A fire at a factory in the Chinese city of Anyang in Henan province has killed 38 people, state media People’s Daily reported on Tuesday. The fire started at 16:22 local time (08:22 GMT) on Monday at Kaixinda Trading in the city’s “high-tech” district, and was completely extinguished around 11pm, according to local government’s release. The notice also said police had detained a suspect. Two other people have been hospitalised for minor injuries. BBC
Thirty-eight people have died after a fire at a company dealing in chemicals and other industrial goods in central China, local authorities said. The fire broke out in Anyang city, in the central Henan Province about 4.30pm on Monday and it took firefighters about three-and-a-half hours to bring the blaze at the premises of Kaixinda Trading Co under control, the local Wenfang district government said. No details have yet been given on the cause of the fire or how so many employees were killed. Online listings for Kaixinda said it…
Beijing shut parks and museums on Tuesday, and more Chinese cities resumed mass testing for Covid-19, as China fights a fresh nationwide spike in cases that has deepened concerns about its economy. China reported 28,127 new local cases nationally for Monday, nearing its daily infection peak in April, with cases in the southern city of Guangzhou and the southwestern municipality of Chongqing accounting for about half of the total. In the capital, Beijing, cases have hit a fresh record high, prompting calls for more residents to stay put. There were…
Jailed Radio Free Asia blogger Nguyen Tuong Thuy and six other activists have been awarded the 2022 Human Rights Prize by the U.S.-based Vietnam Human Rights Network (VHRN). The other recipients include poet Tran Duc Thach and members of the Vietnam National Self-Determination Coalition. All of this year’s recipients are serving long prison sentences. Thuy, 72, is serving 11-years for “propaganda against the state.” Thach was sentenced to 12 years on the charge of “activities aimed at overthrowing the government.” The Vietnam National Self-Determination Coalition consisted of Luu Van Vinh,…
A fire at a factory in the Chinese city of Anyang in Henan province has killed 36 people, with two others injured, state media reported on Tuesday. The fire broke out at Kaixinda Trading Co. in the Wenfeng District, or “High-tech Zone,” in Anyang City, the report said. The fire started Monday afternoon and fire teams sent 63 vehicles to the scene, according to local media. The fire was controlled by 8 p.m. local time (1200 GMT) and extinguished at 11 p.m. By Tuesday morning 36 people were reported dead…
Vietnamese prisoner of conscience Phan Van Thu, who founded an independent sect of Buddhism that later became outlawed by the communist government, died Sunday in prison, the wife of another prisoner of conscience in the same jail said. Thu, 74, founder of the An Dan Dai Dao religious group, was serving a life sentence in Gia Trung Detention Center in the southern province of Gia Lai. Thu complained Friday of feeling ill to fellow prisoner of conscience, Luu Van Vinh, who told his wife, Nguyen Thi Thap. Vinh escorted Thu back…
Mr. Bao’s wife, Jiang Zongcao, died on Aug. 21 at 90. Their deaths have been widely mourned by friends and supporters in China, although official media have not mentioned the deaths and social media sites have tried to stifle the news. Bao Tong was born on Nov. 5, 1932, in Haining, Zhejiang Province, in eastern China, the third of six children. His father, Bao Peiren, a manager in an enamel products factory, and his mother, Wu Heng, a homemaker, immersed their children in learning. The family fled the Japanese invasion…
Cambodia’s government used the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse for busting unions by jailing union members, preventing new unions from being formed, and stopping strikes and protests, a new report by Human Rights Watch said. The report said that in addition to abusing coronavirus restrictions to crack down on workers asserting their rights, authorities also allowed employers to ignore labor regulations and treat workers unfairly in violation of Cambodian labor laws. “The Cambodian government and unscrupulous employers used the Covid-19 pandemic as an excuse to further restrict independent unions instead…
Three years after protesters at Hong Kong’s Polytechnic University fought pitched battles with columns of riot police and armored cars, many supporters of the city’s vanishing freedoms are now in exile. The 11-day siege of PolyU began on Nov. 18, 2019, after around 1,000 protesters occupied the university as part of an ongoing series of actions to achieve the movement’s key demands: fully democratic elections; the withdrawal of plans to allow extradition to mainland China; greater official and police accountability; and an amnesty for detained protesters. The protesters were then…
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