Chinese authorities have fined three British geology students for “illegal map-making activities” in the politically tense Muslim region of Xinjiang, state media reported yesterday.
The Xinjiang Daily said the three students from Imperial College London had been researching fault lines in the remote western region, where anger against Chinese rule triggered deadly attacks last year.
China clamped down hard on the vast region following the unrest, which had led to fears of terror attacks on the Beijing Olympics in August.
China has in recent years placed stricter controls on data-collecting activities such as map-making across the country, with state media reports voicing fears that unauthorized maps could compromise state security.
The students, who were not named in the report, were fined a total of 20,000 yuan (US$2,940) but received no further punishment, the report said.
It said authorities confiscated their equipment in October after they were found collecting data in several areas, including Kashgar, the ancient Silk Road trading post where some of last year’s unrest took place.
Last month, state media said two Islamic “terrorists” were sentenced to death for an attack in the city just four days before the Olympics, which killed 17 police officers and injured 15.
Yesterday’s report said the students had also been in the desert village of Keping. Authorities in May razed a mosque in Keping over “illegal religious activities,” Radio Free Asia and an exiled Uighur group had said previously.
Those activities included failing to follow government propaganda on supporting the Olympics, the reports had said.
The students had permission from China’s Earthquake Administration for geological research, the Xinjiang Daily said, but noted that it had not been cleared with any other government departments.
“The data they gathered would have been valuable in analyzing mineral and topographic features of the areas,” it said.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
HELP DENIED? The US Department of State said that the Cuban leadership refuses to allow the US to provide aid to Cubans, ‘who are in desperate need of assistance’ US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that Cuba’s leadership must change, as Washington renewed an offer of US$100 million in aid if the communist nation agrees to cooperate. Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65 percent of the country into darkness on Tuesday. Cuba’s leaders have blamed US sanctions, but Rubio, a Cuban American and critic of the government established by Fidel Castro, said the system was to blame, including corruption by the military. “It’s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it’s impossible to change it. I wish it were different,” he told
Myanmar yesterday published a parliamentary bill proposing the death sentence for those who detain or violently coerce people into working in online scam centers. Internet fraud factories have flourished in Myanmar, part of Southeast Asia’s scam economy, targeting Internet users worldwide with romance and cryptocurrency investment cons. The multibillion-dollar black market attracts many willing employees, but repatriated foreigners have also reported being trafficked to sites in Myanmar and tortured by scam center operators. The draft legislation would allow capital punishment for “violence, torture, unlawful arrest and detention, or cruel treatment against another person for the purpose of forcing them to commit online scams.” The
RSS