From 31m ago Inflation in rental prices expected to increase: Treasury You may have noticed he mentioned rental increases there. It is not great news for that already tight market, according to Treasury: Rising housing costs remain a source of cost-of-living pressures for many households. Inflation in newly advertised rental prices has been rising sharply for around a year, reaching 10 per cent nationally in January. The national vacancy rate has reached a near-record low of around 1%. Despite the slowdown in population growth during the pandemic, underlying demand for…
Author: Chin@Strategy
UN efforts in Myanmar fail in implementation: Shadow government, aid groups
Myanmar’s shadow government and aid groups have welcomed the United Nations’ efforts to assist millions amid widespread armed conflict in the country, but say they must be better implemented if they are to be effective. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) recently announced that 17.6 million people, or nearly one-third of Myanmar’s population of 55 million, need humanitarian assistance two years after the military seized power in a coup. In the 24 months since the coup, the number of people displaced by conflict had grown to…
China’s Xi Hosting Iranian President Amid Tensions with US
beijing — Chinese President Xi Jinping will hold talks with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi during his visit to China over the next three days, state media reported on Tuesday, amid rising tensions with the United States. Ahead of his visit, Raisi wrote an editorial in China’s state-controlled People’s Daily in which he said both countries believe that unilateralism and “violent” measures such as the imposition of “unjust” sanctions are the main causes of crises and insecurity in the world. In the editorial, Raisi described China as an “old friend,” and…
China’s Xi Calls for Early Resolution of Iran Nuclear Issue
BEIJING — China’s President Xi Jinping on Tuesday called for the early and proper resolution of the Iran nuclear issue while expressing his support for the Islamic Republic in safeguarding its rights and interests, according to Chinese state media. China will continue to “participate constructively” in talks to resume negotiations on implementing the Iran nuclear agreement, Xi told Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi in talks in Beijing. A 2015 nuclear agreement limited Iran’s uranium enrichment program to make it harder for Tehran to develop nuclear arms, in return for lifting international…
Illegal gold mining expanding unchecked under junta in Myanmar’s Kachin state
A rapid expansion in illegal gold mining since the military coup is poisoning the water supply in Myanmar’s Kachin state and destroying the livelihoods of residents who say the ethnic Kachin group that administers the region has failed to police the sector. 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…
Myanmar’s opposition opens foreign ministry office in US
Myanmar’s opposition National Unity Government officially opened a shadow embassy in Washington on Monday, with a U.S. State Department official at the event using a speech to reject the legitimacy of elections planned by the military junta later this year. The so-called NUG has set up a government-in-exile after the military took power from a democratically elected government in a February 2021 coup. The foreign minister of this shadow government, Zin Mar Aung, said at the opening that the passage of the Burma Act as part of last year’s defense…
US: No Initial Evidence 3 Downed Objects Linked to China or Other Foreign Spying
Washington — The U.S. government said Tuesday that so far it has no evidence that the three airborne objects it shot down last weekend over North America were linked to China or any other foreign spy program. U.S. investigators “thus far haven’t seen any indication or anything that points specifically to the idea that these three objects were part of [China’s] spy balloon program or that they were definitely involved in external intelligence collection efforts,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters at the White House. Kirby said the…
How China’s police are ensnaring thousands of suspects abroad
America’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has a web page called “The China Threat”. It is often updated with links to news about the bureau’s efforts to counter it. Top of the list is the FBI’s investigation of a Chinese balloon that was shot down by an American fighter jet off the coast of South Carolina on February 4th. But if you look closely there are plenty of other startling areas of Chinese subterfuge and surveillance. Among the most surprising is China’s pursuit of fugitives beyond its borders. The scale…
Can Huawei Defy Geopolitical Gravity This Time?
Advertisement The Biden administration is reportedly considering cutting off Huawei from all U.S. suppliers, including Qualcomm and Intel, according to Reuters. The unnamed sources quoted in the Reuters report revealed that the administration is working on a new policy, aiming at denying Huawei access to technology below 5G level, including items related to 4G, cloud items, WiFi 6 and 7, high-performance computing, and artificial intelligence (AI). This is not the first time Huawei, a Chinese telecommunications giant, has been targeted by Washington. In 2019, the behemoth was crippled after being…
Xinjiang governor cancels Europe trip after outcry from politicians and activists
The chairman of China’s far-western Xinjiang region, Erkin Tuniyaz, has canceled a trip to the United Kingdom and the European Union after an outcry from politicians and Uyghur activists who said welcoming him would tacitly condone China’s human rights abuses of Uyghurs. The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, a coalition of international legislators that seek to coordinate and reform how democratic countries approach Beijing, tweeted that sources in the UK government said that the meeting between Tuniyaz and UK officials was canceled. Among Uyghur activist and exile groups, Tuniyaz – a…