Day: January 4, 2023

Too little too late? Chinese developer misses bond payment even as the state dives in to save ailing property sector

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A Chinese developer has defaulted on two dollar bonds and is halting payments on offshore notes, the latest delinquencies despite a plethora of recent government steps to ease the sector’s liquidity crunch. Times China Holdings did not pay coupons on two dollar notes before grace periods ended within the past week, it said in a Wednesday night filing with Hong Kong’s stock exchange. An event of default occurs if the company fails to pay interest within 30 days of the due date, according to a circular for one of Times…

Australian health minister suggests pre-flight China tests designed to make Beijing share more data on Covid outbreak

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Australia’s health minister says he wants pre-flight Covid testing for travellers from China to be “temporary”, suggesting the requirement could be lifted if Beijing shares more information about its outbreak. Mark Butler suggested on Thursday – the first day of the new testing regime – that the measure was put in place as part of an international push for China to provide real-time data on the genomic sequencing of Covid cases. The Australian government’s response drew criticism from the Coalition opposition for departing from health advice, while China’s warning of…

Hanoi court sentences former AIC chairwoman to 30 years in prison

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Hanoi People’s Court has sentenced the former chairwoman and general director of Advanced International Joint Stock Company – known as AIC – to a total of 30 years in prison. Nguyen Thi Thanh Nhan has evaded arrest and is hiding abroad. Nhan was accused of masterminding bid-rigging to win 16 contracts to supply medical equipment to Dong Nai General Hospital, in Dong Nai province northeast of Ho Chi Minh City. AIC made a profit of VND150 billion (U.S.$6.3 million) on the deals. She was charged in absentia with violating bidding…

INTERVIEW: ‘I think we have the beginning of mutual understanding’

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U.K.-based rights activist Rahima Mahmut has long been a vocal critic of the Chinese government, taking aim at the mass incarceration, surveillance and persecution of the Uyghur ethnic group in Xinjiang and countering Beijing’s official propaganda from overseas. She has recently also made common cause with majority ethnic Han Chinese people studying in Britain, not least during a series of protests in London in solidarity with the political events in China that marked the last months of 2022. A long-term resident of the United Kingdom, Mahmut spoke to RFA’s Mandarin…

Myanmar Junta Releases 7,012 Inmates From Prison

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Freedom is bittersweet for Htin Lin Oo, a former official in the government of Aung San Suu Kyi and one of the 7,012 prisoners released by Myanmar’s ruling junta Wednesday to mark the 75th anniversary the nation’s independence from Britain. “I have no feelings on the issue of being released from prison, but I was ashamed because the people who were imprisoned with me remained in the prison cells,” the former National League for Democracy information officer told VOA by telephone after his release from Yangon’s Insein prison. Htin Lin…

As Lunar New Year Nears, Beijing Braces for Rural COVID

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Hong Kong/Washington —  Wang Xiaodong lives in Qatar, where he imports Chinese-made construction material. His home on the Arabian Peninsula is thousands of kilometers away from his family’s village deep in the mountains of China’s southern Yunnan province. The hamlet is so remote that few of the 600 villagers ever visit a hospital, and just last week, Wang Xiaodong’s mother told him that COVID-19 had arrived to infect “everyone in the village.” A few people, mostly older folks, died, as did a 17-year-old girl, he told VOA Mandarin. Wang Xiaodong’s…

China’s unfolding tragedy

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In early December, China suddenly reversed its “zero Covid” policy. That set off a wave of infections that has swept across the nation, overwhelming hospitals and funeral parlors. Two events this month could further inflame the already raging outbreak. On Sunday, the country will reopen to tourists, and visitors will no longer be required to quarantine upon arrival. A few weeks later, China will celebrate Lunar New Year, the country’s biggest holiday — typically the largest annual migration of people on the planet. For insight into the situation in China,…

Hong Kong Allows Cardinal Zen to Attend Benedict’s Funeral

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hong kong —  Hong Kong’s outspoken Roman Catholic Cardinal Joseph Zen was allowed to leave the southern Chinese city to pay his respects to the late Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI in Vatican City, his secretary said Tuesday. Zen, a 90-year-old retired bishop, will attend the funeral Mass, led by Pope Francis, at St. Peter’s Square on Thursday and return to Hong Kong on Saturday, the secretary said. Zen was elevated to cardinal by Benedict in 2006, which he said signaled the pope’s focus on China. In recent years, the democracy…

Vietnam arrests a man who made critical Facebook comments about his employer

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Vietnamese authorities arrested a man on Tuesday on unknown charges after he posted two short messages on his Facebook page that appeared to criticize his former employer, a water purification company. The first post on Hoang Van Vuong’s page said, “Whoever has party membership should establish clean water companies to sell dirty water but receive payments for clean water. Easy earn!”  The second post said, “Clean water companies provide dirty water. Who is held responsible?” Vietnam has come down hard in recent years on activists and individuals who make critical…

Nate Thayer, Journalist Who Interviewed Pol Pot, Dead at 62

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WASHINGTON —  Nate Thayer, the larger-than-life American freelance journalist who scored a massive scoop with his 1997 interview with Pol Pot, the genocidal leader of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge, has died at 62, his family said Wednesday. Thayer was discovered dead by his brother Rob Thayer at his Falmouth, Massachusetts, home Tuesday. “He had a lot of ailments. He was seriously ill for many months,” the brother told Agence France-Presse. Nate Thayer spent years reporting on Cambodia politics and society, including the Khmer Rouge, the brutal communist regime that left more…