Ten months ago Taiwan issued an order for the arrest of Chan Tong-kai, a 20-year-old man suspected of strangling his pregnant friend to death while the two were visiting from Hong Kong. This past week, when Chan said he was ready to head back from Hong Kong and face prosecution, Taiwan’s government said it couldn’t let him.That outcome illustrates the deep political differences between Taiwan and Hong Kong’s overseer, mainland China. The two have had icy relations for seven decades, making it hard to cooperate on matters including crime. China cut off formal talks in 2016 with the government of Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen.Hong Kong and Taiwan lack an extradition deal that would give authorities in Taipei a framework to accept Chan’s return. The suspect left Taiwan days after the killing of his friend, 21-year-old Poon Hiu-wing, in February 2018. Taiwanese police never caught him, though they have a file on the case that evidently began in a Taipei hotel room.To accept Chan’s return would imply that China can treat Taiwan as its own territory with no need for an extradition deal of the sort that’s typical between two countries, some analysts believe.“Tsai Ing-wen’s government, they are afraid that if we accept Mr. Chan back to Taiwan, that would fall into the trap of China’s law,” said Michael Tsai, chairman of the Institute for Taiwan Defense and Strategic Studies in Taiwan.China sees self-ruled Taiwan as part of its territory, but the Taiwan government and most citizens say they prefer autonomy.FILE – Demonstrators hold signs protesting an extradition bill during a rally in Hong Kong, June 9, 2019.Lack of an extradition agreementThe woman’s death caught the attention of Hong Kong leaders in February this year when the territory’s leaders proposed an extradition bill. The bill sparked mass protests from June as Hong Kong citizens feared local suspects would be extradited to China where laws are harsher and include political crimes. Hong Kong withdrew the proposed extradition bill this week.Taiwan issued the arrest order before the extradition bill was proposed or protests had started.Taiwanese leaders voiced support for Hong Kong’s protests over the summer as numbers of demonstrators swelled and their cause morphed into a bigger movement against Chinese rule. The Communist country hopes to extend its 22-year-old rule over Hong Kong to Taiwan.Hong Kong citizens would “turn against” Taiwan if the government here accepted Chan for prosecution now, Michael Tsai said. His transfer to Taiwan would imply that Hong Kong citizens can be tried offshore, possibly in mainland China someday, without an extradition law.The Taiwan government’s Mainland Affairs Council says it wanted more cooperation from Hong Kong on the murder case, including copies of police interviews with Chan and any confessions. Chan served jail time there for money laundering before leaving jail Wednesday, but not for murder. He’s now a free man.“The Hong Kong government over the whole course of handling this matter first intentionally gave up its legal jurisdiction authority, then disregarded our side’s requests, let time pass and didn’t give the suspect to us,” the council said Wednesday.Secretary of Security John Lee Ka-Chiu announces the withdrawal of the extradition bill, in Hong Kong, Oct. 23, 2019.Hong Kong Security Secretary John Lee accused Taiwan Wednesday of trying to “shift responsibility” for the case to Hong Kong and putting up “roadblocks out of political considerations,” the Hong Kong Free Press reported.Political riskTsai Ing-wen is running for a second term as president and analysts say the campaign, likely to include a hard line against Beijing, motivated her government to bar Chan’s return. Her opponent advocates closer ties with China.China has claimed sovereignty over Taiwan since the Chinese civil war of the 1940s, when Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists fled to the island after losing to Mao Zedong’s Communists. More than 80% of Taiwanese told government surveys in January and March they oppose unification with China.Taiwanese people would eventually see the suspect’s return as a legal case rather than a political one, said Huang Kwei-bo, vice dean of the international affairs college at National Chengchi University in Taipei. Now they see politics, he said.“We had already filed an arrest order and wanted to catch him, and then when the other party wants to come you say no, no, no need to come,” Huang said. “This is a political issue.”Most Taiwanese hope to try people for crimes committed in Taiwan even if they’re from offshore, said Chao Chien-min, dean of social sciences at Chinese Culture University in Taipei. “It’s not right that foreigners can kill people on our soil and we can’t prosecute,” he said. “So I believe in Taiwan everyone will hope they can return.”
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In a hard-hitting speech on China, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence also criticized American companies for selling out this country’s values to protect their market access in the world’s most populous country.“Far too many American multinational corporations have kowtowed to the lure of China’s money and markets by muzzling not only criticism of the Chinese Communist Party, but even affirmative expressions of American values,” according to Pence.“A progressive corporate culture that willfully ignores the abuse of human rights is not progressive – it’s repressive,” said Pence, who specifically mentioned two U.S. entities – athletic-wear maker Nike and the National Basketball Association.The vice president, speaking at the Wilson Center in Washington, said Nike promotes itself as “social-justice champion,” but when it comes to Hong Kong, “it prefers checking its social conscience at the door.”Pence said the brand’s stores in China removed from shelves merchandise of the Houston Rockets basketball team “to join the Chinese government in protest against the Rockets general manager’s seven-word tweet: “Fight for Freedom, stand with Hong Kong.”Pence also said some of the NBA’s biggest players and owners “who routinely exercise their freedom to criticize this country, lose their voices when it comes to the freedom and rights of other peoples.”Pence added that in siding with the Chinese Communist Party and silencing free speech, “the NBA is acting like a wholly owned subsidiary of the authoritarian regime.”Fans in Lebron James and former player Kobe Bryant jerseys watch a game between the LA Lakers and the Brooklyn Nets, at Mercedes-Benz Arena, in Shanghai, China, Oct. 10, 2019. The NBA logos on their jerseys are covered with Chinese flags.Last week, star player Lebron James of the Los Angeles Lakers accused Rockets’ General Manager Daryl Morey of not being educated on the China-Hong Kong issue and raising what he called the “negative” side effects of free speech.James faced additional criticism on Tuesday for screaming and walking off the basketball court during the playing of the American national anthem just before the Lakers’ season opening game against the Clippers in Los Angeles.
 
“I thought you were right to scold corporate America a bit” for bending to China, former Congresswoman Jane Harman, a Democrat, who is now president of the Wilson Center, told Pence following his speech.Criticism of NBA players and coaches for dodging questions on China while they are, on the other hand, willing to speak out on domestic politic issues is fair, says Julian Ku, academic dean of the Hofstra University’s law school.The league’s leadership, however, “has actually refused to give in to Chinese demands that they fire or discipline Morey,” says Ku.“They have lost quite a bit of money for their unwillingness to fire Morey,” Professor Ku tells VOA. “In this way the NBA should be praised as a model for companies like [hotel chain] Marriott that have bowed to China’s unreasonable demands” and not protected their employees’ rights and values.Pence spent the bulk of his address criticizing China — referring to it as a strategic rival — for its authoritarian approach to society, the rule of law and international commerce.The vice president accused China of attempting to export censorship by exploiting corporate greed and coercing American companies, especially in the entertainment industries.Hollywood studios are accused of editing their content to appease China and avoid losing distribution channels in that country.Pence warned that if authorities in Hong Kong respond violently to protestors — who the vice president urged to remain peaceful — that would make it much harder to conclude the pending trade pact between Beijing and Washington.“We stand with you,” Pence said to the demonstrators in Hong Kong, which is a special administrative region, calling China’s response “antipathy to liberty.”Pence said China is exporting its authoritarian-style surveillance technology to Africa, Latin America and the Middle East.The vice president also accused Beijing of not living up to its promise to Washington to end exports of deadly fentanyl and synthetic opioids to the United States. “The truth is also those deadly drugs continue to flow across our borders,” said the vice president.The United States, Pence said, will not decouple from China, but the Chinese Communist Party has been decoupling from the wide world for decades.Pence, who delivered a similar tough speech about China a year ago, lamented since that address, “Beijing still has not taken significant action to improve our economic relationship.”The vice president concluded on a forward-looking note, expressing hope China would grasp America’s hand being extended for trans-Pacific cooperation.“And we hope that soon Beijing will reach back this time with deeds, not words, and with renewed respect for America,” concluded Pence.This year’s speech by the vice president, who has become the administration’s top-level hardliner on China, “is much focused on the U.S.-China relationship rather than on China’s actions in third countries, especially the developing world,” notes Agatha Kratz, associate director at the Rhodium Group, an independent private sector China-focused research and advisory firm.
 
“I find this speech more constructive than the last one, with more room left for cooperation,” Kratz tells VOA. 
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Hong Kong’s 580,000 non-Chinese residents – many of whom have been here for generations – have so far played a very quiet role in the anti-government protests that have shaken this semiautonomous Chinese city. Slowly, they are making their feelings clear – many support the protests, but others say they are an inconvenience and want their adopted home to return to normal. Almost all say the actual demonstration line is one they will not cross, as they fear arrest – and therefore, deportation. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from Hong Kong
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Reduced to a string of stagnant mustard-colored pools, fouled in places with pesticide runoff and stinking with the rotting carcasses of cattle and fish, the Darling River is running dry.The parched earth of Australia’s longest waterway, if tributaries are included, is in the grip of the continent’s most severe drought in a century.At Menindee, 830 km west of Sydney, despair has turned to anger as residents blame the government for exacerbating the drought by drawing down river water in 2017 for irrigation and other uses downstream.Locals now avoid using tap water for drinking and washing babies and children, saying it has caused skin irritation, and prefer boxed and bottled water instead.Barkindji elder Patricia Doyle uses boxed water to make a cup of tea at her home in Menindee, New South Wales, Australia, Sept. 29, 2019. At Menindee, residents blame the government for exacerbating the drought by draining the river in 2017.“That was our food source, the river, our water source. That was our livelihood,” said Aboriginal elder Patricia Doyle, in her backyard piled with flotsam discovered in the now-exposed riverbed.“When you live on a river and you have to have water brought into your town to drink and survive on, what’s that saying? It’s saying that our system … isn’t looked after properly.”Driest years since 1900The past two years have been the driest in the catchment area of the Darling, which flows 2,844 km (1,767 miles) over the outback to the sea, and adjoining Murray River since records began in 1900.Drought is weighing on economic growth, and the dire conditions have prompted Australia, a major wheat exporter, to import the grain for the first time in 12 years.Last summer was the hottest on record, and in Menindee, where temperatures regularly top 38 Celsius (100 Fahrenheit), another scorching season is expected.The government has set up a panel to evaluate water management and ordered its anti-trust watchdog to investigate trading in irrigation rights.The sun rises over dried up lake Pamamaroo, outside of Menindee, Australia, Sept. 2, 2019. Prolonged drought exacerbated by demands on water resources by irrigators and cities means the Darling River (Barka) is running dry.River at heart of clanDoyle’s clan is called the Barkindji, or people of the river, and in Aboriginal language, the Darling is called the Barka.The river is at the heart of stories about the origins of the clan and its cultural life, particularly evident in Menindee where a third of 550 residents are indigenous, compared with a national average of less than 3%.Lined with river red gums, the Darling also waters some of Australia’s richest grazing land, and until the construction of railways in the early 20th century, was the main route used to take wool and other goods to market.All aspects of society are now suffering. A Barkindji man, hunter and goat musterer Kyle Philip, poses for a photograph with his son Kaleb at their home in Menindee, Australia, Sept. 2, 2019. “The river country itself, it doesn’t provide as much as what it used to,” said Kyle.“The river country itself, it doesn’t provide as much as what it used to,” says Kyle Philip, a Barkindji hunter and goat musterer.Parents have forbidden children from swimming in the murky water that remains. Fish caught in holes still deep enough to hold water are inedible.“We could taste the mud in the meat of the perch,” said Philip. “We couldn’t really eat them.”An Aboriginal dance group prepares to perform at a festival on the bank of the Darling River in Wilcannia, New South Wales, Australia, Oct. 1, 2019. Recently, Aboriginal communities held special festivals along the river “to heal the Barka.”Healing the riverRecently, Aboriginal communities held special festivals along the river “to heal the Barka.” Ochre-painted dancers performed around fires at dusk, revering the river but also seeking to draw attention to its plight.“We’re going to start dancing and singing the land,” organizer Bruce Shillingsworth said. “Singing the rivers, singing our environment back again to make it healthy.”Reverend Helen Ferguson from Broken Hill prepares for a church service at the Holy Trinity Menindee Anglican Parish in Menindee, Australia, Sept. 1, 2019.And in the Anglican church at Menindee, there are prayers.“The river should be flowing,” said Reverend Helen Ferguson.“When that river flows, the people are just abuzz and the whole town just comes to life. But that hasn’t happened for some time now and my prayer is that people don’t get worn down through that.”
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China on Wednesday accused the U.S. of having “weaponized” the issuance of visas following the reported inability of a top Chinese space program official to obtain permission to travel to a key conference in Washington.Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters that the head of the Chinese delegation to the International Astronautical Congress wasn’t able to obtain a visa following an Oct. 12 interview, making it difficult for Chinese representatives to attend important events at the meeting.Reports said the vice chairman of the China National Space Administration, Wu Yanhua, had planned to attend the congress.Hua said the U.S. has “weaponized” visa issuances and “repeatedly defied international responsibilities and obligations and impeded normal international exchanges and cooperation.”She said that “threatened and damaged the legitimate rights and interests of all parties in the international community.The U.S. Embassy in Beijing said it couldn’t discuss individual visa cases because of privacy issues.Hua said that “for some time, the U.S. has frequently rejected and delayed visa applications, revoked long-term visas of Chinese applicants and investigated and harassed the Chinese scholars, students, businesspeople, and scientific and technical personnel.”China last year launched more missions to orbit than any other country, and is on track to do the same this year. Those missions include the first-ever soft-landing of a space craft on the far side of the moon.However, close ties between the Chinese space program and the country’s military have limited its participation in multinational efforts, including the International Space Station. China is instead building its own permanent station and has invited other countries to join in the effort.The visa incident also comes amid a simmering trade war between China and the U.S. in which accusations that China steals or coerces foreign firms into handing over sensitive technology have played a major role. 
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The recent nuclear negotiations between the United States and North Korea were substantive and lasted longer than anticipated, according to a Swedish diplomat who helped arrange the talks.The upbeat analysis by Swedish Special Envoy Kent Harstedt stands in contrast to that of North Korean diplomats, who blamed Washington for failing to bring new ideas to the early October talks in Sweden’s capital.At an event Wednesday in Seoul, Harstedt said the U.S.-North Korea negotiations lasted “many hours” and were “not interrupted.” He said he was “cautiously optimistic” the talks would continue, despite North Korea not accepting Sweden’s invitation for follow-up talks within two weeks.“The DPRK hasn’t closed the door for continuation at this point,” Harstedt said, using an abbreviation for North Korea’s official name. “We don’t comment exactly on our dialogue with DPRK. We can just say we have a very good working dialogue with them.”“We also have to bear in mind that this is a very, very sensitive and complicated matter to discuss,” the envoy added.Sweden has acted as an intermediary between the United States and North Korea, since the two countries do not have official diplomatic relations. Though Sweden helped set up the U.S.-North Korean talks, Harstedt said he was not involved in the negotiations.Immediately after the Stockholm talks, U.S. officials characterized the discussions as “good” and insisted that they want them to continue. But North Korea said it has no intention to engage in “sickening negotiations” until the United States takes unspecified steps to withdraw its “hostile policy.”“I think it’s good that both sides expressed themselves afterwards,” Harstedt said.Since the breakdown of the Stockholm talks, North Korea has hinted at a return to major provocations.President Donald Trump, the self-styled deal-maker, is struggling to close big deals. He heads to the United Nations this coming week with many unresolved foreign policy challenges, including North Korea.Last week, North Korean state media published photos of leader Kim Jong Un riding a white horse up the country’s highest mountain while warning of a “great operation to strike the world with wonder.” Similar reports have sometimes preceded major policy shifts.Pyongyang has also issued a veiled threat it may resume nuclear or long-range missile tests — a move that would risk upsetting the nuclear talks.North Korea has not conducted a nuclear or long-range missile test since 2017. In 2018, Kim announced a self-imposed moratorium on such tests.Since May, Pyongyang has conducted 11 rounds of short- or medium-range missile launches. U.S. President Donald Trump has shrugged off the tests, saying short-range missiles do not threaten the United States.Some analysts view North Korea’s moves as evidence Pyongyang believes it is in a stronger bargaining position, especially amid Trump’s domestic political troubles and upcoming re-election campaign.U.S.-North Korea talks have been stalled since February, when Trump walked away from a summit with Kim in Hanoi, Vietnam. The two sides disagreed on how to pace sanctions relief with steps to dismantle North Korea’s nuclear program.Although Trump has been reluctant to relax sanctions unless North Korea agrees to abandon its entire nuclear weapons program, he had signaled increased flexibility ahead of the Stockholm talks, speaking of the need for a “new method” to the negotiations.It’s not clear what Washington was prepared to offer. One possibility: the United States could allow the resumption of inter-Korean economic initiatives such as the Kaesong Industrial Complex and tours to North Korea’s Mount Kumgang resort.Such concessions could provide North Korea much-needed sources of cash without completely dismantling the sanctions regime that Washington has used to pressure Pyongyang.On Wednesday, North Korean state media signaled Kim may not be interested in such a concession.During a visit to Mount Kumgang, Kim slammed dependence on South Korea for the operation of the resort, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.During his visit, KCNA said Kim would like to tear down the “backward” and “shabby” facilities built by the South. It suggested he may try to reopen the facility, regardless of progress in inter-Korean relations.Amid a warming of relations in 2018, North and South Korea agreed to “normalize operations” at Mount Kumgang when conditions allow. Inter-Korean relations have since worsened, and international sanctions have prevented the resumption of South Korean tours.South Korean tours of Mount Kumgang were stopped in 2008 after a North Korean soldier shot and killed a 53-year-old tourist who had allegedly wandered into an off-limits area. Since then, the resort has not seen much activity.
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There’s a familiar trend of fast food chains like KFC and Burger King entering developing countries, where citizens start to see obesity rates increase amid all the new junk food options.This is not that story, at least in Vietnam. The junk food trend has certainly come to Vietnam already, but now there’s an even newer trend in the country, and it’s the definition of irony:  more Vietnamese citizens are looking for food products that are healthful — only to end up with products that are anything but that.A Vietnam food puzzleSugar is the ingredient that perhaps best exemplifies this irony. The problem is not that Vietnamese are eating large amounts of candy and ice cream, though some are doing that. Instead, they’re buying products like fruit juices and yogurt, not realizing that all the added sugar may outweigh the health benefits of the fruit. Products are packaged in labels that appeal to citizens’ health goals.This is part of a broader change across Vietnam, where companies are selling more ready-to-eat meals and processed foods to citizens who used to buy vegetables and eggs directly from farms. The change is leading to obvious business opportunities. For instance, the Nutifood Nutrition Food Joint Stock Company recently got an expected debt rating of B+ from Fitch Ratings, which predicts the company will profit from more Vietnamese buying health foods.Fast food chains like McDonald’s are growing in Vietnam. (H. Nguyen/VOA)“The government has introduced initiatives to address malnutrition and stunting, whose levels remain high by global standards,” Fitch Ratings said in an explanation of its expected rating. “Fitch also expects a high birth-rate and consumers increasingly seeking convenience with nutrition will continue to drive demand for Nutifood’s products, particularly its ready-to-drink products.”Moderation is the goalMilk and related products sold by Nutifood and its competitors highlight the balance that is hard to strike in the national diet. Vietnam for years encouraged parents to give their children milk so the next generation would be taller and have stronger bones. Today however, obesity is a bigger problem than undernourishment, having increased 38 percent from 2010 to 2014 — the highest in Southeast Asia. That’s why Vietnam does not use the term “undernourished” but “malnourished” to describe its whole range of nutritional issues.In other areas there’s low awareness of dietary risks, such as the overreliance on MSG and salt, usually in the form of fish sauce and soy sauce, two very popular ingredients in Vietnamese food. Sugar, however, is the more recent trend. Companies were able to influence nutritional recommendations for decades, by focusing on fat rather than sugar as a source of health complications. So Vietnamese have added sweeteners to their food and drink without a second thought. Go to a cafe, and the waiter will automatically put sugar in an order of coffee or mango juice unless the customer says otherwise. In nearby Indonesia citizens like to joke that they have their sugar with some tea, rather than have tea with sugar. Something similar could be said of Vietnam.Vietnamese citizens are increasingly replacing their fruit with juice, not realizing that all the added sugar contained in juices could outweigh health benefits. (H. Nguyen/VOA)People have many choicesCompanies like Pepsi and McDonald’s have tried to put the focus on exercise, rather than diet, for good health. Naturally active lifestyles are decreasing in Vietnam, as people move from the countryside to the cities, and from hard labor to office jobs. Citizens often get on their motorbikes to drive just one block, and walking in the cities, with 100-degree weather and few sidewalks, is hard. On top of that, citizens use new Uber-like services to have drinks or meals delivered. Researchers agree exercise and diet are both important, but the latter has a bigger impact on health.“Vietnamese consumers care about their health more than ever,” Louise Hawley, managing director of Nielsen Vietnam, said.That makes awareness all the more important. It is one thing to eat unhealthful food, while not caring about the effects. It is quite another thing to eat unhealthful food, however, because one thinks it’s nutritional.The growing health concern in Vietnam has to do with not just nutrition, but also air pollution, water quality, and clean supply chains. A Nielsen survey showed health became the top concern of Vietnamese citizens in the second quarter, surpassing job security, cost of living, and work-life balance. “With the current situation relating to pollution and increased consumer awareness,” Hawley said, “health is expected to continue to be a top concern of Vietnamese consumers in the third quarter of 2019.” 
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The king of Thailand has stripped his royal consort of her titles less than three months after they was bestowed upon her.An announcement in the Royal Thai Government Gazette said Sineenat Bilaskalayani, 34, was stripped of all her titles and military ranks for being “ambitious” and trying to “elevate herself to the same state as the queen.”It said her actions “are considered dishonorable, lacking gratitude, unappreciative of royal kindness, and driving a rift among the royal servants, making misunderstanding among the people, and undermining the nation and the monarchy.”FILE – Thailand’s King Maha Vajiralongkorn and Queen Suthida appear on the balcony of Suddhaisavarya Prasad Hall of the Grand Palace as they grant a public audience on the final day of his royal coronation in Bangkok, May 6, 2019.King Maha Vajiralongkorn, who ascended to the throne in 2016, named Sineenat his royal consort just two months after he married his fourth wife, Queen Suthida.This was the first time a Thai monarch has taken a consort in nearly a century.Both Sineenat and Suthida had served as senior officers in palace security units. Suthida was previously a flight attendant with Thai Airways, while Sineenat was an army nurse.Sineenat’s fate in the royal court is similar to that of the king’s second and third wives.The king’s second wife fled to the U.S. after she was denounced by him. The kings has also disowned their four sons.His third wife was also stripped of her titles and banished from the court. Their teenage son lives with his father.The king’s first marriage also ended in divorce but that wife was also his cousin and part of the royal family so she didn’t share the fate of the others.
 
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China is asking the World Trade Organization for the right to impose $2.4 billion in annual penalties on the United States in a case over Chinese subsidies dating back years.A document published Monday showed China has called for the matter to be considered by the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Body next Monday. The matter would be referred to a WTO arbitrator if the U.S. objects to the amount China proposes.The request stems from a July WTO appellate decision in a case dating to before the Trump administration, and unrelated to the tariffs it has slapped on Chinese goods.
 
Washington criticized that decision, which it said recognizes that China uses state-owned enterprises to subsidize and distort its economy but contends the U.S. must use “distorted Chinese prices” to measure subsidies.
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Australia’s biggest newspapers ran front pages on Monday made up to appear heavily redacted, in a protest against legislation that restricts press freedoms, a rare show of unity by the usually partisan media industry.Australia has no constitutional safeguards for free speech, although the government added a provision to protect whistleblowers when it strengthened counter-espionage laws in 2018. Media groups say press freedoms remain restricted.Mastheads from the domestic unit of Rupert Murdoch’s conservative News Corp  and fierce newspaper rivals at Nine Entertainment ran front pages with most of the words blacked out, giving the impression the copy had been censored, in the manner of a classified government document.Richard Baker is a journalist at The Age newspaper in Melbourne.  “It is really the media standing up on behalf of the people we try to serve, which is the public to say, ‘Hey, we work in this space so the public are informed and can make decisions about, you know, really important stuff that government does in their name and when we cannot do that we feel like we are failing.’”Parliament has long been passing laws in the guise of national security that impeded the public’s right to know what the government did in its name, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) said.“Journalism is a fundamental pillar of our democracy,” said Paul Murphy, the chief executive of the industry union.“It exists to scrutinize the powerful, shine a light on wrongdoing and hold governments to account, but the Australian public is being kept in the dark,” he said in a statement.Monday’s media protest aimed to put public pressure on the government to exempt journalists from laws limiting access to sensitive information, enact a properly functioning freedom of information system, and raise the benchmark for defamation lawsuits.FILE – Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison addresses the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York City, New York, Sept. 25, 2019.Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison says the media must respect the law.“We will always believe in the freedom of the press.  It is an important part of our freedoms as a liberal democracy,” he said. “[I] also believe in the rule of law and that no-one is above it, including me or anyone else, any journalist or anyone else.”Opposition leader Anthony Albanese told reporters that while journalists should not be prosecuted for doing their jobs, defamation laws provided a “good constraint on ensuring that there is some level of accuracy.”The campaign for media freedom is a rare moment of unity in Australia’s tightly-held sector, where media houses compete vigorously for advertising and offer very different visions for the country.The issue came to a boil soon after the May re-election of Australia’s Liberal-led conservative government, when police raided the head office of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) in Sydney and the home of a News Corp editor on suspicion of receiving national secrets.The raids, which involved police examination of about 9,000 computer files at the ABC and sifting through the female News Corp editor’s underwear drawer, drew international condemnation.The British Broadcasting Corporation called the raids “deeply troubling.”At the time, the ABC said the raid on its office was in relation to 2017 stories about accusations of military misconduct in Afghanistan. News Corp has said the raid on its employee concerned an article about government plans to spy on Australians’ emails, text messages and bank accounts.FILE – Australian cardinal George Pell reads a statement to reporters as he leaves the Quirinale hotel after meeting members of the Australian group of relatives and victims of priestly sex abuses, in Rome, March 3, 2016.Global attention turned to media freedoms in Australia early this year when a court order prevented media from reporting that the former Vatican treasurer, Cardinal George Pell, had been found guilty on child sex abuse charges.Some Australian outlets reported that an unidentified person had been convicted but some foreign media companies identified Pell because they were outside Australia’s jurisdiction.Prosecutors are now seeking fines and jail sentences for three dozen Australian journalists and publishers for their trial coverage. Pell is appealing against his convictions.Phil Mercer in Sydney contributed to this report; Some information was provided by Reuters.  
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One of the first stops for a tourist in Los Angeles is the TCL Chinese Theatre next to the Hollywood Walk of Fame.Originally called Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, it opened in 1927 and is a remnant of Hollywood’s fascination with the Orient in the early days of the U.S. film industry.“When film was first invented — and we’re talking about the late 1800s, early 1900s — it expanded the visual minds of its audiences,” said Chinese American filmmaker and author Arthur Dong. He added, “Audiences were given this exotic glimpse of a land unknown to them, and I think that it started there.”Dong curated old photos of Chinese American actors for the newly restored Formosa Café, an iconic Hollywood nightclub and bar that opened in 1939. With red leather booth chairs and tables surrounded by old photos on the walls, the back room of the Formosa Café looks like a museum commemorating the work of Chinese Americans and their role in Hollywood.The Formosa Cafe in Los Angeles first opened its doors in 1939 and was a frequent watering hole for people in the movie industry. It was renovated, restored and opened on June 28, 2019 serving Chinese food. (E. Lee/VOA)“I was always curious about the Chinese or Asian actress I saw on screen, whether films from the early part of cinema history up to today,” Dong said, “especially the ’20s and ’30s and ’40s, where I saw Chinese characters on screen. But they were always playing servants, coolies, laundry man. And if they were women, they were prostitutes or servants.”Chinese stereotypesIn his new book, “Hollywood Chinese: The Chinese in American Feature Films,” Dong looked at Hollywood’s portrayal of Chinese characters and the Chinese culture. Stereotypes of the Chinese in America were perpetuated by the otherness of U.S. Chinatowns in the late 1800s and early 1900s, where people had different customs.During that time in history, political tensions between the West and China climaxed with the Boxer Rebellion in 1900, an uprising against the spread of Western influences in China.WATCH: Hollywood Movies Reflecting Changes in How Asians are Portrayed
Hollywood Movies Reflecting Changes in How Asians are Portrayed video player.
“With all of this history came a perception of the Chinese as the ‘yellow peril,’ the sinister Chinese, the Chinese that you couldn’t trust. And that resulted in the character called Fu Manchu,” Dong explained.Fu Manchu, a villain who wanted to destroy the Western world, ended up on the big screen and in a television series.In 1926, Charlie Chan, a Chinese detective from Hawaii, appeared on the big screen. It was a role that created a different, yet still problematic Asian stereotype.FILE – Author Kevin Kwan, right, and cast members Henry Golding and Constance Wu pose at the premiere for “Crazy Rich Asians” in Los Angeles, Aug. 7, 2018.Asian actors in modern-day HollywoodOver the decades, Asian and Chinese Americans did find work in Hollywood, and a few earned a star on the Hollywood Walk for Fame, such as Anna Mae Wong, Keye Luke, Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and Lucy Liu.  However, some movie fans have recently been critical on social media about movies where white actors are cast in leading roles that they believe should have gone to Asian actors. The movies include “Aloha,” the 2015 film where Emma Stone played Allison Ng, a character of Asian descent, and the 2017 film “Ghost in the Shell,” where Scarlett Johansson played a leading role based on a Japanese anime character.The 2018 movie “Crazy Rich Asians” hit the big screen with a majority Asian cast, an Asian American director and an Asian as one of the writers. The movie became a milestone for many Asian Americans.“The sensation of “Crazy Rich Asians,” both in its critical and box office success, is a sign that things are changing,” Dong said. “What is different is that the Asian American community won’t sit back. Filmmakers are being nurtured. Attitudes are being nurtured and strengthened where we won’t take that yellow-face casting anymore, where we won’t take that kind of whitewashing attitude of making an Asian character white.”People on social media are not only holding Hollywood accountable for its portrayal of Asians, technology is also opening doors for Asian Americans to tell stories on their own terms.“We have so many more platforms. There’s the Netflix. There is the Amazon Primes and the Hulus. And we have streaming platforms. We have YouTube,” Yuen said.With Asian Americans being the fastest-growing racial group in the U.S., a new generation of Asian American artists can use the different digital platforms to tell stories without being boxed in a stereotype.The Grauman’s Chinese Theatre opened in 1927 in Hollywood. It has also been named Mann’s Chinese Theatre and in 2013, it was renamed the TCL Chinese Theatre after a Chinese electronics manufacturer who has 10-year naming rights to the building.The China factorHollywood is also changing its portrayal of Chinese and the Chinese culture because of the China factor.As the biggest consumer market outside the U.S., Hollywood has been making movies that would not offend Chinese audiences. The industry has been careful not to portray the Chinese as villains.Joint productions between Hollywood and Chinese production companies, such as the animated feature film “Abominable,” put Chinese characters and China in a favorable light. “That’s where I would like to see the future of Chinese-U.S. collaborations, is that there is more space for both. So that both countries can feel like there’s something familiar to them. And I think that would open up more roles for Chinese Americans and Asian Americans, in general,” Yuen said.
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Indonesian President Joko Widodo, who rose from poverty and pledged to champion democracy, fight entrenched corruption and modernize the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, was sworn in Sunday for his second and final five-year term with a pledge to take bolder actions.Army troops and police, along with armored vehicles, firetrucks and ambulances, were deployed across Jakarta, the vast capital, and major roads were closed in a departure from the more relaxed atmosphere of the popular Widodo’s 2014 inauguration. An Oct. 10 knife attack by an Islamic militant couple that wounded the country’s security minister set off a security crackdown.Known for his down-to-earth style, Widodo, 58, opted for an austere ceremony at the heavily guarded Parliament without the festive parade that transported him after his inauguration five years ago on a horse-drawn carriage in downtown Jakarta, where he was then cheered on by thousands of waving supporters.On his way to the ceremony Sunday, Widodo got out of his convoy with some of his security escorts and shook the hands of supporters, who yelled his name, waved Indonesia’s red-and-white flag and called him “bapak,” or father.After taking his oath before the Quran, the Muslim holy book, in front of hundreds of lawmakers and foreign dignitaries in the heavily guarded Parliament, Widodo laid out ambitious targets to help Indonesia join the ranks of the world’s developed nations by the time it marks a century of independence in 2045.He said in his inauguration speech that he expects poverty – which afflicts close to 10 percent of Indonesia’s nearly 270 million people – to be just about wiped out and the country’s annual GDP to reach $7 trillion by then.”For those who are not serious, I’ll be merciless. I would definitely fire people,” Widodo warned.Western and Asian leaders and special envoys, including Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan, flew in for the inauguration. President Donald Trump sent Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao for the ceremony in Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest economy and a member of the G-20 bloc of nations.Indonesia is a bastion of democracy in Southeast Asia, a diverse and economically bustling region of authoritarian regimes, police states and nascent democracies.After decades of dictatorship under President Suharto, the country was convulsed by political, ethnic and religious unrest in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Since then, it has consolidated its democratic transition. While most of the country remains poor and inequality is rising, it is home to a rapidly expanding middle class.Popularly known as Jokowi, Widodo is the son of a furniture maker who grew up with his family in a rented bamboo shack on the banks of a flood-prone river in Solo city on Java island. He is the first president from outside the country’s super rich, and often corrupt, political, business and military elite.Widodo presents himself as a man of the people, often emphasizing his humble roots. His popular appeal, including his pioneering use of social media, helped him win elections over the past 14 years for mayor of Solo, governor of Jakarta and twice for president. In a reflection of his popularity, he has nearly 26 million followers on Instagram and more than 12 million on Twitter.He has been likened to Barack Obama, but since taking office he has been perceived as unwilling to press for accountability that threatens powerful institutions such as the military. Instead, he has emphasized nationalism while also fending off attacks that he is not devout enough as a Muslim.Widodo was sworn in with his new vice president, Ma’ruf Amin, one of the most important religious figures in Indonesia. He chose Amin as his running mate to shore up his support among pious Muslims. Amin was chairman of Majelis Ulama Indonesia, the country’s council of Islamic leaders, and supreme leader of Nahdlatul Ulama, the world’s largest Muslim organization.But Amin, 76, has been criticized for being a vocal supporter and drafter of fatwas against religious minorities and the LGBT community. Human Rights Watch says the fatwas, or edicts, have legitimized increasingly hateful rhetoric by government officials against LGBT people, and in some cases fueled deadly violence by Islamic militants against religious minorities.Widodo has been widely praised for his efforts to improve Indonesia’s inadequate infrastructure and reduce poverty. He inaugurated the nation’s first subway system, which was financed by Japan, in chronically congested Jakarta in March after years of delay under past leaders.Pressing on is the biggest challenge, however, in his final years in office given the global economic slowdown, major trade conflicts, falling exports and other hurdles that impede funding.In an interview with The Associated Press in July, Widodo said he would push ahead with sweeping and potentially unpopular economic reforms, including more business-friendly labor laws, because he’ll no longer be constrained by politics in his final term.”Things that were impossible before, I will make a lot of decisions on that in the next five years,” he said then. 
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