Temu: Risk popular website sells forced labour goods (BBC)
US lawmakers are warning of an “extremely high risk” that products sold on the Chinese online shopping site Temu have been made with forced labour.
“American consumers should know that there is an extremely high risk that Temu’s supply chains are contaminated with forced labor,” the House Select Committee on the Chinese Community Party said in its report.
It said the company requires suppliers to agree to a “code of conduct” but relies on third parties to flag problems, describing the process as a “dubious” system.
“Temu does not have any system to ensure compliance with the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA). This all but guarantees that shipments from Temu containing products made with forced labor are entering the United States on a regular basis,” it said.
Hasan Minhaj’s “Emotional Truths” (The New Yorker)
BY CLARE MALONE
In his standup specials, the former “Patriot Act” host often recounts harrowing experiences he’s faced as an Asian American and Muslim American. Does it matter that much of it never happened to him?
“He tonally presents himself as a person who was always taking down the despots and dictators of the world and always speaking truth to power,” one former “Patriot Act” employee said. “That’s grating.” A comedy writer who has worked for “The Daily Show” said that most comics’ acts wouldn’t pass a rigorous fact-check, but, if a show is built on sharing something personal that’s not necessarily laugh-out-loud funny, the invention of important details could make an audience feel justifiably cheated. “If he’s lying about real people and real events, that’s a problem,” the writer said. “So much of the appeal of those stories is ‘This really happened.’ ”
A Tiananmen Square Musical Worries About China’s Glare (NYT)
By CHRISTOPHER KUO
The original lead actor and director withdrew from the Phoenix production of a show about the 1989 pro-democracy protests, a topic that China aggressively censors.
The departures illustrate how frightening it can be for people with connections to China to bring attention to the 1989 protests in Beijing. The Chinese government continues to evade responsibility for the massacre and tries to eradicate any remembrance of the event — the brutal conclusion to weeks of demonstrations that had pierced the Communist Party’s facade of invincibility.
Highways are the next antiabortion target. One Texas town is resisting (The Washington Post)
BY CAROLINE Kitchener
A new ordinance, passed in several jurisdictions and under consideration elsewhere, aims to stop people from using local roads to drive someone out of state for an abortion.
“I believe we’re making a mistake if we do this,” said Chandler council member Janeice Lunsford, minutes before she and her colleagues agreed to push the vote to another time. She later told The Washington Post that she felt the state’s abortion ban already did enough to stop abortions in Texas.
Then came the Llano City Council meeting on Aug. 21. Speaking to the crowd, Almond was careful to emphasize her antiabortion beliefs.
“I hate abortion,” she said. “I’m a Jesus lover like all of you in here.”
Still, she said, she couldn’t help thinking about the time in college when she picked up a friend from an abortion clinic — and how someone might have tried to punish her under this law.
YEARS AFTER #METOO, DEFAMATION CASES INCREASINGLY TARGET VICTIMS WHO CAN’T AFFORD TO SPEAK OUT (The Intercept)
BY BRYCE COVERT
Sexual abuse victims without the resources to fight off lawsuits may feel forced to recant their accusations — or never speak out in the first place.
She wasn’t planning to pursue legal action; she just wanted to warn others. Instead, it was the man she accused who sued her. Almost immediately after she put up her post, he sent her a letter threatening to sue her for defamation if she didn’t take it down. She refused. She hoped it was just an empty threat. But less than three weeks later, he filed a defamation lawsuit against her, according to court records, and demanded $25,000.
Qatar Airways executive says invasive gynecological examinations of passengers won’t be repeated (ABC News)
BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
A senior Qatar Airways executive has told an Australian Senate inquiry that there will be no repeat of an incident at Doha’s international airport in 2020 in which female passengers were subjected to invasive gynecological examinations.
The five Australian women, whose names are suppressed by a court gag order, say they were taken off the flight to Sydney at Doha at gunpoint by guards and were searched without consent.
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