As the global war against the coronavirus pandemic expanded in January and February, Chinese authorities launched battles on multiple fronts—including a propaganda campaign to obscure the virus’s origins and to defend China’s role in containing the pandemic.
You may think Hong Kong people look irrational in these days of coronavirus: they queue for hours for masks, even if many doctors repeat that, in most situations, they are not all that necessary or even helpful. They stock up on hand wipes, bleach and disinfectant, leaving shelves empty. They buy up all the toilet paper and tissues they can find, just upon a rumor that circulates online and in telephone chat groups warning supplies from China might run short.
Ever since the death of general Francisco Franco on Nov. 20, 1975, the former Spanish dictator has lain in one of the only two marked graves at a monumental burial complex one hour from Madrid. If anyone needs a visual reminder that Spain was a dictatorship for nearly 40 years, the Valle de los Caídos is it.
Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests show few signs of subsiding four months in. Now, the government is turning to a 1922 law in hopes of quelling them by making it impossible for protesters to conceal their identities.
If you were to rely on the official Chinese version of events, the island off the southern coast of Fujian province, Taiwan, has “always been part of China.”
As democracy protests in Hong Kong near the three-month mark, the deepest rift that has opened is the one between regular Hong Kongers and the police who are supposed to protect them.
In all their creativity, the Hong Kong protests have sometimes surfaced unexpected figures.
More than seven weeks of street protests in Hong Kong have led to a flourishing of political art, with posters, leaflets, stickers, and stamps turning up on city walls, in the subway system, or being shared on social media and messaging groups. Their creativity and witticisms have injected a lighter tone even as political tensions have increased.
A month after a million people took to its streets to protest a controversial extradition bill, Hong Kong keeps being rocked by political strife.
A Hong Kong court today (April 24) handed down prison sentences to leaders of the city’s pro-democracy Occupy protests, which paralyzed large swathes of the territory for 79 days in 2014.
April 15, 1989, seemed a day like any other: The sandstorms had stopped, and Beijing, pre-pollution, had daily blue skies. In the evening, you could see the stars, as the city was only moderately lit.
The most politically fraught trial in recent years in Hong Kong ended today (April 9) with all nine defendants found guilty of various charges of causing public nuisance, or inciting others to do so.
Hong Kong is awaiting one of its most important verdicts ever.
During Chinese president Xi Jinping’s visit to Italy starting tomorrow (March 21), the euro zone’s third-largest economy is expected to officially back the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China’s global push to extend its political and economic clout abroad.
Was one of the cruelest ways of making women conform to crazy beauty standards about attractiveness for the marriage market, or was its endurance actually due to economic reasons? A series of recent studies argues that the practice was as much about women’s earnings, as about ideas of beauty.
Think Hong Kong and images of farming do not likely come to mind. The high-density city imports nearly all its food and features the world’s least affordable housing. Meanwhile most land is owned by the government, which sells it on leaseholds and keeps prices high via the slow and pricey release of buildable real estate.
Pesky environmentalists might say this isn’t the best time to build a gigantic new city in the sea—Hong Kong’s leaders would beg to disagree.
Four years since the largest and longest protests since Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule, one of the city’s most politically charged trials is about to begin.
Whether it is braiding tresses, sewing on hair fillers or attaching extensions, the coiffeuses of Chez Aida, in Dakar’s popular neighborhood of Grand Yoff, have been doing it all for years. Wigs have entered their repertoire, too, as fashionable Senegalese are increasingly tempted by the ease of changing their style with a wig (link in French) made of human hair.
China is learning, once again, that its ambitious initiatives across the globe can be hindered by the unpredictability of democratic elections.
For the past four years, a huge building site has been greeting anyone driving into Dakar, Senegal’s capital. Sectioned right through the middle by the highway to the new Blaise Diagne international airport, it’s dotted with finished and half-finished projects, the occasional baobab, and large plastic billboards with artists’ renditions of what’s to come.
Italy’s right-wing populist government, elected on a eurosceptic, anti-establishment, anti-immigration platform, has put forward a number of “tough on migrants” policies since coming to power in early June. But one idea in particular, shared this week in the announcement of a new task force, shifts the whole debate a few notches.
Dakar, Senegal
Dakar, Senegal
