Megha Rajagopalan
@meghara
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International investigations at The New York Times based in London. DMs open. megha.rajagopalan @nytimes .com
London, England
Joined February 2008
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177 journalists have been killed in the Philippines since 1986, making it among the deadliest countries to be a journalist.
Hah, hah, hah.
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For those who can't read it —
Woman: "May you have abundance each year."
Cat: "May you have fish each year."
The Chinese characters for abundance and fish are both pronounced "yú," a joke that is probably centuries old and clearly still hilarious today.
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NEW: China secretly built scores of massive new prison and internment camps in the past 3 years, escalating its campaign against Muslim minorities even after it publicly claimed the detainees were been set free
Some camps can hold >10,000 people.
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The Lion King sets Simba up as a pure-of-heart exile challenging Scar’s corrupt despotism but his coup d’état ultimately serves to reinforce the bankrupt concepts of hereditary rule and might over right. In this dissertation I will
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What’s actually happening is the government is planning to shove out the villagers who have lived on the island with the dragons for generations and re-open it for a small number of wealthy tourists.
Indonesia is closing Komodo Island for all of 2020 to protect its Komodo dragons.
There are only 1,700 of the rare lizards on the island. Last year, there were over 176,000 visitors who visited the area.
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Am so grateful to our team, to
@BuzzFeedNews
,
@alexcampbell
& the organizations that supported us.
Most of all I'm grateful to ex-detainees who told us what happened to them inside Xinjiang's camps. The public owes much to their courage.
Still much more work to be done.
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NEW: Hidden in the mountains near the China-Kazakhstan border lies a fast-growing internment camp capable of holding thousands. Extensive interviews w 3 ex-detainees & an architectural analysis helped us digitally reconstruct it. From me &
@alisonkilling
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Early in my career in journalism, two male colleagues at my level told me what they earned. Armed with that info, I negotiated a similar salary, much higher than my first offer.
Male reporters— want to do your part for equal pay? Tell a woman you work with how much you earn.
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Americans in Austria can now seek consular assistance at McDonalds. This is actually a real thing.
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QUEEN. "One colleague told Liang Xiangyi that her eye-rolling moment was broadcast live, to which she replied 'Because the woman next to me was being an idiot.'"
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NEW from
@alisonkilling
and me — we used public records, satellite images & interviews to find and map scores of factories built right inside Xinjiang's mass internment camps. An ex-detainee who was forced to sew school uniforms said that inside, "I felt like I was in hell.”
EXCLUSIVE: For years, human rights activists feared the Xinjiang detention facilities doubled as work camps.
For the first time, satellite photos confirm China has built acres of factories inside the compounds, facilitating forced labor on a vast scale.
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Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson vs Taiwan presidential office spokesperson
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Journalists who reported on Xinjiang were:
- followed for 1,600 km by 9 cars
- had photos forcibly deleted
- threatened by armed police
This report is a testament to how badly the Chinese government wants to keep you from finding out what it's doing to Muslims in Xinjiang.
The FCCC's annual survey of correspondent members is complete. The results are grim.
Here's a link to the full report, with highlights below:
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We also interviewed 28 former detainees about life inside the camps. They told stories of solitary confinement, of being divided into color-coded uniforms, of "being treated like livestock" and being beaten with batons
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If you downloaded the photo storage app Ever, you'd see warm and fuzzy branding about saving memories. But Ever is quietly using these pictures of people's families and friends to build facial recognition tools marketed to law enforcement and the military.
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@joannachiu
This is so so awful, but serious props to the airline staff for handling it so professionally. 🇨🇦
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In what universe could Xi Jinping be banned from Weibo?
Silencing people, not to mention the President of the US, is what happens in China not our country.
#Unbelievable
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Your reminder that two Reuters reporters in Myanmar are facing up to 14 years of prison after they uncovered a massacre of Rohingya men.
#solidarity
This morning, a judge in Myanmar will rule on whether to charge my
@Reuters
colleagues Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo with breaking the Official Secrets Act. When they were arrested, 7 months ago, they were working to expose a massacre. All thoughts with them and their families today.
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I’m super excited to be joining The New York Times as an international investigative reporter, based in London!
The International desk continues to expand our commitment to investigative journalism, welcoming Megha Rajagopalan (
@meghara
) and Justin Scheck (
@ScheckNYTimes
) to our international investigations team. Read more:
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Hero. A newscaster in South Korea broke a taboo by wearing glasses while reading the 6 a.m. news. She couldn't be bothered with fake eyelashes & contacts that early. She got an outpouring of support from South Korean women. Great story by
@stegersaurus
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This is a big big deal. 1) almost no other country in the Muslim world has made a statement this strong (except maybe Malaysia) 2) Turkey is speaking up despite $3.6 billion in infrastructure funding from China and undoubtedly very heavy diplomatic pressure
BREAKING — Turkey condemns China’s treatment to Uyghur Turks as systematic assimilation policy, calls China to close concentration camps and respect human rights
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Seeing people in international media suggesting the Sri Lankan government was justified in blocking Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube & other platforms over misinformation fears. This is super problematic. And I say this as someone who's written a lot about misinfo on FB. Here's why.
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Facebook was supposed to be a platform for free speech in countries like Cambodia. Instead, it's enabling propaganda and repression as the country's hopes for democracy collapse. My story from Phnom Penh
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The intensity with which my parents have tried to get me married off is only matched by the intensity with which I’m trying to get them vaccinated off
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In 2005, Putin shocked President Bush by suggesting (without basis) that Bush had no grounds to lecture Russia on freedom of speech because the White House had Dan Rather fired. In 2017, the president is publicly trying to get journalists fired.
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Just woke up and imagined telling my 2008 self that in a decade I'd be covering a summit between US President Donald Trump and the leader of North Korea, that Dennis Rodman and legal marijuana would be somehow involved, and I'd be doing it for
@BuzzFeedNews
. See you in Singapore.
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Head coverings, like the ones pictured in this cute cartoon tweeted out by a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, have been banned for the millions of Muslim women in Xinjiang since 2017
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New from me: The former editor of Cosmopolitan Sri Lanka magazine criticized Pond's skin whitening products — made by Unilever — on her personal Instagram.
Then Unilever launched a pressure campaign that turned her career upside down.
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Unbelievable. State Dept policy planning director about Pompeo's China strategy: "The Soviet Union and that competition, in a way it was a fight within the Western family ... it's the first time we will have a great power competitor that is not Caucasian."
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Some news from me— I'm really excited to be moving to a new role
@BuzzFeedNews
focusing on technology and human rights. I'll be reporting from the Middle East and beyond. I'm looking forward to continuing to report on tech companies, authoritarianism, surveillance & other issues.
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Seeing journalists in the US writing about the human rights crisis in Xinjiang for the first time. That's great! Just pointing out a few small/factual aspects of the story that might be missed by those new to it. 1) Xinjiang is not a province of China, it's a region.
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Mercedes-Benz quoted the Dalai Lama on Instagram — a platform that China blocks – to 12.3 million followers, most of whom are outside China. The company then deleted its post under pressure. What can't be said in China is increasingly impacting what can be said outside China.
An Instagram post by the German carmaker Daimler quoted the Dalai Lama, drawing anger in China, which views the Tibetan spiritual leader as a separatist. The company has now apologized.
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This should be huge news and in a remotely normal news cycle it would be
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New: At least half a dozen Turkish nationals have gone missing in Xinjiang. Their families believe they’ve been sent to internment camps— or in the case of a pair of children, to a state-run orphanage. From me &
@kmyildiz
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Our extensive analysis of satellite images found more than 260 structures built since 2017 that bear the hallmarks of fortified detention compounds — least one in nearly every county in the far-west region of Xinjiang. Before this, a few dozen camp locations were known.
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Best press conference ever
So Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province government forgot to turn off cat filters when live streaming their press conference and this is giving me life
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The next big story in China is going to be Italy breaking off diplomatic ties over this pizza. God help us all.
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It’s incredible when left-leaning writers in America who go out of their way to champion diversity and centering minority perspectives in news try to write authoritatively about China + Xinjiang without interviewing or even acknowledging the perspective of Uighurs. Don’t do this.
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I’ve personally interviewed several female ex-detainees from the Xinjiang camps who told me that among other degrading treatment, their long hair was chopped to chin length without their consent. Wrote about one of them here: )
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Can't stop laughing. I pointed out a super basic Chinese language error on Twitter and got trolled BY A NEWS ORGANIZATION for not doing it in a gentler way. I hate 2018.
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Recall also that the Scar-led government is blamed for a devastating drought in the pridelands soon after he takes power. The rains only come again after Simba reclaims the throne, signifying divine right as a source of legitimacy superior to consent of the governed.
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My story from Kashgar, in China's west, on what it's like to live in a "frontline laboratory" for state surveillance
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Thread. When architect & geolocation wiz
@alisonkilling
messaged me saying it was possible to identify pedestrians' real names and track their paths through city streets using public Instagram stories, I couldn't believe it. So we set out to do it.
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All kidding aside, this is a great example of why pundits should stop arguing autocrats are reformers because they went to/sent their kids to expensive schools in the west. Remember when people thought Kim Jong Un was friendly to the west because he went to Swiss boarding school?
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1) Human rights are not specific to the west. 2) Hong Kong and Taiwan are not the west. 2) if this type of uninformed racial dogma is going to inform the US approach to China competition we really have some choppy waters ahead.
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Apparently MBS, whose regime killed and dismembered a columnist for the Washington Post two years ago as most people will recall, is a moderate now.
One of the most important things Trump did with respect to terrorism is to support moderate regimes (Saudi, Egypt, UAE) that are working to build what I’ve called “Islamic Gallicanism”: an Islam that is depoliticized and whose message is crafted in cooperation with the state.
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I also want to make clear that though I can't do it from inside China anymore, I'm not going to stop reporting on and speaking about state surveillance, repression and incarceration of millions of Muslim ethnic minorities in Xinjiang.
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Editorial from the Washington Post: New evidence of China’s concentration camps shows its hardening resolve to wipe out the Uighurs
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How China's sprawling surveillance state recruits, threatens and intimidates Muslim Uighurs into spying for Beijing and staying silent — even in Europe and the United States. My latest, based on firsthand accounts, text messages and audio recordings
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Remember this iconic photo of a pioneering pilot in Afghanistan's Air Force?
Rahmani was feted as a feminist icon & honored by Michelle Obama. But her fame also brought her death threats, drove her into hiding & in the end forced her to flee her country.
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Ok Boomer: immigrant edition (conversation between my mom and my brother)
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Among the crazy observations in this thread: Chinese police in Xinjiang staged a car crash to keep New York Times reporters from visiting a particular district, and later, went so far as to shut down an entire highway. Remarkable thread (with photos).
Snapshot of a culture under siege. Our attempt to show what it feels like in Xinjiang right now. Blanketed with surveillance technology and checkpoints, the ancient Silk Road city has the feel of an open-air prison.
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How were we able to do this analysis? .
@alisonkilling
, Christo Buschek and I stumbled upon a strange phenomenon on China's Baidu Maps — light gray tiles appearing over known Xinjiang camp locations. By finding more gray tiles,
@alisonkilling
thought we could find more camps.
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Skincare brands have been hashtagging Black Lives Matter and proclaiming their support for racial justice.
What they're not broadcasting is the billions of dollars of skin whitening products they market to black & brown women around the world.
My latest:
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Construction of camps and prisons is ongoing today in Xinjiang. At Dabancheng — one of the region's biggest internment facilities — our architectural analysis found that it has been expanded to hold >40,000 people without taking into account overcrowding.
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Love & strength to James who has done so so much to bring attention to this issue. I don’t know a journalist who has covered this crisis and not felt heartbroken, powerless, overwhelmed by emotion at what Uighurs and other Muslim minorities are enduring.
"All my Uighur sources are gone"
@ForeignPolicy
's
@BeijingPalmer
explains why it's so difficult for journalists to cover the human rights crisis in China's far western Xinjiang region.
Watch the full clip from the
@ChinaFile
conversation online:
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This is a gushy 2,000 word profile of a PR woman who 1) streamed herself destroying a mask display at Target 2) used racial slurs on Insta live.
She's now written a book called "You Can't Cancel Me" & is on a "media tour" to rehab her image.
The news judgment here was missing.
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2 American friends were traveling in Xinjiang this month and asked me to share some photos and observations in a thread. They came away shocked at the level of militarization. As tourists they moved around freely in a way that's become tougher for journalists to do.
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I'm sorry but is the Guardian aware of what the Great Leap Forward actually was??
Latest issue hits the presses. The US-North Korea denuclearisation summit is lead story. World affairs editor
@julianborger
assesses the meeting and the challenges still to be tackled
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Happening now: 3 Uighurs including a 12yo boy say they were detained at an airport in Gambia & face deportation to China, where more than a million Turkic Muslims like them are being held in camps.
A video they took shared by Uighur activists on Facebook:
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Still thinking about this unusual editorial policy. If I get mugged in DC, is it a conflict of interest for me as a journalist to cover street crime?
“Editors have barred a Post reporter who publicly accused another journalist of sexual assault, Felicia Sonmez, from writing about the subject, citing the appearance of conflict of interest.” (Citing two Post employees)
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Incredible. Disney, which hoped Mulan would be a hit w Chinese audiences, shot parts of the film in Xinjiang— a name now synonymous with internment camps. It even thanked some of the region’s public security bureaus.
How did China repay Disney’s support?
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This is remarkable. Google engineer Liz Fong-Jones raised a $100K strike fund for employees who want to walk out over the Dragonfly project, a censored search engine for China. Privacy rights in China are eroding fast— this shows how seriously many at the company are taking this.
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It is bittersweet to leave Beijing after spending six wonderful and eye-opening years as a journalist there. In May, China's Foreign Ministry declined to issue me a new journalist visa. They say this is a process thing, we are not totally clear why.
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If you read about “cancel culture” this week you might be interested in the fact that one of the world’s most powerful governments is threatening a German academic with “destruction” via lawsuit to silence his research on the mass surveillance and internment of Muslim minorities.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson: MOFA 'not surprised' if rumormongers (Adrian Zenz / ASPI) will be sued. "[H]e who is unjust is doomed to destruction" said spokesperson Zhao Lijian.
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Hey Twitter! My little brother (he's 28 & a programmer) was born nearly deaf. He has a cochlear implant, which takes years to adjust to, and he's just now starting to get into/enjoy music, but doesn't quite know where to begin. Am compiling some music recs for him — suggestions?
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So Zuck's reference to "both sides" is troubling because it paints a picture of Facebook being caught in the middle of a conflict between Buddhists and Rohingya. In reality, we're talking about coordinated, state-sponsored ethnic cleansing — not an ethnic conflict.
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NBC News cites two US officials saying the US has decided not to bring up human rights at all during talks tomorrow. What a turn from January, when Trump recognized NKean defector Ji Seong-ho & the Warmbier family at the State of the Union address
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Listen I know as a despicable media elite I should be making fun of this, but having your passport stolen is pretty stressful and I feel like fries would definitely help?
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Happening now 👇 Am told he’s set to be flown to Beijing in about eight hours. Activists are working to try to prevent his deportation.
PLEASE SHARE, A MAN’S LIFE HANGS IN THE BALANCE.
‘Ablikim Yusuf’ a
#Uyghur
from Hotan prefecture of
#Xinjiang
aka
#EastTurkestan
. Currently he is being held by Qatar authorities at Doha airport and he is to be deported to
#China
where he’ll likely face a severe punishment.
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No, I will not speak to your friend/girlfriend/boyfriend about their Xinjiang denialism issues, and yes, I'm judging you for asking me
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Today marks one year since Reuters reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were arrested after they uncovered a massacre in their home country of Myanmar. An attack on journalists anywhere is an attack on all of us.
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Update on this tweet: after processing, my dad called me with a heartfelt response that was definitely not understated! He’s the best. Love you Dad!
Also just received this congratulations pachira aquatica in the mail from my family!
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Not to mention how this erases the many many people working in China for human rights in their country from gender equality to rule of law to press freedom.
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In January and February, Chinese diplomats lobbied more than 20 countries not to suspend travel links to China or evacuate their own citizens amid its battle with coronavirus.
On Saturday, China is shutting its doors to most foreigners with valid visas.
China suspending entry for all foreigners with valid visas, except for diplomats & some others that receive exemptions. Starting 3/28. China foreign ministry cites global spread of the virus as the reason
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You can think it was a good decision for the social platforms to ban Trump but still think it’s crazy that largely unregulated companies make choices like this under public pressure & with too little transparency and consistency in applying their standards about inciting violence
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Everyone noting Tillerson saying North Korea policy has failed— He very carefully offered no alternative. This just a slam of Obama admin.
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An 18-month-old Uighur Australian boy is trapped in Xinjiang. His father, who fears he will be sent to a state-run orphanage, is fighting to bring him to Sydney. my latest
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The common thread in all these countries is that Facebook is essentially a private company functioning as a public utility.
So both governments and people are demanding accountability, and people are frustrated with Facebook's lack of transparency on how it makes decisions.
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When will Denmark shut down its wet markets??
This story, which I missed because of the US election, is insane.
Denmark is going to deploy its army to slaughter up to 17 million mink.
They have mutated a stronger coronavirus strain, and have already transmitted it to at least 12 people.
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When China first started detaining Uighurs, Kazakhs and other minorities en masse in 2016 & 2017, they were moved into repurposed public buildings, like schools and retirement homes. But with the scale of the campaign, these buildings became desperately overcrowded.
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Thank you
@BeijingPalmer
for finally debunking that dumb meme about bat soup supposedly from Wuhan (spoiler alert: the video is not even from China at all)
cc: everyone in the group chat
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How can I follow all of this man’s social media accounts and support the entire rest of his career
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Read
@alisonkilling
about how we did this investigation
China's Baidu has blank spots in its mapping platform. We used those blank locations to look for the network of prisons and internment camps in Xinjiang, where up to a million Muslim minorities have been detained. Here's how we did it.
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We have a lot of acknowledgements for this work, but particular thank you to
@OpenTechFund
,
@planetlabs
which actually tasked a satellite to take pictures for us, and
@Nrg8000
who gave us expertise & patient advice. And to our Kazakh/Uighur interpreters who declined to be named.
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Satellite photos, govt records, witnesses & piles of leaked documents show the truth of China’s campaign against Muslim minorities.
Yet China said there were no camps, then that the camps were schools, then that everyone was let go.
Here’s to no more “both sides” in 2020.
This was my message to the media going into 2020. Your responsibility is to the truth, not to "giving both sides" when one side is lies. And you cannot expose lies without spreading them. So repeat the facts.
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Ah yes, The East and its Relationships. Not like in The West where personal connections are completely irrelevant.
"The conventional wisdom has it that President Trump’s summit with Kim Jong Un was extraordinary and naive…The Singapore summit was likely more successful than it looked. Relationships are paramount in the East."
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Since the Chinese Foreign Ministry has posted my personal info online, I'll share the email in which they rejected my visa application. It's dated May 9, 2018 and came months after ministry officials assured me I'd have no problems getting a new visa after many years in China.
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So the government started building.
By the spring of 2018, construction started on sprawling new prison and detention camps. These compounds are much higher security than the first generation of camps. They can hold thousands of people, and they are built to last.
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