TIG Post

Tag: Chinese

  • China’s highest-ranking group to visit North Korea since Covid restrictions

    China’s highest-ranking group to visit North Korea since Covid restrictions

    This week, a high-ranking Chinese government group is travelling to North Korea. This delegation is thought to be the most senior from Beijing to pay a visit to Pyongyang since the reclusive nation shut its borders during the Covid-19 outbreak.

    Li Hongzhong, a member of the Chinese Communist Party‘s central policymaking committee and a leader in its rubber-stamp Parliament, will be in charge of leading the group.

    According to a statement from Hu Zhaoming, the spokesperson for the Central Committee’s International Liaison Department, he will take part in festivities commemorating the 70th anniversary of the conclusion of the Korean War.

    Li’s visit comes after an invitation from North Korea, the statement said.

    “The visit will be significant for what it says about Beijing’s support of North Korea as well as Pyongyang’s willingness to relax pandemic-era border restrictions,” said Leif-Eric Easley, professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul.

    North Korea sealed its borders during the coronavirus pandemic, deepening the isolation of a country that is already one of the most cut off places in the world.

    Beijing is Pyongyang’s longtime ally.

    In the fall of 1950, China sent a quarter million troops into the Korean Peninsula, supporting its North Korean ally and pushing back the combined forces of South Korea, the United States and other countries under the United Nations Command.

    More than 180,000 Chinese troops died in the Korean War, or what Beijing calls the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea.

    But Easley noted that South Korea is garnering a much larger show of international support for its armistice anniversary commemorations, with representatives from 22 countries expected to attend.

    The Chinese visit, and the ceremonies marking the 70th anniversary of the 1953 armistice that ended fighting on the Korean Peninsula, comesamid simmeringtensions between North Korea and South Korea and its US ally.

    Pyongyang has frequently tested missiles banned under United Nations Security Council resolutions, and on several occasions the US and South Korea have deployed military assets like nuclear-capable submarines and bombers.

    North Koreacontinued its torrid pace of missile testing late Monday, when it fired two short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs) from the Pyongyang area into the waters off the east coast of the peninsula, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).

    The missiles were launched around 11:55 p.m. local time, flying for about five minutes or 400 kilometers (248 miles) before falling into the water, according to the JCS.

    Earlier Monday, US Navy attack submarine USS Annapolis made a port call at Jeju Naval Base on the island off South Korea’s southern coast, according to South Korean Navy spokesperson Jang Do-young.

    The sub was stopping at the island to replenish military supplies while on an operations mission, Jang said.

    The Annapolis’ visit follows the much more provocative arrival of nuclear-capable ballistic missile submarine USS Kentucky at the southern South Korean port of Busan last week.

    North Korea said the visit of the “boomer,” an Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine which can carry up to 20 missiles and 80 nuclear warheads, to Busan crossed a “red line” and said such provocations could produce a drastic response by Pyongyang.

    “I remind the US military of the fact that the ever-increasing visibility of the deployment of the strategic nuclear submarine and other strategic assets may fall under the conditions of the use of nuclear weapons specified in the DPRK law on the nuclear force policy,” a statement from North Korean Defense Minister Kang Sun Nam posted by state media said.

    Relations have been further complicated by the decision of a US soldier to cross the border between North and South Korea last week in the demilitarized zone separating the two nations.

    Pvt Travis King, who was facing disciplinary action and was meant to go back to the US the day before he bolted, is believed to be the first US soldier to cross into North Korea since 1982.

    On Monday, the deputy commander of the United Nations Command (UNC), Gen. Andrew Harrison, said a “conversation has commenced” with North Korea over King.

    Two US officials told CNN that North Korea had acknowledged receiving contact from the UNC, a multinational military force that includes the United States which fought on the side of South Korea during the 1950-53 Korean War.

    But Pyongyang does not seem to be responding to Washington directly.

    The US State Department has not received a response to its messages on King, State Department spokesperson Matt Miller said on Monday. He also said it was his understanding that the US military had not received a response.

    On the UNC side, Miller said it was his understanding “that there have been no new communications since last week, communications that happened in the early days,” but that the North Korean government had acknowledged receipt of the message.

    “I’m not aware of any new communications, other than those that happened in the very early hours, early days after he went across the border,” Miller said at a State Department briefing Monday.

    King has not been publicly seen or heard from since he crossed into North Korea last Tuesday, and North Korea has also not said anything about the status or condition of the missing soldier.

    His reasons for crossing the border into one of the world’s most authoritarian places – and a country which the US does not have diplomatic relations with – have so far remained a mystery.

    Easley, the Ewha Womans University professor, said any quick response from Pyongyang on the status of King was unlikely, especially in light of the armistice commemorations.

    “North Korea is unlikely to engage on Travis King’s case until his interrogation and quarantine are complete, and after the Kim regime celebrates its so-called Victory Day,” Easley said.

  • Chinese naval forces seek to guard hazardous seas off Nigeria

    Chinese naval forces seek to guard hazardous seas off Nigeria

    The visit of a Chinese naval squadron to Lagos, according to China’s envoy to Nigeria, is intended to increase security in the waters off of West Africa and East Africa, which are notorious for piracy and oil theft.

    “Peace is not free, peace should be defended. So I think that we need military security collaboration, so Africa-China, Nigeria-China can do things to not only safeguard the peace, but to protect the vessels in the Gulf of Aden and also here in the Gulf of Guinea,” Cui Jianchun said.

    For a rare four-day visit, three Chinese navy ships docked in Nigeria on Sunday.

    Nigeria is a significant source of oil to China, and in Lagos, China just completed a deep sea port at a cost of $1 billion (£787 million).

    “The Nigerian navy can benefit from the Chinese partners. First they can exchange technology and also experiences,” the ambassador said, adding that they could also build trust between the two sides.

    He said he also believed the two countries could collaborate more when it came to infrastructure, technology and other areas.

    In 2017, China opened its first overseas naval base in Djibouti and there has been speculation it may also want to set up a military base on Africa’s Atlantic coast.

    Last year, US defence officials expressed concern about such ambitions.

    But the Chinese ambassador sought to play down such fears: “We are working not to only serve Chinese nation… we are also working to do something for human progress and also harmony of the world.”

    Before arriving in Nigeria, the Chinese naval fleet made four-day visits to Ivory Coast and Ghana.

    They will be continuing to Gabon and the Democratic Republic of Congo before heading home.

  • Chinese naval vessels made an uncommon visit to Nigeria

    Chinese naval vessels made an uncommon visit to Nigeria

    A rare visit by three Chinese military ships to Nigeria is intended to enhance maritime security, according to officials.

    The fleet, led by a destroyer, arrived in the country six months after the opening of a billion-dollar deep sea port in Lagos, which was constructed by China and is operated by a company in which China holds a majority share.

    This visit, along with the establishment of the port, underscores China’s increasing influence in Africa, with Nigeria being a significant oil supplier to China.

    In a statement, China’s ambassador in Nigeria Cui Jianchun described the event as a major move in China-Nigeria relations saying it “demonstrates the high degree of political mutual trust between the two countries which will have a profound impact on development”.

    The Nigerian navy led by Rear Admiral JD Akpan expressed “willingness to work with China to tackle maritime security threats and maintain stability in the Gulf of Guinea”.

    US defense officials raised alarm last year about the potential risk to America’s national security if China were to establish a military base along the West African coastline.

    China’s first overseas naval base was inaugurated in Djibouti on the East African coast in 2017.

  • 31 people killed in gas explosion at barbecue restaurant in China

    31 people killed in gas explosion at barbecue restaurant in China

    Following a gas explosion at a barbecue restaurant on Wednesday night, official media reports that at least 31 people are dead and seven injured in the Chinese city of Yinchuan, located in the northwest Ningxia province.

    According to official broadcaster CCTV, the explosion occurred at around 8:40 p.m. and was brought on by a leak in a liquified petrol tank within the restaurant.

    One of the injured—out of the seven—remains in a critical state. For minor wounds, burns, and glass cuts, the other six are receiving hospital treatment.

    Local fire authorities sent 20 vehicles and more than 100 personnel to the scene, with search and rescue operations lasting until 4 a.m. Thursday, according to state media.

    Photos posted by state media show the damaged building, with blackened exteriors, debris on the ground and smoke in the air. Firefighters are seen entering the second floor on a ladder and lifting people out on stretchers.

    Interviews by police and firefighters on the scene established that two restaurant staffers had smelled gas about an hour before the explosion, the Yinchuan government said in a statement posted online Thursday.

    The two staffers found the valve of the gas tank had broken, and sent another staff member to buy a new one, according to the statement. The explosion took place as the valve was being replaced.

    The restaurant is located on a busy street, state media reported.

    Police have detained nine people and frozen their assets, including the restaurant’s manager, employees and shareholders, according to state media China Youth Daily.

    Chinese leader Xi Jinping called the incident “heartbreaking,” and said it was a “profound lesson,” state broadcaster CCTV reported Thursday.

    Xi added that it is imperative to treat the wounded and comfort the victims’ families, and to find out the cause of the accident as soon as possible. He also ordered relevant government authorities to carry out a safety risk review and strengthen safety supervision in key sectors, CCTV reported.

    The incident came just before China began its three-day national public holiday, from Thursday to Saturday, marking the Dragon Boat Festival.

    The country has been rocked by a number of safety incidents this year. A coal mine collapse in Inner Mongolia in February left 53 dead; then in April, the deadliest fire to hit Beijing in two decades killed 29 people in a hospital.

  • Minority Muslims defend mosque against Chinese authorities

    Minority Muslims defend mosque against Chinese authorities

    As the crackdown on religious liberty grows, thousands of ethnic minority Muslims encircled a mosque in southwest China over the weekend in a last-ditch bid to stop what they claimed was an attempt by authorities to destroy its dome and minarets.

    In the midst of a massive drive to “sinicize” religion, China’s leader Xi Jinping appears to have altered a Hui mosque in the Yunnan province village of Najiaying.

    The goal of the programme is to rid religions of foreign influence and bring them more in line with traditional Chinese culture and the authoritarian leadership of the Communist Party, which is officially atheist.

    In recent years, authorities have removed overtly Islamic architecture – destroying domes and tearing down minarets – from more than a thousand Hui mosques across the country, Hui activists say, with the Najiaying mosque being one of the last holdouts.

    Now, the “sinicization” campaign is finally coming for Najiaying – a historic home to the Hui and an important hub for Islamic culture in Yunnan, an ethnically diverse province on China’s borders with Southeast Asia.

    But the push has faced a fierce backlash from local residents.

    Videos posted on social media and geolocated by CNN show residents clashing with lines of police officers in riot gear, who blocked off the entrance to the mosque and pushed back the crowd with shields and batons.

    Residents shouted back in anger, with some hurling water bottles and bricks at the police, the videos show.

    “This is our last bit of dignity,” a local witness told CNN. “It’s like coming to our house to demolish our home. We can’t allow that to happen.”

    The source, who declined to be named over fears for personal safety, said thousands of Hui residents – including men and women, elderly and children – had gathered around the mosque on Saturday, under the close watch of more than 1,000 police officers deployed nearby.

    “After arriving at the mosque, we realized that they had driven the cranes into the compound and were ready for the forced demolition,” the source said, adding that scaffolding had already been erected around the mosque.

    Tensions escalated around 1 p.m., with worshipers demanding to enter the mosque for noon prayers, the source said. They said they saw police officers hitting the crowd with batons, which prompted some residents to clash with police.

    Dozens of protesters were arrested by police at the scene, the source said. Ma Ju, a prominent Hui activist who now lives in the United States and has kept close contact with Najiaying residents, said about 30 people were arrested.

    CNN cannot independently verify the claims and has reached out to the local police and government for comment. CNN has also reached out to the Yunnan provincial government and its bureau for religious affairs for comment.

    The hours-long standoff on Saturday yielded a temporary win for the protesters, who streamed into the mosque as the police retreated, according to the witness and online videos.

    Throughout Saturday night and Sunday, residents took turns to guard the mosque, fearing that authorities would return to demolish its large centerpiece green dome and four minarets, the source said.

    But repercussions quickly followed, according to those CNN spoke with.

    By Sunday afternoon, word started to spread that authorities were arresting more people, according to the source.

    On Sunday evening, law enforcement authorities in Nagu township, where Najiaying is located, issued a stern but vague statement. Without mentioning the protest or the mosque, it said police were investigating an incident that took place on Saturday, which “seriously disrupted social order” and caused “vile social impact.”

    The authorities also called on the “organizers and participants” of the incident to turn themselves in before June 6 to receive leniency, and encouraged the public to report on each other.

    By Monday, Najiaying was shrouded in a blanket of fear, the source said.

    The internet has been cut off in many neighborhoods. Drones buzzed overhead and surveilled the village. Public loudspeakers blasted the authorities’ message on repeat, urging protesters to turn themselves in, according to the source and Ma, the US-based activist.

    “It feels like our nightmare is only starting now,” the source told CNN. “Everyone is in fear…We don’t know what’s going to happen next.”

    Other local residents appeared fearful to speak out.

    One shop owner reached by CNN on the phone said: “You journalists should come here to report on what’s happening to us.” When asked by CNN to explain what happened, he replied he “didn’t know” and hung up.

    This is not the first time that Hui Muslims have engaged in a tense standoff with authorities to protect a mosque.

    In 2018, thousands of Hui residents in Ningxia, in the country’s northwest, staged a sit-in protest for three days to prevent authorities from demolishing a newly constructed mosque.

    The local government held off on the demolition, but later replaced the mosque’s domes and minarets with traditional Chinese-style pagodas.

    The architectural overhaul of mosques has come with allegations of shrinking religious freedoms for the Hui, a 11 million-strong ethnic minority that live in scattered pockets throughout China from the northwest to the coastal cities in the east, including an officially designated “autonomous region,” Ningxia.

    Believed to be distant descendants of Arab and Persian traders, the Hui have been well assimilated into broader Chinese society dominated by the ethnic Han majority.

    Most speak Mandarin, live alongside the Han, and in recent decades had been given more space to practice their faith than other ethnic groups.

    But Hui activists say their ethnic group has become the latest target in the Communist Party’s crackdown on Islam, which began in the western region of Xinjiang.

    Since at least 2017, the Chinese government has been accused of detaining more than a million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in internment camps in Xinjiang and conducting forceful assimilation to suppress their cultural and religious identity.

    A United Nations report last year accused the Chinese government of serious human rights violations against Uyghurs that may amount to “crime against humanity.”

    China has repeatedly denied these accusations and insisted that the massive camps are voluntary “vocational training centers.”

    Hui activists and rights groups claim authorities have stepped up efforts in recent years to restrict religious practices of Hui Muslims across China, including the shuttering of Islamic schools, Arabic classes and barring children from learning and practicing Islam.

    The implementation of the “sinicization” campaign has “had the effect of expunging communities of their connections to Hui culture, religion, and each other so thoroughly that some leaders view the erasure of a meaningful Hui identity within another generation as being a likely possibility,” according to a report submitted to a UN treaty body in January by the Chinese Human Rights Defenders and the Hope Umbrella International Foundation.

    Ma, the US-based Hui activist who founded the Hope Umbrella International foundation, said Hui in China are now living in a constant state of fear.

    Over two hundred mosques in Yunnan have already lost their domes and minarets, according to Ma, adding to the more than a thousand mosques in the country’s northwest.

    CNN is unable to independently verify the number of mosques affected, and has reached out to the Chinese government for comment on the accusations made by Hui activists.

    “At first, people thought it was only a question of architectural style…but it soon became apparent that (the government) is not only removing the domes from the mosques, but also removing their religious and social functionality,” Ma said.

    Under a raft of restrictions imposed by the government, many Hui are now afraid to go to the mosque, which has long been a center of religious and social life for their communities, Ma said.

    The end goal of the party is to implement a policy of “cultural and religious genocide,” just as it did in Xinjiang, he said. The Chinese government has denied accusations of genocide.

    For the resident in Najiaying, the government’s plan to change the design of the mosque is only the harbinger of a harsher crackdown to come.

    “This is only the first step. What we worry about is after that, (the authorities) will ban our children from going to (religious) classes, bar minors from entering mosques and forbid us from studying the Quran,” they said, referring to the alleged restrictions that have been imposed on Hui communities across China.

    “After they trampled on your dignity, they will suppress you step by step, and assimilate the Hui ethnic group completely into the Han, generation by generation. Because we know, this is what they did to Xinjiang,” he said.

    Despite the permeating culture of fear, he has vowed to “fight till the end” for the freedom of belief and the dignity of the Hui ethnicity.

    “We commoners don’t ask for much. We just want to have our own religious freedom. We just want to live in peace,” he said.

    “I want the world to know what we’re going through right now, and what we’re fearing next.”

  • Akufo-Addo brushes off IMF warning against Chinese loans

    Akufo-Addo brushes off IMF warning against Chinese loans

    President Akufo-Addo has indicated that he has no objections to Chinese engagement and involvement in country’s economy.

    According to him, China has, through the years, become a reliable partner that has supported Ghana’s economy in very difficult and trying times.

    He made the remarks following a recent IMF country report that indicated that Ghana will likely lose its mineral resources and electricity revenues to China should the country default on paying a $1.9 billion debt.

    Speaking during a panel discussion at the Qatar Economic Forum in Doha, President Akufo-Addo said investments from China has been vital to Ghana’s economy growth and development.

    “Well, I don’t have any criticisms about Chinese involvement in the Ghanaian economy. They have been very helpful, it’s a matter of controversy in the West. For us, they have been friends and in terms of difficulty they have proven to be a strong partner,” President Akufo-Addo said.

    Since 2000, Ghana has been a major recipient of Chinese loans with the country borrowing close to $5 billion from the Asian country which has been spent on major infrastructure projects.

    While majority of these loans have been expended on these projects, there are concerns that the terms of the loan have not been unfavourable to Ghana, leaving the country highly indebted.

    Currently, the external debt component of Ghana has surpassed $30 billion, which has been described as unsustainable debt levels.

  • Beijing to send special delegates to Ukraine in an effort to mediate conflict

    Beijing to send special delegates to Ukraine in an effort to mediate conflict

    As the first stop on a European tour devoted to the situation in Ukraine, Chinese envoy Li Hui is expected to conclude a two-day visit there on Wednesday. China is attempting to position itself as a peacemaker in the bloody conflict despite its close relations to Russia.

    Although Ukraine has not provided any information, a source within the Ukrainian government informed CNN earlier this week that a Chinese envoy will be in Kyiv on Tuesday and Wednesday.

    China has kept quiet about the Special Representative on Eurasian Affairs’ visit, which it had advertised as a part of a five-nation tour to foster communication for “a political settlement of the Ukraine crisis.”

    When asked about Li’s trip at regular press briefings this week, China’s Foreign Ministry said information would be shared “in due course.”

    Last week, the Foreign Ministry said Li would visit Ukraine, Poland, France, Germany and Russia starting May 15 – just days before the Group of Seven (G7) leaders are expected to affirm their solidarity against Russia in a summit in Hiroshima, Japan.

    China has attempted to cast itself as a peace broker and deflect criticism that it has not acted to help end Russia’s warin Ukraine, more than one year after Moscow invaded its western neighbor.

    Li’s apparent arrival this week coincided with an exceptionally dense aerial assault by Russian forces on the capital Kyiv early Tuesday, though Ukraine said most of the Russian munitions failed to hit their marks after being destroyed by its defense systems.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky this week wrapped up his own tour of European countries, where he welcomed promises of fresh military aid from countries including Germany, France and the United Kingdom.

    Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Zelensky spoke late last month for the first timesince the start of the war, and according to Beijing, Xi pledged to facilitate peace talks, including by dispatching an envoy.

    Beijing’s diplomatic and economic support of Russia since the early days of the war have accelerated concerns about China’s foreign policy across European capitals. While Xi’s call with Zelensky was their first, the Chinese leader has spoken with Russian President Vladimir Putin five times during the conflict – including twice in person.

    Beijing’s ties with Moscow have been under close scrutiny over the past week as European officials discussed a recalibration of the bloc’s China strategy.

    EU Foreign Affairs chief Josep Borrell on Friday said the bloc’s relations with China “will not develop normally if China does not push Russia to withdraw from Ukraine.”

    Li’s trip to Ukraine would make him the highest ranking Chinese diplomat to travel to the country since start of the war.

    A seasoned former diplomat, Li served as ambassador to Russia from 2009 to 2019, and his resume includes significant contributions to the China-Russia relationship during a key era of deepening cooperation under Xi and Putin.

    In 2019, Putin presented Li with the Order of Friendship, making him only the second Chinese national to receive a state decoration from the Kremlin, according to Chinese state media. Xi was the first, receiving the Order of St. Andrew two years earlier.

    Li’s scheduled visit to Ukraine comes amid what observers have described as a concerted effort from Beijing to reposition itself to be seen as a neutral agent of peace amid worsening ties with Europe.

    After his call with Xi last month, Zelensky said the exchange was “meaningful,” but underscored that “there can be no peace at the expense of territorial compromises.”

    Beijing in February released a paper on a “political settlement” to the conflict, which critics said would only help Russia consolidate its territorial gains in Ukraine, as it did not include a call for Russia to withdraw before a ceasefire.

    On Monday ahead of Li’s expected arrival in Ukraine, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen called for Ukraine’s peace plan to be the basis of efforts to resolve the conflict.

    “We should never forget that Ukraine is the country that was brutally invaded. It is therefore the one that should set out the core principles for a just peace,” she said in Brussels.

    Ukraine, the US and more than 100 nations have called for peace predicated on the unconditional withdrawal of Russia troops from Ukrainian territory.

    Beijing, however, has repeatedly accused the US and its allies of fueling the conflict through weapons support to Ukraine, and has sought buy-in on its “political settlement” from other countries.

    An editorial in the state-run English-language China Daily on Sunday said that Li would visit Poland, France and Germany during his tour as they are “key stakeholders” in Europe when it comes to any peace agreement.

    The US, the editorial said, was excluded from Li’s itinerary as it was “questionable” whether Washington was open to efforts to advance peace.

  • Chinese stand-up comic asked to apologise as official get offended by a military joke

    Chinese stand-up comic asked to apologise as official get offended by a military joke

    A Chinese stand-up comedian has cancelled all of his shows after an official investigation into the agency that represents him and backlash from the government for a joke he made that made a casual reference to the military of the nation.

    The uproar highlights the fine line comedians must walk in tightly controlled China, where politics is rarely made light of.

    As reported by state-affiliated media Jimu News, Li Haoshi attracted attention from law enforcement after using a word connected to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) while telling a tale about two stray dogs in a recent comedy show.

    He later expressed his “deep remorse and regret” in a social media post on Monday, saying that he had used “an extremely unsuitable analogy to bring bad feeling and association to the audience.”

    “I will take all the responsibility and call off all my performances to deeply reflect and reeducate myself,” said the comedian, who goes by the name House and has 136,000 fans on Chinese social media platform Weibo.

    The controversy stemmed from his show at the Century Theater in Beijing on Saturday, when he joked about how he had adopted two stray dogs since moving to Shanghai.

    He went on to say that one day his two energetic canines gave chase to a squirrel, which reminded him of eight words, before he delivered the controversial punchline, according to audio posted to Chinese social media site Weibo.

    “Fine style of work, capable of winning battles,” he said, flipping a well known Chinese Communist Party slogan referring to the PLA.

    The phrase was first uttered in 2013 by Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who also chairs the military, when he set out a list of qualities he commanded from the nation’s army. It has since been repeated at various official occasions.

    Li’s joke drew a round of laughter at the show, as shown by audio heard by CNN, but also prompted unease from one member of the audience, who Jimu News reported took to Weibo to complain that the joke was inappropriate.

    The post set off an intense debate on Weibo over whether Li was being funny or disrespectful, gaining the attention of authorities who seemed unamused.

    On Monday Beijing Cultural Law Enforcement Agency launched an investigation into Shanghai Xiaoguo Culture Media, the company that represents Li, state media Beijing Evening News reported.

    Shanghai Xiaoguo Culture Media described the joke as “inappropriate” before offering an apology in a statement on Monday.

    “We have suspended his work indefinitely,” said the production firm, adding that it would “step up education and training on actors to maintain the order in the industry.”

    Without naming the comedian, Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily said even comedians should respect limits when it comes to jokes, and it would be a mistake to put humor before all things.

    A new genre of talk shows featuring quick-witted stand-up comedians pitting themselves against one another in televised contests have proven to be a big hit among young audiences in China in recent years.

    Comedians make a name for themselves by taking part in these shows and often expand their careers to live shows – as Li did.

    But performers have to stick to pre-approved scripts – based strictly on non-political topics – making the indirect military reference that landed Li on the wrong side of the authorities this time incredibly rare.

    China imposes stringent censorship on issues it deems sensitive from women’s cleavage to criticisms against the Communist Party across all platforms, be it online social media sites or traditional mass media.

    That ideological control has tightened under Xi, widely impacting the entertainment industry.

    In 2021, China also passed a law banning slander and insults against military personnel.

    Last May, former investigative journalist Luo Changping was sentenced to seven months in prison and ordered to offer a public apology for calling Chinese soldiers portrayed in a blockbuster movie about the Korean war “stupid.”

    Li’s sense of humor divided users on Chinese social media.

    One user on Weibo questioned: “How come the crowd was still laughing?”

    Another user on WeChat, an instant messenger app that also allows users to blog, was more understanding.

    “This is not a good analogy and it’s not funny. But this actor had no intent to insult the soldiers,” the person wrote.

  • China jails an elderly American for life on spying allegations

    China jails an elderly American for life on spying allegations

    A Chinese court has sentenced an American citizen, age 78, to life in prison for espionage.

    According to a statement on the court’s social media account, John Shing-Wan Leung, who is also a permanent resident of Hong Kong, was found guilty of espionage and sentenced to life in prison on Monday.

    According to the succinct statement, Leung was detained by state security forces on April 15, 2021 in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province. His allegations were not mentioned in the announcement.

    The court also confiscated personal property worth 500,000 yuan ($71,797), the statement added.

    Chinese authorities and state media have not previously disclosed any information on Leung’s detention or the court process that led to his conviction. In China, cases involving state security are usually handled behind closed doors.

    The US Embassy in Beijing said Monday it was aware of reports of Leung’s sentencing.

    “The Department of State has no greater priority than the safety and security of US citizens overseas. Due to privacy considerations, we have no further comment,” a spokesperson for the US Embassy said in a statement to CNN.

    The sentencing of Leung comes at a time when relations between Beijing and Washington are at their lowest point in half a century amid intensifying rivalry over trade, technology, geopolitics and military supremacy.

    It also comes as American and Chinese officials are resuming high-level engagements since a dispute over a suspected Chinese spy balloon shattered efforts to mend ties earlier this year.

    Leung is among a growing number of foreign nationals to have been ensnared in China’s widening crackdown on espionage under leader Xi Jinping.

    In March, Chinese authorities detained a Japanese employee of Astellas Pharma in Beijing on suspected espionage – the 17th Japanese national to have been detained in China since the counter-espionage law was introduced in 2014.

    In another high-profile case, two Canadians – former diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor – were detained by China for nearly three years.

    Their arrest on espionage charges in late 2018 came shortly after Canada arrested Chinese businesswoman and Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou on a US warrant related to the company’s business dealings in Iran.

    Beijing repeatedly denied that their cases were a political retaliation, but the two men were nonetheless released on the same day Meng was allowed by Canada to return to China.

    Last month, China passed a wide-ranging amendment to its already sweeping counter-espionage law, which will take effect from July 1.

    The new legislation expanded the definition of espionage from covering state secrets and intelligence to any “documents, data, materials or items related to national security and interests,” and to include cyberattacks against state organs or critical information infrastructure.

  • The defense ministers of India and China to speak face to face

    The defense ministers of India and China to speak face to face

    The Indian and Chinese defense ministers will meet in New Delhi on Thursday. This will be the first time the two nuclear-armed neighbors have met on Indian soil since violent fighting along their disputed border in the Himalayas claimed the lives of numerous soldiers.

    A. Bharat Bhushan Babu, a spokesman for the Indian defense ministry, told CNN on Thursday that China’s recently appointed defense minister Li Shangfu will meet his Indian counterpart Rajnath Singh outside of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) military ministers’ meeting.

    Along with peers from Russia and many Central Asian nations, Li, who assumed the position last month, is in New Delhi.

    This is the first time a Chinese defense minister has visited India since a deadly clash along their hotly disputed border claimed the lives of at least 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers in Aksai Chin-Ladakh in 2020.

    Tensions between the two countries have been simmering ever since, and escalated in December when a brawl between troops from both sides in the Tawang Sector of India’s northeastern territory of Arunachal Pradesh resulted in minor injuries.

    The lengthy disputed border has long been a source of friction between New Delhi and Beijing, with the agitation spilling into war before. In 1962 a month-long conflict ended in a Chinese victory and India losing thousands of square miles of territory.

    On Tuesday, China’s Ministry of Defense said Li will “communicate and exchange views on issues of the international and regional situations as well as defense and security cooperation,” at the SCO gathering.

    Earlier this month, he met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow in his first overseas trip since assuming the role, as China and Russia continue to bolster ties while Western countries ramp up pressure on Beijing to push Putin to end his war against Ukraine.

    Li, a general and veteran of China’s military modernization drive, was sanctioned by the United States in 2018 over transactions with Russia’s state-controlled arms exporter Rosoboronexport, when he led the Chinese military’s Equipment Development Department.

    India, which is moving closer to the US as it tries to counter the rise of an increasingly assertive China, also relies heavily on Russian arms to equip its military.

    Li’s visit comes four days after India and China concluded the 18th round of talks to attempt to resolve the border issue.

    India assumed the chair of the SCO summit in 2023. The grouping’s foreign ministers are expected to meet in the western Indian coastal state of Goa on May 4-5.

    Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s visit to the country will be the most senior-level one in seven years.

  • Nigerian rail project to be financed by Chinese bank

    Nigerian rail project to be financed by Chinese bank

    The China Development Bank has been accepted by the Nigerian Senate as the new funder for a rail project, which is expected to cost close to $1 billion.

    Another Chinese lender had been due to fund the line between Kaduna and Kano – the largest city in the north – but it pulled out in 2020.

    When President Muhammadu Buhari came to power eight years ago, he prioritised upgrading the country’s poor transport network and power supply.

    However, funding has been a major constraint.

    Parliament has approved several billion dollars worth of loans from Chinese and other international lenders but funds have yet to materialise.

    When president-elect Bola Tinubu takes over in May, he will inherit a raft of challenges including double-digit inflation and widespread insecurity.

  • Chinese citizen jailed in Uganda after tragic accident

    Chinese citizen jailed in Uganda after tragic accident

    In connection with a Tuesday morning car accident that claimed the lives of two pupils and injured three others, police in central Uganda have apprehended a Chinese national.

    Zhao Haizhanga is accused of knocking students at Kamusenene Village along Lubaali-Bukuya Road in Kassanda District as he tried to pass a truck carrying logs, according to a statement from the police.

    “He killed two instantly and injured the other three yet to be identified,” the police statement said.

    The two bodies were taken to a local mortuary awaiting post-mortem.

    Mr Haizhanga was detained by police as investigation on the incident continues.

  • Suspected balloon spy from China transmits information back to Beijing

    Suspected balloon spy from China transmits information back to Beijing

    A source familiar with the situation has told the international media that the alleged Chinese spy balloon that passed over the US earlier this year was able to take pictures and gather some signals intelligence from US military locations.

    The US administration is still unsure if the Chinese government was able to erase the balloon’s data as it was being received, according to the source, who said that the balloon was capable of transmitting information back to Beijing in real time. The possibility that the balloon was able to gather intelligence that the US is currently unaware of raises doubts about its accuracy.

    Although the information the balloon was able to collect is not significantly more sophisticated than what Chinese espionage agencies have been using, the intelligence community has not been very concerned about it, the individual claimed.

    The US also knew what the balloon’s path would be and was able to move to protect sensitive sites and censor some signals before the balloon was able to pick them up, officials have said.

    The FBI is still examining the balloon, but so far officials have been able to glean additional information about how the device worked, including the algorithms used for the balloon’s software and how it is powered and designed.

    CNN has reached out to the National Security Council at the White House and the Pentagon for comment. NBC was first to report on the intelligence.

  • Putin informed by Xi Jinping of an upcoming change

    Putin informed by Xi Jinping of an upcoming change

    After a pomp-filled state visit in which the two presidents displayed their “no-limits friendship,” Xi Jinping informed Vladimir Putin that “change is coming” as he left the Kremlin on Tuesday.

    “Change is coming that hasn’t happened in 100 years,” Xi declared through an interpreter as they shook hands as the Chinese president exited the imperial palace.
    Together, we are bringing about this transformation.

    Before saying goodbye and adding, “Please take care, dear friend,” Putin said, “I agree.”

    On Tuesday, the Russian president briefly stood on the sidewalk and waved as Xi’s limousine departed.

    His plane left Moscow’s Vnukovo airport after being seen off by a guard of honour playing the Russian and Chinese national anthems, the RIA Novosti news agency said on Wednesday morning.

    After hosting Xi over a seven-course private dinner for more than four hours the previous night, Putin greeted him for talks involving top officials from both countries.

    Xi walked slowly up the opulent red-carpeted staircase of the Grand Kremlin Palace as guards in 19th century-style parade uniforms snapped to attention.

    Putin was waiting to greet the Chinese leader in St George’s hall where walls are covered by white-marble plaques with gold engravings of the names of military units and soldiers awarded the order of St George, a top military award established by Catherine the Great.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin and China's President Xi Jinping leave after a reception following their talks at the Kremlin in Moscow on March 21, 2023. (Photo by Pavel Byrkin / SPUTNIK / AFP) (Photo by PAVEL BYRKIN/SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images)
    Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping leave after a reception following their talks at the Kremlin in Moscow (Picture: Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images)
    Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Chinese President Xi Jinping toast during their dinner at The Palace of the Facets, a building in the Moscow Kremlin, Russia, Tuesday, March 21, 2023. (Pavel Byrkin, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
    The leaders toast during their dinner at The Palace of the Facets, a building in the Kremlin (Picture: AP)
    Chinese President Xi Jinping, left, shakes hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin as he leaves after their dinner at The Palace of the Facets in the Moscow Kremlin, Russia, Tuesday, March 21, 2023. (Pavel Byrkin, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
    Xi and Putin shake hands as the Chinese President leaves (Picture: AP)

    In a tightly choreographed ceremony filled with imperial grandeur, the two leaders entered the huge chandeliered room from opposite sides and shook hands in the middle to the sound of the Russian and Chinese national anthems.

    They walked past a line-up of officials from both countries to sit down for talks. Putin and Xi both wore black suits and dark red ties.

    The pageantry of the visit, reflected the importance of Xi’s three-day visit to Russia that gave a strong political boost to Putin days after The Hague issued an arrest warrant against him.

    The International Criminal Court accuses him of alleged involvement in snatching thousands of children from Ukraine.

    Moscow, which doesn’t recognize the court’s jurisdiction, dismissed the move as ‘legally null and void’.

    But the warrant further ramped up the pressure on the Russian leader as the fighting in Ukraine has dragged into a second year.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping leave after a reception in honor of the Chinese leader's visit to Moscow, at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia March 21, 2023. Sputnik/Grigory Sysoev/Kremlin via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY.
    The leaders showcased their ‘no-limits friendship’ (Picture: AP)

    After the talks, Putin and Xi issued joint declarations pledging to further bolster their ‘strategic cooperation’, develop cooperation in energy, high-tech industries and other spheres and expand the use of their currencies in mutual trade to reduce dependence on the West.

    They said they would develop military cooperation and conduct more joint sea and air patrols, but there was no mention of any prospective Chinese weapons supplies to Russia that the US and other Western allies feared.

    Xi appeared more relaxed than Putin in first Moscow meeting, experts say

    Western officials will have pored over every detail of the talks between two of the world’s most powerful but secretive leaders.

    Body language experts say Chinese President Xi Jinping came across as more relaxed and commanding than his Russian counterpart at Monday’s televised first meeting of Xi’s state visit.

    Karen Leong, Managing Director of Singapore-headquartered Influence Solutions, said Xi had pre-empted Putin by a split-second in reaching out for their set-piece handshake, suggesting that ‘even though he is the one visiting Moscow, he is the one who is going to be taking the lead in this relationship’.

    Louise Mahler, a body language and leadership behaviour expert based in Melbourne, Australia, took a similar view, noting that Xi had placed his hand on top of Putin’s, something that could also indicate a measure of dominance in the exchange.

    When they sat together for polite exchanges through translators, greeting each other as ‘dear friend’, Ms Mahler said Putin had slouched, twitched his leg, clenched his fist and looked at the floor, suggesting underlying agitation.

    Xi, meanwhile, appeared ‘settled and confident’.

    Ms Leong noticed the same tics in Putin, contrasting with an outwardly relaxed demeanour.

    ‘If you juxtapose it with Xi, Xi is the composed statesman,’ she said. ‘He has a lot of gravitas, great eye contact, he is looking at Putin as an older brother looks … (at a) more junior, younger partner.’

    Putin, 70, is in fact a few months older than Xi, and has been in power more than twice as long.

    Ms Leong said Xi had offered a sign that he too had been feeling some pressure, blinking unusually frequently during the sit-down.

    Kim Hyung-hee, director of the Korea Body Language Lab, said the tight grip of the handshake and the occasions where the men tried to avoid eye contact showed that there was plenty at stake for both.

    ‘They have high expectations about the meeting. You can see tension there – and you know there’s no real friends in politics.’

    Putin and Xi made long statements after the talks to a selected audience of officials and reporters from their pools. They didn’t take questions.

    Xi stayed at a brand-new Chinese-owned Soluxe Hotel set in a lavish riverside park in northern Moscow that features trees and plants from all over China.

    He used a Chinese-made Hongqi limousine for driving around Moscow.

  • Taiwan discovers location of purported Chinese weather balloon crash

    Taiwan discovers location of purported Chinese weather balloon crash

    Taiwan claims it has discovered the remains of what seems to be a Chinese weather balloon that dropped.

    Taiwan’s military said it had spotted an unidentified object drifting above Dongyin – a Taiwanese-controlled island off China’s coast – at 11:00 local time (03:00 GMT) on Thursday.

    It later found a crash site on a shooting range.

    Initial investigations suggested the remnants were part of a meteorological instrument, the military added.

    On Friday, Taiwan’s Defence Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng said that officials would further investigate the crashed balloon but would not “jump to conclusions”.

    This is the first time such a discovery has been made in Taiwan’s offshore islands, said senior defence official Chen Yu-lin, according to local media.

    Tensions between China and the US have seen a fresh spike in recent weeks, after the US downed what it said was a Chinese surveillance balloon in its airspace earlier this month. The US also shot down three other objects it says are unlikely to be foreign spy crafts.

    The sphere found on Dongyin was about a metre in diameter and bore the name of a China-based company that, based on online searches, stocks meteorological and radio appliances.

    The company Taiyuan Radio No 1 Factory Co. Ltd is based in Taiyuan, one of China’s main industrial bases and capital of Shanxi province.

    The sphere was also marked “GTS13 digital atmospheric sounding instrument” and “meteorological instrument”, with simplified Chinese language characters, the military said in a statement.

    China has used simplified Chinese characters since the 1950s, but Taiwan continues to use traditional characters.

    Authorities have not released pictures of the object.

    Taiwan’s defence ministry said on Tuesday that it has not spotted any surveillance balloons from China in its vicinity, but also said it will shoot down any balloon it deems a threat.

    China sees self-ruled Taiwan as a breakaway province that will eventually be under Beijing’s control.

    But Taiwan sees itself as distinct from the Chinese mainland, with its own constitution and democratically-elected leaders.

  • Thailand welcomes back Chinese tourists with ‘arms wide open’ as key market returns

    Thailand welcomes back Chinese tourists with ‘arms wide open’ as key market returns

    For years, Thailand welcomed legions of Chinese tourists to its golden beaches, shopping districts and striking temples.

    That came to a screeching halt during the Covid pandemic, as China virtually sealed its borders.

    Now, the Southeast Asian nation is back on the welcome wagon — and telling the world it’s open for business.

    Three government ministers headed to Bangkok’s international airport earlier this week to personally greet the first group of Chinese tourists to arrive after China lifted travel restrictions.

    Passengers touching down from the southeastern Chinese city of Xiamen were presented with flower garlands as they walked by a banner that read: “China and Thailand are one family. Amazing Thailand always warmly welcomes our Chinese family.”

    Bill Barnett, founder and managing director of C9 Hotelworks, a hospitality consultancy in Phuket, said the move underscored the economic significance of Chinese tourists, who were embraced with “arms wide open.”

    In 2019, Thailand was the most-visited international destination by Chinese travelers, welcoming around 11 million tourists — over a quarter of the country’s overseas arrivals. Only Hong Kong and Macao, two special administrative regions of China, received more Chinese visitors.

    Speaking to reporters at the airport Monday, Thailand’s deputy prime minister and minister of public health, Anutin Charnvirakul, said it was important to send a strong signal to revive its economy.

    “The arrival of tourists from China, as well as from countries around the world, to Thailand is expected to increase continually. This is a good sign for Thailand’s tourism sector,” he said.

    “If every Thai person welcomes these tourists with warm hospitality, and we also take good care of our health, it will accelerate the economic recovery after our suffering from the Covid-19 pandemic for three years.”

    China scrapped its quarantine requirements on Sunday after three years, prompting businesses around the world to prepare for the return of the world’s largest outbound travel market.

    In Thailand, that’s been no exception, with travel companies beginning to reactivate Chinese social marketing campaigns and increase staffing, according to Barnett.

    “Hotels now are scrambling. They’re trying to get Chinese-speaking staff, they’re trying to get Chinese salespeople back on onboard,” he said. “I think we’ll start seeing salespeople start to organize sales trips back into China.”

    The Golden Dome Cabaret Show in Bangkok is usually a must-see for Chinese tour groups.

    “I am happy to hear the news that China has opened its country,” CEO Boonchai Tongprasert told CNN, adding that his team was also anticipating a pickup in business.

    Boonchai said his income was completely wiped out during the worst of the Covid crisis.

    His vibrant theater went from receiving up to 4,000 Chinese visitors a night to roughly 100. After dipping into personal savings to help pay his staff, Boonchai suspended operations for two and a half years, only reopening last September.

    But the influx of business is also being met with apprehension. Many Thai people remain concerned about the risks of Covid-19 outbreaks as more tourists come back, Boonchai said.

    Barnett, too, warned there was a massive “fear factor” in local communities about whether the virus would spread as inbound travel recovered.

    Balancing economic needs with local concerns will be a key challenge for Thailand in the coming months, he said.

    The government is also facing calls to help restaff the travel industry.

    Sisdivachr Cheewarattanaporn, president of the Association of Thai Travel Agents, said labor shortages were top of mind for many businesses as the sector gradually comes back to life.

    The “tourism sector has been heavily damaged,” he said. “Those who had gone out of business, probably have changed their professions. And I am not confident if they would come back.”

    Wittaya Chaimongkol, a cabaret dancer who has worked with the Golden Dome troupe for nearly 15 years, said she was excited about the return of Chinese tourists.

    “I was missing the show very much,” she told CNN. “After two and a half years, I am now seeing light at the end of the tunnel.”

    Source: CNN

  • Illegal fishing, overfishing and corruption threaten livelihood – Report

    According to a recent research from the Environmental Justice Foundation, widespread illegal fishing and overfishing by Chinese-owned industrial trawlers are putting the livelihood of millions of Ghanaians at danger, and a culture of corruption has allowed these crimes to go unpunished (EJF).

    EJF’s investigations expose widespread corruption and intimidation that lead to shocking unlawful fishing and atrocious human rights violations on fishing vessels in Ghanaian waters.
    In order to bring the industry out of the shadows, avert the ecological and social crises, and ensure sustainable, moral, and legal fisheries in the Ghanaian fleet, EJF calls on the Ghanaian Government and its international partners to collaborate and take urgent action.

    Ghana is home to over 200 fishing communities, with almost 3 million people in the country reliant on small-scale fisheries for their livelihoods. These livelihoods are now at risk, in large part, because of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing by the industrial trawl fleet. This is believed by EJF to be at least 90 percent owned by Chinese beneficiaries, flouting Ghanaian laws on foreign ownership.

    EJF has previously documented these trawlers illegally targetting small pelagic species – including those referred to as ‘the people’s fish’ – and selling them back to the communities who would have caught them, a practice known as ‘saiko’ fishing. This illicit trade was originally conducted at sea, largely under the cover of darkness. Trawlers transferred frozen blocks of fish to specially adapted canoes which went on to sell it to local markets.

    Following government action to halt the illegal trade in September 2021, this practice appeared to have stopped. However, instead of disappearing, the activity has only become more open. EJF investigators tracked large volumes of small pelagic species and juvenile demersal fish, placed in cartons and sold at the country’s major industrial port for onward distribution across the country.

    The report draws on interviews with a Ghanaian crew who witnessed abuses first-hand and filmed evidence, a network of informants and analysis of vessel tracking data. All of those interviewed said that there was insufficient food on-board vessels, 94 percent had restricted access to clean water, and 81 percent had witnessed or experienced physical violence. Furthermore, 92 percent had seen fish illegally dumped at sea, 81 percent stated they had witnessed their captains illegally entering waters reserved for canoe fishers, 64 percent had seen the illegal targetting and capture of non-target species, and 53 percent testified to the use of illegally adapted fishing gears.

    The picture which emerges, EJF claims, is one of systemic corruption enabling illegal fishing and human rights abuses to go unreported and unpunished in the country’s waters, with almost 90 percent of crew interviewed witnessing corruption from authorities. EJF believes that the web of corruption is so deep and entangled that sustainability and the defence of human rights is impossible without substantial reforms.

    The Ghanaian Government, particularly the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development, can reverse this and ensure sustainable fisheries; but it must act by building on its laudable recent positive actions to reform parts of the industry, according to the report.

    Steve Trent, EJF CEO and Co-Founder, said: “In recent months, the Minister of Fisheries, Mavis Hawa Koomson, has taken several positive actions and these are to be applauded. However, the extent of illegal fishing and corruption in Ghana’s fisheries across its largely foreign-owned industrial fleets remains highly damaging, presenting a direct threat to the livelihoods and food security of millions of Ghanaians, and threatening the collapse of Ghana’s fisheries. The illegal targetting and landing of small pelagic species and juvenile fish completely undermines the livelihoods and food security of millions of small-scale fishers.

    “Although the need to act is urgent, the Ghanaian Government can take practical, cost-effective measures to ensure sustainable, transparent fisheries. Stronger oversight actions to tackle illegal fishing and an end to illegal landings will have immediate, lasting benefits for all Ghanaians.”

  • Galamsey: Witness details how Aisha Huang began illegal mining in Ghana

    Details are emerging about how Chinese national, infamous for Galamsey activities, began in the country.

    The state prosecution’s third witness, a director of a mining prospecting company disclosed at an Accra High court that the 47-year-old started her operations by encroaching on his concession in 2015.

    Submitting documents including maps and receipts from the Minerals Commission Nana Sarfo Prempeh told the court that he obtained a permit to undertake prospecting of minerals in areas in the Ashanti Region.

    According to Nana Sarfo Prempeh sometime in 2015, Aisha Huang entered his concession and started undertaking mining activities, this he said took a toll on his company and impeded them from carrying out explorations.

    The witness further explained that in an attempt to halt the activities of Aisha he wrote letters to the Regional Security Council, filed a complaint with traditional council and the Police headquarters in Accra but all proved futile as the accused continued with her mining operations.

    He ultimately filed an injunction at the Bekwai District Court which was granted and the accused was barred from continuing her operations.

    “I know the accused person. My knowledge of her bothers her illegal activities at the Volta resources concession. In 2015, she commenced her mining operations at the concession of Volta resources.

    “She later moved to another part of our concession at Bepotenten where her Chinese workers were arrested in May 2017

    “From that period of 2015-2017, we made all efforts to evict her from the land and stopped her illegal activities which all proved futile.

    “I hereby state that her activities were illegal because my company Volta resources limited had been granted a prospecting license so there is no way she could possibly have a mining license over the same piece of land.

    “I reported the case of her encroachment and illegal mining to REGSEC and also to the chiefs and traditional leaders of Bekwai. That also proved futile. I wish to tender into evidence a letter dated 3rd June, 2015 from Volta Resources Ltd to REGSEC as proof of our complaints about the encroachment activities of the accused person.

    “In February 2016 VRL made a formal complaint at the Police HQ. A team of investigators were assigned but nothing came out of it.

    “On April 11, 2017 VRL filed a writ of summons against En Huang at the Bekwai circuit Court. Edward Koranteng was the plaintiff in behalf of VRL against Aisha Huang of Kumasi.

    “Volta Resources Ltd also caused to be published in the media the encroachment and devastating effect of the illegal mining activities of the accused person in its concession and the effect on host the communities.

    “Letter dated 8th June 2017 with the subj being petition to IGP regarding the land seizure of excavators, machinery and equipment relevant to the case of the republic vs En Huang but nothing came out of it.
    The accused person has caused tremendous devastation to the resources of VRL”

     

     

  • Aisha Huang’s tears flow as bail is declined, trial proceeds

    En Huang, aka Aisha Huang, a Chinese alleged galamsey kingpin, on Wednesday broke down when an Accra High Court turned down her application for bail once again.

    Aisha Huang’s lawyer, Captain Retired Nkrabeah Effah Dartey, re-applied for her bail, explaining that Aisha was on bail during her trial in 2017.

    The defence counsel said: “I am not saying you should leave her. I am only asking that as the case continues, please allow her liberty in terms of movement, subject to the condition that the court would indicate.

    “Five years ago, while my client was on trial on similar charges, she never absented herself from any of the court sitting dates.”

    The Counsel explained that Aisha was broken because she had been denied bail repeatedly.

    “Being in prison or custody is not an easy thing you know. I have been through it and I know how it feels,” he added.

    The Court, presided over by Mrs Justice Lydia Osei Marfo, however, refused the application, saying the trial had commenced and was moving at a faster pace.

    “The accused is a foreigner and she has no social or other ties in the jurisdiction, and she is, therefore, a flight risk,” the court stated.

    When the trial began, Mrs Yvonne Atakora Obuobisa, the Director of Public Prosecutions, led Superintendent of Immigration, Reuben Ransford Aborabora, in evidence.

    On May 5, 2017, he led six other officers of the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) to check on the validity of the permits of foreign nationals in the country as part of his duties, the first prosecution witness explained.

    The officers, attached to the Enforcement Unit of GIS, went to Bepotenten in the Amansie Central District in the Ashanti Region.

    Supt. Aborabora said their aim of going to Bepotenten was to verify information “our office had received to the effect that some Chinese nationals and others were engaged in illegal mining at Bepotenten despite the government’s ban on illegal mining activities.”

    On reaching Bepotenten, the first prosecution witness said a road, which run through the site had a container with machine parts in it.

    There were also barrels containing fuel, while mining activities had generated freshly dugout heaps of sand.

    There was a cocoa farm close to the site and part of the cocoa farm had been cleared, while dug out pits, had some water in them, he added

    Supt. Aborabora said: “At the site, I heard the sound of excavators in use and the sound of generators. In total, I saw six excavators out of which four were in use.”

    At Bepotenten, Supt. Aborabora said the team arrested four Chinese nationals, including one Gao Jin Cheng, who informed them that they were there to mine for one Aisha.

    He said when he asked the four for their passports, they told the team that they were with Aisha.

    He, consequently, recorded the mining activities at Bepotenten on his mobile phone and transferred it to a Compact Disc and later to a pen drive.

    The video recording was thus played in court, as evidence.

    Answering questions under cross-examination by Capt. Effah Dartey, the officer maintained that Aisha was not at Bepotenten when his team visited.

    The officer also said personally, he had no direct information against Aisha for mining illegally.

    However, it was Gao who told him that they were at the mine site for Aisha, who also their passports.

    Defence Counsel (DC): “If Gao Jin Chen gave you wrong information, then your source is wrong.”

    Witness: “Yes, my Lord, I only reported on what Gao Jin Cheng told me and I forwarded same in my report to the GIS Enforcement Unit in Kumasi for further investigations.”

    DC: “You and your men carried out regular operations at Bepotenten.”

    Witness: “Not exactly, we go there as and when my senior officer in charge directs.”

    DC: “Are you aware that some of your men were constantly being compromised?”

    Witness: “No, my Lord, I have no personal information to that effect.”

    Aisha is being held for allegedly engaging in illegal mining activities at Bepotenten in the Ashanti Region in the year 2017.

    She is facing charges of undertaking mining operations without a license and facilitating the participation of persons engaged in mining.

    Aisha is also facing an additional charge of illegal employment of foreign nationals and entering Ghana while she had been prohibited from re-entry.

     

  • The NGO in Cameroon making “gold” from e-waste

    In Cameroon, the processing of the tons of electronic waste produced each year is mainly in the hands of informal actors, trained on the job, “by observing from day to day”, admits Ismael Alioum.

    According to the scrap dealer, Chinese and Indian operators are very active in the sector and are mainly supplied by informal actors. Without gloves or a protective mask, the 46-year-old man hammers an old voltage regulator.

    “Iron and plastic are very sought after,” he explains, his hands full of mud. Besides him, three young men with screwdrivers and knives are also attacking old electronic devices.

    Watch video below

    Source: Cameroom.com.org

  • We’re deceiving ourselves with galamsey fight if politicians behind it aren’t arrested – Asantehene

    The Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, has once again berated the government for failing to take the needed steps to curb the menace of illegal small-scale mining, popularly known as galamsey.

    According to the Asantehene, the government knows the politicians and government officials who are financing galamsey activities but has failed to arrest them, and it is rather arresting and prosecuting galamseyers, who are mere tools being used by these politicians.

    He added that if the government does not start arresting persons who finance galamsey activities, it will never be able to stop the menace.

    “We all know that the galamsey we are all talking about is being championed by some Ghanaians and these Chinese and other nationals they bring in. You are pretending as if you don’t know the people who are into it, but you know all of them.

    “You are always arresting galamseyers at the sites, but who takes the gold away? Do the illegal miners on the field have the money to buy the excavators they are using; can they afford the chamfans? It is someone who has bought these equipments for them. The illegal miners are people who don’t have jobs and have been employed by these financers and are being paid daily. What have they done wrong?

    “Government officials, politicians are all implicit in the galamsey menace. They have all bought these excavators and the chamfans… If we don’t arrest them, then we are deceiving ourselves with this fight against galamsey,” he said in Twi at the Manhyia Palace as he was receiving a document on galamsey from the Multimedia Group.

    The Asantehene said that the very thing about galamsey is that it is destroying water sources for many people.

    He added that if galamsey is not stopped, it will very soon contaminate the country’s cocoa which will have a devastating effect on Ghana’s economy because no country will accept Ghana’s cocoa exports.

    Meanwhile, the pollution of water bodies by galamsey seems to be getting to the sea.

    A viral video sighted by GhanaWeb showed how galamsey activities had heavily polluted parts of the Atlantic Ocean along the Central Region.

    The narrator in the video indicated that the sea, which was looking brownish, was being polluted by galamsey water from the Pra River.

    “I’m here at Awona beach, off the Cape Coast road towards Takoradi. You can see the ocean over here. See how brown it is. That is all from the River Pra. That is all muddy matters from galamsey actives.

    “See all the way over there, the Pra River all the way, all this water is brown. All galamsey water,” he said.

     

  • Kenya battles unsafe Chinese contraceptive pill a decade after ban

    When Susan Wamaitha started feeling sick a year ago, she thought it was the side effects of a contraceptive pill she had started taking a few months earlier – but it turned out that she was eight weeks pregnant.

    The 32 year old is now a mother of three children. Unbeknown to her, the pill that she began using in June 2021 was banned in Kenya.

    Its street name in Kenya is “Sofia” but it is manufactured in China and all the details about the product on the packaging are only written in Chinese.

    A translation of the first line says it contains “Levonorgestrel Fast Estradiol Tablets”. The pill is a “long-acting oral contraceptive”, according to the second line. Then there is information about the manufacturer on the third: “Zizhu Pharmaceutical Co Ltd”.

    The sale of the pill was prohibited by Kenya’s authorities 10 years ago because of high levels of levonorgestrel – more than 40 times the recommended levels.

    Levonorgestrel is a hormonal medication used in a number of birth control methods.

    The health ministry did not share the full lab results about its findings, but said children conceived after the pill failed were found to have developed early puberty.

    Headaches and nausea

     

    “I did not know it was banned. Many of my friends were using it and had no side effects,” Ms Wamaitha told the BBC.

    Like many other Kenyan women, she was attracted to the pill by its affordability and the convenience of taking it only once a month.

    A box of contraceptive pills manufactured in China and banned in KenyaPPB
    The pills are often imported illegally from neighbouring countries

    Women tend to buy the Sofia tablet each month – most suppliers will not sell it in bulk. Each pill costs between 300 Kenyan shillings ($2.50; £2.20) and 400 Kenyan shillings.

    Other family planning methods available in the country include the daily contraceptive pill. A month’s supply costs about $1.70 from government hospitals but their stock is not always guaranteed so women then have to buy it from pharmacies for considerably more.

    This makes the hormonal implant that lasts three months, offered at state clinics at a cost of around $5, and various intrauterine devices, like coils, that last several years and cost up to $9, more common alternatives.

    Condoms are offered for free in public offices and toilets but sometimes run out, though they can be bought in shops.

    “Because I had a non-hormonal copper T-shaped coil that was giving me back pains, I decided to remove it and use the pill,” Ms Wamaitha told the BBC.

    She was also impressed that her friends who recommended Sofia had not gained any weight – a key consideration for her as she says she struggles with keeping the pounds off.

    However, right from the beginning she did not feel great on it – though she thought it would just take time for her body to get used to the new medication as she had to take two pills initially followed by one a month.

    “I started having headaches and nausea. The first month I missed my period,” Ms Wamaitha said.

    But she did not worry as she had her period the following month. It was only when it skipped again in the third month that she began to get concerned.

    Her husband then started researching the contraceptive pill and that is when he found out it had been banned.

    “We started panicking about using a banned pill and when I realised I was pregnant I was worried about the effects it may have on my baby,” she said.

    They now have a healthy three-month-old girl, but the couple are upset by the lack of information and possible implications for their daughter as she grows up.

    ‘One size does not fit all’

     

    Only 50% of women in sub-Saharan Africa in need of modern contraceptive methods have access to them, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

    Dr Josephine Kibaru

    Josephine Kibaru

    A woman is likely to trust a neighbour and friend more than a healthcare worker who has been posted at the dispensary”1px transparent line

    In Kenya, contraception tends to be discussed in hushed tones – mostly because of cultural and religious beliefs in what is a patriarchal society.

    Some men do not allow their wives to use contraceptives while some religious sects are against it. The Kavonokya Sect in eastern Kenya, for example, rejects all modern medicine as it believes the Bible only recommends prayer as an intervention.

    For population and development expert Dr Josephine Kibaru, a grassroots approach would be best to gain acceptance for modern family planning methods.

    “We need community health volunteers to be more empowered with information because a woman is likely to trust a neighbour and friend more than a healthcare worker who has been posted at the dispensary,” Dr Kibaru told the BBC.

    She says there is a chasm of ignorance about the birth control methods available, along with many myths and misconceptions that need to be dispelled.

    A combination of both is probably what is required as gynaecologist Brigid Monda says women should consult healthcare providers to be able to find a family planning method that works for them.

    “One size does not fit all,” she told the BBC.

    Yet some women have also been forced to mix different contraceptive methods because of a lack of consistent supply at dispensaries located in rural areas.

    Sofia remains easily available despite its ban. The fact that women do not know it is banned is down to poor public health messaging, according to Dr Kibaru.

    “Using the media alone is not enough. Intentional public messaging at grassroots level is important to ensure the masses understand well why a drug has been banned,” she says.

    Sold to trusted customers

     

    Pharmacists do know it is banned – another warning was issued by the health ministry last month – yet they still sell the pill because of demand.

    It is not on display, but sold under the counter to trusted customers who come in to buy it each month.

    The BBC visited several pharmacies in the capital, Nairobi, to make inquiries about Sofia – most said the drug was not for sale.

    One seller – who spoke on condition of anonymity – explained that it was available, just not on display, and pharmacies were able to buy it from suppliers who brought it in from neighbouring countries.

    Earlier this month, a Pharmacy and Poisons Board (PPB) official told Kenya’s Standard newspaper a shipment had been intercepted at the Ugandan border.

    Ms Wamaitha says she actually bought her pills from a friend who gets them in bulk from one of these suppliers.

    She says this friend and others knew the pill was banned when they recommended it to her.

    Her pregnancy has not persuaded them to stop using it – nor do any of the complaints on the various Facebook groups for Kenyan mothers.

    On at least three of these forums there have been discussions about Sofia, where several women taking it said they had fallen pregnant.

    This has convinced Ms Wamaitha to keep on urging her friends and other women to consider a different form of birth control.

    “I just know that the mention of that Sofia pill makes me get chills on my body. I don’t know what family planning method I will use to prevent a fourth pregnancy, but I’m done, done with that pill.”

    Source: BBC

  • 3 Chinese illegal miners, 2 Ghanaians arrested

    Three(3) Chinese illegal miners including a female and two(2) Ghanaians have been arrested in Atiwa West Municipality in the Eastern region.

    The illegal miners were arrested during the weekend whilst mining with excavators destroying the vegetation and polluting the Birim river.

    Their mining equipment were confiscated.

    The accused have been arraigned before Koforidua Circuit Court and remanded.

    Eastern Region is one of the mining regions in Ghana Chinese sneaking to engage in illegal mining.

    Dozens of these Chinese illegal miners have been arrested in the last five years but only three have been imprisoned.

     As part of the fight against the menace, Chief Justice designated the Koforidua High Court 3 and Circuit Court B, to deal with illegal mining cases in the region.

    Recent statistics by the Eastern Regional Office of the Attorney General Department headed by Chief State Attorney Mrs. Emily Addo-Okyireh detailed that, a total of 187 illegal miners charged in 48 cases have been convicted and sentenced to various terms of imprisonment in the Region since 2017.

    The 187 convicted persons include 29 nationals of Niger, seven Nigerians and three Chinese.

    A majority of the accused persons were tried and sentenced under the old section 99 of the Minerals and Mining Act, 2006 (Act 703). Section 99(1) of Act 703 prescribed a penalty of a minimum fine of three thousand penalty units or imprisonment for a term of not more than five years for the offence of buying or selling minerals without a licence.

    For the offence of undertaking a small-scale mining operation without a licence or acting in contravention of a provision of Act 703 in respect of which an offence is created, section 99(2) of Act 703 stipulated a penalty of a minimum fine of one thousand penalty units or to imprisonment for a term not more than three years.

    In spite of the provision not being punitive enough, the Office of the Attorney-General says it succeeded in ensuring the application of maximum or near maximum custodial sentences allowed under imposed on the accused persons in 40 of the cases with the court exercising the discretion to impose a fine the rest of the cases.

     

  • DR Congo colonels sentenced to death for murdering Chinese workers

    Six persons, including two army colonels, were sentenced to death in connection with the march killing, while four others were imprisoned for ten years.

    A military court in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has sentenced six persons to death, including two army colonels, in connection with the March murder of two Chinese mine employees.

    Four other military personnel were sentenced to 10 years in prison by the Ituri Military Court on Friday.

    All but one of those receiving the death sentence was a member of the military.

    The two colonels are accused of planning an attack on a convoy in March, with the aim of stealing four gold bars and $6,000 in cash being transported by the victims, who were returning from a gold mine.

    Verdict ‘serves as an example’

    In the DRC, death penalties are regularly handed down but systematically commuted to life imprisonment.

    “This must serve as an example for the black sheep in the armed forces,” Lieutenant Jules Ngongo, spokesman for military operations in the gold-rich Ituri province, told the AFP news agency.

    Attacks on Chinese-managed mines and Chinese workers are not uncommon in resource-rich eastern DRC, which has been ravaged by militia violence for decades.

    Last year, the DRC government placed security officials in charge of the administration of Ituri and neighboring North Kivu province in a bid to curb violence. However, the measure has failed to stop attacks.

    The defence team said they would appeal.

     

  • Passport applicants stranded as passport booklet runs out over unpaid debt

    Some citizens who have applied for passports are enraged because passport offices around the nation are unable to give their passports despite the passing of their collecting dates.

    Starr News sources claim that the passport office is currently only handling priority cases since the supplier of the passport booklet has refused to provide due to unpaid payments.

    “The Chinese firm that supplies the booklet hasn’t given us any since a while ago since we owe them money.
    The last three weeks have seen us unable to print new passports.
    We are hoping to break the deadlock soon,” a passport office employee told Starr News on Thursday.

    A frustrated passport applicant Mavis Adjei told Starr News ” I was supposed to receive my booklet last week and they keep tossing me and I need to travel next week”.

    Another applicant James Quaye said he applied for a passport in Koforidua in the hope of receiving it in time for a visa appointment but now he is caught in the situation.

    Attempts for a response from the passport office on the development have proved futile as our calls to them have remained unanswered.

  • Chinese national arrested for stabbing co-worker at Takoradi

    The Police has arrested a Chinese national for causing harm to his Ghanaian co-worker at a construction site at Kweikuma suburb of Takoradi, in the Western Region.
    Preliminary investigation carried out by the Police indicates that the suspect, Xue Hue, on September 28, 2022, attacked his colleague mason with a knife, inflicting a cut on his neck.
    The victim, whose identity has not been disclosed has since been treated and discharged.
    Meanwhile, the suspect is in custody assisting with investigation.
    According to the Police, Xue Hue will be put before a court of law on September 30, 2022, to face justice.
    Source: The Independent Ghana

  • Chinese boss to make court appearance after allegedly slashing Ghanaian employee

    A Chinese national who allegedly slashed the throat of his Ghanaian employee at Kweikuma, a community in the Sekondi-Takoradi municipality of the Western Region is set to make a court appearance today.

    Police preliminary investigation indicates that the suspect, Xue Hue, on September 28, 2022, allegedly attacked the victim, who is a mason with Paulichenda Engineering, a construction company at Kweikuma, with a knife inflicting a cut on his neck.

    The Police in a statement said Hue was arrested “for using an offensive weapon to cause harm” and will be put before court on September 30, 2022, to face justice.

    The victim has since been treated and discharged.

    Read the entire police statement below;

    POLICE ARREST CHINESE NATIONAL FOR CAUSING HARM TO A CO-WORKER AT TAKORADI

    The Police have arrested a Chinese national for using an offensive weapon to cause harm to his Ghanaian co-worker at a construction site at Kweikuma suburb of Takoradi, in the Western Region.

    Preliminary investigation indicates that the suspect, Xue Hue, on September 28, 2022, allegedly attacked the victim, who is a mason with a construction company at Kweikuma, with a knife inflicting a cut on his neck.

    The victim has since been treated and discharged.

    Meanwhile, the suspect is in custody assisting investigation and will be put before court on September 30, 2022, to face justice.

     

  • Trade between Ghana and China hits US$9.57billion

    Built on mutual trust for development, bilateral trade volume between Ghana and China peaked at US$9.57billion in 2021 from US$6.67billion in 2017, the Chinese Ambassador to Ghana, Lu Kun has disclosed.

    Representing a 12 per cent year-on-year increase, China’s direct investment also increased by US$15 million, making Ghana, China’s largest trading partner in Africa.

    The Chinese Ambassador disclosed this at a durbar to commission a 22-km Cape Coast inner city road infrastructure funded by the Chinese government through the Sinohydro agreement.

    He attributed the steady rise in trade and investments to the strong demand for Chinese products by Ghanaians as well as measures put in place by both countries to leverage the long-standing relations.

    The Vice-President, Dr Mohamudu Bawumia, together with Mr Kwasi Amoako Atta, Roads and Highways Minister joined the chiefs of the Area to commission the road project aimed at expanding access to ease traffic and accelerate development.

    Elated by the increasing trade volumes between China and Ghana, the Ambassador said: “These are not just numbers, but a symbol of China-Ghana friendship we value and cherish.”

    “The China-Ghana ties have been kept on a sound momentum of high-level bilateral exchanges and ever-increasing trust built on mutual strong conviction for development.

    “The decades of solid relations remain a springboard for a win-win China-Ghana cooperation hinged on consolidating bilateral traditional friendship, deepening pragmatic cooperation, and broad consensus building on issues of mutual concern,” he stated.

    The Chinese Ambassador indicated that China and Ghana have always supported each other on issues concerning their core and major interests, keeping close cooperation in the international and regional arena and thus safeguarding the relationship.

    Through that, Mr Kun said the Chinese government had financed, partnered, and executed several critical national projects relating to the economic growth and the livelihood of people in Ghana.

    Key among them are the National Theatre, office complexes of the Foreign Ministry and Defence Ministry, the University of Health and Allied Sciences in Ho and the Cape Coast Sports Stadium.

    Others are the Atuabo Gas Processing Project, Bui Dam, and Kpong Water Supply Expansion Project, Asogli Power Plant, and Africa World Airline (AWA) which have played a key role in resolving the power shortage and promoting the interconnection of the sub-region.

    Lately, the Chinese equipment and technologies have accelerated the pace of integration with local enterprises and capital, bringing into being several local star enterprises and adding fuel to the enthusiasm for Ghana’s cooperation with China.

    On people-to-people exchanges, he said cultural exchanges were close and ever-increasing on mutual understanding, as wood sculpture, music, and dance, among other forms of tourists, enjoyed high popularity among Chinese tourists.

    Mrs Justina Marigold Assan said the completion of roads was key to the region’s investment drive to become the preferred investment destination in the country.

    She said the Region remained the most preferred destination in Ghana’s quest to continuously attract investment from the Diaspora.

     

  • Chinese now running provision and spare parts shops in Juaboso – Mintah Akandoh laments

    Residents of Juaboso in the Western North region are gradually falling out of business as Chinese nationals have taken over their daily petty trading.

    Speaking on Okay FM’s ‘Ade Akye Abia’ programme, the Member of Parliament(MP) for Juaboso constituency, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh lamented that Chinese nationals are not only engaging in galamsey but are also selling provisions and spare parts.

    A trading activity that was hitherto reserved for the indigenous community members of Juaboso and its environs.

    Hon. Mintah Akandoh who is very much worried about the unpalatable situation says the government’s fight against illegal mining popularly known as galamsey has become a mere rhetoric with the Chinese mining with impunity.

    “The NPP government do not have the desire to fight or end the illegal mining because they are not committed to it. A number of NPP foot soldiers and even top hierarchy are heavily involved in the galamsey business. For instance, with what happened at Elubo, an NPP constituency Secretary was among those who were arrested for destroying a whole village in the name of Galamsey,” he said.

    He further explained that though government claims to have invested heavily in the fight against illegal mining, it looks more attractive now than before because those who are caught destroying the water bodies and the forest reserves are left to go unpunished which will at least serve as a deterrent to others.

    “How can we allow Chinese nationals with the aid of Ghanaians to destroy our water bodies and forest reserves and also take over businesses meant for Ghanaians,” he rhetorically asked.

    Expressing his disgust for the rate at which illegal miners have taken over his constituency, he noted that government’s abysmal performance in the fight against galamsey clearly shows that they are losing it.

     

  • ‘We didn’t give Aisha Huang visa’ – Ghana’s Ambassador to China

    The Ambassador of Ghana to China, Dr Winfred Nii Okai Hammond, on Thursday stated that the Embassy of Ghana in Beijing has nothing to do with En Huan, also known as Aisha Huan’s return to Ghana.

    He said the Chinese national who was deported from Ghana to China in December 2018 for allegedly engaging in illegal mining activities in the Ashanti Region “did not take any visa from us.”

    Dr Hammond made these remarks here when two Chinese investors paid him a visit in his office, to among others, discuss issues of common interest and mutual benefit, including investment in Ghana, job creation for Ghanaians and transfer of technology to spur economic growth.

    Dr Hammond told the Ghanaian Times that it was necessary to respond to some unfounded allegations made against the Ghana Embassy for facilitating the return of Miss Huan to Ghana by issuing her a visa.

    While saying that the law should be applied to the letter, he noted that En Huang’s case ought to be handled with utmost caution so as not to jeopardise the healthy relationship built by Ghana and China.

    Dr Hammond noted there were many genuine Chinese businesses in Ghana contributing to the growth of the Ghanaian economy but said that those who flouted Ghana’s laws must be dealt with in accordance with law.

    En Huang had already made two court appearances following her arrest, first at the Circuit Court on September 6, and at the Accra High Court on September 16 in respect of different offences.

    At the Accra Circuit Court, En Huang and three others, Jong Li Hua; Huang Jei and HuiadHiahu had been charged with engaging in illegal mining in Ghana as well as engaging in sale and purchase of minerals without licence.

    On September 16, the Accra High Court presided over by Justice Lydia OseiMarfo remanded the accused until October 11.

    The prosecutor, Mr Godfred Yeboah Dame, the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice charged En Huang with undertaking mining operation without licence, facilitating the participation of persons engaged in mining operation, illegal employment of foreign nationals contrary to section 24 of the Immigration Act, 2000 (Act 573) and entering Ghana while prohibited from re-entry contrary to section 20(4) of the Immigration Act, 2000, Act 573.

  • ‘We didn’t give Aisha Huang visa’ – Ambassador

    The Ambassador of Ghana to China, Dr Winfred Nii Okai Hammond, on Thursday stated that the Embassy of Ghana in Beijing has nothing to do with En Huan, also known as Aisha Huan’s return to Ghana.

    He said the Chinese national who was deported from Ghana to China in December 2018 for allegedly engaging in illegal mining activities in the Ashanti Region “did not take any visa from us.”

    Dr Hammond made these remarks here when two Chinese investors paid him a visit in his office, to among others, discuss issues of common interest and mutual benefit, including investment in Ghana, job creation for Ghanaians and transfer of technology to spur economic growth.

    Dr Hammond told the Ghanaian Times that it was necessary to respond to some unfounded allegations made against the Ghana Embassy for facilitating the return of Miss Huan to Ghana by issuing her a visa.

    While saying that the law should be applied to the letter, he noted that En Huang’s case ought to be handled with utmost caution so as not to jeopardise the healthy relationship built by Ghana and China.

    Dr Hammond noted there were many genuine Chinese businesses in Ghana contributing to the growth of the Ghanaian economy but said that those who flouted Ghana’s laws must be dealt with in accordance with law.

    En Huang had already made two court appearances following her arrest, first at the Circuit Court on September 6, and at the Accra High Court on September 16 in respect of different offences.

    At the Accra Circuit Court, En Huang and three others, Jong Li Hua; Huang Jei and HuiadHiahu had been charged with engaging in illegal mining in Ghana as well as engaging in sale and purchase of minerals without licence.

    On September 16, the Accra High Court presided over by Justice Lydia OseiMarfo remanded the accused until October 11.

    The prosecutor, Mr Godfred Yeboah Dame, the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice charged En Huang with undertaking mining operation without licence, facilitating the participation of persons engaged in mining operation, illegal employment of foreign nationals contrary to section 24 of the Immigration Act, 2000 (Act 573) and entering Ghana while prohibited from re-entry contrary to section 20(4) of the Immigration Act, 2000, Act 573.

  • Parents sue daughter they abandoned as toddler for not buying her brother an apartment

    A Chinese couple who abandoned their daughter when she was only a toddler, suddenly reappeared in her life decades later when they learned she was well off, to ask her for a home for her brother.

    Zhang was only 2 years old when her parents decided they couldn’t raise her anymore and placed her in the care of her brother’s sister. They had little to no other interaction with her ever since, and the now 29-year-old woman always considered her aunt’s family her biological one. It was for this reason that she recently used part of her savings to help her cousin, who she considers her brother, buy an apartment. However, she never anticipated that her generosity would suddenly make her biological parents come knocking, asking her to buy an apartment for her biological brother as well.

    The Shandong Business Daily reported that Zhang’s biological parents, who also live in Guangzhou, demanded that she take care of their son, whom they had kept, despite their financial difficulties. When the young woman refused, they filed a lawsuit with a local court asking for 500,000 yuan ($72,000) in “parental maintenance.”

    The Chinese court recently issued a controversial verdict that sparked outrage on Chinese social media. It ruled that, while Zhang had no obligation to gift property to her adult biological brother or otherwise help him financially, she was legally required to support her parents.

    Filial piety is a big deal in China, and the law clearly states that all adult children have a legal obligation to offer support to their biological parents, regardless of whether they fulfilled their duties as parents. Basically, if they gave you life, you need to support them when you grow up if their income does not cover the needs of daily life. In this particular case, the court ruled that Zhang needed to negotiate with her biological parents and settle on an amount to pay as maintenance.

    The verdict sparked outrage online, with the vast majority of comments being critical to Zhang’s parents.

    “Are they vampires? The father sucked up the blood of his sister, and now he and his wife want to drain the blood from their daughter,” one person wrote.

    “It’s so lucky that Zhang didn’t grow up in her family of origin. Horrible!” someone else commented.

  • Releasing Aisha Huang’s alleged sex tapes will be a crime – Charles Bissue

    It will be a crime for Aisha Huang to release video footages of her sexual encounters with Ghanaian officials.

    That’s the reaction of former Secretary to the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining, Charles Bissue on the return of the Chinese businesswoman who is currently facing criminal charges of mining in Ghana without a license.

    There are doubts that government would proceed with the prosecution of the case due to reports that the Chinese woman controls a powerful cartel that is blackmailing Ghanaian ministers of state and high ranking state officials.

    Meanwhile, Editor of the New Crusading Guide, Abdul Malik Kweku Baako has disclosed that Aisha Huang, nicknamed ‘galamsey queen’ has a series of recorded sex videos involving persons serving in the incumbent and previous administrations.

    Reacting to fears that Aisha Huang may resort to releasing the videos as a trump card to evade prosecution, Charles Bissue argued that it will go against her if she does that.

    “Whatever sex video she has with people, were they with underage children? No, he answered while adding that it might be “consensual” and that “she in the first place videoing that is a crime… whatever sex that happened the person was not raped,” he explained.

    Mr. Charles Bissue further recounted how there were attempts to blackmail him during his tenure as Secretary to the Inter-Ministerial Committee to shelve some investigative reports at his outfit, a proposal he declined.

  • Aisha Huang called me from China after 2018 deportation – Effah Darteh

    Captain (Rtd.) Nkrabea Effah Darteh, the attorney for the Chinese galamsey kingpin, has said that his client flew all the way back to her country in 2018.

    This comes amid dispute over the “repatriation or deportation” status of Aisha Huang.

    In an interview with Okay FM on September 15, the lawyer said his client called him three days after arriving in China to confirm her arrival.

    According to him, Aisha Huang stated that she was put on an Ethiopian airline to Addis Abeba, from which she continued to China.

    “I interacted with her briefly when she was ‘deported’ from Ghana. I was surprised she left the country. She called me three days later from China to inform me that she has been taken to China. I asked her what happened.

    “She explained that when she went to the police headquarters, she was put in an Ethiopian Airline plane and back to China. Since then, I did not speak to her until five years later that I read in Graphic that she has been arrested and detained,” Effah Darteh said.

    “There have been varied accounts on whether or not Aisha Huang left the country in 2018 after the state filed a nolle prosequi in a case involving her.

    While government have maintained that she left the shores of the country, state prosecutors in her recent case have said that she sneaked out of the country.

    President Nana Akufo-Addo also in an interview on a Ho-based radio station cast doubt on whether Aisha Huang was deported or fled the country.

    The president said: “I am not still sure whether she was, in fact, deported or whether she fled the country the first time and has now come back or whatever. There still seems to be some uncertainty about it”.

    The comment by the president has raised several eyebrows with the Minority pushing for a full-blown probe into the circumstances of Aisha Huang’s ‘deportation’.

    Meanwhile, Aisha Huang has been denied bail together with her three accomplices. They have been remanded in custody for two weeks.

     

     

  • Aisha Huang to face 20-year jail term if found guilty – Judge

    If found guilty of the accusations leveled against her, the Chinese galamsey queen, Aisha Huang could spend up to 20 years in prison.

    This was disclosed by the presiding Judge at the Circuit Court sitting judge, his honor Samuel Bright Acquah.

    The accused individual faces a minimum fine of 30,000 penalty units, which is equal to (GHc360, 000), and a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, the judge said in his verdict on Aisha Huang’s bail application.

    He said that based on the severity of the matter, the accused person cannot be granted bail.

    Samuel Bright Acquah said the reason, citing Article 96(5) of Act 30, is that the accused may not appear to stand trial or may interfere with any witness or evidence or hamper the investigations of the police in any way.

    The judge explained that the first accused person; Aisha Huang, may interfere with evidence due to her influence in the country.

    He added that the court may also refuse bail if the accused is likely to commit a further offence on bail or the offence the accused is charged with was committed whilst on bail.

    In ascertaining whether or not an accused may appear to stand trial, he said the courts are again guided by the conditions in section 96(6).

    These are; inter alia the nature of the accusation, the nature of the evidence available, the severity of the punishment if he is subsequently convicted, and if he has breached any previous bail requirement, whether he has a fixed place of abode in Ghana and is gainfully employed and if his sureties are competent enough.

    He added that the severity of the offence has to do with illegal mining which has been committed by foreigners.
    Aisha Huang is facing trial in court following her rearrest.

    Aisha Huang is facing two charges; mining without a license and sale of minerals without a license.

    The court on September 14, 2022, denied Aisha Huang and 3 other accused persons bail after they pleaded not guilty.

    She is expected to reappear on September 27, 2022.

  • Covid in China: Fish tested amid Xiamen outbreak

    More than five million people have been ordered to undergo Covid-19 testing in the coastal Chinese city of Xiamen this week, after some 40 cases of the virus were detected.

    But they’re not the only ones who have been ordered to get tested: an official notice states that some forms of sea life are also expected to join the latest mass-testing drive.

    In recent weeks, Xiamen’s Jimei Maritime Pandemic Control district committee issued a notice saying that when fishermen return to their ports “both fishermen and their seafood must be tested”.

    The result has been that amid this latest outbreak, video footage has appeared on multiple social media platforms including Douyin – China’s local version of TikTok – showing medical workers giving live fish and crabs Covid-19 PCR tests.

    While this might look unusual, this is not the first time that live fish have been tested for Covid-19.

    An employee at the Xiamen Municipal Oceanic Development Bureau told the South China Morning Post newspaper: “We’ve taken lessons from Hainan, which is witnessing a severe outbreak.

    “It’s said that it may be triggered by marine product transactions between local fishermen and their overseas counterparts.”

    A fish being tested in Shanghai
    Fish were tested in March during the Shanghai outbreak

    The southern Chinese province of Hainan, a coastal region like Xiamen, has recorded more than 10,000 cases of Covid-19 since the beginning of August, and the authorities have said they believe this outbreak is likely to be linked to the fishing community.

    Chinese media have long expressed concerns that sealife might have links to the coronavirus. The first ever Covid-19 outbreak was linked to a live animal and seafood market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.

    Although it is unlikely that seafood is a host for the virus, many of China’s outbreaks have been linked to port workers, those handling cold chain goods, or workers at seafood markets.

    In June 2020, one such outbreak in Beijing sparked a salmon panic.

    State media said that Covid-19 had been detected on chopping boards used for imported salmon. This not only lead to restaurants and supermarkets pulling salmon from their shelves, but also saw imports halted. The panic spread nationwide, with widespread nervousness about the eating the aquatic product.

    Fish aren’t the only non-humans to have undergone Covid-19 testing during China’s drive towards wiping out the virus over the last two years.

    In May, official media circulated footage of a hippo being tested at wildlife park in Huzhou, eastern Zhejiang, saying it was “necessary” for the creature to be tested twice a week.

    Source: BBC

     

  • Chinese internet giants hand algorithm data to government

    Chinese internet giants including Alibaba, Tiktok-owner ByteDance and Tencent have shared details of their algorithms with China’s regulators for the first time.

    Algorithms decide what users see and the order they see it in – and are critical to driving the growth of social media platforms.

    They are closely guarded by companies.

    In the US Meta and Alphabet have successfully argued they are trade secrets amid calls for more disclosure.

    The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) has published a list with the descriptions of 30 algorithms.

    In a statement it said that its algorithm list would be routinely updated in a bid to curb data abuse.

    Among the listed algorithms is one belonging to e-commerce website Taobao, owned by Alibaba.

    The Mandarin document said Taobao’s algorithm “recommends products or services to users through their digital footprint and historical search data.”

    ByteDance’s algorithm for Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, is said to gauge user interests through what they click, comment on, “like” or “dislike”.

    Kendra Schaefer, head of tech policy research at Trivium China, said the data appeared “surface level”.

    “It doesn’t look like the algorithms themselves have been submitted,” she told the BBC.

    “Each one of these algorithms has been given a registration number, so the CAC can focus enforcement efforts on a particular algorithm. The question is, what is the next step to seeing if an algorithm is up to code?”

    However, Zhai Wei, an executive director at the Competition Law Research Center at the East China University of Political Science and Law, believes the information provided was “much more detailed than what was published for sure”.

    “That involves some business secrets, which is not possible to be released to the public,” he told Bloomberg.

    ByteDance declined to comment when approached by the BBC on Tuesday.

    Alibaba and listed technology firms Tencent, NetEase and Baidu did not immediately respond to a BBC request for comment

     

    Suranjana Tewari, Asia Business Correspondent

    This move is ultimately about control.

    China has the largest base of internet users in the world, and is a massive market for e-commerce, gaming and smartphones. And so, technology companies operating there have expanded exponentially in recent years.

    Beijing is fiercely protective of the technology behind these companies, and doesn’t allow the export of it beyond its shores.

    But it’s concerned about how these platforms can influence public opinion within China, and prefers to have more oversight over their technology and data. It wants to redirect people’s attention to content that the state thinks is fit for public consumption.

    Beijing has urged service providers to ensure algorithms “actively spread positive energy”, and are not used to encourage indulgences, excessive spending and exposure to celebrity culture.

    International brands like Google and Facebook have been under pressure to submit this kind of information over concerns about how they use data and curate content, but they have resisted until now, saying that algorithms are business secrets.

    Chinese regulators have been tightening their grip on the technology sector for nearly two years now.

    The country adopted new rules for algorithms in March – which allow users to opt out of contributing to recommendations.

    It also required algorithms with “public opinion properties or social mobilisation capabilities” to register with the CAC.

    Ms Schaefer said it was “remarkable” that the registrations were made public.

    “I’m not aware of any other country in the world where you can go see a list of all of the pieces of code that are essentially informing the decisions that you make, the purchasing decisions that you make, the content viewing decisions that you make,” she said.

     

    Source: BBC

  • Galamsey: 2 Chinese, 2 Ghanaians arrested in Nzema East

    The Nzema East Municipal Security Council (NEMSC) in the Western Region have arrested two Chinese nationals and two Ghanaians at a newly developed Galamsey site at Kwakwukrom.

    Suspects Li Gou Hua, 40years; Wei Hua Fen, 37; Gambo Akpandaa, 29 years and Karim Abdulai, 28 years, were arrested on Tuesday, July 6, 2021, between 1200hours and 18hours.

    Items seized on site were 16 gallons of diesel, one water hose, a fuel pumping motor and others.

    Speaking exclusively to GhanaWeb’s Western Regional Correspondent, Hon. Frank Okpenyen who is the Chairman of the Nzema East Municipal Security Council, the council arrested the suspects after a tip-off by some good citizens.

    He added these illegal miners went to the community without any permit.

    “These galamseyers started their operation some weeks ago and in fact, the community members were not informed. This time around nobody will sit aloof to allow any galamseyer destroy our water bodies and lands. We will continue to monitor the activities of galamseyers in Nzema East Municipality,” he said.

    The MCE pledged that these suspects would face the law without any favour.

    He, therefore, seized the opportunity to commend those good citizens who informed the Municipal Security Council about the activities of the Galamseyers at Kwakwukrom.

    He disclosed that three excavators were seen on the site and said efforts are underway to move them from the site.

    The suspects have therefore been handed over to the Regional Police Command for investigations and prosecution.

    Source: www.ghanaweb.com

  • China sentences Canadian to death on drugs charge

    A Chinese court has sentenced a Canadian citizen to death on charges of producing the drug ketamine.

    A court notice in the city of Guangzhou said Xu Weihong was found guilty after a trial. His alleged accomplice, Wen Guanxiong, was given a life sentence.

    No details of the case were disclosed. He is the third Canadian to be sentenced to death in China recently.

    Relations between the countries have been tense since the arrest of a Huawei executive in Vancouver in late 2018.

    Meng Wanzhou’s detention following a request from the United States angered China and soured relations with both Canada and the US.

    How many countries still have the death penalty?

    Local media in Guangzhou in southern China reported that Xu Weihong and Wen Guanxiong began making the drug in October 2016. Police later seized 120kgs (266 pounds) of it from Mr Xu’s home and another address, the reports said.

    Ketamine is a powerful animal tranquilizer that has become popular as a recreational drug.

    China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said there was no connection between the case and the current state of China-Canada relations.

    “I would like to stress that China’s judicial authorities handle the relevant case independently in strict accordance with Chinese law and legal procedures,” said Mr Wang. “Death sentences for drug-related crimes that are extremely dangerous will help deter and prevent such crimes.”

    Last year two other Canadian nationals were sentenced to death over drug charges. Robert Lloyd Schellenberg was found guilty of drug smuggling after a sudden retrial. Months later another man, Fan Wei, was given the death penalty for trafficking methamphetamine.

    Earlier this year, China detained two Canadians, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, accusing them of spying.

    Source: bbc.com

  • Kashmir clash: 20 Indian troops killed in fighting with Chinese forces

    At least 20 Indian soldiers were killed in a clash with Chinese forces in Ladakh in the disputed Kashmir region, Indian officials say.

    The incident follows rising tensions and is the first deadly clash in the border area in at least 45 years.

    The Indian army initially said three of its soldiers had been killed, adding that both sides suffered casualties.

    But later on Tuesday, officials a number of critically injured soldiers had died of their wounds.

    India’s external affairs ministry accused China of breaking an agreement struck the previous week to respect the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Galwan Valley.

    What have both sides said about the incident? Early on Tuesday, the Indian army said three of its soldiers, including an officer, had died in a clash in the area.

    Later in the day, it released a statement saying the two sides had disengaged.

    It added that “17 Indian troops who were critically injured in the line of duty” and died from their injuries, taking the “total that were killed in action to 20”.

    China did not confirm any casualties but accused India in turn of crossing the border onto the Chinese side.

    Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said India had crossed the border twice on Monday, “provoking and attacking Chinese personnel, resulting in serious physical confrontation between border forces on the two sides”, AFP news agency reported.

    Local media outlets reported that the Indian soldiers had been “beaten to death” but there was no confirmation from the military. China’s Global Times newspaper reported that “solemn representations” had been made with India.

    How tense is the area? The LAC is poorly demarcated. The presence of rivers, lakes and snowcaps means the line can shift. The soldiers either side – representing two of the world’s largest armies – come face to face at many points.

    Both sides insist no bullet has been fired in four decades, and the Indian army said on Tuesday that “no shots were fired” in this latest skirmish.

    But there have been tense confrontations between the two nuclear powers along the border in recent weeks.

    India has accused China of sending thousands of troops into Ladakh’s Galwan valley and says China occupies 38,000sq km (14,700sq miles) of its territory. Several rounds of talks in the last three decades have failed to resolve the boundary disputes.

    The two countries have fought only one war so far, in 1962, when India suffered a humiliating defeat.

    In May, dozens of Indian and Chinese soldiers exchanged physical blows in a clash on the border in the north-eastern state of Sikkim. And in 2017, the two countries clashed in the region after China tried to extend a border road through a disputed plateau.

    There are several reasons why tensions are rising now – but competing strategic goals lie at the root, and both sides blame each other.

    India has built a new road in what experts say is the most remote and vulnerable area along the LAC in Ladakh. And India’s decision to ramp up infrastructure seems to have infuriated Beijing.

    The road could boost Delhi’s capability to move men and materiel rapidly in case of a conflict.

    India also disputes part of Kashmir – an ethnically diverse Himalayan region covering about 140,000sq km – with Pakistan.

    Disclaimer : “Opinions expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author(s) and do not in any way reflect those of backend.theindependentghana.com. Our outfit will hereby not be liable for any inaccuracies contained in this article.”

    Source: BBC

  • Chinese conservationists battle to save pangolins from poachers

    c
    The freeing of the scaly creature in the eastern province of Zhejiang came after Beijing’s Forestry and Grassland Administration granted the world’s most trafficked mammal similar protections to that of giant pandas.

    It was among at least six pangolins – poached for their meat and prized scales – returned to the wild in the last month, according to conservationists.

    “This is a great miracle, we have really changed the status quo so that now pangolins are released back into the wild,” said Sophia Zhang, director at the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation.

    The charity’s staff, working with Jinhua Animal Rescue Centre, released the young female pangolin into a forest on Thursday.

    It was found in a fishpond by a farmer, who reported it to police, and the animal was brought to the government-run rescue centre in Jinhua.

    Zhang, who helps wildlife rescue centres across China release pangolins back into the wild, said May to July was primetime for spotting the creatures.

    “They will often roam around and get lost outside their natural habitat, or end up in farmers’ homes in search of food.”

    But she said it is hard to accurately gauge the number of Chinese pangolins remaining in the wild – only that “very few” are left.

    Zhang added that four creatures, who cannot survive in captivity, were set free last month and another was released in eastern Anhui province last week.

    The mammals, native to parts of Africa and Asia, are thought by some scientists to be the possible host of the novel coronavirus that emerged at a market in China’s Wuhan city last year.

    Beijing recently banned the sale of wild animals for food, citing the risk of diseases spreading to humans, but the trade remains legal for other purposes – including research and traditional medicine.

    However, pangolins were left out of the official Chinese Pharmacopoeia this year, the state-owned Health Times reported this week.

    The landmark development in the creature’s conservation efforts was hailed by campaigners who had lobbied for the change for a long time.

    Their scales are prized in traditional Chinese medicine – despite a lack of scientific proof – and used for the treatment of various diseases such as arthritis, ulcers and tumours.

    A practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine told AFP, using his online name Xinglin Darren because of the sensitivities involved, said the new restrictions would impact some treatments.

    He explained: “It can’t be replaced.”

    Source: france24.com

  • China abductions: Parents find son snatched in hotel 32 years ago

    A Chinese couple whose son was abducted in a hotel in 1988 have been reunited with him after 32 years.

    Mao Yin was snatched aged two, while his father stopped to get him some water on the way home from nursery.

    His parents searched the country for him and his mother distributed more than 100,000 flyers.

    The family were reunited at a police news conference on Monday, and the son – now aged 34 – said he planned to spend time with his parents.

    “I would like to thank the tens of thousands of people who helped us,” said Li Jingzhi, the boy’s mother.

    What happened to Mao Yin?

    He was born on 23 February, 1986. In an interview with the South China Morning Post in January – before he was found – his mother called him a “very clever, cute, and healthy” baby.

    On 17 October 1988, his father, Mao Zhenjing, was bringing him home from nursery in the city of Xian in Shaanxi province.

    The boy asked for a drink of water, so they stopped in the entrance of a hotel. As the father cooled down some hot water, he looked away briefly, and the boy was taken.

    The family searched in and around Xian, putting up posters. At one point, they thought they had found him, but it was a false dawn.

    Mrs Li quit her job to search for her son – handing out some 100,000 flyers in more than 10 provinces and municipalities – without success.

    Over the years she appeared on numerous Chinese television shows to appeal for help, including The X Factor. She followed 300 leads, the SCMP said, but no match was found,

    In 2007, Mrs Li started volunteering with a group called “Baby Come Back Home”, to help other parents look for their missing children.

    According to state media, she helped reunite 29 children with their families, while her own son was still missing. She intends to keep working with the group.

    How was Mao Yin found? In April, state media said, police received a tip about a man from Sichuan Province in south-west China – about 1,000km (620 miles) from Xian – who had adopted a baby years earlier.

    Police found the adoptee, now a 34-year-old man, and a DNA test was carried out to see if he was related to Mao Zhenjing and Li Jingzhi. It came back positive.

    Mao Yin – who had been renamed Gu Ningning – now runs a home decoration business. He said he was “not sure” about the future, but would spend time with his parents.

    Police said he had been sold as a boy to a childless couple for 6,000 yuan (£690, $840 in today’s money).

    Mrs Li was told the good news on 10 May – Mother’s Day in China. “This is the best gift I have ever got,” she said.

    The investigation into the 1988 disappearance is still ongoing. The authorities have not released information about the couple who raised Mao Yin.

    How common is child trafficking in China? The abduction and trafficking of babies has been a problem in China for decades.

    There are no official figures, but on Baby Come Back Home’s website there are 14,893 posts looking for missing boys, and 7,411 looking for girls.

    Source: bbc.com

  • Two Chinese nationals arrested in Nigeria over N100 million bribe

    The Sokoto State office of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) of Nigeria has arrested two Chinese nationals Meng Kun and Xu Koi for allegedly attempting to bribe the head of EFCC zonal office, Mr. Abdullahi Lawal with N 100 Million.

    The suspects were arrested in Sokoto with the cash as evidence.

    The commission said the bribe was offered its Sokoto zonal head to compromise investigations into the operations of China Zhonghao Nig. Ltd, a company the two arrested persons work for.

    The Chinese owned company, China Zhonghao Nig. Ltd, is under investigations following two contracts awarded by the Zamfara state government to the company to construct township roads in Gummi, Bukkuyun, Anka and Nassarawa in Zamfara State and the construction of 168 solar powered boreholes in the 14 local government areas of the state.

    The EFCC said the investigation is as a result of intelligence gathered on alleged conspiracy, embezzlement and money laundering against the Zamfara State.

    The construction company had reportedly received payments of over N 41 billion “but diverted about N 16 billion which the commission has traced to some bureau de change operators”.

    Worried by the professional conduct and consistency of the investigations, China Zhonghao Nig. Ltd reached out to Abdullahi Lawal and offered him N 100 Million bribe to “bury the matter”, the EFCC statement said.

    The first installment of a total of N 100 million was paid by the two arrested representatives of the company in cash contained in 4 table water boxes.

    “In a grand design to trap the corrupt officials, Lawal played along and on Monday, two representatives of the company, Meng Wei Kun and Xu Kuoi, offered him cash totaling N 50 million in their office along Airport Road, Sokoto.

    This adds to the tall list of Chinese corruption in Africa and brings to light the extent of the canker in many African countries by some Chinese investors.

    Instances of Chinese business involved in corruption and other forms of illegality in Africa is not a new phenomenon as many African countries with poor, weak and corrupt systems create a safe haven for such wickedness to go on.

    Ghana, Nigeria, Congo and many other mineral-rich African countries continue to battle the influx of Chinese illegal mining activities obviously perpetuated with high success with the connivance of indigenes.

    On 28th April 2020, Nigeria police in Zamfara arrested some Chinese nationals for engaging in illegal mining activities. They were later transferred to Abuja for prosecution. The News media in Africa is awash with similar illegalities perpetuated by Chinese nationals in different African countries.

    The action taken by the EFCC zonal office in Sokoto state and the conduct of its Zonal head, Mr. Abudullai Lawal in particular is not only commendable but also heroic and patriotic.

    Many on the continent are praising officials in Sokoto state for standing up to such high temptation and enforcing the law but how many officials in Africa are willing to this?

    African governments must sit up and demand respect for anti-corruption laws by enforcing the laws without fear or favor of nationality or status as investors.

    Source: Atinka Online

  • Coronavirus: Wuhan draws up plans to test all 11 million residents

    The Chinese city of Wuhan is drawing up plans to test its entire population of 11 million people for Covid-19, state media report.

    The plan appears to be in its early stages, with all districts in Wuhan told to submit details as to how testing could be done within 10 days.

    It comes after Wuhan, where the virus first emerged, recorded six new cases over the weekend.

    Prior to this, it had seen no new cases at all since 3 April.

    Wuhan, which was in strict lockdown for 11 weeks, began re-opening on 8 April.

    For a while it seemed like life was getting back to normal as schools re-opened, businesses slowly emerged and public transport resumed operations. But the emergence of a cluster of cases – all from the same residential compound – has now threatened the move back to normalcy.

    ‘The ten-day-battle’

    According to a report by The Paper, quoting a widely circulated internal document, every district in the city has been told to draw up a 10-day testing plan by noon on Tuesday.

    Each district is responsible for coming up with its own plan based on the size of their population and whether or not there is currently an active outbreak in the district.

    The document, which refers to the test plan as the “10-day battle”, also says that older people and densely populated communities should be prioritised when it comes to testing.

    However several senior health officials quoted by the Global Times newspaper indicated that testing the entire city would be unfeasible and costly.

    Peng Zhiyong, director of the intensive care unit of the Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, instead that testing was instead likely to be targeted at medical workers, vulnerable people and those who’d had close contacts with a case.

    Another Wuhan University director suggested that a large percentage of Wuhan’s population – around 3-5 million – had already been tested, and Wuhan was “capable” of testing the remaining 6-8 million in a 10-days period.

    To put the goal into context, the US now conducts around 300,000 tests each day, according to the White House. So far, it’s tested almost 9 million people in total.

    On Chinese social media site Weibo, people have been raising questions about whether such a large number of tests can be carried out in just a matter of days.

    “It is impossible to test so many people,” said one commenter, who also questioned how much it would cost.

    Another said that such tests should have been carried out before Wuhan re-opened its doors to the rest of China.

    Source: bbc.com

  • Coronavirus researcher shot dead in US murder-suicide

    An ethnic Chinese scientist working on the novel coronavirus in the United States has been shot dead in what police said was a murder-suicide over an “intimate partner”.

    Bing Liu, 37, was found dead at the weekend in his home on the outskirts of Pittsburgh, where he worked as a research professor.

    The body of his suspected attacker, 46-year-old Hao Gu, was discovered around the corner in what authorities said was a suicide, according to local news channel WTAE.

    Police said the incident was the result of a dispute between the two men over an “intimate partner” and that there was no evidence Liu’s murder was connected to his research, WTAE reported on Wednesday.

    That did not stop social media lighting up with conspiracy theories that he had been targeted because of his work studying the virus.

    “Bing Liu was killed by a corrupt government,” wrote one Twitter user. “He was close to exposing the truth about COVID-19 and how it originated in the US.”

    Others reached the opposite conclusion, suggesting there should be an investigation into whether the ethnic Chinese professor was “murdered on orders of the Chinese communist government.”

    Liu was mourned by his colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh, who said they would continue his research.

    “Bing was on the verge of making very significant findings toward understanding the cellular mechanisms that underlie SARS-CoV-2 infection and the cellular basis of the following complications,” the university said in a statement.

    “We will make an effort to complete what he started in an effort to pay homage to his scientific excellence.”

    Source: france24.com

  • Coronavirus: Chinese state media take aim at US ‘lab theory’

    Chinese state media has accused US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo of lying, after he said there was “enormous evidence” the coronavirus emanated from a laboratory in Wuhan.

    Mr Pompeo made the claim on Sunday, without going into specifics.

    In an editorial on Tuesday, the hawkish Global Times newspaper said Mr Pompeo was “degenerate”.

    The World Health Organization says the US claims are “speculative”, and that it has seen no “specific evidence”.

    What did Chinese media say?

    Editorials in Chinese state media often given an insight into the direction of government thinking, but there has been no official response to Mr Pompeo’s comments as yet.

    On Monday, the Global Times accused Mr Pompeo of “absurd theories and twisted facts”, and on Tuesday the attack continued.

    “Pompeo aims to kill two birds with one stone by spewing falsehoods,” it said.

    “First, he hopes to help Trump win re-election this November…second, Pompeo hates socialist China and, in particular, cannot accept China’s rise.”

    The editorial admitted there were “initial problems” in China’s response to the outbreak, but claimed “the overall performance is bright enough to outweigh the flaws”.

    It also said it was “conceivable that the virus first contacted humans in other places [than Wuhan]”.

    The Global Times is not the only Chinese outlet to take aim at Mr Pompeo and the US.

    The People’s Daily said Mr Pompeo had “no evidence”, while a piece on the CCTV site accused US politicians of “nefarious plotting”.

    What did Mike Pompeo say?

    In an interview with ABC on Sunday, Mr Pompeo said there was “enormous evidence” that the virus had emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

    “Remember, China has a history of infecting the world, and they have a history of running sub-standard laboratories,” he said.

    Mr Pompeo – a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) – said he did not think the virus was man-made or genetically modified.

    The Wuhan laboratory is known to study coronaviruses in bats. In April, President Trump was asked whether “lax safety protocols” allowed such a virus to escape via an intern and her boyfriend.

    Mr Trump did not confirm the theory, but said: “More and more we’re hearing the story.”

    Last week, he was asked if he had seen evidence that gave him a “high degree of confidence” that the virus emerged in the Wuhan laboratory.

    “Yes I have,” he replied – but said he could not go into specifics.

    Last month, the Washington Post reported that US officials visited the laboratory in January 2018, and reported back their safety concerns.

    What do the experts say?

    On Monday, World Health Organization emergencies director Michael Ryan said it had received “no data or specific evidence” from the US about the virus origins.

    “So from our perspective, this remains speculative,” he said.

    Last week, the US intelligence community said it “concurred” that the virus “was not man-made or genetically modified”.

    But it said it would “continue to examine” whether the outbreak began via “contract with infected animals, or if it was the result of an an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan”.

    Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Tuesday that the most likely source of the virus was a wildlife market. However he said he would not rule out the theory that it originated in a lab.

    “What’s really important is that we have a proper review, an independent review which looks into the sources of these things in a transparent way so we can learn the lessons,” he told reporters.

    Meanwhile, Western “intelligence sources” have told several news outlets there is “no evidence” to suggest the virus leaked from a laboratory.

    Source: bbc.com

  • Coronavirus: Chinese state media take aim at US ‘lab theory’

    Chinese state media has accused US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo of lying after he said there was “enormous evidence” the coronavirus emanated from a laboratory in Wuhan.

    Mr. Pompeo made the claim on Sunday, without going into specifics.

    In an editorial on Tuesday, the hawkish Global Times newspaper said Mr Pompeo was “degenerate”.

    The World Health Organization says the US claims are “speculative”, and that it has seen no “specific evidence”.

    What did Chinese media say?

    Editorials in Chinese state media often given an insight into the direction of government thinking, but there has been no official response to Mr Pompeo’s comments as yet.

    On Monday, the Global Times accused Mr Pompeo of “absurd theories and twisted facts”, and on Tuesday the attack continued.

    “Pompeo aims to kill two birds with one stone by spewing falsehoods,” it said.

    “First, he hopes to help Trump win re-election this November…second, Pompeo hates socialist China and, in particular, cannot accept China’s rise.”

    The editorial admitted there were “initial problems” in China’s response to the outbreak, but claimed “the overall performance is bright enough to outweigh the flaws”.

    It also said it was “conceivable that the virus first contacted humans in other places [than Wuhan]”.

    The Global Times is not the only Chinese outlet to take aim at Mr Pompeo and the US.

    The People’s Daily said Mr Pompeo had “no evidence”, while a piece on the CCTV site accused US politicians of “nefarious plotting”.

    What did Mike Pompeo say? In an interview with ABC on Sunday, Mr Pompeo said there was “enormous evidence” that the virus had emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

    “Remember, China has a history of infecting the world, and they have a history of running sub-standard laboratories,” he said.

    Mr Pompeo – a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) – said he did not think the virus was man-made or genetically modified.

    The Wuhan laboratory is known to study coronaviruses in bats. In April, President Trump was asked whether “lax safety protocols” allowed such a virus to escape via an intern and her boyfriend.

    Mr Trump did not confirm the theory, but said: “More and more we’re hearing the story.”

    Media captionDonald Trump was recently asked if the virus emanated in a laboratory, rather than a market Last week, he was asked if he had seen evidence that gave him a “high degree of confidence” that the virus emerged in the Wuhan laboratory.

    “Yes I have,” he replied – but said he could not go into specifics.

    Last month, the Washington Post reported that US officials visited the laboratory in January 2018, and reported back their safety concerns.

    What do the experts say?

    On Monday, World Health Organization emergencies director Michael Ryan said it had received “no data or specific evidence” from the US about the virus origins.

    “So from our perspective, this remains speculative,” he said.

    Last week, the US intelligence community said it “concurred” that the virus “was not man-made or genetically modified”.

    But it said it would “continue to examine” whether the outbreak began via “contract with infected animals, or if it was the result of an an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan”.

    Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Tuesday that the most likely source of the virus was a wildlife market. However he said he would not rule out the theory that it originated in a lab.

    “What’s really important is that we have a proper review, an independent review which looks into the sources of these things in a transparent way so we can learn the lessons,” he told reporters.

    Meanwhile, Western “intelligence sources” have told several news outlets there is “no evidence” to suggest the virus leaked from a laboratory.

    Source: bbc.com

  • Coronavirus: Chinese Consul General denies that Africans were mistreated in China

    Chinese Consul General to South Africa, Tang Zhongdong has denied allegations that Africans in China were mistreated.

    Tang was speaking at a handover ceremony with Gauteng Health MEC, Bandile Masuku on Tuesday where 30,000 units of Personal Protective Equipments (PPEs) were donated.

    He made the comments in response to widespread media coverage of Africans in China who claimed they were subjected to forced Covid-19 testing, random isolation and evictions.

    While China said it mostly curbed Covid-19 infections, a cluster of cases linked to the Nigerian community in Guangzhou allegedly sparked discrimination.

    The US also accused China of xenophobia due the alleged treatment of Africans.

    However, Tang said: “There is no discrimination. In China, we treat all the foreigners equally. There is no differential treatment. Chinese people always see the African people and African countries as brothers and friends,” Tang said.

    He added that China would continue to work with South Africa to fight Covid-19.

    Masuku said South Africans who were recently repatriated from China did not report any mistreatment.

    Parts of China, such as Wuhan, have eased lockdown restrictions.

    Masuku said South Africa should learn from this: “We need to learn from countries like China on how the measures should be enforced and how the measures should be respected by the citizens.”

    Source: allafrica.com

  • China City bans the eating of Cats and Dogs after COVID-19 outbreak

    Shenzhen has become the first Chinese city to ban the sale and consumption of dog and cat meat.

    It comes after the coronavirus outbreak was linked to wildlife meat, prompting Chinese authorities to ban the trade and consumption of wild animals.

    Shenzhen went a step further, extending the ban to dogs and cats. The new law will come into force on 1 May.

    Thirty million dogs a year are killed across Asia for meat, says Humane Society International (HSI).

    However, the practice of eating dog meat in China is not that common – the majority of Chinese people have never done so and say don’t want to.

    “Dogs and cats as pets have established a much closer relationship with humans than all other animals, and banning the consumption of dogs and cats and other pets is a common practice in developed countries and in Hong Kong and Taiwan,” the Shenzhen city government said, according to a Reuters report.

    “This ban also responds to the demand and spirit of human civilization.”

    • The race to find the source of coronavirus in wildlife

    Animal advocacy organisation HSI praised the move.

    “This really could be a watershed moment in efforts to end this brutal trade that kills an estimated 10 million dogs and 4 million cats in China every year,” said Dr Peter Li, China policy specialist for HSI.

    However, at the same time as this ruling, China approved the use of bear bile to treat coronavirus patients.

    Bear bile – a digestive fluid drained from living captive bears – has long been used in traditional Chinese medicine.

    The active ingredient, ursodeoxycholic acid, is used to dissolve gallstones and treat liver disease. But there is no proof that it is effective against the coronavirus and the process is painful and distressing for the animals

    Brian Daly, a spokesman for the Animals Asia Foundation, told AFP: “We shouldn’t be relying on wildlife products like bear bile as the solution to combat a deadly virus that appears to have originated from wildlife.”

    A wildlife market

    In February, Chinese authorities banned the trade and consumption of wild animals.

    The move came after it emerged that a market in Wuhan selling wild animals and wildlife meat could have been the starting point for the outbreak of the new coronavirus, providing the means for the virus to travel from animals to humans.

    News of this led the Chinese government to crack down strongly on the trade and on the markets that sold such products.

    Covered market in Shenzhen

    There are now close to one million confirmed cases of the virus worldwide, and more than 47,000 deaths, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally.

    In China alone, there are 81,589 confirmed cases and 3,318 deaths, said the National Health Commission.

    Scientists and researchers are still no closer to finding out what the source of the virus is and how it could have spread to humans.

    Source: www.bbc.com

  • Coronavirus birthplace Wuhan reports zero new infections for first time

    The central Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicentre of the country’s coronavirus outbreak, reported no new infections for the first time, while imported cases surged by a record, led by new infections in the capital of Beijing.

    The new imported infections also accounted for all of the new confirmed cases in mainland China, placing more pressure on authorities to screen travellers at key travel hubs.

    Mainland China had 34 new confirmed cases on Wednesday, the country’s National Health Commission said, more than doubling from 13 cases a day earlier.

    Of the 34 imported infections, Beijing accounted for 21 cases, a daily record for the city.

    That brings the total number of confirmed cases in mainland China so far to 80,928, the health authority said in a statement on Thursday.

    The death toll from the outbreak in mainland China had reached 3,245 as of the end of Wednesday, up by eight from the previous day.

    In the central province of Hubei, there were eight new deaths, with the provincial capital of Wuhan accounting for six of the fatalities.

    Source: reuters.com