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The world's largest gambling hub, Macau, will shutter almost all casinos and non-essential businesses for a week from Monday as an outbreak of COVID-19 spreads across the autonomous region on the south coast of China. AFP quotes Macau's top city official Andre Cheong in a press conference Saturday who said the gambling hub would enter "static management" between July 11-18, during which casinos will be closed. Only essential businesses like supermarkets, gas stations, and pharmacies will remain open.The measure comes as Macau on Saturday reported 71 new COVID infections. A total of 1,374 infections have been recorded since June 18,...

The Biden administration on Tuesday sued hotelier Stephen Wynn to force him to register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The government claimed Mr. Wynn lobbied on behalf of officials of the People’s Republic of China during the Trump administration. The 13-page complaint filed in federal court in Washington said Mr. Wynn, former CEO of Wynn Resorts, acted on behalf of Sun Lijun, then-vice minister of public security for the PRC. Mr. Wynn allegedly had dinner and calls with former President Donald Trump in 2017 concerning canceling a visa of a businessperson who left China in...

President Xi Jinping is continuing his pervasive crackdown on anyone and anything that stands in the way of the Chinese Communist Party — the more blood spilled, the better. Beijing this month will impose new laws on Hong Kong and Macau giving the state broader powers for asset seizure, visa denial and deportation against those it says enable foreign sanctions. That’s an answer to increasing US and European sanctions over Xi’s often-genocidal human-rights abuses and piratical approach to trade: Put Western businesses trying to work in China in the crosshairs. The Biden administration just warned US companies that China’s year-old...

Pyongyang also targeted Jong-nam’s son, says WSJ Updated 12 hours ago · Published on 2 Oct 2017 SHORTLY after the murder of Kim Jong-nam on February 13 at klia2, the North Korean regime began targeting his son, Kim Han-sol, reports The Wall Street Journal, ahead of the father’s murder trial in Shah Alam today. However, North Korean dissidents belonging to a secretive group called Cheollima Civil Defence whisked Han-sol, 21, and his mother and sister to safety from their Macau base. The Kim family are now living in an unidentified country. Cheollima has agreed to speak to a media organisation...

U.S. multinationals function as unregistered lobbyists for foreign governments. If a foreign government wants to lobby the U.S. government, they and their lobbyists need to register with the Department of Justice, through the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA. Week Thirty-Eight of the Trump White House In Review Watch Full Screen Alternatively, the foreign government could ask one of their American counterparts to do their bidding for them. The Chinese government opted for the latter approach, law enforcement sources tell the Wall Street Journal. Reportedly casino magnate Steve Wynn, who has business ties in the Chinese region of Macau, wrote...

The Macau authorities’ hostility to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and the rule of law is growing by the minute. First, the Municipal Affairs Bureau (IAM) outlawed a series of open-air Tiananmen massacre themed photographic exhibitions planned for June 4 that it had approved the month before. They have been displayed annually over the last 30 years. But IAM changed its mind when someone tapped their shoulder, recalling that autonomy is for the law books only. Then, the police banned a Tiananmen massacre vigil organised by Lawmaker Au Kam Sam in Senado Square – an event which has never...

American authorities have arrested a former US Marine who is allegedly part of a group that raided North Korea's embassy in Madrid, reports say. Christopher Ahn will reportedly appear in a Los Angeles court. It would be the first arrest over the incident, which happened in February days before US President Donald Trump met North Korea's Kim Jong Un in Vietnam. Free Joseon, a self-styled human rights group, says it was involved. US federal agents have also raided the apartment of Adrian Hong, one of the group's leaders, says the Washington Post. ... On 22 February, a group of at...

The cruise line operator Royal Caribbean has said it will refuse any passengers with Chinese, Hong Kong or Macao passports, regardless of when they were last in China. The remarkable statement comes after reports that about two dozen passengers aboard a cruise ship that docked in Bayonne, New Jersey, on Friday morning were screened for coronavirus and four were sent to a local hospital for further screening. (please see link, for full story)

Thousands Trapped In Italian Cruise Ship Over Feared Coronavirus Cases The outbreak of coronavirus has caused global alarm. Civitavecchia, Italy: Over 6,000 tourists were blocked on a cruise ship in Italy on Thursday after the vast liner was placed on lockdown over two suspected cases of the deadly coronavirus. Samples from a Chinese couple were sent for testing after three doctors and a nurse boarded the Costa Crociere ship in the port of Civitavecchia to tend to a woman running a fever, the local health authorities said. Costa Crociere confirmed the ship, carrying some 7,000 people including the crew, was...

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Italian luxury label Versace and its artistic director Donatella Versace apologized on Sunday after one of the company’s T-shirts was widely criticized on social media in China for identifying the Chinese-controlled territories of Hong Kong and Macau as countries. Versace, which was bought by Michael Kors’ Capri Holdings Ltd (CPRI.N) in September, said on its Twitter-like Weibo account that it had made a mistake and as of July 24 had stopped selling and destroyed the T-shirts. Milan-based Versace is the latest company to become entangled in political issues involving China, which since last year has increased...

On the fringe of the headlines It is not very often that I can say this, but over the past few days I have been on the fringe of a news story that was being reported around the world. A few days ago, on 27th September, the Croatian daily newspaper Jutarnji published a story speculating that Kim Jong Il’s grandson, Kim Han Sol, had enrolled in the United World College in Mostar (Bosnia-Herzegovina). The story was quickly picked up by news media around the world, including AsiaOne in Singapore, Chosunilbo (South Korea), The Washington Post, the Huffington Post, Associated Press...

Kim Jong Il’s grandson calls his uncle Kim Jong Eun a ‘dictator’ By Olga Khazan , Updated: October 19, 2012 With hipster glasses, near-perfect English and progressive ideas, Kim Han Sol certainly doesn’t seem like a stereotypical North Korean. In an interview with a Finnish broadcaster, the grandson of Kim Jong Il and nephew of current North Korean leader Kim Jong Eun comes off as a normal, well-adjusted teen who dreams of going back to North Korea to “make things better, make it easier for the people there.” Kim was born in 1995 in Pyongyang but went to an international...

HONG KONG — China officially opened the world’s longest sea bridge on Tuesday after China’s leader, Xi Jinping, and local officials inaugurated the 34-mile structure, which crosses the Pearl River Delta to link Hong Kong with Macau and the mainland Chinese city of Zhuhai. The project, which includes sections of bridge and artificial islands linked by a four-mile tunnel west of Hong Kong’s airport, went billions of dollars over budget and was delayed by two years. Chinese officials expect the bridge to significantly cut driving time between the two sides of the Pearl River, helping to achieve their vision of...

Cyprus will host a ceremony on June 8 to mark the start of construction work on what is being billed as Europe's largest casino with more than a hundred gambling tables and over a thousand slot machines. The casino will be located in Limassol and is set to start operating in 2021. In the meantime a temporary facility is set to operate until works are completed on the City of Dreams Mediterranean casino-resort. It is being built by Melco Resorts and Entertainment, one of the biggest developer, owner and operator of casino gaming and entertainment casino resort facilities in Asia....

Trump White House accuses China of 'Orwellian nonsense' Beijing seeks to change US airline references to disputed territories Harsh statement released as US trade delegation returns The White House on Saturday condemned Chinese efforts to control how US airlines refer to Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao as “Orwellian nonsense”. The harshly worded statement came as a high-level trade delegation led by the Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin returned from negotiations in China. The carriers were told to remove references on their websites or in other material that suggests Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau are part of countries independent from China, US...

Dunamis Power is yours my children just speak what you need or declare what it is My Spirit is to manifest before you and it shall be for as you have overcome the world it now sits at your feet as it does for me for we are one and I walk hand in hand with you as you do my will alone . Let My Spirit of Holiness lead your days now for the body and Bride of Christ are coming together now in a redeeming way in that all that is being done now in this hour is...

This is the moment workers connected the two sides of the world's longest sea bridge - seven years after building first began. The last steel box girder was installed for the crossing on Wednesday, which spans the estuary of the Pearl River connecting Hong Kong and China. The project, called Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge is 14 miles long and also includes an underwater tunnel. Construction of the Y-shaped bridge began in 2009 at a cost of 100 billion yuan ($15billion). And when the bridge opens to traffic, it will shorten the distance between Hong Kong, Zhuhau and Macao. It will officially...

I AM looking for unity, I AM looking for my love working in you in such a way that you see your brother and sisters’ needs above your own.Let there be great charity among you, yes, but this love comes from me through you and as you see others as part of your body without paper or pen. It is then they become part of you and you come to abide in Me. There is no room for arrogance and vanity, just my love and the fruit thereof,For it is only in oneness you then have gained the access “as...

Some more bad news for Macau's high rollers — or what is left of them. On Thursday, the Hong Kong-based investment bank Daiwa Capital Markets published a report saying that as much as $258 million had been stolen from a junket operating inside Wynn Macau. In Macau, junkets operate as third parties within casinos, bringing in cash that high rollers — the VIPs who bet big at the casino — use to leverage their bets. It is suspected that employees of Dore Holdings, the junket working inside the casino, made off with the cash.

Scenes are altered in James Bond's Skyfall to make the film acceptable for Chinese authorites.according to reports, some of its scenes have been censored and altered to make it acceptable to the Chinese authorities. One scene that has been been completely culled takes place in Shanghai, when a French hitman (played by Ola Rapace) is shown shooting a Chinese security guard in the elevator lobby of a skyscraper before preparing for an assassination. In another scene, filmed in a casino in the Chinese territory of Macau, Daniel Craig’s Bond is talking to a hostess, Severine (Berenice Marlohe), about whether her...