China

China's coronavirus outbreak worsened as rising cases in Beijing sparked jitters about an unprecedented lockdown of the capital, with policy makers racing ...

The shouts of locked-down residents demanding basic necessities, the cries of babies separated from their parents in quarantine, the pleas of a son ...

In Beijing, residents rushed to buy groceries on Sunday evening amid a fresh coronavirus outbreak that officials described as "urgent and grim." Photos and videos shared online show long lines and empty shelves at Beijing supermarkets and "sold out" signs on grocery-delivery apps. Censors struggled to keep up -- no sooner would they block one version of the video did another resurface, and the mouse and cat game continued into the small hours of Saturday. On Saturday, Chinese social media was flooded with photos of workers in white hazmat suits installing green fences outside apartment buildings in Shanghai. An online backlash ensued, with users joining a social media relay in defiance, sharing the video in whatever way they can come up with to evade censors. Censors quickly stepped in, taking down the film as well as any references to it from China's internet.

China is meddling with free enterprise as it hasn't in decades. The results are familiar to those old enough to remember: scarcity, and the rise of black ...

He told me that he borrowed money from relatives and friends to pay the loans this month. This joint propaganda has undercut Western efforts to isolate Russia diplomatically and has found a receptive audience in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. But they must follow a set of complicated and expensive pandemic-control measures, including creating what’s called a closed-loop management system in which workers live on-site and test regularly for the virus. The state media, provincial party secretaries and lower-level government officials all know who is in charge and are eager to show their loyalty. Besides the troubling ghost of a planned economy, the business community is also facing conflicting messages from the government. The approach has a strong element of a planned economy, in which the government controls business activities, rather than letting the market regulate supply and demand. On the black market, some operators are willing to pay $2,000 for a day pass. During the outbreak, the Shanghai government upended the commercial systems and tried to provide for 25 million people on its own. As much of the world is opening up, the country is doubling down on its zero Covid policy, making low death and infection rates central to its legitimacy. Back then, the government’s digital surveillance systems to limit the movements of vehicles and people were less extensive. Then the Omicron variant started spreading in China. In the government’s zealous pursuit of its “ zero Covid” policy, dozens of cities along the 1,300 miles of highway between the capital, Beijing, and the southern province of Guangdong, his main freight route, imposed travel restrictions and lockdowns. He worked as a farmer and a construction worker before joining the country’s nascent logistics industry.

Dozens of cases were reported, sparking fears that Beijing could face a similar situation to Shanghai.

You can also get in touch in the following ways: Another Weibo user in Shanghai said: "Seeing people in Beijing rush to buy food is both funny and distressing… In contrast to many other countries, China is pursuing a zero-Covid strategy with the aim of eradicating the virus from the country completely. Separately, Pang Xinghuo, deputy director of the Beijing Center for Disease Prevention and Control, told state-media outlet China Daily that the number of cases in Beijing is expected to increase in the following days. Some in locked-down areas of Shanghai say they have been struggling to access food supplies, and forced to wait for government drop-offs of vegetables, meat and eggs. The Chinese capital Beijing has kicked off mass testing for millions of residents after a spike in Covid cases.

Beijing has ordered three rounds of mass testing prompting fears of a lockdown which triggered panic buying across the Chinese capital.

Food prices have skyrocketed in Shanghai and stocks remain low in many shops, with no end of the lockdown in sight. China's financial hub is closing in on its first month of a severe lockdown. Although Beijing has reported far fewer cases of Covid-19 compared with Shanghai, the news that mass testing will be conducted in the capital sparked fears that a lockdown could be introduced, similar to the one in Shanghai. The financial hub has been in lockdown for weeks as it battles the coronavirus with a strict lockdown in accordance with China's zero-Covid policy.

China is hunting Uyghurs around the world, with help from some surprising countries ... More than 1,500 Uyghurs have been detained, extradited or rendered, most ...

In a statement to NBC News, an Interpol spokesperson said that a “specialized task force” reviews every red notice request to ensure compliance with the organization’s rules, taking into account information available at the time of publication, and can re-examine any notice if new information emerges, as it did in the Morocco case. “This is complete callousness [on the part of Saudi Arabia] knowing what will happen to these Uyghurs when they get to China,” Zenz said. In Morocco, a Uyghur human rights activist and journalist critical of China’s policies remains imprisoned following an Interpol red notice against him issued at Beijing’s request. The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment on this article. The database includes 60 documented cases of Uyghurs accused of promoting or partaking in separatism or terrorism or being linked to an extremist group. Beijing says these “re-education camps” provide vocational training and are necessary to fight extremism.

China has called on its top producing province to guarantee thermal coal supplies to some of the industrial hubs on the coast threatened by power shortages.

Officials in Beijing will require the people who reside or work in Chaoyang—the city's main business district—to undergo three Covid-19 tests this week ...

City officials have allowed some residents—residing in areas deemed safe—to step out of the homes but wider restrictions across the city are set to remain in place until new infections are effectively eliminated. Despite facing the highly infectious BA.2 Omicron variant the coronavirus, Chinese authorities have remained steadfast in their pursuit for “zero-Covid.” Earlier this month, China’s President Xi Jinping backed the approach stating that “prevention and control work cannot be relaxed.” However, stringent nature of the lockdown in Shanghai has cause anger and frustration among citizens, whose criticism of authorities has been blocked by China’s web censors. Residents in Beijing rushed to stock up on food and other essential items and supermarkets in the city stayed open till late on Sunday, after authorities raised alarm about the undetected spread of Covid-19 in the city, the New York Times reported.

Fears over China's economy are rising as Beijing district launches mass-testing, factory confidence drops and more British households are hit by rising ...

This is set to get worse, with the estimated number of households experiencing fuel stress hitting five million this month. However, this could be because people are burning through their lockdown savings in a bid to meet their day to day living costs while others opt to borrow more to meet their needs. With that in mind, the likely pressure valve is going to be disruption to China’s export machine, and a cratering of consumer confidence. Mortgage payers have had the option to fix their costs in recent months, but those who rent will feel very exposed to further increases in the coming months.” Back in 2014 the gap was 11.7%. The latest measures are likely the most draconian yet with infected people being transferred to government quarantine facilities, while some neighbourhoods have been fenced off. It is always possible that the deal collapses at the last minute, the sources added. Authorities have placed parts of Chaoyang district under lockdown and ordered residents to get tested three times this week. Restrictions in Shanghai are being tightened again, having been partially eased only last week, after a fresh flare-up in daily cases. This triggered panic as people had hoped that lockdowns would ease in Shanghai rather than more restrictions being imposed elsewhere. Although some parts of China have been under restrictions longer than Shanghai, omicron’s arrival in Beijing would be an ominous development. China has tightened parts of the Shanghai lockdown, including erecting fences around apartment buildings with Covid-19 infected individuals.