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How China's cybersecurity laws could backfire Chinese legislation seeking data from cars on...
Kusu News 18-Apr-2022
‘Initial phase’ of Indonesia's 2024 elections will begin on Jun 14: President Joko Widodo
12-Apr-2022 CNA
JAKARTA: Indonesian President Joko Widodo said on Tuesday (Apr 12) that the “initial phase” of the 2024 elections will begin on Jun 14, as he inaugurated members of the election commission responsible for the polls.
In a televised speech, the Indonesian leader who is popularly known as Jokowi said that he hopes the General Election Commission (KPU) and Election Supervisory Board (Bawaslu) can work immediately with parliament and the government to prepare for the presidential election and local elections simultaneously in 2024.
He said that the initial phase for the 2024 elections will begin on Jun 14 this year, although he did not elaborate what the initial phase of the elections would entail.
“This is important because for the first time, we will hold legislative, presidential and regional elections in the same year, so the KPU and Bawaslu must immediately prepare everything in detail and properly to maintain the quality of democracy,” Mr Widodo said.
Taiwan iPhone maker Pegatron suspends operations at two China plants
12-Apr-2022 The Japan Times
TAIPEI – Taiwan’s Pegatron Corp., which assembles iPhones for Apple Inc., said on Tuesday it had suspended operations at its Shanghai and Kunshan plants in China due to the government’s strict COVID-19 protocols.
China has put Shanghai under a tight lockdown since late March and neighbouring Kunshan has also tightened curbs to control the country’s biggest COVID-19 outbreak since the coronavirus was discovered in late 2019 in the city of Wuhan.
Global companies, from phone to chip makers, are highly dependent on China and Southeast Asia for production and have been diversifying their supply chains after the pandemic caused havoc.
According to Taiwan’s Financial Supervisory Commission, as of April 7 a total of 161 listed Taiwanese companies reported their operations in Shanghai and Kunshan have stopped, 41 of them make electronics.
Taiwan issues first war survival handbook amid China threat
12-Apr-2022 Reuters
TAIPEI, April 12 (Reuters) - Taiwan's military released a handbook on civil defence for the first time on Tuesday, giving citizens survival guidance in a war scenario as Russia's invasion of Ukraine focuses attention on how the island should respond to China's pressure.
China has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control, and has stepped up military activities nearby in the past two years, to press it into accepting its sovereignty claims.
Taiwan's handbook details how to find bomb shelters via smartphone apps, water and food supplies, as well as tips for preparing emergency first aid kits.
Planning for the handbook pre-dates Russia's attack on its neighbour, which has prompted debate on its implications for Taiwan and ways to boost preparedness, such as reforms to the training of reservist.
Media mogul Jimmy Lai appeals to U.N. over Hong Kong cases
11-Apr-2022 AP
HONG KONG--Lawyers for Hong Kong media mogul and pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai are asking the United Nations to investigate his imprisonment and multiple criminal charges as “legal harassment” that punish him for speaking out.
The publisher of the now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper was one of the most prominent activists arrested in Hong Kong’s crackdown on virtually all political criticism since mass pro-democracy protests in 2019.
The crackdown continued early Monday with the arrest of another veteran journalist, Allan Au Ka-lun, a teaching consultant who’d worked for a number of Hong Kong media outlets.
The actions by Lai’s lawyers in Britain followed that country’s announcement last month it would withdraw its judges from Hong Kong’s top court because keeping them there would “legitimize oppression” in the former British colony.
Lai, 74, has been charged under Hong Kong’s sweeping national security law and is serving 20 months in prison. His assets have been frozen and the raft of legal cases against him include four separate criminal prosecutions related to attending and joining various protests, his legal team at Doughty Street Chambers in the U.K. said in a statement.
Lai faces “the risk of spending the rest of his life in prison simply for speaking out, and for seeking to defend freedom of the press, democracy and the rule of law in Hong Kong,” Lai’s counsel, Caoilfhionn Gallagher, said in the statement.
Once PM Lee’s principal private secretary, Lawrence Wong now set to succeed him in top job
14-Apr-2022 today
- Mr Lawrence Wong was a long-time civil servant before entering politics in 2011
- He had served as principal private secretary to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong
- In politics, Mr Wong, 49, has served across a range of ministries, the latest being Finance Minister
- As the newly-anointed 4G leader, he is now poised to succeed PM Lee in the top job
SINGAPORE — Finance Minister Lawrence Wong, who once served as the principal private secretary to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, now looks set to succeed him in the top job.
Mr Wong, 49, who was a career civil servant before joining politics, was on Thursday (April 14) named as the leader of the fourth-generation (4G) of the ruling People’s Action Party’s (PAP) team, effectively putting to rest the question of leadership succession.
Diversifying supply chains from China ‘good’: World Bank
14-Apr-2022 Reuters
Countries around the world are working to diversify their supply chains and reduce their dependence on China, which is “probably good for everyone,” World Bank president David Malpass said on Tuesday.
Speaking at an event in Warsaw, Malpass said that cross-border trade would remain important to the global economy, and China — already the world’s second-largest economy and likely to become the largest — had a big role to play as both a consumer and producer of goods.
VALUE SYSTEM
However, China also needed to be part of a value system shared by other countries in the global trading system, he said, adding: “I don’t know that that will happen.”
Asked whether China was headed for a crisis due to severe COVID-19 lockdowns and debt problems in its property sector, Malpass said: “They’re having setbacks, major setbacks in various areas, and the forecasts for growth have been brought down.”
However, he said the World Bank continues to work well with China, which is a major shareholder and a borrower whose use of the lender’s financing is shrinking.
TRANSPARENCY
The bank is also working closely with China to encourage more transparency its lending to developing countries, Malpass said.
China’s economic data hints at cost of 'COVID zero' strategy
18-Apr-2022 The Japan Times
BEIJING – Faced with its worst COVID-19 outbreak yet, China has been enforcing an expanding number of mass quarantines, strict lockdowns and border controls. The measures may yet work, but official data released Monday show they are exacting a grim toll on the world’s second-largest economy.
China’s economy expanded 4.8% in the first three months of this year compared with the same period last year. That pace was barely faster than the final three months of last year, and it also obscured a looming problem.
Much of that growth was recorded in January and February. Last month, economic activity slowed as Shenzhen, the technology hub in the south, and then Shanghai, the country’s biggest city, and other important industrial centers shut down. The lockdowns suspended assembly lines, grounded workers, trapped truck drivers and snarled ports. They confined hundreds of millions of consumers at home.
Retail sales, a crucial sign of whether consumers are spending, fell 3.5% in March from a year ago, the National Bureau of Statistics said Monday. Factory output grew 5%, a rate that was slower than the pace recorded in the first two months. Imports, which had been racing ahead in the first two months of the year, fell slightly last month, partly because of transportation snags.
