China’s capital boosted armed police patrols yesterday following a spate of attacks the government blames on terrorists seeking independence for the northwestern region of Xinjiang.
Beijing’s police force said on its microblog that 150 additional vehicles and nearly 2,000 police and auxiliaries were being assigned to guard key intersections around the city of more than 20 million people.
The additional personnel were drawn from the paramilitary People’s Armed Police, members of whom could be seen standing in groups of three around Tiananmen Square in the heart of the city.
Wearing helmets and carrying automatic rifles, they kept a close eye on crowds circulating some of the country’s most iconic sites such as Tiananmen Gate and the Great Hall of the People, where foreign dignitaries are welcomed.
The additional security was taken to increase the public’s sense of security, intimidate would-be assailants and shorten response times to violent incidents, the police statement said.
The statement said the new security teams would be a permanent presence in the capital, adding to a slew of increased security measures that include checkpoints and security screening for subway riders and anyone seeking to enter public spaces such as Tiananmen Square.
China has increased security countrywide in the wake of two recent attacks at train stations that killed 30 people and at least two attackers.
The assaults were blamed on extremists from among Xinjiang’s native Turkic Muslim Uighur ethnic group.
The violence has also included an unprecedented attack last year on Tiananmen Gate in the heart of Beijing that killed three Uighur assailants and two tourists.
Although Uighur separatists have been waging a low-level insurgency for decades, recent attacks have been bolder and bloodier, targeting civilians and underscoring shortfalls in Beijing’s ability to respond.
Uighur activists say the violence is being fueled by restrictive and discriminatory policies imposed by China’s majority Han ethnic group.
A Zurich city councilor has apologized and reportedly sought police protection against threats after she fired a sport pistol at an auction poster of a 14th-century Madonna and child painting, and posted images of their bullet-ridden faces on social media. Green-Liberal party official Sanija Ameti, 32, put the images on Instagram over the weekend before quickly pulling them down. She later wrote on social media that she had been practicing shots from about 10m and only found the poster as “big enough” for a suitable target. “I apologize to the people who were hurt by my post. I deleted it immediately when I
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
RSS