Torbjørn Færøvik's Blog, page 375

Prince Norodom Ranariddh, former Cambodian PM, dies aged 77

Cambodia’s former prime minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh, the king’s half-brother who spent his later years in the political shadow of his one-time rival prime minister Hun Sen, has died in France. He was 77.The information minister, Khieu Kanharith, said he had received the information from the royal palace. The prince, whose royalist political party won elections in 1993, was ousted in a 1997

Coronavirus: Is India ready for a third wave?

As we approach the third year of the pandemic, epidemiologist Chandrakant Lahariya writes about what India should learn from its fight against Covid-19. Anyone travelling through India's northern states would be forgiven for thinking that the pandemic is over. In the smaller towns, few people wear masks, fewer practise social distancing and Covid-19 rarely comes up in conversations. The only

Madhya Pradesh: Man builds Taj Mahal replica home for wife

A 52-year-old Indian businessman has built a scaled-down replica of the iconic Taj Mahal as a home for his wife of 27 years. Anand Prakash Chouksey built his "monument of love" in Burhanpur city in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. "It was a gift for my wife but also for the town and its people," Mr Chouksey told the BBC. The house cost about 20 million rupees (£199,000; $260,000) to

Japan adds $6.75 billion to military budget in rush to bolster air and sea defenses

Japan plans to add $6.75 billion to its already record annual military spending in a rush to bolster air and maritime defenses as it becomes more concerned about threats posed by China and North Korea. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's government on Friday approved the outlay as part of a supplementary budget. While such additions to defense spending are common, the 774 billion yen that lawmakers

US lawmakers visit Taiwan; China conducts military patrols

Five U.S. lawmakers met with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen on Friday in a surprise one-day visit intended to reaffirm America’s “rock-solid” support for the self-governing island that is claimed by China. The visit came as tensions between Taiwan and China have risen to their highest level in decades. Taiwan has been self-ruled since the two sides split during a civil war in 1949, but China

Want a Divorce? In China, Try, Try Again

In 2004, while conducting fieldwork at a local court in southern China, legal scholar He Xin struck up a casual conversation with a judge. On the subject of challenges he faced in the job, the judge grumbled about his law school education, which he characterized as focused more on teaching how the law was written in books, rather than the “law in action.” “Why did no professor mention that, in

In China, People Are Risking Everything for a Box of Ritalin

They came for Jiang Ruiyang on Sept. 2. Ten police officers burst into the factory where he was working in north China’s Shanxi province, told him he was being detained on drugs-related charges, and marched him across the shop floor in handcuffs. The 25-year-old’s crime: buying a few boxes of Ritalin on the internet. Similar scenes have played out across China in recent months, as hundreds of

Switched off: Afghan media struggle to survive under Taliban rule

The romantic serials have gone after the Taliban warned against racy content, the popular women’s call-in shows were axed after the militants said they didn’t want female journalists on air, and news investigations were cancelled after officials demanded oversight before anything was broadcast.So perhaps unsurprisingly, most people who used to tune into Radio Sanga, once one of the most popular

China is Using Academia Like a Trojan Horse | Opinion

Across western higher education, elite institutions are normalizing authoritarian political systems—such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)—when they should instead be under scrutiny. Recently, the University College London's student debating society hosted a discussion where panelists pushed the motion that "Chinese-style" governance could be adopted by other countries—an alarming belief that

US legislators meet with Taiwan president in surprise visit

Five US legislators have met with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen in a surprise one-day visit intended to reaffirm the United States’ “rock-solid” support for the self-governing island. The bipartisan group of legislators from the US House of Representatives arrived in Taiwan on Thursday night and were planning to meet senior leaders including Tsai, said the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), the