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A chanting crowd called for China’s leader, Xi Jinping, to step down, a rare act of defiance reflecting growing anger after nearly three years of lockdowns.

Plus World Cup updates, Kiribati’s judicial shake-up and “Gangnam Style,” 10 years later.

The death of a leader of Argentina’s Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo raises the question of how we can continue to remember
“We conquer death, dear children,” proclaimed Hebe de Bonafini, leader of Argentina’s Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. She devoted decades to ensuring that her sons, “disappeared” by the military junta in the late 1970s, were kept alive, if only in memory. The Mothers at first demanded the return of their children and then the punishment of those responsible for seizing and killing them. The risks they took were immense: the group’s were abducted and thrown into the ocean from “death flights”. But as politicians, the church and almost all of the media remained silent, these working-class housewives stood strong and confronted a brutal regime.
Now Mrs Bonafini too is gone. With , at 93, the group has dwindled further, though old companions in homage under the blistering sun last Thursday as her ashes were scattered on the plaza. Each day, inevitably, more of those who bore witness to the crimes of the past are lost. In Israel, more than 15,500 Holocaust survivors . More than a third of China’s Tiananmen Mothers – who demand justice for children killed in the bloody crackdown on 1989’s pro-reform protests – have died. This month saw , the most senior official jailed for his sympathy for the demonstrators. At 90, he remained under constant watch by authorities, and was one of the few who dared to break around the massacre, saying that China could not move forward until it “completely repudiated” the killings.

Chinese leader will see widespread demonstrations against zero-Covid policy as threat to CCP’s authority
Just five weeks after being , President Xi Jinping suddenly faces cracks in the facade of unchallenged authority that he so successfully presented to the world at the 20th national congress of the Chinese Communist party.
For groups of protesters, apparently without central coordination, , and for some then explicitly to call for Xi and the Communist party to stand aside, is a seismic shock.

Asian Americans are part of the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community. With more than 50 ethnicities speaking almost 100 languages, AAPI is far from a monolith. People of Asian ...

For Asian American and Pacific Islander voters, whose political influence in Georgia has grown exponentially over the last decade, the December 6 Senate runoff between incumbent Democratic Sen.

Per the Democratic polling firm TargetSmart, ballots cast by Asian American Georgia voters rose from 2016 to 2020, from 73,000 votes to 134,000 votes.

Per the Democratic polling firm TargetSmart, ballots cast by Asian American Georgia voters rose from 2016 to 2020, from 73,000 votes to 134,000 votes.

Demonstrations have broken out in cities and university campuses across China amid widespread anger at Covid lockdowns. The wave of civil disobedience was triggered by an apartment fire on Friday in which at least 10 people died in the west Xinjiang region. In an unusually bold act that appeared to indicate the level of people’s desperation, a crowd in Shanghai called for the removal of the Communist party and President Xi Jinping in a standoff with police on Saturday, according to videos circulated on Twitter. Chinese people usually refrain from criticising the party and its leaders in public for fear of reprisals  

Public protests are the most visible signs of anger and scepticism over latest series of draconian lockdowns
Victoria Li* has experienced several lockdowns since . Being a prisoner in her own home in Beijing made her feel depressed, powerless and angry.
“Being stuck at home with my door sealed, I felt unmotivated to do anything,” she said. “I didn’t want to work, I didn’t want to study. Sometimes, I crept into my bed and cried,” said the lawyer, who is in her 20s.

The American computer scientist, who coined the term ‘virtual reality,’ cautions against online ‘psychological operatives’
Jaron Lanier, the eminent American computer scientist, composer and artist, is no stranger to skepticism around social media, but his current interpretations of its effects are becoming darker and his warnings more trenchant.
Lanier, a dreadlocked free-thinker credited with coining the term “virtual reality”, has long sounded dire sirens about the dangers of a world over-reliant on the internet and at the increasing mercy of tech lords, their social media platforms and those who work for them.