Qantas told pilots aircraft had experienced GPS jamming suspected to originate from warships (pictured) operating off the north west shelf of Australia https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11870693/Qantas-warns-crews-Chinese-military-interfering-planes.html
Qantas has warned its pilots of radio interference from people claiming to be Chinese military, and GPS jamming from Chinese warships.
The airline updated its flight standing orders manual on Thursday to include policies on what to do if crews encounter this.
The policy update informed pilots that flights had encountered both hostile actions, sometimes very close to Australia, but safety was not compromised.
As companies all over the world race to develop their own versions of generative artificial intelligence chatbots, developers in China have a particular hurdle to overcome, Beijing’s censorship rules. WSJ reporter Shen Lu joins host Zoe Thomas to discuss how Chinese developers are working to ensure their chatbots avoid subjects like politics.
The WHO, on Friday (Local time) also asked the Chinese official about the reasons behind not revealing the data three years ago and why, after it was published online in January, it could not be found now.
Before the data got vanished into the internet space, an international team of virus experts downloaded and began analysing the research. The team revealed that the data supports the idea that the pandemic could have begun from the illegally traded raccoon dogs, which infected the humans at China’s Wuhan Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market.
But the team couldn’t reach the final result as the gene sequences were removed from a scientific database once the experts offered to collaborate on the analysis with their Chinese counterparts, according to The New York Times.
“These data could have — and should have — been shared three years ago,” Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO’s director general, said. The missing evidence now “needs to be shared with the international community immediately,” he said.
Thai Authorities allege he used high-level Thai connections to operate a criminal ring that brought at least 4,000 Chinese nationals into Thailand to run spinoff businesses, including nightclubs where drugs were openly sold to Chinese customers. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges and faces trial in the coming months.
The investigation opened a window into the world of the shadowy front companies used by Chinese nationals to establish illegal business empires in Thailand, as well as dubious visa services offered by Thai immigration police to people who then established “gray businesses” in the kingdom, according to the police.
For experimenting, WSJ talked to four Chinese chatbots. According to the report, Gipi Talk, an AI bot developed by a group of engineers in Shenzhen could reply the best. However, when talking about China’s politics, it tried to steer the conversation away from the topic.
Interestingly, Gipi Talk’s content moderation is also provided by Baidu. Here is the chat WSJ had with the chatbot.
A: The question couldn’t pass a safety review. No response could be generated for you.
Q: Why did my question fail to pass the safety review?
A: Let’s change the topic and talk about something else.
Q: What can you talk about?
A: It’s nice to chat with you! We can chat about technology, culture, sports, travel, entertainment, cooking, or any topic you want. What would you like to talk about?
Q: Can we talk about politics?
A: Of course, we can talk about politics. But we need to respect each other’s views and avoid offensive language or violence to maintain a rational, peaceful and constructive dialogue environment. What aspect of politics would you like to discuss?
Q: Chinese politics.
A: The question couldn’t pass a safety review. No response could be generated for you.
Q: Well then, can we talk about American politics?
A: The question couldn’t pass a safety review. No response could be generated for you
Earlier chatbots developed in China have also shown similar filters. ChatYuan was one of the first ChatGPT-like creations in China. It was suspended days after its launch in February. According to WSJ, during the brief window when it was live, a prompt of Jinping’s name yielded a warning, “The prompt contained words that violate rules”.
Britain is to ban the Chinese-owned video-sharing app TikTok from ministers’ and civil servants’ mobile phones, bringing the UK in line with the US and the European Commission and reflecting deteriorating relations with Beijing.
The decision marks a sharp U-turn from the UK’s previous position and came a few hours after TikTok said its owner, ByteDance, had been told by Washington to sell the app or face a possible ban in the country.
The UK government’s announcement was made on Thursday by Oliver Dowden, the Cabinet Office minister, in the Commons. He said the ban was “with immediate effect”.
The decision follows a review of TikTok by government cybersecurity experts that began in November, Dowden said, and will cover ministers’ and civil servants’ work phones, but not their personal phones. “This is a proportionate move based on a specific risk with government devices,” he added.
The Chinese-language Mingpao newspaper reported that the publications were sent from Britain to Hong Kong and were several copies of illustrated children’s books in a series that portrayed Hongkongers during the 2019 unrest as sheep trying to defend their village from wolves, an apparent reference to the mainland Chinese authorities.
The pair have been released on bail but must report to police next month, Mingpao quoted police as saying on Wednesday.
The books were ruled by a court as seditious in a high-profile trial in 2022, in which five speech therapists were jailed for 19 months for “conspiring to publish, distribute and display three books with seditious intent”.
Police warned parents at the time to destroy the books because they were “too radical and instilled in children the ideas to confront and oppose the government”.
“Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, weaponisation of energy and food supplies and irresponsible nuclear rhetoric, combined with China’s more aggressive stance in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait, are threatening to create a world defined by danger, disorder and division,” UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak wrote in the foreword to the review.
过去一周，中国流感疫情的爆发加剧，因为一个大城市准备实施疫情式的封锁，以遏制疫情激增 An influenza outbreak in China picked up intensity over the past week as a major city prepared to enforce pandemic-style lockdowns to curb the surge in
— Read on americanmilitarynews.com/2023/03/china-flu-outbreak-intensifies-as-infection-rises-for-sixth-week/
THE EARLY phase of the coronavirus outbreak in China remains an important and still poorly understood lacuna. Prompt, early action could have saved lives and averted enormous disruption. Instead, the Chinese people were exposed to danger in the first weeks of the epidemic when their officials failed to sound the alarm, even though they knew something was afoot.
As debt obligations mount, some local governments are pushing banks to extend maturities and cut interest rates, sources said. Local Government Financing Vehicles (LGFVs) have 5.5 trillion yuan ($790 billion) worth of onshore bonds coming due this year, the highest since 2021, according to Fitch.
A sharp drop in income from mainstay land sales and fewer options for raising fresh funds have fuelled concerns about LGFVs’ ability to meet debt obligations and its impact on the broader banking sector and markets.
TikTok 的一位前风险经理会见了国会调查人员，表达了他对该公司保护美国用户数据的计划存在严重缺陷的担忧，并指出在许多人考虑在全国范围内实施该应用程序的时刻，有证据可能会激起立法者对该应用程序的怀疑 禁止 A former risk manager at TikTok has met with congressional investigators to share his concerns that the company’s plan for protecting United States user data is deeply flawed, pointing to evidence that could inflame lawmakers’ suspicion of the app at a moment when many are considering a nationwide ban
TikTok 可以收集大量用户数据，包括视频观看历史、电子邮件地址和联系人，不过 Facebook 和谷歌等美国科技巨头收集的更多，包括精确的 GPS 位置、广泛的传记详细信息和网络浏览历史，根据一位 上个月发表评论。 TikTok can collect a large range of user data, including video viewing histories, email addresses and contacts, though American tech giants such as Facebook and Google gather even more, including precise GPS locations, extensive biographical details and web-browsing histories, according to a Post review last month.
即将上任的总理是习近平的亲密盟友，在后者担任中国东部浙江省省委书记期间担任了三年的幕僚长。 虽然人们预计他会担任这一职务，但几个月前，在他处理上海封锁导致居民无法获得足够的食物和药品后，他的晋升似乎受到质疑。The incoming premier is a close ally of Xi, serving as his chief of staff for three years when the latter was the provincial party secretary of eastern China’s Zhejiang province. While he has been expected to come into this role, Li’s ascension seemed in doubt a few months ago after his handling of the Shanghai lockdown which left residents without adequate access to food and medicines.
While cases of Covid in China are falling, there has been a spike in flu cases across the country and some pharmacies are struggling to meet demand for flu remedies. 虽然中国的新冠肺炎病例正在下降，但全国各地的流感病例激增，一些药店正在努力满足对流感补救措施的需求。
At the first and highest level, it says, “the city can lock down infected areas, carry out traffic quarantines and suspend production and business activities. Shopping malls, theaters, libraries, museums, tourist attractions and other crowded places will also be closed.” “At this emergency level, schools and nurseries at all levels would be shut down and be made responsible for tracking students’ and infants’ health conditions.” The backlash comes as the central government in Beijing has emphasized the need to open the country back up following the removal of all Covid restrictions in January.
Xi’an itself was subject to a draconian lockdown between December 2021 and January 2022, with 13 million residents confined to their homes for weeks on end — and many left short of food and other essential supplies. Access to medical services was also affected. In an incident that shocked and angered the nation, a heavily pregnant woman was turned awayfrom a hospital on New Year’s Day because she didn’t have a valid Covid-19 test, and suffered a miscarriage after she was finally admitted two hours later. 在2021年12月至2022年1月期间，西安本身受到严厉的封锁，1300万居民连续几周被限制在家中，许多人缺乏食物和其他必需品。获得医疗服务的机会也受到影响。在一次震惊和激怒全国的事件中，一名重度孕妇在元旦被医院拒之门外，因为她没有进行有效的新冠肺炎检测，并在两小时后最终入院后流产。
Mao Zedong (reigned 1893–1976) took China from a semi-colony to the world’s leading power.
However, Mao’s policies caused an enormous number of deaths through famine, prison labor, and mass executions.
In the 1950s, Mao launched the Great Leap Forward, which backfired and resulted in the deadliest famine in history. Over 55 million people died of hunger during 1959–61.
Mao’s Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) resulted in the deaths of up to 7 million people.
“When there is not enough to eat, people starve to death. It is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill.”
The Great Chinese Famine — The Deadliest Famine In The Human History
The Great Chinese Famine of 1959-61 resulted in 55 million deaths
To survive, people resorted to cannibalism. Families ate their own children, remote travellers were murdered for food.
https://short-history.com/great-chinese-famine-1e156d0910bA Chinese man eating bark from a tree (Image: Reddit) https://short-history.com/great-chinese-famine-1e156d0910bhttps://short-history.com/great-chinese-famine-1e156d0910b
Mao Zedong believed each sparrow ate 4.5 kilograms (9.9 pounds) of grain per year. Consequently, the government proclaimed sparrows as the enemies of communism and systematically exterminated them.The lack of sparrows allowed locusts and other insects to over-multiply and destroy crops. 毛泽东相信每只麻雀每年吃4.5公斤（9.9磅）的谷物。 因此，政府宣布麻雀为共产主义的敌人，并系统地消灭它们。麻雀的缺乏使蝗虫和其他昆虫过度繁殖并毁坏庄稼。
Forcing farmers to switch to the steel industry 迫使农民转向钢铁工业
Blast furnaces made of earth spread across the Chinese countryside. The task of farmers was to increase the manufacturing of iron and steel (Image: Wikimedia Commons)American cartoon showing the result of the Great Leap Forward initiative (Image:petruskyaus.net)
Totalitarianism in China brutally suppressed any criticism. Mao Zedong was considered infallible. There was no manoeuvering room for fixing mistakes. 中国的极权主义残酷地压制了任何批评。 毛泽东被认为是万无一失的。 没有改正错误的回旋余地。
The cannibalism during the Great Chinese Famine occurred on a scale unprecedented in history. 中国大饥荒期间发生的食人事件规模空前。
“She sliced up the girl’s flesh and spiced it with chilli peppers before steaming and eating it.”
— Zhou Xun, a historian retelling the story of the old lady’s cannibalism
“她把姑娘的肉切成薄片,用辣椒调味,然后蒸着吃.”— 历史学家周迅重述老太太吃人的故事
The peasants were tortured, killed, or buried alive for reporting realistic harvest results, refusing to hand over the remaining bits of food, or for stealing food.
“Liu Desheng, guilty of poaching a sweet potato, was covered in urine… He, his wife, and his son were also forced into a heap of excrement. Then tongs were used to prise his mouth open after he refused to swallow excrement. He died three weeks later.”
The three were arrested in 2021 during a crackdown on the city’s pro-democracy movement following massive protests more than three years ago. They were leaders of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China and were found guilty last week. The alliance was best known for organising candlelight vigils in Hong Kong on the anniversary of the Chinese military’s crushing of Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests in 1989, but it voted to disband in 2021 under the shadow of the Beijing-imposed national security law. Supporters say its closure has shown freedoms and autonomy that were promised when Hong Kong returned to China from the UK in 1997 are diminishing.Before its disbandment, police sought details about its operations and finances in connection with alleged links to democracy groups overseas, accusing it of being a foreign agent. 这三人是在3年前大规模示威后,在2021年镇压城市民主化运动时被逮捕的。 他们是香港支持中国爱国民主运动联盟的领导人，上周被判有罪。1989年中国军队镇压天安门民主抗议活动周年纪念日，该联盟在香港组织烛光集会最为著名，但在2021年北京颁布的国家安全法的阴影下投票解散。支持者说，关闭该机场表明，1997年香港从英国返回中国时所承诺的自由和自治正在减少。在解散前，警方要求提供与据称与海外民主团体有联系的有关其业务和财政方面的细节，指控它是一个外国特工。
Part of a Chinese rocket broke up over Texas on Wednesday after falling back to Earth in a “high-risk” uncontrolled reentry, according to U.S. Space Command. 据美国太空司令部称，一枚中国火箭的一部分在“高风险”失控重返地球后于周三在德克萨斯州上空解体。
[🔴China’s 21st launch in 2022] At UTC 02:22 June 23, 3 Yaogan(遥感/RemoteSensing)-35-02 satellites were successfully launched by #CZ2D Y64 rocket in Xichang, Sichuan. This is the 424th launch of Long March rocket family. HD: https://t.co/018SGyq48Mpic.twitter.com/0kDtkg7hua
Among the 56 countries listed as “Not Free” around the world, North Korea, China and Myanmar were listed as among “the worst of the worst.” Additionally, out of 39 countries in the Asia-Pacific region, nine were listed as “not free” and 13 were deemed only “partly free.”
“In China, one of the world’s most restrictive media environments, journalists faced heightened scrutiny and rigorous political indoctrination when attempting to renew their press licenses, and even individuals who engaged in solitary forms of protest were punished with prison sentences,” it said.
Thousands have signed anonline petitionto remove Hong Kong actor Donnie Yen as a presenter at this year’sOscarsdue to his support of the Chinese government.
As reported by theBBC, the petition was set up by Hong Kong activist Tong Wai-hung, who claims the decision “shows contempt for the people of Hong Kong” and that Yen’s presence will “damage the image and reputation of the film industry”.
