- Saudi crown prince says no Israel ties without Palestinian state
- Canada to further cut international student, foreign worker permits
- YouTube launches new TV-focused tools for creators
- White Sox heading for worst season in MLB history
- China the top challenge in US history: senior diplomat
- Hong Kong democracy tycoon's son warns time running out
- New migraine drugs no better than cheap painkillers: big study
- Sean 'Diddy' Combs again denied bail in sex trafficking case
- Brewers clinch division title as MLB playoff race heats up
- Man City blunted by 'giant' Inter in Champions League stalemate
- US stocks dip despite larger Fed interest rate cut
- Man City held by Inter as PSG pinch win in Champions League
- All Blacks recall Beauden Barrett for Australia Test
- Fears of all-out war as new Lebanon device blasts kill 20, wound 450
- Spurs late show saves Postecoglou blushes at Coventry
- PSG snatch late goal to beat Champions League debutants Girona
- Gittens' late double gives Dortmund Champions League win at Brugge
- Man City blunted by Inter in Champions League stalemate
- Hidden talent: French Olympic star Marchand opts for disguise
- MrBeast named in California lawsuit over 'Beast Games' show
- Gauff splits with Gilbert as coach after 14-month run
- Hundreds of thousands at risk in Sudan's El-Fasher: UN
- Harvey Weinstein pleads not guilty to new sex crime charge
- Venezuelan opposition candidate says letter conceding election was coerced
- Ukraine official claims Russian advance in Kursk has been 'stopped'
- X update allows app to bypass Brazil ban: internet providers
- Fears of all-out war as new Lebanon device blasts kill 14, wound 450
- US Fed makes aggressive rate cut, weeks before election
- Arsenal's Odegaard faces lengthy injury absence
- India coal expansion risks massive methane growth: report
- China the top challenge in US history, top diplomat says
- US Fed makes larger half-point cut in first reduction since 2020
- Ronaldo's Al Nassr appoint former AC Milan boss Pioli
- Ainslie 'relieved' as British book place in Louis Vuitton Cup final
- Struggling Roma replace sacked icon De Rossi with Ivan Juric
- Women's NBA will add 15th team in Portland in 2026
- Brazil fires need harsher punishment: environmental police boss
- Boeing to start large temporary furloughs amid Seattle strike
- Fears of all-out war as new Lebanon device blasts kill nine, wound 300
- 'Emergency' declared over falling UK butterfly numbers
- McIlroy outlines threats to golf peace deal
- Stock markets, dollar slip before US rate decision
- Russian advance in Kursk 'stopped': Ukraine official to AFP
- UN members demand end to 'unlawful' Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories
- Snapchat pushes 'safer' platform image, but not everyone agrees
- Three dead, 100 wounded in new wave of Lebanon device explosions
- So where does the oceans' plastic waste come from?
- Allied war heroes buried in Netherlands... 80 years on
- Marsh coy over Australia's choice to open alongside Head
- New London sculpture pays tribute to trans community
RBGPF | 5.79% | 60.5 | $ | |
CMSC | 0.02% | 25.055 | $ | |
RYCEF | 1.37% | 6.55 | $ | |
RELX | -0.82% | 47.37 | $ | |
GSK | -0.31% | 42.43 | $ | |
NGG | -0.46% | 70.05 | $ | |
SCS | 0.71% | 14.11 | $ | |
BCC | 1.33% | 137.06 | $ | |
RIO | -0.02% | 62.91 | $ | |
JRI | 0.45% | 13.44 | $ | |
AZN | 0.06% | 78.58 | $ | |
BTI | -0.34% | 37.88 | $ | |
VOD | 0.49% | 10.23 | $ | |
BCE | 3.09% | 35.61 | $ | |
CMSD | -0.12% | 24.98 | $ | |
BP | -0.37% | 32.43 | $ |
'There's no why': Shanghai rages at endless Covid lockdown
Scuffles with officials, workers storming factory gates and households raging at being dragged into quarantine -- Shanghai's long fight against Covid-19 is unravelling into chaos and desperation.
China insists on sticking to its zero-Covid strategy, and that has left most of Shanghai's 25 million residents locked down for several weeks.
The city is the epicentre of China's worst Covid outbreak to date, with more than half a million infections and over 500 deaths, according to official figures.
Yet despite cases dwindling into the low thousands in recent days, authorities are still conjuring new control measures.
Those include relocating entire residential compounds to quarantine -- even including people with negative virus tests -- and denying some food deliveries in a bid to stop the spread of the virus.
Residents who were initially told they would be at home for a just few days are now entering their sixth or seventh week of lockdown and anger is boiling over across the city.
Images emerged over the weekend of a street fight between locals and officials clad in white hazmat suits in Shanghai's Minhang district.
District officials later said "troublemakers" clashed with health management staff on Saturday night, inciting neighbours to rush out of their barricaded building as other residents threw objects onto the street from their windows.
Videos circulating on social media and verified by AFP showed people in Minhang's Zhuanqiao neighbourhood pushing police as chants against "violent law enforcement" echoed around.
Workers at Apple supplier Quanta's Shanghai factory fought with guards and broke through barricades last week over fears that Covid rules on the campus could get stricter, according to Bloomberg.
The flashpoints add to a catalogue of protests since the early-April start of lockdown, in a country where unrest is normally swiftly squashed and rarely seen by the wider public.
- 'Stop asking why' -
Shanghai officials claim the city is winning its Covid fight, declaring in past weeks that millions have been released from the strictest levels of lockdown.
But the view from the ground is different. Large neighbourhoods given a brief semblance of freedom have quietly been put back into lockdown, Shanghai residents told AFP.
Many who were placed in low-risk areas have been told that they cannot leave their apartments except to get Covid tests.
Compounds are ordering "silent periods" or curfews of as long as seven days during which people are forbidden to even order deliveries of personal items, according to official notices seen by AFP.
Meanwhile residents of multiple buildings have told AFP they have been warned of forcible movement to quarantine facilities if their neighbours test positive.
"All of us will be taken to a quarantine centre and we'll have to hand over our keys so they can come in and spray everything with disinfectant," a British citizen living in Shanghai's Xuhui district said, declining to be named for fear of retaliation.
Videos showing arguments with officials are now common on Chinese social media, with new confrontations being shared at a speed outpacing the censors' race to scrub them out.
One video that went viral over the weekend showed hazmat-suited officials arguing with a family in a mix of Mandarin and Shanghainese dialect.
"You can't do whatever you want, unless you go to America. This is China," one official says in the video after informing the family that they must be quarantined as they are same-floor contacts of a Covid case.
"Stop asking why. There's no why. This is according to national regulations."
M.Odermatt--BTB