Asia - Page 2

Christians in India face persecution “in all areas of public and private life,” according to a study by the Christian Aid group Open Doors.

A few days after attempting to dismiss disappointing test results from Brazil on China’s Sinovac vaccine candidate for the Chinese coronavirus, Chinese state media turned to attacking Sinovac’s American competitors Pfizer and Moderna, calling for a worldwide ban on Pfizer’s vaccine after 23 elderly Norwegians died, ostensibly from reactions to the Pfizer shots.

The communist regime governing North Korea held a military parade Thursday, apparently featuring no social distancing or other anti-coronavirus measures, to celebrate the end of its eighth-ever Workers’ Party Congress.

Facebook’s WhatsApp messaging app has suffered a major drop in new downloads as many users turn to private messaging apps Signal and Telegram following changes to WhatsApp’s terms of service.

Turkish government communications director Fahrettin Altun has claimed the eastern Mediterranean Sea as part of his country’s “blue homeland”, as tensions remain high in the region.

During a speech at the Heritage Foundation on Thursday, HHS Secretary Alex Azar stated that the United States learned of the coronavirus outbreak in China through media monitoring and a notification from Taiwan. Azar said, “We learned about an outbreak

Government officials in Indonesia reprimanded local celebrity Raffi Ahmad on Thursday after he was photographed socializing at a private party on Wednesday hours after participating in the Indonesian government’s official coronavirus vaccination campaign.

Indian government officials expect “several million” people to gather in northern India’s Uttarakhand state over the next several weeks as part of the Hindu Kumbh Mela pilgrimage.

The human rights magazine Bitter Winter reported on Wednesday that the government of Afghanistan deported ten Chinese nationals last week initially accused of engaging in terrorist activity, but later believed to be attempting to create a fake Uyghur terrorist cell to defame the ethnic group.

Chinese officials on Thursday blocked two members of the World Health Organization (W.H.O.) team investigating the origins of the Chinese coronavirus from entering China.

“History will remember China’s achievements and U.S.’ shames in Covid-19 [Chinese coronavirus] battle,” declared the first of a string of editorials in Chinese state media on Wednesday and Thursday that presented the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic as a stepping stone to greatness for China and a gravestone for the American century.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo received his first dose of CoronaVac, a Chinese-made coronavirus vaccine candidate, on live TV this week.

A professor and researcher at MIT was arrested and charged with grant fraud on Thursday. Professor Gang Chen allegedly failed to disclose his work for Communist China to the U.S. Department of Energy.

Internet service provider Hong Kong Broadband Network (HKBN) confirmed Thursday that it blocked access to a pro-democracy news website called HKChronicles under orders from the city’s Beijing-controlled government.

The Chinese Communist Party is using the coronavirus pandemic as an excuse to crack down on Christians, even arresting some for attending online services via Zoom, David Curry, the CEO of the Christian charity Open Doors, told Breitbart News in an interview on Wednesday.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced Wednesday that it would not allow any cotton or tomato products from Xinjiang, China’s westernmost province, into the country due to the high likelihood that they were produced by slave labor.

Huawei has told its Chinese employees working in Europe that if they marry Westerners, they could face being fired or forced to leave the continent for “betrayal”, an investigation has found.

The Russian Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) announced Thursday that prominent opposition leader and Putin critic Alexei Navalny will face arrest upon his return to Russia, state media outlet Tass reported Thursday.

Police in New Zealand on Wednesday arrested a man after he attacked the country’s parliament building with an axe, smashing the building’s main glass entrance doors.

Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam on Tuesday complained of “double standards” because her government, and its masters in Beijing, were criticized for ruthlessly cracking down on pro-democracy demonstrators, comparing that movement to the riot last week at the U.S. Capitol.

China’s state-run Global Times on Wednesday put the happiest possible spin on a dismaying Brazilian study that showed China’s Sinovac vaccine candidate for the Chinese coronavirus is only 50 percent effective.

China’s state-run Global Times on Tuesday denounced big tech censorship of President Donald Trump as an exercise of “U.S. digital hegemony” and demanded companies like Twitter, Google, Apple, and Amazon recognize the “sovereignty” of other nations in cyberspace.

The South China Morning Post and the Economic Times of India have both recently reported that the Chinese Communist Party has withdrawn as many as 10,000 soldiers from the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the official name for the Chinese border with India.

Rural governments in China are banning funerals and weddings to contain a recent spread of the Chinese coronavirus across northern provinces including Hebei, which surrounds the national capital, Beijing, the South China Morning Post reported Tuesday.

Biden’s inaugural committee announced that it will be returning a $500 donation from former Democrat Sen. Barbara Boxer over China ties.

A 2018 strategy document from the National Security Council (NSC), declassified many years ahead of schedule Tuesday, outlined the Trump administration’s strategy for the Indo-Pacific region, including the U.S. strategic framework for containing Chinese ambitions in the region.

China’s National Health Commission, its top public health authority, urged the World Health Organization (W.H.O.) on Wednesday to investigate the origin of the Chinese coronavirus – which first began infecting humans in Wuhan, China – in other countries.

The European Union will not require the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to ban the use of forced labour before ratifying the proposed €120 billion investment pact with the authoritarian regime, France’s junior minister for trade said on Tuesday. The deal

A court in Istanbul sentenced Turkish sex cult leader Adnan Oktar to more than 1,075 years in prison on Monday, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

Cafe and gym owners in South Korea are filing separate lawsuits against the government this week seeking compensation for losses suffered under federally-mandated business shutdowns during the Chinese coronavirus pandemic.