Ethiopia’s Amhara state on Sunday called on “all young people” to take up arms against Tigrayan fighters who are battling the federal government military and forces from all of Ethiopia’s other nine regions.

The call for mass mobilization against Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) fighters – whom Amhara’s military said were now attacking the state – expands the eight-month-old war and instability in the Horn of Africa country.

“I call on all young people, militia, non-militia in the region, armed with any government weapon, armed with personal weapons, to join the anti-TPLF war mission from tomorrow,” Agegnehu Teshager, president of Amhara regional government was quoted as saying by the region’s state media.

Calls to TPLF spokesman Getachew Reda, for a comment were not answered.

War erupted between the Ethiopian military and the TPLF, which rules Ethiopia’s northernmost region, in November.

Three weeks later, the government declared victory when it captured Tigray’s capital Mekelle, but the TPLF kept fighting. At the end of June, the TPLF seized control of Mekelle and most of Tigray after government soldiers withdrew.

This week, the Tigrayans pushed their offensive to Afar, their neighboring state to the east, where they said they planned to target troops from the Amhara region fighting alongside the federal military in the area.

Afar is a strategic region for landlocked Ethiopia because the main road and railway linking the capital, Addis Ababa, with the seaport of Djibouti runs through it.

On Saturday, Amhara’s special forces commander, Brigadier General Tefera Mamo, was quoted by the region’s state media as saying the war had expanded to the state.

“The terrorist group has started a war in the Amhara and Afar regions and is also harassing Ethiopians,” Tefera said, referring to TPLF. “Amhara Special Forces are fighting in coordination with other security forces.”

Thousands of people have died in the fighting, around 2 million have been displaced and more than 5 million rely on emergency food aid.

 
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Issues in the News moderator Kim Lewis talks with VOA senior diplomatic correspondent, Cindy Saine, and senior reporter for Marketplace, Nancy Marshall-Genzer, about growing congressional challenges on infrastructure, police reform, COVID-19 and the economy facing the Biden administration, the ramifications of a widespread cyber-attack on Microsoft allegedly conducted by China, controversial Israeli phone surveillance software allegedly misused amid a global hacking scandal, the Tokyo Olympics and global concern over the spreading of the Delta variant of the coronavirus.
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Africa became the region hardest hit by terrorism in the first half of 2021 as the Islamic State and al-Qaida extremist groups and their affiliates spread their influence, boasting gains in supporters and territory and inflicting the greatest casualties, U.N. experts said in a new report.

The panel of experts said in a report to the U.N. Security Council circulated Friday that this is “especially true” in parts of West and East Africa where affiliates of both groups can also boast growing capabilities in fundraising and weapons, including the use of drones.

Several of the most successful affiliates of the Islamic State are in its central and west Africa province, and several of al-Qaida’s are in Somalia and the Sahel region, they said.

The experts said it’s “concerning” that these terrorist affiliates are spreading their influence and activities including across borders from Mali into Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Niger and Senegal as well as incursions from Nigeria into Cameroon, Chad and Niger in West Africa. In the east, the affiliates’ activities have spread from Somalia into Kenya and from Mozambique into Tanzania, they said.

One of “the most troubling events” of early 2021 was the local Islamic State affiliate’s storming and brief holding of Mozambique’s strategic port of Mocimboa da Praia in Cabo Delgado province near the border with Tanzania “before withdrawing with spoils, positioning it for future raids in the area,” the panel said.

Overall, the experts said, COVID-19 continued to affect terrorist activity and both the Islamic State, also known as ISIL, and al-Qaida “continued to gloat over the harm done by the coronavirus disease pandemic to their enemies, but were unable to develop a more persuasive narrative.”

“While ISIL contemplated weaponizing the virus, member states detected no concrete plans to implement the idea,” the panel said.

In Europe and other non-conflict zones, lockdowns and border closures brought on by COVID-19 slowed the movement and gathering of people “while increasing the risk of online radicalization,” it said.

The experts warned that attacks “may have been planned in various locations” during the pandemic “that will be executed when restrictions ease.”

The panel said that in Iraq and Syria, “the core conflict zone for ISIL,” the extremist group’s activities have evolved into “an entrenched insurgency, exploiting weaknesses in local security to find safe havens, and targeting forces engaged in counter-ISIL operations.”

Despite heavy counter-terrorism pressures from Iraqi forces, the experts said Islamic State attacks in Baghdad in January and April “underscored the group’s resilience.”

In Syria’s rebel-held northwest Idlib province, the experts said groups aligned with al-Qaida continue to dominate the area, with “terrorist fighters” numbering more than 10,000.

“Although there has been only limited relocation of foreign fighters from the region to other conflict zones, member states are concerned about the possibility of such movement, in particular to Afghanistan, should the environment there become more hospitable to ISIL or groups aligned with al-Qaida,” the panel said.

In central, south and southeast Asia, the experts said Islamic State and al-Qaida affiliates continue to operate “notwithstanding key leadership losses in some cases and sustained pressure from security forces.”

The experts said the status of al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri “is unknown,” and if he is alive several unnamed member states “assess that he is ailing, leading to an acute leadership challenge for al-Qaida.” 
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Myanmar, already on the brink of widespread civil war after February’s coup, is facing another crisis as COVID-19 cases surge.

Cases have spiked, leaving infected patients desperate for medical assistance. Since the pandemic began, Myanmar has suffered over 246,000 COVID-19 cases and over 5,000 deaths, according to the World Health Organization.

In recent weeks, virus cases have risen extensively, infecting thousands and leaving the country’s medical system on the brink of collapse. In southern Yangon, images have circulated online of patients lining up to refill oxygen cylinders.  

A physiotherapist caring for patients in Yangon, told VOA the shortage of medical assistance is forcing patients to stay home and rely on doctors’ online advice.

“All people are desperately looking for oxygen,” she told VOA.

The opposition Civil Disobedience Movement has attracted a number of health care professionals several doctors who joined the CDM movement spoke with VOA in February.

Thousands of protesters have been arrested and killed, including health care workers.  Meanwhile, as the military continues to grapple for control over the country’s health care systems, widespread distrust from the population remains. Those opposing the coup are refusing to seek military-help, leaving some left with a possible life-or-death decision.

Hein Lay, the founder of Modern Youth Charity Organization, aimed at assisting people with health issues and food shortages, told VOA the oxygen shortage is due to the military’s decision to close oxygen factories.   

Patients are dying for no reason due to shortness of oxygen of breath,” he claimed. 

But the organization says it hopes to set up its own factory that can produce oxygen for patients.  

“We believe in we can save many lives and it will help those in need and save lives that should not die. People should cooperate with civil society organizations even if they hate the military council. Only then can this battle be won,” Hein Lay added.

Myanmar’s hospitals have overflowed with patients, and with limited staff are forced to turn patients away, leaving them without health care, with Yangon particularly affected.

Armed forces spokesperson General Zaw Min Tun responded to questions about the closure of oxygen suppliers, insisting the supply of oxygen is for hospitals and not private purchase. He added the military is adding new medical facilities to treat infected patients.

Nyan Win, a former adviser to ousted de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, died Tuesday from COVID-19. Nyan Win was a Myanmar politician that had been jailed in Yangon’s notorious Insein Prison following the coup.

The physiotherapist said that that the military coup “ruined” the progress that had been made against COVID-19, and that the current third wave could have been prevented.

“In the second wave [November 2020], the civilian government [the now-removed National League for Democracy party] is leading and care for all patients and patients with COVID 19 confirmed case, everything is running smoothly.”

“Myanmar has already paid for the vaccines. Health workers have also been vaccinated first dose and are waiting for the second dose. If there had been no political change at that time, almost all citizens would have been vaccinated. And the public may not have to face the third wave of COVID 19,” she said.

Myanmar has been using the AstraZeneca vaccine, donated by India, and prior to the coup, had planned to vaccinate all 54 million of its population this year.
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No free-spending foreign spectators. Lots of COVID-19 worries. And as the delayed Olympics begin on Friday, some Tokyo residents are finding it hard to find their game spirit.

“There’s no feeling of lively celebration in the city,” Hiroyuki Nakayama, a member of the Tokyo Citizens First Party, told VOA Mandarin before the Games opened.

“All in all, it’s not very satisfying,” said the member of Tokyo’s governing metropolitan assembly. “There’re no tourists, so there’s no real hope of the Games revitalizing the economy. Although many people opposed the event,” once the government gave the go-ahead, “people knew it was useless to object, so now they hope the Olympics can proceed smoothly and end safely.”

Nakayama is not a rare naysayer. According to a poll released July 13 by Ipsos, a global market research firm, 78% of respondents in Japan believe Tokyo should not host the Olympics during the pandemic. Since then, Tokyo added 1,832 confirmed cases of the coronavirus on July 21, and that was after adding nearly a thousand new cases a day for seven consecutive days in the past week. Only 29% of Japan’s residents have been vaccinated.

As of July 21, there were confirmed cases among the athletes including a Czech table tennis player, a U.S. beach volleyball player, a Dutch skateboarder, a Chilean taekwondo team member, an alternate U.S. women’s gymnast and a U.S. women’s tennis player. Although a full vaccination is not required for the athletes, testing is constant and began before they left their home countries, where many tested positive. Some never made it to Japan, which cancelled the Games last year due to the pandemic.

Ryoko Fujita, a member of the Japanese Communist Party and a local Tokyo lawmaker told VOA Mandarin that according to recent expert simulations, “even if the Olympics are not held, the diagnosis rate in Tokyo will exceed 2,000 a day in August.”

On July 16, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said the government was taking measures to control the pandemic and ensure the “safety and peace of mind” of the Tokyo Olympics.

“The government insists on hosting the Olympics and continuously promotes the slogan of ‘safe and secure Olympics’ on various platforms but ignores the surge in public gatherings and has no actual countermeasures or actions,” said Fujita, who was a nurse for two decades.

On July 20, Shigeru Omi, an infectious disease expert who heads a subcommittee on the coronavirus in the Tokyo government said on television that by the first week of August, new confirmed cases in Tokyo could reach a new peak of about 3,000 a day, most likely straining medical resources.

Takashi Sato, an office worker, told VOA Mandarin before the Games began, that with Tokyo under its fourth emergency declaration, residents are so numb to the warnings, they “actually do not abide by the regulations.”

Seiichi Murakami, who owns a patisserie in Tokyo, told VOA Mandarin that he at one time thought the Olympic Games would boost business, which has been in a slump. But as the pandemic worsens, and tourists aren’t coming to town for the Games, he’s now wondering if he should close the patisserie.

“Even if the vaccination rate increases substantially, there is still a long way to go before the economy really recovers,” Murakami told VOA Mandarin.

Takayuki Kojima, who runs a Tokyo cram school, told VOA Mandarin that his students aren’t interested in the Games and he rarely hears anyone discuss them. Mostly he’s concerned with surviving financially now that classes are online. “I hope this will be the last emergency declaration. The government must implement the vaccination coverage rate and control the epidemic, otherwise everyone’s lives will reach a critical point.”

Ikue Furukawa lives near the National Stadium, which was the main stadium for the 1964 Olympic Games and was rebuilt for the 2020 Games. She told VOA Mandarin there are so many restrictions she can’t even get near her neighborhood’s fixture.

“Because of the pandemic, … it really doesn’t feel like we’re the host country. This is completely an online competition, so it’s like it’s all happening in a foreign country,” she said. “People just can’t get excited.”

Takako Koyama, a Tokyo housewife, told VOA, “The Japanese are actually more concerned about foreign players coming from afar and not having spectators to cheer for them. But due to the restrictions, foreign players cannot … feel the enthusiasm of the audience. I’m so sorry for the players.”

Kojima agreed, adding “Major leagues in the United States and European football matches can allow spectators. The Olympics should open up some popular events to at least let the Japanese cheer for all the players.”

Koyama pointed out that after repeated emergency declarations, people had been looking forward to the Games before the declaration of yet another pandemic emergency.

“School activities and trips have been cancelled, but the Olympics are still going to be held,” she said. “The Olympic torch relay has been cancelled and there will be no spectators in the competition. What is the meaning of such an Olympics? What kind of message is conveyed to the future? I can’t explain it to the children either.”

Some information in this report came from Reuters.
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Water shortage protests in drought-plagued southwestern Iran appear to have spread to more cities and resulted in what authorities say is a third fatality as the unrest extended into a seventh day.

Videos posted to social media appeared to show street protests on Wednesday in several parts of Khuzestan province, including the capital, Ahvaz, and the cities of Behbahan, Dezful, Izeh, Masjed Soleyman, Ramshir and Susangerd.

In one clip said to be from Izeh, security forces appeared to fire tear gas at protesters. In another clip said to be from Masjed Soleyman, demonstrators chanted, ”Police, support us,” a reference to local concerns about security forces cracking down harshly on earlier rallies.

Other social media videos appeared to show Iranians in the city of  Yazdenshahr, in neighboring Isfahan province, rallying in support of the Khuzestan protesters. The Isfahan rally would be the first such protest in the province since the daily protests began in Khuzestan last Thursday and evolved into the widest and most sustained disturbances Iran has seen in months.

VOA could not independently verify the videos said to be from Khuzestan and Isfahan. Iran has barred VOA from reporting inside the country.

In another development, Iranian state-approved news site ILNA  quoted the top official of Izeh city in Khuzestan, Hassan Nabouti, as reporting the death of one person in local protests against water shortages on Tuesday.

Nabouti said the person was wounded in the protests, taken to a hospital by a private car and was pronounced dead. Nabouti said an investigation was under way to identify the attacker and added that 14 security personnel were hurt in the protests. 

Another Iranian state news agency, Fars, identified the fatality as a young man named Hadi Bahmani.

Social media users posted video on Thursday purporting to show Bahmani’s burial on the outskirts of Izeh. They said he was a 17-year-old construction worker.

Iranian state media previously reported the killings of two men by gunfire during demonstrations last Friday.

Social media videos that appeared to be from Tuesday’s protests in Izeh but that could not be verified by VOA showed protesters chanting ”Death to Khamenei” and ”Reza Shah, bless your soul.” Gunshots were also heard in those videos.

“Death to Khamenei” has been a common refrain of Iranian anti-government protesters angered by the authoritarian rule of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in recent years. 

“Reza Shah, bless your soul” also has been uttered in previous waves of Iranian street protests as a sign of affection toward the founder of the nation’s former monarchy, Reza Shah. Khamenei’s predecessor, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, ousted Reza Shah’s son from power in Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Digital communication with the Iranian protest regions remained difficult. London-based internet monitoring group NetBlocks said there had been a “significant regional disruption to mobile internet service in Iran” since the water shortage protests began one week ago.

“Cellular data analysis metrics corroborate widespread user reports of cellular network disruptions, consistent with a regional internet shutdown intended to control protests,” Netblocks said in an online statement. 

Iranian state-approved news agency ISNA  said President Hassan Rouhani told Khuzestan’s provincial governor in a Thursday phone call that authorities must listen to and respect the rights of protesters who have suffered from drought and extreme heat. ISNA said Rouhani also had ordered First Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri to visit Khuzestan on Friday to investigate the situation there.

In a Wednesday press briefing, U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said Washington was closely following  the Khuzestan protests, ”including reports that security forces have fired on protesters.” 

“We support the rights of Iranians to peacefully assemble and to express themselves. Iranians, just like any other people, should enjoy those rights without fear of violence, without fear of arbitrary detention by security forces,” Price said.

Iran’s water shortages are partly the result of weather-related factors, including a sharp drop in rainfall, which has been more than 40% below last year’s levels in recent months, and high summer temperatures.

Experts say decades of Iranian government mismanagement also have fueled the drought. They blame authorities’ poorly considered placement and construction of hydroelectric dams and the diversion of water from Khuzestan’s rivers and wetlands to industrial sites in neighboring regions, practices that have dried up sources of drinking and agricultural water for the province’s residents.

This article originated in VOA’s Persian Service . Click here  and here  to read the original Persian versions of this story.
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Issues in the News moderator Kim Lewis talks with VOA Congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson and correspondent for Marketplace Kimberly Adams about the ongoing battle between Democrats and Republicans over voting rights legislation, what’s next after Senate Democrats agree to a $3.5 trillion human infrastructure package, the impact of the crises in Haiti and Cuba on the Biden Administration, and much more.
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Australian cybersecurity experts are calling for more aggressive government action to protect businesses from ransomware attacks. Experts have warned a “tsunami of cybercrime” has cost the global economy about $743 billion.

Big companies can be attractive targets for cybercriminals who can extort millions of dollars after stealing sensitive commercial information.

The Cybersecurity Cooperative Research Centre is a collaboration between industry representatives, the Australian government and academics.

Its chief executive, Rachael Falk, believes Australia is an easy target for hackers because cyber defenses can be weak.

“More often than not, it is by sending an email where an employee clicks on a link,” she said. “They get into that organization, they have a good look around and they work out what is valuable data here that we can encrypt, which means we lock it up and we will take a copy of it. And then we will encrypt all the valuable data in that organization and then we will hold them to ransom for money. So, it is a business model for criminals that earns them money.”

The consequences for businesses can be extreme. They can lose valuable data, or have it leaked or sold by cyberthieves. In some cases, hackers can disable an organization’s entire operation. In March, a cyberattack disrupted broadcasts by Channel Nine, one of Australia’s most popular commercial television news networks. It sought help from the Australian Signals Directorate, a government intelligence agency.

Researchers want the government to require Australian companies to tell authorities when they are being targeted.

They also want clarity on whether paying ransoms is legal. Experts have said Australian law does not make it clear whether giving money to hackers is a criminal offense.

There is also a call for the government to use tax incentives to encourage Australian businesses to invest in cybersecurity.

Last year, federal government agencies said China had been responsible for a series of cyberattacks on Australian institutions, including hospitals and state-owned companies. 
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U.S. President Joe Biden, his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and Russian President Vladimir Putin are among Pacific Rim leaders gathering virtually to discuss strategies to help economies rebound from a resurgent COVID-19 pandemic.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will chair the special leaders’ meeting Friday of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.

But the pandemic and vaccine diplomacy have proved to be divisive issues among members of a forum that says its primary goal is to support sustainable economic growth and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region.

Biden spoke by phone with Ardern on Friday ahead of the leaders’ retreat and discussed U.S. interest in maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific region, a White House statement said.

“They also discussed our cooperation on and engagement with Pacific Island nations,” the statement said.

The Biden administration has put a premium on tending to relations with allies in the Pacific early in his administration.

One of his first high-profile acts of diplomacy as president was hosting a virtual summit with fellow leaders of the Quad – Australia, India and Japan – a group central to his efforts to counter China’s growing military and economic power. And he hosted Suga and South Korea President Moon Jae-in for the first in-person foreign leader meetings of his presidency. South Korea is an APEC member and India is the only country in the Quad that is not.

Biden plans to use the virtual APEC retreat to talk to leaders about his administration’s efforts to serve “as an arsenal of vaccines to the world” in the battle against COVID-19 pandemic and how members of the alliance can collaborate to bolster the global economy, according to a senior Biden administration who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The U.S. has donated 4.5 million vaccine doses to Indonesia, 2 million to Vietnam, 1 million to Malaysia, and 3.2 million doses will soon be delivered to the Philippines. The White House says donations to Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Papua New Guinea, will also soon be delivered. Laos and Cambodia are the only countries among those eight vaccine recipients that are not APEC members.

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said the “important meeting” came at a critical time as the world was facing a resurgence in COVID-19 infection numbers and international cooperation against the pandemic had entered a new stage.

“We hope all parties can uphold the vision of an Asia-Pacific community with a shared future, carry forward the Asia-Pacific partnership, send a positive message of fighting the coronavirus with solidarity and deepen economic recovery and cooperation,” Zhao said.

Suga will speak about his determination to hold a safe and secure Olympics when the games start in Tokyo on July 23, Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato said.

Suga will also emphasis Japan’s determination to secure fair access to vaccines for all countries and regions to support the global effort toward ending the COVID-19 pandemic, and Tokyo’s vision to expand a free and fair economic bloc, Kato said.

Ardern said APEC’s first leaders’ meeting outside the usual annual summits “reflects our desire to navigate together out of the COVID-19 pandemic and economic crisis.”

“APEC economies have suffered their biggest contraction since the Second World War over the past year, with 81 million jobs lost. Responding collectively is vital to accelerate the economic recovery for the region,” said Ardern, whose South Pacific island nation has been among the most successful in the world in containing the virus.

The pace of a global vaccine rollout and conditions attached to international vaccine deals are vexed issues among APEC members.

The United States has been accused by some of hoarding vaccines. Biden came up well short on his goal of delivering 80 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine to the rest of the world by the end of June as a host of logistical and regulatory hurdles slowed the pace of U.S. vaccine diplomacy.

Although the Biden administration has announced that about 50 countries and entities will receive a share of the excess COVID-19 vaccine doses, the U.S. had shipped fewer than 24 million doses to 10 recipient countries by July 1, according to an Associated Press tally.

Taiwan, an APEC member that China claims as a renegade territory, has accused Beijing of tying the delivery of coronavirus vaccines to political demands. The government of the self-ruled island says China has intervened to block vaccine deliveries to Taiwan from fellow APEC members Japan and the United States.

China has accused Australia of interfering in the rollout of Chinese vaccines in former Australian colony Papua New Guinea. Both Australia and Papua New Guinea are also APEC members.

Sino-Australian relations plummeted last year when Australia called for an independent investigation into the origins of and responses to the pandemic.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who will also join the meeting, said in a statement now was a “critical time for Australia to engage with regional partners to promote free trade facilitation, in particular for vaccines and essential goods; build momentum for strengthening the multilateral trading system; and secure a sustainable and inclusive recovery.”

China said that by May it was providing COVID-19 vaccines to nearly 40 African countries, describing its actions as purely altruistic.

The vaccines were donated or sold at “favorable prices,” a Chinese Foreign Ministry official said.

The online leaders’ meeting that is chaired from the New Zealand capital Wellington and straddles 11 time zones comes before the scheduled annual summit in November.

New Zealand’s pandemic response has been among the most effective in the world and the isolated nation of 5 million people has recorded just 26 COVID-19 deaths. But its vaccination campaign has been far slower than in most developed countries.

Ardern said leading a regional response to the pandemic was one of New Zealand’s highest priorities when it took over as APEC’s chair from Malaysia in an annual rotation among the 21 members.

“I will be inviting discussion on immediate measures to achieve more coordinated regional action to assist recovery, as well as steps that will support inclusive and sustainable growth over the long term,” she said. “APEC leaders will work together to get through the pandemic and promote a sustainable and inclusive recovery, because nobody is safe until everyone is safe.” 
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A Chinese gene company is collecting genetic data through prenatal tests from women in more than 50 countries for research on the traits of populations, raising concern that such a large DNA database could give China a technological advantage and the strategic edge to dominate global pharmaceuticals, according to a recent news report.

Analysts expressed unease with the developments exclusively reported by Reuters at BGI Group, the Chinese gene company, which is collecting genetic data via its NiPT prenatal test with the brand name NIFTY (Non-Invasive Fetal TrisomY).

The tests, sold in more than 50 countries, can detect abnormalities such as Down syndrome in the fetus by capturing DNA from the placenta in the bloodstream about 10 weeks into a pregnancy.

The tests are sold in 52 countries, including Germany, Spain and Denmark, as well as in Britain, Canada, Australia, Thailand, India and Pakistan, according to Reuters. They are not sold in the United States, where “government advisers warned in March that the genomic data BGI is amassing and analyzing with artificial intelligence could give China a path to economic and military advantage,” Reuters reported. 

Collecting the biggest and most diverse set of human genomes could propel China to dominate global pharmaceuticals, and also potentially lead to genetically enhanced soldiers, or engineered pathogens to target the U.S. population or food supply, the U.S. advisers said, according to Reuters.

Reggie Littlejohn, founder and president of the rights group Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, said that due to China’s strategy of fusing military and civilian interests, “any Chinese company can be forced by the government to supply its information to the military.”

China sells the prenatal tests “a good product at a lower cost because they’re able to do that,” Littlejohn said. “But what people don’t realize is that when they get these lower cost genetic tests,” the collected information goes to the Chinese military,” she told VOA via a video interview using Microsoft Teams.

The Reuters report said the company has “worked with the Chinese military to improve ‘population quality’ and on genetic research to combat hearing loss and altitude sickness in soldiers.”

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs dismissed the report, telling Reuters it was “a groundless accusation and smear campaign.”

Dan Harris, an international lawyer and author at the China Law Blog, told VOA Mandarin that he believes democratic entities, such as the United States, Japan, Korea, Australia and the European Union, are going to realize they “need to enact special laws to deal with China and China’s hoovering of data.”

Crystal Grant, a data scientist and molecular biologist with a Ph.D. in genetics who is a technology fellow in the Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, told VOA Mandarin via Teams video interview that this accumulation of DNA will challenge genomic policy worldwide.

By using what she described as “this massive amount of information” and supercomputers “to crack those codes is going to be a threat to genomic policy everywhere,” she told VOA in a video interview.

Huang Yanzhong, a senior fellow for global health at the Council of Foreign Relations, told VOA Mandarin in a TV interview in February that rapid advances in genetics and biotechnology have highlighted the need for the international community to step up regulations to prevent data abuse.

“It is not just China. The progress in the legal framework in this area is lagging behind,” Huang said. “It’s vital for the international community to sit down and work out a framework.”

Genetic engineering

Yet researchers worldwide in the academic, private and government sectors, are refining genetic engineering techniques and knowledge.

China’s interest in the field is not new. In 2018, researcher He Jiankui announced that he had produced twins genetically altered to resist HIV using a relatively new, accurate and very fast American-developed genetic editing technique known by its acronym, CRISPR.

In 2019, a Chinese court found He guilty of using “illegal medical practices” and sentenced He to three years in prison.

Prenatal privacy

Reuters found no evidence BGI violated patient privacy agreements or regulations. “However, the privacy policy on the NIFTY test’s website says data collected can be shared when it is ‘directly relevant to national security or national defense security’ in China,” the report stated.

BGI dismissed the Reuters report, saying that the company’s research has met national and international requirements.

“All NIPT data collected overseas are stored in BGI’s laboratory in Hong Kong and are destroyed after five years, as stipulated by General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR),” the company said in a statement released on July 9.

BGI emphasized that it developed the NIPT test alone, not in a partnership with China’s military.

Reuters interviewed four women who have used the BGI’s prenatal tests in Poland, Spain and Thailand. They all signed consent forms stating that their genetic data would be stored and used for research, yet they are not aware that their genetic information could end up in China.

Harris, the lawyer, told VOA that most of the time, people didn’t know what they were signing.

“Maybe the sign off says that it will be limited to BGI and BGI access, though XYZ, a Chinese military company, might be one of BGI’s subsidiaries,” which would mean that the consent form allowed BGI to transfer a woman’s genetic information to the Chinese military, he told VOA via Microsoft Teams.

One of the women, a 32-year-old office administrator from Poland, told Reuters that she would have chosen a different test had she known that her data might end up in China being used for research involving military applications.

U.S. federal authorities have been watching BGI’s record on data collection. Bill Evanina, former director of the United States National Counterintelligence and Security Center, told the CBS-TV newsmagazine 60 Minutes in January that he was extremely concerned when BGI offered to provide COVID-19 testing kits to several U.S. states last year.

“Knowing that BGI is a Chinese company, do we understand where that data’s going?” Evanina asked. They are the ultimate company that shows connectivity to both the communist state as well as the military apparatus.”

Edward You, supervisory special agent with the FBI and a former biochemist, told 60 Minutes in the same January episode that Beijing authorities are betting that accumulating large amounts of human DNA will prove to be a successful strategy.

“They are building out a huge domestic database,” You said. “And if they are now able to supplement that with data from all around the world, it’s all about who gets the largest, most diverse data set. And so, the ticking time bomb is that once they’re able to achieve true artificial intelligence, then they’re off to the races in what they can do with that data.”  
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Thailand’s super rich may ultimately have to pay more in taxes to address the $45 billion in government borrowing during the coronavirus pandemic, World Bank economists said Thursday, as the country struggles to roll out vaccines to flatten the curve of its worst COVID-19 outbreak. 

The kingdom, one of Asia’s least equal societies, is home to 52 billionaires, according to the Shanghai-based Hurun Rich List, the most in Southeast Asia, and outstripping Italy, Japan and Singapore.  

Many have multiplied their fortunes during the pandemic — including Dhanin Chearavanont, Thailand’s richest man, with net worth of $18.1 billion on the 2021 Forbes list. 

Conversely, millions of Thais have become unemployed — including an uncounted army of informal workers from tuk-tuk drivers to street vendors — while household debt has surged to 90% of gross domestic product. 

Yet tax rates remain relatively low, including a 20% corporate tax — only Singapore and Brunei have a lower rate in Southeast Asia — while capital gains on asset sales go untaxed in Thailand. 

With millions stricken by debt and the risk of new coronavirus variants compounding a stuttering vaccine rollout, the World Bank warned the government may be forced to go back to the banks for more cash to feed into the economy. 

To plug the record borrowing authorities could turn to “high net worth individuals” once the course for recovery is set, said Kim Edwards, a World Bank senior economist, adding that some “generous deductions” could be reformed. 

“Personal income tax collection is quite a way short of what it could be… tax compliance and potentially increasing top tax rate, increasing capital gains and property taxes,” could also be ways to eat into the deficit, he added, during a virtual press conference on the release of the bank’s semiannual report on the country’s economy.  

Neighboring Malaysia has a 24% corporate tax rate, while the Philippines goes up to 30%. 

“It is less clear why these tax reforms should not work in Thailand,” Birgit Hansl, the bank’s country manager for Thailand, told reporters. 

Thailand’s business clans are deeply dependent on politics and make regular public  donations to the monarchy often televised in great ceremony led by King Maha Vajiralongkorn, by many estimates the world’s richest monarch, with a private fortune valued at between $30 billion and $70 billion. 

Tax increases for the rich in an economy dominated by monopolies are among the calls of pro-democracy protesters, whose rallies are again simmering as the economy tanks and sinks into a public health crisis. 

Stunted recovery 

In its “Thailand Economic Monitor – the Road to Recovery,” the bank said Thailand’s economy could grow by 2.2% this year if it is able to swiftly batter back the virus that has killed 2,938 since April and led to 343,352 infections as the alpha and delta variants rip across the country. 

Authorities have virtually locked down Bangkok and several other provinces, warning of a looming crisis at hospitals where ICU beds are now in short supply. 

However, about 3.4 million people, or just 4.8%, of the nearly 70 million population, have been fully vaccinated, according to Thai health authorities.  

If the virus continues to spread, the World Bank said the country’s growth could be reduced to a measly 1.2% this year, well below regional projections. 

The country is trying to lure back vaccinated visitors, starting with the islands of Phuket and Samui, which reopened on Thursday as the country looks to resuscitate a key sector that accounted for around a fifth of GDP before the pandemic. 

Thailand recorded 40 million tourist arrivals in 2019, but the expected number in 2021 has been lowered sharply from a previous forecast of 4 million to 5 million to just 600,000, the bank said. 

The arch-royalist government of Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha has pumped $45 billion into the economy to provide relief to the unemployed and stir spending with $15 billion about to be dispersed in coming weeks. 

The report praised the government’s massive stimulus, which began in April of last year. 

It forecast that a strong rebound in global demand will likely bring an export boom to Thailand, giving the government the ability to borrow further should it need to.  

However, the latest outbreak has thrown a cloud over the recovery. 

Vaccines are seen as the only way out of the pandemic, but the biggest risk is that vaccine progress “is not as fast as we hoped for,” Hansl said. 
 
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29 elite athletes from 11 countries comprise the International Olympic Committee’s Refugee Olympic Team. The group will compete in the Summer Games in Tokyo that open later this month. As VOA’s Laurel Bowman reports, it is only the second time in history that a team of refugee athletes will compete in the Games.
Producer: Adam Greenbaum and Laurel Bowman
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The World Health Organization ((WHO)) Thursday called on China to cooperate more fully with investigations into the origins of COVID-19, saying a full accounting is owed to the millions of people who suffered and died.
 
During a briefing at the agency’s Geneva headquarters, along with German Health Minister Jens Spahn, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said China needs to be more open and transparent and supply more raw data regarding the first days in which the virus was discovered.
 
Tedros said raw data could help explain how the virus developed and spread, and prevent it from happening again. He also said the world owes it to pandemic victims.
 
“I think we owe it to the millions who suffered and to the millions who died really to understand what happened,” he said.
 
The WHO chief said the agency and its member states have continued engaging with China to get the answers, and he believes there will be better cooperation in the future.
 
The WHO sent an international delegation to China earlier this year on a four-week mission to determine the origin of the coronavirus. Their report concluded the pathogen originated in an animal and was transferred to humans. But many, including U.S. President Joe Biden, felt the probe was “insufficient and inconclusive.” Tedros called for further study on the matter.  
 
Also at Thursday’s briefing, Tedros reported the WHO Emergency Committee has raised concerns that the COVID-19 pandemic is being mischaracterized as ending, while it is nowhere near finished.
 
Tedros said the committee, which held its eighth 2021 meeting on Thursday, also warned about the strong likelihood for the emergence and global spread of new and possibly more dangerous COVID-19 variants that may be even more challenging to control.  
 
He said the committee called on all countries to support WHO’s goal to vaccinate at least 10% of the population of every country by the end of September. 
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An American journalist detained in Myanmar since May remains in prison following another virtual court appearance Thursday as he faces allegations of working to foment dissent against the country’s military government.   Danny Fenster, who is the managing editor of the website Frontier Myanmar, is being held for allegedly violating section 505-A of the country’s penal code.If he is found guilty, he could face up to three years in prison.“Nothing to report,” his brother Bryan Fenster, told the website Deadline Detroit following Thursday’s appearance. “There’s no indication when they will charge, if they will charge and what evidence they have,” he said.He also told the local digital news publication the family was worried about a new wave of COVID-19 hitting the country.  Bryan told Deadline Detroit he’d “heard prison guards and personnel are getting sick and are on leave.”In an email to cable channel CNBC, a State Department spokesperson wrote, “We are concerned with rising COVID-19 infection rates in Burma and urge the military regime to release Daniel now in light of declining public health conditions.”Another hearing is scheduled two weeks from now.“We remain deeply concerned over the continued detention of U.S. citizen Daniel Fenster, who was working as a journalist in Burma. We have pressed the military regime to release Daniel immediately and will continue to do so until he returns home safely to his family,” the State Department wrote, according to CNBC.Fenster was arrested May 24 at Yangon’s airport as he tried to leave the country.Another American journalist, Nathan Maung, who was detained in March for allegedly violating 505-A, was released Monday and left the country.Two Myanmar journalists were jailed for two years under the law, The Associated Press reported in June.The military took power February 1, overthrowing the civilian government and detaining de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other high-ranking officials.Since the coup, widespread protests have rocked Myanmar, many of them turning violent as government officials cracked down. Hundreds of civilians, including dozens of children, have been killed by government troops and police since the coup.The U.S. has sanctioned military leaders, some of their family members and other businesses in the country.   The U.S. has also called for the immediate release of Suu Kyi, leader of the National League for Democracy Party, ousted President Win Myint, and protesters, journalists and human rights activists it says have been unjustly detained since the coup.   Military officials claimed widespread fraud in last November’s general election, which Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy won in a landslide, as justification for the February takeover. The fraud allegations have been denied by Myanmar’s electoral commission.
 
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Indonesia, the world’s fourth-largest nation, is the latest hotspot for the fast-moving, highly contagious delta variant of COVID-19.  The nation reported more than 54,517 new coronavirus infections Wednesday, a new single-day record, along with 991 deaths. Hospitals on Java island are overflowing with infected patients and residents scrambling to find oxygen tanks to treat family members isolating at home. Indonesia’s rising daily COVID-19 rates have begun to outstrip that of India, where the variant was first detected.  India endured a disastrous outbreak earlier this year, with a peak of more than 400,000 daily cases in early May, now down to about 40,000.  The Associated Press says about 1.5 million doses of the two-dose Moderna vaccine are set to arrive in Indonesia from the United States Thursday, coming on the heels of three million doses that arrived Sunday.  Only 15 million of the country’s 270 million people have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Lockdown in Victoria state, AustraliaThe delta variant outbreak continues to wreak havoc in Australia, where officials in the southern state of Victoria imposed an immediate five-day lockdown Thursday as the number of new cases there rose to 18 in just over two days. Victoria state Premier Daniel Andrews said the state’s six million residents, including its capital Melbourne, will only be able to leave home for medical reasons, essential work, school, grocery shopping, exercise and getting vaccinated. The lockdown is Victoria state’s third lockdown this year and its fifth since the start of the pandemic.   
 FILE – Essential workers walk past a ‘Heroes Wear Masks’ sign on the first day of a seven-day lockdown as the state of Victoria looks to curb the spread of a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Melbourne, Australia, May 28, 2021.“We would prefer that we didn’t have to deal with these issues, but this is so infectious, this is such a challenge that we have, we must do this,” Andrews told reporters in Melbourne. “You only get one chance to go hard and go fast.” The latest stay-at-home order for Victoria state comes a day after neighboring New South Wales state extended the current lockdown for its capital, Sydney, for another two weeks.  People wait outside a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccination center at Sydney Olympic Park in Sydney, Australia, July 14, 2021.The lockdown was first imposed on June 26 after a Sydney airport limousine driver who had been transporting international air crews tested positive for the variant. More than 800 people have since been infected, including 97 new infections reported Wednesday.  Two people have died in the current outbreak.  Sydney’s five million residents are only allowed to leave home for work, exercise, essential shopping or medical reasons, while schools and many non-essential businesses are closed.  Australia has been largely successful in containing the spread of COVID-19 through aggressive lockdown efforts, posting just 31,513 total confirmed cases and 912 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. But it has proved vulnerable to fresh outbreaks due to a slow rollout of its vaccination campaign and confusing requirements involving the two-shot AstraZeneca vaccine, which is the dominant vaccine in its stockpile.  Overall, Australia has administered over 9.4 million doses of vaccine to its population of more than 25 million people, or less than 10%, according to Johns Hopkins.  The current worldwide toll from the COVID-19 pandemic now stands at 188.4 million confirmed infections, including over 4 million deaths. 
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Australian authorities are tracking a Chinese surveillance ship that is expected to monitor large-scale military exercises involving the United States off the coast of Queensland.Australia said Wednesday it “fully expected a ship of this class to arrive in our region” during military exercises with the United States. Officials have said they “had planned for its presence.”The auxiliary general intelligence Chinese ship is expected to monitor the Talisman Sabre 2021 war games that officially began Wednesday. They are designed to strengthen a decades-old military alliance and boost combat readiness. The drills include “amphibious landings, ground force maneuver, urban operations, air combat and maritime operations.”It is the largest bilateral training exercise between Australia and the U.S.In an official defense force video, Australian Air Commodore Stuart Bellingham said other countries were also taking part in the drills in Queensland state.“In addition to the United States this year will involve participating forces from Canada, Japan, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand and the United Kingdom,” he said. “Due to COVID-19, you will notice fewer international participants this year compared to the past.”The Chinese electronic spy vessel is expected to closely monitor the Talisman Sabre war games during the next two weeks.In 2019, the same type of ship was also tracked during military maneuvers in Australia.Military analyst and former Australian Defense Department Secretary Hugh White told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that such surveillance has become commonplace.“This is the kind of thing we should expect to see happen and expect to see increasingly happen as the Asia-Pacific, the Indo-Pacific becomes increasingly a theater of strategic rivalry as it is,” he said.The Chinese ship is expected to remain outside Australian territorial waters as it monitors the multinational warfighting games over the next two weeks. It is, however, expected to be within Australia’s exclusive economic zone, where it is entitled to be if it is not carrying out any economic activity.Australian officials have said they do not expect its presence to impede the war drills in Queensland. The vessel is scheduled to arrive off Australia on Friday.Relations between Australia and its largest trading partner, China, have deteriorated in recent years over various commercial and geopolitical disputes.
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Search teams were trying Thursday to rescue 14 construction workers trapped by an overnight flood in a tunnel being built in southern China.The cause of the 3:30 a.m. flood in the city of Zhuhai is under investigation, the city’s emergency management department said in an online post.A command center was set up, and the rescue teams were mobilized from several city agencies.Zhuhai is a coastal city in Guangdong province near Macao at the mouth of the Pearl River delta.It was one of China’s early special economic zones when the ruling Communist Party started opening up the economy about 40 years ago.
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Many residents of Hiroshima welcome attention from abroad, which the International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach will bring when he visits on Friday. The western Japanese city has been in the forefront of the world peace movement and a campaigner for the abolition of nuclear weapons.But Bach will also bring political baggage — as will his vice president John Coates when he visits Nagasaki the same day — that is largely unwelcome in two cities viewed as sacred by many Japanese.Bach and Coates are using the backdrop of the cities, hit with atomic bombs by the United States in 1945, to promote the first day of the so-called Olympic Truce, a tradition from ancient Greece that was revived by a United Nations resolution in 1993. They will also be signaling the start of the Tokyo Olympics in one week. The Games are going ahead during the pandemic despite persistent opposition in Japan from the general public and the medical community.“Many Japanese believe that that IOC strictly forced Japan to have the Olympics this year,” Yasushi Asako, a political scientist at Waseda University, wrote in an email to The Associated Press. “Many Japanese believe that it is their (IOC’s) fault for having such an international event during the pandemic, and there is a high possibility that the pandemic becomes more severe after the Olympics.”Bach will be welcomed by Hiroshima Governor Hidehiko Yuzaki and is expected to place a wreath at the Peace Memorial Park, visit the Peace Memorial Museum and view the Atomic Bomb Dome.He will not be welcomed by everyone.Shuichi Adachi, a former Hiroshima bar association head, submitted a strong statement earlier this week to Yuzaki and Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui opposing Bach’s visit. It was written on behalf of 11 anti-Olympic and pacifist groups.“President Bach using the image of ‘a peaceful world without nuclear weapons’ only to justify holding of the Olympics by force under the pandemic is a blasphemy to atomic bombing survivors,” the group said in a statement. “An act like this does nothing but do harm to the global nuclear weapons ban movement.”FILE – In this 1945 file photo, an Allied war correspondent stands in the ruins of Hiroshima, Japan, just weeks after the city was leveled by an atomic bomb.They also noted the poor timing. The date — Friday, July 16 — marks exactly 76 years since the Trinity nuclear test took place in New Mexico that led to the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki just weeks later.A separate group has also launched an online petition opposing Bach’s visit. The petition, which has garnered almost 70,000 signatures, is addressed to the government of Japan, the Japanese Olympic Committee, and the mayor and governor of Hiroshima.In ordinary times, the visits — largely photo ops — would draw little attention were it not for the pandemic and the Olympics taking place. Depending on the poll and how the question is phrased, a majority of Japanese oppose holding the Olympics.Bach defended the visit in a briefing on Wednesday, saying it was focused only on marking the first day of the Olympic Truce. He termed it an IOC offer of peace “and nothing else.”“This is the message we are going to send in the city of peace — of Hiroshima,’ Bach said. “This will have nothing to with politics. We will not politicize this visit in any way.”Reports out of Hiroshima say the security will be similar to what was in place for President Barack Obama’s visit in 2016.The official cost of the Tokyo Olympics is $15.4 billion, though a government audit suggests it is much more. The IOC has a large financial stake in the Olympics going ahead since almost 75% of its income is from selling broadcast rights.Dr. Ran Zwigenberg, a specialist in the history of Hiroshima at Penn State University, noted that tying the games to the bombed city was not a problem at the 1964 Olympics. A 19-year man named Yoshinori Sakai — born on Aug. 6, 1945, in Hiroshima, the day the atomic bomb was dropped on the city — ignited the cauldron in the national stadium to open the 1964 Olympics. The image of him doing it is famous.“The problem is the controversy surrounding the Olympics, and it’s being very politicized,” Zwigenberg told AP in an interview in Japan where he is doing research. “And that’s something that a lot of people in Hiroshima don’t like. They don’t like to have the image of their city wedded to this kind of controversial visit.”Zwigenberg has written several books on Japanese history, including one focused on Hiroshima — Hiroshima: The Origins of Global Memory Culture.“I’m generalizing here, but the people in Nagasaki and Hiroshima don’t like to have their name or image used by outside bodies, especially when it’s controversial,” he added. 
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Chen Yun, a Chinese student at the University of Melbourne, has always been curious about different political systems. After she arrived in Australia, she started posting on social media about the push for democratic reforms in China.Then came the harassment. She started receiving emails warning that she should be “careful” because if she returns to China, someone would “give her a lesson.”“I thought I could talk about whatever I want after coming here. I thought I could show my support for democracy but I didn’t expect I actually don’t have that freedom,” she told VOA Mandarin, asking to use a pseudonym due to fear of retaliation by the Chinese government.Chen’s experience is not unique. Following the deterioration of relations between Canberra and Beijing over the past two years, there has been growing concern in Australia about China’s influence on higher education, and whether it has undermined academic freedom on campus.The concern was echoed in a recent report by Human Rights Watch (HRW). The report, titled “They Don’t Understand the Fear We Have,” pointed out that pro-democracy Chinese students and scholars enrolled in Australian universities have experienced harassment and intimidation if they speak out in classes and on campus.  “Pro-democracy students from mainland China and Hong Kong experience direct harassment and intimidation from Chinese classmates—including threats of physical violence, being reported on to Chinese authorities back home, being doxed online, or threatened with doxing,” the report said, adding these threats can occur both in person and online. Doxing, also known as doxxing, is publicly identifying or publishing private information about a person to punish them or for revenge.  According to the report, the Chinese embassy and its consulates in Australia encourage students to report on activities by their classmates that might pose a threat to China’s national security. The Chinese embassy in Canberra did not respond to VOA Mandarin’s request for comment on the HRW report.For Wu Lebao, 38, the monitoring has led to stress, anxiety, and real impact on his daily life.Wu is a mathematics student at the Australian National University. He started to participate in pro-democracy movements in China before arriving in Australia and has been harassed by the secret police when he’s in Beijing.  “Yet the nightmare continues here,” Wu told VOA Mandarin by phone.“At first it’s just verbal attacks online, but since last year, I’ve been receiving messages from someone, who claimed that he/she knows which dorm I’m in,” Wu said. “I would receive text messages at midnight, saying someone would ‘come and get me.’ Honestly, I think this person lives in the same building as me, whenever I speak out on our online group, he/she soon responds with some kind of harassment.””Now I couldn’t really sleep at night,” he said.Many Chinese students who want to keep a low profile said they find themselves self-censoring to avoid being reported by their classmates to Chinese authorities. Many of the students who spoke with VOA Mandarin said they had heard rumors, but had no evidence, that students received payment for reporting other Chinese students or teachers.  Yang Xin, who is in the fourth year of his studies, told VOA Mandarin via phone that he needs to be careful about what he says in class to make sure it cannot be interpreted as “not patriotic enough.” He asked to use a pseudonym to avoid government retaliation.“There was this discussion on Taiwanese culture. I personally find Taiwanese culture unique and fascinating but I didn’t say that in the classroom,” he said. “Why? Because I know that will be framed as pro-Taiwan independence. Then I might be questioned when I go back to China and even my relatives might be impacted.”For Yang, the worst part is not knowing who’s watching him. “It creates a lot of anxiety and fear, because anyone around you could be the one that’s reporting you to the authorities,” he said.According to Australia’s Department of Education, Skills and Employment (DESE), as of April 2021, there are over 150,000 students from mainland China studying at Australia’s universities, where they represent close to 30% of all international students.“University officials are acutely aware of the financial impact full fee-paying international students have on their institutions and how reliant they have become on their fees, which accounted for 27 percent of total operating revenue for the Australian university sector by 2019,” according to HRW. U.S. colleges and universities have been similarly dependent on Chinese students, according to World Education News * Reviews.More than half, or 62% of Chinese students returned home during the COVID-19 pandemic and switched to online learning. This posed new challenges to faculties at universities, according to HRW, as “Course material designed for Australian campuses was now being accessed by students behind the ‘Great Firewall’ of China, which posed new and difficult security risks for students and academics alike. Despite this, many academics said their university had not offered any official guidance on teaching Chinese students remotely and the security considerations.”American sociologist Salvatore Babones is an associate professor at the University of Sydney where he focuses on China’s global economic integration. He said restrictions hinder his students in China.If he assigns work that requires using sources from major media like the BBC or the New York Times, “it’s illegal for the students in China to access those media. So it makes it very difficult for them to do their work. I can’t require them to use credible sources when the credible sources are blocked,” he told VOA by phone.Babones added that in order to protect students in China, he had allowed them to use sources readily available to them even though the material sometimes doesn’t meet the academic requirements of his class.It’s a predicament well understood by Kuo Mei-fen, a lecturer at the Department of Media and Communications at the Macquarie University in Sydney who switched to online teaching last year.“There are a few students who are taking online courses in China. Some of them don’t talk at all in class, while others are speaking in line with the Chinese official tones,” she told VOA Mandarin via phone. “I think there’s a consensus among us teachers not to put too much pressure on Chinese students during these online classes, because that might put them in danger.”
 
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After 24 years of heartache and searching, a Chinese couple were reunited with their son who was abducted as a toddler outside their front gate.
Guo Gangtang and his wife, Zhang Wenge, hugged their 26-year-old son with tears in their eyes Sunday at a reunion organized by police in their hometown of Liaocheng in the eastern province of Shandong, according to a video recording released by police.
The story of their reunion after Guo crisscrossed China by motorcycle searching for his son and became an activist who helped police return other missing children to their parents prompted an outpouring of public sympathy and condemnation of abductions.
Guo Xinzhen, then age 2 1/2, was grabbed by a woman and her boyfriend who took him northwest to Hebei province, which surrounds Beijing, the Chinese capital, according to police. From there, he was sold to a couple in central China.
Abductions of children for sale are reported regularly in China, though how often it happens is unclear.
The problem is aggravated by restrictions that until 2015 allowed most urban couples only one child. Boys are sold to couples who want a son to look after them in old age. Girls go to parents who want a servant or a bride for an only son.
Police experts found Guo Xinzhen in June by searching databases for images of people who looked like he might as an adult, according to a police ministry statement. His identity was confirmed by a DNA test.
The woman and her boyfriend, identified only by the surnames Tang and Hu, were caught and confessed to trafficking three boys, according to the ministry. They have yet to stand trial, but potential penalties range up to death.
Blood samples from Guo Xinzhen’s parents were added to an “anti-abduction DNA system,” but no matches were found with boys who were believed to have been abducted, the police ministry said.
Kidnappers target children who are too young to know their names or hometowns and sometimes even that they were abducted.
“So happy for Mr. Guo,” said a post signed Ding Dalong on the Zhihu social media platform. “He found his long-lost son and can move on with his own life.”
Others called for buyers of trafficked children to be punished. There was no word on whether the couple who bought Guo Xinzhen would face penalties.
Guo Xinzhen grew up in Henan province, according to police, but no other details of his life have been reported. It isn’t clear whether he knew he was abducted.
His mother, Zhang, described her despair in a 2015 television interview.
“What use is it for me to live?” she said. “It was me who lost the child.”
Guo Gangtang, now 51, started his search carrying a flag with his son’s photo and details, including “a scar on his left little toe.”
Guo wrote on his social media account that he wore out 10 motorcycles riding through 30 of China’s 34 provinces and regions.  
According to news reports, he operates a shop in Beijing that sells artwork. He received financial help from his father, who kept working into his 70s, and other relatives.
Guo started a website in 2012 and a charity in 2014 to help other parents of abducted children, according to news reports.
“Thank you for participating in anti-trafficking activities for 24 years and helping more than 100 children return home,” the police ministry said on its social media account.
Guo’s search inspired the 2015 movie “Lost and Love,” written by Sanyuan Peng and starring Hong Kong heartthrob Andy Lau.  
“Only when I am on the road do I feel like a father,” the character based on Guo was quoted as saying in the movie’s advertising.
The couple had two more sons, but reporters said Guo wanted them to think Xinzhen was an only child. That would add to the emotional impact of his search.
In a video on his social media account, Guo said he was worn out from public attention and wanted to give no more interviews.
In the 2015 TV interview, Guo said he nearly fell over a cliff when he was blown off his motorcycle in a rainstorm.
Guo Xinzhen said he will stay in Henan but plans to visit his biological parents regularly, according to news reports.  
“He is a great father,” Guo Xinzhen was quoted as saying to reporters. “I am proud of him.”
 
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