Tag: China

Chinese authorities abduct and torture priest to force state conversion

Ricky Scaparo – September 29, 2020

(ETH) – China is so hell-bent on destroying Christianity that the Communist authorities in China have now reportedly abducted and tortured a 46-year-old priest in the southeastern province of Fujian for refusing to join the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, according to a report from the Christian Post.

Bitter Winter, which is a magazine publication that reports on religious liberty and human rights in China state that Father Liu Maochun from the Diocese of Mindong was ruthlessly tortured.  The details of the report indicated that Officers banged a “gong beside his ear and shone a bright light into his eyes for several consecutive days—a torture method known as ‘exhausting an eagle’ when people are deprived of sleep for a long time,”

Then Liu Maochun, who assists the diocese’s auxiliary bishop Guo Xijin, was then taken away by Chinese police on Sept. 1st while he was visiting patients in a hospital. He was then taken to a detention house in the county-level city of Fu’an. “The government claimed that Fr. Liu Maochun has disobeyed its rule and was ‘ideologically radical,’” the source was quoted as saying.

The Bishop also refused to join the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, This comes as the government had earlier pressured one of the deacons in the diocese, threatening to demolish his house and sack his children if he further supported Guo’s refusal to join the Patriotic Church, according to the shocking report. The report also stated that Fr. Maochun may have shared information with foreign media about another priest, Fr. Huang, who too was tortured for not joining the Patriotic Church. China continues cracking down on underground churches and Christian activists and has been for years.

https://endtimeheadlines.org

After Corona now Brucella outbreak in China: Thousands infected by bacteria after leak in biopharmaceutical plant

Strange Sounds – September 20, 2020

Another outbreak in China has sparked a wave of concern among authorities after thousands of people in the northern part of the country tested positive for a bacterial infection.

The infection spread among people working in a state-owned biopharmaceutical plant in Lanzhou city, which produces animal vaccines after a leak occurred last year.

Here’s what you need to know about the new Brucellosis outbreak:
According to Chinese authorities, the biopharmaceutical plant had used expired disinfectants for producing Brucella vaccines for animals between July and August last year. This indicated that the bacteria was not eradicated in the factory exhaust.

Subsequently, the contaminated gas from the factory formed aerosols containing the bacteria, which was then carried by wind to a nearby Lanzhou Veterinary Research Institute. This resulted in infecting close to 200 people there as well in December last year.

There are 3,245 people who have contracted Brucellosis, according to health officials in Lanzhou.

Another 1,401 people also tested as an early positive for the disease, news agency AFP reported.

The total positive cases also included 20 students and faculty members of Lanzhou University, some of whom had been to the institute.

https://strangesounds.org

Tense India-China border raises fears of inadvertent escalation

DW – September 9, 2020

Tensions between China and India are running dangerously high, as troops from both sides face off in a remote Himalayan region and accuse each other of firing warning shots along their disputed border.

Over the past few months, Chinese and Indian troops have been engaged in aggressive posturing at multiple locations along the two nations’ de facto border, known as Line of Actual Control, raising tensions between the world’s two most populous countries.

The two nuclear-armed neighbors have accused each other of firing in the air during a fresh flare-up in the Ladakh region on Monday, violating long-standing protocols to avoid using firearms along their undemarcated borders.

“The Sino-Indian border conflict has intensified further over the past few weeks, and I still believe that neither side wants a war, but neither side is willing to back down from it either because of the symbolic and psychological consequences,” Derek Grossman, a senior defense analyst at the RAND Corporation, told DW.

“The situation is tense,” an official in New Delhi told the Reuters news agency on Wednesday, adding that Indian and Chinese troops were squaring off in close proximity in at least four locations south of Lake Pangong Tso that both sides lay claim to.

Srikanth Kondapalli, professor of Chinese studies at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, shares a similar view. “The situation on the ground is tense. Yesterday, the Chinese air force was on the second level of alert and surface-to-air missile batteries were activated to counter any adversary air force movement,” he told DW.

“Although the firing was in the air and not against each other, it’s definitely an escalation,” he added.

https://www.dw.com

Sea of troubles: Tensions flare across Mediterranean as world powers jockey for power

Guy Taylor -September 2, 2020

The Mediterranean — an on-again, off-again geopolitical hot spot since before the pyramids were built — is emerging anew as a sea of division and instability, with powers including Russia, China, Turkey and Israel jostling aggressively for influence, natural resources and military advantage.

Moscow is eyeing a possible military base along the oil-rich shores of Libya. China is seeking investment deals across the region. Turkey is clashing with NATO partner Greece over drilling rights and militarized islands. Newly discovered offshore natural gas deposits have nations scrambling to stake their claims.

Even the Trump administration on Wednesday partially lifted an arms embargo with Cyprus in what was widely interpreted as a shot across Turkey’s bow.

Analysts generally agree that NATO is failing to ease regional tensions. The U.S., despite multiple interests, lacks leverage in many of the disputes, with President Trump accelerating a U.S. pullback begun under President Obama that opened a power vacuum that others are now scrambling to fill.

While a range of unsavory players are making moves — Iran, Hezbollah and the Islamic State are among those seeking to exploit the situation — many in Europe and Washington are pointing the finger at Turkey for escalating the crisis by threatening to use force to take possession of natural gas finds beneath a string of Mediterranean islands that most in Europe say belongs to Greece.

The two NATO member states are now locked in a dangerous maritime standoff that is shaking the alliance to its core, with mediation attempts by Germany and others in the European Union so far going nowhere while the Trump administration warily monitors the situation.

https://www.washingtontimes.com

New Chinese Tick-Borne Virus Outbreak Kills 7, Infects 60 And Scares The World

Strange Sounds – August 9, 2020

A new infectious disease caused by a tick-borne virus has killed over seven people and infected 60 others in China, official media here reported on Wednesday, warning about the possibility of its human-to-human transmission.

More than 37 people in East China’s Jiangsu Province contracted with the SFTS Virus in the first half of the year. Later, 23 people were found to have been infected in East China’s Anhui province, state-run Global Times quoted media reports.

A woman from Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu, who suffered from the virus showed onset of symptoms such as fever, coughing. Doctors found a decline of leukocyte, blood platelet inside of her body. After a month of treatment, she was discharged from the hospital.

At least seven people have died in Anhui and East China’s Zhejiang province due to the virus, the report said. SFTS Virus is not a new virus. China has isolated pathogen of the virus in 2011, and it belongs to the Bunyavirus category.

Virologists believe that the infection may have been passed on to humans by ticks and that the virus can be transmitted between humans, it said.

Sheng Jifang, a doctor from the first affiliated hospital under Zhejiang University, said that the possibility of human-to-human transmission could not be excluded; patients can pass the virus to others via blood or mucous.

https://strangesounds.org

China removes over 900 church crosses in first half of 2020: report

Leah MarieAnn Klett – August 28, 2020

In the first half of 2020, over 900 crosses were removed from state-run churches across China amid Xi Jinping’s ongoing crackdown on places of worship, according to the Italian-based magazine Bitter Winter.

According to the religious liberty magazine, crosses were removed from over 250 state-run Three-Self churches in the eastern province of Anhui, which has the second-largest Christian population in China, in the first four months of the year. Additionally, 656 state-run Protestant churches in the province saw their crosses removed during the first half of this year.

A Three-Self church in the city’s Yingdong district, which lost its cross in April, was told by authorities that the cross-demolition campaign was part of national policy.

“If a church refuses to remove its cross, congregation members may lose their social benefits, like pensions and poverty-alleviation subsidies, and possibilities for their children’s future employment will be affected,” a church member explained.

United Front Work Department officials who removed the cross from a church in Hanshan county informed church congregants that any crosses taller than government buildings “must be demolished because they overshadow state institutions,” a church member told Bitter Winter.

“Only churches that look like enterprises are considered legal. To ‘sinicize’ Christianity, Xi Jinping does not allow churches to have Western crosses.”

The believer also revealed that government officials warned an elder in the church that “protesting cross demolitions means protesting against the government.”

https://www.christianpost.com

China increases military drills as tensions with US heat up

Brad Lendon – August 11, 2020

Hong Kong (CNN)China is stepping up military drills around East Asia as a war of words with the United States heats up over Washington’s military activities and the visit of a US cabinet secretary to Taiwan.

One Chinese think tank even says the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) may consider live-fire exercises near the US island of Guam.

Beijing has stepped up the pace of its war games in recent weeks, after the US sent two aircraft carrier strike groups on rare dual-carrier exercises in the South China Sea twice in the month of July.

But the visit of US Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar to the self-governed island of Taiwan this week has added fuel to the smoldering tensions. Azar is the highest-ranking US official to visit the island — which Beijing regards as Chinese territory — in decades.

Azar’s presence in Taipei is “a serious breach” of US commitments on Taiwan, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said Monday afternoon.

“We urge the US side to abide by the one-China principle and the provisions of three China-U.S. joint communiques, stop official interactions and contact of all kinds as well as the upgrading of substantive relations with the island, and handle Taiwan-related issues in a prudent and proper manner, so as not to seriously damage China-US cooperation in major areas as well as peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” Zhao said, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency.

On Monday morning, China sent fighter jets across the median line in the Taiwan Strait, which Taiwan said its warplanes warned off. The Chinese jets were also tracked by Taiwan’s land-based anti-aircraft missiles, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said.

Though still in international airspace, the Taiwan Strait median line has been an informal but largely respected dividing line for Beijing and Taipei. According to Taiwanese and US government reports, Beijing’s warplanes have only crossed it intentionally three times since 1999 — once in March 2019, in February of this year, and again on Monday.

https://www.cnn.com

China Quarantines Region While Second Case Of Bubonic Plague Diagnosed in New Mexico.

ETH – August 13, 2020

(BIN) – While the WHO declares that there is nothing to worry about, China is sealing off entire villages and a man died in New Mexico from a rare form of the plague that once killed off half the world population.

China sealed off several villages in Inner Mongolia in a second attempt to contain the spread of a new outbreak of bubonic plague. A man died in the region’s city of Bayannur from multiple organ failure after contracting the disease. Authorities in Bayannur said:

“The place of residence of the deceased is locked down, and a comprehensive epidemiological investigation is being carried out.” Thirty-five contacts of the man have been sent into quarantine. The statement added: “Currently, there is a risk of the human plague spreading in our city.”

Last Thursday another person died from circulatory system failure due to infection with bubonic plague. The World Health Organization (WHO) says it is “carefully monitoring” a case of bubonic plague in China’s northern Inner Mongolia region, but says that it is “not high risk”.

In a seemingly unrelated case, a man in his 20s died of the septicaemic plague in New Mexico last week. This was the second case of septicaemic plague in New Mexico in less after a man in his 60s was diagnosed with bubonic plague in New Mexico’s Santa Fe County last month.

Septicaemic plague is the rarest of the three plague varieties which include bubonic plague. Like bubonic, septicaemic plague is spread by bites from infected fleas or by direct contact with animals. Animals carrying the disease can include rodents, wildlife, and pets.

https://endtimeheadlines.org

Suspected case of BUBONIC PLAGUE registered in China, days after Mongolian outbreak

RT – July 5, 2020

A suspected case of bubonic plague has been registered in China’s north, according to local health authorities. The news comes after two similar cases were detected in neighboring Mongolia.

The case was registered at a hospital in China’s Inner Mongolia region, its health commission said in a statement on Sunday.

This prompted a third-level warning of a potential epidemic in the region. The alert comes into force immediately and will be in place until the end of this year. It’s believed the patient in question is suffering from the bubonic form, which causes swollen lymph nodes, and is considered to be the most easily treated variant of the disease.

The plague also has a pneumonic and an extra-deadly septicemic form that can kill a victim within a day.

Earlier this week, two people also tested positive for the bubonic plague in neighboring Mongolia.

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to rage, the potential return of the dreaded plague is definitely the last thing the world needs. So far, Covid-19 has infected nearly 11.5 million people, killing more than 530,000 of them.

https://www.rt.com

China orders Christians to replace crosses and images of Jesus Christ with portraits of communist leaders

The Blaze – July 20, 2020

The communist Chinese government is ordering some Christians to take down religious symbols, including crosses, crucifixes, and images of Jesus Christ, and to replace them with communist leaders, according to a new report.

The startling report of religious oppression was reported in Bitter Winter, a religious liberty magazine.

“All impoverished households in the town were told to display Mao Zedong images,” said a local pastor to Bitter Winter.

“The government is trying to eliminate our belief and wants to become God instead of Jesus,” he added.

The order was made in April when communist party officials visited believers’ homes in the city of Linfen, located in the northern province of Shanxi.

The officials said that those who were receiving financial assistance from the government would have to take down their religious symbols and replace them with portraits of Chairman Mao and President Xi Jinping. If they refused to do so, they could face the loss of their welfare benefits.

One villager recounted that officials tore down the Christian images in his home and replaced them with a portrait of Mao Zedong.

https://www.theblaze.com