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Per the Democratic polling firm TargetSmart, ballots cast by Asian American Georgia voters rose from 2016 to 2020, from 73,000 votes to 134,000 votes.

Demonstrations have broken out in cities and university campuses across China amid widespread anger at Covid lockdowns. The wave of civil disobedience was triggered by an apartment fire on Friday in which at least 10 people died in the west Xinjiang region. In an unusually bold act that appeared to indicate the level of people’s desperation, a crowd in Shanghai called for the removal of the Communist party and President Xi Jinping in a standoff with police on Saturday, according to videos circulated on Twitter. Chinese people usually refrain from criticising the party and its leaders in public for fear of reprisals  

Public protests are the most visible signs of anger and scepticism over latest series of draconian lockdowns
Victoria Li* has experienced several lockdowns since . Being a prisoner in her own home in Beijing made her feel depressed, powerless and angry.
“Being stuck at home with my door sealed, I felt unmotivated to do anything,” she said. “I didn’t want to work, I didn’t want to study. Sometimes, I crept into my bed and cried,” said the lawyer, who is in her 20s.

The American computer scientist, who coined the term ‘virtual reality,’ cautions against online ‘psychological operatives’
Jaron Lanier, the eminent American computer scientist, composer and artist, is no stranger to skepticism around social media, but his current interpretations of its effects are becoming darker and his warnings more trenchant.
Lanier, a dreadlocked free-thinker credited with coining the term “virtual reality”, has long sounded dire sirens about the dangers of a world over-reliant on the internet and at the increasing mercy of tech lords, their social media platforms and those who work for them.

As the rest of the world breaks free of the virus, China has doubled down on draconian measures
Last week, Covid-related images provoked outrage on Chinese social media: one showed a young woman kneeling on the ground with behind her back after she and a friend had picked up a takeaway meal without first donning masks.
Neither had Covid, neither was even a close contact, but both had been detained by the increasingly resented , the hazmat-suited zero-Covid enforcers who bound the women’s hands and left them kneeling in the street, an exercise in humiliation that provoked indignation among China’s netizens.

Between Covid-19 restrictions and US-China frictions, trips by academics and think-tankers have dropped off sharply But three who have made recent extended trips confirm that there's no substitute for ...

Xi Jinping’s repressive policy on dissent in the former colony is starting to resemble a vendetta as Jimmy Lai faces a new trial
The trial of Jimmy Lai, the Hong Kong pro-democracy campaigner and media tycoon, which is due to begin this week, marks another low point in China’s relentless assault on individual and civil rights in Britain’s former colony – whose traditional freedoms Beijing is legally bound to uphold.
Lai, a UK citizen who founded the popular Apple Daily newspaper, to publish seditious material and collusion with foreign powers under Beijing’s draconian 2020 national security law. The accusations are offensive and ridiculous. In effect, China’s Communist party is mounting a show trial.

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The Chinese navy now has three aircraft carriers in its arsenal. But, are they any good? How would they fare against the U.S. Navy?

Former prime minister says US and Europe will pay biggest share of loss and damage fund, but China must too
China must pay into a new fund for poor countries stricken by climate-driven disaster on the basis of its high greenhouse gas emissions and large economy, the former UK prime minister Gordon Brown has said.
“America and Europe will have to provide most, but China will have to contribute more too,” he told the Guardian.

The runoff election for the Georgia Senate race is set to be held in less than two weeks, with both parties vying for the support of Asian Americans at the voting booth.

Protests have broken out in China's far western Xinjiang region, in the latest demonstration of public anger towards the country's zero-Covid policy and strict lockdown rules. Crowds chanted 'End the lockdown' at hazmat-suited guards following a fire in a high-rise building that killed 10 people in Urumqi, Xinjiang's capital. According to users on Chinese social media, the lockdown hampered escape efforts, but authorities strongly deny this. The Chinese government says it will continue a zero-Covid policy despite protests and a mounting toll on the economy