Day: November 22, 2022

Explainer: Why Was Indonesia’s Shallow Quake So Deadly?

Chin@Strategy

Jakarta, Indonesia —  A 5.6 magnitude earthquake left more than 260 dead and hundreds injured as buildings crumbled and terrified residents ran for their lives on Indonesia’s main island of Java. Bodies continued to be pulled from the debris on Tuesday morning in the hardest-hit city of Cianjur, located in the country’s most densely populated province of West Java and some 217 kilometers (135 miles) south of the capital, Jakarta. A number of people are still missing. While the magnitude would typically be expected to cause light damage to buildings…

VP Harris in Philippines’ Palawan Island in Signal to China

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U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday visited Palawan Island in the Philippines and reaffirmed U.S. support for a U.N. ruling that rejected China’s maritime claims in the South China Sea. Harris is in the country as a show of U.S. support for its ally amid Beijing’s increasingly assertive stance in the region. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report. VOA

China’s Most Wanted: Babies

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Hong Kong —  Access to low-interest housing loans and low-income housing. Remote work. Flextime. Childcare for 2-year-olds, not just kids 3 and up. Despite these inducements designed to encourage potential parents to procreate, official statistics from Beijing indicate China’s birth rate continues to fall even though couples have been encouraged to have three children since 2021. The shift has the government pivoting to embrace a “talent dividend” — fewer young people but educated to have skills to benefit China, rather than the old “demographic dividend” — a seemingly never-ending supply…

Vietnamese court sentences couple to jail for YouTube channel content

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A Vietnamese court on Tuesday sentenced a couple to prison for “abusing democratic freedoms” on their popular social media channel by allegedly smearing Vietnamese officials, one of the defendants said. A court in Dong Nai province sentenced Nguyen Thai Hung to a four-year term and his spouse, Vu Thi Kim Hoang, to two-and-a-half years for running their “Telling the Truth TV” YouTube channel, which had nearly 40,000 followers and earned allegedly “illegal profits” of more than 384 million dong, or U.S. $15,500, from advertisements.  During the trial, police presented evidence from…

Nearly 800 properties seized by junta over alleged ties to armed resistance

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The number of properties seized by authorities in Myanmar over their owners’ alleged ties to the armed resistance has risen to 789 since last year’s coup, and has expanded to include those owned by relatives of the accused, RFA Burmese has learned. Data obtained by RFA, based on statistics from Thailand’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma) and the deposed National League for Democracy party’s Human Rights Documentation Team, showed an increase of 203 properties seized by late May, when a report by independent research group the Institute for Strategy…

China wants to “sinicise” its Catholics

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When the Vatican signed a deal with China in 2018 on the appointment of bishops, the pact was denounced by a former leader of the Catholic church in Hong Kong, Cardinal Joseph Zen. He said it would legitimise the Communist Party’s control over Chinese Catholics, and be like “giving the flock into the mouths of the wolves”. The flock has not yet been devoured, but the authorities have indeed been tightening their grip over it. They have accelerated a campaign to “sinicise” the church by making its buildings, art and…

Junta takes in US $3.8 billion in foreign investment in Myanmar’s energy sector

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Myanmar has raked in $3.8 billion in foreign investment in the nation’s key energy sector as key Asian oil firms continue to do business with the military regime despite efforts to reduce cash flows to the junta since the  February 2021 coup. Earlier this month, independent research group the Institute for Strategy and Policy (Myanmar) reported that the junta had attracted U.S. $3.8 billion to Myanmar’s energy sector between its Feb. 1, 2021, takeover and Oct. 30, 2022, or nearly 68% of all foreign investment over the same period. The…

Photos from China’s Latest Covid-19 Lockdowns

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Less than a month after softening pandemic restrictions, China has reinstated some “zero-Covid” policies in an effort to control a new wave of infections surging across the country. Covid-19 cases have climbed almost every day since late October, and China recently recorded its first coronavirus-related death in months. In response, officials have closed businesses, resumed citywide lockdowns and reinstated frequent testing requirements. China stands alone as the only major country still going to extreme lengths to eradicate Covid-19 infections, raising questions about when, if ever, its economy might fully reopen.…

China Factory Fire Kills 38

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A fire swept through a two-story factory in central China on Monday, killing 38 people in one of the most deadly fires in the country in recent years. According to a statement from local officials, the fire started around 4 p.m. at Kaixinda Trading, a wholesaler that deals in a variety of goods, in Anyang, a city in Henan Province known as a high-tech development zone that was once an ancient Chinese capital. Teams of rescue workers extinguished the fire by around 11 p.m., state media reported. On Tuesday, state…

Outbreaks Test China’s Efforts to Limit the Cost of ‘Zero Covid’

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Barely a week after no longer requiring residents to show a negative Covid test to use mass transit, the authorities in the northern Chinese city of Shijiazhuang have locked down much of the city for five days as infections surge. In Shanghai, many neighborhoods have begun requiring frequent Covid tests again only days after telling residents that the tests were seldom needed. And across much of Beijing, officials have ordered schools and many businesses to close as daily cases rose over the past week to more than 1,400 and the…