Welcome to this week’s Jingjing Newsletter. Let’s continue to explore under-reported sides of world news.
This week the US House of Representatives voted for a bill that could see TikTok banned across the United States. With the leadership of both Republican and Democratic parties in Congress united in their opposition to Chinese ownership of the highly popular app, which has over 170 million users in the US alone, the bill secured a majority of 352 votes for and only 65 against. The bill still has to pass the Senate, but President Joe Biden has indicated he would sign the bill if it landed on his desk. Upon receiving Biden’s signature, the law would give TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, 6 months to sell its stake in the app or face the prospect of TikTok being banned in the US market. US lawmakers claim to fear Chinese interference on the app but have yet to present much evidence that these fears are substantiated, and TikTok has said that it has taken measures to ensure that US users’ data is stored in the US. Behind the scenes, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram and TikTok’s largest US competitor, has been found to be running a years-long campaign scaremongering about TikTok using the PR firm Target Victory. This campaign seems to finally be bearing fruit. However, the strongest opposition to the TikTok ban bill came from the far right of the Republican House caucus, and with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump vowing to reverse the ban if he wins the election in November, it is possible that even if Biden signs the bill into law, the ban will be overturned by a new administration.
As Israel continues its assault in the southern Gaza Strip, and the official Palestinian death toll in the conflict exceeds 31,000, evidence from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the UN organization responsible for Palestinian refugees, has come to light detailing the use of torture by Israeli forces in order to illicit false confessions from Palestinian detainees. The as-yet-unpublished report, reviewed by Reuters in March, details allegations of abuse and torture in Israeli detention, including severe physical beatings, waterboarding, and threats of harm to family members. This appears to have been done in order to extract false confessions and information which the Israeli authorities could then use in their report alleging UNRWA involvement in the October 7th attack on Israel. This Israeli report, released at the end of January, accused UNRWA officials aided and abetting Hamas, the Gaza-based militant group. The January report resulted in the suspension of around 60% of UNRWA’s funding at a time of acute need for the Palestinian population, millions of whom rely on the agency for humanitarian assistance. UNRWA’s allegations of torture inside Israeli detention facilities corroborate earlier testimonies collected by Amnesty International, the human rights charity, and Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based news agency, which similarly allege widespread use of torture. These revelations are bound to cast doubt on key aspects of the official Israeli narrative around the October 7th attack and the subsequent invasion of the Gaza Strip, coming as they do only a few weeks after a groundbreaking investigation by the Intercept discrediting allegations of widespread sexual violence on October 7th that was detailed in a New York Times report in December and were widely disseminated by supporters of the current Israeli actions in Gaza.
India has implemented a new citizenship law called the Citizenship Amendment Act, which offers a fast track to naturalization for people who fled India from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan before Dec. 31, 2014. However, the new law has stirred up controversy as while it provides criteria for Hindus, Parsis, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, and Christians to achieve Indian citizenship, there is no such provision for Muslims, who make up the majority of all three countries named in the act. The law also marks the first time India has set religious criteria for citizenship. The Citizenship Amendment Act actually passed the Indian parliament back in 2019, but due to violent nationwide protests the Indian government held back on implementing the law. Now, with a parliamentary election to be held by May, Narendra Modi, India’s Prime Minister, appears to have gone ahead with the law to fulfill a key promise made to his Hindu nationalist base of support. The explicitly religious criteria of the new law have raised fears among critics, especially inside the 200 million-strong Indian Muslim population, that Modi is eroding the explicitly secular nature of the Indian state in favor of his own brand of Hindu nationalism. Protests have erupted across India in the wake of the implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act, some opposing the discriminatory nature of the law, but others, such as student groups in regional states such as Meghalaya and Tripura, oppose the law on the grounds they don’t believe any foreign national should have a route to citizenship.
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Nigeria has been stunned this month by the news of the abduction of nearly 300 students at gunpoint from their school in the northwest of the country. Authorities say at least a hundred of the students were under the age of 12. At the time of writing, no group had yet to take responsibility for the action, and security forces had few leads on where the students had been taken. While unusual in its scale, abductions such as these have plagued Nigeria’s northwest for years, with three high-profile abductions having taken place already this month. The governor of the region, Uba Sani, insisted security forces were “working round the clock” to bring back the children, and Nigeria’s president, Bola Tinubu, ordered the security forces to pursue the kidnappers. However, with thousands of Nigerians having been kidnapped in the last decade and with terrorist groups endemic in the northwest of the country, it is unclear if the Nigerian security forces have the capability to resolve the current crisis.
Portugal went to the polls on March 10th and gave a stunning rebuke to the governing Socialist party, who won a parliamentary majority only two years ago. The election was triggered when the socialist prime minister, António Costa, resigned in November after an investigation was launched into alleged corruption. This scandal clearly soured voters to the Socialist Party, who lost 43 seats and their control of parliament. With 99% of votes counted the centre-right Democratic Alliance has emerged as the victor in the election, winning a total of 79 seats to the Socialists’ 77. Neither party has enough seats to form a majority, so Portugal will now enter a period of coalition talks to determine who will form the government. The election also saw a surge in the far-right vote. The far-right Chega party, which secured only 1.3% of the vote in the 2019 election, came in third, winning 48 seats with 18% of the national vote. This follows a trend in European politics, which has seen a far-right resurgence across the continent in the last few years.
Jingjing’s Highlights in This Week
1. American TikTok users are against the ban on TikTok
American TikTok users are very aware of why the US wants to ban TikTok. The US government is not interested in solving gun violence, growing homelessness, growing cost of almost everything, but is so eager to ban one app immediately.
2. This is how Uyghur women in Xinjiang raised their status in family and society
This is a story about how many Uyghur women raised their status in the family and in society. This is a story about how grassroots deputies in China improve the living standards of the people they represent. Here's the story of Aynur Abbas, a successful female entrepreneur and deputy to Xinjiang's People's Congress.
What You May Have Missed This Week in the World.
1. China calls for advancing AI to protect children's rights
“A Chinese diplomat on Thursday called for advancing high-quality development of artificial intelligence (AI) to help promote children's mental health and protect their rights at the 55th session of the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council held here.”
2. Wall Street Journal - Illegal Israeli Settler Roads Are Surging Across West Bank Since Oct. 7
“A Wall Street Journal investigation found that since Oct. 7, Israeli settlers have been rapidly building illegal roads and outposts across the West Bank. This work is sometimes done under armed guard with funding from the Israeli government.”
3. SpaceX Starship mega rocket takes third test flight, lost during re-entry
“SpaceX's mega rocket Starship completed nearly an entire flight through space on a third test flight on Thursday, but disintegrated on its return to Earth.”
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4. First Thought - The US Is Gone...What's Next For Afghanistan?
How did the US occupation damage Afghanistan...and how are China helping the Afghans rebuild?
5. Boy Boy - We Snuck Into a CIA Base In The Aussie Outback
A group of Australian YouTubers try to sneak into a highly secret American military base in the middle of Australia. In the process they learn a lot about Australia’s security relationship with the US - and none of it is good.
6. BRIX Sweden - China Looking to the South: Necessity, Strategy, or Both?
“While the U.S. and the EU are still important trade partners of China, ASEAN has already overtaken their position as China largest export market. The Arab countries are well positioned to surpass the EU in trade volume with China. Africa, with 1.3 billion people, mostly under the age of 20, and projected to almost double by 2050, is rising gradually, but with the injection of industrial technologies from China, after decades of being denied to them by industrialized nations, African nations will be leapfrogging in economic development and growth.”
7. Tricontinental - Conquest, War, Famine, and Death Hit You Straight in the Heart
“In the face of looming famine, Biden’s promise to build a ‘temporary pier’ to allow aid into Gaza is hollow, undermined by his country’s complicity in Israel’s genocide against Palestine.”
Page Editor: Jin Yulin
Call for Contributors!
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If you have an idea for a feature article, contact jjnewsletter@hotmail.com with a brief description of the article's focus.
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