Former State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi’s legal team filed a new request Tuesday with the junta’s home ministry to meet with her in prison, sources who are close to her lawyers said, a week after the military regime lifted a COVID-19-era ban on visits to all inmates. It’s the latest appeal from the team, which is yet to receive a response despite repeated requests to the country’s Prisons Department and the Ministry of Home Affairs since the beginning of the year. Junta authorities arrested the 78-year-old Suu Kyi in…
Month: October 2023
Chinese rights lawyer Lu Siwei is out on ‘bail, pending trial’
Authorities in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan release human rights lawyer Lu Siwei on “bail, pending trial” following his forcible repatriation from Laos. Lu was repatriated to China last month after being arrested in Laos en route to join his family in the United States, in what rights activists said was yet another example of transnational law enforcement by Beijing. Police released Lu, who has been behind bars for more than three months, on “bail, pending trial,” on Oct. 28, his U.S.-based wife Zhang Chunxiao told Radio Free Asia…
US, UK, Canada Unveil New Sanctions on Supporters of Myanmar Military
Washington — The United States, Canada and Britain took aim Tuesday at sources of support to Myanmar’s military regime, building on earlier sanctions and targeting its ability to buy weapons. The fresh restrictions come more than two years after a military coup that also launched a violent campaign against democracy activists. “Burma’s military regime has repeatedly harmed civilians in airstrikes, suppressed pro-democracy movements, destroyed homes and infrastructure, and displaced millions of people” since the coup, said the U.S. Treasury Department, using another name for Myanmar. It added that the latest…
China signals tighter Communist party control of financial sector
Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the Chinese politics & policy myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. China has signalled a further tightening of centralised Communist party control over its $61tn financial sector at a closely watched quinquennial policy conference that featured warnings of widespread weak governance and deep-rooted risks in the industry. The two-day central financial work conference, chaired by President Xi Jinping, was held as Beijing searches for a new economic growth model while struggling with an anaemic post-coronavirus pandemic recovery and growing…
China signals tighter Communist party control of finance sector
Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the Chinese politics & policy myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. China has signalled a further tightening of centralised Communist party control over its $61tn financial sector at a closely watched quinquennial policy conference that featured warnings of widespread weak governance and deep-rooted risks in the industry. The two-day central financial work conference, chaired by President Xi Jinping, was held as Beijing searches for a new economic growth model while struggling with an anaemic post-pandemic recovery and growing geopolitical…
Yen under renewed pressure following BoJ policy tweak
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The yen suffered its biggest daily fall against the dollar since April on Tuesday after the Bank of Japan made only modest changes to its policy of holding down government bond yields. The Japanese currency fell 1.7 per cent against the dollar to ¥151.60, its weakest level since October last year, and close to the point at which the central bank last intervened by spending a record ¥6.35tn ($43bn) to…
Toyota to invest $8bn in North Carolina battery plant
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Toyota is pouring a further $8bn into its battery manufacturing plant in North Carolina, in the largest such investment by a foreign carmaker since the US passed the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022. The newly announced funding would take the Japanese group’s investment in the plant — one of its largest outside Japan — to about $13.9bn by 2030. It would also add about 3,000 jobs to the site it…
Gigantic ‘water vampire’ fossils found in northern China
But researchers working at the Yanliao Biota – a major depository of Jurassic-era fossils on the borders of modern-day Inner Mongolia, Hebei and Liaoning provinces – have now uncovered two 160 million-year-old lampreys that have helped them fill in the gaps. Researchers from China and France analysed the fossils – the largest of which was over 60cm (24 inches) long – and found that lampreys had already become predatory by the Jurassic period, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, and had evolved enhanced feeding structures. The fossils indicate that they were…
China: Tree-Planting at Home, Logging Abroad?
Johannesburg, South Africa — A new report accuses a Chinese company of illegal deforestation in Congo, but there’s debate over which country is responsible. Over a six-month period last year, Congo King Baisheng Forestry Development exported $5 million – or about 30 million kilograms — in illegally logged hardwood to timber conglomerate Wan Peng through Zhangjigang Port, the environmental watchdog Global Witness found in its report. The DRC’s Environment Ministry did not respond to questions about the findings, while the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., stressed that China places “great…
US sanctions Myanmar’s state energy company
The U.S. Treasury Department on Tuesday announced new sanctions against Myanmar’s state energy company – the military junta’s main source of foreign revenue – that will ban American companies from providing it with certain financial services starting from Dec. 15. The limited sanctions against Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise will be carried out in concert with the United Kingdom and Canada, a press release said, and aim to “degrade the regime’s ability to purchase weapons to carry out atrocities against the people of Burma.” From Dec. 15, U.S. companies and…