Clement Tan 陳永強

“Collection of Handwritten Letters from Children in Detention Center” sounds like an exhibit in the Holocaust Museum.

Under attack from extremists, Bangladesh’s cultural activists fight back with music Amidst rising extremism, Bangladeshi cultural activists use music to fight back and preserve their Bengali identity and secular ideals. Read more at straitstimes.com. Read more at straitstimes.com.

Is Bangladesh shifting towards a more radical form of Islam as it prepares for national elections in February?
www.straitstimes.com/asia/south-a...

For Vietnam’s young, favoured Germany vocational path is fraught with greedy middlemen Young Vietnamese seeking vocational training in Germany face exploitation from greedy middlemen despite legal pathways. Read more at straitstimes.com. Read more at straitstimes.com.

Labour activists are sounding the alarm on greedy middlemen charging young Vietnamese grossly inflated fees to facilitate their moves to Germany as vocational trainees. Many are left deep in debt and risk falling into the shadow economy out of desperation.

www.straitstimes.com/world/europe...

When insecurity runs deep, everything looks like a security threat. This sort of paranoia will only deepen public resentment and distaste towards the Hong Kong government and its Beijing Overlord.

In race-shifting London, is it just a matter of time before there’s no love lost? With rising xenophobia, the writer ponders a return to the safe familiarity - and responsibilities - of S'pore. Read more at straitstimes.com. Read more at straitstimes.com.

When Tan Shzr Ee came to the UK in the 1990s, she faced racism for the 1st time, 'so quirkily delivered I didn’t clock it as racism.' On Sept. 14, 'a giggling chorus of youths' overtook her on the A30, their SUV window wound down, to shout: Ching-chong hee-haw! www.straitstimes.com/world/europe...

MONACO IL SUPPLI • MADElI® CHARLOTTE FOOD AND DRINK 'They're not chasing criminals.' Manolo's Bakery owner closes store to protect customers Updated 5 hours ago POLITICS & GOVERNMENT Church members flee as federal agents arrive at east Charlotte place of worship Updated 5 hours ago

LOCAL Super G executive in Pineville describes agents dragging out teen store employee Updated 5 hours ago LOCAL 'Just walked up to them.' Border Patrol questions people at a Charlotte Walmart Updated 6 hours ago LOCAL Federal Border Patrol sweep across Charlotte sparks fear, closed shops and protests

5 headlines tonight on Charlotte Observer’s homepage:

“Manolo's Bakery closes to protect customers”

“Church members flee as federal agents arrive”

“Super G executive describes agents dragging out teen employee”

“Border Patrol questions people at Walmart”

“Border Patrol sweep sparks fear”

According to @Reuters, #Germany's trade deficit with #China has reached USD100b. German exports to China are experiencing negative double-digit growth. For a country with a structural trade surplus, this is something I would really focus on if I were a #German policy maker

Chinese trains, tourists and money are flooding Laos. Laotians wonder if it makes sense Chinese investments like the Yunnan-Vientiane rail transformed Laos but created debt, leaving locals questioning their future.

ST regional reporter Philip Wen travelled the length of the Chinese-built high speed rail in Laos for this story on China's growing footprint in this landlocked Asean nation. Locals are ambivalent as potholed roads sit alongside the gleaming infrastructure.

www.straitstimes.com/multimedia/g...

China’s Foreign Police Training: A Global Footprint New data reveal how China’s foreign police training programs have become an integral part of Beijing’s strategy to remake global security.

Delighted to share a new @carnegieendowment.org report on China’s Foreign Police Training: A Global Footprint. Over 50 entities in China have provided training to at least 138 countries, forming a major pillar of Beijing’s drive to reshape global security:
carnegieendowment.org/research/202...

A few years ago, Hongkonger youths took to the streets to demand democratic reforms. This was a picture of Chinese University in 2019 (Citizen news, HKFP)

Ever wondered what drove a whole generation of youths to risk their lives to protest?

“I Lost Everything”: Venezuelans Were Rounded Up in a Dramatic Midnight Raid but Never Charged With a Crime Authorities said Tren de Aragua “terrorists” had taken over the building. A ProPublica investigation found little evidence to back up the government’s claims. For the first time, the Venezuelans arres...

You probably saw videos of a nighttime raid in Chicago. Agents rappelling from a helicopter, bursting down doors, questioning brown-skinned immigrants.

We investigated -- and found little evidence to support the government’s claims about Tren de Aragua.

www.propublica.org/article/chic...

Starving children screaming for food as US aid cuts unleash devastation and death across Myanmar U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has repeatedly said “no one has died" because of his government’s decision to gut its foreign aid program.

Horrific reporting from the AP on the Myanmar families watching their kids starve to death from Trump and Musk’s aid cuts apnews.com/article/myan...

Russian state TV taps anti-colonialism narrative in India as part of pro-Kremlin media push India, with its relatively neutral position on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, has emerged as a key priority for Moscow. Read more at straitstimes.com. Read more at straitstimes.com.

What was well known Indian opposition politician and author Dr Shashi Tharoor doing on Russian state TV’s India programming? Why are Russian outlets focusing on India expansion?

www.straitstimes.com/asia/south-a...

Macron remarks are notable- some quotes: "We have been incredibly naive in entrusting our democratic space to social networks that are controlled either by large American entrepreneurs or large Chinese companies, whose interests are not at all the survival or proper functioning of our democracies."

RIP Jane Goodall, by all accounts a wonderful woman who loved this Far Side cartoon

There is a certain kind of Army officer who, after the excitement of company command, finds his career stalled, and who perhaps leaves the service as a major in the National Guard filled with bitterness and resentment. He may then dream of one day being in a position to make all the superior officers who failed to appreciate his leadership qualities, his insight, his sheer fitness stand to attention and hear him lay down the law about what it is to be an officer, and threaten to fire those who do not meet his standards. In this respect, and this respect only, on that stage Pete Hegseth was living the dream. In all other respects, however, he was ridiculous...

I did not expect this kind of fire from Eliot Cohen, but he has Hegseth absolutely pegged www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Apple Daily photo of the Umbrella Movement protesters on the night of 30 September 2014, taken during a rainstorm, published on 1 October 2014, with the cheeky headline “Stand up! Those who are unwilling to become slaves!”

Reuters photo of the Umbrella Movement protesters with thousands packing the road, taken on Admiralty’s Harcourt Road, on 1 October 2014.

1 October 2014, eleven years ago today, Occupy Central and the Umbrella Movement protesters in photos.
It had rained the previous night.
1- Apple Daily, with the cheeky headline “Stand up! Those who are unwilling to become slaves!”
2- Reuters

"Colonel Kim was recognized for delaying the entry of Special Forces troops into the National Assembly by 42 minutes through three instances of withholding or refusing emergency flight approvals."

That detail made me emotional. One person doing what they could, the importance of those 42 minutes!!

Jimmy Kimmel and the Power of Public Pressure Podcast Episode · The Political Scene | The New Yorker · 09/27/2025 · 44m

The successful public backlash against silencing Jimmy Kimmel contains some big lessons on what works in the face of autocracy, as expert Hardy Merriman explains in this fascinating episode with my co-hosts @janemayer.bsky.social @sbg1.bsky.social podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

How Trump’s Case Against Revolution Wind Fell Apart The administration argued in the name of national defense — but Orsted had receipts.

Scoop: Trump lost the legal battle over halting the offshore Revolution Wind project after Orsted, its developer, brought reams of evidence to court alleging the government was lying about military security concerns.

It’s a sign truth can empower companies Trump targets.

Via @heatmap.news

Journalists covering the US are about to realise what those of us covering China have always known: for laws and campaigns in authoritarian society, the ambiguity is the point. That’s why authorities here target “spiritual pollution,” “historical nihilism,” “picking quarrels,” and “soft resistance.”

by karl rove
am i being pranked here

WGA Statement on ABC's Decision to Pull ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ The right to speak our minds and to disagree with each other - to disturb, even - is at the very heart of what it means to be a free people. It is not to be denied. Not by violence, not by the abuse of governmental power, nor by acts of corporate cowardice. As a Guild, we stand united in opposition to anyone who uses their power and influence to silence the voices of writers, or anyone who speaks in dissent. If free speech applied only to ideas we like, we needn't have bothered to write it into the Constitution. What we have signed on to - painful as it may be at times - is the freeing agreement to disagree. Shame on those in government who forget this founding truth. As for our employers, our words have made you rich. Silencing us impoverishes the whole world. The WGA stands with Jimmy Kimmel and his writers.

The following is a statement from the WGA on ABC’s decision to pull ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’

Robert Redford playing a gentle incarnation of death, coming for a frightened old woman in The Twilight Zone episode "Nothing in the Dark" (1962). An extraordinary performance then, terribly bittersweet today

A Farmworkers Visa Promised Her a Better Life. It Was a Trap. Sofi left behind her child in Mexico for the promise of providing him a better life. She ended up a victim of an operation that is alleged to have exploited the H-2A visa program — and the workers it ...

America's H-2A visa program sounded like a way for Sofi to earn money and support her child in Mexico. Instead, she ended up living a nightmare.

@maxblau.bsky.social and Zaydee Sanchez report, with illustration by Dadu Shin for @propublica.org projects.propublica.org/h2a-visa-far...

Significant, on many levels.

The Price of Remission: This Cancer Drug Saves Lives — but Costs a Fortune. I Wanted to Know Why. When I was diagnosed with cancer, I set out to understand why a single pill of Revlimid cost the same as a new iPhone. I’ve covered high drug prices as a reporter for years. What I discovered shocked ...

Cancer drug Revlimid is one of the bestselling pharmaceutical products of all time, with total sales of over $100 billion.

It’s also extraordinarily expensive, costing nearly $1,000 for each pill, even though that pill costs just 25 cents to make.

(Published May 2025)

AfD loses. Badly, and in the first round. It’s just a mayoral election, but Meißen is the heart of Saxony and as the thread points out, AfD invested a lot in this race.

It is remarkable to me that Prabowo Subianto has been cropped from this snap in all media but Indonesian