
-
Shakira resumes world tour after Lima hospital stay
-
Mexico says to sue Google if it insists on using 'Gulf of America'
-
Top Russia, US officials to meet in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday
-
Djokovic calls for overhaul of 'unfair' anti-doping system
-
Rio swelters in heatwave in run-up to Carnival
-
Israel says committed to Trump plan for Gaza displacement
-
Argentine prosecutors to probe Milei over 'cryptogate'
-
Turkey seals hotel spa illegally set up inside ancient cistern
-
Revamped Finnish museum says 'Good Bye, Lenin!'
-
Bayern hopeful Kane fit for Celtic clash
-
European leaders meet on response to US Ukraine shift
-
Muhsin Hendricks: S.Africa's gay imam who broke the mould
-
Italy probing Amazon over 1.2b euros in third-party seller VAT
-
Russell, Graham in Scotland squad to face England in Six Nations
-
Israeli military set to miss Lebanon withdrawal deadline despite pushback
-
France cuts prison activities to smooth facial massage outcry
-
Kenya's HIV patients victims of US aid freeze
-
Starmer to meet Trump 'next week': UK govt
-
US tensions add fire to final stretch of German election campaign
-
Italy's Milan upstages Pogacar in UAE Tour first stage
-
Pope's condition 'complex', hospital stay extended: Vatican
-
Liverpool can cope with title nerves: Van Dijk
-
Greece to open museum of ancient undersea treasures
-
European markets rise ahead of Ukraine war talks
-
'Now or never' for pandemic accord, says WHO chief after US pulls out
-
New Zealand's Williamson makes joint move to Middlesex and London Spirit
-
Hollywood should resist Trump pressure, says director Todd Haynes
-
Ukraine war death toll: huge but not fully known
-
Ex-Tour de France winner Thomas to retire at end of season
-
African players in Europe: Marmoush wreaks havoc in 14 minutes
-
Sri Lanka budget banks on car taxes to boost coffers
-
Musk's DOGE seeks access to US tax system: reports
-
Champions Trophy set for liftoff after India-Pakistan row, boycott calls
-
US tensions plague final phase of German election campaign
-
Rodgers urges Celtic to be bold against Bayern
-
Chatbot vs national security? Why DeepSeek is raising concerns
-
Court finds Singapore opposition leader guilty of lying to parliament
-
Rights groups slam Australian plan to transfer criminals to Nauru
-
End of the road for Kolkata's beloved yellow taxis
-
S. Korea says DeepSeek removed from local app stores pending privacy review
-
Navalny's widow seeks to rally divided Russian opposition
-
Taiwan bounty hunters kill invading iguanas as numbers soar
-
Japan 2024 growth slows despite stronger fourth quarter
-
Most Asian markets start week on positive note
-
LeBron James says won't play in All-Star game
-
General Atomics and EDGE Establish Partnership to Manufacture, Test and Repair Electromechanical Systems
-
Sweden's Aberg wins at Torrey Pines with final hole drama
-
Guardiola says Man City have 'one per cent' chance at Real Madrid
-
Trump visits Daytona 500 as NASCAR season begins
-
Nine months after heart attack, Bentaleb lifts Lille four minutes into comeback

'No choice': Shanghai residents sent out of city during Covid crackdown
In the middle of the night, Shanghai resident Lucy said she and her neighbours were forced into buses and taken hundreds of kilometres away from the locked-down Chinese metropolis to a makeshift quarantine centre.
Most of Shanghai's 25 million residents have been confined to their homes for weeks as the city battles a major Covid outbreak. Hundreds of thousands of virus-positive people have been taken to makeshift facilities as China does not allow them to quarantine at home.
But some residents who tested negative told AFP that they were also forced out of their homes and taken to camps outside the city, some hundreds of kilometres away.
"The police told us that there were too many positive cases in our compound and if we carried on living here, we'd all become infected," Lucy told AFP, using only her first name for privacy reasons.
"We had no choice."
She said the virus-negative group were sent to a quarantine site containing hundreds of single-room prefab cabins in neighbouring Anhui province, 400 kilometres away, and that it was not initially clear where they going.
Lucy added that she does not know when she can go home.
AFP spoke with other Shanghai residents who said healthy, virus-negative people in some housing compounds were sent to other provinces for quarantine.
One said his neighbours had protested and refused to join.
Another from the city's Jing'an district told AFP she was taken, along with dozens of people from her residential compound, to a single-room quarantine centre in Anhui late one night.
"We all received calls from the neighbourhood committee saying that since there are too many positives in our compound, the negatives need to be transferred to hotels for isolation," that resident told AFP, preferring to stay anonymous.
She said they "felt terrified" on seeing the temporary accommodation, and had "lost trust in the Shanghai government."
- Extreme measures -
Shanghai on Monday was under a patchwork of different restrictions as new virus cases dropped to around 7,000, with 32 dead.
City authorities have imposed a three-tiered system of "freedoms", although stringent local enforcement appeared to still restrict the majority of residents to within compounds or neighbourhoods.
China's relentless pursuit of a zero-Covid policy has left many Shanghai residents chafing under the tight curbs.
The Shanghai government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Officials in the economic hub are likely under more pressure than elsewhere to achieve "zero-Covid at the community level" -- meaning no transmission outside quarantine centres -- according to Yanzhong Huang, senior fellow at the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations.
"When they face strong pressure from above to achieve zero-Covid targets, these heavy-handed, excessive measures become more likely."
"Moving negative people could be considered a pre-emptive strategy, with the expectation that more positive cases may be found if they stay there," Huang added.
Chinese officials are routinely sacked after virus outbreaks for perceived failures in Covid control.
Tens of thousands of close contacts of virus cases have been quarantined in neighbouring provinces, according to official news agency Xinhua.
But there has been no mention in official media of the relocation of negative cases.
Shanghai authorities have faced wide criticism after they initially announced phased four-day lockdowns in different parts of the city that were not then lifted.
Tall metal barriers were erected around some locked-down compounds in recent days, as part of measures described as a "hard lockdown".
V.Dantas--PC