Torbjørn Færøvik's Blog, page 36

Stay or go? Under Trump, dreams fade for Chinese who trekked to US

When Pan decided to leave his homeland in early 2023, he did so with a conviction that his future no longer belonged there. As he headed to America, he dreamed of a freer society, a fairer economy, and a life lived with dignity – things he said he could never claim in China, where his home had been forcibly demolished by the local government to make way for real estate development.To chase

Chinese nationals charged with exporting Nvidia AI chips to China

Two Chinese nationals have been arrested and charged with illegally shipping millions of dollars' worth of powerful AI chips to China, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) said on Tuesday. The DOJ alleged that over the last three years ALX Solutions, a company it said was run by Chuan Geng and Shiwei Yang, exported the chips from the US to China without the required licences.Court documents

China used to fine couples for having too many babies. Now it can’t pay them enough

Zane Li was nine years old when he got a baby sister – and her arrival plunged the family in a small city in eastern China into crippling debt. Under China’s stringent one-child policy at the time, Li’s parents were fined 100,000 yuan (about $13,900) for having a second child – nearly three times their annual income from selling fish at the local market.“We were barely able to survive,” Li

Protests in China over viral school bullying case

A school bullying incident in southern China has sparked a series of protests and calls for more justice for the 14-year-old victim. A video of the girl being slapped, kicked and forced to kneel by three other minors went viral in the Jiangyou city in Sichuan province last week. The police said the three suspects are all female, aged 13, 14 and 15 - and two of them had been sent to "specialised

The witchcraft murders that shook an Indian village

Three weeks after five members of a family in India were brutally killed and allegedly burned alive amid accusations of the practice of witchcraft, the survivors are still trying to come to terms with the tragedy. For Manisha Devi (name changed) of Tetgama village in Bihar state, the night of 6 July has been the darkest in her life.At around 10pm, a belligerent mob gathered outside their

Hiroshima marks 80 years since atomic bombing

A silent prayer was held in Japan on Wednesday morning as it marked 80 years since the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima. Japanese prime minister Shigeru Ishiba attended the ceremony on Wednesday, along with officials from around the world and the city's mayor Kazumi Matsui.Matsui warned of a global "accelerating trend toward military build-up... [and] the idea that

Philippines, India conduct joint exercises in South China Sea

Indian and Philippine naval crews sailed together for the first time in the South China Sea, officials said on Monday, one of several joint exercises the Philippine navy has held to counter China’s far-reaching maritime claims. The two-day joint sail included three Indian ships. It began on Sunday, a day before Philippine Prime Minister Ferdinand Marcos left for a five-day state visit to New

India calls Trump's tariff threat over Russian oil 'unjustified'

India has called Donald Trump's threat of "substantially" higher tariffs over its purchase of oil from Russia "unjustified and unreasonable". In a post on Truth Social, the US president warned he would raise levies, saying India "don't care how many people in Ukraine are being killed by the Russian War Machine". India is currently among the largest buyers of Russian oil. It has become an

Disfigured, shamed and forgotten: BBC visits the Korean survivors of the Hiroshima bomb

At 08:15 on August 6, 1945, as a nuclear bomb was falling like a stone through the skies over Hiroshima, Lee Jung-soon was on her way to elementary school. The now-88-year-old waves her hands as if trying to push the memory away. "My father was about to leave for work, but he suddenly came running back and told us to evacuate immediately," she recalls. "They say the streets were filled with the

China can’t buy its way to a baby boom

China’s central government introduced a childcare subsidy on July 28 that will provide families with 3,000 yuan ($417.76) a year for each child under the age of three. The announcement came days after plans were unveiled to roll out free preschool education across the country.These developments mark a shift from previous years, when the government largely left the issue of addressing China’s