Torbjørn Færøvik's Blog, page 100

Migrant deported in chains: 'No-one will go to US illegally now'

Gurpreet Singh was handcuffed, his legs shackled and a chain tied around his waist. He was led on to the tarmac in Texas by US Border Patrol, towards a waiting C-17 military transport aircraft.It was 3 February and, after a months-long journey, he realised his dream of living in America was over. He was being deported back to India. "It felt like the ground was slipping away from underneath my

China has a message for Trump: the US won’t stop its rise

As US President Donald Trump ratcheted up economic pressure on China over the past week, Beijing sent back its own message: Its rise won’t be interrupted. A major political meeting taking place in the capital was the ideal backdrop for Beijing to respond. The “two sessions” gathering of China’s rubber-stamp legislature and its top political advisory body is where the government reveals its plans

Meet China’s ‘Six Little Dragons’: The Hangzhou-based firms have upended China’s tech scene

Move over Alibaba and Tencent, China has a new set of tech champions. Often referred to as the “six little dragons,” they’re DeepSeek, the Black Myth developer Game Science, robotics firms Unitree and DeepRobotics, Neuralink challenger BrainCo, and spatial intelligence firm ManyCore. And while they may still pale in size relative to their more established peers, they’ve breathed new life into

Two Sessions: Labor Rights, Child Safety, AI Scams Among Key Debates

AI-generated deepfakes, labor rights, public healthcare, and child protection have emerged as some of the most debated topics at this year’s Two Sessions, the annual meetings of China’s top legislative and political advisory bodies, which began this week.Proposals on these issues have sparked widespread debate on social media, with related hashtags drawing hundreds of millions of views on

Trump ideology looking a lot like 1960s China

In one darkly hilarious moment, Trump’s Secretary of Agriculture told Americans to deal with sky-high egg prices by raising chickens in their back yard. How did we go from “Make America Great Again” to “Everyone needs to become a backyard chicken farmer”? Did Mao Zedong rise from the dead and take over the U.S.A. while I wasn’t looking?In fact, I do think something a little like that is happening

Can China keep winning without fighting?

China’s global expansion under President Xi Jinping reflects Sun Tzu’s principle of “subduing the enemy without fighting.” Instead of direct military conflict, China relies on economic, diplomatic and technological influence. Through initiatives like the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), economic coercion and cyber operations, China has reshaped the geopolitical landscape.However, this strategy is

Torbjørn Færøvik: Når målet helliger middelet

Donald Trumps tale til Kongressen natt til onsdag varte i nøyaktig hundre minutter, men ikke på noe tidspunkt nevnte han ordet «menneskerettigheter». For det er et fremmedord i presidentens verbale univers av klisjeer og gjentakelser. Utenriksminister Marco Rubio, derimot, hadde et glimt av gamle takter da han i forrige uke hudflettet Thailand for å tvangsutsende et førtitall uigurer til Kina. “

‘You need a bath after the bath’: World’s largest religious gathering wraps up after 600 million devotees take holy dip

Hundreds of millions of Hindu devotees have bathed in sacred waters, despite concerns over overcrowding and water pollution, as the world’s largest religious gathering wrapped up Wednesday in India’s northern state of Uttar Pradesh. Over the last 45 days, more than 620 million people – over a third of India’s roughly 1.4 billion population - have attended the Maha Kumbh Mela, or the festival of

EU ‘deeply concerned’ about arrests, rights abuses in Vietnam

 The European Union has spoken out against Vietnam’s arrest of human rights and labor campaigners, and environmental experts, telling a meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Council that Hanoi should free people it has locked up for exercising their basic rights. The comments came at the 58th session of the council, known as the UNHRC, in Geneva on Monday.“We remain deeply concerned

Captured North Korean soldier reveals use of Russian drone-jamming gun

A captured North Korean soldier told a South Korean lawmaker that he used a drone-jamming gun provided by the Russian military in fighting against Ukrainian forces. It was the first confirmation of North Korean troops using such technology in Russia’s war against Ukraine and fuel concerns that they are gaining valuable knowledge of drone warfare that could be used in a conflict with South