Pakistan’s prime minister, Imran Khan, was ousted from office in a no-confidence vote in parliament in the early hours of Sunday after three years and seven months in power. A new government will be formed, most likely under opposition leader Shahbaz Sharif, after parliament reconvenes on Monday to vote for a new prime minister. The country of more than 220 million people lies between Afghanistan to the west, China to the north-east and India to the east, making it of vital strategic importance. Since coming to power in 2018, Khan’s…
Day: April 9, 2022
How Beethoven inspired 50 years of cultural exchange between the US and China
It was a big year for Tan Dun, the Oscar-winning Chinese musician who would go on to compose the soundtrack for the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. In the autumn of 1973, Tan, then a teenager, was sent to a rural commune in Hunan province to plant rice. China was at the height of the Cultural Revolution. One day, Tan heard a sound from a loudspeaker in the field. “Do you want to hear some interesting music? This is called ‘symphony’. The Philadelphia Orchestra is in China,” a friend said…
The rise of TikTok: why Facebook is worried about the booming social app
TikTok is on track to overtake the global advertising scale of Twitter and Snapchat combined this year, and to match mighty YouTube within two years, as trendsetting teens and young adults make it the hottest social app of the moment – and Facebook is worried. The Chinese-owned video-sharing platform is forecast to catch up with YouTube by 2024 when both are predicted to take $23.6bn (£18.2bn) in ad revenue, despite TikTok being launched globally 12 years after its Google-owned rival. Helped by unparalleled moments of cool at the height of…