The official Web site of a Hong Kong-based group that tracked worker unrest in China was unavailable to access on Friday, a day after it abruptly announced it would cease operations due to financial issues.
Founded by veteran pro-democracy protest leader Han Dongfang (韓東方) in 1994, China Labour Bulletin (CLB) said on its site on Thursday that it “can no longer maintain operations.”
It said it would dissolve “due to financial difficulties and debt issues,” and would stop updating its Web site, according to an archived Web page seen by Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Photo: AP
Its social media platforms have also been removed.
The Web site monitored the Chinese labor movement from Hong Kong, tracking and mapping worker unrest for three decades, closely watching the biggest labor disputes related to China and documenting worker strikes across the country.
An AFP reporter visited CLB’s office address in Hong Kong on Friday afternoon and saw it closed for business with its sign removed.
The residence’s landlord took the office back at least a month ago, security staff at the scene said.
Before the group shut down, it reposted on social media a report analyzing international workers’ strikes that it had jointly researched.
Its Web site could be accessed as normal on Thursday.
The group’s founder Han was a leading protester and unionist in pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing in 1989, which eventually turned into a bloody crackdown around Tiananmen Square.
He was jailed for his role in the protests and moved to Hong Kong in the 1990s where he started a decades-long effort to promote and defend Chinese workers’ rights remotely.
Last month, he indicated on social media that he and his team would continue “without ending” their tracking work.
“Let’s keep our faith up at this abnormal time and continue our important work,” he wrote.
However, on Friday he told the Central News Agency the decision to dissolve was made by himself and “due to financial problems,” adding that he would stay in Hong Kong.
Han reportedly declined to answer other questions.
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
Taiwan is still in the process of assessing the possibility of recruiting workers from Eswatini, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, adding that its goal is to help Eswatini upgrade its vocational training centers. If there are plans to recruit workers from Eswatini, safeguarding national security, protecting public health and ensuring the employment rights of Taiwanese would be prerequisites, Department of West Asian and African Affairs Director-General Yen Chia-liang (顏嘉良) told a news conference. Key considerations would also include filling labor shortages in specific industries, and fostering bilateral professional and technical exchanges, he said. Yen was asked about the progress of labor
A US uncrewed surface vessel (USV) encountered multiple Chinese warships during an autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait, US defense company Seasats said in a statement on Wednesday. Seasats announced that a Lightfish USV had completed the first autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait. Over five days, the USV traversed the entire length of the Strait while constantly monitoring surface vessel traffic, the company said. The Lightfish encountered multiple Chinese warships, one of which was a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Type 056 corvette, it said. The Chinese vessels were operating “well within Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone without transmitting their identity via the
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
RSS