Australian security agencies know China is carrying out “blatant” influence operations despite the lack of listings on the country’s transparency register, the former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has told an inquiry. Turnbull said on Tuesday he was “puzzled” the legislation his government introduced was not more rigorously enforced and that officials should not treat it as a “robotic box-ticking exercise”. Under the foreign influence transparency scheme (Fits) that took effect in late 2018, people must register activities they carry out in Australia on behalf of a foreign principal to shape…
Day: February 20, 2023
Ho Chi Minh City issues urgent directive after footwear factory cuts jobs
Authorities in Ho Chi Minh City have issued an urgent directive after PouYuen Vietnam said it would cut around 3,000 workers from Feb. 25. A further 3,000 workers on one to three-year contracts will not have their contracts renewed if they expired this year. People’s Committee Vice Chairman Duong Anh Duc signed the directive, ordering officials to monitor the situation in Binh Tan district where the footwear factory is based, work with unions and PouYuen management on a redundancy agreement and contact recruiters. He also ordered related agencies to ensure…
In Biden’s Unannounced Visit to Kyiv, a Preview of an Increasingly Direct Contest With Putin
WARSAW — President Biden’s sudden appearance in Kyiv’s presidential palace on Monday morning was intended first as a morale booster for shellshocked Ukrainians in the midst of a bleak winter of power outages and a bitter war of attrition. But it was also the first of several direct challenges on this trip to President Vladimir V. Putin, who a year ago this week believed the Ukrainian capital would become Russian-controlled territory again in a matter of days, moving Mr. Putin closer to his ambition of restoring the empire of Peter…
US Seeks Security Council Unity on DPRK Missiles
New York/Seoul — The United States said Monday it would seek U.N. Security Council unity in responding to North Korea’s latest missile launches, despite previous opposition from China and Russia. “I call on the council to condemn these ballistic missile launches,” U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told council members. “I call on the council to urge the DPRK to comply with its international obligations under all relevant Security Council resolutions. And I call on the council to encourage the DPRK to engage in meaningful dialogue.” DPRK is the abbreviation for North…
Putin May Meet Top Chinese Party Official on Moscow Trip
MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin could meet with the Chinese Communist Party’s top diplomat in Moscow, the Kremlin said Monday. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that “we don’t rule out” Putin’s meeting with Wang Yi, the Chinese Communist Party’s most senior foreign policy official, who is visiting the Russian capital. Peskov hailed Russia-China ties as “multidimensional and allied in nature.” Wang’s visit to Moscow comes as President Joe Biden made an unannounced visit to Ukraine on Monday to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and show U.S. support for…
Inside the Hunt for U.F.O.s at the End of the World
DEADHORSE, Alaska — Really? That’s it? The United States military is capable of many things, but finding the remnants of an unidentified flying object scattered across a blinding expanse of Arctic ice in minus-30-degree weather using six available hours of daylight is not one of them. The search for a downed U.F.O. began and ended near this oil-camp town at the frozen edge of the world, where Navy pilots flying P-8 Poseidons finally gave up on Friday, ending their mission with no answers. Hours later and some 500 miles away,…
Aziz Abdullah: Uyghur asylum-seeker death heaps pressure on Thailand
The Thai government had also allowed Chinese embassy officials to visit and assess the asylum-seekers, and on 8 July 2015, in defiance of pleas from the UN’s refugee agency UNHCR and several governments, Thailand forcibly repatriated at least 109 Uyghur men, putting them on a plane, handcuffed and hooded, back to China. BBC
The conflict in Ukraine risks inflaming the Sino-American rivalry
THE SYMBOLISM COULD not have been clearer. As America and China drift towards a new cold war, the conflict in Ukraine has increasingly resembled a proxy conflict between the two powers and their rival ideological systems. So when China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi (pictured), travelled to Russia on February 20th, it was only fitting that President Joe Biden should turn up in Kyiv on the same day. China, which dislikes instability, probably did not welcome Russia’s bloody invasion of Ukraine, but it has sought to make the best of the…
Booked a flight out of China? Police are likely to knock on your door
Chinese police are calling up people who have booked flights to leave the country and interrogating them about where they are going and when they plan to be back, sources in the country tell Radio Free Asia. A passenger who recently left China who gave only the surname Su said people she knows are all reporting the same phenomenon. “If you are due to get on a plane [leaving China], you will get a call from the local police station the day before, asking in great detail where you are…
EU Imposes New Sanctions on Myanmar as Violence Escalates
Myanmar officials and entities were placed under a sixth round of European Union sanctions on Monday over the 2021 military coup that ousted the democratically elected government of de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi and sparked global outrage. The latest sanctions include restrictions on nine people and seven entities whom the EU says have contributed to the escalating violence and human rights violations in the Southeast Asian country. The sanctioned individuals include the energy minister, high-ranking officers, politicians, and prominent businesspeople who have supported the regime. Sanctions were also…