A massive Italian Tax Police investigation unveiled a 15-billion-euro money laundering operation involving Italian mafia, Colombian drug barons, and Putin’s oligarchs.
News China
Burning Effigies: China Threatens American Academic Miles Yu
A Cultural-Revolution-style statue vilifies a scholar who has mightily upset the Communist Party.
The Digital China 2023 Plan: Is There Something New?
The document reiterates a strategy Xi Jinping is pursuing since before he came to national power. What is new (and alarming) is the propaganda.
Early Rain Church: Family Blocked at Home and Forbidden to Attend “Illegal” Sunday Service
The door lock of Deputy Deacon Xiao Lubiao’s home was repeatedly damaged, and the police told them they should stay home on Sunday.
China’s New Directives on Law Schools: They Should Teach that Separation of Powers Is Wrong
A document by the Central Committee published on February 26 orders law schools to oppose “constitutionalism” and other Western democratic fallacies.
Death of a Radio Host: Falun Gong Practitioner Pang Xun Beaten to Death in Jail
A smuggled video appeared on social media in mid-February and documented yet another extrajudicial killing of a dissident in Chinese prisons.
Xi Jinping Launches His “Non-Western” Model of Modernization
As “a new form of human civilization. Chinese-style modernization breaks the myth of ‘modernization=Westernization’” and offers a (non-democratic) model to the world, Xi said.
United Nations: “One Million Tibetan Children Forcibly Separated From Their Parents”
In November, three UN Special Rapporteurs wrote to China. There has been no satisfactory answer, and they have decided to go public.
Beijing Shouwang Church: The House Church That Refuses to Die
On February 8, the police “discovered” that the megachurch liquidated in 2019 continues to exist clandestinely.
Zhanargul Zhumatai: Ethnic Kazakh Dissident Detained
She told Bitter Winter and the world she was in grave danger of being arrested. She was right.