Asia

A report published by the Business & Human Rights Resource Center (BHRRC) on Wednesday accused Chinese companies of more than a hundred human rights and environmental abuses at the mines where China produces much of the world’s supply of “green energy” minerals, such as lithium, cobalt, copper, and various rare earths.

President Joe Biden came under attack Sunday for his weakness in dealing with an aggressive China as Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) lamented the administration’s efforts to appease Beijing.

President Joe Biden is “highly compromised” by the Chinese government, according to Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) who argued that that must be the case given the scrapping of the United States Justice Department’s effort to combat Chinese economic espionage.

Saudi Arabia on Thursday announced record-high selling prices for crude oil to Asian buyers. The remarkably high increase of 50 cents per barrel was still lower than some forecasts, which anticipated up to $1.50 per barrel.

Washington Post reporter Josh Rogin asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday to advise Taiwan on how it could “stand strong as China seeks to impose its control over a free people, by force if necessary.”

Two employees with the U.S. Secret Service have been sent home from South Korea and will be disciplined for an alleged intoxicated dispute involving a cab driver ahead of President Joe Biden’s arrival in the country, reports say.

President Joe Biden has yet to comment at press time on the specifics of a mass shooting in California this weekend that law enforcement officials said was motivated by hate against the country of Taiwan as he prepares to leave Thursday for a trip to Asia.

Joe Biden and other Green New Deal advocates continue to push for electric vehicles but without the necessary domestic supply of batteries. For now, the United States is dependent on the Chinese Communist Party for the necessary critical minerals and other elements needed to build them.

The British government has reportedly approved the sale of the UK’s largest microchip factory to a firm tied to the Chinese Communist Party.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) slammed the Walt Disney Company on Tuesday for its threat to go after the Sunshine State’s new parental rights law, saying “if we would’ve put in the bill that you were not allowed to have curriculum that discussed the oppression of the Uyghurs in China, Disney would have endorsed that in a second — and that’s the hypocrisy of this.”

Russia has said that it is looking to Asia as a potential market for oil as Germany commits itself to wean itself off of Moscow’s supply.

World Health Organization (W.H.O.) staffers based at the organization’s Western Pacific headquarters in Manila recently accused the region’s W.H.O. chief, Takeshi Kasai, of blaming a rise in coronavirus cases in some Asian countries on their populations’ “lack of capacity due to their inferior culture, race and socioeconomic level,” the Associated Press (AP) reported Thursday.

China is determined to match its aggressive military talk in South-East Asia with spending. A report by the Lowy Institute in Australia shows in 2021 it achieved just that as other reports indicate Beijing is looking to establish its first permanent military presence on the Atlantic Ocean in the tiny Central African country of Equatorial Guinea.

The Biden family was set to benefit from a deal to transfer American natural gas to Chinese energy company CEFC, through a prospective 2017 deal by Hunter and Jim Biden, according to newly uncovered documents.

The coronavirus pandemic triggered a partial collapse of Asia’s tourism sector last year, eliminating 1.6 million jobs across five Asian countries, the International Labor Organization (ILO) reported Thursday.

A federal jury convicted a Chinese spy of attempted trade secret theft and attempted economic espionage, the U.S. Justice Department stated.

The Bahrain Health Ministry announced Tuesday it will begin administering doses of the Chinese coronavirus vaccine “Coronavac,” by the firm Sinovac Biotech, to children aged three to 11 years old this week.

The Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan and its crackdown on women’s freedom has reached clinics where midwives are helping bring babies into the world.

Several suppliers of Apple and Tesla have been forced to suspend production at Chinese factories in recent days to comply with strict energy rationing mandated by local governments in response to a nationwide power crisis, Reuters reported Monday.

President Joe Biden signed off on redeploying 1,000 troops to Afghanistan on Saturday night, restoring a total of 5,000 troops this week after vowing to fully withdraw militarily from the country by August 31.

Colombia and Panama agreed to limit the flow of U.S.-bound migrants from various continents transiting through their territory to 650 per day.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) urged the World Health Organization (W.H.O.) on Thursday to forcefully advocate for the shutdown of live animal meat markets in the interest of public health, particularly in light of ongoing concerns that they may have played a role in the ongoing Chinese coronavirus pandemic.

The majority of migrants encountered U.S. agents along the border this year hailed from outside the three Northern Triangle countries.

Five Asian nations account for 80 percent of the world’s newly planned coal power stations, according to a report published by the non-profit climate research think tank Carbon Tracker on Wednesday.

Kim Jong-un told members of his ruling communist party Wednesday that North Korea’s agricultural sector had “failed” and that the “people’s food situation is now getting tense,” the latest in a series of similar warnings that the nation is on the brink of famine.

President Joe Biden’s lenient immigration policies are attracting migrants from outside the Americas, who cross a dangerous Panamanian jungle to reach the U.S., a move that is reportedly resulting in the death of one out of every ten who dare take that route.

A report published by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) warns China could gain “coercive leverage” – in essence, blackmail material – over Asian, African, and Latin American countries thanks to telecom giant Huawei’s strategy to provide massive amounts of Internet storage to dozens of governments at discounted prices.

Chinese bottled water tycoon and vaccine manufacturing mogul Zhong Shanshan has become Asia’s richest person, financial media outlets reported Wednesday.

Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide is planning to invest $19 million in the next fiscal year into “programs to help [Japan’s] residents find love,” an unnamed Cabinet official told the Japan Times this week, in an attempt to slow the nation’s rapidly declining birth rate.

“The prelude of an Asian Era has begun,” China’s state-run Global Times declared on Monday, citing data indicating that Asia will “contribute roughly 60 percent of global growth” by 2030.

Authorities in Hong Kong will tighten the city’s lockdown measures in response to a recent surge in cases of the Chinese coronavirus, the region’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced on Monday.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Friday he and his wife are free of the Wuhan coronavirus. President Donald Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, and presidential adviser Hope Hicks tested positive for the same late Thursday.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asserted that the U.S. would bring Beijing to justice for allowing the “China Virus” to wreak havoc.

Thousands of American troops currently stationed in Germany are expected to redeploy to the Indo-Pacific theater as the U.S. shifts its geopolitical focus to China, the Nikkei Asian Review reported on Sunday.

China’s new “national security” law will be used to pressure businesses to accept Hong Kong as subordinate to Beijing, said Gordon Chang.

Beijing’s decision to hide the severity of the novel coronavirus during the early stages of the outbreak, a move that allowed the disease to spill over to other countries, has rendered communist China an “existential threat” to the globe, a survivor of the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre proclaimed on Wednesday.