- South Korea president clings to power after martial law U-turn
- Presidential vote seen as referendum on Romania's European future
- Hamilton bids farewell to Mercedes as Ferrari vie for title
- New Zealand unchanged in bid to hit back against England
- Macron seeks remedy to France's political crisis
- New Natalia Lafourcade album celebrates music's onstage evolutions
- Taiwan's Lai kicks off visit to US territory Guam
- Ivory Coast staple cassava meal gains UNESCO heritage status
- OpenAI to partner with military defense tech company
- Liverpool held but Slot salutes 'special' Salah
- Man City needed to break losing 'routine', says Guardiola
- Leipzig down Frankfurt to reach German Cup quarters, Cologne strike late
- Mbappe admits penalty miss 'big mistake' as Bilbao beat Real Madrid
- 'Sad, disappointed' Mbappe pays penalty as Bilbao beat Real Madrid
- US stocks surge to records, shrugging off upheaval in South Korea, France
- Liverpool held in Newcastle thriller, Arsenal inflict Amorim's first defeat
- Shiffrin confirms she'll miss Beaver Creek World Cup races
- Corner kings Arsenal beat Man Utd to close gap on Liverpool
- Mbappe pays penalty as Bilbao beat Real Madrid
- NFL Jaguars place Lawrence on injured reserve with concussion
- North Korea, Russia defence treaty comes into force
- Openda hits brace as Leipzig beat Frankfurt in German Cup last 16
- Schar punishes Kelleher blunder as Newcastle hold Liverpool in thriller
- De Bruyne masterclass helps Man City end seven-game winless streak
- Syrian rebels surround Hama 'from three sides', monitor says
- Lawyers seek leniency for France rape trial defendants, blaming 'wolf' husband
- OpenAI chief 'believes' Musk will not abuse government power
- Thousands rally in Georgia after police raid opposition offices
- S. Korea opposition push to impeach president
- Powell 'not concerned' US Fed would lose independence under Trump
- French government falls in historic no-confidence vote
- Syrian White Helmets chief 'dreams' of never pulling a body out of rubble again
- NBA Suns lose Durant for at least a week with ankle injury
- Warhammer maker Games Workshop enters London's top stocks index
- Iran Nobel winner released for three weeks, 'unconditional' freedom urged
- Red Cross marks record numbers of humanitarians killed in 2024
- Johnson's Grand Slam 'no threat', says World Athletics boss Coe
- Qatar's emir and UK's Starmer talk trade as state visit ends
- Cuba suffers third nationwide blackout in two months
- Russia, Ukraine to send top diplomats to OSCE summit in Malta
- Spanish royals to attend memorial service for flood victims
- LPGA, USGA new policy requires female at birth or pre-puberty change
- Stick to current climate change laws, US tells top UN court
- British Museum chief says Marbles deal with Greece 'some distance' away
- Pope Francis receives electric popemobile from Mercedes
- Gaza civil defence: thousands flee Israeli strikes, evacuation calls
- Trump names billionaire private astronaut as next NASA chief
- Pidcock to leave INEOS Grenadiers at end of season
- Seoul stocks weaken, Paris advances despite political turmoil
- South America summit hopes to seal 'historic' trade deal with EU
Shanghai residents scuffle with police over virus policy: video
Shanghai residents scuffled with hazmat-suited police ordering them to surrender their homes to Covid-19 patients, videos on social media showed, providing a rare glimpse into rising discontent in the megacity over China's inflexible virus response.
Shanghai, a city of 25 million and China's economic engine room, has become the heart of the country's biggest outbreak since the peak of the first virus wave in Wuhan over two years ago, rattling the country's adherence to a strict zero-Covid policy.
Residents locked down since early April have complained of food shortages and over-zealous officials forcing them into state quarantine, as authorities rush to construct tens of thousands of beds to house Covid-19 patients with daily infections topping 20,000.
Late Thursday, videos circulated on social media showing residents outside a compound shouting at ranks of officials holding shields labelled "police", as the officers tried to break through their line.
In one clip, police appear to make several arrests as the residents accuse them of "hitting people."
The incident was triggered after authorities ordered 39 households to move from the compound "in order to meet the needs of epidemic prevention and control" and house virus patients in their apartments, according to Zhangjiang Group, the developer of the housing complex.
It has provided a rare window into public anger in China, a country where Communist authorities brook little dissent and censors routinely wipe information relating to protests from the internet as fast as it is uploaded.
In one live-streamed video, a woman can be heard weeping and asking "why are they taking an old person away?" as officials appeared to put someone into a car.
Zhangjiang Group said it had compensated the tenants and moved them into other units in the same compound.
In another video, which was live-streamed, a woman is heard yelling "Zhangjiang Group is trying to turn our compound into a quarantine spot, and allow Covid-positive people to live in our compound."
The group recognised videos of the compound that had "appeared on the internet" on Thursday and said "the situation had now settled down" after "some tenants obstructed the construction" of a quarantine fence.
China's censors quickly stepped in to scrub evidence of the clash from Chinese social media sites -- as they did with several other videos that have appeared over the last few weeks -- with search results for the name of the apartment complex disappearing from the Twitter-like Weibo by Friday morning.
Shanghai residents have taken to social media to vent about food shortages and heavy-handed controls, including the killing of a pet corgi by a health worker and a now-softened policy of separating infected children from their virus-free parents.
Authorities have vowed the city "would not relax in the slightest", preparing over a hundred new quarantine facilities to receive every person who tests positive -- whether or not they show symptoms.
S.Keller--BTB