BEIJING: China has suspended or closed the social media accounts of more than 1,000 critics of the government’s policies on the COVID-19 outbreak, as the country moves to further open up.
The popular Sina Weibo social media platform said it had addressed 12,854 violations including attacks on experts, scholars and medical workers and issued temporary or permanent bans on 1,120 accounts.
The ruling Communist Party had largely relied on the medical community to justify its harsh lockdowns, quarantine measures and mass testing, almost all of which it abruptly abandoned last month, leading to a surge in new cases that have stretched medical resources to their limits. The party allows no direct criticism and imposes strict limits on free speech.
The company “will continue to increase the investigation and cleanup of all kinds of illegal content, and create a harmonious and friendly community environment for the majority of users,” Sina Weibo said in a statement dated Thursday.
Criticism has largely focused on heavy-handed enforcement of regulations, including open-ended travel restrictions that saw people confined to their homes for weeks, sometimes sealed inside without adequate food or medical care. Anger was also vented over the requirement that anyone who potentially tested positive or had been in contact with such a person be confined for observation in a field hospital, where overcrowding, poor food and hygiene were commonly cited.
The social and economic costs eventually prompted rare street protests in Beijing and other cities, possibly influencing the party’s decision to swiftly ease the strictest measures.
As part of the latest changes, China will also no longer bring criminal charges against people accused of violating border quarantine regulations, according to a notice issued by five government departments on Saturday.
Individuals currently in custody will be released and seized assets returned, the notice said.
The adjustments “were made after comprehensively considering the harm of the behaviors to the society, and aim to adapt to the new situations of the epidemic prevention and control,” the official China Daily newspaper website said in a report on the notice.
China is now facing a surge in cases and hospitalizations in major cities and is bracing for a further spread into less developed areas with the start of the Lunar New Year travel rush, set to get underway in coming days. While international flights are still reduced, authorities say they expect domestic rail and air journeys will double over the same period last year, bringing overall numbers close to those of the 2019 holiday period before the pandemic hit.
The Transportation Ministry on Friday called on travelers to reduce trips and gatherings, particularly if they involve elderly people, pregnant women, small children and those with underlying conditions.
People using public transport are also urged to wear masks and pay special attention to their health and personal hygiene, Vice Minister Xu Chengguang told reporters at a briefing.
Nonetheless, China is forging ahead with a plan to end mandatory quarantines for people arriving from abroad beginning on Sunday.
Beijing also plans to drop a requirement for students at city schools to have a negative COVID-19 test to enter campus when classes resume Feb. 13 after the holiday break. While schools will be allowed to move classes online in the event of new outbreaks, they must return to in-person instruction as soon as possible, the city education bureau said in a statement Friday.
However, the end to mass testing, a highly limited amount of basic data such as the number of deaths, infections and severe cases, and the potential emergence of new variants have prompted governments elsewhere to institute virus testing requirements for travelers from China.
The World Health Organization has also expressed concern about the lack of data from China, while the US is requiring a negative test result for travelers from China within 48 hours of departure.
Chinese health authorities publish a daily count of new cases, severe cases and deaths, but those numbers include only officially confirmed cases and use a very narrow definition of COVID-related deaths.
Authorities say that since the government ended compulsory testing and permitted people with mild symptoms to test themselves and convalesce at home, it can no longer provide a full picture of the state of the latest outbreak.
On Saturday, the National Health Commission reported 10,681 new domestic cases, bringing the country’s total number of confirmed cases to 482,057. Three new deaths were also reported over the previous 24 hours, bringing the total to 5,267.
The numbers are a fraction of those announced by the US, which has put its death toll at more than 1 million among some 101 million cases.
But they’re also much smaller than the estimates being released by some local governments. Zhejiang, a province on the east coast, said Tuesday it was seeing about 1 million new cases a day.
China has said the testing requirements being imposed by foreign governments — most recently Germany and Sweden — aren’t science-based and has threatened unspecified countermeasures. Its spokespeople have said the situation is under control, and reject accusations of a lack of preparation for reopening.
Despite such assertions, the Health Commission on Saturday rolled out regulations for strengthened monitoring of viral mutations, including testing of urban wastewater. The lengthy rules called for increased data gathering from hospitals and local government health departments and stepped-up checks on “pneumonia of unknown causes.”
If a variant emerges in an outbreak, it is found through genetic sequencing of the virus.
Since the pandemic started, China has shared 4,144 sequences with GISAID, a global platform for coronavirus data. That’s only 0.04 percent of its reported number of cases — a rate more than 100 times less than the United States and nearly four times less than neighboring Mongolia.
Meanwhile, Hong Kong also plans to reopen some of its border crossings with mainland China on Sunday and allow tens of thousands of people to cross every day without being quarantined.
The semi-autonomous southern Chinese city has been hard-hit by the virus and its land and sea border checkpoints with the mainland have been largely closed for almost three years. Despite the risk, the reopening is expected to provide a much-needed boost to Hong Kong’s tourism and retail sectors.
China suspends social media accounts of COVID policy critics
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China suspends social media accounts of COVID policy critics
- China has suspended or closed the social media accounts of more than 1,000 critics of the government’s policies on the COVID-19 outbreak
EU’s top rights lawyer sounds alarm over Europe’s asylum-seeker pushbacks
- Michael O’Flaherty: ‘Securitization response’ encouraged by populists ‘going too far’
- Poland, Greece, Latvia accused of forcibly expelling asylum-seekers
LONDON: Asylum-seekers are being forcibly expelled at the borders of some EU countries, Europe’s most senior human rights official has warned.
The Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights, Michael O’Flaherty, sounded the alarm over the treatment of asylum-seekers in comments to The Guardian. The “securitization response” encouraged by populists in Europe is “going too far,” he said.
Poland, Greece and Latvia are among the countries that have pushed back asylum-seekers.
O’Flaherty testified last month before the grand chamber of the European Court of Human Rights. The court cases were brought by asylum-seekers against Poland and Latvia.
The case against the former involved 31 Afghans alleging that Polish border guards pushed them back to Belarus in 2021, giving them no chance to claim asylum.
The second case saw 26 Iraqi Kurds allege that they were expelled to Belarus from Latvia the same year.
“The willingness to shut down any possibility of asylum is a violation of law; the willingness to return people across a border at risk of persecution is a violation of international law,” O’Flaherty said.
“And it’s not necessary, because the numbers that are being intercepted at the fences are modest.”
Frontex, the EU’s border agency, reported about 17,000 irregular crossings over the bloc’s eastern land border last year.
Lawmakers in Poland are proposing plans to temporarily suspend the right to asylum. Prime Minister Donald Tusk has said migration is a question of “the survival of our Western civilization.”
Asked about the alleged pushbacks from Poland, O’Flaherty said he was “not in a position to describe a universal practice,” but was “confident that there have been sufficient incidents to be a cause of great concern.”
There is also “compelling evidence” of expulsions on the Greek border with Turkiye, O’Flaherty added.
He visited Greece in February to discuss the Adriana shipwreck with officials. The June 2023 disaster led to more than 700 migrants drowning in the Mediterranean Sea, with NGOs accusing Greek authorities of negligence.
O’Flaherty also addressed growing calls within Europe to “off-shore” asylum processing, including an Italian agreement with Albania and Britain’s axed Rwanda plan.
He said any external centers have to guarantee certain human rights: the right to claim asylum and appeal a decision; “appropriate reception conditions”; no detention of children; and ensuring asylum-seekers would not be returned to a country where they risk persecution.
The current period is the “most challenging time for the protection of human rights” he has seen in his career, O’Flaherty told The Guardian. The Irish national began working with the UN in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1993.
Since 2024, centrist politicians have been willing to suspend or ignore human rights obligations, particularly concerning asylum rights, he said.
“Centrist politicians are saying things that would have been unacceptable a very short time ago, and that worries me, because if I can mangle a quotation from the Irish poet William Butler Yeats, ‘when the centre cannot hold, things fall apart,’” O’Flaherty added.
Indian podcaster charged with obscenity can resume shows if moral standards met, top court says
- Ranveer Allahabadia, known by his moniker BeerBiceps, was charged over his objectionable comments on a YouTube show
- The 31-year-old podcaster, with 20 million YouTube subscribers, has hosted Bollywood stars, businessmen and ministers
NEW DELHI: India’s top court allowed a podcaster charged with obscenity to resume airing his shows on the condition they met standards of “morality and decency,” relaxing on Monday its previous order that the program should stop until further notice.
Popular fitness influencer and podcaster Ranveer Allahabadia, known by his moniker BeerBiceps, was accused of obscenity over remarks he made on a YouTube show, drawing multiple police complaints.
A two-judge Supreme Court bench was, on Monday, hearing Allahabadia’s request that all the cases be bundled into one.
“Subject to the petitioner furnishing an undertaking... that his own podcast shows will maintain the standards of decency and morality, so that viewers of any age group can watch, the petitioner is permitted to resume ‘The Ranveer Show’,” the court said.
The 31-year-old, who has nearly 20 million subscribers on two YouTube channels, has hosted Bollywood stars, businessmen and ministers on the widely watched podcast.
Supreme Court Judge Surya Kant also said that the show was being permitted to resume “since livelihood of 280 employees” depended on its telecast.
The court, however, barred Allahabadia from airing any shows that could have a “bearing” on merits of the case.
Allahabadia’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a Reuters’ request for a comment on Monday’s order, which came nearly a fortnight after the court asked him to stop airing shows.
The podcaster last year shared the stage with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a social media stars’ event.
“India’s Got Latent,” the show on which Allahabadia made the comments, involves a team of comedians judging newcomers’ stand-up comedy.
India does not censor online platforms such as Google-owned YouTube but remains a largely conservative society in which many espouse family and religious values, prompting complaints about shows seen as transgressing decency norms.
Car drives into crowd in German city of Mannheim killing at least one
- Police detained the car’s driver and later said he had acted alone, with no broader threat seen for the public
- Security has been a key concern in Germany following a string of violent attacks in recent weeks
MANNHEIM: A car drove into a crowd of people in the western German city of Mannheim on Monday, killing at least one person, injuring several others and overshadowing carnival celebrations in the region where police had been on alert for security attacks.
Police detained the car’s driver and later said he had acted alone, with no broader threat seen for the public.
People were seen lying on the ground at the scene and at least two were being resuscitated, an eyewitness told Reuters. Bild newspaper reported that two people were killed and 25 injured, 15 of them seriously, citing security sources.
It was unclear whether the driver acted deliberately or if there was any connection to Germany’s carnival celebrations, which culminated on Rose Monday with a number of parades, although not in Mannheim, which held its main event on Sunday.
The Focus Online website reported that the man detained by police was a 40-year-old from the neighboring state of Rhineland-Palatinate and that he was receiving hospital treatment, citing security sources.
Police declined to comment on the suspect’s identity, saying this was a focus of their investigation.
Security has been a key concern in Germany following a string of violent attacks in recent weeks, including deadly car rammings in Magdeburg in December and in Munich last month, as well as a stabbing in Mannheim in May 2024.
Police were on high alert for this year’s carnival parades after social media accounts linked to Daesh called for attacks on the events in Cologne and Nuremberg.
German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser canceled her attendance at the parade in Cologne on Monday, Germany’s biggest, due to the events in Mannheim, a spokesperson for the minister said.
Rose Monday, the culmination of the annual carnival season celebrated in Germany’s mainly Catholic western and southern regions, features parades of floats that often include comical or satirical references to current affairs.
This year’s carnival has included floats featuring US President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin, tech billionaire Elon Musk and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky.
Dressed in traditional jester costumes and sporting colorful makeup, thousands of partygoers danced through the streets of Cologne, Dusseldorf and other cities in western and southern Germany ahead of the fasting season of Lent.
Russian advances in Ukraine slow again in February: report
- Russian forces advanced less on Ukrainian territory in February than in the preceding months
- Moscow advanced by 389 square kilometers in February
PARIS: Russian forces advanced less on Ukrainian territory in February than in the preceding months, according to an AFP analysis of US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) data.
Moscow advanced by 389 square kilometers (150 square miles) in February after advances of 431 square kilometers in January and 476 square kilometers in December 2024, the data showed.
It was well below the peak of 725 square kilometers made in November, after Russian forces embarked on major advances on the front line starting in mid-2024.
The Russian army’s gains over the past year, from March 2024 to February 2025, came to 4,500 square kilometers, or 0.75 percent of Ukrainian territory as it stood before the Russian offensives including in the Crimea peninsula and the eastern Donbass region.
That is nearly 20 times more than over the previous 12 months — Russia had gained just 231 square kilometers between March 2023 and February 2024.
During that period Ukraine took 1,440 square kilometers of Russian territory, but over the past year it retook just 52 square kilometers.
In August 2024, a major Ukrainian offensive in the Kursk region saw it gain around 1,300 square kilometers in two weeks, but the Ukrainian zone of operation then was reduced month by month.
It decreased from 1,171 square kilometers in late August to 483 square kilometers by the end of last year, falling to 407 square kilometers by February 28, 2025.
AFP’s count is based on data provided on a daily basis by the ISW, which gives information provided by both sides as well as analyzes of satellite imagery.
Tensions rise after Afghan, Pakistani forces trade fire at vital border crossing
- 1 Taliban officer was killed in the incident, according to Afghan interior ministry
- Torkham border key for transit of travelers, goods for landlocked Afghanistan
KABUL: Tensions were high at the main border crossing between Afghanistan and Pakistan on Monday after forces from both sides exchanged gunfire overnight, reportedly killing at least one person.
The Torkham border crossing, located in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar and Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, has been closed since Feb. 21 after Islamabad shut it down over concerns of Kabul’s construction of a border post.
The shootout started on Sunday night at the border and continued until 11 a.m., Abdul Mateen Qani, spokesperson from the Afghan Ministry of Interior, told Afghan broadcaster Tolo News.
The incident took place after the neighboring countries failed to reach an agreement to reopen the Torkham border crossing, leaving stranded thousands of trucks and vehicles carrying goods that include fruits and vegetables.
Qani said Pakistani forces were the first ones to shoot, and that the incident had killed at least one Taliban officer and injured two other people.
“The situation has been tense since last night. We are worried more firing can happen after the clashes,” Abdul Rahim, a Nangarhar resident who lives near the border crossing, told Arab News by telephone.
Cross-border fire and shootouts have occurred along the Afghan-Pakistan border for years. In the past, each side has closed Torkham and the Chaman border crossing in southwestern Pakistan for various reasons. For landlocked Afghanistan, the two crossings are vital for both trade and travel.
Thousands of people, mainly Afghans, use the crossing daily to seek medical treatment and work in Pakistan’s border areas.
As tensions rise between Afghanistan and Pakistan, the continued closure of Torkham is creating more uncertainties for Afghans at the border.
Hassan Khan, an Afghan student who studies in Pakistan, has been stuck in Nangarhar after renewing his documents.
“We thought we would spend a day or two with our families and then go back to our studies in Pakistan. But this incident happened, and it’s been two weeks that we are now stuck on this side of the border crossing,” Khan told Arab News.
“We want the gate to reopen soon so we can go to our studies. Many patients and their families spent nights at the crossing hoping for the gate to open.”
Ahmad Zia Rahimzai, a political analyst and an editor at the Gaheez Writers and Journalists’ Association, said that the initial border closure was a way for Pakistan “to maintain its pressure on Afghanistan” and impose its demands.
“From time to time, it finds excuses and closes the routes between the two countries … paving the way for military clashes on the border,” Rahimzai told Arab News.
“Pakistan’s goal is to force the Afghan rulers to accept their demands through such pressures.”
