Vietnam police are continuing their investigation into corruption at the national agency responsible for vehicle registration. On Tuesday, Ho Chi Minh City Police Department’s investigation agency said it arrested Tran Ky Hinh, former director of the Vietnam Register, for taking bribes from registration center directors across the country between 2014 and 2021. It said 62-year-old Hinh, either directly or through the acting head of the Motor Vehicle Inspection Department Tran Anh Quan, took money in return for signing registration certificates for vehicles that weren’t roadworthy. Also Tuesday, police in Hoa…
Day: January 17, 2023
No Progress on Netherlands Joining US Chip-Export Ban to China
In his meeting with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte on Tuesday at the White House, President Joe Biden appeared to have made no progress to get the Netherlands to support U.S. restrictions on exporting chip-making technology to China, a key part of Washington’s strategy in its rivalry against Beijing. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report. VOA
Satellites Capture Increased Traffic at 2 Chinese Funeral Homes
Washington — Satellite images of lines of cars and jammed parking lots at crematoriums far from Beijing suggest a much higher death toll than the official count of some 60,000 people that Beijing has acknowledged since it relaxed its “zero-COVID” policy in December. The photos obtained by VOA Korean through the satellite imagery company Planet Labs showed long queues of vehicles in front of some funeral homes in late December. Judging from image databases released by the company and Google Earth Pro, the funeral homes in Guangzhou’s Panyu District 2,161…
Far from Beijing, Families Struggle With COVID’s Toll
Washington — Taixing, a city of nearly 1 million people in Jiangsu Province, is richly red in Chinese Communist Party history, landmarks and revolutionary traditions. On Wenchang West Road, there’s a noteworthy new marker: the crematorium attached to the Taixing Funeral Parlor. According to local residents, there are at least seven furnaces transforming hundreds of individually labeled corpses into ashes each day. So busy is the Taixing Funeral Parlor that the body of Jun Cheng’s uncle, believed to be about 80 years old when he died December 29, remained at…
China ends de facto ban on Marvel films after more than three years
China has ended its de facto ban on Marvel films, with superhero flicks Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania both locking in surprise release dates, after a three-and-a-half-year gap that has cost Disney hundreds of millions in ticket sales. The films will be released in February, after Chinese new year, marking the first Marvel releases in the world’s second-largest theatrical market since Avengers: Endgame in 2019. Foreign film releases are approved or denied by regulators at the China Film Administration, which is part of the Chinese…
In nightmarish account, villagers describe junta raid that left 9 civilians dead
Daw Aye was cooking rice when junta troops quietly entered her village in Myanmar’s northern Sagaing region – a stronghold of armed resistance against the military since the 2021 coup – and grabbed her three sons. She dropped everything and ran out to find that the soldiers had forced her sons to lie facedown in the dirt with their hands tied behind their back. The soldiers then began kicking them – Aung Ko, 35, San Naing, 21, and Nay Myo Aung, 17 – as they begged for mercy. “I cried…
UN Blacklists Pakistani Militant After China Lifts Block
ISLAMABAD — China on Tuesday defended its decision to allow the United Nations to designate an anti-India militant leader as a global terrorist, saying the designation would enhance international cooperation against terrorism. Abdul Rehman Makki, 68, who is currently serving an unspecified jail term in Pakistan on terror charges, was added to the U.N. Security Council’s sanctions list on Monday. India and the United States jointly proposed the listing last June, but China, a close ally of Pakistan, placed a so-called “technical hold” on the proposal, which it removed on…
China takes great leap forward in Australia’s car market with EVs leading the charge
China is rapidly becoming one of the largest sources of new cars for Australian buyers with Chinese carmakers’ increasing dominance of electric vehicle sales in their home market potentially accelerating the transition off fossil-fuel powered transport. In 2022, sales of Chinese-made vehicles in Australia totalled 122,845 units, a 61.1% increase on the previous year, according to Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries data. In December, imports from China were more than double a year earlier. The increase made China the fourth-largest import source, narrowing the gap with larger rivals. Cars sourced…
Netherlands Considers Sending Patriot Missile System to Ukraine
WASHINGTON — Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands said on Tuesday that his country was considering sending a Patriot missile system to Ukraine, a move that would bolster Kyiv’s air defenses and help repel Russian strikes. Mr. Rutte, seated next to President Biden in the Oval Office, said that a Russian attack on the city of Dnipro, which killed dozens of people in one residential building, had strengthened “our resolve to stay with Ukraine” amid deepening concerns over the Ukrainians’ ability to withstand another possible offensive by Moscow. “We…
China’s population drops for the first time since 1960s famine
China’s population has decreased for the first time in over 60 years, signaling the start of long-term decline that will bring demographic challenges for the world’s second-largest economy as well as the world. Last year, 9.56 million babies were born in China, while 10.41 billion people died, a yearly decrease of 850,000 to 1,411,750,000 people, according to data published by China’s National Bureau of Statistics. It was the first decline since 1961, the final year of the famine brought on by failing economic policies during Mao Zedong’s “Great Leap Forward,”…