Asia - Page 4

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte issued yet another tirade against the Catholic Church on Monday, accusing Caloocan Bishop Pablo Virgilio David of illegal drug use and threatening to behead him for buying drugs.

A soldier who dramatically fled North Korea by crossing the heavily armed Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) into South Korea last year told Japanese media that he believes about 80 percent of young North Koreans are “indifferent” towards the regime and have “no loyalty” to Kim Jong-un, English-language reports revealed on Monday.

Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping received a frigid welcome in the Philippines on Tuesday as hundreds of protesters circled the Chinese embassy in Manila and others took to attacking Xi on social media for launching a colonization campaign in Philippine territories of the South China Sea.

A group of over 100 Chinese tourists swarmed Yagong Island, in the disputed Paracel Island chain of the South China Sea, this weekend for a “flag-raising ceremony” to assert China’s sovereignty over the region.

The secretary general of Interpol, Juergen Stock, discussed the disappearance of former agency president Meng Hongwei in depth on Thursday, insisting that the Chinese government’s arrest of him was a “sovereign” matter in which Interpol could not challenge or intervene.

Imelda Marcos, the 89-year-old widow of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos and a sitting member of the Philippines House of Representatives, was named in an arrest warrant on Friday when she failed to appear in court to face seven corruption charges.

The Chinese Communist Party regulatory body that controls the nation’s karaoke venues announced a ban on 6,000 songs this week, claiming the Chinese businesses were not paying the original artists for their work.

The government of Pakistan promised the radical Islamist Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) party this weekend it would begin a legal process to prevent Asia Bibi, a Christian mother of four acquitted of blasphemy last week, from leaving the country, a move almost certainly ensuring her death at the hands of a violent mob.

President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, one of the world’s most populous Catholic countries, used the occasion of All Saints’ Day to tell Catholics to stop venerating “stupid saints” and instead put a photo of himself on their altars.

Contents: Pakistan Supreme Court acquits Asia Bibi of blasphemy, triggering widespread riots; Pakistan Supreme Court defends Mohammed’s covenant with Christianity

The enormous popularity of a rap song criticizing the Thai military junta suggests the public is growing exasperated with the military takeover. Thailand’s rulers are contemplating a crackdown that could get ugly fast.

Contents: Thailand and Thaksin Shinawatra prepare for new national elections; The shadow of Thaksin Shinawatra; Brief generational history of Thailand

Up to 1,000 Muslims in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, took to the streets Friday to “demand justice” for the burning of a flag bearing the Tauhid, an Islamic concept affirming that there is only one God.

Former slave laborer Hui-Chang Roh said the Trump administration should make human rights a priority in talks with the North Korean regime.

Radio Free Asia (RFA), one of the most prolific outlets in covering the ill treatment of China’s Uighur Muslim minority, reported this week that a Uighur television host is facing over a decade in prison for hosting a segment on local poverty.

A North Korean soldier reportedly went on a rampage against a police officer after returning from a decade of service to find his family “destitute” and starving despite their loyalty to the communist regime, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported on Tuesday.

The government of Taiwan announced a new live-fire drill next month in Taiping Island, a territory disputed by China and Vietnam, the South China Morning Post reported on Tuesday.

Grace Meng, wife of former Interpol President Meng Hongwei, began issuing a series of interviews last week, and most recently spoke to the Associated Press this weekend, urging the Chinese government to provide more information on her husband’s whereabouts and guarantee both of their safeties since Beijing admitted to arrested him early this month.

Contents: Pro-independence rallies in Taiwan press for faster separation from China; China continues massive crackdown on non-indigenous religions; China’s deal with the Vatican stirs concerns in Taiwan

Dozens of groups representing North Korean defectors in South Korea issued a call Thursday for Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon to step down after banning a journalist from covering a joint Seoul-Pyongyang event because that journalist was born in North Korea.

North Korea’s government news agency published a piece Tuesday condemning the United States yet again for refusing to lift sanctions on the rogue state, calling American officials “stubborn” and arguing that sanctions “are misused as tools for meeting party interests” in America.

Police arrested a popular Chinese blogger this weekend for “insulting” the country’s national anthem with an insufficiently melodious performance of it, authorities in Shanghai confirmed.

China’s state media posted several articles on Monday and Tuesday defending its use of internment camps to force ethnic Uighur Muslims to abandon their language and faith, including an interview with an official in western Xinjiang province who claimed the camps were “vocational education institutions” equipped with basketball courts and hairdressing classes.

The leftist government of South Korea banned Kim Myeong-sung, a journalist for South Korea’s largest newspaper who fled North Korea, from covering North-South talks in the border town of Panmunjom occurring Monday.

Contents: China defends million-prisoner ‘reeducation camps’ and Sinicization of Islam in Xinjiang; Brief history of China’s religions

Contents: N. Korea’s Kim Jong-un met Pompeo in a new Rolls-Royce Phantom, violating sanctions; Growth of Ebola cases suddenly surges in DR Congo, threatening Uganda, Rwanda

North Korea’s state newspaper Rodong Sinmun published a belligerent column Friday accusing the U.S. of “murderous” policies against the Korean people, but ensuring that North Korea would survive up to a century of the sanctions it claims are killing its people.

Chinese English-language state publications continued to publish screeds attacking Mike Pence over a week after the vice president issued an address at the Hudson Institute warning of an unprecedented onslaught against America on the part of Beijing.

The chief economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) cautioned Pakistan this week against “excessive loans” from its ally, China, citing risks.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte ordered the national police to release a report Tuesday accusing seven top members of law enforcement of drug trafficking, allegedly reselling drugs confiscated in raids to turn a profit.

In chess, a limited number of opening moves exist. Both players know this, so neither is really blindsided by the other’s initial move. It is similar to the chess match in which President Donald Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un are currently engaged — the latter now having made his opening move.

More Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL)-linked foreign fighters are in Southeast Asia now, namely in the southern Philippines’ Muslim-majority Mindanao region, than there ever were during the peak of the U.S.-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Washington Times reported Sunday, citing the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

China’s state-run Global Times lamented the “hysterical” state of U.S. scientific cooperation with China on Monday, dismissing concerns that China has systematically stolen intellectual property from America and claiming that “science belongs to all human beings.”

China’s state-run Global Times fired a shot across the Philippine bow on Friday by reminding President Rodrigo Duterte that his country has a history of violent coups and assassinations, so he really ought to avoid destabilizing activities such as arguing with Beijing about islands in the South China Sea.

China’s state-run Global Times newspaper boasted of Beijing’s expanded presence in Venezuela on Sunday, noting that the “U.S. is skeptical for geopolitical reasons” of growing ties between socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro and Communist Party chief Xi Jinping.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte “joked” on Sunday about throwing a government auditor down the stairs to prevent him from doing his job.