📡Guardians of Hong Kong aka BeWater HK
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We provide translation of news in English from local media and other sources, for academic use.
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WHO unveils new 26-member panel to restart study of the pandemic’s origins

The World Health Organization (WHO) today unveiled a new team to investigate the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Scientific Advisory Group on the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO) will also be tasked with studying the origins of future outbreaks and epidemics and guiding studies of emerging pathogens more generally.

WHO’s proposed list of SAGO members contains 26 researchers from 26 countries, 11 of whom are women. Six members were also part of the international team that traveled to China earlier this year to study the pandemic’s origins with Chinese colleagues. That earlier team’s report had favored a natural origin of SARS-CoV-2, calling a possible leak from a lab in Wuhan, China, “extremely unlikely.” WHO’s director-general later said, however, that it was too early to rule out this hypothesis.

Source: Science #Oct13

https://bit.ly/3gVtkWc

#WHO #COVID19 #SAGO #Wuhan
Why China Is Freaking Out Over Biden’s Democracy Summit

The Chinese government is furious about U.S. President Joe Biden’s Summit for Democracy, and it wants the world to know.

A week before the summit was to take place, the Chinese government hastily convened its own democracy forum and published a white paper called “China: Democracy That Works,” as well as a report titled “The State of Democracy in the United States,” in which it claims to “expose the deficiencies and abuse of democracy” in the United States. These actions have been accompanied by countless articles, press conferences, and, of course, tweets about China’s “democracy” and its alleged superiority to U.S. democracy.

So why is the Chinese government reacting so strongly to Biden’s virtual summit?

Source: Foreign Policy #Dec11

https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/12/10/china-response-biden-democracy-summit/

#WHO #China #Biden #Democracy
#Censorship
#China censors #ZeroCovid debate after #WHO criticises policy

Source: Hong Kong Free Press #May12

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#Censorship
#China censors #ZeroCovid debate after #WHO criticises policy

//China’s censors scrambled to wipe out online debate over its zero-Covid strategy on Wednesday after the World Health Organisation (WHO) criticised the country’s hardline approach to crushing the virus.

China is the last major economy glued to a zero-Covid policy and enforces some of the most stringent virus controls anywhere in the world...

Those restrictions have trapped most of Shanghai’s 25 million people in a lockdown with no clear end date, while Beijing has also gradually coralled many of its residents indoors as it battles its biggest outbreak since the pandemic began.

On Tuesday WHO chief #Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged China to change tack, saying the approach “will not be sustainable” in the face of new fast-spreading variants.

The intervention prompted China’s army of internet censors to race to snuff out his comments.//

Read more:
https://hongkongfp.com/2022/05/12/china-censors-zero-covid-debate-after-who-criticises-policy/

Source: Hong Kong Free Press #May12
Surveillance for All: China Pushes for Permanent Health Code by 2025

Although the #WHO had clearly stated that there had been a drastic 90% decrease in COVID deaths across the world, China had not embraced this optimistic view. Instead, it has declared a goal of making the Health QR Code mandatory for everyone in the country by 2025, enforcing a long-term, real-time surveillance for its citizens.

On Nov 9, The National Health Commission of China announced on its website that by 2025, every Chinese citizen will have a dynamically-managed electronic health file and a fully-functional electronic health code. The announcement is jointly published by the National Health Commission, State Administration of State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and National Bureau of Disease Control and Prevention.

According to the announcement, the health code systems currently in use are run by each province separately, and the systems from different provinces do not generally recognize each other's codes. In response, the central government aims to create a basic, inter-connected surveillance platform by 2025, in which each resident will have a dynamically-managed electronic health file and a fully-functional electronic health code.

With such a system in place, the Chinese government will be able to leverage big data to trace the so-called "high-risk individuals", establishing a long-term, real-time surveillance and control of the Chinese populace.

Source: Radio Free Asia #Nov10

https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/code-11102022062758.html

see also:
"Encode us": Health Code, or is it CCP's Social Credit System? (Aug 17, 2020)
https://publielectoral.lat/guardiansofhongkong/24283

#CCP #SurveillanceState #WuhanPneumonia #HealthCode #BigData #BigBrother