Authorities in Ho Chih Minh City say they plan to prosecute an influencer and businesswoman for slandering celebrities on her social media channels. Police wound up their investigation Thursday, and handed the case to the People’s Procuracy to charge Dai Nam Joint Stock Company General Director Nguyen Phoung Hang, 52, and two of her employees with “abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the state, the legitimate rights and interests of organizations and individuals,” Ho Chih Minh City Police said. The employees named in the suit are Hang’s…
Day: January 30, 2023
China winds back online study ban after students left scrambling to get to Australia
The Chinese government has wound back its snap ban on recognising online degrees obtained from foreign institutions after tens of thousands of students were left scrambling for flights. The ban, announced on Saturday, required all Chinese students enrolled to study online with overseas providers to be on campus for semester one – due to start in a matter of weeks in Australia. At the time of the announcement there were about 50,000 Chinese nationals with student visas for Australia but remained offshore, 8,000 of whom had visas due to expire…
China GDP: IMF says 5.2 per cent economic growth possible this year after Covid-battered 2022
Still, there are a number of downside risks originating from China that will impact the global outlook. One of which is the country’s economic recovery stalling due to the rampant spread of Covid-19 since last month. The Chinese population’s immunity levels remain low, and many hospitals have been struggling to handle the subsequent surge in patients, especially outside major urban areas. Another major source of vulnerability for the global economy is China’s strained real estate market. Weak consumer demand and supply-chain issues could also have spillover effects on the rest…
IMF Upgrades Global Economic Outlook as Inflation Eases
WASHINGTON — The International Monetary Fund said on Monday that the global economy was expected to slow this year as central banks continued to raise interest rates to tame inflation, but it also suggested that growth would be more resilient than previously anticipated and that a global recession would probably be avoided. The I.M.F. upgraded its economic growth projections for 2023 and 2024 in its closely watched World Economic Outlook report, pointing to resilient consumers and the reopening of China’s economy as among the reasons for a more optimistic outlook. The fund…
When might China invade Taiwan? Depends who you ask
When will China invade Taiwan? Probably by 2027, if you believe Adm. Philip Davidson, the now-retired head of the U.S. military’s Indo-Pacific Command. “The threat is manifest during this decade – in fact, in the next six years,” Davidson told a U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee hearing in March 2021, before he retired from the role. “I cannot for the life of me understand some of the capabilities that they’re putting in the field, unless … it is an aggressive posture,” he added, noting Taiwan was key to Beijing’s plans…
New Czech President Vows to Boost Ties with Taiwan
Prague — Czech President-elect Petr Pavel vowed Monday to boost his country’s ties with Taiwan after holding a phone call with the island’s president and foreign minister. President Tsai Ing-wen congratulated Pavel on his win in Saturday’s presidential run-off over the populist billionaire Andrej Babis. “I thanked her for her congratulations, and I assured her that Taiwan and the Czech Republic share the values of freedom, democracy, and human rights,” Pavel said on Twitter. “We agreed on strengthening our partnership,” added the former general, who served as head of NATO’s…
China Province: Single Women Can Legally Have Babies
beijing — Health authorities in China’s southwestern province of Sichuan will allow unmarried individuals to raise a family and enjoy benefits reserved for married couples, in the latest effort to bolster a falling birth rate. The government dictates that only married women are legally allowed to give birth, but with marriage and birth rates having fallen to record lows in recent years, provincial authorities revamped a 2019 rule to cover singles who want to have children. From February 15, married couples and any individuals who want offspring will be allowed…
Blinken visit unlikely to fix US-China differences, but Russia a possible area of progress: analysts
However, differences over Taiwan present the sharpest areas of disagreement owing to assessments of a possible armed conflict across the Taiwan Strait, making Blinken’s trip crucial in offsetting military rhetoric with diplomacy, said Michael Swaine, a senior fellow at the Quincy Institute, a Washington think tank. [embedded content] “In a larger context of growing distrust over the overall motives of the other side in which China sees the US as supposedly trying to weaken and contain China [and] the US sees China supposedly trying to achieve dominance in Asia ……
US General’s Bellicose China Memo Highlights Civilian-Military Divide
A controversial memo from a U.S. Air Force general predicting war with China in 2025 may reflect a growing disconnect between the way the United States’ civilian and military leadership view the relationship between the world’s two largest economic powers. In the memo, which began circulating online over the weekend, General Michael Minihan opens with the stark statement, “I hope I am wrong. My gut tells me we will fight in 2025.” Minihan, in charge of the Air Force’s Air Mobility Command (AMC), a 5,000-person unit focused on logistics, offers…
TikTok’s chief executive to testify before Congress in March
“ByteDance-owned TikTok has knowingly allowed the ability for the Chinese Communist Party to access American user data. Americans deserve to know how these actions impact their privacy and data security, as well as what actions TikTok is taking to keep our kids safe from online and offline harms,” Rodgers said. “Big Tech has increasingly become a destructive force in American society. The Energy and Commerce Committee has been at the forefront of asking Big Tech CEOs – from Facebook to Twitter to Google – to answer for their companies’ actions.…