Day: June 16, 2021

China’s internet regulator is cracking down on verbal abuse and “rumor-mongering” among fan groups on social media, a move which commentators say will include further suppression of any speech considered politically sensitive by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), but also forms part of an ongoing war on celebrity culture.

The Cyberspace Administration of China launched a two-month operation titled “Clean-up and rectification of fan group chaos,” the administration said in a post on its official website.

It is targeting celebrity followers, hot topics, interactive comments, and fan communities, in a bid to eliminate “harmful information” and online abuse, it said.

Fans, many of whom are minors, are tearing into each other with verbal abuse, smear campaigns, flame wars, doxxing, and other privacy violations, as well as showing off their wealth with extravagant displays and hiring others to boost their ratings and join in online pile-ons, the administration said.

Zhejiang-based legal scholar Song Hao said the crackdown comes ahead of the CCP’s centenary celebrations on July 1, and is likely to be used to clamp down on any public speech that the government doesn’t like.

“We are still looking at campaign-style law enforcement, despite the fact that many of the behaviors, such as privacy violations, are covered by existing laws,” Song told RFA.

“It’s replacing a rule-of-law style of enforcement, and we are seeing this time and again.”

A person in the Zhejiang film and television industry said the Cyberspace Administration is particularly concerned about young people.

“The central government is looking to tighten control over one industry and then another, moving towards totalitarian rule,” the person, who gave only a surname Zhu, told RFA.

“It has happened in the food industry … with the campaign against food waste … and now the entertainment industry, where they are cracking down on high salaries,” Zhu said.

‘Unwanted noise’

She said the overall aim is cultivate a generation of young people who are more concerned with loving their country and the CCP than with celebrity culture.

“The fan circles are being shut down, as have all of the talent shows, which have had an impact on a lot of people’s jobs,” Zhu said. “Even companies that sold TV entertainment shows from foreign countries, like South Korea, have been affected.”

Song said the current campaign targeting young people’s online behavior comes as the party tries to purge the public realm of unwanted “noise,” making way for a constant flow of pro-CCP propaganda.

“They are particularly worried about what they regard as unwanted noise that could disrupt an atmosphere of peace and happiness [they want to create] at such an important historic moment,” Song said.

“This campaign against so-called chaos in fan groups isn’t apolitical, but neither do [fan groups] pose a threat to the security of the regime,” he said.

“The authorities are ill at ease with the entertainment, leisure, and culture [industries],” Song said. “[But at the same time], they are trying everything in their power to encourage young people to think about entertainment and money, rather than about politics and human rights.”

Reported by Qiao Long for RFA’s Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Farmer Myo Myint Than was in the wrong place at the wrong time Sunday, seen near a shop where an informant for the military junta was shot. Three hours later, his parents had to retrieve the badly beaten body of the latest of nearly two dozen people to die during interrogation by Myanmar securities since the Feb. 1 coup.

CCTV footage showed Myo Myint Than, 38, passing by the Yoon Yoon electronics shop in Taungtha Market in Mandalay, where two unidentified men had shot the owner Hnin Hnin, an open supporter of the junta, sources close to the slain farmer’s family told RFA.

Shortly after the shooting, about 60 regime soldiers came to Indae village to arrest him, the family friend said.

“He was a really honest farmer. He had no weapons. He was arrested in the village and beaten by the soldiers,” said the source.

“When his parents went to see him, the body was covered with a piece of cloth. Only the face was shown. It was badly beaten. They were not allowed to look at the lower part of the body,” added the family friend.

Myo Myint Than’s body was buried by family members in Taungtha Cemetery in the presence of junta guards Monday evening, added the friend.

Some local residents said Hnin Hnin, the owner of the store, had survived the shooting and is being treated at Naypyidaw Military Hospital, but RFA has been unable still to confirm her condition.

A resident of Taungtha said Hnin Hnin had flown flags of the military proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) in front of her shop during protests against the military, had joined pro-military protests and had threatened to hand over members of National League for Democracy (NLD to the junta.

“She had attended USDP organized events. She said ‘How many NLD members do you want? I could hand them over to the military. She had also provided supplies to the soldiers,” said the resident, who declined to be named.

Myanmar Now News yesterday said that Taungtha Township People’s Defense Forces, a local militia, had claimed responsibility for the shooting of the pro-junta female informer in. RFA tried to contact the Taungtha PDF by phone but the calls were not successful.

A local resident in Taungtha township said the whole village was saddened by the killing of a simple farmer.

“There might be young people who are in the resistance, but everybody is upset that a simple, honest farmer was killed without doing anything,” said the villager.

“We don’t want to live under a military dictatorship. There’s no difference between living under a dictator and being dead. We just have to revolt. “

According to Taungtha township residents, about 70 local villagers have been arrested under Section 505(a) of the Penal Code for inciting dissent against the military and are facing trial in prison.

Zaw Htun, also known as the Poet Khet Thi, was arrested by junta security forces in Sagaing region’s Shwebo township and sent for interrogation on May 9, after months of taking part in nationwide protests against Feb. 1 coup and calling for resistance to the regime through his poetry.

Less than 24 hours later, his family was informed of his death and told to collect his body at a hospital in the region’s largest city Monywa. His wife said that authorities informed her Zaw Htun had died from a health condition, but she found his body covered in bruises and missing its internal organs, leading her to believe he had been killed in custody.

The Thailand-based rights group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) says that since the Feb. 1 coup, at least 22 people have died during interrogations, with more than half having died within 24 hours after being arrested.

Reported by RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Paul Eckert. 

Reports of a potential radioactive leak at a French-built nuclear reactor at Taishan in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong point to longer-term safety concerns, but aren’t a cause for immediate alarm, experts told RFA.

The Taishan Nuclear Power Plant, operated by China General Nuclear (CGN) and joint-venture partner Framatome, controlled by EDF, has moved to reassure the public after CNN reported on Monday that the U.S. government had spent the past week assessing a report of a leak at the plant.

Framatome and EDF are working with experts to propose solutions to “any potential issue” after a build-up of noble, or inert, gases inside one of the reactors, but said the plant is operating within safety parameters.

EDF said the build-up of noble gases had affected the primary circuit of Unit 1 of the Taishan plant, was a “known phenomenon, studied and provided for in the reactor operating procedures.”

Li Min, dean of the Institute of Atomic Sciences at Taiwan’s National Tsing Hua University, said the leakage of inert gases from nuclear power plants suggests defective fuel rod sheaths.

“I don’t think there is any need to panic at all,” Li told RFA. “There is really no need to panic because the amounts of inert gas that leak [in this situation] is always very small.”

“It really isn’t that serious,” he said.

But he said it was possible that Framatome had written to the U.S. Department of Energy about the issue, as reported by CNN on Monday, because it would need U.S. approval for the use of certain technologies to locate any defective fuel rods.

Safety protocol concerns

The U.S. Department of Commerce included four CGN-affiliated companies on a list of companies suspected of intending to obtain U.S. advanced nuclear technology and apply it for military use in China.

The move meant that no nuclear power industry technology bought from the U.S. can be transferred to CGN without a special exemption.

Engineer Albert Lai, who runs campaign group the Hong Kong Professional Commons, and who has followed technical developments since construction began on the Taishan plant in 2009, also said the available information suggests that there isn’t a major crisis brewing at the plant.

“Theoretically, [the inert gases] won’t leak out into the atmosphere, but if this issue isn’t properly handled, then an accumulation of gas could lead to bigger technical problems in future,” Lai said.

He said there are long-running concerns over homegrown safety protocols that China is using at the U.S.$8.3 billion Taishan plant, which is the first in the world to use European pressurized reactors (EPR) designed by French nuclear firm Areva, and which has been plagued by delays and technical problems.

In April 2016, tests in France found that excessive carbon in the steel that formed the EPR reactor’s top and bottom could lead to unexpected cracks that could later spread, Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post newspaper reported at the time.

The plant’s two advanced 1.75GW pressurized water reactors are the largest single-piece electric generators in the world, and have a strong safety reputation, it said.

But France’s nuclear safety authority, the ASN, raised concerns over the EPR reactors destined for the Taishan plant, saying the reactors hadn’t been subjected to the most rigorous form of testing. It said some mechanical properties can be measured only by destructive tests, which had not been carried out on the Taishan reactors.

Problems with the design of the reactors were also cited by Areva’s parent company, energy giant Electricite de France (EDF) in a recommendation to the U.K. parliament that it postpone the Chinese-invested Hinkley Point nuclear plant, which will also use EPR technology.

‘Lower standards’

Lai said China had used the French technology despite safety concerns.

“France gives them this technology, but they don’t apply its safety standards, but instead apply a different set of lower standards,” Lai said. “If this situation continues, then who knows when the next problem could occur.”

He said CGN could choose to delay replacing the rods to save the huge costs involved in doing so, and that the Chinese nuclear safety agency was unlikely to have the clout to insist.

Gamma radiation levels in Hong Kong, 135 kilometers (85 miles) from the plant were within normal range on Wednesday, data displayed on the Hong Kong Observatory website showed.

Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam told reporters on Tuesday that the city authorities are closely following developments, but that that “relevant data” in Hong Kong are currently in the normal range.

The meteorological bureau in neighboring Macau also reported gamma radiation levels within normal range.

Macau police cited the Guangdong Nuclear Emergency Committee as saying that all environmental indicators in the vicinity of Taishan were also normal.

Reported by Lu Xi for RFA’s Mandarin and Cantonese Services. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

KUALA LUMPUR— MATME Management is back on its quest to find and select the best performing talents to represent Team Malaysia to compete in the Global Event, the World Championship of Performing Arts (WCOPA) 2021, in Las Vegas this November. The selection of representatives from Team Malaysia will commence through the regional competition, Malaysia Championship of Performing Arts  (MCOPA)  2021, supported by the Ministry of Tourism, Arts & Culture Malaysia (MOTAC). Amongst the notable celebrities who were past winners of MCOPA were popular talents such as Yazmin Aziz, Nurul Aina, Iqwal Hafiz, Sarah Qistina Lim, Dewi Seriestha, Aloysius C. Susek, etc, and the competition will continue to develop powerful talents alike this year.

As the country works together to curb the pandemic, the MCOPA will be held virtually in collaboration with the online streaming platform, Uplive Malaysia, allowing the prestigious competition to be streamed live (for free), by up to 200mil people in Asia. Uplive also provides the opportunity for viewers to engage with the contestants by allowing them to interactively vote for their favorite performers.

 

 

 

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK