Torbjørn Færøvik's Blog, page 313

Zelenskiy calls on Japan to impose trade embargo on Russian goods

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has called on Japan to increase pressure on Russia by imposing a trade embargo on Russian goods, in a virtual address to MPs in Tokyo. Zelenskiy, who has delivered carefully tailored speeches to lawmakers in the US, UK and other countries, thanked Japan for “leading the way” among Asian countries in condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and imposing

Words Bridge Worlds: A Chinese Nonfiction Roundtable

Ahead of the upcoming Sixth Tone China Writing Contest, Sixth Tone invited three of China’s most fascinating and boundary-pushing nonfiction practitioners — Chen Nianxi, Yuan Ling, and Zhang Huiyu — to take part in a roundtable discussion on Chinese nonfiction on March 6, 2022. The Chinese-language event was hosted by Lin Shiqi, a PhD candidate in comparative literature at the University of

How Shanghai’s Coffee Culture Brewed Up a Revolution

In the 2021 film “B for Busy” — one of last year’s sleeper hits — the characters are anything but overworked. Members of Shanghai’s idle rentier class, they spend their days flirting, taking art lessons, and drinking coffee. In this fantasy version of Shanghai, even street cobblers treat their coffee breaks as sacred, grinding their own beans and telling off the protagonist in Shanghai-accented

Academics Worry Over China’s Shrinking Grassland Coverage

Chinese experts have raised concerns over the massive decrease in grassland areas in the latest national survey and called for an intervention to investigate the lost landscape.The momentum gathered after Ma Huiling, a National People’s Congress (NPC) delegate, submitted a proposal at the “two sessions” political meetings earlier this month, urging authorities to investigate the changes in

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has foreign investors fleeing Taiwan. Here's why

War in Europe has triggered a massive flight of capital from an Asian island nearly 5,000 miles away. Over the last month, Russia's invasion of Ukraine has heightened concerns about the risk that China could increase its military force against Taiwan, triggering what some analysts have described as an unprecedented exodus by overseas investors.In the three weeks following the invasion, foreign

A Chinese Student’s Escape From War-Torn Ukraine

In just over two weeks since Russia started bombing cities in Ukraine, more than 2 million people have fled to neighboring countries. Scores of foreign nationals studying or working in the European country, along with Ukrainians, have made desperate journeys to flee the invasion. Chinese student Xu Shijie is one of them.The 23-year-old landed in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv last August

Japan opposes Russian withdrawal from World War II peace treaty talks over sanctions

Japan reacted angrily on Tuesday after Russia withdrew from peace treaty talks with Japan and froze joint economic projects related to the disputed Kuril Islands because of sanctions imposed by Tokyo over Russia's invasion of Ukraine.Russia and Japan have still not formally ended World War II hostilities because of the standoff over islands just off Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido, known

Oscars 2022: Writing with Fire puts spotlight on India's underdogs

Jane Campion's The Power of the Dog may be leading this year's Academy Awards with 12 nominations, but India is in thrall over a story of its own underdogs, vying for an Oscar in the documentary feature category. Writing with Fire tells the extraordinary story of the feisty women of Khabar Lahariya - an all-women news service run mostly by editors and reporters from the most marginalised Dalit,

China Warns U.S. Against Forming 'Indo-Pacific NATO'

China's NATO blame game in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine has been brought back to Asia, where Beijing says U.S. alliance-building could result in a great power clash before long. The Chinese leadership's decision to side with Russia came long before Vladimir Putinordered troops across lines of control into Ukrainian-held territory on February 24. Officials in Beijing sympathize with

Wallets, IDs but no survivors found in China Eastern crash

Mud-stained wallets. Bank cards. Official identity cards. Poignant reminders of 132 lives presumed lost were lined up by rescue workers scouring a remote Chinese mountainside Tuesday for the wreckage of a China Eastern flight that one day earlier inexplicably fell from the sky and burst into a huge fireball.No survivors have been found among the 123 passengers and nine crew members. Video clips