VOA Asia

05/01/2022

Musk, who describes himself as a "free speech absolutist," pledged to buy Twitter for $44 billion this week, with European Union officials and digital campaigners quick to say that any focus on free speech to the detriment of online safety would not fly after the 27-nation bloc solidified its status as a global leader in the effort to rein in the power of tech giants.

"If his approach will be 'just stop moderating it,' he will likely find himself in a lot of legal trouble in the EU," said Jan Penfrat, senior policy adviser at digital rights group EDRi.

Musk will soon be confronted with Europe's Digital Services Act, which will require big tech companies like Twitter, Google and Facebook parent Meta to police their platforms more strictly or face billions in fines.

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European Union officials and digital campaigners say any focus on free speech to the detriment of online safety won't fly in Europe

05/01/2022

Judge Lewis Liman on Wednesday also denied a motion to nullify subpoenas of Musk seeking information about possible violations of his settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Musk had asked the court to throw out the settlement, which required that his tweets be approved by a Tesla attorney. The SEC is investigating whether the Tesla CEO violated the settlement with tweets last November asking Twitter followers if he should sell 10% of his Tesla stock.

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Tesla CEO asked Twitter followers if he should sell stock in electric car company

05/01/2022

In recent weeks, about a half-dozen previously unknown “resistance” groups have announced their existence, vowing to fight the Taliban alongside the National Resistance Front, the only prominent anti-Taliban group.

The new groups have names such as the Afghanistan Freedom Front and the Afghanistan Islamic National & Liberation Movement. But beyond claims made on social media, little is known about their kinetic power.

Researchers who have studied the groups say while they all share the goal of toppling the Taliban’s eight-month-old government, they are hobbled by a lack of unity and coordination.

“It will take some coordination and unity to be able to have a more decisive effect in terms of contesting Taliban governance,” said Peter Mills, Afghanistan researcher at the Institute for the Study of War, who recently published a study of anti-Taliban groups.

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Small pockets of anti-Taliban resistance appear to be forming across much of the country

05/01/2022

“We recognize the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine” and consider the breakaway regions of Luhansk and Donetsk to be Ukrainian territory, he said. Yet, he added, Tashkent values its deep political and economic ties with Russia.

Kamilov echoed President Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s insistence that Uzbekistan will not join military blocs or deploy its forces abroad. Others in Mirziyoyev’s administration say Tashkent’s “stand on the war is firm” and that neutrality is its mantra. Any mention of the war brings a reminder of the nation’s neutrality.

U.S. Ambassador to Uzbekistan Daniel Rosenblum said Washington understands why Tashkent will not explicitly denounce Russian President Vladimir Putin's aggression.

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Despite unhappiness over Moscow’s unprovoked aggression, region maintains careful neutrality, keeps tight rein on media

05/01/2022

According to the report, Raisi told China’s Minister of National Defense Wei Fenghe that Tehran sees its ties with Beijing as strategic. Closer cooperation would serve to confront what the Iranian president described as U.S. unilateralism as talks to revive Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers have stalled.

“Confronting unilateralism and creating stability and order is possible through cooperation of independent and like-minded powers,” Raisi was quoted as saying.

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Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi expressed Tehran desire for closer cooperation with Beijing in remarks he made during a visit by the Chinese defense minister, state media reported

05/01/2022

📷: Smoke rises from a fire at the Bhalswa landfill, in New Delhi, India, Wednesday, April 27, 2022.

Acrid smoke hung over New Delhi Wednesday for a second day after a massive landfill caught fire during a scorching heat wave, forcing informal waste workers to endure hazardous conditions.

The landfill in northern Delhi’s Bhalswa is taller than a 17-story building and covers an area bigger than 50 football fields.

Waste workers who live in nearby homes had emptied onto the streets on Tuesday evening.

But by Wednesday morning, the thousands of people who live and work at the landfill had begun the dangerous process of trying to salvage garbage from the fire.

“There’s a fire every year. It is not new. There is risk to life and livelihood, but what do we do?” asked Bhairo Raj, 31, an informal waste worker who lives next to the landfill. He said that his children studied in the town, and he couldn't afford to leave.

The Indian capital, like the rest of South Asia, is in the midst of a record-shattering heat wave that experts said was a catalyst for the landfill fire. Three other landfills around the Indian capital have also caught fire in recent weeks.

The landfill in the latest fire was planned for closure more than a decade ago, but more than 2,300 tons of the city's garbage is still dumped there every day. The organic waste in the landfill decays, resulting in a build-up of highly combustible methane gas.

Several fire engines rushed to the landfill on Tuesday to try and douse the fire. At night, the landfill resembled a burning mountain and it smoldered until early morning.

March was the hottest month in India in over a century and April has been similarly scorching. Temperatures crossed 43 degrees Celsius (109.4 F) in several cities Tuesday and are forecasted to continue rising. (AP)

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05/01/2022

The House passed the bill 425-0, sending it to the White House because it passed the Senate in August. Congressional aides said they expected President Joe Biden to sign the measure into law.

Taiwan is excluded from most global organizations such as the WHO, the U.N. health agency, because of the objections of China, which considers the island one of its provinces and not a separate country.

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Plan seeks to boost the island as it faces pressure from China

05/01/2022

Tsang was best known internationally for his action roles in the 2002 James Bond film ``Die Another Day,'' John Woo's ``The Killer'' in 1989, ``Rush Hour 2'' in 2001 starring Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker, and 1998's ``The Replacement Killers'' alongside Chow Yun-Fat and Mira Sorvino.

Tsang had been undergoing seven days of quarantine after returning from Singapore on Monday and was found collapsed on the floor of his hotel room by staff on Wednesday, according to the South China Morning Post and other media.

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No cause of death was given and the 'South China Morning Post' said he had tested negative for the virus and had no underlying medical conditions

04/30/2022

The United States and Russia exchanged high-profile prisoners on Wednesday even as the two countries remain sharply at odds over Moscow’s two-month invasion of Ukraine.

Russia freed Trevor Reed, a former U.S. Marine jailed in Russia since 2019 after Russian authorities said he assaulted a police officer when he was detained after a heavy night of drinking and later sentenced to nine years in prison.

Reed’s family had maintained his innocence.

In turn, the U.S. released Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot serving a 20-year sentence in Connecticut for conspiracy to smuggle co***ne into the U.S. after he was arrested in Liberia in 2010 and extradited to the U.S.

While the prisoner swap was unusual, a senior U.S. official described it as a unilateral piece of diplomacy.

"The discussions with the Russians that led to this exchange were strictly limited to these topics, not a broader diplomatic conversation," the official said.

"It (Reed's release) represents no change, zero, to our approach to the appalling violence in Ukraine" being carried out by Russia.

Officials would not say where the prisoner exchange occurred, but in the hours before it took place, news accounts identified a plane belonging to Russia's federal security service as flying to the Turkish capital Ankara. The U.S. Bureau of Prisons also updated its website to reflect that Yaroshenko was no longer imprisoned.

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04/30/2022

“The blood of the Chinese people should not be shed in vain, and those behind this incident will surely pay the price,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry said Wednesday, without elaborating.

The deadly attack took place at the entrance to the China-run Confucius Institute in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi, when a su***de bomber blew herself up near a van transporting Chinese staff.

The director of the institute was among the three Chinese teachers killed. A Pakistani driver was also killed and a Chinese teacher was injured.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said in its statement that assistant Foreign Minister Wu Jianghao called Islamabad’s ambassador to Beijing, Moin ul Haque, to express his “extremely grave concern.”

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Deadly attack took place at entrance to China-run Confucius Institute in southern Pakistani city of Karachi, when a su***de bomber blew herself up near a van transporting Chinese staff

04/30/2022

Chinese lending in 2020 fell to $1.9 billion, the study released this week showed, with only 11 new loan commitments recorded. That's compared to the 32 loans signed in 2019 worth some $8.2 billion.

"As the pandemic continues to wreak havoc on livelihoods within China and the debt position of some African countries, shifts in financing types and sources are expected for future Chinese financing to Africa," the report said.

China is sub-Saharan Africa's biggest single creditor and, in the two decades since 2000, has signed 1,188 loans worth $160 billion with 49 African governments, state-owned enterprises and regional organizations.

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The loans to Africa dropped sharply in 2020, a new study has found, but are expected to pick up post-pandemic

04/30/2022

📷: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, April 27, 2022.

Four astronauts are on their way to the International Space Station after a spectacular nighttime launch.

Americans Kjell Lindgren, Robert Hines and Jessica Watkins, and Italy’s Samantha Cristoforetti, representing the European Space Agency, blasted off from the U.S. space agency NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida early Wednesday morning in a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule dubbed Freedom.

The quartet is expected to rendezvous and dock with the ISS shortly after midnight GMT Thursday morning [Wednesday night 8:15 p.m. Washington time], where it will spend the next six months conducting scientific experiments.

Watkins is making history as the first Black woman to be part of a long-duration ISS crew. (AP/VOA)

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