CHINA

A Sri Lankan journalist has been sacked by a leading Chinese media institution after his name appeared on a news item accusing the Chinese Government over the COVID-19 pandemic, the Colombo Gazette learns. The news item, which appeared on the Daily Mirror newspaper in Sri Lanka in April, quoted a consumer rights group as saying […]

GENEVA (26 June 2020) – UN independent experts have repeatedly communicated with the Government of the People’s Republic of China their alarm regarding the repression of fundamental freedoms in China. They have denounced the repression of protest and democracy advocacy in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), impunity for excessive use of force by police, the alleged use […]

In effect, the president sought to blame the group for the very missteps and failures that have been leveled at him and his administration. By Michael D. Shear WASHINGTON — President Trump lashed out on Tuesday at the World Health Organization, choosing a new political enemy to attack and threatening to withhold funding from a […]

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) shows that, without the control and censorship imposed by the authorities, the Chinese media would have informed the public much earlier of the severity of the coronavirus epidemic, sparing thousands of lives and perhaps avoiding the current pandemic. In an analysis published on March 13th, researchers from the University of Southampton suggest that […]

PHOTO: Mr Chen has been publicly critical of the Chinese Government over human rights abuses and media suppression. (Supplied) A citizen journalist who has been critically reporting on Beijing’s handling of the coronavirus crisis from the city of Wuhan has been missing for almost a week, according to his family. Key points: Chen Qiushi reported many hospitals […]

(AFP•February 9, 2020) The death of a whistleblowing doctor who was reprimanded for warning about the new coronavirus has sparked rare calls for political reform and free speech in China. Li Wenliang, an ophthalmologist in Wuhan — ground zero of China’s virus epidemic which has killed more than 800 — succumbed to the disease Friday […]

By P.K.Balachandran. Colombo, August 25: The United States and Japan have both cast their eyes on the Eastern Sri Lankan port of Trincomalee to counterbalance the presence of the Chinese in Hambantota in the South and Colombo in the West and its growing clout around the Bay of Bengal. The Trincomalee harbor was meant to […]

Image: Fern Colombo is located 2.6 km from U.S. Embassy, 2.8 km from R Premadasa Stadium and 3.5 km from Khan Clock Tower. ( photo -Booking.com) Allegations have resurfaced regarding large payouts to the former ruling family by another Chinese ports company, after Deputy Minister Ranjan Ramanayake, who is becoming a lone crusader against corruption, revealed […]

Image: Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport, in southern Sri Lanka, is called “the world’s emptiest airport.” It has four scheduled flights per week. (Photo by Yuji Kuronuma) NEW DELHI — Sri Lanka, which has loaded up on Chinese-funded infrastructure, is sinking deeper into a debt trap as its currency weakens and economic growth decelerates to its slowest […]

Image: Sri Lankans walk by a Chinese-funded port in Colombo. Photo: Lakruwan Wanniarachchi/AFP via Getty Images. Erica Pandey . Sri Lanka’s economy is struggling under the weight of massive debts owed to China, with the rupee hitting an all-time low on Monday. The big picture: As the small South Asian country’s economy spirals downward, it’s freeing itself from debts […]

Image: Beijing has been given a 99-year lease on Hambantota port as part of a debt-reduction deal, amid talk of creditor imperialism following China’s buy-up of strategic ports in Piraeus, Darwin and Djibouti. This month, Sri Lanka, unable to pay the onerous debt to China it has accumulated, formally handed over its strategically located Hambantota […]

By Ryan Grenoble. Across China, a network of 176 million surveillance cameras, expected to grow to 626 million by 2020, keeps watch on the country’s over 1.3 billion citizens. Loaded with facial recognition technology and artificial intelligence that can keep tabs on people and their activities, the cameras represent a blessing for the security state and a […]