Tag: Politics and Government

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‘A Total Failure’: The Proud Boys Now Mock Trump

After the presidential election last year, the Proud Boys, a far-right group, declared its undying loyalty to President Trump.In a Nov. 8 post in a private channel of the messaging app Telegram, the group urged its followers to attend protests against an election that it said had been fraudulently stolen from Mr. Trump. “Hail Emperor Trump,” the Proud Boys wrote.But by this week, the group’s attitude toward Mr. Trump had changed. “Trump will go down as a total failure,” the Proud Boys said in the same Telegram channel on Monday.As Mr. Trump departed the White House on …

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Suriname Could Be Latest Big Oil Find as Industry Cuts Costs

Suriname, Guyana and Brazil are now attracting more new investment than the Gulf of Mexico and other more established oil fields. And they are helping to keep global oil prices relatively low, undermining efforts by Russia and its allies in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, like Saudi Arabia, to manage global supply and push up prices.In Guyana, oil companies have found more than 10 billion barrels of probable reserves of accessible oil and gas offshore, according to IHS Markit, the energy consulting firm. Production began in 2019 and is ramping up quickly. Guyana already accounts for one of the …

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As Trump Clashes With Big Tech, China’s Censored Internet Takes His Side

After Twitter and Facebook kicked President Trump off their platforms, and his supporters began comparing his social media muzzling to Chinese censorship, the president won support from an unexpected source: China.“Legally he’s still the president. This is a coup,” said one comment, which included an expletive, that was liked 21,000 times on Weibo, the Chinese social media platform.“A country as big as the United States can’t tolerate Trump’s mouth,” another popular comment said. “U.S. democracy has died.”The comments were solicited by Guancha.com, a nationalistic news site, which created the hashtag #BigUSappsunitedtosilenceTrump# on Weibo. …

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Facebook and Twitter Face International Scrutiny After Trump Ban

LONDON — In Sri Lanka and Myanmar, Facebook kept up posts that it had been warned contributed to violence. In India, activists have urged the company to combat posts by political figures targeting Muslims. And in Ethiopia, groups pleaded for the social network to block hate speech after hundreds were killed in ethnic violence inflamed by social media.“The offline troubles that rocked the country are fully visible on the online space,” activists, civil society groups and journalists in Ethiopia wrote in an open letter last year.For years, Facebook and Twitter have largely rebuffed calls to remove hate speech or …

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A Year After Wuhan, China Tells a Tale of Triumph (and No Mistakes)

At a museum in Wuhan, China, a sprawling exhibition paints a stirring tale of how the city’s sacrifices in a brutal 76-day lockdown led to triumph over the coronavirus and, ultimately, rebirth.No costs appear to have been spared for the show, which features a hologram of medical staff members moving around a hospital room, heart-rending letters from frontline health workers and a replica of a mass quarantine site, complete with beds, miniature Chinese flags and toothbrush cups.But the exhibition is also striking for what is not included. There is no mention of the whistle-blowing role of Ai …

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Hong Kong Website Doxxing Police Gets Blocked, Raising Censorship Fears

At one internet provider, China Mobile Hong Kong, the disconnection — of a type known as a drop action — indicates direct involvement by the telecom company. “A drop action is a specifically configured element of a D.N.S. firewall environment” Mr. April said. “This is not something the owner could have configured, intentionally or accidentally.”China Mobile Hong Kong, an arm of China Mobile, the Chinese state-run company, declined to comment. Two others tested by the Times, SmarTone and Hutchison Telecommunications, which are controlled by local conglomerates, did not respond to emailed requests for comment.Users of PCCW, another locally …

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A Second Chinese Coronavirus Vaccine Is Said to Be Effective

Brazilian officials said Thursday that a coronavirus vaccine made by a Chinese company was effective, bolstering the chances of approval for a second Chinese inoculation that could be rolled out in much of the developing world.Officials in the state of São Paulo, where a prominent medical research institute carried out a large study of the vaccine made by the Beijing-based Sinovac, said the inoculation had an efficacy rate of 78 percent.The vaccine prevented all participants from developing serious and mild complications from the virus, officials said, calling it a highly effective preventive tool.In anticipation of approval, the …

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Here Are the 8 Chinese Apps Trump Banned

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order prohibiting transactions with eight Chinese software applications, including Alipay, the payment platform owned by Ant Group, and WeChat Pay, which is owned by Tencent.The move, two weeks before the end of Mr. Trump’s term, could help lock in his administration’s harsher stance toward China and is likely to further rankle Beijing. But defining the scope of the order and enforcing it would presumably fall to the incoming Biden administration, which has not clarified whether it will try to enact Mr. Trump’s bans, creating uncertainty about the efficacy …

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In a Topsy-Turvy Pandemic World, China Offers Its Version of Freedom

Duncan Clark’s flight was rolling down the runway in Paris in late October when President Emmanuel Macron announced a second national lockdown in France. The country had nearly 50,000 new Covid-19 infections that day. The United States had almost 100,000.He sighed with relief. He was headed to China. That day, it had reported 25 new infections, all but one originating abroad.Mr. Clark, a businessman and author, returned to China after spending nine months in the United States and France, his longest time away from the country since he moved to Beijing in 1994. He had been spending more time outside China …

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China Moves to Punish Lawyers Hired to Help Hong Kong Activists

HONG KONG — The Chinese legal authorities have threatened to revoke the licenses of two lawyers hired to help a group of Hong Kong protesters who were arrested last year while trying to flee to Taiwan by speedboat.Ten of the activists were convicted last week by a court in the mainland Chinese city of Shenzhen of illegal boundary crossing and sentenced to prison terms ranging from seven months to three years. Two other members of the group who were minors at the time of their arrest in August were returned to Hong Kong, a semiautonomous Chinese territory.For Hong Kong’ …

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