大象传媒

Pascale Harter introduces dispatches from correspondents, reporters and writers around the world. In this edition:

Mandatory, state-issued spyware on your phone. Security cameras, complete with facial-recognition technology, in serried ranks on the streets. And quick internment in 're education' camps for non-conformists. John Sudworth examines how closely life in China's far-western autonomous region of Xinjiang is coming to resemble the dystopia of George Orwell's 1984.

Jemima Kelly travels to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, to visit a bitcoin mine with a difference - not a gleaming high-tech affair spinning money from the ether, but a rather scruffy former Soviet factory run by a forward-looking wheeler and dealer.

David Willis traces the extraordinary life story of Dennis Hof - a self-confessed pimp, legal brothel keeper, and all-around entrepreneur - who was elected to Nevada's State Assembly in the recent midterms. However, "the Hof" was already deceased by voting day - so what now for his constituents?

And in Lahore, Humera Iqbal gets to hear a unique synthesis of electronic dance music with the traditional algozo flute from southern Sindh. She talks to the music's creator about where he draws his inspiration from, and how it's breathing new life through old instruments.

Photo: A Uighur woman passes the Communist Party flag on a wall in Urumqi, China, on June 27, 2017 . (Photo by Wang HE/Getty Images)