ASIA TODAY Chinese MeToo leader sentenced to five years for ‘subversion’

Today’s news: The victims of the massacre of migrants in Kuwait rise to 50 and three people are arrested for the fire. Ibrahim’s government in Malaysia holds the record for content removed from social media. Bipartisan US congressional delegation to the Dalai Lama. Wild horses return to Kazakhstan after 200 years. Putin ratifies the agreement with Beijing to build the international lunar station.

CHINA

The Chinese leader of #MeToo, Huang Xueqina 35-year-old freelance journalist, was condemned to five years in prison for being found guilty of “subversion”, a sentence against which she has decided to appeal. Trade union activist Wang Jianbing, 40, who was also tried alongside Huang, was sentenced to three years and six months. Both have been in jail since September 2021.

KUWAIT – INDIA – PHILIPPINES

Kuwaiti authorities stopped three people for involuntary manslaughter after the fire that devastated a six-story building where immigrants were staying and in which at least 50 workers died, mostly Indians and three Filipinos. Most of them died from inhalation of toxic gases after being trapped in the building by the flames that broke out in the early hours of yesterday.

MALAYSIA

In the first year of the prime minister Anwar Ibrahim in power, there has been a constant increase in social censorship. In the second half of 2023, the government submitted the largest number of content removal requests in the world to TikTok to silence the opposition. It made 1,862 requests, an average of 10 a day, and multiplied by 5.5 the figure of the previous six months. In total, there were 2,202 deletion requests, more than 30 times the number from 2022.

INDIA – CHINA – USA

Republican Michael McCaul will lead a bipartisan US congressional delegation to India, which also includes former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, to meet with the Dalai Lama on June 18 and 19. The 88-year-old Tibetan spiritual leader has lived in exile for decades in Dharamsala, in the Indian Himalayas, and Beijing considers him a dangerous separatist.

VIETNAM

The Ministry of Finance of Vietnam has proposed increasing the excise tax on alcoholic beverages up to 100% by 2030. According to the project, pending parliamentary approval, the excise tax on beer and strong liquor will rise to 70-80% in 2026 and gradually increase to 90-100% in 2030 from 65 % current. Sector associations are critical.

KAZAKHSTAN

Przewalski’s horses have returned to the steppes of Kazakhstan after almost 200 years, as part of a plan to reintroduce the last wild horses of the world in their original habitats. Sand-brown in color, these endangered quadrupeds once populated Central Asia. Now the Prague Zoo, which manages their family tree, wants to return them to the central Altyn Dala region.

RUSSIA – SRI LANKA

Sri Lanka’s Defense Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, has reported that there are at least 22 compatriots (although the number is higher) who have deserted from the Russian army and have returned to their country after being recruited through deception. The authorities had lured them with promises of stable, well-paid work and other benefits, including Russian citizenship, to end up on the Ukrainian front.

ARMENIA

The Armenian national security service Snb warned participants of the “Tavowš, in the name of the Fatherland” protest movement, led by Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, that “the entire arsenal of legal and juridical means will be used in case of violation of the law”. The reference is directed in particular to the demonstrations planned around Parliament in recent days.