While the rest of the world enjoys the relatively free and uncensored Web, China and its citizens face a different reality. Since the beginning of Maoist-era China, information has been tightly controlled to protect the government’s interests and control the populace.
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The Galwan River Valley of Ladakh, a region claimed by both India and China, has been facing increased tensions over the past year. After more than four decades without any bloodshed, the region was the scene for a bloody skirmish that began on June 15, 2020, according to World Politics Review. At least 20 Indian soldiers were killed by “fists, stones and nail studded bamboo,” CNN reports. The Chinese have not confirmed nor denied any casualties they undertook because of the June battle. Although talks took place over the following months to de-escalate the region, conflict broke out again. Lacking mutual trust and transparency, the talks accomplished little.
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The government of the People’s Republic of China is receiving growing international criticism from the public, governmental bodies, and organizations for their mass incarceration and torture of ethnic minority groups in Xinjiang province. According to The Washington Post, a public tribunal in London plans to hold hearings next year investigating claims that the Chinese government is committing genocide against its Uighur ethnic group.
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The System of Operative Search Measures, or SORM, was once used by the Soviet Union to monitor phone calls. Now it is being used in Russia to track geolocation and IP addresses. The program was resurrected by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) in 1995 to surveil online activity and has grown in scope as the internet became an ever greater essential of day-to-day life.
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Belarus has been gripped with violent protests caused by the controversial re-election of president Alexander Lukashenko. According to CNN, the country’s Central Election Commission announced that Alexander Lukashenko won with 80.23% of the vote, while opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya stood at 9.9%.
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It has been confirmed that Navalny, a prominent Kremlin critic, was poisoned, reports BBC News. Political analysts and experts are still wondering who was behind the poisoning and who is responsible for carrying out the plan. Navalny’s allies and other anti-Putin political activists believe that the United Russia Party played a significant role in this situation due to the obvious tensions between him and President Vladimir Putin.
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Tensions between Greece and Turkey are once again on the rise. CNBC reports that Turkish F-16 jets prevented Greek planes from entering the area where Turkey has recently been engaging in natural gas drilling operations. Sanctions from the European Union on Turkey appear to be on the way as a result.
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On July 25, MV Wakashio, a Japanese ship, hit a coral reef off the coast of Mauritius, a small island nation in the Indian Ocean, on its way to Brazil, according to The Washington Post. Six days later, oil began spilling into the Mahebourg Lagoon, resulting in the spillage of approximately 1,000 tons of oil into the Indian Ocean.
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In Germany, thousands of protestors gathered at the capital on Saturday, August 29 with signs suggesting COVID-19 is not a serious, or even real, issue.
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The Lebanese government introduced its new Prime Minister on August 31, an expected move from a government under intense criticism. Mustapha Adib, a former Ambassador to Germany, assumed the role after securing support from the Lebanese parliament and accepting the president’s appointment, according to the . His tenure will not start on an easy note however, as the new Prime Minister will be tasked with confronting a multitude of crises facing the state while battling extreme skepticism from his own citizens.
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