In diplomatic coup, Taiwan president speaks to Czech president-elect

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen speaks with Czech President-elect Petr Pavel on a conference call in Taipei, Taiwan January 30, 2023 in this handout picture. (REUTERS)
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen speaks with Czech President-elect Petr Pavel on a conference call in Taipei, Taiwan January 30, 2023 in this handout picture. (REUTERS)
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Updated 31 January 2023

In diplomatic coup, Taiwan president speaks to Czech president-elect

In diplomatic coup, Taiwan president speaks to Czech president-elect
  • In 2016, US President-elect Donald Trump spoke by telephone with Tsai shortly after winning the election, setting off a storm of protest from Beijing

TAIPEI/PRAGUE: Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen held a telephone call with Czech President-elect Petr Pavel on Monday, a highly unusual move given the lack of formal ties between their countries and a diplomatic coup for Taipei that is sure to infuriate China.
The two leaders stressed their countries’ shared values of freedom, democracy and human rights during their 15-minute call, their offices said, and Pavel said he hoped to meet Tsai in the future.
Most countries avoid high-level public interactions with Taiwan and its president, not wishing to provoke China, the world’s second largest economy.
Beijing views Taiwan as being part of “one China” and demands other countries recognize its sovereignty claims, which Taiwan’s democratically-elected government rejects.
In 2016, US President-elect Donald Trump spoke by telephone with Tsai shortly after winning the election, setting off a storm of protest from Beijing.
Tsai said she hoped that under Pavel’s leadership the Czech Republic would continue to cooperate with Taiwan to promote a close partnership, and that she hoped to stay in touch with him.
“Bilateral interaction between Taiwan and the Czech Republic is close and good,” her office summarised Tsai as having said.
Pavel, a former army chief and high NATO official who won the Czech presidential election on Saturday, said on Twitter that the two countries “share the values of freedom, democracy, and human rights.”
’ONE-CHINA’ PRINCIPLE
Earlier, China’s foreign ministry had said it was “seeking verification with the Czech side” on media reports that the call was to take place.
“The Chinese side is opposed to countries with which it has diplomatic ties engaging in any form of official exchange with the Taiwan authorities. Czech President-elect Pavel during the election period openly said that the ‘one-China’ principle should be respected,” the ministry said.
Pavel will take office in early March, replacing President Milos Zeman, who is known for his pro-Beijing stance.
Zeman spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping this month and they reaffirmed their “personal friendly” relationship, according to a readout of their call from Zeman’s office.
The Czech Republic, like most countries, has no official diplomatic ties with Taiwan, but the two sides have moved closer as Beijing ratchets up military threats against the island and Taipei seeks new friends in Eastern and Central Europe.
The center-right Czech government has said it wants to deepen cooperation with democratic countries in the India-Pacific region, including Taiwan, and has also been seeking a “revision” of ties with China.
In 2020, the head of the Czech Senate visited Taiwan and declared himself to be Taiwanese in a speech at Taiwan’s parliament, channelling the late US President John F. Kennedy’s defiance of communism in Berlin in 1963.

 


US charges Korean crypto fugitive after reported arrest in Montenegro

US charges Korean crypto fugitive after reported arrest in Montenegro
Updated 9 sec ago

US charges Korean crypto fugitive after reported arrest in Montenegro

US charges Korean crypto fugitive after reported arrest in Montenegro
  • Kwon Do-hyung and five others connected to Terraform are wanted for fraud and the implosion of its digital currencies in May 2022
  • Montenegro’s interior ministry said Thursday the tycoon was apprehended on a South Korean warrant

WASHINGTON: Fugitive South Korean cryptocurrency entrepreneur Do Kwon, accused of orchestrating a multi-billion-dollar fraud that shook global crypto markets last year, has been arrested in Montenegro and faces fresh criminal charges in the United States.
Kwon was arrested along with another South Korean national, Montenegro’s interior ministry said Thursday, which added that the tycoon was apprehended on a South Korean warrant.
“Kwon Do-hyung and Han Chang-joon were arrested and brought to the state prosecutor’s office in Podgorica for the criminal act of document forgery,” an interior ministry statement said.
During passport control for a flight to Dubai the two “used falsified travel documents from Costa Rica, which was established also by Interpol checks,” it said.
Inspection of their luggage also found travel documents from Belgium and South Korea, while Interpol checks discovered that Belgian documents were forged, the ministry added.
Police seized from them three laptop devices and five mobile phones.
Their entry into Montenegro has not been registered, the ministry said.
South Korea has issued a warrant for them for the offense of “criminal association,” it added.
South Korea asked Interpol in September to circulate a “red notice” for the 31-year-old across the agency’s 195 member nations.
Kwon and five others connected to Terraform are wanted for fraud and the implosion of its digital currencies in May 2022.
The US federal indictment charged the 31-year-old Kwon with eight counts, including securities fraud, commodities fraud and wire fraud. The charges follow a lawsuit a month ago from the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
Kwon’s TerraUSD was designed as a “stablecoin,” which are pegged to stable assets like the US dollar to prevent drastic fluctuations in prices.
However, around $40 billion in market value was erased for the holders of TerraUSD and its floating sister currency, Luna, after the stablecoin plunged far below its $1 peg in May last year.
Kwon is accused of “orchestrating a multi-billion-dollar crypto asset securities fraud,” according to the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

Many investors lost their life savings when Luna and Terra entered a death spiral, and South Korean authorities had opened multiple criminal probes into the crash.
Cryptocurrencies have come under increasing scrutiny from regulators across the globe following a string of recent controversies, including the high-profile collapse of the crypto exchange FTX.
FTX and its sister trading house Alameda Research went bankrupt late last year, dissolving a virtual trading business that had been valued by the market at $32 billion.
The fall of FTX has caused major doubts about the long-term viability of cryptocurrency and heaped stress on further platforms and entities that rode the success of Bitcoin and other currencies.
To add to its mounting woes, the digital currency sector has also been hit hard by the demise of US crypto lenders Silvergate and Signature amid a string of banking failures that have rattled global markets and sparked fears of future economic turmoil.
 


Prince William thanks Poland for generosity to Ukrainians

Prince William thanks Poland for generosity to Ukrainians
Updated 44 min 43 sec ago

Prince William thanks Poland for generosity to Ukrainians

Prince William thanks Poland for generosity to Ukrainians
  • The heir to the throne’s visit to Poland underscores Britain’s support for both Ukraine and Poland
  • The UK has been one of the most outspoken supporters of bolstering NATO’s eastern flank in the face of Russia’s aggression

 

WARSAW, Poland: Britain’s Prince William paid tribute on Thursday to Poles who lost their lives in past wars, and expressed gratitude to the nation for what it is doing today to provide humanitarian and military support to Ukraine.
The heir to the throne’s visit to Poland underscores Britain’s support for both Ukraine and Poland, an ally on the front line of efforts to help refugees displaced by Russia’s war and to assist the Ukrainian military in fighting off the invasion.
William laid a wreath in Poland’s national colors, white and red, at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and bowed his head solemnly. The memorial honors Poles who lost their lives in wars including World War II, when Polish and British soldiers were allies.
A note on the wreath that he left read: “In memory of those who made the ultimate sacrifice.”
He later headed to the presidential palace for a meeting with President Andrzej Duda, who has been a prominent ally of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than a year ago. Duda’s office said their talks focused on humanitarian aid for Ukraine.
“The Prince of Wales thanked the Poles for their generosity and hospitality,” Duda’s office said.
In the final stop on his two-day visit, the prince then went to a trendy food hall where he met with young Ukrainians working or continuing their studies in Poland.
William began his surprise visit Wednesday by meeting with British and Polish troops in Rzeszow, a city of 200,000 people in southeastern Poland that has become a hub for shipments of military and humanitarian aid bound for Ukraine.
“I just wanted to come here in person to say thank you for all that you’re doing, keeping everyone safe out here and keeping an eye on what’s going on,″ William said as he spoke to the troops.
He later traveled to a center in Warsaw that houses about 300 recent arrivals from Ukraine, meeting Ukrainians and playing table tennis with children.
The UK has been one of the most outspoken supporters of bolstering NATO’s eastern flank in the face of Russia’s aggression. The country sent troops to Poland and the Baltic states and provided more than 2.3 billion pounds ($2.8 billion) of military aid to Ukraine. It also has pledged 220 million pounds ($269 million) of humanitarian assistance.
Deploying the popular 40-year-old prince, a military veteran who also worked as a civilian air-sea rescue pilot, offers a more personal touch. While British political leaders have visited Poland regularly to trumpet their support for NATO and the Ukrainian cause, a senior royal like William is a symbol of the nation who can thank military personnel for their service without the baggage of party politics.
 


US lawmakers turn focus to plight of Uyghurs in China

US lawmakers turn focus to plight of Uyghurs in China
Updated 24 March 2023

US lawmakers turn focus to plight of Uyghurs in China

US lawmakers turn focus to plight of Uyghurs in China
  • Female Uyghur detainees were held by the thousands, heads shaved, tortured and gang-raped, witness testifies
  • China is accused of sweeping over a million Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic minority groups into detention camps

WASHINGTON: Two women who experienced life in Chinese “reeducation” camps for Uyghurs told lawmakers Thursday of lives under imprisonment and surveillance, rape and torture as a special House committee focused on countering China shined a light on human rights abuses in the country.
Qelbinur Sidik, a member of China’s ethnic Uzbek minority who was forced to teach Chinese in separate detention facilities for Uyghur men and women, told lawmakers of male Uyghur detainees held chained and shackled in cells so tiny they had to crawl out when authorities summoned them. “They were called by numbers for interrogations. And then you would hear horrible screaming sounds from torture,” she said.
Innocent female Uyghur detainees were held by the thousands, heads shaved, in gray uniforms, Sidik said. Guards tortured the women by electric shocks and by gang rape, sometimes combining both. “And I have witnessed an 18- to 20-year-old girl” slowly bleed to death from the treatment, Sidik said.
Reeducation camps intended to drain the Uyghur inmates of their language, religious beliefs and customs forced men and women into “11 hours of brainwashing lessons on a daily basis,” testified Gulbahar Haitiwaji, a Uyghur who spent more than two years in two reeducation camps and police stations.
“Before eating, we have to praise them, say that we are grateful ... for China’s Communist Party and we are grateful for (President) Xi Jinping,” Haitiwaji said. “And after, to finish eating, we have to praise them again.”
Accused of “disorder” and detained with 30 to 40 people in a cell meant for nine, the Uyghur woman said, she and other female detainees were chained to their beds for 20 days at one point.
Detention left her gaunt. Freed and sent to France thanks to a pressure campaign by her family there in 2019, she was given more food by Chinese authorities before her release, so her appearance would not speak of her mistreatment.
In parting, Chinese officials warned Haitiwaji that “whatever I had witnessed in the concentration camp I should not talk about it,” she said. “If I do, they will retaliate against my family back home.”
The US and many other governments, the United Nations, and human rights groups accuse China of sweeping a million or more people from its Uyghur community and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minority groups into detention camps, where many have said they were tortured, sexually assaulted, and forced to abandon their language and religion. China denies the accusations, which are based on evidence including interviews with survivors and photos and satellite images from Uyghur’s home province of Xinjiang, a major hub for factories and farms in far western China.
“For a long time, some US politicians have repeatedly used Xinjiang-related issues to stir up rumors and engage in political manipulation under the pretext of human rights, in an attempt to tarnish China’s image and curb China’s development,” said Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington.
The Chinese government’s actions in Xinjiang were about “countering violence, terrorism, radicalization and separatism,” the embassy spokesman insisted.
The accusations also include draconian birth control policies, all-encompassing restrictions on people’s movement and forced labor.
The early focus on the plight of Uyghurs by the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party is designed to show the Chinese government’s true nature, said Rep. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, the committee’s Republican chairman.
“They are the first-hand witnesses to the systemic, unimaginable brutality, witnesses to the attempted elimination of a people, a culture, a civilization,” Gallagher said Thursday.
In advance of the hearing, human rights experts talked about the importance of focusing on treatment of the Uyghurs, including Elisha Wiesel. He is the son of the late Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor and the author of the memoir “Night” about his experiences during the Holocaust and living in concentration camps.
“Looking at the world stage right now, it’s clear to me that there is no crime on such a massive scale taking place as what’s taking place with the Uyghur people,” Wiesel said.
Wiesel said that both the Trump and Biden administrations had been active on the topic, and pointed to passage of a bill on forced labor and sanctions against companies shown to be using forced labor of Uyghurs. “This is exactly the sort of pressure that needs to be continued,” he said.
Laura Murphy, a researcher at Sheffield Hallam University in the United Kingdom, specializes in American businesses that draw on forced labor. She said it was important for the United States to keep identifying and penalizing companies using Uyghur forced labor.
“Most companies ... they not only don’t know, they intentionally don’t know,” Murphy said.
Outside of the sectors of cotton and components of solar panels, two industries in China that the US and others say relies heavily on forced labor by detained Uyghurs, companies that draw on supplies from China “would prefer not to look into it,” she said.
“So long as businesses continue to do business with the Uyghur region ... they are financing a genocide,” Murphy said.
The US should step up legislation rewarding companies that have shown they make no use of Uyghur forced labor, in terms of access to US markets, and increase information-sharing on companies that haven’t, she said.
The hearing also comes following Chinese President Xi Jinping’s trip to Russia to show support for President Vladimir Putin, underscoring just how badly US relations with China have deteriorated.
“What we’re seeing here is increasingly a de facto alliance against America and our allies to try and undercut our interests,” Gallagher said.
The formation of the special China committee this year was a top priority of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., but close to 150 Democrats also voted for the committee’s creation, and its work has been unusually bipartisan so far.
“This hearing is important because what happens to the Uyghur community in China impacts Americans at home,” said the committee’s ranking Democrat, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois. “It’s in the goods produced with slave labor, it’s the degradation of human rights that makes the world less safe, and it’s the ceaseless persecution of Uyghurs abroad that includes those living in America.”
Haitiwaji, the ethnic Uyghur woman testifying before the committee, said she is speaking out because she feels an obligation to speak for those still languishing in detention centers. She is calling on lawmakers to follow the example of Canada, which has adopted a policy of accepting 10,000 Uyghur refugees from around the world.
“Please rescue Uyghur and other Turkic refugees, like Canada has done,” she said in her prepared remarks. “Please stop American companies from continuing to be complicit in surveilling our people and profiting from their labor.”


Biden arrives in Canada to discuss trade, migration challenges

Biden arrives in Canada to discuss trade, migration challenges
Updated 24 March 2023

Biden arrives in Canada to discuss trade, migration challenges

Biden arrives in Canada to discuss trade, migration challenges

OTTAWA: US President Joe Biden arrived Thursday in Canada where he will meet Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and address parliament, with reports that a deal has been struck on managing undocumented migration across the neighbors’ long border.
Trade, Canada’s anemic defense spending, and a potential international force to stabilize troubled Haiti are expected to be on the agenda in the events set largely for Friday.
As Biden flew north, there were reports that another hot button issue in the otherwise smooth relationship had been resolved through a deal to clamp down on undocumented migration by asylum seekers passing through the United States into Canada.
According to The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, Canada will be able to stop illegal migrants at the Roxham Road crossing point on the frontier between New York state and Quebec.
The flow of migrants there has been a source of irritation in domestic Canadian politics, much as it is in Washington concerning illegal entries across the US-Mexico border.
The reports said that Canada has agreed in return to take in some 15,000 asylum seekers from Latin America through legal channels, a move that will ease the pressure on the southern US border.
Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre would not confirm the news but said “we will hear more about it from the president and the prime minister tomorrow.”
Ahead of the visit, the two sides stressed their close integration.
“I think that’s going to be the theme of this visit, that we are there making each other stronger and better,” Canada’s ambassador to the United States, Kirsten Hillman, told CBC.
But only modest, if any, progress is expected on tensions over Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act — a massive program to subsidize and kick start US-based development of electric vehicles and other clean energy products.
“We are looking for more inclusion in exactly those things,” a senior Canadian government official told reporters.
“We want a North America that is globally competitive, so that our two economies which are already so integrated, where so many businesses and jobs and supply chains rely on each other, can compete with the world and can be successful together.”
Another expected item on the agenda is the financing of the neighbors’ mutual defense pacts, both as members of NATO and their joint air defense system for North America, named NORAD.
The US government has been pressuring Canada to increase its defense spending, which in 2022 was just 1.33 percent of GDP. This is scheduled to rise to 1.59 percent from 2026 but that’s still well below the NATO alliance requirement of minimum two percent of GDP spending.
Jean-Pierre praised Canada’s contributions to the Western alliance helping Ukraine to fend off Russian invasion but said regarding the budget, “I’m sure that conversation will come up.”
Earlier Thursday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Biden and Trudeau would discuss pleas from Haiti’s leaders for an international force to bring order to the impoverished Caribbean nation, where the authorities are unable to subdue armed gangs.


Violence flares as French protesters vent fury at Macron reform

Violence flares as French protesters vent fury at Macron reform
Updated 24 March 2023

Violence flares as French protesters vent fury at Macron reform

Violence flares as French protesters vent fury at Macron reform

PARIS: Protesters clashed with French security forces Thursday in the most serious violence yet of a three-month revolt against President Emmanuel Macron’s hugely controversial pension reform.
Almost 150 police were injured and scores of protesters arrested nationwide, the government said, as a day of protests descended into chaos in several cities including Paris, where protesters lit fires in the historic center of the city.
The uproar over the imposition of the reform — which the government chose to push through without a parliamentary vote — has turned into the biggest domestic crisis of Macron’s second term in office.
It also threatens to cast a shadow over King Charles III’s visit to France next week, his first foreign state visit as British monarch. Unions have announced fresh strikes and protests for Tuesday, the second full day of his trip.
In the southwestern city of Bordeaux, which King Charles is due to visit on Tuesday, the porch of the city hall was briefly set on fire.

The numbers in Paris and other cities were higher than in previous protest days, given new momentum by Macron’s refusal in a TV interview Wednesday to back down on the reform.
Police and protesters again clashed on the streets of the capital during a major demonstration, security forces firing tear gas and charging crowds with batons.
Some protesters lit fires in the street, setting ablaze pallets and piles of uncollected rubbish, prompting firefighters to intervene, AFP correspondents said.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said that across France, 149 members of the security forces had been injured and at least 172 people arrested, including 72 in Paris.
Around 140 fires were set alight in Paris, said Darmanin, blaming “thugs” for the violence, who had come to Paris “to have a go at the cops and public buildings.”
Some 1.089 million protesters took part in demonstrations across France, the interior ministry said, putting the Paris turnout at 119,000, the highest for the capital since the movement started in January.
The nationwide figure still fell short of the 1.28 million people who marched on March 7, according to the government figures.
Unions claimed a record 3.5 million people had protested across France, and 800,000 in the capital.

In Paris, several hundred black-clad radical demonstrators were breaking windows of banks, shops and fast-food outlets, and destroying street furniture, AFP journalists witnessed.
In the northeastern city of Lille, the local police chief Thierry Courtecuisse was lightly injured by a stone.
In Paris, a video went viral of a police officer in helmet and body armor being knocked unconscious and plunging to the ground after being hit on the head by a stone.
The garbage that has accumulated in the streets due to strikes by refuse collectors proved an appealing target, protesters setting fire to the trash piled up in the city center.
“It is a right to demonstrate and make your disagreements known,” Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said on Twitter, but added: “The violence and destruction that we have seen today are unacceptable.”
Unions again appealed for peaceful protests. “We need to keep public opinion on side until the end,” said Laurent Berger, leader of the moderate CFDT.
Protesters briefly occupied the tracks at the Gare de Lyon train station in Paris, and some blocked access to Charles de Gaulle airport.
Anger surged after a defiant Macron said on Wednesday he was prepared to accept unpopularity over the pensions reform which he said was “necessary.”
Even before then, a survey on Sunday showed Macron’s personal approval rating at just 28 percent, its lowest since the anti-government “Yellow Vest” protest movement in 2018-2019.

Acting on Macron’s instructions, Borne last week invoked an article in the constitution to adopt the reform without a parliamentary vote. That sparked two no-confidence motions in parliament, which she survived — but one by a narrow margin.
Thursday’s protests were the latest in a string of nationwide stoppages that began in mid-January against the pension changes.
The ministry of energy transition on Thursday warned that kerosene supply to the capital and its airports was becoming “critical” as blockages at oil refineries continued.
Since the government imposed the reform last Thursday, nightly demonstrations have taken place across France, with young people coordinating their actions on encrypted messaging services.
There have been hundreds of arrests and accusations of heavy-handed tactics by police.
Amnesty International has expressed alarm “about the widespread use of excessive force and arbitrary arrests reported in several media outlets.”
King Charles is due to arrive Sunday, with a trip scheduled on the new strike date of Tuesday to Bordeaux.
The fire at the entrance to the city hall in Bordeaux damaged its massive wooden door and was put out after 15 minutes, mayor Pierre Hurmic said.
French public sector trade unionists have warned they will not provide red carpets during the visit, but non-striking workers are expected to roll them out.