Day: August 22, 2021

This latest wave has swept across 17 provinces and more than 30 cities since July 20, with 1,262 local cases reported as of August 20, but new infections are tapering off, National Health Committee data shows. Two routes of infection Accumulated cases from July 20 to August 19 The clusters have been traced back to an airport in Nanjing in east China, and a hospital in Zhengzhou in central China Hover over/tap the graphic to see more details Route 1: Nanjing Lukou International Airport Route 2: The No.6 People’s Hospital…

Using everything from rap music to fake Facebook posts, experts say the propaganda efforts have been successful at convincing the domestic Chinese audience to cast scepticism on international criticism of the country’s role in the Covid-19 pandemic. But, experts say, it has done little to legitimise China to the outside world. BBC

By targeting opposition figures in local councils, the authorities are effectively burying the last vestige of democracy in Hong Kong. Dozens of politicians are in jail and facing potential life sentences on national security charges. Apple Daily, a major pro-democracy newspaper, has been forced to close after the arrest of its founder and top editors. Hong Kong’s largest teachers union and the Civil Human Rights Front, which organized large protest marches, both said in recent days that they would disband. Beijing has rewritten the rules for future elections to bar…

A US soldier (C) point his gun towards an Afghan passenger at the Kabul airport in Kabul on August 16, 2021, after a stunningly swift end to Afghanistan’s 20-year war, as thousands of people mobbed the city’s airport trying to flee the group’s feared hardline brand of Islamist rule. (Photo by Wakil KOHSAR / AFP) South China Morning Post