New rules in China mean that under 18s are only allowed to play three hours of online games per week, at those time specified.
Even for a communist state that regulates its citizens lives far more than the West, it is a new extension of control. And that control is now being applied to different parts of society and culture, in a new crackdown.
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Huang Chong, who is 15 years old, said she didn’t mind the video game policy too much but said that it’s “like banning smoking, drinking and playing mahjong for adults”.
“My friends send me messages to complain about the ban, that they only have Fridays and weekends to play one hour and they couldn’t socialise with their e-gaming friends,” she told Sky News.
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The rules have been introduced to curb video gaming addiction.
Huang Chong said she didn’t have a problem with video gaming. But her father Huang Wen Shang disagreed – and was thankful for the state’s intervention.
“I tried to persuade her to give up the phone, but when’s she already lost in it, she feels happy,” he told Sky News. “She won’t realise she’s playing such a long time that it could affect her eyesight, her health, her studies.
“As parents, we need help from the outside – from teachers, from government policies.”
Video games are just one part of a new campaign by the Chinese Communist Party to re-assert its values over society.
The perceived hedonism of the last 20 years – you could also call it letting people do what they want – is being replaced by an emphasis on proper socialist values.
Film stars have been berated by the government for promoting what they call “fake, ugly and evil values” and actors have been mysteriously scrubbed from the Chinese internet without explanation.
The government has also introduced measures to curb “chaotic” online fan culture. Karaoke songs that “endanger national unity” or advocate “obscenity” have been blacklisted.
Schools now have bans on foreign textbooks and young students are required to read about “Xi Jinping Thought” – the nebulous official ideology of China’s leader that is enshrined in the constitution of the People’s Republic of China.
And the country’s TV regulator told Chinese media to “resolutely resist showing off wealth and enjoyment” and to consider actors’ political and moral matters when selecting them.
It has also banned what it calls effeminate men from appearing on screens – using the offensive term “niang pao”, roughly translated as “sissy boys”, to describe them in its official announcement.
Activist Lu Ruihai’s group gives information and support to parents whose children have come out.
“Many people use ‘sissy boys’, an aggressive and derogatory word to label people who are not heterosexual, or do not have the typical and traditional sex relations,” he told Sky News.
“The whole LGBTQ community is numb. I think the policy affects negatively the young LGBTQ people who haven’t come out yet.”
Critics and supporters of the new rules have both interpreted them as far reaching – not just ad-hoc policy adjustments.
In an article that was widely republished in official state media, prominent blogger Li Guangman said it was a “profound” political change.
“This is also a return to the original intentions of the Chinese Communist Party… a return to the essence of socialism,” he wrote.
Public opinion would “no longer be a place to worship Western culture,” he wrote.
“Therefore, we need to control all the cultural chaos and build a lively, healthy, masculine, strong and people-oriented culture.”
Back at home, Huang Chong has had her hour of government-sanctioned playtime.
But there are ways around the new rules.
“Many pupils use adults’ phones to log into games,” she told Sky News.
“We’re cleverer. We climb over the firewall. It takes risk to climb over the firewall as it’s illegal. Few people succeed.”
Teenagers – and many other normal Chinese citizens – may now find themselves in such small skirmishes with the state.
Police in Amsterdam have moved in to end a pro-Palestinian protest after demonstrators occupied university buildings.
Footage from the Dutch capital showed a line of police in riot gear holding back demonstrators, some of whom could be seen making peace signs with their hands while others held signs.
Students could be heard chanting: “We are peaceful, what are you?” and “shame on you” in local media footage.
Earlier, a protest group said it had occupied university buildings in Amsterdam as well as in the cities of Groningen and Eindhoven.
In a post on social media site X, Amsterdam police said the university had filed a report against the protesters for acts of vandalism.
A spokesperson for the University of Amsterdam said protesters had occupied what is known as the ABC building, causing some “destruction”.
It estimated that around a thousand students and employees had taken part in a “national walkout” during which they walked out of a lecture hall at 11 o’clock and gathered on the Roeterseiland campus.
The university said it had advised people not affiliated with the protest to leave the building.
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Students in the US and Europe have been holding mostly peaceful demonstrations calling for an immediate permanent ceasefire in Gaza and for schools to cut financial ties with companies they say are profiting from the oppression of Palestinians.
Dutch students have been protesting since last Monday and had previously clashed with police as they used railings and furniture to build barricades in the city.
While in the UK, students at Cambridge and Oxford have set up encampments outside King’s College the Pitt Rivers Museum respectively.
Kendall Gardner, a Jewish student at Oxford University,told Sky News last week that she was “really inspired by the events that have been happening across the world”.
“The US started a global chain of student activism for Palestine,” she said.
“We have six demands for this protest – the top line is to demand closure of all university-wide financial assets that benefit Israel.
Tens of thousands of Georgians have taken to the streets in Tbilisi – protesting against a proposed law threatening press and civic freedoms.
The “foreign agents” bill has sparked a political crisis amid concerns it is modelled on laws used by Vladimir Putin to crack down on the media in Russia – and if passed, would make it harder for Georgia to join the EU.
Sky’s international affairs editor Dominic Waghorn is in Tbilisi:
The Georgian security forces moved in shortly after dawn this morning. Phalanxes of masked men sweeping through streets and parks outside parliament.
They kettled protesters with force. We were caught in the crush as they squeezed the crowd.
A woman screamed as she was pinned to a post by the press of people.
Crowds had ringed the parliament building all night – intent on stopping MPs from voting on laws that demonstrators believe put Georgia on the path to dictatorship, and back in the embrace of Moscow.
“They want to drag us back to autocracy, to the country they occupied us for too many years,” one protester told Sky News.
The police succeeded in clearing one entrance to parliament.
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Flank after flank of interior ministry security forces backed by helmeted riot police and water cannon trucks are now in a tense standoff with a multi-coloured sea of protesters on the corner of the parliament building.
The government was forced to shelve the law last year in the face of bitter opposition but the Georgian Dream ruling party, regarded by many as pro-Russian, is determined to see it passed.
Russia’s defence minister is set to be replaced, more than two years into the war in Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has proposed replacing his long-time ally, Sergei Shoigu, with civilian and former deputy prime minister Andrei Belousov, who specialises in economics.
Mr Shoigu, who has served as defence minister since 2012, will take up a role as head of the national security council and have responsibilities for the military-industrial complex, the Kremlin said.
In his new role, Mr Shoigu will replace Nikolai Patrushev, whose new job will be announced soon, according to the Kremlin.
Mr Putin’s press secretary Dmitriy Peskov said the president decided the ministry of defence should be headed by a civilian to be “open to innovation and advanced ideas”.
The shuffle could also be seen as an attempt by Mr Putin to scrutinise defence spending after a Shoigu ally, deputy defence minister Timur Ivanov, was accused by state prosecutors of taking a bribe.
But the changes make sense, Mr Peskov claims, because Russia is approaching a situation like the Soviet Union in the mid-1980s, when the military and law enforcement authorities accounted for 7.4% of spending.
Former MI6 intelligence officer, Christopher Steele, who ran the Russia desk between 2006 and 2009, told Sky News he takes Mr Peskov’s words “with a pinch of salt”.
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“It seems to me that probably the reason he’s chosen Belousov is because he’s not really any kind of player in the system or any sort of threat to Putin,” he added.
He also said Mr Patrushev’s appointment may hint at instability “right underneath him in the top leadership”.
“It was clear to most of us Russia-watchers for some time that Patrushev was lining up his son, Dmitry, who’s the current agriculture minister, to be Putin’s successor as president,” he said.
“And there have been some indications that there’s been some serious instability at the top in Russia in recent months…so I think that this really is a very significant move by Putin.”
Commenting on Mr Shoigu’s removal, the UK’s defence minister Grant Shapps said he leaves with a “disastrous legacy”.
“Sergei Shoigu has overseen over 355,000 casualties among his own soldiers and mass civilian suffering with an illegal campaign in Ukraine,” he said.
“Russia needs a defence minister who would undo that disastrous legacy and end the invasion – but all they’ll get is another of Putin’s puppets.”
A huge surprise – but what do these changes mean for Putin?
This has come as a huge surprise. Not one, but two key figures in Russia’s military leadership structure sacked simultaneously.
It suggests there’s a lot more going on inside the Kremlin than meets the eye.
Shoigu is a very close Putin ally and has been for years. So why replace him?
Clearly Putin is unhappy with the direction of the war. This coincides with Russia’s attempt to open up a new front in the Kharkiv region of Ukraine. New directions and new leadership – Putin’s ringing the changes.
Shoigu’s successor speaks volumes. Andrei Belousov is an economist, a technocrat. He’s not an obvious choice to run the military, but this underlines where Putin’s concerns are right now – “how much longer can I afford the war?”.
Russia’s entire economy is geared towards the military right now. He wants to ensure it’s operating as efficiently as possible, so his war can continue.
Shoigu moves to the security council, where he’ll replace Patrushev. Technically it’s a more important role, but in reality it’s a demotion.
More importantly, by replacing Patrushev, it gives Putin more command over a powerful body within Russia’s leadership structure.
The security council was seen by some as a pseudo shadow cabinet. He’ll now have an ally in post, albeit a disgruntled one.
Finally, to me, this speaks to Putin’s confidence right now. The start of the new presidential term, he’s clearly emboldened. But it also screams instability.
Parliament’s approval of the new appointments are all but guaranteed, as there is virtually no opposition.
By law, the government in Russia had to resign just before Mr Putin was sworn in as president for another six-year term on Tuesday.
Analysts have said he is looking to project an image of stability and satisfaction with his team’s progress, with Mikhail Mishustin remaining in post as prime minister on Friday.
As he continues to confirm his top team, Mr Putin has also proposed Sergei Lavrov remain as foreign minister.
Valery Gerasimov, the chief of Russia’s general staff, will remain in his position as well.