Story Archive
2021-10-16
The business networking service LinkedIn is calling it quits in China, citing the “challenging operating environment and greater compliance requirements.” While it plans to eventually offer a new app focused on job postings in China, it will not include any social networking features. The company’s departure completes the exodus of U.S. social networks from a country that closely controls and censors the flow of information via filters known as the Great Firewall.
2021-10-13
Despite chronic hunger in North Korea, leader Kim Jong-un has vowed to build an “invincible” military in response to what he calls the hostile policies of the United States. Like the teenaged superhero in the US comic book of the same name, Kim had a powerful father and assumed his unusual powers early in life - after the death of Kim Jong-il in 2011. But the net result of his decade-long rule has been enduring hardship and suffering for his countrymen, and an entrenched position as an international pariah.
2021-10-01
Popular Myanmar television and film star Mya Hnin Ye Lwin, who gained fame for her roles in TV drama series and 10 movies, is taking on the riskiest role of her career: a fighter in the armed resistance movement against the ruling military junta. Driven to a jungle militia camp after the regime that seized power on Feb. 1 issued a warrant for her arrest for denouncing the coup at anti-junta rallies and on social media, Mya Hnin Ye Lwin has dressed as deposed and detained leader Aung San Suu Kyi at street protests. "I have a habit of learning the styles and movements of people I’m portraying, even though I may not totally resemble them physically," said the 34-year-old actor, who holds a degree in psychology.
2021-09-28
In response to soaring coal prices, authorities are rationing power in more than 10 provinces, with the resulting power shortages causing factory closures that have affected more than 40 percent of China's industrial activity. The shortages, mostly concentrated in smaller cities and rural areas, have darkened traffic lights and hotels, halted residential elevators, and affected mobile phone coverage and water supplies in some cities.
2021-09-27
China’s claim that the 2018 arrests of two Canadian nationals had no connection with Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou’s detention in Vancouver at the request of the United States over fraud charges collapsed when the three were released within hours of each other. The "hostage diplomacy" case strained Canada-China relations and highlighted stark differences between the two countries’ legal systems. Whereas "Huawei's princess" Meng received full due process and stayed under informal house arrest at her family’s $11 million mansion in Vancouver, Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor suffered arbitrary arrest on undisclosed spying charges and were held incommunicado without access to a lawyer.
2021-09-23
China’s troubled Evergrande Group appears in danger of collapse under the weight of huge debts, raising concerns that the real estate giant could take much of China's highly leveraged economy down with it. The firm's debt troubles have spooked world financial markets and sparked protests in China by angry investors and apartment buyers, putting pressure on Beijing to bail out Evergrande, a choice that could lead other struggling property to seek handouts.
2021-09-20
AUKUS -- a new trilateral security partnership among Australia, the U.K. and the U.S. -- has left some friends and foes of the trio fuming. In a deal that caught other U.S. allies by surprise, Australia scrapped a $66 billion submarine contract with France in favor of developing faster and quieter nuclear-powered submarines with its new partners. While France angrily recalled its ambassadors from Washington and Canberra, China denounced the partnership as an irresponsible, Cold War-style arrangement that threatens the stability of the Indo-Pacific region. Other Indo-Pacific countries that share the AUKUS group's concerns about Chinese military expansion in the region welcomed the move.