China

In this image made from a video, The Australian Financial Review journalist Michael Smith arrives at Sydney airport, Australia Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2020. Smith and Australian Broadcasting Corp. journalist Bill Birtles, the last two journalists working for Australian media in China have left the country after police demanded interviews with them, the Australian government and Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported on Tuesday. (Australian Broadcasting Corporation via AP) less … [Read more...] about Last 2 journalists working for Australian media leave China

The disputed and undemarcated 3,500-kilometer (2,175-mile) border between India and China, referred to as the Line of Actual Control, stretches from the Ladakh region in the north to the Indian state of Sikkim. The nuclear-armed Asia giants fought a border war in 1962 that also spilled into Ladakh and ended in an uneasy truce. The two countries have been trying to settle their border dispute since the early 1990s, without success. … [Read more...] about China says Indian forces crossed border, fired warning shots

The diplomatic standoff began when the two men — Bill Birtles, Beijing correspondent for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), and Mike Smith, Shanghai correspondent for the Australian Financial Review (AFR) — were told they were "persons of interest in an investigation" into Cheng Lei, an Australian anchor for state broadcaster CGTN, according to the AFR. The Australian government said last week that Cheng had been detained by police in China, though she has yet to be charged with anything and Chinese authorities have not revealed what she is being investigated for. … [Read more...] about Australian journalists evacuated from China after five-day diplomatic standoff

Just over two months ago, a Kenyan appellate court ruled that a joint contract between the Kenya Railways Corporation and the China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) to construct a $3.2 billion railway project in Kenya was a “violation of procurement rules.” As a public works project, the railway should have been conditional upon a “fair, competitive, and transparent procurement process,” the Law Society of Kenya (LSK) argued. Instead, the SGR contract was “single-sourced without being put up for tender” with Kenyan taxpayers forced to repay associated loans, LSK attorneys claimed. China’s Exim Bank financed the project’s loan; critics say that the SGR’s loan conditions “exposed Kenya’s assets in case of default.” … [Read more...] about China Replaces Kenya Envoy for Belt and Road Damage Control

Zhang Boli, a specialist in combining traditional Chinese and Western medicine in treating COVID-19, Zhang Dingyu, head of Wuhan’s designated coronavirus-treating Jinyintan Hospital, and Chen Wei, a military medical scientist who who worked on treatment and a vaccine, also received the People's Hero award for their work. … [Read more...] about Defying US, Xi praises China, WHO for battling coronavirus