massacred 29 villagers and torched more than 70 homes there in May 2022. Other Myanmar troops and supporting militias torched 30 homes in Kyunhla township on May 29 and 30, forcing more than 3,000 residents to flee, according to villagers.  Sagaing has been an anti-junta stronghold and…

US Warns ‘Alarming Increase’ in Aggressive Chinese Intercepts

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pentagon —  U.S. defense officials are warning of an “alarming increase” in aggressive intercepts from Chinese military aircraft and vessels following a close encounter between a Chinese fighter jet and a U.S. military plane in international airspace over the South China Sea last week. These “risky” intercepts have the “potential to create an unsafe incident or miscalculation,” said two U.S. defense officials who spoke about the incident on the condition of anonymity. On Tuesday, the U.S. released footage of what it called an “unnecessarily aggressive maneuver” by a Chinese fighter…

Junta clamps down on displaying photos of Aung San Suu Kyi

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Military junta authorities are threatening – and sometimes arresting – people who display photos of Myanmar’s former leader Aung San Suu Kyi in their homes, residents in Yangon, Mandalay and the Ayeyarwaddy region told Radio Free Asia.  In Ayeyarwady, soldiers and police often make surprise visits to civilian homes to check for any unregistered guests. If they see pictures of prominent politicians, including Suu Kyi, hanging on walls or stored on mobile phones, they threaten them with arrest, residents said. “Of course they have malice toward her,” said a resident…

Journalists Expelled in China-India Visa Fight

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China said on Wednesday it had taken “appropriate” action in response to what it called India’s “unfair and discriminatory” treatment of Chinese journalists, in the latest move that underscores rising tensions between the Asian countries. The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that China and India have expelled nearly all of each other’s journalists in recent weeks. The Indian government in May rejected visa renewals for the last two Chinese state media journalists in the country, the newspaper said. One works for Xinhua and the other works for China Central Television.…

After grueling jungle trek, Chinese social media satirist to apply for U.S. asylum

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Performance artist and social media personality Chen Shaotian, also known as Brother Tian, is hoping to apply for political asylum in the United States this week after documenting his hazardous trek through the Central American rainforest. “Ladies and gentlemen! I have arrived in Quito!” the bearded, cigarette-smoking Chen tells his online audience in a video clip dated May 17 as he arrived in the Ecuadorian capital to embark on the overland leg of his journey to the United States, known in China as “walking the line.”  Chen, who has previously…

Three accused of harassing Chinese dissident stand trial in ‘Fox Hunt’ case

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A former New York police officer and two Chinese nationals were accused of attempting to intimidate a Chinese dissident and his family in the US, as the first federal trial over Beijing’s alleged co-ordinated attempts to forcibly repatriate citizens got under way in Brooklyn. Michael McMahon, a retired New York Police Department sergeant working as a private investigator, along with Zhu Yong of Queens and Zheng Congying of Brooklyn, were directly or indirectly “instructed by Chinese government officials to track down” the alleged victim at his home in suburban New…

First US trial over China’s ‘Operation Fox Hunt’ gets under way in Brooklyn

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A former New York police officer and two Chinese nationals were accused of attempting to intimidate a Chinese dissident and his family in the US, as the first federal trial over Beijing’s alleged co-ordinated attempts to forcibly repatriate citizens got under way in Brooklyn. Michael McMahon, a retired New York Police Department sergeant working as a private investigator, along with Zhu Yong of Queens and Zheng Congying of Brooklyn, were directly or indirectly “instructed by Chinese government officials to track down” the alleged victim at his home in suburban New…

China’s young want to work. For the government.

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China is a land of remarkable statistics. But an official figure published on May 16th still managed to stand out. The unemployment rate among China’s urban youth, aged between 16 and 24, exceeded one in five in April. The figure boggles the mind for a variety of reasons. China is running short of young people. It is trying, without much success, to raise the birth rate. Its economic future hangs on increased education, which could improve the quality of its workers even as their quantity declines. China is also famous…