GE2025: ‘Difficult’ GST hike needed to deliver on promises to seniors, says PAP’s Chee Hong Tat

Mr. Chee, a member of the ruling People’s Action Party ( PAP ), claimed that the majority of Singapore’s GST revenue comes from foreigners, tourists, and the less fortunate.

It is not the case with our lower- and middle-income families. It is not the Singaporeans with lower and middle incomes. They receive a much lower effective GST rate than 9 %, according to Mr. Chee.

” We have actually delayed the Taxpayer increase for the majority of Taiwanese households by at least five years, and by more than ten for lower-income households,” according to the Assurance Package.

” We have assisted many communities in coping with the increases in their spending,” according to our numerous help items. And we’re willing to help you for as long as it’s needed. “

Mr. Chee claimed that the GST-acquired income is a “progressive” system that provides the state with the assets it needs to support Singaporeans in many areas, including medical, education, cover, and public transportation. It is also derived from the income of tourists, foreigners, and the better-off.

Therefore, if we reduce the GST, we will avoid the money that we collect from these organizations that are already generating income for Singaporeans now, according to Mr. Chee, who is also the Minister for Transport.

In an age culture and now, in a more turbulent world, to help Singaporeans, to aid our organizations, to help our staff, to support our people, we would not have the resources to support our elders. “

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GE2025: Who is Noor Deros, and what has he been saying in his online posts?

He then stated on April 24 that he would need voters to vote for the candidate if the WP didn’t “reject the common needs of the Muslim group to dismiss the normalization of LGBTQ and tackle another big concerns.”

Mr. Noor clarified in a new Instagram post that he had “accepted” his calls at around midnight on April 26 that it was not the exact as “agreeing” them.

In his earlier post, he noted that WP was the only group that had taken his requires significantly.” Taking really” does not automatically mean “agree and promise to deliver.”

WP’S RESPONSE

WP stated in a statement on April 26 that it ; meets with various members of Singapore’s diverse religious communities, regardless of race or faith.

The Party confirms that no promises, commitments, or agreements were made to any person, including Noor Deros, in exchange for political support for WP candidates at a meeting with other religious leaders where Noor Deros was present, according to WP.

Additionally, it was emphasized that former party chief Pritam Singh and former prime minister Faisal made remarks about the separation of religion and politics in parliament.

The opposition party stated that it was” steadily committed to Singapore’s secular, multi-racial, multi-religious society, and to safeguarding the integrity of our electoral process.”

The Ministry of Home Affairs ( MHA ) and the Elections Department of Singapore ( ELD ) announced in a statement on April 25 that they had identified a “number of foreigners ” trying to influence the GE, and warned against combining religion and politics. Singapore is a free society.

As we have seen in other nations with race- or religion-based politics, incorporating religion into politics will undermine social cohesion and harmony. ”

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‘We need to get him out’: SCDF’s race to save a life in quake-hit Myanmar

DOCTORS AND ENGINEERS

Structure designers play a vital role in the team’s search and rescue operations. &nbsp,

Their task is to determine whether a structure is healthy for volunteers to activate by examining substances that have been dug out of the houses and identifying telltale signs of danger, such as cracks running through windows. &nbsp,

Major Ros Farina Mohd Fauzi Rodrigues, a civil engineer by training, discussed an activity she was a part of that involved a collapsed building close to a fell air traffic control tower at Naypyidaw International Airport.

A body was buried beneath the wreckage in this case and pin down by a powerful frame. She recalled that metallic bars were now bent and out of shape. Therefore, the team chose to dig out the dust manually rather than using any splitting tools.

You work as a fundamental expert like this. We work with the volunteers, both our men, as well as the fire service, to ensure that our firefighters are safe, according to MAJ Farina. &nbsp,

MAJ Chew Jia Han, an technically prepared NSman with a PhD in civil engineering, assisted with the goal as a recovery specialist. Given that they were assessing the properties based on what they could see on the floor, the designers faced their good share of problems, according to the 39-year-old. &nbsp,

As we get going with our operation, he said,” We may discover something that might change our initial analysis.” &nbsp,

When that occurs, the engineers may advise that the procedure be stopped and a reassessment of how to proceed safely. &nbsp,

Beyond performing search and rescue missions, the SCDF team established health outposts in disaster-stricken locales to provide health care to local residents. &nbsp,

Facilities in Myanmar were unable to provide essential services because of the earthquake’s architectural injury, according to SCDF. &nbsp,

Hospitals generally concentrated on key operations and urgent cases because there were a shortage of areas, equipment, and appropriate spaces for procedures. &nbsp,

This led to a lag in access to primary care for small health conditions and injuries, the article continued. In order to tackle this, health outposts were constructed in Pyokkon and on the ground at a resort in Dhakhinna Thiri Township.

One of two NSF physicians stationed at the troops was Captain Sarvananthan Rajavan. The 27-year-old claimed the medical staff provided fundamental care, treating problems ranging from physical problems to upper respiratory and gastrointestinal attacks, when he referred it to a GP office.

But they also encountered some serious circumstances, he claimed. For instance, one man was left with a glass shard that nearly tore open his proper big toe, which he and another NSF doctor had to thread up.

Before he was deployed, Dr. Rajragavan, who was 40 times away from his operational readiness day, stated that he did not anticipate serving in the Operation Lionheart force during his National Service. &nbsp,

You can never expect for a catastrophe to occur. But did I have any advice? Without a doubt. I believe that the education we go through and the training we go with will help us prepare for a crisis ( if it does occur ), he continued. &nbsp,

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China foreign minister says US tariffs show “extreme egoism”

Beijing supports international regulations on US-imposed tariffs and opposes protectionism, according to China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Saturday ( Apr 26 ). Wang said Beijing may get cooperation with other nations regarding the tariff situation and expose “extreme altruism” and the harassment of some nations, as the government saidContinue Reading

GE2025: WP says it has no control over foreigners supporting its candidates after authorities flag foreign attempts to influence election

The Workers ‘ Party ( WP ) clarified details about a meeting involving some of its Malay-Muslim candidates and an Islamic religious teacher on Saturday ( Apr 26 ), saying it has no control over foreigners supporting its candidates.

No promises were made to the teacher or anyone else in exchange for WP individuals ‘ social support, according to the statement.

The Ministry of Home Affairs ( MHA ) and the Elections Department of Singapore ( ELD ) made the announcement a day after it was revealed that several foreigners had posted online election advertisements encouraging Singaporeans to cast ballots according to their religion, including two former Singaporeans and a former Australian citizen. The government claimed they had instructed Meta to censor exposure to these content for users in Singapore.

The Workers ‘ Party ( WP ) candidates seek the support of all Singaporeans in the wards they are contesting in, the WP stated in a statement released on Saturday morning. The Workers ‘ Party has no influence over international organizations that support our prospects. Any interpretation of the same is completely incorrect.

The Workers ‘ Party met with various members of our spiritual communities, regardless of race or religion, during the course of our social work, according to the WP. Our spiritual leaders of all faiths have divergent viewpoints and opinions regarding common life in Singapore.

No “promesses, commitments, or contracts” were made at the meeting, according to the group, which also included other spiritual leaders.

On May 3, voters in Singapore did vote.

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A Chinese prison helped fuel the deadly fentanyl crisis in the US – Asia Times

This article was originally published by ProPublica, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom.

Reporting Highlights

  • Pipeline: A Chinese prison is part of the pipeline that delivers fentanyl to the US, ProPublica found in a review of US and Chinese documents and interviews with investigators.
  • Fallout: Opioid overdoses have killed more Americans than the number of US deaths in several wars combined.
  • Permissive: Veteran federal agents told ProPublica that China has failed to cooperate and even interfered with drug investigations; China insists it has cracked down.

China’s vast security apparatus shrouds itself in shadows, but the outside world has caught periodic glimpses of it behind the faded gray walls of Shijiazhuang prison in the northern province of Hebei.

Chinese media reports have shown inmates hunched over sewing machines in a garment workshop in the sprawling facility. Business leaders and Chinese Communist Party dignitaries have praised the penitentiary for exemplifying President Xi Jinping’s views on the rule of law.

But the prison has an alarming secret, US congressional investigators disclosed last year. They revealed evidence showing that it is a Chinese government outpost in the trafficking pipeline that inundates the United States with fentanyl.

For at least eight years, the prison owned a chemical company called Yafeng, the hub of a group of Chinese firms and websites that sold fentanyl products to Americans, according to the US congressional investigation, as well as Chinese government and corporate records obtained by ProPublica.

The company’s English-language websites brazenly offered US customers dangerous drugs that are illegal in both nations. Promising to smuggle illicit chemicals past US and Mexican border defenses, Yafeng boasted to American clients that “100% of our shipments will clear customs.”

Although China tightly restricts the domestic manufacturing, sale and use of fentanyl products, the nation has been the world’s leading producer of fentanyl that enters the United States and remains the leading producer of chemical precursors with which Mexican cartels make the drug.

Overdoses on synthetic opioid drugs, most of them fentanyl related, have killed over 450,000 Americans during the past decade — more than the US deaths in the Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined.

The involvement of a state-run prison is just one sign of the Chinese government’s role in fomenting the US fentanyl crisis, US investigators say. Chinese leaders have insistently denied such allegations. But US national security officials said the Yafeng case shows how China allows its chemical industry to engage openly in sales to overseas customers while blocking online domestic access and enforcing stern laws against drug dealing inside the country.

Beijing also encourages the manufacture and export of fentanyl products, including drugs outlawed in China, with generous financial incentives, according to a bipartisan inquiry last year by the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party.

“So the Chinese government pays you to send drugs to America but executes you for selling them in China,” Matt Cronin, a former federal prosecutor who led the House inquiry, said in an interview. “It’s impossible that the Chinese Communist Party doesn’t know what’s going on and can’t do anything about it.”

China’s antidrug cooperation has been persistently poor, US officials said. In 2019, Xi imposed controls that cut the export of fentanyl, but Chinese sellers shifted to shipping precursors to Mexico, where the cartels expanded their production.

“We couldn’t get the Chinese on the phone to talk about fighting child pornography, let alone fentanyl,” said Jacob Braun, who served as a senior official at the Department of Homeland Security during the Biden administration. “There was zero cooperation.”

China also remains the base of global organized crime groups that launder billions for fentanyl traffickers in the US, Mexico and Canada. ProPublica has previously reported that this underground banking system depends on Chinese elite who move fortunes abroad by acquiring drug cash from Chinese criminal brokers for Mexican cartels. Chinese banks and businesses also help hide the origin of illicit proceeds.

The regime in Beijing therefore has considerable control over key nodes in the fentanyl chain: raw materials, production, sales and money laundering.

US leaders, Democrats and Republicans alike, have accused China of using fentanyl to weaken the United States. Some veteran agents agree.

Ray Donovan, who retired in 2023 as the Drug Enforcement Administration’s chief of operations, said he believes that a “deliberate strategy” by the Chinese state has caused the trafficking onslaught “to grow in size and scope.”

“They have said for years that they are cracking down,” Donovan said in an interview. “But we haven’t seen meaningful action.”

Still, current and former US officials told ProPublica that the national security community has not found conclusive evidence of a planned, high-level campaign against Americans by the Chinese government. That is partly because for years the US treated fentanyl as a law enforcement matter rather than a national security threat, making it hard to gather intelligence about the extent and nature of the regime’s role.

“If this was Chinese intelligence doing something, we have a focus on that as counterintelligence,” said Alan Kohler, who retired from the FBI in 2023 after serving as director of the counterintelligence division. “If it was drug cartels, we have a criminal focus on that. But this area of crime and state converging falls between the seams in and among agencies.”

Nonetheless, the current and former officials said rampant fentanyl trafficking could not continue without at least the passive complicity of the world’s most powerful police state.

“I haven’t seen smoking-gun evidence that it’s a policy or strategy of the government at a high level,” Kohler said. “You could argue that their decision not to do anything about it, even after the results are clear, is tacit support.”

In a written statement, the spokesperson for China’s embassy in Washington described as “totally groundless” any allegation that the regime has fomented the crisis.

“The fentanyl issue is the US’s own problem,” said the spokesperson, Liu Pengyu. “China has given support to the US’s response to the fentanyl issue in the spirit of humanity.” At the United States’ request, he said, China in 2019 restricted “fentanyl-related substances as a class,” becoming the first country to do so, and has cooperated with the US on counternarcotics.

“The remarkable progress is there for all to see.”

The Trump administration has made the fight against fentanyl a priority and in February imposed a 25% tariff on Chinese imports to pressure Beijing for results. The approach could put a dent in the drug trade, but it’s too early to tell, officials said.

“The Chinese system responds to a negative incentive,” said former FBI agent Holden Triplett, who served as legal attache in Beijing and director of counterintelligence on the National Security Council. “China may be willing to endure more pain than we can give. But it is our only chance.”

To respond effectively, the US needs a clearer picture of the Chinese fentanyl underworld, Triplett and others say. The activities of the Shijiazhuang prison are a compelling case study, but not the only one.

To examine the role of the Chinese state in the drug trade, ProPublica interviewed more than three dozen current and former national security officials for the US and other countries, some of whom provided exclusive inside accounts. The reporting also drew on last year’s House investigation, digging into significant findings that have received little public attention, plus court files, government documents, academic studies, private inquiries and public records in the US, China and Mexico.

Prison business

In 2010, the Hebei Prison Administration Bureau combined three detention facilities to create a high-security prison in Shijiazhuang, the capital of Hebei province. The region is a base of China’s chemical industry, which is the largest in the world. It is also weakly regulated and freewheeling, according to US national security officials, private studies and other sources. Companies peddle everything from innocuous fertilizers to deadly opioids.

Liu Jianhua, a veteran Chinese Communist Party official with a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Illinois Chicago, became director of the prison in 2014. By then, fentanyl was cutting a swath across America. Overdose deaths soared due to the ease with which US users and dealers could acquire fentanyl products by mail from China.

China’s high-tech surveillance apparatus aggressively polices the online activities of its citizens. Yet sales of fentanyl to foreigners have thrived on popular, easily accessible websites, said Frank Montoya Jr., a former FBI agent with years of China-related experience who served as a top U.S. counterintelligence official.

“You don’t have to go on the dark web,” Montoya said. “It is out in the open.”

Yafeng Biological Technology Co. Ltd., also known as Hebei Shijiazhuang Yafeng Chemical Plant, became a typical player on this frontier, the congressional inquiry found. (As part of its reporting, ProPublica mapped links between the prison, the company and the US drug market with the help of two entities that specialize in China open-source research: Sayari, a company that provides risk management and supply-chain analysis and that supported the House inquiry, and C4ADS, a nonprofit that investigates illicit global networks.)

Yafeng’s websites and Chinese corporate records describe the firm as a chemical manufacturer. It has ties through other websites, phone numbers and email addresses to at least nine companies that advertised illicit drugs, causing investigators to conclude that Yafeng was a network hub, according to the report and interviews. It’s common for interconnected Chinese fentanyl producers and brokers to obscure details about their enterprises and change names and platforms to elude detection, US officials said.

In some ways, Yafeng presented itself to foreign buyers as a respectable company. The English-language websites featured peppy phrases like “team spirit” and “promoting the well-being of community.” The China-based sales representatives gave themselves Western names: Diana, Monica, Jessica. A map of markets showed shipping routes from China to the United States, Mexico, Canada and other countries.

Yet the sales pitches left little doubt that the firm knew its activities were illegal. Yafeng websites utilized familiar terms assuring US and Mexican drug users and traffickers of the company’s skill at smuggling illegal narcotics overseas, according to the House report and US investigators.

The company touted its use of “hidden food bags,” a method in which drugs are concealed in shipments labeled as food products. Ads promised “strong safety delivery to Mexico, USA” with “packaging made to measure” to “guarantee” that illicit chemicals would elude border inspections, documents show.

Chinese traffickers often discuss lawbreaking in such brazen terms with foreign customers, seemingly unconcerned about China’s omnipresent surveillance system, court files and interviews show.

Another firm, Hubei Amarvel Biotech, explicitly explained to US and Mexican clients online — complete with photos — its methods for “100% stealth shipping” of drugs disguised as nuts, dog food and motor oil, court documents say. After undercover DEA agents lured two Amarvel executives to Fiji and arrested them, a New York jury convicted them in February on charges of importation of fentanyl precursors and money laundering. (One defendant, Yiyi Chen, has filed a motion requesting an acquittal or retrial.)

At the time of the arrests, the Chinese government issued a statement condemning the US prosecution as “a typical example of arbitrary detention and unilateral sanctions.”

Similarly, Yafeng websites displayed photos of narcotics in plastic baggies to peddle a long list of chemicals, including fentanyl precursors and U-47700, a powerful fentanyl analogue outlawed in both the US and China that has no medical use, the House report says.

One victim of U-47700 was Garrett Holman of Lynchburg, Virginia. Holman had fallen in with youths who discovered how easy it was to buy synthetic drugs online. In late 2016, Holman overdosed on U-47700, street name “pinky,” that arrived by mail from southern China. His father, Don, performed CPR before paramedics rushed Holman to the hospital. Although he survived, another overdose killed him just days before his 21st birthday in February 2017.

“My son’s opioid exposure was less than two months,” Don Holman told a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee the next year. “At 20 years old, I do not believe my son deserved to die for his initial bad choices.”

The father handed over evidence, including the envelope in which the drugs arrived, to federal agents, who traced about 20 shipments back to the same sender in China, he said in an interview. Don Holman blames the fentanyl crisis on the American appetite for opioids as well as the Chinese government. He has spent eight years telling anyone he can, from drug czars to fellow parents, about the experience that shattered his family.

“I’ve had to hit parents right between the eyes, like: ‘Hey, your child is not going to be here if you don’t do something,” he said. “You need to wake up.’”

No link to Yafeng surfaced in that case. The firm’s sales of U-47700 and other illicit drugs occurred during a period when its sole owner and controlling shareholder was the Shijiazhuang prison, according to the House inquiry, Sayari and C4ADS.

One of Yafeng’s street addresses was that of the prison, ProPublica determined through satellite photos and public records. Another Yafeng address next door also houses the offices of a clothing firm owned by the provincial prison administration. A third Yafeng address a few blocks away is a former municipal police station, records and photos show.

The director of the prison, Liu Jianhua, left his post after becoming the target of a corruption inquiry in 2021, according to Chinese media reports. It’s unknown how that investigation was resolved or if his fall had anything to do with the drug activity. Liu could not be reached for comment. The prison administration did not respond to requests for comment.

Yafeng stopped doing business under that name at some point between 2018 and 2022, records show. Yet the Yafeng group continued to function through at least one of its affiliated websites, protonitazene.com, the congressional report said. As of last year, the site was still advertising “hot sale to Mexico” of drugs including nitazenes, which are 25 times more powerful than fentanyl.

Government incentives

Yafeng is not the only company with connections to the Chinese state and fentanyl.

Gaosheng Biotechnology in Shanghai is “wholly state-owned,” congressional investigators found. The company sold fentanyl precursors and other narcotics — some illegal in China — on 98 websites to US, Mexican and European customers, the report says. Senior provincial development officials visited Gaosheng and praised its benefits for the regional economy. Gaosheng did not respond to requests for comment.

The Chinese government owned a stake in Zhejiang Netsun, a private firm that had a Chinese Communist Party member serving on its board of directors as a deputy general manager, the congressional report says. Netsun carried out over 400 sales of illegal narcotics, the report says, and served as a billing or technical contact for over 100 similar companies — including Yafeng. Netsun did not respond to requests for comment.

And the Shanghai government gave monetary awards and export credits to Shanghai Ruizheng Chemical Technology Co., a “notorious seller of fentanyl products, which it advertises widely and openly on Chinese websites like Alibaba,” the report says. Chinese officials invited company reps to roundtable discussions about technology and business. Shanghai Ruizheng did not respond to requests for comment.

Chinese government officials who interact with the trafficking underworld are often prominent in provincial governments, where corruption is widespread, said a former senior DEA official, Donald Im, who led investigations focused on China. Not only can they make money through kickbacks or investments, but they benefit politically, rising in the Communist Party hierarchy if their local chemical industries prosper.

“Key government officials know about the fentanyl trade and they let it happen,” Im said.

China’s central government also plays a vital role by providing systemic financial incentives that fuel fentanyl trafficking to the Americas, US officials say. The House inquiry discovered a national Value-Added Tax rebate program that has spurred exports of at least 17 illegal narcotics with no legitimate purpose. They include a fentanyl product that is “up to 6,000 times stronger than morphine,” the House report says.

This state subsidy program has pumped billions of dollars into the export of fentanyl products, including ones outlawed in China, according to the report and US officials. The tax rebate is 13%, the highest available rate. To qualify, companies have to document the names and quantities of chemicals and other details of transactions, the report says.

The existence of this paper trail refutes a frequent claim by Chinese leaders: that weak regulation of the chemical sector makes it impossible to identify and punish suspects.

Chinese officials did not respond to specific questions about the government financial incentives or the state-connected companies involved in drug trafficking. But the embassy spokesperson said China has targeted online sellers with a “national internet cleanup campaign.”

During that crackdown, Liu Pengyu said, Chinese authorities have cleaned “14 online platforms, canceled over 330 company accounts, shut down over 1,000 online shops, removed over 152,000 online advertisements, and closed 10 botnet websites.” He said Chinese law enforcement has determined that many illegal ads appear on foreign online platforms.

Wall of resistance

In May 2018, Cronin — then a federal prosecutor based in Cleveland — went to Beijing in pursuit of one of the biggest targets in the grim history of the fentanyl crisis: the Zheng drug trafficking organization, an international empire accused of trafficking in 37 US states.

Cronin and his team of agents hoped to persuade Chinese authorities to prosecute Guanghua and Fujing Zheng, a father and son who were the top suspects. They ran into a wall of resistance.

In an interview, Cronin recalled walking into a cavernous room in China’s Ministry of Public Security where a row of senior officials and uniformed police waited at a long table. A curtain-sized Chinese flag covered a wall.

Cronin took a breath, opened a stack of binders he had lugged from Cleveland and presented his case. The prosecutor laid out evidence connecting the Zhengs, who were chemical company executives based in Shanghai, to two overdoses in Ohio. The US distribution hub was a warehouse near Boston run by a Chinese chemist, Bin Wang. Later, Wang said he simultaneously worked for the Chinese government “tracking chemicals produced in China” and traveled home monthly from Boston “to consult with Chinese officials,” a memo by his lawyer said.

The response of the Chinese counterdrug chiefs was a brush-off, Cronin recalled in the interview. Essentially, he said, they told him: “You are right that the Zhengs are exporting these drugs that are killing Americans. But unfortunately, technically what they are doing is not a violation of Chinese law.”

Cronin pulled out another binder. He went over evidence and an expert analysis showing that the Zhengs had committed Chinese felonies, including money laundering, manufacturing of counterfeit drugs and mislabeling of packages.

Tensions rose when the Chinese officials responded that, unfortunately, the police unit that handled such offenses was not available; they rebuffed Cronin’s offer to delay his return flight in order to meet with that unit, he said.

After the US Justice Department charged the Zhengs that August with a drug trafficking conspiracy resulting in death, a Chinese newspaper reported that a Chinese senior counterdrug official criticized the case. The US “failed to provide China any evidence to prove Zheng violated Chinese law,” the official said.

Later, the US Treasury Department sanctioned the Zhengs and designated the son as a drug kingpin. US investigators told ProPublica they concluded that the Zhengs operated with the blessing of the Chinese government, citing the defendants’ sheer volume of business, high-profile online activity and open communications on WeChat, the Chinese messaging platform that authorities heavily monitor.

Ohio courts granted millions of dollars in civil damages to the family of Thomas Rauh, a 37-year-old who died of an overdose in Akron in 2015. The family never received any money, however.

Rauh’s father, James, who traveled and did business in China in his youth, has become an antidrug activist. He said the US government must do more to crack down on China’s role and counter public stigma that still blames addicts.

“I don’t think the US government wants to take the responsibility for confronting this,” he said.

A decade of frustration has compelled James Rauh to call for a drastic solution. He wants the US to designate fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction in response to what he sees as an intentional Chinese campaign.

“It’s asymmetric warfare,” he said.

Wang pleaded guilty and served prison time. The Zhengs, however, remain free in China and have never responded to the allegations in court. During a brief encounter with a “60 Minutes” journalist in Shanghai in 2019, Guanghua Zheng denied he was still selling fentanyl in the United States and said the Chinese government “has nothing to do with it.”

The Zheng case is typical, said Im, the former senior DEA official. Thousands of DEA leads relayed to Chinese counterparts over the years have been “met with silence,” he said. In other cases, Chinese officials have asked for more details about the targets of US investigations — and then warned suspects linked to the Communist Party, Im said.

Most US national security officials interviewed for this story described similar experiences, citing a few exceptions, such as a joint US-Chinese operation in Hebei province in 2019.

A former DEA agent, William Kinghorn, recalled the dispiriting aftermath of an investigation he oversaw centered on Chuen Fat Yip, whose firms allegedly distributed more than $280 million worth of drugs. Yip has denied wrongdoing and denounced US criminal charges and sanctions. He is on the DEA’s 10 most wanted fugitives list and remains free in China, US officials said.

“We obtained information that the Chinese authorities did ban or shut down the companies” the DEA targeted in the case, Kinghorn said in an interview. “We learned that afterward these same people [linked to Yip] were now owning or managing similar companies. Even though they had been banned, they basically just changed the name of the company.”

A sense of impunity persists in the chemical industry, according to a 2023 inquiry by Elliptic, a UK analytics firm. It reported that many of the 90 Chinese companies contacted by its undercover researchers were “willing to supply fentanyl itself, despite this being banned in China since 2019.”

The final year of the Biden administration brought signs of modest progress in China, including new regulations, shutdowns of firms, and arrests of a suspected money launderer and four senior chemical company employees charged by US prosecutors.

Citing those cases from 2024, spokesperson Liu Pengyu said China has “collaborated closely” with the US, adding, “Multiple major cases are making great progress.”

Meanwhile, US overdose deaths fell by 33% compared with the previous year, according to the annual threat assessment by the US intelligence community released March 25. The drop may be tied to the increased availability of naloxone, a drug for treating overdoses, the report said.

The threat assessment report warned that “China likely will struggle to sufficiently constrain” companies and criminal groups involved in the US fentanyl trade, “absent greater law enforcement actions.”

Cronin, the former federal prosecutor, went on to become chief investigative counsel for the House Select Committee. He led last year’s inquiry into China’s role in the fentanyl crisis. The committee’s review of seven Chinese company websites found over 31,000 instances of firms offering illegal chemicals during a period of about three months in early 2024.

Undercover communications with the firms “revealed an eagerness to engage in clearly illicit drug sales,” the report says, “with no fear of reprisal.”

Kirsten Berg contributed research. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.

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Why are some women in Singapore embracing digital love and virtual boyfriends in this popular mobile game?

THE JOURNEY TO SELF-WORTH

The majority of people claimed that the match had no significant impact on their feelings toward heart-related issues. Yet, it has influenced them more in terms of their own self-worth.

” I’m somewhat older and have experienced quite a bit in life, but I don’t think the game has had a significant impact on my real-life views on love, marriage, or interactions,” said Yvonne, who recently broke up with her boyfriend. That’s not to suggest it weren’t, but for me, it hasn’t.

Do I occasionally experience intimate feelings while playing the game, despite that? Yes, sometimes. It’s an uncontested game created for that reason, after all.

” But it’s another issue how profoundly those emotions engender.” At the end of the day, I like playing it. I enjoy the functions and interaction with various female heroes, but that’s where I draw the line, she continued.

Society generally holds that if we play online dating game to frequently, we won’t be able to take real relationships with men. The game teaches us how to treat and be recognized and helps us understand our value in a marriage.

However, psychology warn that truth and fiction may overlap as AI technology develops and sports like Adore and Deepspace become more compelling and practical.

The person feels fully immersed if the individual and the sport character engage in more back-and-forth “natural conversations.” They may think these interactions are true, but they struggle to tell the difference between real and imagined ones, says Ooi from The Counselling Place.

Balance is essential. Apply these activities to relax, reflect, or decompress, but be sure to keep them out of your daily life, Pong said.

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With Trump talking with Tehran, could a new nuclear deal be next? – Asia Times

On April 26, Iranian and American diplomats are scheduled to meet again in Oman, which should raise hopes that, albeit cautiously, the two nations will be moving closer to a fresh nuclear agreement.

The planned talks follow the two preceding rounds of indirect conversations that have taken place under the new Trump presidency. Those conversations were deemed to have produced sufficient progress for sending nuclear specialists from both sides to initiate elaborating the specifics of a possible model for a deal.

Given that Trump unilaterally withdrawn the US from a bilateral agreement with Iran in 2018, the growth is particularly noteworthy. That package, negotiated during the Obama administration, place restrictions on Tehran’s atomic programme in return for sanctions relief. Trump rather pursued a plan that involved putting more pressure on Iran’s finances through increased punishment and making inherent military threats.

However, that strategy failed to halt Iran’s nuclear program.

Then, rather than resurrect the maximum pressure policy of his first term, Trump – always good to be seen as a dealmaker – has given his team the natural light for the renewed diplomacy and yet apparently rebuffed, for then, Israel’s desire to launch defense strikes against Tehran.

Jaw-jaw over a war-war

Iran-US ties are back to where they were under the Obama administration thanks to efforts to spur Iran on to curtail or ban uranium enrichment.

Only this time, with the US having left the previous offer in 2018, Iran has had seven years to improve on its enrichment capacity and hoard considerably more plutonium than had been allowed under the abandoned authority.

As a long-time analyst on US international policy and nuclear disarmament, I believe Trump has a unique chance to build a more comprehensive agreement and improve relationships with the Islamic Republic in the process.

It is true that Trump enjoys the optics of dealmaking, but there are also actual indications that a potential deal might be in the works.

But an agreement is by no means certain. Any progress toward a deal will be hampered by a number of factors, not the least of which are internal divisions and opposition within the Trump administration, skepticism among some in the Islamic Republic, and uncertainty over a succession plan for the ailing Ayatollah Khamenei.

Conservative hawks are still present in both nations, which could yet dampen any efforts to lower diplomatic tensions.

A checkered diplomatic past

There are also decades of untrust to be overcome.

Since the Iranian revolution of 1979 and the subsequent retakeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, it is understated to say that the US and Iran have had a tense relationship.

Many Iranians would say relations have been strained since 1953, when the US and the United Kingdom orchestrated the overthrow of Mohammad Mossadegh, the democratically elected prime minister of Iran.

Since 1979, Washington and Tehran haven’t established diplomatic relations, and their rival countries have waged decades-long conflicts over Middle Eastern influence. Concerning Iranian support for a so-called axis of resistance against the West and, specifically, US interests in the Middle East, tensions continue to rise today. That axis includes Hamas in Palestine, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.

Tehran, for its part, has long balked at American dominance in the area, noting its unwavering support for Israel and its history of military action. In recent years, US action has included direct assaults on Iranian property and personnel. In particular, Tehran is still angry about the 2020 assassination of Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Iran’s nuclear ambitions have remained a constant source of conflict for the United States and Israel, who are the only nuclear power in the area, despite these various disputes.

During the Obama administration, there was a chance for warmer relations between the two countries, despite the Bush administration’s rejection of Iran in 2003.

US diplomats began making contact with Iranian counterparts in 2009 when Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns met with an Iranian negotiator in Geneva. In 2013, the so-called P5 1 started direct negotiations with Iran. This made possible the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA ), or atomic deal, between Iran and the United States.

In that agreement – concluded by the US, Iran, China, Russia and a slew of European nations – Iran agreed to restrictions on its nuclear program, including limits on the level to which it could enrich uranium, which was capped well short of what would be necessary for a nuclear weapon. In exchange, US sanctions would be lifted from both bilateral and multilateral.

With the restraints on a growing nuclear power and hopes for greater economic cohesion with the international community that might lessen some of Iran’s more provocative foreign policy behavior, many observers saw it as a win-win situation.

Yet Israel and Saudi Arabia worried the deal did not entirely eliminate Iran’s ability to enrich uranium, and right-wing critics in the US complained it did not address Iran’s ballistic missile programs or support for militant groups in the region.

Trump and his team of experts in foreign policy pledged to reverse Obama’s course and close any diplomatic doors when he first took office in 2016. Trump unilaterally withdrew US support for the JCPOA despite Iran’s continued adhering to the terms of the deal and lifting sanctions.

Donald the dealmaker?

So what has changed? There are many things, I suppose.

While Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA was welcomed by Republicans, it did nothing to stop Iran from enhancing its ability to enrich uranium.

Saudi Arabia, in turn, is now supporting a deal it opposed during the Obama administration because it wants to change its image and diversify its economy.

Trump still harbors anti-Iran feelings in this second term. But despite his rhetoric of a military option should a deal not be struck, Trump has on numerous occasions stated his opposition to US involvement in another war in the Middle East.

Iran has also experienced a number of blows in recent years that have made it more isolated in the region. Hamas and Hezbollah, which are affiliated with Israel, have been severely weakened as a result of Israel’s military action. Meanwhile, strikes within Iran by Israel have shown the potential reach of Israeli missiles– and the apparent willingness of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to use them. Additionally, Iran has lost a regional ally as a result of President Bashar al-Assad’s removal from Syria.

Tehran also has to deal with a domestic economy that was more fragile during the JCPOA negotiations.

With Iran weakened regionally and Trump’s main global focus being China, a diplomatic avenue with Iran seems entirely in line with Trump’s view of himself as a dealmaker.

A deal is not a predetermined fact.

There appears to be a real window of opportunity for diplomacy now that two rounds of meetings have been completed and the move has been made to more technical aspects of a potential agreement has been negotiated by experts.

This could mean a new agreement that retains the core aspects of the deal Trump previously abandoned. In terms of the enrichment aspect, I’m not convinced that a new agreement will look any different from the one that was.

However, there are still a number of potential roadblocks standing in the way of any potential agreement.

The president appears to be less interested in details than spectacle, as was the case with Trump’s meetings with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during his first term. Even though meeting with an American leader’s counterpart in North Korea was amazing, it ultimately did not make a significant difference in the direction of policy.

On Iran and other issues, the president displays little patience for complicated policy details. The US administration is complicated by intense factionalism, with many Iran hawks who appear to be opposed to a deal, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and national security adviser Mike Waltz. They could clash with newly appointed Vice President JD Vance and Undersecretary of Defense for policy Elbridge Colby, both of whom have previously pushed for a more diplomatic line toward Iran.

As has become a common theme in Trump administration foreign policy– even with its own allies on issues like trade – it’s unclear what a Trump administration policy on Iran actually is, and whether a political commitment exists to carry through any ultimate deal.

Steve Witkoff, the top Trump foreign policy negotiator without any prior experience, demonstrates this tension. Witkoff has already been forced to refute his claim that the US was only attempting to cap the level of uranium enrichment rather than to end the program entirely. He has already been given the task of leading negotiations with Iran.

For its part, Iran has proved that it is serious about diplomacy, previously having accepted Barack Obama’s “extended hand“.

Tehran, however, is unlikely to give in to its own interests or allow itself to suffer the consequences of any agreement.

In the end, the key question is whether pragmatists will reach an agreement with Iran and whether it will be narrow or expansive or stifled by hawks in the administration.

Jeffrey Fields is an associate professor of the practice of international relations at USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

This article was republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the article’s introduction.

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