China bans men it sees as not masculine enough from TV - CNA

Broadcasters must "resolutely put an end to sissy men and other abnormal aesthetics", the National Radio and TV Administration said, using an insulting slang term for effeminate men – "niang pao", or literally, "girlie guns".

That reflects official concern that Chinese pop stars, influenced by the sleek, fashionable look of some South Korean and Japanese singers and actors, are failing to encourage China's young men to be masculine enough.

Broadcasters should avoid promoting "vulgar Internet celebrities" and admiration of wealth and celebrity, the regulator said. Instead, programmes should "vigorously promote excellent Chinese traditional culture, revolutionary culture and advanced socialist culture".

Xi's government also is tightening control over Chinese Internet industries.

It has launched anti-monopoly, data security and other enforcement actions at companies including games and social media provider Tencent Holding and e-commerce giant Alibaba Group that the ruling party worries are too big and independent.

Rules that took effect on Wednesday limit anyone under 18 to three hours per week of online games and prohibit play on school days.

Game developers already were required to submit new titles for government approval before they could be released. Officials have called on them to add nationalistic themes.

The party also is tightening control over celebrities.

Broadcasters should avoid performers who "violate public order" or have "lost morality", the regulator said. Programmes about the children of celebrities also are banned.

On Saturday, microblog platform Weibo Corp suspended thousands of accounts for fan clubs and entertainment news.

A popular actress, Zhao Wei, has disappeared from streaming platforms without explanation. Her name has been removed from credits of movies and TV programmes.

Thursday's order told broadcasters to limit pay for performers and to avoid contract terms that might help them evade taxes.

Another actress, Zheng Shuang, was fined 299 million yuan (US$46 million) last week on tax evasion charges in a warning to celebrities to be positive role models.

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2021-09-03 02:22:53Z
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Malaysia set to reopen Langkawi islands to tourists under local travel bubble plan - The Straits Times

KUALA LUMPUR (BLOOMBERG) - Malaysia plans to reopen the tourist haven of Langkawi islands as it renews efforts to rebuild parts of the economy worst hit by the pandemic.

Langkawi, in the state of Kedah, will open to locals under a travel bubble plan from Sept 16, Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob said in a statement on Thursday (Sept 2). Other destinations will be allowed to operate when the locality's vaccination rate hits 80 per cent, he said.

Malaysia is preparing for life with Covid-19 even as daily cases remain elevated, mirroring Thailand's tourism-reopening plan based on a pilot project in the popular resort island of Phuket.

Covid-19 will be treated as endemic and it is time for Malaysians to learn to live with the virus, Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said at a briefing on Wednesday.

New infections have soared despite the containment measures, hitting a record 24,599 in a single day late last month and turning the country into South-east Asia's Covid-19 hot spot. The nation added 20,988 cases on Thursday.

Still, the virus' effective reproduction rate, or R-naught, has fallen below 1 nationwide for the first time in few months, Ismail Sabri said, amid an increase in vaccination.

More than 84 per cent of the adult population has received at least one dose, and 64 per cent has been fully inoculated, according to the health ministry.

Based on projected data, the average vaccination rate among adults in each state is expected to reach 80 per cent by month-end, and 100 per cent by end of October, Ismail Sabri said.

"Eventually we have to live with Covid-19 as is the case around the world," he said.

Meantime, Melaka state will move into the second phase, and Negeri Sembilan into the third stage of the national recovery plan from Saturday after meeting the threshold limits in reducing Covid-19 infections, the prime minister said.

The decision was made by the National Security Council, which will now be renamed as the Special Committee on Pandemic Management, he said. The committee will include representatives from opposition parties as well.

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2021-09-03 01:07:58Z
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Ida's record rain floods New York-area homes, subways; at least 26 dead - CNA

The number of disasters, such as floods and heat waves, driven by climate change has increased fivefold over the past 50 years, according to a report released earlier this week by the World Meteorological Organization, a UN agency.

US President Joe Biden on Thursday said the federal government stood ready to provide "all the assistance that's needed."

The governors of New York and New Jersey, who declared emergencies in their states on Wednesday, urged residents to stay home as crews worked to clear roadways and restore service to subways and commuter rail lines serving millions of residents.

"Right now my street looks more like a lake," said Lucinda Mercer, 64, as she peered out her apartment window in Hoboken, New Jersey, just across the Hudson River from New York.

Subway service in New York City remained "extremely limited" and was not likely to be restored until later in the day, transit officials said. Commuter rail service to the city's northern suburbs, most New Jersey Transit rail lines and Amtrak passenger service between Philadelphia and Boston were canceled. About 370 flights were cancelled at New Jersey's Newark Liberty Airport.

Mark Haley of Summit, New Jersey, said getting home after a 15-minute drive to a bowling alley to celebrate his daughter's sixth birthday on Wednesday night became a six-hour slog through floodwaters that frequently blocked his route.

"When we got out, it was a war zone,” said Haley, 50, a fitness trainer. When he made it home, he found almost 0.6m of water in his basement.

Nearly 170,000 electricity customers were without power on Thursday in four northeastern states that got the bulk of the rain overnight, mostly in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, according to PowerOutage.US, which gathers data from utility companies.

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2021-09-02 22:47:17Z
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President Xi says China to set up stock exchange in Beijing - The Straits Times

BEIJING (BLOOMBERG, REUTERS) - China's President Xi Jinping on Thursday (Sept 2) said the country would set up a stock exchange in its capital, Beijing, to serve small and medium-sized companies.

China’s two major stock exchanges are in the financial hub of Shanghai and in the southern city of Shenzhen, on its border with Hong Kong. 

“We will continue to support the innovation-driven development of small and medium-sized enterprises by deepening the reform of the New Third Board and setting up the Beijing Stock Exchange as the primary platform serving innovation-oriented SMEs,” Mr Xi said in a video address at the opening of the China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS). 

Mr Xi did not give a date for the establishment of the new board or any further details, but said it would “provide a platform for innovative small and medium-sized enterprises”.

The National Equities Exchange And Quotations, an existing Beijing-based exchange which launched in 2013, would be “reformed", he said.

Beijing has said it wants to raise the share of equity financing in its bank-dominated financial system as part of a campaign to reduce debt-levels in its economy.

The country launched a new exchange in Shanghai known as the “STAR Market” in 2019 to provide more financing for tech companies.

“Deepening the reform of the New Third Board and establishing the Beijing Stock Exchange is an important measure to implement our national innovation-driven development strategy and continue cultivating new drivers of development,” the China Securities Regulatory Commission said in a statement after the speech.

“It is also an important measure to deepen structural reform of the financial supply side.” 

The New Third Board is another name for the NEEQ.
  
Mr Xi did not comment on any of the government’s recent regulatory moves, which are part of a broad campaign recently to rein in Internet platform and education companies which have rocked financial markets in recent months. 

During the speech to a government-run summit on trade in services, Mr Xi emphasised China’s gradual opening to foreign investment in service sectors such as finance and healthcare, where Beijing sees the introduction of foreign competition as a key part of modernising its economy.  

Mr Xi said that China would continue opening services by “exploring” setting up a designated innovation zone for trade in services and via a nationwide “negative list”.

Such lists have previously been issued by China to name proscribed sectors for investment, with investments in other areas being allowed. 

“China is willing to work with all parties to continue open cooperation,” Mr Xi said, adding that China would “share the development opportunities of trade in services, so as to promote the recovery and growth of the world economy”.

The collapse in international tourism, which has plunged globally due to the pandemic, has hit the global trade in services. 

China’s imports and exports of services dropped 15.7 per cent year on year to 4.6 trillion yuan (S$957 billion) in 2020 mainly due to the sharp decline in tourism, according to official figures.

Because Chinese tourists spent much more abroad than overseas tourists spend within China, the country has run a persistent deficit in the services trade, exceeding 1.5 trillion yuan in 2019. 

That deficit has narrowed in recent years due to rapid growth in service exports, in part due to the overseas success of technology companies such as TikTok owner ByteDance. 

China tightly restricts access to foreign companies in some sectors such as digital services, effectively banning overseas social networking platforms such as Facebook from serving consumers in the country. 

The country has more restrictive policies on services trade than the average seen in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), according to an index compiled by the club of mostly wealthy economies. 

However, China has strategically opened some sectors in recent years and its services trade restrictiveness has seen one of the largest declines of any country since 2014, according to the OECD.

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2021-09-02 12:39:13Z
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113 unlinked COVID-19 cases among 187 new locally transmitted infections in Singapore - CNA

SINGAPORE: Singapore reported 187 new locally transmitted COVID-19 infections as of noon on Thursday (Sep 2), including 113 infections with no links to previous cases.

This is the third consecutive day where unlinked locally transmitted cases have surpassed linked cases.

Fifty-six of the new infections were linked to previous cases and had been placed on quarantine.

Another 18 linked infections were detected through surveillance testing, said the Ministry of Health (MOH) in its preliminary daily update.

Among the new cases, three people above the age of 70 were unvaccinated or partially vaccinated and at risk of serious illness, said MOH.

There were also four imported cases, bringing the total number of new cases on Thursday to 191.

This is the highest number of locally transmitted cases since Aug 7 last year, when there were 236 infections among dormitory residents and the community.

MOH will release further updates on the COVID-19 situation in Singapore on Thursday night.

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2021-09-02 10:23:00Z
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Taliban preparing to reveal new Afghan government amid economic turmoil - CNA

The supreme Taliban leader has three deputies: Mawlavi Yaqoob, son of the movement's late founder Mullah Omar; Sirajuddin Haqqani, leader of the powerful Haqqani network; and Abdul Ghani Baradar, one of the founding members of the group.

An unelected leadership council is how the Taliban ran their first government which brutally enforced a radical form of Sharia law from 1996 until its ouster by US-led forces in 2001.

The Taliban have tried to present a more moderate face to the world since they swept aside the US-backed government and returned to power last month, promising to protect human rights and refrain from reprisals against old enemies.

But the United States, the European Union and others have cast doubt on such assurances, saying formal recognition of the new government - and the economic aid that would flow from that - is contingent on action.

"We're not going to take them at their word, we're going to take them at their deeds," US Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland told a news briefing on Wednesday.

"So they've got a lot to prove based on their own track record ... now they also have a lot to gain, if they can run Afghanistan, far, far differently than they did the last time they were in power."

Gunnar Wiegand, the European Commission's managing director for Asia and the Pacific, said the European Union would not formally recognise the Islamist group until it met conditions including the formation of an inclusive government, respect for human rights and unfettered access for aid workers.

"There is no doubt among (EU) member states and in the G7 context: We need to engage with the Taliban, we need to communicate with the Taliban, we need to influence the Taliban, we need to make use of the leverages which we have," he told members of the European Parliament in Brussels.

"But we will not rush into recognising this new formation, nor into establishing official relations."

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2021-09-02 05:14:46Z
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Taliban says it has surrounded Afghan resistance fighters, calls for peace - CNA

The Taliban have declared an amnesty for all Afghans who worked with foreign forces during the past two decades but crowds fearing reprisals have continued to flock to the borders in an attempt to flee the land-locked country.

Motaqi said the Taliban had made many efforts to negotiate with leaders of the opposition forces in Panjshir, "but unfortunately, unfortunately, without any result".

NO REASON TO FIGHT

Taliban forces are making preparations around the four sides of the Panjshir valley and there is no reason to fight, Motaqi said, adding that the anti-Taliban forces should keep in mind that it had not been possible to defeat the Taliban even with the support of NATO and US forces.

"But we are still trying to ensure that there is no war and that the issue in Panjshir is resolved calmly and peacefully," Motaqi said.

The remarks came after at least seven Taliban fighters were killed during an attempt to advance into the valley, according to two resistance leaders.

A spokesman for the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan, which groups the forces in the Panjshir valley, said on Wednesday Taliban forces had launched an offensive two days ago, and had been attacking in three or four different areas but had so far been pushed back.

The spokesman said he had no fresh details on any casualties.

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2021-09-01 15:48:43Z
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