The signal of a government-run television station in southern China was hijacked by alleged hackers who used the frequencies to broadcast anti-government content, press reports said yesterday.
The incident occurred on the evening of May 1, when the broadcast of a popular singing contest on Guangzhou Satellite Cable Television was blacked out for up to 90 minutes, the Southern Metropolitan Daily reported.
During the blackout, anti-government images lasting up to 40 seconds appeared on television screens in Guangzhou, the provincial capital of China's economically booming region of Guangdong, the report said.
No details of the messages or the alleged hijackers was given.
Officials at the television station refused to comment on the issue when contacted by phone, citing government sensitivities over such actions.
Although the news report was taken off the Southern Metropolitan Daily Web site as of yesterday, the identical report appeared on other government Web sites around the nation such as the Sichuan provincial news Web site.
The incident was not the first time satellite signals from state-owned television broadcasts have been jammed and replaced with anti-government messages.
The banned spiritual group the Falungong earlier this decade repeatedly hijacked state television satellite signals and broadcast content attacking the Chinese Communist Party.
Meanwhile, dozens of security guards wielding metal pipes clashed with workers at the construction site of the main stadium for next year's Beijing Olympics leaving at least four injured, state press said yesterday.
The clashes occurred late on Thursday after workers were found smoking in a no-smoking zone at the stadium known as the Bird's Nest for its intricate design of interlaced steel beams, the Beijing News said.
One migrant laborer from Sichuan Province surnamed An said he tried to help two other workers being kicked and beaten by up to 10 security guards, when he himself was jumped on and pummeled, the report said.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) removed former minister of foreign affairs Qin Gang (秦剛) from his post after an investigation concluded that he had conducted an affair and fathered a child while serving as ambassador to the US, the Wall Street Journal reported. Top officials were told in August that a CCP inquiry into Qin uncovered “lifestyle issues,” the newspaper reported yesterday, citing people familiar with the situation that it did not describe. That phrase usually means sexual misbehavior of some type in the parlance of Chinese officialdom. Two of the people said the affair led to the birth of a child in
GUNNED DOWN: The Canadian PM said there were credible allegations that India was connected to the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey on June 18 India yesterday dismissed allegations that its government was linked to the killing of a Sikh activist in Canada as “absurd,” expelling a senior Canadian diplomat and accusing Canada of interfering in India’s internal affairs. It came a day after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described what he called credible allegations that India was connected to the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, an advocate of Sikh independence from India who was gunned down on June 18 outside a Sikh cultural center in Surrey, British Columbia, and Canada expelled a top Indian diplomat. “Any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a
SECURITY: Wang met with the US national security adviser in Malta over the weekend, with the US side noting the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) yesterday headed to Russia for security talks after two days of meetings with US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan over the weekend in Malta. China’s top foreign policy official will be in Russia until Thursday for a round of China-Russia strategic security consultations, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a brief statement. The US and China are at odds over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. China has refrained from taking sides in the war, saying that while a country’s territory must be respected, the West needs to consider Russia’s security concerns about NATO’s
LOST BATTLE: The Varroa mite, which Canberra has called the ‘most serious pest’ to face bees, would cause serious economic damage, an ecologist said Australia yesterday abandoned its fight to eradicate the destructive Varroa mite, an invasive parasite responsible for the collapse of honeybee populations across the planet. Desperate to keep Varroa out of the country, authorities have destroyed more than 14,000 infected beehives since the tiny red-brown pest was first detected north of Sydney in June last year. The government said its US$64 million eradication plan could not stop the mite from spreading, and the country’s beekeepers should now prepare to live with the incursion. “The recent spike in new detections have made it clear that the Varroa mite infestation is more widespread and has
RSS