BRATISLAVA, May 26 (IPS) – China is one of the worst places in the world for media freedom, according to the global media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) which ranked the country 177 out of 180 in its latest World Press Freedom Index. In the report, the group warned that Beijing is taking “internet censorship, surveillance and propaganda to unprecedented level,” and had “taken advantage of the Covid-19 pandemic to enhance its control over online information even more”. China is also the world’s biggest jailers of journalists with more than 120 journalists and what the group calls “defenders of press freedom” currently detained.

World News in Brief: Refugee funding, US migration policy triggers ‘cascade’ of rights violations, world forests report, restorative justice in Colombia
From energy crisis to energy transition: How renewables are reshaping energy security
Sudan tells UN: No imposed solutions to country’s conflict
‘Ballot must replace the bullets’, South Sudan tells General Assembly ahead of elections
DPR Korea tells UN its nuclear status is ‘irreversible’, rejects outside pressure
UN leaders renew push to defeat racism, 25 years after Durban