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Hillary Clinton gets a clean bill of health

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Washington: As the US presidential race hots up, Hillary Clinton’s personal physician released a statement saying she is physically fit to serve as president with health issues resulting from a 2012 health scare resolved.

The health declaration came amid release of her tax returns from 2007 to 2014 and a separate State Department release of emails from Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State.

“Clinton is a healthy 67-year old female whose current medical conditions include hypothyroidiam and seasonal pollen allergies,” wrote Lisa Bardack, Clinton’s doctor since 2001, in a Health Statement provided by Clinton’s campaign.

The health statement said the blood clot, also known as a thrombosis, that Clinton suffered between her brain and skull following a fainting spell and concussion in late 2012 is completely resolved.

“She had follow-up testing in 2013, which revealed complete resolution of the effects of the concussion as well as total dissolution of the thrombosis. Clinton also tested negative for all clotting disorders,” Bardack wrote.

But as a precaution, Clinton remains on daily blood thinners, something her husband previously revealed.

Clinton takes Coumadin, the brand name for the blood thinner warfarin. She also takes Armour Thyroid for her hypothyroidism, antihistamines and Vitamin B12.

Clinton has no known drug allergies, does not smoke, use tobacco products or illicit drugs and drinks occasionally. Her exercise regime includes yoga, swimming, walking and weight training.

Meanwhile, according to the tax returns released by Clinton on Friday, she and her husband former president Bill Clinton earned $139 million between 2007 and 2014.

They paid nearly $44 million in federal taxes during that period. The couple’s effective federal tax rate ranged from 25 percent in 2007 to 36 percent last year.

The Clintons paid another 7 to 12 percent of their income in state income taxes each year, and gave between 8 and 15 percent to charity.

Much of the couple’s income came from giving paid speeches.

“We’ve come a long way from my days going door-to-door for the Children’s Defence Fund and earning $16,450 as a young law professor in Arkansas,” Hillary Clinton said. “And we owe it to the opportunities America provides.”

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

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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.

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