Satellite images reveal that Beijing has built 380 new"suspected detention facilities" since 2017—and many of them have been freshly built. Their presence directly contradicts the government’s claim that most of the Uighurs and other ethnic minorities being held in these camps have “returned to society.”Point to note: many of these camps are located right next to factories. (The Guardian)
In other China news: TikTok has filed a suit in the US to block the President’s ban which will kick in this Sunday. The judge has told the Trump administration to either delay the ban, or file a response to TikTok’s request. Also: ByteDance has applied for a Chinese technology export licence to seal the deal with Oracle.
In TikTok India news: The company’s transparency report shows that it removed a whopping 37 million videos in India—in just the first six months of 2020! Over half of them displayed adult nudity and sexual activities or posing a threat to minor safety. Plus this: the Indian government submitted the most requests for user information in the world.
The Indian pandemic: A quick update
India’s ‘R’ value has dipped below 1 for the first time since the start of the pandemic. The value measures how many people one person can infect. And any value under 1 is very good news as it shows the spread is finally slowing down.
Delhi’s Deputy Chief Minister has both Covid and Dengue—and has been hospitalised.
The Supreme Court has directed the government to offer financial support, food and other help to sex workers—who have lost their livelihoods due to pandemic safety measures.
Harley Davidson is shutting shop in India. The reason: "While this is a key market for the company, it has failed to show retail sales growth in the past 14 quarters. And Covid-19 has further hammered prospects. The last quarter saw a year-on-year dip in retail sales of 27%, the worst-ever in the past six years.”
Yesterday, clips of passengers cramming themselves into local trains in Mumbai went viral (see below). Railway authorities clarified that heavy rains had resulted in a number of cancelled trains—which led to the chaos.
Trump takes aim at students, again
His administration is planning to impose new restrictions on visas given to students and journalists. Until now F-1 student visas were issued for ‘duration of stay’—i.e. as long as the student was enrolled in a university. As per the new rules, these will now be given for a limited period of four years—which is the normal duration of an undergraduate degree program. (The Hindu)
Sheryl Sandberg’s astonishing claim
Between May and August, The Verge obtained 16 audio recordings from Facebook employees. One of them is a clip of COO Sandberg complaining that her company doesn’t get any credit for helping good people do good:
“We don’t get credit for any of those movements… We don’t get credit for any of it. But the brave women who spoke out on Me Too, the brave people who spoke out on Black Lives Matter, the brave people who organized the Women’s March — they needed the tool. There’s a reason this is happening now and it didn’t happen before.”
That opened the door for a senior Twitter exec to tweet: “We are not perfect here. By any means. But never in a zillion years would an exec here be looking for ‘credit’ for the activists and movements that we are lucky to use this platform to use their voice."
“According to it, between 1990-2015, the world’s annual emissions grew by 60%, while cumulative emissions doubled. The wealthiest 10% of the world’s population, about 630 million people, were responsible for 50% of the cumulative emissions, and the poorest 50%, some 3.1 billion people, just 7% of the cumulative emissions.”
That 10% represents 630 million people making more than $35,000 a year. But where does this 10% live? North America and the European Union account for half of their emissions—while a fifth are from China and India. (The Guardian)
A condom-sized horror in Vietnam
The police have confiscated around 345,000 used condoms—which were cleaned and resold as new! The warehouse owner says they received a “monthly input of used condoms”—which they ‘recycled’ so:
“A woman detained during the bust told police that the used prophylactics were first boiled in water then dried and reshaped on a wooden phallus before being repackaged and resold.”
Big hips/thighs are a sign of health
According to a new study, people with large thighs or wide hips are less likely to die early. But a beer belly is a big sign of trouble. Every extra 4 inches (10 cm) around your waist increase the risk of premature death by 11%. OTOH: “Each 10cm increase in hip circumference was associated with a 10% lower risk of death from all causes—and each 5cm increase in thigh circumference was associated with an 18% lower risk." More details over at Times UK (paywall) or Daily Mail.
Jio makes the ‘freebie’ move
Vodafone lost 4.8 million subscribers in June—while Jio added 4.5 million users in the same month. To make things worse, Jio is now using freebies—like Netflix and Amazon Prime subscriptions—to kill the competition.
Also doing its best: Maruti, which has rolled out a subscription program. You can now lease your car rather than buy it outright. Mint has more on how it works.
Please log in to read this edition
Don’t have an account? Try our two-week free pass over on our subscribe page