China columnist Jia Jia 'goes missing' en route to HK
- 18 March 2016
- China
A Beijing-based columnist has gone missing while on his way to Hong Kong, his lawyer has told the BBC.
No-one has had contact with Jia Jia since Tuesday night when he was set to board his flight. His wife has reported him missing.
He is said to have warned an editor friend about publishing an anonymous letter calling for President Xi Jinping's resignation.
The letter appeared on a state-linked site but was swiftly taken down.
It is unclear who authored the letter, which had the byline "loyal Communist Party supporters". Mr Jia had reportedly insisted he had no connection to the letter.
The incident appears to be the latest in a string of high-profile censorship incidents, amid a ramp-up of state campaigns aimed at burnishing Mr Xi's image.
Russia's new disability rules prompt outrage as 500,000 lose benefits
System only awards financial aid if claimant has lost ‘40% of a bodily function’, meaning thousands no longer qualify. RFE/RL reports
Daniil is five years old but he’s spent more time in a hospital than most adults. Last year he was treated four times at the intensive care unit of his local hospital in Magnitogorsk, an industrial city in Russia’s Urals region.
Despite relying on a daily cocktail of medicines to survive due to a life-threatening genetic disease, Daniil was struck off Russia’s disability register in October, leaving his family to pay for his treatment themselves.
“It was a shock for us,” says his mother, Marina Nizhegorodova. “Now, we have to pay for the tests and the drugs from our own pocket. They took everything away from us.”
You can't change your Facebook profile picture for Ankara, because brown lives still aren't worth social media's grief
Put it this way: if you have used Facebook’s flag feature after the Paris attacks, you are guilty by association of Euro-centric mourning
When I heard that Facebook refused to help its users to change their profile picture to a Turkish flag in support of the victims of the Ankara bombings, I remembered how much I hated Sports Day.
Annual Sports Day was the bane of my existence. I pulled a sickie in Year 3. I got the wooden spoon in the sack race in Year 4. I don’t remember Year 5; I try to forget the fact that I have always preferred Walkers to walking, Hersheys over the hurdles and I’d take Shandy over the shot-put. But Year 6 Sports Day is one that I’ll never forget.
Video: A rare look inside Eritrea's migrant crisis
Eritrea contributes more migrants to Europe than any other country in Africa. Some 5,000 Eritreans flee their country every month, according to the UN. Watch FRANCE 24's exclusive report from the secretive East African nation on the player below.
The country remains largely closed to foreigners. It has had the same president since independence in 1993, there is only one political party and there is no free press. Few foreign journalists visit the country, and visas are hard to come by.
FRANCE 24 correspondents Nicolas Germain and Romeo Langlois give us a rare look from inside the "North Korea of Africa" to find out why thousands of people flee Eritrea every month.
I was suspended without charges, says JNU student
KRITIKA SHARMA SEBASTIAN
Pursuing her Masters in International Relations from JNU, Aishwarya Adhikari was one of the eight students who were academically debarred by the high-level inquiry committee that looked into the February 9 event on campus.
Ms. Adhikari was left “shattered” and “angry” over her suspension after it came to light that she was not named in the committee’s eight-page report that was submitted to the Vice-Chancellor on March 11. Parts of the report were also provided to the students.
“I have been suspended for so long without any charges against me. It has been an extremely emotionally tormenting phase. I am in the final semester of my Masters and I am supposed to attend classes, but because of the debarring order I was not even able to do that,” said Ms. Adhikari.
Syria war: Speaking out on 'sadistic' government jails
Hanada al-Refai tells Al Jazeera about being tortured, losing her brother, and her campaign to free political prisoners.
| Human Rights, War & Conflict, Middle East, Syria
A woman who says she was jailed in Syria for seven months has revealed the extent of torture she and her brother – who was killed in prison – suffered at the hands of Bashar al-Assad's government.
From being forced to eat from toilet pots and being interrogated in a room covered in vomit and blood, to being badly beaten for days on end and receiving constant death threats, activist Hanada al-Refai said the treatment meted out to her was inhuman.
"I want to be a voice for the victims of this war," she told Al Jazeera, speaking in Geneva where the latest round of peace talks are being held. "The conditions [in jail] are very sadistic, very criminal."
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