China punished 17 officials in Xinjiang for security lapses surrounding deadly explosions and riots in September, state media said, as the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) boss in the western region warned the fight against “terrorism” had entered a “more intense” phase.
Dozens were killed near Luntai County in the unrest after explosions killed six people, triggering a shootout with police. Police shot dead 40 rioters, some of whom were seeking to blow themselves up, state media said at the time.
The incident was one of a series of deadly attacks that have rocked the region in recent years. The government has blamed the violence on ethnic Uighur separatists, who it said want to form an independent nation called East Turkestan.
It is difficult for foreign journalists to report in Xinjiang, rendering it almost impossible to reach an independent assessment of the security situation.
After an investigation into the Sept. 21 incident, a CCP committee in Xinjiang gave 17 officials “party and government disciplinary” punishment for lapses including those related to security and publicity duties, a news Web site that is run by the committee, said late on Thursday.
The CCP secretary in Xinjiang, Zhang Chunxian (張春賢), said at a meeting on Wednesday that the region’s security situation “remained extremely grim.”
“Xinjiang’s anti-terrorism fight has entered a phase that is more complicated and more intense than in the past,” Zhang said, according to a separate report published by the Web site on Thursday. “We must take the initiative to brandish the sword, take the offensive and comprehensively attack,” he said.
Xinjiang is the traditional home of the Uighur people, who speak a Turkic language and are mostly Muslim.
The government has blamed attacks in other parts of China, including Beijing, on Islamic militants from Xinjiang.
Human rights activists say Beijing’s repressive policies in Xinjiang, including curbs on religion and culture as well as economic and social disadvantages, have provoked a surge in unrest — a claim China denies.
DIPLOMATIC THAW: The Canadian prime minister’s China visit and improved Beijing-Ottawa ties raised lawyer Zhang Dongshuo’s hopes for a positive outcome in the retrial China has overturned the death sentence of Canadian Robert Schellenberg, a Canadian official said on Friday, in a possible sign of a diplomatic thaw as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney seeks to boost trade ties with Beijing. Schellenberg’s lawyer, Zhang Dongshuo (張東碩), yesterday confirmed China’s Supreme People’s Court struck down the sentence. Schellenberg was detained on drug charges in 2014 before China-Canada ties nosedived following the 2018 arrest in Vancouver of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou (孟晚舟). That arrest infuriated Beijing, which detained two Canadians — Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig — on espionage charges that Ottawa condemned as retaliatory. In January
China’s military news agency yesterday warned that Japanese militarism is infiltrating society through series such as Pokemon and Detective Conan, after recent controversies involving events at sensitive sites. In recent days, anime conventions throughout China have reportedly banned participants from dressing as characters from Pokemon or Detective Conan and prohibited sales of related products. China Military Online yesterday posted an article titled “Their schemes — beware the infiltration of Japanese militarism in culture and sports.” The article referenced recent controversies around the popular anime series Pokemon, Detective Conan and My Hero Academia, saying that “the evil influence of Japanese militarism lives on in
Two medieval fortresses face each other across the Narva River separating Estonia from Russia on Europe’s eastern edge. Once a symbol of cooperation, the “Friendship Bridge” connecting the two snow-covered banks has been reinforced with rows of razor wire and “dragon’s teeth” anti-tank obstacles on the Estonian side. “The name is kind of ironic,” regional border chief Eerik Purgel said. Some fear the border town of more than 50,0000 people — a mixture of Estonians, Russians and people left stateless after the fall of the Soviet Union — could be Russian President Vladimir Putin’s next target. On the Estonian side of the bridge,
Jeremiah Kithinji had never touched a computer before he finished high school. A decade later, he is teaching robotics, and even took a team of rural Kenyans to the World Robotics Olympiad in Singapore. In a classroom in Laikipia County — a sparsely populated grasslands region of northern Kenya known for its rhinos and cheetahs — pupils are busy snapping together wheels, motors and sensors to assemble a robot. Guiding them is Kithinji, 27, who runs a string of robotics clubs in the area that have taken some of his pupils far beyond the rural landscapes outside. In November, he took a team
RSS