Torbjørn Færøvik's Blog, page 97

Not enough power to share: The political feud behind Rodrigo Duterte's downfall

Just short of his 80th birthday, Rodrigo Duterte, a man who once vowed to purge his country through a bloody anti-drugs and crime campaign, found himself outmanoeuvred and in custody. The former president was met by Philippines police as he arrived in Manila on a flight from Hong Kong, where he had been rallying support for his candidates for the upcoming mid-term election among the large

US tech firms feel pinch from China tariffs

Deena Ghazarian had only been in business for a year when the trade policies of President Donald Trump's first term of office sent her company into a tailspin. It was 2019 and her California-based firm, Austere, had just agreed to supply several big US retailers with its high-end audio and video accessories that are largely manufactured in China.Then Trump imposed sweeping tariffs on China, and

US tariffs on India will be a bitter pill to swallow

With Donald Trump's tit-for-tat tariffs on India looming next month, millions of Americans may have to brace for steeper medical bills. Last week, Indian Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal made an unscheduled trip to the US for discussions with officials, hoping to strike a trade deal.It followed Trump's announcement that he would impose tariffs - which are government taxes on foreign imports - on

Duterte's first night in a jail cell is a pivotal moment for the ICC

Outside the International Criminal Court's (ICC) detention centre, where former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte was taken on Wednesday, his supporters gathered, waving national flags and shouting, "Bring him back!" as he was driven through the imposing iron gates at speed. Shortly before he landed in the Netherlands, the 79-year-old unapologetically defended his bloody "war on drugs" for

Dalai Lama says his successor will be born outside China

The Dalai Lama’s successor will be born outside China, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism says in a new book, raising the stakes in a dispute with Beijing over control of the Himalayan region he fled more than six decades ago. Tibetans worldwide want the institution of the Dalai Lama to continue after the 89-year-old’s death, he writes in “Voice for the Voiceless,” which was reviewed by

TORBJØRN FÆRØVIK: DA MAO "FRIGJORDE" TIBET OG DALAI LAMA LA PÅ FLUKT

Tidlig i 1950 sto en vitebegjærlig gutt på taket av det store Potala-palasset i Lhasa og speidet med sin kikkert. Dalai Lama var blitt fjorten år gammel, men ville han noensinne bli innsatt som konge? Fra Beijing kom illevarslende meldinger. Formann Mao ville innlemme Tibet i den nye Folkerepublikken Kina. Mao hadde erobret makten noen måneder tidligere. Nå var «røde soldater» på vei. Kanskje var

Taiwan Shows US Allies How To Win Over Trump

Taiwan showed this month that it was possible to emerge from negotiations with Donald Trump with a win-win deal, after the high-profile breakdown of Trump's recent meeting with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky demonstrated the perils of defying the U.S. president.Last week, Trump announced an additional $100 billion investment in the U.S. semiconductor industry by Taiwan's TSMC, the leading chipmaker

China unveils big plan to fix its ailing economy and transform into a high-tech power

China’s leaders have spent the past week unveiling their plan to steer the world’s second-largest economy through looming challenges by transforming the country into a technological powerhouse and ramping up spending to hit an ambitious growth target. The thousands of delegates who gathered in Beijing for a week-long meeting of China’s rubber-stamp legislature voted almost unanimously Tuesday to

Former Philippine President Duterte forced onto plane to The Hague after ICC arrest, his daughter says

Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has been “forcibly taken” onto a plane headed for The Hague, his daughter said on Tuesday, hours after his dramatic arrest on an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant over a brutal, years-long anti-drugs crackdown that left thousands of his citizens dead.Duterte was placed on a flight late on Tuesday, his daughter and local outlet The Philippine

How Duterte went from boasting about killing drug dealers to facing trial for crimes against humanity

An elected leader once dubbed “The Punisher” is on his way to The Hague to face trial for crimes against humanity during a brutal war on drugs, in a breathtaking reversal of fortune for a politician who once openly boasted about killing people and placing opponents on hit lists. Rodrigo Duterte ran the Philippines for six turbulent years, during which he oversaw a brutal crackdown on drugs,