Connect with us

World

Ice brings deadly road conditions across US

Published

on

Brutal blast, US, multiple vehicles, Chief Roman Clark, a Baltimore Fire Department, ICY roads, Virginia, Maryland and Oklahoma

Brutal blast of frigid air Sweeping

Richmond: A brutal blast of frigid air sweeping the US has created icy roads causing multiple-car pileups that left at least six dead in Virginia, Maryland and Oklahoma, authorities said. In northern Virginia, authorities responded to more than 40 traffic accidents, some involving multiple vehicles, according to the state police, the CNN reported on Sunday.

A 55-vehicle crash on a icy stretch of I-95 in Baltimore left at least two people dead and motorists stranded for hours, said Chief Roman Clark, a Baltimore Fire Department spokesman. Fifteen people were taken to hospitals.

A video posted on social media on Sunday showed a fuel truck flipping over a median on the interstate near the Washington Boulevard exit before erupting in flames.  A man was heard asking, “What is going on?” as flames and dark smoke rose from under the highway.

Mayor Catherine Pugh said good Samaritans helped pull people out of cars.
“This is the worst accident that we’ve seen,” she added. Emergency vehicles descended on the scene, stalling traffic for miles and leading authorities to urge stranded motorists on both sides of the interstate to “remain warm and calm and shelter in place” in their cars.

Clark described road conditions as “very slippery.” Over the weekend, a 40-vehicle wreck shut down westbound lines of Interstate 40 east of Albuquerque, New Mexico State Police spokesman Sgt. Chad Pierce said. The highway was covered in snow and ice, Pierce said.

               

World

Lockdowns in China Force Urban Communities to Defy Censorship and Vent Frustration Online

Published

on

By

Anyip Mobile Proxies

Shanghai’s rich middle class is leading a wave of online dissent over the strict and prolonged lockdowns imposed in various parts of the country. Chinese internet censorship is struggling as patience is wearing thin in many urban centers, coming up with creative forms of online protests.

Social Media Posts Revealing Lockdown Tension in Shanghai

Drawn-out lockdowns are nothing new in China as authorities insist with the nation’s zero-Covid policy since the start of the pandemic. Currently over This time around, however, metropolitan areas like Shanghai are increasingly difficult to keep quiet, given that its more than 25 million residents have seen weeks of total isolation along with food shortages and many other service interruptions.

Dozens of towns and reportedly over 300 million Chinese citizens have been affected by lockdowns of different severity. As expected, urban netizens have been most outspoken over their difficulties by finding creative ways to get around state censorship and bans placed on topics, news comments and spontaneous campaigns.

Shanghai residents have been using mobile proxies and hijacking seemingly unrelated hashtags to talk about healthcare issues, delivery failures and the overall severity of their situation. The “positive energy” that the Chinese government wants to transmit during the recent prolonged series of lockdowns does not come naturally to those counting food supplies and online censors are working hard to filter words, trending topics and undesired social media sharing.

WeChat groups and message threads are under constant monitoring. Posts questioning the zero-Covid approach have been quickly deleted, including by leading Chinese health experts like Dr. Zhong Nanshan. Video footage is soon censored and protests and investigations are quickly made to disappear.

Where this has not worked, officials have exposed banners with warnings and outright threats like “watch your own mouth or face punishment”, while drones have been patrolling the city skies. Yet, if anything, this has led to further tensions and unspoken confrontation with Shanghai’s educated and affluent middle class.

Creative Online Solutions Harnessing Civic Energy

Announcements by Chinese social media that they would be publishing the IP addresses of users who “spread rumors” have not helped either. Tech industry research has shown that much of Asia’s tech-savvy population has a habit of using mobile proxies and other privacy tools, quickly finding workarounds to browse the internet freely and talk to the world about the hottest topics.

The sheer volume of forbidden posts is already a challenge for the very censorship system, experts explain. Unable to track all trending hashtags, state workers overlook topics that speak about the US, Ukraine or other popular news. Linking human rights elsewhere to their situation, Chinese online dissidents establish their informal channels and “hijack” the conversation to share personal or publicly relevant information about the Covid suppression in their town.

Sarcastic and satirical posts still dominate. Others hope to evade the censors by replacing words from famous poems or the national anthem. One thing is certain – social media, when harnessed with the right creativity, has proven its ability to mount pressure on the government in even some of the most strictly controlled tech environments like China.

Continue Reading

Trending