March 11:
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has launched Operation Collateral Freedom #2, which uses technology to make online information accessible in countries where it is banned. It is a continuation of Operation Collateral Freedom #1, which unblocked 11 news websites in 2015 to dissuade "Enemies of the Internet" from targeting news websites. Last year, the servers dedicated to Operation Collateral Freedom handled more than 64 million requests and provided more than 587GB of data. The next step will be to unblock access to six more websites censored in China and four other countries. This year RSF will provide the public with its Censorship Detector application, developed exclusively for this operation. Among the websites RSF has “unblocked”: Boxun (China), Radio Free Asia and Defend the Defenders (Vietnam), Sarawak Report (Malaysia), Sendika.org (Turkey) and the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights (Saudi Arabia).
[Editor's Note: The operation is based on the technique of mirroring. RSF creates a "mirror" copy of a blocked site on a cloud hosting service provided by a major Internet company such as Amazon, Microsoft or Google. Whoever goes to one of these blocked sites will see the icon of the RSF Censorship Detector app turn red. By clicking on it, they will be automatically redirected to RSF's unblocked mirror. To block access to the mirror, censors would also deprive thousands of companies of the technological services provided by these Internet giants.]
China will provide $7.6 million in military assistance to Bolivia under the terms of a new military assistance agreement. China's ambassador to Bolivia, Wu Yuanshan, and Bolivian Defense Minister Reymi Ferreira announced the deal, suggesting they would coordinate to define the type of equipment provided which will consist of technology, communications and transport hardware, Bolivian newspaper La Razon reports.
March 13:
In 2015, 1,039 suspects were found not guilty in China, said Chief Justice Zhou Qiang. The number of suspects in custody for more than three years without being charged was reduced from 4,459 in 2013 to six in 2015. According to the official Xinhua news agency, “prosecutors have tightened supervision on the police concerning compulsory measures on suspects” and are redressing nearly one hundred thousands of cases of abuse of power, tampering with evidence, and other assorted malfeasance. “In about 1,000 cases, prosecutors stopped authorities from hindering the work of lawyers. They lodged protests against about 6,600 criminal court rulings and about 3,500 civil rulings. They also pushed the police to drop about 10,000 cases and stop them from abusing their power and illegally collecting evidence in about 31,000 cases. About 25,000 suspects were not prosecuted due to lack of evidence or facts to constitute a crime. They called on the police to release or ease the custody of nearly 30,000 suspects.”
March 22:
China is scrapping its 18-year-old regulations governing taxis and will expand control over online ride-hailing services such as Uber and Didi Chuxing. On March 16, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and the Ministry of Public Security released new draft regulations on online car-hiring firms requiring them to be licensed, place their servers in China, and expand government influence in pricing. Authorities' desire to relocate servers suggests the records could constitute a ready database of customers' names, financial information and movements. Last year the government raided Uber's offices in Guangzhou and Chengdu, South China Morning Post (SCMP) reports. Over the past few years, taxi drivers have been squeezed by increasing competition from online car-hailing services and high monthly franchise fees prompting protests in a dozen cities including Wuhan, Shenzhen, Chengdu, and Nanjing.
March 26:
To escape poor job prospects and rising social tensions, a growing number of Hong Kong residents have been traveling and studying in the U.S., SCMP reports. “We are experiencing a big increase in demand overall, not just to the U.S. but also to Canada and Australia,” said immigration consultant John Hui, who described a 20 to 25 percent increase over the past three years. “Young people are not happy. There is a lot of social unrest.” The U.S. Consulate in Hong Kong has seen a nearly 20 percent rise in applications for U.S. visas over the past year –to 100,000 from about 80,000 the previous year. To handle the surge in demand, the U.S. consulate is allowing those renewing non-permanent visas to skip the interview process and streamlined its visa process to cut wait times by 30 percent. “We anticipate a further increase in demand and are trying to be as proactive as possible,” said the consulate's non-immigrant visa chief.