<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="6360701" type="DEFINITION" weightage="60" keywordseo="spacex">SpaceX</keyword> has successfully launched into orbit its first human passengers: <keyword id="6360409" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Nasa">NASA</keyword> <keyword id="73998" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="astronauts">astronauts</keyword> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-astronaut-best-thing-about-spacex-rocket-launch-crew-dragon-2020-5">Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley</a>.</li><li>The astronauts lifted off at 3:22 p.m. ET on Saturday while riding inside <keyword id="3150656" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="crew-dragon">Crew Dragon</keyword>, a new privately developed spaceship that <keyword id="6355315" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="elon-musk">Elon Musk</keyword>'s rocket company made in part for NASA.</li><li>However, the Demo-2 mission is a test flight that's far from over. Behnken and Hurley could <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-launch-crew-dragon-nasa-astronauts-demo2-mission-timeline-2020-5">spend up to 110 days in space</a> after they reach and dock with the International Space Station.</li><li>Garrett Reisman, a former astronaut who worked on SpaceX's Dragon vehicles, said success for Demo-2 could spark a golden age of commercial spaceflight.</li></ul><p>CAPE CANAVERAL — Amid the threat of rain and lightning on Saturday, one of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets heaved itself off the ground at 3:22 p.m. ET with a thunderous roar of flames, smoke, and dust.</p><p>Then, about 12 minutes later, a relatively small payload popped off the top of the 23-story launcher while moving close to 17,500 mph, slipping the spacecraft into low-Earth orbit.</p><p>However, this payload is unlike anything the world has seen: a privately developed commercial spaceship called Crew Dragon, which is carrying SpaceX's first human passengers — <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-astronauts-doug-hurley-bob-behnken-biography-spacex-demo2-2020-5">NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley</a>.</p><p>Shortly before their historic crewed space launch, the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-boeing-nasa-commercial-crew-program-launch-astronauts-2020-1">first from American soil since July 2011</a>, the men shared ceremonious words from SpaceX's Crew Dragon spaceship over the radio.</p><p>"It is absolutely an honor to be part of this huge effort to get the United States back in the launch business," Hurley said, minutes before liftoff.</p><p><div type="image" title="spacex demo 2 nasa astronauts bob behnken doug hurley" height="1800" width="2400" msid="76114264" hostid="261"></div></p><p>The flight not only <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-spacex-astronaut-launch-nasa-is-important-2020-5">resurrects American crewed spaceflight for NASA</a>, but also opens a door for SpaceX to help commercialize space.</p><p>The NASA administrator, Jim Bridenstine, became emotional while delivering remarks after the crew reached orbit.</p><p>"I'm breathing a sigh of relief, but I will also tell you I'm not going to celebrate until Bob and Doug are home safely," Bridenstine said, adding: "I've heard that rumble before, but it's a whole different feeling when it's your team on top of that rocket."</p><p>Elon Musk, who founded SpaceX in 2002, expressed his enthusiasm during the first launch attempt on Wednesday: "This is a dream come true for me and everyone else at SpaceX."</p><p>"I didn't even dream that this would come true."</p><p>Poor weather threatened to delay the mission a second time, as clouds crowded the Florida skies and teased rocket-threatening lightning. A rain shower briefly soaked the rocket.</p><p>Similar conditions forced NASA and SpaceX to scrub their first launch attempt <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-nasa-astronaut-launch-weather-delayed-to-saturday-2020-5">just 17 before liftoff</a> on Wednesday, since the Falcon 9 rocket could trigger lightning strikes from electrically charged clouds.</p><p>Though the historic mission is on its way, the hard part is not over for the two men, SpaceX, or NASA — a partner that has invested more than $3.14 billion to foster the system's development.</p><p>Launching rockets is something SpaceX excels at, with now 86 successful liftoffs under its belt. Flying crewed space capsules and keeping the passengers alive is another matter.</p><p>To prove to NASA and the rest of the world it can be done, the astronauts will spend the next day catching up to the International Space Station, where they will dock the new spaceship for about 110 days before returning home.</p><p>The <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-rocket-launch-nasa-astronauts-demo2-commercial-crew-mission-history-2020-5">stakes are enormous</a>, with the success of the mission — marked by a safe landing in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida — bound to shape the future of SpaceX, NASA, and human spaceflight in general.</p><h2>A 3-month spaceflight to tame the Dragon </h2><p><div type="image" title="spacex crew dragon spaceship sunrise kennedy space center cape canaveral florida launchpad launch complex 39a elon musk twitter" height="449" width="800" msid="76114458" hostid="261"></div></p><p>Ahead of the crew is a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-launch-crew-dragon-nasa-astronauts-demo2-mission-timeline-2020-5">highly choreographed sequence of events</a> for their experimental mission, called Demo-2.</p><p>Now in orbit, Behnken and Hurley will climb out of their spacesuits, get a bite to eat, and begin to test out as many systems on Crew Dragon as they can — including overriding the spaceship's automated controls to pilot the vehicle. They also plan to try out the toilet (which is <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-crew-dragon-spaceship-ceiling-toilet-mystery-proprietary-design-2020-5">shrouded in proprietary mystery</a>) and eventually get some sleep inside the vehicle.</p><p>"We're just excited to kind of put it through its paces," Hurley said during a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-nasa-astronauts-demo2-mission-press-briefings-video-youtube-2011-2020-5">press briefing</a> on May 1.</p><p>Within a day of launch, the ship will pull up to the International Space Station (ISS): SpaceX and NASA's ultimate, football field-size destination in orbit. Behnken and Hurley will try their hand at the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-spaceship-docking-video-game-simulator-international-space-station-2020-5">manual docking controls</a> before turning the automated system back on.</p><p>If the procedure goes well, NASA <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/schedule.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">says</a> the ship should berth on Sunday at 10:27 a.m. ET and the hatches between the ship and the space station should open around 12:45 p.m. ET. The three-person crew of the station's Expedition 63, commanded by fellow NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy, will be waiting to greet Behnken and Hurley.</p><p>Although the Crew Dragon's final version is designed to stay in space for nearly seven months, NASA and SpaceX said this particular ship could stay up to 110 days. That shelf life, they said, is determined by the ship's solar panels; over time, a corrosive form of oxygen high above Earth will degrade the panels.</p><p>"That schedule is a little bit in flux," Hans Koenigsmann, SpaceX's vice president of mission assurance, said during a May 25 briefing. "NASA will tell us when we're ready to go."</p><p><div type="image" title="american flag final last nasa shuttle mission crew sts 135 international space station iss 570956main_s135e008059_hires" height="1992" width="3000" msid="76114459" hostid="261"></div></p><p>Before Behnken and Hurley leave the ISS, though, they'll grab a historic memento: an American flag flown on the first space shuttle mission and left by the crew of NASA's 135th and final space shuttle flight, of which Hurley was a member.</p><p>President Barack Obama in July 2011 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXzkdYVzlcc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">called it a game of "capture-the-flag"</a> for the first commercial spaceship crew to reach the station.</p><p>That competition is now down to SpaceX and Boeing, which is slated for a crewed test flight of its CST-100 Starliner spaceship in early 2021.</p><p>"We definitely feel like we're in the lead to make it to the International Space Station and retrieve the flag that STS-135 left behind. But we aren't really focused on who's going to win and who's going to lose," Behnken told reporters on May 1.</p><p>He added: "We're really focused on making sure that we technically get into space and get this vehicle checked out and accomplish the ultimate mission, which isn't winning against Boeing: It's providing this capability to the International Space Station so that we can start rotating crews from American soil."</p><h2>Elon Musk is most worried about the landing of Crew Dragon</h2><p><div type="image" title="spacex crew dragon spaceship atmospheric reentry hot plasma heat shield earth return youtube sm" height="568" width="1024" msid="76114460" hostid="261"></div></p><p>When the astronauts are ready to return, they'll climb back into Crew Dragon, put on their spacesuits, and undock from the space station. Then they'll get into position to blast off the spaceship's thrusters, allowing Earth's gravity to pull them back to the planet.</p><p>This reentry of the space capsule through Earth's atmosphere — aside from the threat posed by space debris — is the "biggest concern" for Musk, he <a href="https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/space/podcast-interview-spacexs-elon-musk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told Irene Klotz of Aviation Week</a>.</p><p>His worry concerning the new spaceship was the capsule's asymmetric design, which is driven by its emergency escape system. While screaming back to Earth at 25 times the speed of sound, the capsule's heat shield will deflect and absorb the energy of superheated plasma — but the forces of atmospheric reentry have a slim chance of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/classified-apollo-11-anomaly-threatened-to-crash-first-moon-astronauts-2019-6">causing catastrophic issues</a>, Musk said.</p><p>"If you rotate too much, then you could potentially catch the plasma in the super Draco escape thruster pods," Musk <a href="https://twitter.com/Free_Space/status/1264649494454513669" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>, adding this could overheat parts of the ship or cause it to lose control (by wobbling). "We've looked at this six ways to Sunday, so it's not that I think this will fail. It's just that I worry a bit that it is asymmetric on the backshell."</p><p>After slowing down due to drag, Crew Dragon is supposed to open its parachutes and splash down in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida, where recovery boats will pick up the astronauts. Koenigsmann told Business Insider that is a concern, since the parachute packing can't really be tested before launch, but that the risk of failure is very low due to scores of tests performed by SpaceX.</p><p>In all likelihood, according to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-spacex-crew-dragon-loss-crew-mission-failure-chances-probability-2020-5">NASA and SpaceX's risk estimates</a>, the mission has more than a 98% chance of success and even higher odds of keeping Behnken and Hurley safe. NASA estimated the chance SpaceX might lose the spaceship during the landing phase to be less than 1 in 500.</p><h2>The 'beginning of a golden age of commercial spaceflight'</h2><p><div type="image" title="spacex crew dragon spaceship sunset kennedy space center cape canaveral florida launchpad launch complex 39a elon musk twitter" height="1364" width="2048" msid="76114461" hostid="261"></div></p><p>Assuming all goes well from start to finish with the Demo-2 mission, experts believe the mission could represent a bold new era for human spaceflight.</p><p>Former NASA astronaut Garrett Reisman, who worked for many years on SpaceX's cargo and crewed spaceship programs, said Crew Dragon and Demo-2 could signal major progress within the spaceflight industry.</p><p>For one, he said, it'd be "the ultimate validation" of NASA's decision to split roughly $8 billion between SpaceX and Boeing and have the companies develop their own spacecraft and, in the end, privately own and operate them. That model contrasts with the agency's Orion spaceship and Space Launch System rocket programs, which NASA will own and operate but have amounted to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-boeing-space-launch-system-audit-reveals-delays-cost-2018-10">tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer costs</a> without a single test launch.</p><p>"I think that the combination of those two things — the performance plus the cost savings — would be an incredible validation and endorsement of this whole approach," Reisman said.</p><p>He added that the next stage will be the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/axiom-space-private-astronaut-mission-agreement-2020-3">flights of private astronauts</a> (or "spaceflight participants" in NASA parlance) to the space station. To that effect, NASA recently <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-international-space-station-commercialization-tourists-2019-6">streamlined the ability of companies to fly citizens to the laboratory</a> and foster commercial activities — even including the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tom-cruise-travel-elon-musks-spacex-rocket-film-space-movie-2020-5">filming of action movies</a>.</p><p>Put together, he said success for Demo-2 would represent "the beginning of a golden age of commercial spaceflight."</p><p>"We would be within a year of flying ordinary citizens in space, and that will be hugely transformative," he added.</p><p><div type="image" title="international space station iss nasa" height="1530" width="2400" msid="76114462" hostid="261"></div></p><p>Reisman says that at first only the wealthy and well-connected will have access to space. But he added that the early days of commercial aviation looked very similar, with passengers spending inordinate sums to fly in biplanes while wearing tuxedos because it was such a rare event.</p><p>"That's where we're at with space travel today, we're in the very beginning stages," he said. "We have to look forward to the day when we have Southwest and JetBlue."</p><p>"The day will come when when everybody that wants to go to space will, for the most part, be able to afford to go," Reisman said.</p><p>SpaceX is hard at work on a follow-up crewed launch called Starship, which Musk hopes can reduce the cost of access to space by 1,000-fold or more.</p><p>He hopes to launch a prototype on a short "hop" at the company's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-elon-musk-texas-starship-mars-launch-site-pictures-2019-5">burgeoning development site</a> in South Texas in the coming weeks. SpaceX is working with NASA to possibly <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-spacex-blue-origin-design-lunar-landers-2020-5">land the vehicle on the moon in 2024</a>. Musk also wants to begin <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/yusaku-maezawa-zozo-ceo-resigns-sells-yahoo-spacex-starship-flight-2019-9">crewed launches in the mid-2020s</a> and, perhaps in the 2030s, start <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-jeff-bezos-space-mars-colonies-spacex-blue-origin-2019-6">building permanent cities on Mars</a>. </p><p>SpaceX also hopes its Starship project will dramatically speed up international travel from days to minutes with <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-one-million-starship-rocket-launches-commercial-international-launches-2020-1">regular point-to-point flights at hypersonic speeds</a>.</p>Read the original article on <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-launches-historic-rocket-mission-nasa-astronauts-demo-2-2020-5">Business Insider</a>

MUSK MAKES HISTORY: SpaceX just launched 2 people into orbit for the first time, kicking off the rocket company's most important mission since its founding 18 years ago

NASA astronaut rates 10 space movies based on how realistic they are

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><ul class="summary-list"><li><strong>China is waging an unprecedented crackdown on the Uighurs, a majority-Muslim ethnic group</strong><strong> in the western region of Xinjiang.</strong></li><li><strong>Authorities are suspected to have detained up to 2 million people in the region, and send their children to state-run orphanages.</strong></li><li><strong>Abdurahman Tohti, a 30-year-old Uighur man living in Turkey, hasn't heard from his wife and kids since they disappeared after a visit to Xinjiang in 2016.</strong></li><li><strong>Last month he saw a video of his four-year-old son, Abduleziz, in what appeared to be a video taken inside a state-run Chinese orphanage.</strong></li><li><strong>He has taken the unusual step of discussing his missing family with INSIDER because he's "ready for any consequences ... I lost everything."</strong></li><li>China justifies the orphanages as a way to lift children from poverty and stop them becoming terrorists. Beijing argues that its treatment of Uighurs is an anti-extremism strategy.</li></ul><p>Abdurahman Tohti hasn't seen or heard from his wife, his son, or his daughter for almost three years, for reasons entirely out of his control.</p><p>He and his family are Uighurs, the majority-Muslim ethnic minority based in Xinjiang, western China.</p><p>Authorities from Beijing, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/china-tries-to-cite-islamophobia-to-export-model-of-muslim-repression-2018-11">under the guise of counter-terrorism</a>, have in recent years covered the entire region with <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/xianjiang-province-china-police-state-surveillance-2018-7">facial recognition cameras</a> and locked <a href="https://ir.usembassy.gov/a-tale-of-torture-in-a-chinese-internment-camp-for-uighurs/%20">up to 2 million residents</a> in prison-like camps.</p><p>Chinese authorities are reported to have <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/life-inside-china-internment-camps-for-uighur-minority-in-xinjiang-bbc-report-2018-8">physically tortured Uighurs</a>, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/badger-sport-drops-china-factory-over-reported-forced-uighur-labor-2019-1">turned them into forced laborers</a>, and compelled them to sing pro-Chinese songs in order to be fed. The region - known to Uighurs as East Turkestan - has been described as a "<a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/the-police-state-of-the-future-is-already-here">21st-century police state</a>."</p><p>China has routinely denied inflicting physical or psychological damage on Uighurs in these camps. Instead it has referred to them as "<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/china-xinjiang-authorities-okay-uighur-re-education-camps-in-new-law-2018-10">re-education camps</a>" or "<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/china-calls-xinjiang-uighur-detention-camps-free-vocational-training-2018-10">free vocational training</a>" that make life "colorful."</p><p>Tohti left his village of Besh Tugmen in Aksu prefecture, western Xinjiang, in March 2013 and settled in Istanbul, Turkey, that October after studying in Egypt for a few months.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>He married his wife, Peride Yasin, in Istanbul, Turkey, in February 2014. They had two children - a boy, Abduleziz,&#xa0; and a girl, Nadire.</p><p>In August 2016, Yasin and the children traveled to Xinjiang to visit family. Tohti hasn't heard from any of them since.</p><p>He and his wife were meant to speak after she landed, but she mysteriously deleted him from WeChat - China's most popular messaging platform - almost immediately after she arrived in China, he told INSIDER.</p><p>INSIDER's conversation with Tohti was translated from the Uighur language to English by Alip Erkin, an <a href="https://twitter.com/UyghurBulletin">Australia-based activist at Uyghur Bulletin</a>. (Uyghur is an alternative spelling.)</p><p>Tohti later heard from people on the ground that his wife was arrested upon arrival, and sentenced to ten years in prison. He has never heard anything official about their fate, and said he is "completely in the dark."</p><p>Nadire, his youngest, was five months old.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>Tohti still doesn't know his wife's charges, but thinks it could be to do with her spending time in Turkey, an act for which China has been known to punish Uighurs.</p><p>The Turkish government <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-muslim-countries-arent-criticizing-china-uighur-repression-2018-8?r=US&amp;IR=T">has long offered a space for Uighurs</a> to seek refuge and stage protests against China. Beijing's response has been to threaten to tank economic relations between the two countries.</p><p>China's grip on Uighurs have worsened since Yasin disappeared, with authorities using increasingly flimsy reasons to lock the people up - including having a beard, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/police-cutting-dresses-off-uighur-women-in-xinjiang-china-2018-7">wearing long skirts</a>, or setting their clocks to two hours after Beijing time.</p><p><em><strong>Read more:</strong> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/china-gives-these-excuses-to-imprison-uighur-ethnic-minority-2018-9?r=US&amp;IR=T">China is using flimsy excuses to lock up its Muslim minority on a huge scale - here are some of the bizarre reasons people are in jail</a></em></p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><h2>A familiar sight</h2><p>Since his family vanished, Tohti has been stuck in limbo in Istanbul, with no idea where his wife or children went.</p><p>His parents are still in Xinjiang, but they cut off contact to protect themselves from reprisal, telling him not to contact them, then changing their phone number.</p><p>Uighurs in Xinjiang are often punished for communicating with people in foreign countries.</p><p>Tohti also tried to call his parents-in-law in Xinjiang, but the only number he had for them was out of service.</p><p>Then about three weeks ago, while scrolling through Douyin - the Chinese version of popular video-sharing platform <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/tiktok">TikTok</a> - he saw a familiar sight: Big, black eyes, and round, rosy cheeks.</p><p>It was his four-year-old son, Abduleziz.</p><p>In the video, Abduleziz can be found answering a series of questions posted by a man off-camera in Mandarin Chinese - What's your name? How old are you? What is the name of the fatherland? What is on the fatherland's flag? - and answering in a way that seems pre-rehearsed.</p><p>Abduleziz can be heard saying his own name around the 2-second mark.</p><p>The last time Abdurahman Tohti saw his son, he couldn't even speak Uighur yet - let alone Chinese, he told INSIDER.</p><p>Tohti and Erkin, the Uighur rights activist in Australia, both think the video was taken in a state orphanage.</p><p>"I wasn't expecting this," Tohti told INSIDER. "I was devastated seeing him being brainwashed in an orphanage."</p><p>It is difficult to know when or where exactly the video was recorded - the person who posted the video on Douyin, a Han Chinese man, simply identifies himself as "Person in Xinjiang."</p><p>He posts videos of himself with young Uighur children, with captions that suggest he is their schoolteacher.</p><p>But certain markers in the video of Abduleziz indicate that this was taken in a state-run orphanage, Erkin told INSIDER.</p><p>The formula of the rapid-fire questions - asked off-screen of a child's name and age, before moving onto questions about China - is similar to <a href="https://twitter.com/doamuslims/status/1049752910035345408">other videos</a> that have emerged of what appeared to be orphanages.</p><p>Erkin added: "I would say [Abduleziz was in an] orphanage because he doesn't have both parents with him. Normal schools are only for those who have guardians."</p><p>As part of China's crackdown on Xinjiang it has sent Han Chinese people to the region to embed themselves into Uighurs' daily lives - even going as far as <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/10/26/china-nightmare-homestay-xinjiang-uighur-monitor/">sending them to lodge in their homes</a>.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>China has placed thousands of children in Xinjiang in de facto orphanages after detaining their parents, <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/f0d3223a-7f4d-11e8-bc55-50daf11b720d">the Financial Times reported</a> last year.</p><p>In such centers - sometimes referred to as "welfare centers" and "protection centers" - Uighur children are required to speak only in Mandarin, <a href="https://www.apnews.com/903a97b7c62a47b98553b6f422827dd7">The Associated Press (AP) reported</a>.</p><p>According to the AP, China denies the existence of the internment camps, and says the orphanages are to help disadvantaged children, and lift them out of poverty and away from extremism.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><h2>'I lost everything'</h2><p>Many Uighurs have spoken about Xinjiang's crackdown, but they tend to do so anonymously, out of fear that China will punish their relatives still in the region</p><p>Rushan Abbas, an activist living in Virginia, heard that her aunt and sister disappeared in Xinjiang <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/democracy-post/wp/2018/10/19/my-aunt-and-sister-in-china-have-vanished-are-they-being-punished-for-my-activism">six days after</a> she publicly criticised China's human rights record.</p><p>But Tohti is speaking on the record, because he says he's "lost everything" already.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>He told INSIDER: "I don't fear any retaliation at this point of my life. I lost everything."</p><p>"I'm ready for any consequences," he said.</p><p>Tohti hopes that his story will inspire governments outside China to stand up to Beijing. Many countries in the Muslim world have largely avoided confronting Beijing in the past - likely fearing <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-muslim-countries-arent-criticizing-china-uighur-repression-2018-8">Beijing's economic retaliation, or exposing their own human rights record</a> - but more and more are beginning to speak out.</p><p><em><strong>Read more:</strong> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/muslim-countries-standing-up-to-china-over-uighur-muslim-oppression-2018-12">A wall of silence around China's oppression of its Muslim minority is starting to crumble</a></em></p><p><keyword id="6356001" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="international">International</keyword> activists this week <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2019/02/un-act-to-end-china-mass-detentions-xinjiang/">called on</a> the UN Human Rights Council to dispatch an independent fact-finding mission into Xinjiang.</p><p>Michelle Bachelet, the UN's human rights chief, has appealed for access into the region for months, but Beijing has continually <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/china-tells-un-to-back-off-after-alleging-xinjiang-has-1-million-in-camps-2018-9?r=US&amp;IR=T">told her to back off</a>.</p><p>Tohti said: "I hope the international community, especially influential countries, will help put and end to the atrocities in my home country and free millions of Uighurs and their separated children."</p><div></div><div></div>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-airline-shuttle-transportation-pan-am-eastern-new-york-2019-1">The rise and fall of Donald Trump's $365 million airline</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

This man's family vanished in China's most oppressed region. Last month he saw his son for the first time in 2 years, in a Chinese propaganda video.

<p>This photograph of Mikhail Khodorkovsky arriving at Berlin's Schönefeld Airport is the first of him as a free man in over ten years.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="http://khodorkovsky.ru/mbk/statements/2013/12/20/18520.html">khodorkovsky.ru</a></span></p><p class="caption">Mikhail Khodorkovsky greets German politician Hans Dietrich Genscher in Berlin</p></div><p></p></div></p>
<p>It all happened so quickly. Just yesterday, Russian President Vladimir Putin <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/putins-khodorkovsky-pardon-is-machiavellian-2013-12">announced that the jailed oligarch, perhaps his greatest enemy</a>, was to be pardoned. This morning, the Khodorkovsky camp (who yesterday were saying they knew nothing about his pardon), announced that he was already free.</p>
<p>Russia Today reports that he was taken away from his prison camp in Segezha, Republic of Karelia, by helicopter, and <a href="http://rt.com/news/khodorkovsky--prison-pardon-signed-548/">that he later boarded a private plane to Germany</a>. According to the Swiss website 20 Minuten, Khodorkovsky will first meet his <a href="http://www.20min.ch/ausland/news/story/26055857">mother in Germany where they will seek medical treatment</a>, and he will then continue to Switzerland.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>AP</span></p><p class="caption">An Emergency Situations Ministry vehicle is parked next to an Emergency Situations Ministry helicopter near the prison where Mikhail Khodorkovsky was kept in Segezha, near Petrozavodsk, Friday, Dec. 20, 2013. </p></div><p></p></div></p>
<p>Right now it appears that Khodorkovsky thought his mother was in Germany, where she had been previously for treatment. Khodorkovsky's parents, rather sadly, were shocked when they <a href="http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/ausland/europa/nach-putins-begnadigung-chodorkowskij-in-berlin-gelandet-12720046.html">were told by German reporters that he had landed in Berlin and not Moscow</a>, but they will be traveling soon.</p>
<p>It's a remarkable escape for one of the most fascinating characters in Modern Russia. Khodorkovsky was once Russia's richest man but he was arrested in 2003 on charges that many international observers said were politically motivated.</p>

Here's The First Photo Of Oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky After Being Freed From Russian Prison

<p><div class="image-container float_right click-to-enlarge" style="width:356px"><div class="image"><a title_source="Fox / YouTube" title_caption="Earnhardt's crash in 2001." class="zoomin" href="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/512a9e4f69beddc02d000000-960/nascar-earnhardt.png"><span class="click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a></div><p class="source"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXGKys62TXw">Fox / YouTube</a></p><p class="caption">Earnhardt's crash in 2001.</p></div>Don't be surprised at <keyword id="95021" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="NASCAR">NASCAR</keyword>'s aggressive policing of the video of a crash at Daytona that injured more than 20 spectators. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/nascar-crash-video-raises-a-serious-debate-2013-2">NASCAR pulled its own video</a> of the crash, and YouTube pulled a fan video, which showed a tire landing in the bleachers as fans are scattered like bowling pins.</p>
<p>NASCAR has a little-known, longstanding policy of saying as little as possible about the safety risks inherent in its sport. This, after all, is the <keyword id="6356028" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Sports">sports</keyword> league that withheld confirmation of Dale Earnhardt's death from his own fans for two hours after track officials first laid eyes on the racing star's bloodied corpse. It's also the only major sports league where the expected penalty for making a mistake — or even being unlucky — is death.</p>
<p>Ironically, yesterday's crash occurred on the eve of the 12th anniversary of the 2001 Daytona 500 race which killed Earnhardt, the most famous NASCAR driver ever. That incident pulled back the curtain on NASCAR's non-transparent maneuverings when it comes to crashes.</p>
<p>In yesterday's crash, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/nascar-crash-video-raises-a-serious-debate-2013-2">NASCAR claimed copyright ownership of a fan's video of the race</a>. The company — NASCAR is a privately held, for-profit firm, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_France">controlled by the France family</a> — also briefly published and then deleted its own video of the crash, according to The Atlantic. The <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/video-daytona-crash-as-seen-from-the-stands-2013-2">videos have since made it out onto the web</a> in various versions.</p>
<p>Twelve years ago, before mobile web video was a commonplace, NASCAR attempted a much more ambitious level of control after Earnhardt's black No.3 Chevrolet was brushed from behind by another driver, sending him into a wall on the final lap of the race. (At the time, I investigated <a href="http://www.brillscontent.com/nascar.shtml">the death of Earnhardt for Brill's Content</a>, a media criticism magazine. We were interested in how the NASCAR PR machine handled the issue.)</p>
<p>Immediately, NASCAR track officials worked to obscure the view of Earnhardt's wrecked car. CNN reported, "<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/02/10/earnhardt.10.year/index.html">workers draped a tarp over Earnhardt's car like cops covering a body at a crime scene</a>." NASCAR took two more hours to officially confirm that Earnhardt had actually died. Fox TV completed its coverage of the race before the bad news was released.</p>
<p>Earnhardt had not been wearing a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HANS_device#History">head and neck restraint system</a> (HANS) — literally a protective cage that prevents a driver's skull from being ripped off in a crash. NASCAR had not required HANS use prior to the race, even though the sport had debated it in the months prior after other drivers had died of the same injuries that killed Earnhardt. (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Petty#Death">Adam Petty was killed in 2000</a> as a result of the same injuries that Earnhardt suffered, for instance.) NASCAR president Mike Helton declined to answer questions about HANS at a press conference after Earnhardt died.</p>
<p>Helton also failed to tell the media that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Dale_Earnhardt#Cause_of_death_controversy">Earnhardt's seat belt had malfunctioned</a> until four days afterward, even though officials knew the belt had been severed on the evening of the crash. NASCAR said later it was trying to figure out whether the belt was cut by emergency workers or whether it had failed in the crash — the latter turned out to be true because it had been improperly installed.</p>
<p>Finally, <a href="http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2001-06-05/news/0106050227_1_earnhardt-bohannon-nascar-officials">NASCAR's in-house doctor</a> — the man who declared Earnhardt dead at the track — delivered <a href="http://www.ojr.org/ojr/ethics/1017961726.php">a description of Earnhardt's injuries that triggered a lot of questions</a> in the days following.</p>
<p>NASCAR was defended by fans who were outraged that reporters — particularly Ed Hinton of the Orlando Sentinel — sought copies of Earnhardt's autopsy photos in order to independently check NASCAR and the Daytona County medical examiner's conclusions about Earnhardt's injuries. Reporters wanted as much detail as possible about whether HANS could have kept Earnhardt alive, and the role of the seat belt. Later that year, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Dale_Earnhardt#Autopsy_pictures">Florida's state legislature changed the law</a> to exclude autopsy pictures from its open public records act.</p>
<p>That's the backstory to NASCAR's reticence when it comes to crashes.</p>

NASCAR's Ugly History Of Not Talking About Crashes -&#160;Including Dale Earnhardt's Death

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<p><em style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"><div class="image-container float_right" style="width:400px"><div class="image"></div><p class="source"><a href="http://www.davidraccuglia.com/flash.html">David Raccuglia</a></p></div>Five years after an explosion of unrest on the Tibetan plateau, the region is again in crisis. This time the world is looking away</em></p>
<p>INSIDE a small monastery in <keyword id="1334" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="China">China</keyword>’s Qinghai province, a red-robed monk looks around to see if he is being watched, then begins sobbing. "We just want the Dalai Lama to come home", he says. His words echo those of dozens of Tibetans seeking to explain why they have set themselves on fire in public places across the Tibetan plateau in the past two years. Desperation is growing among the Dalai Lama’s followers in China. So, too, is the government’s effort to silence them.</p>
<p>Since an outbreak of unrest swept the Tibetan plateau five years ago this month, including anti-Chinese riots in the Tibetan capital Lhasa and protests in numerous towns and monasteries, the party has tried to control Tibetan discontent by means of carrot and stick. The stick has involved tighter policing of monasteries, controls on visits to Lhasa, denunciations of the Dalai Lama and arrests of dissidents. The carrot is visible not far from the crying monk’s monastery: new expressways across the vast grasslands, new roads to remote villages, better housing for monks and restorations to their prayer-halls. Yet the spectacle of more than 100 Tibetans setting themselves alight, mostly in the past two years, in one of the largest such protests in modern political history, suggests that neither approach is working.</p>
<p>Despite, or perhaps because of, intense crackdowns in the affected areas of the <keyword id="6364076" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Tibet">Tibet</keyword>an plateau, the burnings in recent months have spread across a wider area (the plateau is one-third the size of America) and involved more people without links to monasteries. The government’s growing worry is evident in the intense security in the worst-affected areas, mostly in Tibetan-populated parts of the provinces of Sichuan and Qinghai, as well as in Lhasa, the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR). Since last year the government has begun rounding up those deemed to have encouraged Tibetans to burn themselves. Dozens have been detained. Several have been jailed for terms ranging from a few months to life.</p>
<p>All of the TAR, as well as trouble spots in neighbouring provinces, are off limits to most foreign journalists. But tension is palpable even in the few areas that remain accessible. During celebrations of the Tibetan new year in late February, at least three fire engines were parked inside Kumbum monastery compound near Xining, the capital of Qinghai. Dozens of police with extinguishers and fire blankets stood among the crowds of pilgrims and holidaymakers. West of Xining in Hainan prefecture, a Tibetan-majority area about the size of Switzerland, no one has been reported to have set themselves on fire. But the authorities are worried. In November hundreds of medical students protested in Gonghe county against the circulation of a government leaflet disparaging the immolators and the Dalai Lama. Residents say the police used tear-gas to break up a demonstration in the county town and arrested several participants. The prefectural authorities called the demonstration "illegal" and demanded that young people in Hainan form a (metaphorical) "wall of copper and rampart of iron against splittism, infiltration and self-immolations".</p>
<p>Though most minority groups live fairly peacefully under Chinese rule (see next story), the Tibetans cite many reasons for the renewed unrest: the continuing influx of ethnic-Han migrants (encouraged by huge government investment in transport infrastructure); environmental damage caused by mining and construction; the marginalisation of the Tibetan language in schools. The ageing of the Dalai Lama (he is 77) and his announcement in 2011 that he was retiring as head of Tibet’s government-in-exile in India are also factors. A growing sense that this incarnation of the Dalai Lama might not have much longer is fuelling demands for his return to the land that he fled after a failed uprising in 1959.</p>
<h3><em><div class="image-container" style="width:630px"><div class="image"></div><p class="source">The Economist</p></div></em></h3>
<h3><strong>Too long in exile</strong></h3>
<p>"[In] this life…service at least in the field of Tibetan struggle now already end", says the Dalai Lama in his halting English in the Indian town of Dharamsala that is his home. He is now, he says, devoting himself to the promotion of religious harmony and a dialogue between Buddhism and modern science. China is not convinced. Robert Barnett of Columbia University says that in recent weeks Chinese officials have increasingly accused the "Dalai Lama clique" of organising the burnings.</p>
<p>Mr Barnett says it is possible that China will try to defuse the tensions by reopening talks with the Dalai Lama’s representatives. There have been no such meetings since January 2010, when the two sides reached an impasse over differences relating to the envoys’ call for "genuine autonomy" for Tibet, while accepting that it remain part of China. (Other Tibetans in India still want independence, a cause of dispute among the exiles.) Chinese officials denounce even the compromise of autonomy as a scheme for achieving full independence. Among China’s other concerns is a proposal that Tibet be defined as the TAR plus the Tibetan-inhabited areas of neighbouring provinces, an area one quarter the size of China (see map).</p>
<h3><strong>Sleeping demon</strong></h3>
<p>The Dalai Lama’s retirement could make a resumption of talks more difficult. In August 2011, after winning an election in which nearly 50,000 Tibetan exiles voted, Lobsang Sangay, a Harvard academic, took over as head of the exiled government and assumed the political role once played by the Dalai Lama ("now demon peacefully sleeping", the holy man quips, referring to a word he says Chinese officials have used to describe him). Mr Sangay says that China can still hold talks if it wants with the Dalai Lama’s representatives. But those envoys resigned in June, citing the "deteriorating situation" in Tibet and China’s failure to "respond positively" to autonomy proposals. Among the powers Mr Sangay has taken on is the right to appoint the envoys’ successors, who have yet to be chosen. This will make China wary of beginning talks, for fear of conferring legitimacy on the new exile administration.</p>
<p>Some Tibetans in India see a glimmer of hope in China’s ten-yearly change of leadership which will be completed with the appointments of Xi Jinping as president and Li Keqiang as prime minister shortly before the end of the annual session of China’s parliament, the National People’s Congress, on March 17th (see next page). Mr Xi’s predecessor, Hu Jintao, was party chief in Tibet during an outbreak of unrest in the late 1980s which he resolutely suppressed (just as he suppressed the far bigger eruption in 2008). Mr Xi, goes the thinking, could be different. In the 1950s the Dalai Lama got to know Mr Xi’s late father, Xi Zhongxun, who was one of Mao Zedong’s comrades. The elder Xi received a watch from the Dalai Lama, which he wore long after the flight to India. If the father had a soft spot for the Dalai Lama, optimists think, so might the son.</p>
<p>In recent months the birthplace of the Dalai Lama in Hongya village, about 30km (20 miles) south-east of Kumbum monastery, has been given a makeover, though no one is sure why. Despite a crackdown on Dalai Lama worship elsewhere on the plateau, visitors to the grey-walled compound can see photographs of him, as well as a golden throne intended for him to sit on should he ever return. A caretaker says money for the recent improvements (including new bricks and a coat of paint) came from the government. She says foreigners are not allowed inside, but gladly shows around a group of Tibetan pilgrims who have driven hundreds of kilometres to see the site. But exiled officials are unimpressed and the Dalai Lama is cautious. "Better to wait till some concrete things happen, otherwise…some disappointment", he says with a chuckle.</p>
<p>Indeed, disappointment still appears likely. Mr Xi is under little pressure from other countries to change Chinese policy on Tibet. The unrest in 2008 broke out as China was preparing to host the Olympic games. It wanted the event to mark the country’s emergence as an open-minded world power. Despite that, it cracked down hard on the protests, but in a concession to international demands, resumed talks with the Dalai Lama’s representatives less than two months later. Two rounds were held before the games started, but with no obvious progress.</p>
<p>Since 2008 the West’s economic malaise has made China even less amenable to foreign persuasion on Tibet. Britain, hoping to reduce China’s prickliness on the issue, announced in October that year that it was abandoning its century-old policy (unique among Western countries) of merely recognising China’s "suzerainty" over the region rather than its sovereignty. It has reaped no obvious reward. Britain’s relations with China were plunged into a prolonged chill by a meeting last May between the Dalai Lama and the British prime minister, David Cameron. Global Times, a Beijing newspaper, said last month that China had "more leverage than Britain" in the two countries’ relations, adding with some justification: "Few countries can afford to really be tough against China."</p>
<h3><strong>One nation indivisible</strong></h3>
<p>Mr Xi faces little pressure from public or elite opinion inside China, other than to maintain a firm grip. Some Chinese intellectuals have questioned whether the government’s heavy-handedness in Tibet will bring about long-lasting stability. A small but seemingly growing number of Han Chinese, the country’s ethnic majority, are attracted by Tibetan Buddhism (Han visitors to Kumbum Monastery thronged around its statues and clasped their hands in prayer during the recent festivities). But concessions to the Dalai Lama on autonomy have little support in China.</p>
<p>Few observers expect any relaxation of what seems to be a stepped-up effort to stop Tibetans fleeing to India. Before 2008, 2,000-3,000 a year were doing so. This fell to a few hundred after the unrest that year. A new refugee centre opened in Dharamsala in 2011, with American funding and the capacity for 500 people. In 2012 fewer than 400 escaped. At the beginning of March only two people--a couple from a Tibetan area of Sichuan province--were there. Before they left their village, they had to sign a document saying they would not go to India. For Tibetans, even visiting Lhasa needs a permit. Last year hundreds were detained, some of them for months, after returning from legal trips to India in which they surreptitiously attended teachings by the Dalai Lama in Bodh Gaya, a holy Buddhist site.</p>
<p>Heavy security in Tibet, including riot police patrolling the streets of Lhasa, may help prevent another plateau-wide explosion like that of 2008. But the sight of Tibetans setting themselves on fire, and official attempts to denigrate them, are deepening the region’s wounds. Little chance of resolution is in sight. The weeping monk recalls that, after an earthquake in 2010 in Qinghai’s Yushu county, officials asked some victims what they needed. They replied that they just wanted the Dalai Lama back. "They can control us," the monk says, "but they can’t control our hearts."</p>
<p>Click <a href="http://www.economist.com/products/subscribe/CUR22/noreg">here</a> to subscribe to The Economist</p>

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