Mainland China

MANILA, Philippines -- The Philippines is ready to defend the oil and gas exploration it has decided to resume in its internationally recognized waters in the disputed South China Sea and will not cede that right to any nation, the energy chief said Friday. The Department of Energy announced Thursday...The South China SeaFossil FuelPhilippinesManilaDepartment Of EnergySeasOil ExplorationPresidency Of Donald TrumpScarborough ShoalInternational WatersChinese ShipsCoastal WatersReed BankU.N.Oil And GasRodrigo DuterteAlfonso CusiRead Full Story

A social media campaign calling for the release of 12 Hong Kong youths detained in China is gaining ground, with support from international activists including Greta Thunberg. The teenage environmentalist is among a growing list of international activists, campaigners and politicians sharing the hashtag #save12HKyouths, hoping to draw international attention to the plight of 12 young people held under tight security in mainland China after they were caught allegedly trying to flee Hong Kong by boat.Mainland ChinaSocial MediaDetaineesActivismChinese GovernmentTaiwanEnvironmentalistHong Kong GovernmentHuman Rights ActivistsAndy LiBoatChinese AuthoritiesInternational ActivistsProtestersMainland LawyersGreta ThunbergJoshua WongRead Full Story

Taiwan is stocking up on air- and ground-launched rockets that, in the event of war with China, could pummel Chinese invasion forces before they even leave their bases. Taipei’s possible, multi-billion-dollar acquisition of American-made Standoff Land-Attack Missiles—Expanded Response and High-Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems could help to counter China’s own expanding missile arsenal.Read Full Story  ChinaMissileTaipeiBeijingRocketTaiwan StraitThe State DepartmentThe PentagonBallistic MissilesAir StrikesPeople 's Liberation ArmyATACMSProject 2049 InstituteU.S. State DepartmentYun FengIan Easton

A federal judge on Sunday postponed a Trump administration order that would have banned the popular video sharing app TikTok from U.S. smartphone app stores. A more comprehensive ban remains scheduled for November, about

PHNOM PENH Oct 21 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The pandemic risks triggering a race to the bottom that could push tens of millions of Asian garment workers into greater hazard on the factory floor, with women hardest hit, the International Labour Organization said on Wednesday.About 40% of workers furloughed or laid off by the COVID-19 crisis were not back at work by the third quarter and those who do return could lose hard-won labour rights, the agency said.“Workers are extremely vulnerable and factories are vulnerable to agree to conditions with brands that don’t allow them to ensure proper working conditions,” said Tara Rangarajan of the ILO’s Better Work programme.“It’s important ... that this doesn’t become a race to the bottom where those at the lowest end of power and privilege are the ones that suffer the greatest,” she said at the launch of an ILO report on the pandemic’s effect on garment workers.Garment workers have been heavily hit by the pandemic, with shops closed and factories shuttered.Fashion brands cancelled billions of dollars worth of orders from suppliers around the world, costing workers up to $5.8 billion in lost wages, according to advocacy group Clean Clothes Campaign.In the Asia-Pacific - home to about 65 million garment workers - orders from big Western buyers fell by up to 70% over the first half of 2020, costing the average worker between two and four weeks’ salary, said the United Nations agency.While the industry has stabilised in some centres, in Bangladesh, where at least 70,000 workers have been laid off, fears are growing that many will become destitute.“Given that the situation is worsening, I think we can all imagine what that would mean,” said Christian Viegelahn, a senior economist for the ILO in the Asia-Pacific.The crisis has given rise to union busting in Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar and seen countries introduce harsh laws that activists fear could be used to restrict worker rights.Women make up the majority of garment factory staff and have born the brunt of the crisis, Viegelahn said.“There is significant risk that we see existing inequalities between women and men exacerbated and some of the progress we have seen over recent years will be reversed.”The researchers studied Bangladesh, China, Cambodia, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Pakistan and the Philippines, with uncertainty due to last for months - at least.Mohammad Akash has reverted to transporting stones for about $2 a day since he was laid off from a Dhaka garment factory.“It pays half what I used to earn and its twice as painful,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.The 33-year-old lost his job in March and said he is still waiting on severance pay and other benefits promised by the bosses he had served for eight years."I haven't been able to pay rent for my house in four months," he said. (Reporting by Matt Blomberg and Naimul Karim, Editing by Lyndsay Griffiths. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers the lives of people around the world who struggle to live freely or fairly. Visit news.trust.org)ILOLabor RightsClothingPhnom PenhWorkforceLayoffCOVID-19 PandemicPhilippinesIndonesiaChinaUnited NationsFear FactoryWorkers RightsBetter WorkClean Clothes Campaign

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - As a team from the World Health Organization works in China to investigate the origins of COVID-19, the following factbox looks at what we know about how the pandemic began.CHINA ORIGINSThe coronavirus that causes COVID-19 - known as SARS-CoV-2 - was first identified in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in January 2020, and most scientists believe it is still most likely that it originated in China.Peter Ben Embarek, WHO expert on food safety and zoonotic diseases, said Wuhan offered “the first solid clues” about the transmission of COVID-19 and any investigation would start there.Though some studies have suggested COVID-19 was present in Italy or Spain earlier in 2019, and that it might have been responsible for a spike in pneumonia cases in France, few researchers believe it could have entered Wuhan from Europe.Its closest relative in nature is the RaTG13 virus, which was discovered in horseshoe bats in southwest China’s Yunnan province. The 96.2% genetic match between the two makes it highly likely that COVID-19 also originated in the bat colonies of China’s southwest border regions.HUANAN MARKETThe initial cluster of infections was traced back to the Huanan seafood market in Wuhan, leading many to assume that “patient zero” was probably a trader exposed to contaminated meat products.But this version of events may be too simplistic to explain the patterns of infection in Wuhan and elsewhere.Many of the earliest reported cases had no connection with the market. On Dec. 10, 2019, 41 Wuhan residents were hospitalised with what turned out to be COVID-19, but 13 of them had no link to Huanan.A team of Chinese researchers said there were two types of SARS-CoV-2 circulating in Wuhan, only one of which was associated with the market.Scientists also said the virus was unusually “pre-adapted” for rapid human transmission, making it unlikely that the first human contact was made at the seafood market.INTERMEDIARY SPECIES?WHO investigators are keen to find what the intermediary species was that allowed SARS-CoV-2 to move from its original bat host into humans.Preliminary scientific papers in China identified snakes and mink as potential candidates, and similar coronavirus infections were also found in pangolins illegally trafficked into China.But some scholars now believe there was no intermediary species at all, and that a SARS-CoV-2 like virus was transmitted directly from bats to humans, possibly on multiple occasions.The first people infected were likely to be traders in bat meat, or in bat droppings used in traditional Chinese medicine, and one of them could have carried it into the Huanan seafood market, causing the superspreader event that allowed the pandemic to begin.“GAIN OF FUNCTION”Though there is no credible supporting evidence, some researchers still do not rule out the possibility that the virus was released accidentally by a specialist lab at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.There is no indication that SARS-Cov-2 contains any synthetic insertions, but some researchers say it could have been subject to a process known as “gain of function”, where the lab forces the virus to become more infectious by exposing it to human receptor cells.Some experts say the WHO investigators needs to be granted access to all the research conducted in the lab to see whether there are any closer matches than the RaTG13 virus.But there is another explanation why the coronavirus has proven to be so lethal.If SARS-CoV-2 had been circulating in humans throughout southwest China for months before it was finally identified in Wuhan, natural selection itself could have trained it to bind more effectively to those receptor cells.Fully optimised after months of human exposure, it made an explosive breakthrough at the Huanan market, where conditions were ideal for rapid viral transmission - though it was also very likely spreading elsewhere.Covid-19SpainSnakesYunnan ProvinceVirusPublic HealthChinese ScientistsGenetic DiseasesReutersHuananWHOCHINA ORIGINSOriginsChinese ResearchersSHANGHAI

As is customary, the local fare on offer at the Singapore International Film Festival (SGIFF) is linguistically and thematically diverse, reflecting the nature of the island city-state. The opening film, Tan Bee Thiam’s “Tiong Bahru Social Club,” is presented in several languages, including English, Cantonese, Mandarin, Hokkien, Malay and Tamil....Read Full Story Newborn ChildChinaHokkienTeochew DialectDocumentary FestivalCultureShort FilmEnglish` Tiong Bahru Social ClubChineseMalay MuslimMuslimsJapaneseSGIFFPortugueseJacques TatiCharlie Chaplin

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Diplomats like to remain neutral but Nanaia Mahuta let the veil slip a little when a winner was declared in the U.S. election by tweeting a smiley-face emoji.Mahuta, the first indigenous Maori woman to be appointed New Zealand’s foreign affairs minister, suppresses a real-life smile when asked about it. “Look, what I can say is that there were encouraging signs in those speeches,” she said in an interview with the The Associated Press. She said the victory speech by Vice President-elect Kamala Harris was “inspirational to many women around the world.”Mahuta, 50, was a surprise pick for the role, despite being a respected performer in Parliament for almost half her life, since she was first elected in 1996 at age 26. She is part of the most diverse group of lawmakers ever appointed to the top roles in Cabinet after Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern won a second term in a landslide victory last month.Mahuta said she felt joyous at being chosen and promised to bring a new perspective to foreign affairs.She didn’t have to wait long for her first contentious moment. New Zealand has long been cautious of criticizing China, its largest trading partner. But Mahuta last week took the step of joining Australia, Canada, the U.K. and the U.S. in condemning China for imposing new rules to disqualify legislators in Hong Kong.China reacted with anger.“Be careful not to get poked in the eye,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said in response, referring to the “Five Eyes” military alliance among the five countries.Mahuta said she had talked with Ardern before deciding to sign the statement and felt it was a natural progression to “turn the dial up” and join with other countries. She said she thinks the relationship with China is mature enough to withstand such disagreements.Still, it will pose a challenge for Mahuta to find the right balance to strike with an increasingly assertive China and a combative U.S. For now, Mahuta said she intends to focus on building relationships with New Zealand’s immediate island neighbors in the Pacific, even if the coronavirus prevents her traveling there in person.“This could be the period of the Zoom diplomacy,” she said. People around the world have been curious about Mahuta’s moko kauae, or sacred facial tattoo, which she got four years ago to celebrate her heritage, ancestors and connection to Papatuanuku, or Mother Earth.“The most common question is, did it hurt?” she laughs.The answer? Not really, because her mind went to a different place.She said wearing the moko makes her more mindful “in how you want to be as a person, how you treat other people. So that it’s almost like a compass.”Thirty years ago, before there was a revival of Maori culture in New Zealand, facial tattoos tended to be associated with gang members. Mahuta said she still finds negative reactions to hers in some parts of the country, but these days most people recognize it as an affirmation of culture.Mahuta is the daughter of the late Sir Robert Mahuta, a key figure in the Tainui tribe who helped settle a groundbreaking financial claim with the government for land that was taken during colonization.Mahuta said her father was her mentor and a tough taskmaster. But it was the students she met as a university tutor who convinced her to go into politics, not her dad.“I think if he had his way, I wouldn’t be in politics, I’d be in the tribe,” she said.Lara Greaves, a lecturer in politics at the University of Auckland, said Mahuta is well prepared for her role because she has spent her whole life steeped in high-level cultural diplomacy in Maori society.“I think it’s a really positive move,” Greaves said.She said the surprise at Mahuta’s appointment -- her own included — likely reflected the dominance that men still have internationally in foreign affairs.Mahuta said she’d like to see more women involved.“I’m a part of a very small group of women who have now reached out and linked arms to say, well, there’s is a lot that we can do together,” she said.In her office, Mahuta points out various artifacts that have meaning for her — the baskets of knowledge from the Pacific, the pictures of the prime minister who invited her ancestor into Parliament. And then she gets to the Silvanian Families village in the corner.“I have a 7-year-old daughter who’s made part of this office hers,” Mahuta said. “One of the things I’ve learned when I’ve been in Parliament is to make it family friendly.”New ZealandForeign AffairsForeign MinistryMilitary AllianceOutlookHong KongAustraliaChinaWorld AffairsAPThe The Associated PressParliamentCabinetChineseTainuiNanaia MahutaKamala HarrisJacinda ArdernZhao Lijian

© Bloomberg. Guo Shuqing, chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission, attends a news conference at the Great Hall of the People during the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in Beijing, China, on Thursday, Oct. 19, 2017. Communist Party leaders are gathering in Beijing this week to map policy for the next five years, with President Xi Jinping telling delegates that China is transitioning from a rapid growth model to one more focused on high-quality development. 2/2.Read Full StoryWorld Trade OrganizationWorld EconomyFinancial RegulatorGovernment PolicyChinese CompaniesChinese Communist PartyThe Asian Financial ForumWorld BankBloomberg L.P. PostFusion MediaState Monopoly CapitalismU.S. ChinaGlobal Trade RulesBeijingState-owned EnterprisesGuo ShuqingXi Jinping

BEIJING, Oct. 30, 2020 /CNW/ -- The large-scale cultural tourism promotion event, exhibiting fine tourism products and cultural creative ones, was held on Monday in Zhongxian County, southwest China's Chongqing Municipality. The county head Huang Zuying served as a cultural tourism promoter and introduced the unique charm of Zhongxian County to netizens via live streaming.Read Full Story ChinaCultural TourismBeijingNetizenLive StreamingZhongxian CountyYangtze RiverXinhua Silk RoadCNWHuang ZuyingChongqing MunicipalityZhongxian CultureZhongxian OrangesFine Tourism ProductsBEIJING