East Asia ,Asia (Page 6)

Kong-rey is currently more powerful than the deadly Typhoon Gaemi, which was the strongest typhoon to hit Taiwan in eight years when it made landfall in July.

“If (Kong-rey) keeps the current wind speed, it will be the biggest typhoon in eight years,” Chang Chun-yao from the state weather forecaster, Central Weather Administration, told AFP.

Classes and work were suspended on the two main islands of Taitung county, where the typhoon looks set to make a direct hit, while dozens of ferry services and domestic flights were cancelled on Wednesday.

Taipei residents planning to hunker down during the storm stocked up on fresh vegetables, while fishers wearing slickers against the rain tethered their boats in the harbour in Yilan county, southeast of the capital.

“Of course I’m worried. All my assets are here,” a fisherman, who gave his name as Captain Chen, told AFP.

Kong-rey was expected to dump the heaviest rain on Taiwan’s eastern and northern coastal areas, and over the mountains in the central and southern regions, the Central Weather Administration said.

Yilan and the eastern county of Hualien were expected to be hardest hit, with accumulated rainfall from Tuesday to Friday reaching 800ml to 1,200ml, forecaster Chang told AFP.

“Based on the projected path of the typhoon, we advise Yilan, Hualien, and Taitung to take precautions against potential landslides and debris flows in areas expected to receive heavy rainfall,” Chang said.

Authorities began evacuating residents from their homes in the southern seaport city of Kaohsiung on Wednesday, as well as in Yilan, Hualien and Taitung, according to the National Fire Agency.

“There is heightened concern as some recovery work from the last typhoon has yet to begin, and extra caution is advised for areas affected by recent earthquakes,” said Chen-yu Chen of the Soil and Water Conservation Bureau, who leads a team monitoring disasters in slope areas.

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SINGAPORE: “I got a call from a grassroots (worker) this morning, asking if I was pregnant,” reads a viral post on the Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu. 

It was liked more than 11,000 times and received thousands of comments – and was just one out of multiple accounts describing similar experiences.

Chinese women shared that they received bizarre phone calls from supposed government workers, asking about family planning and pregnancy. 

A Xiaohongshu user by the username Guo Guo, said she received a phone call which was uncomfortably personal and invasive. The working mother of two shared that she was asked when she would be conceiving a third child. 

Although shocked, she still responded that she simply “did not have the time” as she was busy working. To which the caller replied: “You can get pregnant first. If your mother-in-law can’t take care of (your children), you can ask your mum.” 

“Fertility call checks” was also a topic trend on the Sina Weibo microblogging site, with users questioning the legitimacy of such calls and discussing whether or not it was appropriate to be asking women such invasive and private questions. 

“Things are getting desperate,” wrote a Weibo user in a comment that drew hundreds of likes. “I can’t see how effective this type of interrogation will be in the long run. How will it contribute to population numbers?” 

“This is even weirder than scam calls,” another user said. 

Grassroots government workers were ringing up women across the country as part of “a vigorous campaign organised by district administrative networks”, according to a Oct 28 report published by the South China Morning Post. 

“The central government also hopes to learn why so many women are reluctant to have more children and devise new policy options,” the report said. 

Workers would record and collect information such as marriage and childbirth statistics, which would then be entered into a central monitoring system, according to Caixin Global, a Beijing-based media group. 

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SINGAPORE: A woman has been sentenced to death in China for abducting and trafficking 17 children in three different provinces between 1993 and 2003.

The retrial of Yu Huaying, 61, has drawn huge public interest across the country after her crimes came to light in 2022 when a 34-year-old victim reported her ordeal of being trafficked by Yu.

Yu Huaying was found guilty of child abduction after the retrial.  

“The circumstances and the consequences of the crimes are extremely serious and she should be severely punished,” the Intermediate People’s Court of Guiyang said, in a verdict shared on its official Weibo page on Friday (Oct 25).

Although Yu confessed to her crimes, it was “not enough to warrant a lighter punishment”, the court added. 

In China, the death penalty is imposed in the most extreme cases for crimes such as drug trafficking, murder and rape, courts say. Death sentences have also been handed out for political corruption and bribery cases. 

Under Chinese law, anyone found guilty of trafficking women or children will face a prison sentence ranging from five to ten years, as well as a fine. 

Because of the “particularly serious consequences” of her crimes, Yu received the harshest punishment “in accordance with the law”, the court said. 

She was also “deprived of her political rights” and all personal property would be confiscated, it added. 

TRAFFICKING HER OWN CHILD 

Yu’s own son was her first victim. Chinese state media outlets reported that Yu trafficked her biological son, eventually selling him for 5,000 yuan (US$701). 

She then went on to abduct 17 children from 12 families, with 5 of the families losing two children at once.  

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