True Left

The BBC came under fire from Chinese officials and social media on Friday in an escalating diplomatic dispute, a day after Britain's media regulator revoked the TV license of Chinese state media outlet CGTN.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Thursday refuted a BBC report on alleged abuses of women's rights in northwest Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, saying some of the interviewees in previous reports turned out to be "actors" for and "tools" used by anti-China forces to attack China.

China firmly opposes the British Broadcasting Corporation's (BBC) fake reports about COVID-19 in China, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin during a regular press conference on February 5. Wang said China firmly opposes this and urges BBC to take practical measures and eliminate the negative impact of the relevant reports and apologize to the Chinese side for the fake news on China.

China urges Australia to close offshore detention centres

GENEVA (Reuters) - China on Friday said it was "deeply concerned" by what it described as the Australian government's operation of offshore detention centres, and it called for the sites to be closed immediately.
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In a statement to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, China alleged that the detention centres "fall short of adequate medical conditions where a large number of immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers have been detained over a long period of time or even indefinitely, and their human rights have been violated."

It did not specify any locations, describing them as "third countries". Asylum seekers intercepted at sea en route to Australia are sent for "processing" to Papua New Guinea or to the South Pacific island of Nauru.
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"We urge Australia to immediately close down all offshore detention centers and take concrete steps to protect the rights of immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers, especially children," China said in its statement, which it submitted on behalf of a group of unnamed countries.

It now appears New Zealand will take a more cautious approach to China, with Mahuta telling reporters on Monday she wants to see the scope of the intelligence network stay narrow.

"We are uncomfortable with expanding the remit of the Five Eyes," she said. "We would much rather prefer to look for multilateral opportunities to express our interests."

Pakistan's prime minister has called on Muslim-majority countries to lobby Western governments to criminalise insulting the Prophet Mohammed.

'We need to explain why this hurts us, when in the name of freedom of speech they insult the honour of the prophet,' Imran Khan said in a televised address on Monday.

'When 50 Muslim countries will unite and say this, and say that if something like this happens in any country, then we will launch a trade boycott on them and not buy their goods, that will have an effect.'

Initially, while Persia was very wary of British and Russian colonial interests during the Great Game, the United States was seen as a more trustworthy foreign power, and the Americans Arthur Millspaugh and Morgan Shuster were even appointed treasurers-general by the Shahs of the time.
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Until World War II, relations between Iran and the United States remained cordial. As a result, many Iranians sympathetic to the Persian Constitutional Revolution came to view the US as a "third force" in their struggle to break free of British and Russian dominance in Persian affairs.[citation needed] American industrial and business leaders were supportive of Iran's drive to modernize its economy and free itself from British and Russian influence.
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After the Iranian parliament appointed United States financier Morgan Shuster as Treasurer General of Iran in 1911, an American was killed in Tehran by henchmen thought to be affiliated with Russian or British interests. Shuster became even more active in supporting the Constitutional revolution of Iran financially.[27] When Iran's government ordered Shu'a al-Saltaneh (شعاع السلطنه), the Shah's brother who was aligned with the goals of Imperial Russia in Iran, to surrender his assets, Shuster moved to execute the seizure. Imperial Russia immediately landed troops in Bandar Anzali, demanding a recourse and apology from the Persian government. Russia's General Liakhov subsequently shelled Iran's parliament in Tehran as part of actions to protect Russia's interests during the chain of events, and Morgan Shuster was forced to resign under British and Russian pressure. Shuster's book The Strangling of Persia is a recount of the details of these events and is critical of Britain and Imperial Russia.
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Iran's long border with America's Cold War rival, the Soviet Union, and its position as the largest, most powerful country in the oil-rich Persian Gulf, made Iran a "pillar" of US foreign policy in the Middle East.[31]
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In the 1970s, approximately 25,000 American technicians were deployed to Iran in order to maintain military equipment (such as F-14s) that had been sold to the Shah's government.[32] Additionally, from 1950 to 1979, an estimated 800,000 to 850,000 Americans had visited or lived in Iran, and had often expressed their admiration for the Iranian people.[8]
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The U.S. helped Iran create its nuclear program starting in 1957 by providing Iran its first nuclear reactor and nuclear fuel, and after 1967 by providing Iran with weapons grade enriched uranium.[50][51] Iran's nuclear program was launched in the 1950s with the help of the United States as part of the Atoms for Peace program.[51]

"Some Western forces hyping up the so-called Xinjiang-related issues are actually launching unprovoked attacks on China to serve their own ulterior motives," Adama Compaoré, Burkina Faso's ambassador, was quoted as saying at the event in March dubbed Xinjiang in the Eyes of African Ambassadors to China.

The event was also attended by Sudan and Congo-Brazzaville, whose envoy Daniel Owassa reportedly said he supported what China has called a series of anti-terrorism measures in the region, saying he appreciated "Xinjiang's great development achievements in various fields in recent years".
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Increasingly Africa's largely pro-China position is pitting the continent against the West when it comes to human rights.

During a vote in June 2020 at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva about the controversial Hong Kong national security law, which imposed harsh penalties on political dissent and which effectively ended the territory's autonomy, 25 African countries - the largest grouping from any continent - backed China.

Months later in October no African country signed up to a stinging rebuke of China's human rights violations in Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Tibet, which was backed by Western nations.
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"For 30 years now China has made it a tradition that its foreign minister visits Africa first every new year - this is not just symbolic but signals that they are invested in a long-term relationship and this makes a big impression on Africans."