Day: September 21, 2023

Biden’s Call to Expand UNSC Membership Likely to Go Unheeded

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WASHINGTON —  U.S. President Joe Biden has again called for an increase in the number of permanent and non-permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. In his speech on Tuesday to the U.N. General Assembly, Biden said the U.S. has “undertaken serious consultation with many member states. And we’ll continue to do our part to push more reform efforts forward, look for points of common ground, and make progress in the year ahead.” “We need to be able to break the gridlock that too often stymies progress and blocks…

Acclaimed Uyghur Folklorist Rahile Dawut’s Life Sentence Confirmed

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WASHINGTON —  About six years after acclaimed Uyghur folklorist Rahile Dawut first disappeared, it has been confirmed that a Chinese court sentenced her to life in prison, a human rights group announced Thursday, marking yet another Uyghur academic whose life has been caught up in Beijing’s ongoing crackdown in the northwestern region of Xinjiang. Citing a Chinese government source, the Dui Hua Foundation in California announced Thursday that the acclaimed Uyghur scholar Dawut had been sentenced to life in prison for allegedly endangering state security. The news was devastating for…

Leading Chinese university becomes first to remove English requirements for students

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According to the university’s academic affairs office, the change was “a normal measure made by the school according to current developments”. It added that college-level English courses based on the CET would still be taught. The university belongs to the Double First Class University Plan, an official list of China’s top 5 per cent universities. It is the first on the list to make such a change. Advertisement Yu Xiaoyu, a doctoral linguistics researcher at the University of Hong Kong, said that although the removal of CET as a degree…

Chinese Vice-President Han Zheng tells UN General Assembly to oppose ‘hegemonism’

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Han also called for human rights and democracy, as defined by China, urging the global community to “oppose politicization and double standards, in particular the use of human rights and democracy as a political tool to interfere in the affairs of other countries” Yet the impact of China’s messaging on Thursday was muted by the absence of President Xi Jinping. Advertisement The Chinese leader skipped the world’s premier annual diplomatic gathering, unlike his American counterpart, Joe Biden, who used the opportunity to defend his administration, deploy top officials to a…

Joe Biden raised issue of Canadian Sikh’s death with India’s Modi

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Receive free Canada updates We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest Canada news every morning. US President Joe Biden and other western leaders expressed concern to Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, about Canadian claims that New Delhi was involved in the murder of a Sikh activist in Canada when they met the Indian leader at the G20 this month. Three people familiar with the discussions at the G20 summit said several members of the Five Eyes — an intelligence-sharing network that includes the US, UK,…

China’s EU relations have downshifted, and cheap cars are driving the change

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“But now it’s different,” he said, adding that Germany’s current government coalition is adjusting its policy towards China, and that includes support for German firms operating in China. On September 13, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced an investigation into whether to impose punitive tariffs on Chinese EVs, saying: “Global markets are now flooded with cheaper Chinese electric cars, and their prices [are] kept artificially low by huge state subsidies.” Advertisement The decision came less than two weeks before a high-level economic and trade dialogue between China and…

Myanmar junta sacks general for alleged bribery and corruption

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Myanmar’s junta said it has sacked a high-ranking general for alleged bribery and corruption.  Lt. Gen. Moe Myint Tun, 55, was the seventh-highest leader in the State Administration Council, the governing junta. He had been sanctioned by the United States and other nations. He was abruptly removed from his positions as chairman of the Myanmar Investment Commission, Foreign Exchange Supervisory Committee, and Central Committee on Ensuring the Smooth Flow of Trade and Goods, the regime said in a statement issued Monday.  Earlier this month, authorities arrested Moe Myint Tun, said…

Q&A: Suu Kyi Adviser Reflects on Prison Term, Myanmar’s Struggle for Democracy

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washington —  Australian academic Sean Turnell, a former economic adviser to Myanmar’s ousted democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi, recently spoke with VOA via Zoom about his experiences during his 650-day imprisonment in Myanmar’s Insein prison after being arrested in the aftermath of the February 2021 military coup. Turnell, an economist at Sydney’s Macquarie University, was convicted of violating Myanmar’s Official Secrets Act and visa violations, resulting in a three-year prison sentence. He was tried alongside Suu Kyi, whom he spoke with frequently during his detention, and three former cabinet…

China sent who to the UN?

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Chinese Vice President Han Zheng told the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday that the world should resist U.S. hegemonism, reject the use of human rights as a “political tool” and never doubt Beijing’s plans to reunite China’s mainland with the democratic island of Taiwan. The mostly anodyne speech hewed closely to standard lines often repeated by China’s leaders and, in the end, was less notable for its contents than for who delivered them: a little-known figure on the world stage promoted to vice president only six months ago. Han was…