Tag: Region Asias

An Istanbul court has issued an arrest warrant for the owner of a television channel aligned with Turkey’s main opposition party on charges of bid-rigging, the prosecutor’s office said late on Tuesday. The arrest warrant for Cafer Mahiroglu, owner of Halk TV, was issued as part of an investigation into an alleged criminal organisation suspected of rigging public tenders by bribing public officials. Several main opposition CHP members including district mayors were arrested under the investigation, part of a widening…

The last time U.S. President Donald Trump attended a Group of Seven (G-7) leaders’ summit in Canada, in 2018, he treated it like a reality TV show. “Trump Blows Up G7 Agenda,” read the headline in Politico. Trump arrived late; called for Russia’s readmission to the group (a nonstarter with the other members); described the host, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as “very dishonest and weak”; and refused at the last minute to endorse the joint statement at the end…

All India Football Federation (AIFF) President Kalyan Chaubey has strongly denied accusations of corruption that have been made against India’s football governing body. Chaubey, who has led the AIFF since 2022, insists that the organisation has followed due process and that if there was any evidence of corruption, then it would have come to notice. “If there was any corruption, then it must have been noticed or red-flagged. These comments have been made by 3-4 people who have either lost…

US President Donald Trump brought many of the same grievances to his second trade war against China, but the economic battleground that has emerged since then is making it harder to avoid a rupture this time around. While tariffs kicked off the dispute, it is the new trade weapons being unsheathed by both sides that have come to define the latest stand-off. And if the damage done so far is any indication, the scars will prove more enduring – no…

Five men have pleaded guilty for their roles in laundering more than $36.9 million from victims of an international digital asset investment scam conspiracy that was carried out from scam centers in Cambodia. According to court documents, Joseph Wong, 33, of Alhambra, California; Yicheng Zhang, 39, of China; Jose Somarriba, 55, of Los Angeles; Shengsheng He, 39, of La Puente, California; and Jingliang Su, 44, of China and Turkey, were part of an international criminal network that induced U.S. victims,…

Two Chinese nationals have been charged with smuggling a plant pathogen into the US for research at a University of Michigan laboratory, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on 3 June. The couple has also been charged with making false statements and visa fraud. They were arrested in connection with allegations related to secretly transporting the fungus Fusarium graminearum, which federal prosecutors claim is classified in the scientific literature as ‘a potential agroterrorism weapon’, although experts Chemistry World spoke to…

Biden administration policy-makers hated you more than you knew. From the start of the Covid pandemic, I warned that the feds were vilifying anyone who failed to kowtow to the latest commands. In October 2023, I wrote: “Federal bureaucrats heaved together a bunch of letters to contrive an ominous new acronym for the latest peril to domestic tranquility. The result: AGAAVE—’anti-government, anti-authority violent extremism’—which looks like a typo for a sugar substitute. The FBI vastly expanded the supposed AGAAVE peril by…

Jerusalem – Dozens of Palestinians were killed and hundreds more injured today, 1 June, as they waited for food at the newly created Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution centres in Rafah and close to the Netzarim Corridor, according to the Ministry of Health. Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) teams joined the mass casualty response in Nasser hospital, Khan Younis. Patients told MSF they were shot from all sides by drones, helicopters, boats, tanks and Israeli soldiers on the ground. “Today’s…

The Trump administration has escalated its attacks on US research universities by announcing that it will begin revoking visas for Chinese students. If fully implemented, the new policy would have a significant impact on the research community, with more than 277,000 Chinese students enrolled at US universities in the 2023–2024 academic year, according annual data compiled by the Institute of International Education. The figure represents almost a quarter of the international students studying in the US. ‘Under President Trump’s leadership,…

As part of the expansion of their ground operations, Israeli forces have issued widescale evacuation orders, further limiting people’s access to medical care and MSF’s ability to provide it. On 19 May, for example, an evacuation order covering almost the entire eastern part of Khan Younis, at the edge of Nasser hospital, forced people to immediately move towards Al-Mawasi area. The Site Management Cluster estimates that over 138,900 people were forcibly displaced between 15-20 May. The intensified Israeli bombardments and evacuation…

The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned a Myanmar militia group and its leader on Monday for their alleged participation in the booming cyber fraud industry. The designation targets the Karen National Army (KNA) and Saw Chit Thu, a longtime power broker in the Myawaddy area of Karen State along the border with Thailand. The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control also sanctioned his two sons, Htoo Eh Moo and Saw Chit Chit. The KNA, who until mid-2024 were known as the…

Canada is moving forward with a legal bid to gain full possession of a Russian Antonov An-124 cargo plane and potentially hand it over to Ukraine, the country’s foreign ministry has said. The Antonov An-124 — the world’s largest mass-produced cargo aircraft — has been stranded at Toronto Pearson International Airport for over three years due to airspace restrictions that Canada imposed due to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. “The Attorney General of Canada commenced forfeiture proceedings by seeking the…

Hungarian MPs have passed changes declaring that children’s rights to moral development supersede the right to peaceful assembly The Hungarian parliament has approved a constitutional amendment that upholds a ban on public LGBTQ+ events earlier introduced in the country. Hungarian MPs voted in legislation last month prohibiting gay parades and allowing the authorities to use facial recognition technology to identify their participants and issue fines of $500. The law was introduced by the ruling Fidesz party of Prime Minister Viktor…

United States President Donald Trump has threatened new tariffs on Chinese electronic goods, three days after his administration announced exemptions on smartphones, laptops, flash drives and a host of other tech products from levies he has announced since April 2. Those exemptions provided relief to US tech companies reliant on Chinese manufacturing, like Apple and chip company Nvidia, which saw their stocks rise considerably after the release of Friday’s notice. Then came Monday’s announcement, which sparked criticism of Trump over…