EXCLUSIVE: For years, human rights activists feared the Xinjiang detention facilities doubled as work camps.

For the first time, satellite photos confirm China has built acres of factories inside the compounds, facilitating forced labor on a vast scale. buzzfeednews.com/article/alison…
The facilities we found cover more than 21 million square feet — nearly four times the size of the Mall of America. Collectively, these factories are larger than Ford's River Rouge Complex — which was once the largest factory complex in the world. buzzfeednews.com/article/alison…
Economic programs designed to move people out of poverty effectively give the government cover to conceal why a person might be far from home.

But when factories are inside internment compounds and cut off from the world, it defies belief to claim workers are there willingly.
One former detainee we spoke with worked at a factory where clothes were made. She said she made 9 yuan — about $1.38 — in a month and worked nine-hour days. After shifts, they were required to memorize and repeat Chinese Communist Party propaganda. buzzfeednews.com/article/alison…
Describing the factory floor, she said scissors were chained to work stations so people couldn't harm others or themselves.

The detainee trained workers, and to reflect her status she was given a fob that could open the bathroom doors. Others had to ask for permission to go.
Xinjiang exports a range of products, and the US is one of the region's fastest-growing markets. But labor rights advocates argue forced labor is so widespread in the region that no company with ties there could conclude its supply chain is free from it. buzzfeednews.com/article/alison…
This is the latest story in @meghara and @alisonkilling's series on the Xinjiang camps. Earlier, using interviews and architectural modeling, they gave an unprecedented view of what these facilities look like. buzzfeednews.com/article/meghar…

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More from @BuzzFeedNews

22 Dec
No one was prepared for the coronavirus pandemic.

But after a long 2020, here are 13 things about the virus that we didn't know at the start of the year. 👇
buzzfeednews.com/article/zahrah…
1) The virus was circulating in China as early as November and in the rest of the world by January, long before countries closed their borders. Scientists are still learning about how it came to infect humans, which can help prevent the next pandemic.

buzzfeednews.com/article/danver…
2) COVID-19 can look very different from person-to-person. The CDC has outlined 11 main symptoms to watch for, including fever, cough, shortness of breath, and loss of taste or smell.

cdc.gov/coronavirus/20…
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22 Dec
BREAKING: After months of inaction, Congress has finally passed another COVID relief bill

It’s a $900 billion package that includes short-term unemployment benefits and a one-time $600 check to most US residents. buzzfeednews.com/article/paulmc…
On top of the $600 direct payment to adults earning less than $75k, parents will also receive $600 for each child under the age of 17.

The package also includes:
The bill also ends surprise medical billing, where patients go to a hospital covered by their insurance network only to be hit with unforeseeable medical bills because the staff were out-of-network. buzzfeednews.com/article/paulmc…
Read 5 tweets
21 Nov
NEW: Trump has yet to acknowledge that the US reached the grim milestone of more than 250,000 coronavirus deaths this week.

Instead, the president has been spewing baseless claims about election fraud on Twitter.

buzzfeednews.com/article/elliev…
Even as Americans are now dying from the virus at a rate of one a minute, not a single one of Trump's post-election tweets has mentioned Americans who have died of COVID

buzzfeednews.com/article/elliev…
To illustrate the staggering difference between what is on Trump's mind and what is happening to his own citizens, here’s a timeline of what Trump was tweeting while Americans were mourning loved ones who had just died of COVID:

buzzfeednews.com/article/elliev…
Read 4 tweets
3 Nov
NEW: Prosecutors investigated Julian Assange, WikiLeaks, and Roger Stone for the hacking of DNC servers, but ultimately chose not to charge them, newly released portions of the Mueller Report reveal
buzzfeednews.com/article/jasonl…
Though Wikileaks published emails stolen from the DNC in July and October 2016 and Roger Stone — a close associate to Donald Trump — appeared to know in advance the materials were coming, investigators “did not have sufficient evidence” to prove active participation in the hacks.
Federal prosecutors also could not establish that the hacked emails amounted to campaign contributions benefitting Donald Trump’s election chances, and furthermore felt their publication might have been protected by the First Amendment, making a successful prosecution tenuous.
Read 4 tweets
30 Oct
NEW: US immigration authorities are buying cellphone geolocation data to track people, and argue they don’t need a warrant to do it, a Department of Homeland Security memo reveals
buzzfeednews.com/article/hameda…
When DHS buys this data, investigators only know that phones visited certain places. They need to match this information with other records, such as property records.

But this also means that the tracking could happen to anyone, not just people under investigation by DHS.
Because the memo declares DHS can use this data without approval from a judge, it effectively allows agencies to use it however they want — not just for criminal investigations, but as a part of the agency’s efforts to deport certain immigrants. buzzfeednews.com/article/hameda…
Read 4 tweets
30 Oct
Between early voting, mail-in voting, and a possible “red mirage,” there are a lot of questions about what *exactly* election night will look like.

We'll walk you through the things you need to know, but the biggest tip? Be patient! buzzfeednews.com/article/addyba…
If there’s a blowout, it’s possible a winner could be declared on Nov. 3. But because of differences in when absentee votes are counted in different states, especially in key states like Pennsylvania and Michigan, it could be days or weeks before an official call is made.
Those delays in counting absentee votes could create what’s been termed a “red mirage” where Trump appears to rack up a big lead because of in-person Election Day voting, but Biden could cut into it when mail votes are counted. buzzfeednews.com/article/addyba…
Read 8 tweets

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