Torbjørn Færøvik's Blog, page 184

As Devastating Floods Continue, Chinese County Issues Plea for Aid

A county in central China’s Hunan province has issued an urgent call for aid after being hit by an unprecedented flood that has devastated local infrastructure and left residents short of essential supplies. Over the past two weeks, Pingjiang County has experienced the heaviest rainfall since meteorological records began, causing a local river to swell to its highest level in 70 years on Tuesday

In Retrospect: The Sino-British Joint Declaration (1984)

The Sino-British Joint Declaration was a treaty between the governments of the United Kingdom and China signed in 1984 setting the conditions in which Hong Kong was transferred to Chinese control and for the governance of the territory after 1 July 1997.Hong Kong had been a colony of the British Empire since 1842 after the First Opium War and its territory was expanded on two occasions; first in

US expels more than 100 Chinese migrants in rare mass deportation

The US has sent back 116 Chinese migrants in the first such “large charter flight” in five years, the Department of Homeland Security has said. “We will continue to enforce our immigration laws and remove individuals without a legal basis to remain in the United States,” homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement.The flight, which happened over the weekend, comes amid

Beyoncé, couture and palaces: India’s growing taste for mega-weddings

When it comes to elaborate nuptials, few can rival the mega-weddings of India’s super-rich. Recent months have seen a slew of high-profile ceremonies, from a rare Bollywood-Hollywood union (Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas) to what could be one of history’s most expensive weddings (when Isha Ambani, daughter of Asia’s richest man, wed Anand Piramal, the son of a billionaire industrialist).

The son of Asia’s richest man is getting married in one of India’s most anticipated — and lavish — weddings of the year

Billionaire heir Anant Ambani is set to marry his longtime girlfriend Radhika Merchant later this month, in a lavish ceremony widely described as the country’s wedding of the year. Extravagant pre-wedding celebrations have already sent Indian media into a frenzy and social media feeds are abuzz over what’s to come.In March, the couple had a three-day pre-wedding party in the western city of

This country has a national happiness index. But what is it really like to live there?

Located between China and India, the world’s two most populous countries, high in the Himalayas, sits Bhutan. Known as the Land of the Thunder Dragon, it’s a Buddhist monarchy of 700,000 residents that has only had regular television broadcasts since 1999.Most foreigners who have heard of Bhutan know two things: the country charges international visitors a $100/day sustainable development fee (

Germany blocks another big business deal with China

Germany has blocked the sale of a Volkswagen subsidiary to China on national security grounds, delivering a fresh blow to the already tenserelationship with its biggest trading partner. MAN Energy Solutions, part of the Volkswagen Group, said in June 2023 that it planned to sell its gas turbines business to Chinese state-owned CSIC Longjiang GH Gas Turbine Co (GHGT). But a German government

China’s Xi urges regional leaders to resist ‘external interference’ as security bloc grows to counter US

Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Thursday urged regional leaders to resist “external interference” at a gathering of a Eurasian security bloc touted by Beijing and Moscow as a counterbalance to Western power. Addressing the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)’s annual leaders’ summit in Kazakhstan, Xi called on member states to “consolidate the power of unity” in the face of “the real challenge

China’s demographics aren’t a short-term problem

In discussions about China’s economy, the issue of demographics comes up quite a lot. In 2022, China’s population began to decrease (and coincidentally, India’s population surpassed China’s). The country’s fertility rate, which had already fallen below replacement levels decades earlier, fell again recently, to just 1.09 — one of the lowest rates in the world, and even lower than Japan.This is

Indonesia rebuffs China’s Global South trade drive

Beijing’s strategy to boost trade relations with countries in the Global South to diversify away from closing Western markets has taken a hit with Indonesia’s announced intention to impose a 100-200% tariff on China’s labor-intensive goods.Over the past few days, several Indonesian officials have said that the world’s fourth most populous nation is drafting regulations to impose anti-dumping