Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Fifty-three demonstrators arrested after ignoring ban on gatherings to mark one year of protests
More than 50 people were arrested in Hong Kong on Tuesday night after thousands of protesters took to the streets in defiance of a police order to mark the first anniversary of the anti-government movement.
Police riot units used pepper spray and repeatedly charged at crowds in an attempt to disperse protesters gathered near the business district of Central, occupying roads and blocking traffic until well after midnight.
Pyongyang has said it will make Seoul ‘suffer’ during worsening spat over anti-North Korean leaflets sent from South
North Korea says it will sever hotlines with South Korea as the first step toward shutting down all means of contact with Seoul, state news agency KCNA has reported.
For several days, North Korea has lashed out at South Korea, threatening to close an inter-Korean liaison office and other projects if the South does not stop activists and defectors from sending leaflets and other anti-Pyongyang material into the North.
The government is reportedly ready to let beer gardens open from 22 June as part of plans drawn up by a group of ministers, dubbed the “Save Summer Six”, who are looking at ways to restart the hospitality industry earlier than initially planned, writes my colleague Rob Davies.
The proposals, first reported in the Financial Times, would allow some of the 27,000 UK pubs that have outdoor space to serve customers for the first time in three months.
UK airline and travel stocks are up, for once, despite the new quarantine rules. The cruise operator Carnival is the biggest riser on the FTSE 100 index, up 14%, while BA owner IAG is 6.9% ahead and easyJet has gained 5.5%.
As reported earlier, Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary said the airline would fly through the 14-day UK quarantine, which he described as “rubbish”. Britain’s three biggest airlines – Ryanair, easyJet and IAG – have begun legal proceedings against the government over the quarantine rules, which they argue are illogical and unfair, and come months late.
Unseasonal rains have allowed desert pests to breed rapidly and spread across vast distances leaving devastation in their wake
Locust swarms threaten a “rolling emergency” that could endanger harvests and food security across parts of Africa and Asia for the rest of the year, experts warn.
An initial infestation of locusts in December was expected to die out during the current dry season. But unseasonal rains have allowed several generations of locust to breed, resulting in new swarms forming.
Health authorities in Tokyo are to ask employees of host clubs and similar establishments to be regularly tested for Covid-19 after evidence that the virus is spreading among people who work in the capital’s night-time economy.
The city reported 14 new infections on Sunday, six of which involved people working in clubs where employees pour drinks and talk to customers in close proximity.
Debbie Kaore who has represented the Pacific nation in rugby and boxing shared a video of alleged attack from partner
A shocking video that appears to show a Papua New Guinean sports star being beaten by her partner has sparked outrage across the country and prompted calls for the government to take urgent action to address high rates of violence against women.
Graphic photographs and a video that appear to show a man repeatedly head-butting a woman and hitting her across the face with a hot clothing iron were widely shared across social media in Papua New Guinea over the weekend, sparking outrage.
According to our modelling at the the University of Otago, it is now very likely (well above a 95% chance) New Zealand has completely eliminated the virus. This is in line with modelling by our colleagues at Te Pūnaha Matatini (a research centre based at University of Auckland).
Jacob Roberts, 29, fell four metres into the pit after being chased by a dog, but was rescued when a farmer heard his cries for help
A British man who spent six days trapped in a well after being chased by a dog has been rescued on the Indonesian island of Bali, authorities said on Sunday.
A rescue team lifted 29-year-old Jacob Roberts from the four-metre-deep concrete pit after a farmer in Pecatu village raised the alarm.
China’s national security law has reinvigorated a protest movement that began with opposition to an extradition bill
When Freeman Yim stepped out to join a peaceful demonstration against a controversial extradition bill on 9 June last year, he never knew it would be the start of a drawn-out movement that would plunge Hong Kong into the deepest crisis in its history.
“We weren’t fighting for much, we just wanted Hong Kong to remain Hong Kong and not turn into just any Chinese city,” he said. “We want to have dignity and basic rights. As the Chinese national anthem says, not to become slaves.”
Chau Van Kham’s family has lost contact with him for nearly four months and fear the Australian government has ‘forgotten about him’
A 70-year-old Australian democracy activist has “disappeared” inside Vietnam’s prison system: no one from his family or the Australian government has been allowed to see or speak with him for nearly four months.
Human rights advocates, lawyers and Chau Van Kham’s family said the charges against him are baseless and politically motivated, his single-day multiple-defendant trial was grossly unfair, and his failing health means his 12-year prison sentence is “effectively a death sentence”.
Pentecost Island, devastated by Cyclone Harold in April, has been left a silent shadow of its former self. But its people endure
Touching down on the island of Pentecost in Vanuatu, it takes hours to notice the silence. After a while it hits you: there’s no birdsong, no insects buzzing and chittering. There is no wind in the trees.
You don’t register the silence at first because your eyes are overwhelmed with the magnitude of the destruction. The eye of category 5 Cyclone Harold passed directly over the central and southern half of this remote and mountainous island on April 5.
Lawmakers from EU parliament and eight other countries create new body
International cooperation is needed to protect democratic values from an increasingly assertive communist China, a new group made up of lawmakers from eight countries and the EU parliament has said.
The legislators, representing parties across the political spectrum, have formed a global alliance, the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, to push their governments to take a stronger stance on relations with the country.
Stargazing under threat as pristine skies over New Zealand and Australia are clogged with hundreds of Starlink satellites
Astronomers in the southern hemisphere have warned that the wonders of the night sky are at risk from hundreds of satellites that have been shot into space by Elon Musk’s company SpaceX.
The night skies of Australia and New Zealand are globally renowned for their clarity, drawing tourists from across the world to dark-sky sanctuaries such as Tekapo on New Zealand’s South Island and the Warrumbungle national park in New South Wales.
Protesters in Hong Kong have defied a police ban to mark the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown with a vigil, as the city’s legislature passed a law criminalising the mocking of China’s national anthem. Many fear this year’s commemoration might be Hong Kong’s last, as the proposed imposition of Chinese laws on the special administrative region would prevent and punish activities that threaten national security.
Student protesters and journalists in 1989 recall the joy and hope before the crackdown
It was mid-morning in Tiananmen Square in Beijing on 1 June, 1989. Someone had turned on a boombox playing 80s disco music, and people began to dance. A young couple spins in a small opening in the crowd. The woman smiles slightly, her eyes almost closed, as her partner in a loose dress shirt and blazer turns her. Around them, people are clapping.
It is a photo that captures a side of the pro-democracy movement often overshadowed by what came after – the brutal military crackdownon the evening of 3 June and morning of 4 June. There is no official death toll but activists believe hundreds, possibly thousands, were killed.
Campaign of encouragement by high-level officials may have been seen by police as ‘permission to kill’, says damning report
Tens of thousands of people may have been killed in the war on drugs since mid-2016 in the Philippines, amid “near impunity” for police and incitement to violence by top officials, the United Nations said on Thursday.
The drugs crackdown, launched by President Rodrigo Duterte after winning election on a platform of crushing crime, has been marked by police orders and high-level rhetoric that may have been interpreted as “permission to kill”, it said.
North Korean leader’s sister says continued air drops by defectors could jeopardise peacekeeping agreement
Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, has warned South Korea to stop propaganda leaflets coming over the border, warning it could wreck an agreement to reduce military tensions.
Her statement came after anti-Pyongyang leaflets were sent across the border earlier this week by a group of North Korean defectors. The leaflets concealed in 500,000 balloons criticised Kim Jong-un’s nuclear threats, according to the Yonhap news agency. Previous messages have also condemned North Korea’s human rights record.
Protesters defy police ban as legislation prohibits mockery of Chinese anthem
Thousands of people have defied a police ban in Hong Kong to mourn the victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre, after the city’s legislature passed a law criminalising the mockery of China’s national anthem.
Many fear this year’s commemoration of the events of 4 June 1989 might be Hong Kong’s last, as China has approved a plan to impose national security laws on the semi-autonomous city that would prevent and punish “acts and activities” that threaten national security.
Transportation department says restriction to start 16 June
US wants Beijing to let American carriers resume flights
The US will bar Chinese passenger carriers from flying to the United States starting on 16 June as it pressures Beijing to allow US air carriers to resume flights, the Trump administration announced on Wednesday.
‘Serious representations’ made after worries offer could trigger brain drain from region
China’s foreign ministry has accused Britain of “gross interference” in the country’s affairs after Boris Johnson said he would offer millions of Hong Kong residents a path to UK citizenship if Beijing pushed ahead with a controversial security law for the city.
The ministry’s spokesman Zhao Lijian told Britain to “step back … otherwise there will be consequences” and said China had made “serious representations” to London over its offer to holders of British national (overseas) passports.