In addition to hosting the football World Cup, Qatar is also staging a very distinct competition. The long-legged beauties are competing to be named the most gorgeous in what has been dubbed a “Camel Beauty World Cup” that includes camels from all of the Gulf states. The event is taking place at the Qatar Camel Mzayen Club in Ash-Shahaniyah. Depending on their age and breed, the competing camels are separated into various groups, reports Reuters. “We did a camel beauty World Cup,” Mzayen Club president Hamad Jaber Al Athba told the news agencys. The premise is similar to the football World Cup, he said. The camels were paraded in front of an indoor crowd while they sipped coffee and munched on treats. Read more: Camels in Qatar feel the pressure from World Cup tourists There is severe competition among the several camel varieties. “The dimensions of the body, the head, and the placement of the ears are used to evaluate black camels. However, with the Maghateer-type camel, we look for proportionality, and the lips should be curled in addition to the ears sliding down rather than standing straight,” Al Athba remarked. However, in order to prevent cheating and ensure that the camels have not had any surgical improvements, experts use X-rays to inspect the animals before the tournament starts. Forthy-three contestants were eliminated from a Saudi Arabian camel beauty pageant last year due to the use of botox and other cosmetic improvements, sparking a cheating scandal. In recent years, organisers have cracked down on cosmetic improvements, a practise that has survived despite severe penalties and fierce competition. Read more: The tale of ending use of Bangladeshi children as camel jockeys The modifications are intended to create the camels’ droopier lips and more sculpted humps, which are essential features in the pageant.

India officially takes up its role as chair of the Group of 20 leading economies for the coming year Thursday and it's putting climate at the top of the group's priorities. Programs to encourage sustainable living and money for countries to transition to clean energy and deal with the effects of a warming world are some of the key areas that India will focus on during its presidency, experts say. Some say India will also use its new position to boost its climate credentials and act as a bridge between the interests of industrialized nations and developing ones. The country has made considerable moves toward its climate goals in recent years but is currently one of the world's top emitters of planet-warming gases. The G-20, made up of the world's largest economies, has a rolling presidency with a different member state in charge of the group's agenda and priorities each year. Experts believe India will use the “big stage” of the G-20 presidency to drive forward its climate and development plans. The country “will focus heavily on responding to the current and future challenges posed by climate change,” said Samir Sarin, president of the Observer Research Foundation, a New Delhi-based think tank. The ORF will be anchoring the T-20 — a group of think tanks from the 20 member countries whose participants meet alongside the G-20. Read more: Xi criticises Trudeau in person over alleged leaks of closed-door meeting at G-20 summit Sarin said that India will work to ensure that money is flowing from rich industrialized nations to emerging economies to help them combat global warming, such as a promise of $100 billion a year for clean energy and adapting to climate change for poorer nations that has not yet been fulfilled and a recent pledge to vulnerable countries that there will be a fund for the loss and damage caused by extreme weather. He added that India will also use the presidency to push its flagship “Mission Life” program that encourages more sustainable lifestyles in the country, which is set to soon become most populous in the world. When outgoing chair Indonesia formally handed the presidency to India in Bali last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi took the opportunity to promote the program, saying it could make “a big contribution” by turning sustainable living into “a mass movement." The impact of lifestyle "has not received as much attention in the global discourse as it should," said RR Rashmi, a distinguished fellow at The Energy Research Institute in New Delhi. He added that the issue "may get some prominence” at the G-20 which would be a success for the Indian government, but critics say the focus on lifestyle changes must be backed by policy to have credibility. India has been beefing up its climate credentials, with its recent domestic targets to transition to renewable energy more ambitious than the goals it submitted to the U.N. as part of the Paris Agreement, which requires countries to show how they plan to limit warming to temperature targets set in 2015. Analysts say nations' climate ambitions and actions — including India's — are not in line with temperature targets. Many of India’s big industrialists are investing heavily in renewable energy domestically as well as globally, but the Indian government is also preparing to invest in coal-based power plants at the cost of $33 billion over the next four years. At the U.N. climate conference last month, India — currently the world’s third largest emitter of greenhouse gases — proposed a phaseout of all fossil fuels and repeatedly emphasized the need to revamp global climate finance. The country says it cannot reach its climate goals and reduce carbon dioxide emissions without significantly more finance from richer nations, a claim which those countries dispute. Read more: Despite differences, the G-20 summit ends with a condemnation of Russia Navroz Dubash, author of several U.N. climate reports and professor at the Centre for Policy Research, said that a key question for many countries is how “emerging economies address development needs and do it in a low carbon pathway” with several in the global south, like India, pointing to a need for outside investment. As the chair of the G-20, India is a good position “to say what it will take for us to develop in ways that don’t lock up the remaining carbon budget,” Dubash added, referring to the amount of carbon dioxide the world can emit while still containing global warming within 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) compared with preindustrial levels. “Developing countries are making a convincing case that green industrial policies are actually quite dependent on having public money to throw at the problems," said Dubash. Some experts say more than $2 trillion is needed each year by 2030 to help developing countries cut emissions and deal with the effects of a warming climate, with $1 trillion from domestic sources and the rest coming from external sources such as developed countries or multilateral development banks. "This public money can also be a way of getting in private money, which is what the U.S. has done in its Inflation Reduction Act,” Dubash added. The U.S.'s flagship climate package that passed earlier this year includes incentives for building out clean energy infrastructure. The G-20 will also be looking closely at alternative means to getting climate finance, experts say. The group could potentially take a leaf out of the Bridgetown initiative proposed by the prime minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, which involves unlocking large sums of money from multilateral development banks and international financial institutions to help countries adapt to climate change and transition to cleaner energy. ORF's Sarin said that as G-20 chair India can help move forward the conversation on the initiative. Developing countries are often charged higher rates of interest when borrowing from global financial institutions. Rejigging global finance to make renewable energy more affordable in the developing world is key to curbing climate change, Sarin said. The idea has recently gained traction amongst developed nations, with France's Macron recently vocalizing his support. “A large share of emissions will come from the developing world in the future," Sarin said. “If we make it easier for them to shift to clean energy, then these emissions can be avoided.”

Videos of hundreds protesting in Shanghai started to appear on WeChat Saturday night. Showing chants about removing COVID-19 restrictions and demanding freedom, they would only stay up for only minutes before being censored. Elliot Wang, a 26-year-old in Beijing, was amazed. “I started refreshing constantly, and saving videos, and taking screenshots of what I could before it got censored,” said Wang, who only agreed to be quoted using his English name, in fear of government retaliation, . “A lot of my friends were sharing the videos of the protests in Shanghai. I shared them too, but they would get taken down quickly.” That Wang was able to glimpse the extraordinary outpouring of grievances highlights the cat-and-mouse game that goes on between millions of Chinese internet users and the country’s gargantuan censorship machine. Chinese authorities maintain a tight grip on the country’s internet via a complex, multi-layered censorship operation that blocks access to almost all foreign news and social media, and blocks topics and keywords considered politically sensitive or detrimental to the Chinese Communist Party’s rule. Videos of or calls to protest are usually deleted immediately. Read more: China’s Communist Party vows 'crackdown on hostile forces' as public tests Xi But images of protests began to spread on WeChat, a ubiquitous Chinese social networking platform used by over 1 billion, in the wake of a deadly fire in the western city of Urumqi Friday. Many suspected that lockdown measures prevented residents from escaping the flames, something the government denies. The sheer number of unhappy Chinese users who took to the Chinese internet to express their frustration, together with the methods they used to evade censors led to a brief period of time where government censors were overwhelmed, according to Han Rongbin, an associate professor at the University of Georgia’s Public and International Affairs department. “It takes censors some time to study what is happening and to add that to their portfolio in terms of censorship, so it’s a learning process for the government on how to conduct censorship effectively,” said Han. In 2020, the death from COVID-19 of Li Wenliang, a doctor who was arrested for spreading rumors following an attempt to alert others about a “SARS-like” virus, sparked widespread outrage and an outpouring of anger against the Chinese censorship system. Users posted criticism for hours before censors moved to delete posts. As censors took down posts related to the fire, Chinese internet users often used humor and metaphor to spread critical messages. “Chinese netizens have always been very creative because every idea used successfully once will be discovered by censors the next time,” said Liu Lipeng, a censor-turned-critic of China’s censorship practices. Chinese users started posting images of blank sheets of white paper, said Liu, in a silent reminder of words they weren't allowed to post. Others posted sarcastic messages like “Good good good sure sure sure right right right yes yes yes,” or used Chinese homonyms to evoke calls for President Xi Jinping to resign, such as “shrimp moss,” which sounds like the words for “step down” as well as “banana peel”, which has the same initials as Chinese President Xi Jinping. But within days, censors moved to contain images of white paper. They would have used a range of tools, said Chauncey Jung, a policy analyst who previously worked for several Chinese internet companies based in Beijing. Read more: China lockdown protests pause as police flood city streets  Most content censorship is not done by the state, Jung said, but outsourced to content moderation operations at private social media platforms, who use a mix of human and AI. Some censored posts are not deleted, but may be made visible only to the author, or removed from search results. In some cases, posts with sensitive key phrases may be published after review. A search on Weibo Thursday for the term “white paper” turned up mostly posts that were critical of the protests, with no images of a single sheet of blank paper, or of people holding white paper at protests. It's possible to access the global internet from China by using technologies such as virtual private networks that disguise internet traffic, but these systems are illegal and many Chinese internet users access only the domestic internet. Wang does not use a VPN. “I think I can say for all the mainlanders in my generation that we are really excited,” said Wang. “But we’re also really disappointed because we can’t do anything... They just keep censoring, keep deleting, and even releasing fake accounts to praise the cops.” But the system works well enough to stop many users from ever seeing them. When protests broke out across China over the weekend, Carmen Ou, who lives in Beijing, initially didn’t notice. Ou learned of the protests only later, after using a VPN service to access Instagram. “I tried looking at my feed on WeChat, but there was no mention of any protests,” she said. “If not for a VPN and access to Instagram, I might not have found out that such a monumental event had taken place.” Han, the international affairs professor, said that censorship “doesn't have to be perfect to be effective” Read more: China's Xi faces public anger over draconian 'zero COVID' "Censorship might be functioning to prevent a big enough size of the population from accessing the critical information to be mobilized,” he said. China’s opaque approach to tamping down the spread of online dissent also makes it difficult to distinguish government campaigns from ordinary spam. Searching Twitter using the Chinese words for Shanghai or other Chinese cities reveals protest videos, but also also a near-constant flood of new posts showing racy photos of young women. Some researchers proposed that a state-backed campaign could be seeking to drown out news of the protests with “not safe for work” content. A preliminary analysis by the Stanford Internet Observatory found lots of spam but no “compelling evidence” that it was specifically intended to suppress information or dissent, said Stanford data architect David Thiel. “I’d be skeptical of anyone claiming clear evidence of government attribution,” Thiel said in an email. Twitter searches for more specific protest-related terms, such as “Urumqi Middle Road, Shanghai,” produced mainly posts related to the protests. Israeli data analysis firm Cyabra and another research group that shared analysis with the AP said it was hard to distinguish between a deliberate attempt to drown out protest information sought by the Chinese diaspora and a run-of-the-mill commercial spam campaign. Twitter didn’t respond to a request for comment. It hasn’t answered media inquiries since billionaire Elon Musk took over the platform in late October and cut back much of its workforce, including many of those tasked with moderating spam and other content. Musk often tweets about how he’s enacting or enforcing new Twitter content rules but hasn’t commented on the recent protests in China.

A top European Union official warned Elon Musk on Wednesday that Twitter needs to beef up measures to protect users from hate speech, misinformation and other harmful content to avoid violating new rules that threaten tech giants with big fines or even a ban in the 27-nation bloc. Thierry Breton, the EU's commissioner for digital policy, told the billionaire Tesla CEO that the social media platform will have to significantly increase efforts to comply with the new rules, known as the Digital Services Act, set to take effect next year. The two held a video call to discuss Twitter's preparedness for the law, which will require tech companies to better police their platforms for material that, for instance, promotes terrorism, child sexual abuse, hate speech and commercial scams. It’s part of a new digital rulebook that has made Europe the global leader in the push to rein in the power of social media companies, potentially setting up a clash with Musk’s vision for a more unfettered Twitter. U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen also said Wednesday that an investigation into Musk's $44 billion purchase was not off the table. Breton said he was pleased to hear that Musk considers the EU rules “a sensible approach to implement on a worldwide basis.” “But let’s also be clear that there is still huge work ahead,” Musk said, according to a readout of the call released by Breton’s office. “Twitter will have to implement transparent user policies, significantly reinforce content moderation and protect freedom of speech, tackle disinformation with resolve, and limit targeted advertising.” After Musk, a self-described “free speech absolutist,” bought Twitter a month ago, groups that monitor the platform for racist, antisemitic and other toxic speech, such the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, say it’s been on the rise on the world’s de facto digital public square. Musk has signaled an interest in rolling back many of Twitter’s previous rules meant to combat misinformation, most recently by abandoning enforcement of its COVID-19 misinformation policy. He already reinstated some high-profile accounts that had violated Twitter’s content rules and had promised a “general amnesty” restoring most suspended accounts starting this week. Twitter didn’t respond to an email request for comment. In a separate blog post Wednesday, the company said “human safety” is its top priority and that its trust and safety team “continues its diligent work to keep the platform safe from hateful conduct, abusive behavior, and any violation of Twitter’s rules." Musk, however, has laid off half the company’s 7,500-person workforce, along with an untold number of contractors responsible for content moderation. Many others have resigned, including the company’s head of trust and safety. Read more: Musk says granting 'amnesty' to suspended Twitter accounts In the call Wednesday, Musk agreed to let the EU's executive Commission carry out a “stress test" at Twitter’s headquarters early next year to help the platform comply with the new rules ahead of schedule, the readout said. That will also help the company prepare for an “extensive independent audit" as required by the new law, which is aimed at protecting internet users from illegal content and reducing the spread of harmful but legal material. Violations could result in huge fines of up to 6% of a company’s annual global revenue or even a ban on operating in the European Union's single market. Along with European regulators, Musk risks running afoul of Apple and Google, which power most of the world’s smartphones. Both have stringent policies against misinformation, hate speech and other misconduct, previously enforced to boot apps like the social media platform Parler from their devices. Apps must also meet certain data security, privacy and performance standards. Musk tweeted without providing evidence this week that Apple “threatened to withhold Twitter from its App Store, but won’t tell us why.” Apple hasn’t commented but Musk backtracked on his claim Wednesday, saying he met with Apple CEO Tim Cook who “was clear that Apple never considered” removing Twitter. Meanwhile, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen walked back her statements about whether Musk’s purchase of Twitter warrants government review. “I misspoke,” she said at The New York Times’ DealBook Summit on Wednesday, referring to a CBS interview this month where she said there was “no basis” to review the Twitter purchase. The Treasury secretary oversees the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, an interagency committee that investigates the national security risks from foreign investments in American firms. Read more: Elon Musk says Twitter deal ‘temporarily on hold’ “If there are such risks, it would be appropriate for the Treasury to have a look,” Yellen told The New York Times. She declined to confirm whether CFIUS is currently investigating Musk’s Twitter purchase. Billionaire Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal is, through his investment company, Twitter’s biggest shareholder after Musk.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said Wednesday the company does not have plans to stop selling the antisemitic film that gained notoriety recently after Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving tweeted out an Amazon link to it. Pressure has been mounting on Amazon to discontinue sale of the film, called “Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America," since Irving shared the link to the documentary with his millions of Twitter followers in October. The synopsis on Amazon says the film “uncovers the true identity of the Children of Israel.” Read more: Amazon reportedly pays no tax in 2018 At The New York Times’ DealBook Summit in New York City, Jassy said it is difficult for the company to determine what content crosses the line to where Amazon doesn’t make it available to customers. “As a retailer of content to hundreds of millions of customers with a lot of different viewpoints, we have to allow access to those viewpoints, even if they are objectionable — objectionable and they differ from our particular viewpoints,” the Times quoted Jassy as saying. He said making decisions about what content to take down is “more straight forward” in some cases, such as when it “actively incites or promotes violence, or teaches people to do things like pedophilia." Dozens of celebrities, public figures as well as Jewish organizations and the Nets have called on the company to take down the film or add a disclaimer offering an explanation as to why the documentary and related book are problematic. Amazon told the newspaper earlier this month that it would look into adding a disclaimer on the documentary’s main page. But that hasn’t happened. The Seattle-based company did not reply to request for comment sent by The Associated Press earlier this month on whether it would add a disclaimer or not. Jassy, who is Jewish, said Wednesday that Amazon has employees that flag content, but scaling that more broadly could be challenging. Rea more: EU files antitrust charges against Amazon over use of datad  “The reality is that we have very expansive customer reviews,” he said. “For books with a lot of attention — especially public attention — customers do a good job monitoring other people.” Irving was suspended by the Nets on Nov. 3 after he refused to issue the apology that NBA Commissioner Adam Silver sought for posting the link the the film. He returned after issuing an apology more than two weeks later. He missed eight games.

The European Union proposed Wednesday to set up a U.N.-backed specialized court to investigate possible war crimes committed by Russia in Ukraine, and to use frozen Russian assets to rebuild the war-torn country. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said the EU will work with international partners to get “the broadest international support possible" for the tribunal, while continuing to support the work of the International Criminal Court. Since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, his military forces have been accused of abuses ranging from killings in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha to deadly attacks on civilian facilities, including the March 16 bombing of a theater in Mariupol that an Associated Press investigation established likely killed close to 600 people. Read more: Lull in Russian attacks against Ukraine energy, aid pledged Investigations of military crimes committed during the war in Ukraine are underway around Europe, and the Hague-based International Criminal Court has already launched investigations. Von der Leyen said it is estimated that more than 20,000 Ukrainian civilians and more than 100,000 Ukrainian military officers have been killed since the start of the war. Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska on Tuesday also urged that Ukraine’s invaders be held account as she addressed lawmakers in London. “Victory is not the only thing we need. We need justice,” she said, comparing Russian war crimes to the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany in World War II. She called on Britain to lead efforts to set up a criminal tribunal to prosecute senior Russians over the invasion, similar to the postwar Nuremberg trials of leading Nazis. Read more: Pockets of shelling across Ukraine as wintry warfare looms Von der Leyen on Wednesday added that the 27-nation bloc wants to make Russia pay for the destruction it caused in neighboring Ukraine by using Russian assets frozen under sanctions. She estimated the damage to Ukraine at 600 billion euros. “Russia and its oligarchs have to compensate Ukraine for the damage and cover the costs for rebuilding the country," von der Leyen said. “We have the means to make Russia pay." Von der Leyen said 300 billion euros of the Russian central bank reserves has been immobilized, and that 19 billion euros of Russian oligarchs' money has been frozen. “In the short term, we could create with our partners a structure to manage these funds and invest them," she said. “We would then use the proceeds for Ukraine, and once the sanctions are lifted, these funds should be used so that Russia pays full compensation for the damages caused to Ukraine." The EU said the lifting of the restrictions on Russian assets could be linked to conclusion of a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia that would settle the question of damages reparation.

Former President Jiang Zemin, who led China out of isolation after the army crushed the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests in 1989 and supported economic reforms that led to a decade of explosive growth, died Wednesday. He was 96. Jiang died of leukemia and multiple organ failure in Shanghai, where he was a former mayor and Communist Party secretary, state TV and the official Xinhua News Agency reported. A surprise choice to lead a divided Communist Party after the 1989 turmoil, Jiang saw China through history-making changes including a revival of market-oriented reforms, the return of Hong Kong from British rule in 1997 and Beijing’s entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001. Read more: China’s Communist Party vows 'crackdown on hostile forces' as public tests Xi Even as China opened to the outside, Jiang’s government stamped out dissent. It jailed human rights, labor and pro-democracy activists and banned the Falun Gong spiritual movement, which the ruling party saw as a threat to its monopoly on power. Jiang gave up his last official title in 2004 but remained a force behind the scenes in the wrangling that led to the rise of current President Xi Jinping, who took power in 2012. Xi has tightened political control, crushed China’s little remaining dissent and reasserted the dominance of state industry. Rumors that Jiang might be in declining health spread after he missed a ruling party congress in October at which Xi, China's most powerful figure since at least the 1980s, broke with tradition and awarded himself a third five-year term as leader. Jiang was on the verge of retirement as Shanghai party leader in 1989 when he was drafted by then-paramount leader leader Deng Xiaoping to pull together the party and nation. He succeeded Zhao Ziyang, who was dismissed by Deng due to his sympathy for the student-led Tiananmen Square protesters and was held under house arrest until his 2005 death. In 13 years as party general secretary, China's most powerful post, Jiang guided the country's rise to economic power by welcoming capitalists into the ruling party and pulling in foreign investment after China joined the WTO. China passed Germany and then Japan to become the second-largest economy after the United States. Jiang captured a political prize when Beijing was picked as the site of the 2008 Summer Olympics after failing in an earlier bid. A former soap factory manager, Jiang capped his career with the communist era’s first orderly succession, handing over his post as party leader in 2002 to Hu Jintao, who also took the ceremonial title of president the following year. Jiang tried to hold onto influence by staying on as chairman of the Central Military Commission, which controls the party’s military wing, the 2 million-member People’s Liberation Army. He gave up that post in 2004 following complaints he might divide the government. Even after he left office, Jiang had influence over promotions through his network of proteges. He was said to be frustrated that Deng had picked Hu as the next leader, blocking Jiang from installing his own successor. But Jiang was considered successful in elevating allies to the party’s seven-member Standing Committee, China’s inner circle of power, when Xi became leader in 2012. Portly and owlish in oversize glasses, Jiang was an ebullient figure who played the piano and enjoyed singing, in contrast to his more reserved successors, Hu and Xi. Read more: China's Xi faces public anger over draconian 'zero COVID' He spoke enthusiastic if halting English and would recite the Gettysburg Address for foreign visitors. On a visit to Britain, he tried to coax Queen Elizabeth II into singing karaoke. Jiang had faded from public sight and last appeared publicly alongside current and former leaders atop Beijing’s Tiananmen Gate at a 2019 military parade celebrating the party’s 70th anniversary in power. Jiang was born Aug. 17, 1926, in the affluent eastern city of Yangzhou. Official biographies downplay his family’s middle-class background, emphasizing instead his uncle and adoptive father, Jiang Shangqing, an early revolutionary who was killed in battle in 1939. After graduating from the electrical machinery department of Jiaotong University in Shanghai in 1947, Jiang advanced through the ranks of state-controlled industries, working in a food factory, then soap-making and China’s biggest automobile plant. Like many technocratic officials, Jiang spent part of the ultra-radical 1966-76 Cultural Revolution as a farm laborer. His career rise resumed, and in 1983 he was named minister of the electronics industry, then a key but backward sector the government hoped to revive by inviting foreign investment. As mayor of Shanghai in 1985-89, Jiang impressed foreign visitors as a representative of a new breed of outward-looking Chinese leaders. A tough political fighter, Jiang defied predictions that his stint as leader would be short. He consolidated power by promoting members of his “Shanghai faction” and giving the military double-digit annual percentage increases in spending. Foreign leaders and CEOs who shunned Beijing after the crackdown were persuaded to return. When Deng emerged from retirement in 1992 to push for reviving market-style reform in the face of conservative opposition after the Tiananmen crackdown, Jiang followed. He supported Premier Zhu Rongji, the party’s No. 3 leader, who forced through painful changes that slashed as many as 40 million jobs from state industry in the late 1990s. Zhu launched the privatization of urban housing, igniting a building boom that transformed Chinese cities into forests of high-rises and propelled economic growth. After 12 years of negotiations and a flight by Zhu to Washington to lobby the Clinton administration for support, China joined the WTO in 2001, cementing its position as a magnet for foreign investment. Despite a genial public image, Jiang dealt severely with challenges to ruling party power. His highest-profile target was Falun Gong, a meditation group founded in the early ’90s. Chinese leaders were spooked by its ability to attract tens of thousands of followers, including military officers. Activists who tried to form an opposition China Democracy Party, a move permitted by Chinese law, were sentenced to up to 12 years in prison on subversion charges. “Stability above all else,” Jiang ordered, in a phrase his successors have used to justify intensive social controls. It fell to Jiang, standing beside Britain’s Prince Charles, to preside over the return of Hong Kong on July 1, 1997, symbolizing the end of 150 years of European colonialism. The nearby Portuguese territory of Macao was returned to China in 1999. Hong Kong was promised autonomy and became a springboard for mainland companies to go abroad. Meanwhile, Jiang turned to coercion with Taiwan, the self-ruled island Beijing says is part of its territory. During Taiwan’s first direct presidential election in 1996, Jiang’s government tried to intimidate voters by firing missiles into nearby shipping lanes. The United States responded by sending warships to the area in a show of support. At the same time, trade between the mainland and Taiwan grew to billions of dollars a year. China’s economic boom split society into winners and losers as waves of rural residents migrated to factory jobs in cities, the economy grew sevenfold and urban incomes by nearly as much. Protests, once rare, spread as millions lost state jobs and farmers complained about rising taxes and fees. Divorce rates climbed. Corruption flourished. One of Jiang’s sons, Jiang Mianheng, courted controversy in the late 1990s as a telecommunications dealmaker and later the chairman of phone company China Netcom Co. Critics accused him of misusing his father’s status to promote his career, a common complaint against the children of party leaders. Jiang Mianheng, who has a Ph.D. from Drexel University, went on to hold prominent academic positions, including president of ShanghaiTech University in his father’s old power base. Jiang is survived by his two sons and his wife, Wang Yeping, who worked in government bureaucracies in charge of state industries.

China’s ruling Communist Party has vowed to “resolutely crack down on infiltration and sabotage activities by hostile forces,” following the largest street demonstrations in decades staged by citizens fed up with strict anti-virus restrictions. The statement from the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission released late Tuesday comes amid a massive show of force by security services to deter a recurrence of the protests that broke out over the weekend in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and several other cities. While it did not directly address the protests, the statement serves as a reminder of the party’s determination to enforce its rule. Hundreds of SUVs, vans and armored vehicles with flashing lights were parked along city streets Wednesday while police and paramilitary forces conducted random ID checks and searched people’s mobile phones for photos, banned apps or other potential evidence that they had taken part in the demonstrations. The number of people who have been detained at the demonstrations and in follow-up police actions is not known. Also read: China lockdown protests pause as police flood city streets The commission's statement, issued after an expanded session Monday presided over by its head Chen Wenqing, a member of the party's 24-member Politburo, said the meeting aimed to review the outcomes of October's 20th party congress. At that event, Xi granted himself a third five-year term as secretary general, potentially making him China's leader for life, while stacking key bodies with loyalists and eliminating opposing voices. “The meeting emphasized that political and legal organs must take effective measures to … resolutely safeguard national security and social stability," the statement said. “We must resolutely crack down on infiltration and sabotage activities by hostile forces in accordance with the law, resolutely crack down on illegal and criminal acts that disrupt social order and effectively maintain overall social stability," it said. Yet, less than a month after seemingly ensuring his political future and unrivaled dominance, Xi, who has signaled he favors regime stability above all, is facing his biggest public challenge yet. He and the party have yet to directly address the unrest, which spread to college campuses and the semi-autonomous southern city of Hong Kong, as well as sparking sympathy protests abroad. Most protesters focused their ire on the “zero-COVID" policy that has placed millions under lockdown and quarantine, limiting their access to food and medicine while ravaging the economy and severely restricting travel. Many mocked the government's ever-changing line of reasoning, as well as claims that “hostile outside foreign forces" were stirring the wave of anger. Yet bolder voices called for greater freedom and democracy and for Xi, China's most powerful leader in decades, as well as the party he leads, to step down — speech considered subversive and punishable with lengthy prison terms. Some held up blank pieces of white paper to demonstrate their lack of free speech rights. The weekend protests were sparked by anger over the deaths of at least 10 people in a fire on Nov. 24 in China’s far west that prompted angry questions online about whether firefighters or victims trying to escape were blocked by anti-virus controls. Authorities eased some controls and announced a new push to vaccinate vulnerable groups after the demonstrations, but maintained they would stick to the “zero-COVID” strategy. The party had already promised last month to reduce disruptions, but a spike in infections swiftly prompted party cadres under intense pressure to tighten controls in an effort to prevent outbreaks. The National Health Commission on Wednesday reported 37,612 cases detected over the previous 24 hours, while the death toll remained unchanged at 5,233. Beijing’s Tsinghua University, where students protested over the weekend, and other schools in the capital and the southern province of Guangdong sent students home in an apparent attempt to defuse tensions. Chinese leaders are wary of universities, which have been hotbeds of activism including the Tiananmen protests. Police appeared to be trying to keep their crackdown out of sight, possibly to avoid encouraging others by drawing attention to the scale of the protests. Videos and posts on Chinese social media about protests were deleted by the party’s vast online censorship apparatus. “Zero-COVID” has helped keep case numbers lower than those of the United States and other major countries, but global health experts including the head of the World Health Organization increasingly say it is unsustainable. China dismissed the remarks as irresponsible. Beijing needs to make its approach “very targeted” to reduce economic disruption, the head of the International Monetary Fund told The Associated Press in an interview Tuesday. “We see the importance of moving away from massive lockdowns,” said IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva in Berlin. “So that targeting allows to contain the spread of COVID without significant economic costs.” Economists and health experts, however, warn that Beijing can’t relax controls that keep most travelers out of China until tens of millions of older people are vaccinated. They say that means “zero-COVID” might not end for as much as another year. On Wednesday, U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns said restrictions were, among other things, making it impossible for U.S. diplomats to meet with American prisoners being held in China, as is mandated by international treaty. Because of a lack of commercial airline routes into the country, the Embassy has to use monthly charter flights to move its personnel in and out. “COVID is really dominating every aspect of life" in China, he said in an online discussion with the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. On the protests, Burns said the embassy was observing their progress and the government's response, but said, “We believe the Chinese people have a right to protest peacefully." “They have a right to make their views known. They have a right to be heard. That’s a fundamental right around the world. It should be. And that right should not be hindered with, and it shouldn’t be interfered with," he said. Burns also referenced instances of Chinese police harassing and detaining foreign reporters covering the protests. “We support freedom of the press as well as freedom of speech," he said.

A suicide bomber blew himself up near a truck carrying police officers on their way to protect polio workers outside Quetta on Wednesday, killing two people and wounding more than 20 others, mostly policemen, officials said. Ghulam Azfer Mehser, a senior police officer, said the attack happened when the policemen were heading to the polio workers, part of a nationwide vaccination drive launched Monday. He said the bombing also damaged a nearby car carrying members of a family. The Pakistani Taliban in a statement claimed responsibility. In a statement, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan group, or TTP, said the attack in Baluchistan targeted police to avenge the killing of their former spokesperson, Abdul Wali. He was widely known as Omar Khalid Khurasani and was killed in a bombing in Afghanistan’s Paktika province in August. His death was a heavy blow to the group. Read: Militants kill six police officers during ambush in northwest Pakistan The attack on police came amid a spike in new polio cases among children. The latest vaccination campaign is the sixth such drive this year and will last for five days, aiming to inoculate children under the age of 5 in high-risk areas. The drive is aimed at Islamabad and in the high-risk districts in eastern Punjab and southwestern Baluchistan province, where Monday's attack took place. It killed at least two people, including a police officer and a child. A similar campaign will be launched in the northwest in the first week of December. Pakistani authorities have been launching such campaigns regularly despite attacks on workers and police assigned to inoculation drives. Militants falsely claim that vaccination campaigns are a Western conspiracy to sterilize children. Since April, Pakistan has registered 20 new polio cases, which can cause severe paralysis in children. Read: Former ISI chief named Pakistan's new head of army Pakistan came close to eradicating polio last year, when only one case was reported. Currently, Pakistan and Afghanistan are the last two countries in which polio has not been eliminated. Wednesday's bombing happened two days after The Pakistani Taliban ended a monthslong cease-fire with the government in Islamabad, ordering its fighters to resume attacks across the country, where scores of deadly attacks have been blamed on the insurgent group. In Monday's statement, the outlawed TTP group said it would end the five-month cease-fire after the army stepped up operations against the TTP. Pakistan and the TTP had agreed to an indefinite cease-fire in May after talks in Afghanistan’s capital. The Pakistani Taliban are a separate group but are allies of the Afghanistan Taliban, who seized power in Afghanistan more than a year ago as the U.S. and NATO troops were in the final stages of their pullout. The Taliban takeover in Afghanistan emboldened TTP, whose top leaders and fighters are hiding in Afghanistan. Read: China crowds angered by Covid curbs openly urge Xi to resign The latest violence comes a day after Pakistan’s new military chief, Gen. Asim Munir, took command. Munir, a former spymaster, replaced Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa after he retired from the post after a six-year term. Bajwa, during his tenure, had approved a series of operations against the militants in Baluchistan, northwest and elsewhere in the country. The latest attack also comes a day after the military claimed it killed 10 “terrorists” in a raid in the Hoshab district of Baluchistan province. For nearly two decades Baluchistan has been the scene of a low-level insurgency by separatists demanding independence from the central government in Islamabad. The government says it has quelled the insurgency, but violence in the province has persisted.

Finland’s leader says it must give more weapons and support to Ukraine to ensure it wins its war against Russia. Prime Minister Sanna Marin made the comments Wednesday in Auckland on the first-ever visit by a Finnish prime minister to New Zealand and Australia. Among the aims of the visit are improving diplomatic relations and trade ties. “We need hard power when it comes to Ukraine,” Marin told reporters when asked what soft-power influence smaller countries like Finland and New Zealand could exert. Read: Pockets of shelling across Ukraine as wintry warfare looms “They need weapons, they need financial support, they need humanitarian support, and we need to also make sure that all the refugees fleeing from Ukraine are welcomed to Europe,” Marin said. Since the war began, both Finland and Sweden have abandoned their longstanding policies of military nonalignment and applied to join NATO. Both countries are still seeking endorsement from Turkey. Marin said the war felt very concrete for Finland due to the 1,300-kilometer (800-mile) border it shares with Russia. She said Finland had already given 10 shipments of weapons to Ukraine. “We have to make sure that they will win,” Marin said.