- Postecoglou embraces 'struggle' to make Spurs a success
- Nice hand 'ashamed' Saint-Etienne 8-0 Ligue 1 mauling
- Boeing CEO says ending strike 'a top priority'
- Stock markets mostly fall after Fed-fueled rally
- Harris slams Trump for hypocrisy on abortion as US starts voting
- Academy to host first overseas ceremony to honor young filmmakers
- No doctor necessary: US okays nasal spray flu vaccine for self-use
- Gurbaz, birthday boy Rashid lead Afghanistan to 177-run rout of South Africa
- Former delivery man Baldwin leads star names at PGA Championship
- Trump shooting: Secret Service admits complacency
- Can an ambitious Milei make Argentina an AI giant?
- Haiti, its suffering growing, in 'race against time': UN expert
- Ibrahim Aqil, the Hezbollah elite unit commander wanted by the US
- Chinese forward Cui signs NBA contract with Brooklyn Nets
- US Fed dissenter calls for 'measured' pace of rate cuts
- Guardiola tells players to lead change over workload as Kompany demands cap on games
- Norway limits wild salmon fishing as stocks hit new lows
- Top Hezbollah commander killed in Israeli strike on Beirut
- Rotterdam fatal knife attacker suspected of 'terrorist motive'
- First early votes cast in knife-edge US presidential election
- Top-ranked Swiatek out of Beijing due to 'personal matters'
- Hard-right Reform UK looks to the future after vote success
- Embiid agrees to NBA contract extension with 76ers
- Joshua aims to complete road to redemption in Dubois bout
- World champion Bagnaia sets pace with lap record at Misano
- Biden says 'working' to get people back to homes on Israel-Lebanon border
- Pope criticises Argentina's crackdown on protesters
- Court limits screenings of videos in France mass rape case
- Gurbaz century takes Afghanistan to 311-4 in 2nd ODI
- Central banks face 'difficult balancing act': IMF chief
- McLaren's Norris sets Singapore pace as struggling Verstappen 15th
- Guardiola tells players to lead change over workload fears
- Paris Olympics sports equipment moves to new homes
- 'Happy' Kinghorn relishing life at Toulouse
- Norris sets Singapore pace as Verstappen only 15th
- 8 dead in Israeli strike, source says Hezbollah commander killed
- Germany to bid to host women's Euro 2029
- Portugal brings deadly forest fires under control
- Postecoglou defends Solanke after slow start to Spurs career
- US nuclear plant Three Mile Island to reopen to power Microsoft
- Arteta urges Arsenal to take next step in Man City showdown
- Stock markets fall after Fed-fuelled rally
- Top Hezbollah commander 'killed' in Israel strike
- Poland charges Russian over attack on Navalny ally: prosecutors
- Man City have rest 'advantage' in Arsenal showdown: Guardiola
- Maresca has 'no doubt' in Jackson as Chelsea's number nine
- EU chief announces 35 bn euro loan plan for Ukraine before winter
- From TikTok to Hollywood, the irresistible rise of Italy's Khaby Lame
- Verstappen punished for swearing in Singapore press conference
- Sri Lanka lead by 202 in first New Zealand Test
China's censors scrub viral Shanghai lockdown video from online platforms
A viral video showing the impact of the prolonged coronavirus lockdown on Shanghai's residents has been taken down by China's internet censors Saturday, triggering an online backlash.
About 25 million residents in Shanghai have been shut inside their homes since early April as officials rush to curb its worst ever outbreak since the beginning of the pandemic.
The city has struggled to provide fresh vegetables and other essentials to those in lockdown, while patients have reported trouble accessing regular medical care as thousands of health staff were deployed to covid testing and treatment.
The issues were chronicled in a six-minute video titled "Voice of April", which was widely shared on Weibo and WeChat -- major social media platforms in China.
Shot against a simple aerial black-and-white view of the city, the video opens with audio clips from media briefings in March where officials say Shanghai will not have a citywide lockdown.
The decision was quickly reversed by April as the highly transmissible Omicron variant led to a spike in infections.
As the camera pans across the empty streets of Shanghai, audio clips are played in chronological order showing the dire situation of residents shunted into their homes without preparation.
"We have gone to the hospital twice, but no one is there to treat us," a man whose father is ill is heard saying.
In another, a woman complains about not being allowed back home when she returned from hospital after chemotherapy.
There is also a clip of residents yelling, "Thank you, Big Whites" -- a nickname for health staff dressed in white PPE gear deployed to various nieghbourhoods.
Internet censors battled for hours Saturday to scrub the video from Weibo and Wechat, as netizens kept uploading it into different cloud services.
The swift censorship led to an online backlash.
"The video was just presenting raw facts. There is nothing provocative!" said one commentator on Weibo.
"Its content is nothing new... But the fact of seeing that even that is censored, it bothers me," wrote another.
While "Voice of April" is not accessible on any major social media platform in China as of Saturday afternoon, it can still be viewed on Youtube.
Shanghai reported 23,504 new coronavirus cases and 12 deaths on Saturday.
O.Lorenz--BTB