Torbjørn Færøvik's Blog, page 1375

The Man Who Changed the Face of Shanghai

Until recently, the name Sassoon — or, more exactly, Sir Ellice Victor Sassoon, the third baronet of Bombay — had been all but effaced from the streets of Shanghai. The scion of a Baghdadi Jewish family, educated at Harrow and Cambridge, Sassoon shifted the headquarters of a family empire built on opium and cotton from Bombay to Shanghai, initiating the real estate boom that would make it into

China's Hong Kong dilemma

Beijing has been largely silent, preventing the Chinese media from even reporting the protests, with state-run media charging that the clearly homegrown protests are fueled by "foreign forces." Read more

What is China's People's Liberation Army doing in Hong Kong?

Just yards from where thousands of pro-democracy supporters have been "occupying" the heart of Hong Kong's financial district, stands an imposing gray building surrounded on all sides by a high wall -- this is the Hong Kong garrison of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), China's armed forces. Read more

The battle for Hong Kong’s future: there’s no going back

For Hong Kong, there’s no going back. The struggle for democracy has restored the city to international consciousness, reminding the world that Hong Kong is not just a city of high finance and outrageous real estate prices. It is also a city with dreams, for which its people are willing to take risks and make sacrifices, writes professor Ying Chan. Read more

China hopes to revive the Silk Road with bullet trains to Xinjiang

The bullet train slices past the edge of the Gobi desert, through gale-swept grasslands and past snowy peaks, a high-altitude, high-speed and hi-tech manifestation of China’s re-imagined Silk Road meant to draw the country’s restive west ever tighter into Beijing’s embrace. Read more

Hongkong's Umbrella Revolution

Hong Kong, one of the world’s most important financial hubs, has exploded into protest. Since Sunday night, the so-called “umbrella revolution” has turned the city’s gleaming central business district into a virtual conflict zone, replete with shouting mobs, police in riot gear, and clouds of tear gas. Read more

China exporting tools of torture to developing world

China is exporting its expertise in riot control and torture to other authoritarian regimes, selling everything from electric shock batons and leg shackles to armoured cars, according to a report. Read more

Ilham Tohti should get the Nobel peace prize, not life in prison

Not long before his arrest in January this year, when Ilham Tohti, a 44-year-old Uighur economics professor, was on an outing with his wife and children, three secret policemen rammed their car into his from the rear. “We’ll kill your whole family!” one of them screamed. Afterwards, Tohti wrote his will. Even if I am murdered by secret police, it said, remember, “it is not the Han Chinese who

Kirkeveksten i Kina er avtagende

Etter flere år med formidabel vekst ser det ut til at kristendommens vekst i Kina er i ferd med å flate ut, sier lederen for en kinesisk husmenighet. Les mer

Inviterer til protestfest i Hongkong

Occupy Central-bevegelsen akter å bruke Fastlands-Kinas nasjonaldag om en uke til å markere sin uenighet med Beijing. Ifølge Bloomberg har Occupy-aktivistene søkt om å få samle 50 000 gjester/demonstranter i Chater Garden samtidig som det offisielle Kina markerer Folkerepublikkens 65 år. Les mer