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GAZIANTEP, Turkey—A strong earthquake and its aftershocks struck southern Turkey and Syria on Monday, causing buildings to collapse and killing at least three people, Turkish officials said, in a sign of the region’s vulnerability after it was devastated earlier this month by its worst seismic event in decades. The new 6.4 magnitude earthquake shook the southern Turkish province of Hatay just after 8 p.m. local time, according to Turkey’s disaster management agency AFAD. It was followed by several tremors, including one of magnitude 5.8, in the same region minutes later. More than 300 people were treated for injuries across Turkey and Syria, according to officials in both countries.

☆ Get paid up to $10,000 to move? That's great for remote workers, but economists say it's not a good investment for the cities footing the bill
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-19 | by ( Robert Davis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +13 min

The more than 2,000 people who received Tulsa Remote grants have a median income of more than $85,000. For starters, he found the income generated by recipients of the Tulsa Remote program was just a sliver of the $80 billion the 468,000-plus workers in the Tulsa metro area generated in 2021. A Brookings Institution analysis of the Tulsa Remote program published in September found that the program was generally effective at bringing high-skilled labor to the area. He compared the impact of the incentive program to the opening of a Honda manufacturing plant in Greensburg in 2007. A previous audit from Hoffer's office in 2019 identified two major flaws in the Think Vermont program.

☆ Tunisian Authorities Arrest Opposition Politicians Amid Social Discontent
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Chao Deng | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Noureddine Bhiri, pictured in the foreground in light-colored frames, right, is a senior figure of the Ennahda opposition party. Tunisian authorities have detained a handful of opposition figures and businessmen whom President Kais Saied views as posing a threat to his rule, according to human-rights activists and the United Nations, which called for their release. At least nine people have been detained or arrested since the weekend, including politicians, judges and the head of the country’s main independent news outlet, according to Human Rights Watch, which is tracking the cases. Some have been accused of posing a danger to state security, according to the rights group and lawyers.

☆ Egypt Arrests Social-Media Influencers in Deepening Crackdown
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-11 | by ( Chao Deng | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com. https://www.wsj.com/articles/egypt-arrests-social-media-influencers-in-deepening-crackdown-b26835bc

☆ Egypt Launches Privatization Drive as Economy Reels From Inflation
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-09 | by ( Chao Deng | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Egypt has pledged to reduce the role of state and military-owned companies in favor of private businesses in the economy. CAIRO—Egypt is set to sell stakes in 32 state-run companies in everything from electricity and banking to hotels, in a bid to attract more private investment as the cash-strapped country grapples with the economic fallout from the Ukraine war. The country plans to sell shares in at least 32 state companies in the coming year either directly to investors or via the Egyptian Stock Exchange, Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said Wednesday. The list includes stakes in locally prominent firms such as Banque du Caire and Egypt’s largest insurance company, Misr Life Insurance Co.

☆ The Fyre Festival fraudster is launching his latest thing, and it looks like a party on an island
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-20 | by ( Jake Traylor | Jake Traylor Is An Associate Producer For Msnbc. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +8 min

He’s using different words, but he’s selling the same thing,” said Shiyuan Deng, a former product designer at Fyre Media, the company behind Fyre Festival. Deng resigned from Fyre Media shortly before it collapsed. Another former Fyre Media employee who asked to withhold their name out of concerns of retaliation also said PYRT reminded them of Fyre Festival. “The similarities are there around the vague mysterious promotion,’’ said the former employee of Fyre Media. McFarland said he believes PYRT will look considerably different from Fyre Festival.

☆ Taiwan and the United States reach consensus in trade negotiations, pledge to maintain 'ambitious negotiating schedule'
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-18 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Flags of Taiwan and U.S. are placed for a meeting between U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce speaks and with Su Chia-chyuan, President of the Legislative Yuan in Taipei, Taiwan March 27, 2018. The United States and Taiwan concluded four days of trade negotiations on Monday and reached consensus on several areas related to trade facilitation, anti-corruption, small and medium-sized enterprises and regulatory practices, the U.S. Trade Representative's office said. The first major negotiating round of the U.S.-Taiwan Initiative on 21st Century Trade saw the two sides exchange texts on those areas in Taipei, the office said in a statement. "Officials also reached consensus in a number of areas and pledged to maintain an ambitious negotiating schedule in the months ahead to continue this momentum," the statement said. Taiwan's top trade negotiator, John Deng, told reporters in Taipei he was "quite satisfied" with the outcome of the meetings.

Some Chinese youth who spoke to Reuters reflected the sense of frustration. But China's Gen Z has its own characteristics that present a dilemma for Xi, some analysts said. A survey of 4,000 Chinese by consultancy Oliver Wyman found Gen Z to be the most negative about China's economic outlook of all the age groups. FIXING THE YOUTHIn a New Year speech, Xi acknowledged the need to improve the prospects of China's youth, without mentioning the protests against his zero-COVID approach. Making housing more affordable could mean allowing a sector responsible for a quarter of China's economic activity in recent years to collapse.

China’s 9.56 million births are a decrease of almost 10% from 2021, when about 10.6 million babies were born. The figures announced Tuesday are the start of what is expected to be a long decline in China’s population, which the U.N. says could reach 800 million by the end of the century. Although many countries around the world are experiencing population decline, this is the first time China’s population has contracted since 1961, after a three-year famine spurred by then-leader Mao Zedong’s industrialization drive, which is estimated to have killed tens of millions of people. While the one-child policy was effective in curbing population growth, critics say it resulted in rights abuses and a disproportionate number of men compared with women, especially in the countryside. If Chinese officials really want to encourage children, they should “give money to those who have more babies,” she said.

Kyle Davies and Su Zhu are listed under the founding members slide of a pitch deck obtained by CNBC for a distressed debt marketplace called GTX. Davies and Zhu founded Three Arrows Capital, a Singapore-based cryptocurrency hedge fund that was ordered to liquidate by a British Virgin Islands court. It aims to appeal to the more than one million FTX depositors that are now involved in a bankruptcy proceeding, a slide in the pitch deck said. GTX said in its pitch that, once scaled, the platform could fill a "power vacuum left by FTX" within crypto trading and move into the securities lending market. Mark Lamb and Sudhu Arumugam, co-founders of crypto trading platform CoinFLEX, are listed alongside Davies and Zhu as founding members.

☆ Egypt Plans Spending Cuts as It Faces Economic Crisis
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-12 | by ( Chao Deng | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Bread, rice and cooking oil have been missing from store shelves in Egypt, after the country struggled to pay for imports of basics such as wheat. CAIRO—Egypt plans to cut spending after the International Monetary Fund extended hundreds of millions of dollars in an economic bailout package, as the country struggles to pay off debts accumulated from a decadeslong building boom. Authorities said earlier this week they would delay state projects that required significant U.S. dollars to fund and cut back on travel, training and conferences for officials, according to Egypt’s cabinet.

☆ Egyptians Cut Back on Staples as Inflation Rises
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-09 | by ( Chao Deng | Amira El-Fekki | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

A market vendor sells apples in Alexandria, Egypt. The country’s rising food prices have prompted calls for greater government intervention. As food inflation in Egypt climbed to 30% in November, the government suggested a new way to cut back: eat chicken feet. “Good for the body and the budget,” said the National Nutrition Institute in a December Facebook post.

☆ China's big consumer market isn't rebounding to pre-pandemic levels just yet
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-09 | by ( Evelyn Cheng | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

For the past six months, revenue had dropped to 30% of typical levels, Chong said. The travel season for China's big holiday runs this year from around Jan. 7 to Feb. 15. That's twice what it was last year, and 70% of 2019 levels, China's Ministry of Transport said Friday. It noted most of the trips will likely be for visiting family, while just 10% will be for leisure or business travel. By that time, people will have been able to process their passport applications, while the number of international flights may have recovered to 50% or 60% of 2019 levels, Chen said.

☆ Egypt Is Spending Billions on a New Capital That Egyptians May Not Visit
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-24 | by ( Chao Deng | Amira El-Fekki | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

CAIRO—In a desert plain 40 miles east of central Cairo, a sprawling new capital city is taking shape, with skyscrapers, luxury residences and pedestrian malls representing President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi ‘s vision of a modern Egypt, fueled by billions of dollars in debt to help see it through. Now comes the hard part: getting people to live and work there.

☆ Tunisian Opposition Calls for President to Step Down After Low Voter Turnout
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-18 | by ( Chao Deng | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The leader of Tunisia’s opposition alliance called for President Kais Saied to step down on Sunday after only a fraction of eligible voters turned out for parliamentary elections. More than 160 seats were up for vote. Yet once polls closed on Saturday night, only 8.8% of eligible voters, or roughly 803,000 people, had participated, according to the government. Tunisia has a population of roughly 12 million people, with about 9 million eligible voters.

☆ Tunisians Emigrate in Record Numbers as Hopes Fade for Its Economy, Democracy
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( Chao Deng | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

A rescue operation to help people in a boat off the coast of Tunisia in August last year. Many Tunisians are making the dangerous journey by boat from their home country to the European Union. TUNIS, Tunisia—Record numbers of Tunisians are leaving the country after a decade of economic turmoil and the government’s turn toward authoritarianism, dimming hopes that a younger generation can build a future in the nation that sparked the Arab Spring. The flood of Tunisian émigrés spans socioeconomic classes, with professionals, the working class and the destitute represented among those fleeing, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine pushes up the price of food and gas, and the government pulls back from subsidizing basic items such as sugar and rice. Inflation has reached nearly 10% this year, and economists say a $1.9 billion International Monetary Fund loan secured by President Kais Saied isn’t enough to pull the country of 12 million people back from the brink.

When I first started investigating China’s top spy agency in 2020 for my book, “Spies and Lies: How China’s Greatest Covert Operations Fooled the World,” I thought espionage was its main game. In October, the Justice Department charged 13 people with plotting to covertly advance China’s interests in the United States. Several of those charged are allegedly officers of China’s Ministry of State Security. I soon realized that the Ministry of State Security’s covert influence operations have been at the forefront of its work to shape the world. Many countries, including the United States, are working to combat espionage but lack laws suited to tackling covert influence operations.

☆ American Arrested in Dubai at Risk of Deportation to Egypt
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( Stephen Kalin | Chao Deng | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

DUBAI—An American citizen arrested recently on a visit to the United Arab Emirates faces possible extradition to his native Egypt after criticizing Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi and calling on Egyptians to protest in videos he made while living in the U.S.Sherif Osman, 46, an Egyptian-American dual national, was one of a handful of Egyptians abroad urging people to organize demonstrations during a United Nations climate summit in November held in the Egyptian beach city of Sharm El Sheikh and attended by world leaders including President Biden.

☆ Chinese spaceship with 3 aboard docks with space station
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( The Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +4 min

BEIJING — Three Chinese astronauts docked early Wednesday with their country’s space station, where they will overlap for several days with the three-member crew already onboard and expand the facility to its maximum size. Without the attached spacecraft, the Chinese station weighs about 66 tons — a fraction of the International Space Station, which launched its first module in 1998 and weighs around 465 tons. With a lifespan of 10 to 15 years, Tiangong could one day be the only space station still up and running if the International Space Station retires in the coming years as planned. The U.S. excluded China from the International Space Station because of its program’s military ties, although China has engaged in limited cooperation with other nations’ space agencies. While proceeding smoothly for the most part, China’s space program has also drawn controversy.

☆ Biden’s not the first US President to face a tug of war over China protests
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( Stephen Collinson | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

Going further could imperil US President Joe Biden’s effort to improve relations between the two countries, after he met Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Bali. It’s a strategically defensible position, given the need to avoid a clash with China that could spiral into a superpower clash in Asia. In the run-up to Beijing’s suppression of pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989, then-President George H.W. China is unrecognizable since 1989, and recent protests – this time arising out of frustration with Covid-19 lockdowns but expressing some dissent towards Xi – are not fully analogous. Biden would be likely to show far less deference to Beijing given today’s broad, bipartisan anti-China feeling in Washington.

☆ Obituary: China's Jiang Zemin confounded doubters, mended U.S. ties
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

[1/5] A security guard stands next to a portrait of China's former President Jiang Zemin at an exhibition to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in Beijing, China, July 7, 2011. Under Jiang, China weathered the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis, joined the World Trade Organisation in 2001 and won the bid to host the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. "Jiang Zemin was more ready to be natural, even though sometimes it could be perceived as vulgar, not very sophisticated." At celebrations for the 50th anniversary of the People's Republic in 1999, floats carried giant portraits of Mao, Deng and Jiang past Tiananmen Square. Jiang, like Mao, wore his trousers well above his waist and brushed his hair straight back.

Summary Shenzhou-15 marks last of 11 missions since April 2021 in building of space stationShenzhou-15 crew to take over from Shenzhou-14 astronauts on space stationChinese space station to be second permanently inhabited outpost after NASA-led ISSBEIJING, Nov 30 (Reuters) - Three Chinese astronauts arrived on Wednesday at China's space station for the first in-orbit crew rotation in Chinese space history, launching operation of the second inhabited outpost in low-Earth orbit after the NASA-led International Space Station. Shenzhou-15 was the last of 11 missions, including three previous crewed missions, needed to assemble the "Celestial Palace", as the multi-module station is known in Chinese. The "Celestial Palace" was the culmination of nearly two decades of Chinese crewed missions to space. The astronauts will live and work on the T-shaped space outpost for six months. The next batch of "taikonauts", coined from the Chinese word for space, to board the station, in 2023, will be picked from the third generation of astronauts with scientific backgrounds.

Shenzhou-15 was the last of 11 missions, including three prior crewed missions, that began in April 2021 needed to assemble the "Celestial Palace", as the multi-module station is known in Chinese. The space outpost took on its current "T" shape in November with the arrival of the last of three cylindrical modules. The "Celestial Palace" was the culmination of nearly two decades of Chinese crewed missions to space. FUTURE 'TAIKONAUTS'Leading the Shenzhou-15 mission was Fei Junlong, 57, who hailed from China's first batch of astronaut trainees in the late 1990s. During the space station's operation over the next decade, China is expected to launch two crewed missions to the orbiting outpost each year.

CNN —Three astronauts lifted off to China’s nearly completed space station on Tuesday, marking the beginning of the country’s long-term presence in space. The Shenzhou-15 spacecraft is expected to dock with the Tiangong Space Station about 6.5 hours after launch. VCG/Getty ImagesSmaller than the ISSOnce construction is completed, the space station is expected to last for 15 years. Tiangong, which means heavenly palace, is smaller than the International Space Station but similar in its modular design. The new space station will typically house three rather than six astronauts.

☆ China rocket taking 3 to space station to blast off Tuesday
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-28 | by ( Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +4 min

BEIJING — A rocket carrying three astronauts to finish building China’s space station will blast off Tuesday amid intensifying competition with the U.S., the government said Monday,The crew includes a veteran of a 2005 space mission and two first-time astronauts, according to the China Manned Space Agency. Previous missions to the space station have taken about 13 hours from liftoff to docking. The permanent Chinese station weighs about 66 tons — a fraction of the International Space Station, which launched its first module in 1998 and weighs around 465 tons. With a lifespan of 10 to 15 years, Tiangong could one day find itself the only space station still running if the International Space Station adheres to its 30-year operating plan. The U.S. excluded China from the International Space Station because of its program’s military ties.

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