Torbjørn Færøvik's Blog, page 118

South Korean impeached president's detention extended

A court in Seoul has extended the time South Korea's impeached president Yoon Suk Yeol will be detained over his botched attempt to impose martial law in the country last month. Citing concerns Yoon could destroy evidence if released, on Sunday a judge issued a warrant allowing investigators to keep the suspended president in custody for up to 20 days.The 64-year-old was arrested on Wednesday

Can Oligarchs buy democracy?

They increasingly own everything from access to space to how we get news on Earth and now outgoing President Joe Biden warns America’s new breed of Donald Trump-allied oligarchs could gobble up US democracy itself. Biden used his farewell speech to the nation to deliver a shockingly dark message: that a nation which has always revered its entrepreneurs may now be at their mercy.“An oligarchy is

Japan’s elderly are lonely and struggling. Some women choose to go to jail instead

The rooms are filled with elderly residents, their hands wrinkled and backs bent. They shuffle slowly down the corridors, some using walkers. Workers help them bathe, eat, walk and take their medication. But this isn’t a nursing home – it’s Japan’s largest women’s prison. The population here reflects the aging society outside, and the pervasive problem of loneliness that guards say is so acute

TikTok restores service in US after Trump pledge

Around 12 hours after shutting itself down in the United States, TikTok is back for many users almost like it never left, attributing its return to a move by President-elect Donald Trump to save the app. TikTok welcomed users back with a notification that said: “Thanks for your patience and support. As a result of President Trump’s efforts, TikTok is back in the U.S.!”The whiplash move to bring

When Beijing Was China’s Most International City

A newly translated book explores how international residents have shaped and recorded life in China’s ancient capital for hundreds of years.Toward the end of the 13th century, while a guest in the court of Kublai Khan, Marco Polo was stunned by the beautiful grassland enclosed in the imperial palace, which teemed with fruit trees and breeding animals such as deer and goats.Roughly 300 years later

Everyone is talking about Greenland. Here’s what it’s like to visit

A few weeks ago, Greenland was quietly getting on with winter, as the territory slid deeper into the darkness that envelops the world’s northerly reaches at this time of year. But President-elect Donald Trump’s musings about America taking over this island of 56,000 largely Inuit people, halfway between New York and Moscow, has seen Greenland shaken from its frozen Arctic anonymity.Denmark, for

Trump Already Concentrates Minds On Defense – Analysis

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte addressed the European Parliament last week with a clear message: Europe isn’t spending enough on defense and the new US president will not like it. With Donald Trump’s return to the Oval Office, the issue of defense spending will once again become one of the top issues Europe must grapple with. In his first term, Trump emphasized the lack of defense spending by

Old China: Bound Feet and Bad Smell, by Torbjørn Færøvik

We don't know when Chinese women began binding their feet. It was most likely around 800-900 A.D. The curious custom had to do with marriage, with sex, with beauty - and duty. This is a chapter from my book "Midtens rike" (The Middle Kingdom, Oslo 2024). By Torbjørn Færøvikwriter and historian“Women carry half of the heavens”, says an old Chinese proverb. Reality certainly was not so.

Trump says he 'most likely' will give TikTok a 90-day extension to avoid US ban

President-elect Donald Trump said Saturday that he “most likely” would give TikTok 90 more days to work out a deal that would allow the popular video-sharing platform to avoid a U.S. ban. Trump said in an NBC News interview that he had not decided what to do but was considering granting TikTok a reprieve after he is sworn into office on Monday. A law that prohibits

Can Taiwan’s democracy be saved?

In their New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said that democracies today “may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are ‘legal,’ in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve