Chief executive did not concede to other demands including an inquiry into police violence
Hong Kong’s leader, Carrie Lam, has said her government will formally withdraw an extradition bill that has ignited months of protests and plunged the territory into its biggest political crisis in decades.
In a five-minute televised address on Wednesday, Lam said her government would formally withdraw the controversial bill to “fully allay public concerns”.
Continue reading...The beautiful Polynesian island is home to a fiercely traditional society rife with domestic violence
Blood on the walls. Bruises like smashed plums. As long as Sefina* can remember, family violence has been part of her life. She watched her mother routinely attacked by her stepfather. “Sorry,” her mother would whisper afterwards to the children.
Then, Sefina’s elder sister was nearly killed by a group of male relatives for breaking the curfew. “Sorry,” her sister told her as she later left the island for good.
Continue reading...Leader says she wants to remain in job, but doesn’t deny authenticity of leaked audio recording saying otherwise as arrests continue
Hong Kong’s embattled leader Carrie Lam has said that she has never offered to step down, a day after an audio recording emerged of her saying she would quit if she had “a choice”.
In a press conference on Tuesday, Lam did not deny veracity of the audio, but told reporters: “I have never tendered resignation to the central people’s government. I have not even contemplated tendering resignation ... The choice of not resigning is my own choice.” She added: “The reason being I believe I can lead my team to come out of this impasse.”
Continue reading...Concern in New Zealand that trend of taking photographs with penguins and other creatures is having impact on feeding, breeding and birth rates
At the International Penguin Conference in New Zealand, the experts were worried. Among sobering discussions about the perils of the climate crisis and habitat loss, the unlikely issue of wildlife selfies photobombed the agenda, with increasing concern that the celebrity-fuelled search for that perfect shot is affecting animal behaviour.
Professor Philip Seddon, the director of Otago University’s wildlife management programme, said: ‘We’re losing respect for wildlife, we don’t understand the wild at all.”
Continue reading...The embattled Hong Kong leader, Carrie Lam, said she has caused ‘unforgivable havoc’ by igniting the political crisis engulfing the city and would quit if she had a choice, according to a leaked audio recording of remarks she made last week to a group of businesspeople.
Lam admitted she now has ‘very limited’ options to resolve the crisis because the unrest has become a national security and sovereignty issue for China amid rising tensions with the United States.
Continue reading...Critics say face-swap app could spread misinformation on a massive scale
A Chinese app that lets users convincingly swap their faces with film or TV characters has rapidly become one of the country’s most downloaded apps, triggering a privacy row.
Related: The rise of the deepfake and the threat to democracy
Continue reading...Android and Windows devices also targeted in campaign believed to be state-backed
Chinese Uighurs were the target of an iOS malware attack lasting more than two years that was revealed last week, according to multiple reports.
Android and Windows devices were also targeted in the campaign, which took the form of “watering hole attacks”: taking over commonly visited websites or redirecting their visitors to clones in order to indiscriminately attack each member of a community.
Continue reading...University and secondary school students attend pro-democracy rallies in central Hong Kong on Monday as part of a wider anti-government movement that has plunged the region into its biggest political crisis in decades. The boycott follows a weekend marked by some of the worst violence since unrest escalated more than three months ago, with protesters burning barricades and throwing petrol bombs, and police retaliating with water cannon, teargas and batons
Continue reading...School and university students call for democracy after weekend of violent clashes
Thousands of students in Hong Kong have boycotted the first day of the new term in a fresh wave of protests, after a tense weekend of violent clashes between police and demonstrators.
On Monday, university and secondary students marked the end of their summer break by skipping classes and holding rallies to call on the government to withdraw a controversial extradition bill, among other demands.
Continue reading...In a continuation of the waves of demonstrations and sometimes violent clashes between police and pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong since 9 June, protesters have blocked the freeway leading to the city’s airport, and the operator of the express train to the airport suspended service. Others protested outside the British consulate, calling on London to grant citizenship to people born in the former colony before its return to China. Hong Kong’s chief executive Carrie Lam apologised for introducing a controversial extradition bill, declaring it ‘dead’, but protesters have continued to draw large crowds demanding her resignation and the withdrawal of the bill
Continue reading...Fears of Tiananmen-style crackdown as regional officials’ tactics only serve to fuel unrest
How far will China go to end Hong Kong’s unrest, now in its 13th week and still growing? Senior officials have spoken not only of “terrorist acts” but of “colour revolution characteristics”, making it clear that they have ruled out compromise.
So far they have relied on the Hong Kong government to suppress the protests, but the banning of rallies, brutal police tactics, thug attacks, the arrests of high-profile activists and metro line closures have failed to dampen the unrest. On Sunday, thousands of activists descended on the airport.
Continue reading...Thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators have descended on Hong Kong’s international airport, blocking roads and filling a bus terminus, in the latest wave of political unrest to hit the city. Less than 24 hours after protesters and police clashed in running battles on Saturday, demonstrators attempted to paralyse the airport
Continue reading...Activists take over shopping complex and vandalise rail station after trying to choke city’s international hub
Thousands of demonstrators in Hong Kong have paralysed traffic and shut down transport links between the city and the airport during another day of protests demanding democratic freedoms in the semiautonomous Chinese territory.
On Sunday, demonstrators attempted to lay siege to the airport to draw global attention to the city that has been plunged into political crisis for the last three months.
Continue reading...Anger is rising as the government crackdown intensifies, and protesters say they are prepared for confrontation and sacrifice
Ryan Lee, a 27-year-old computer engineer, only started taking part in Hong Kong’s demonstrations in June. Since then, it has been a steep learning curve.
He has tackled a police officer to the ground to rescue another protester, tossed teargas canisters back at the police and covered the gas grenades with the metal dishes commonly used in Hong Kong for steaming fish.
Continue reading...Unrest deepens on anniversary of Beijing’s move to limit democratic reforms in territory
Hong Kong riot police have stormed a metro station, using batons to beat passengers as violent clashes deepened political unrest in the city for the 13th weekend in a row.
Lai, 31, returning home from protests, was in a train car that pulled into the Prince Edward mass transit railway stop in Kowloon just before 11pm on Saturday night. He saw at least 20 police officers on the station platform when suddenly five or six ran into his carriage.
Continue reading...At a pivotal moment in the region’s struggle for self-determination, there is seething anger as well as hope
At the base of the verdant mountains of Sentani, where dense, tropical jungle overlooks a sprawling teal lake, worshippers stream into church, men in suits and ties and sandals or batik shirts, women with colourful woven bags strung from their foreheads and slung over their backs.
Grey clouds hang low over the house of worship, a wood and tin shed with concrete floors and large open windows that let in the thick humid air.
Continue reading...From bottle feeding infants in the chamber to a playground on the front lawn, speaker Trevor Mallard has welcomed infants into the corridors of power
Trevor Mallard thought his days nursing babies might be over when he became speaker of New Zealand’s parliament in late 2017.
But the grandfather who has raised three children of his own has overseen a baby boom in the Beehive – as the most recognisable building in the parliamentary complex is known – and has become determined to make life easier for parents in the country’s halls of power.
Continue reading...Some day, I hope to visit the country with my grandparents, whose belief in independence was always unshakable
In my family, the thought of Timor always lingered in the air.
At birthday dinners, or Easter or Christmas with the cousins (like all Timorese, cousins is an imprecise term), we would talk about the football or our jobs or studies.
Continue reading...Experts produce clusters of enamel-like calcium phosphate to crack age-old problem
Scientists say they have finally cracked the problem of repairing tooth enamel.
Though enamel is the hardest tissue in the body, it cannot self-repair. Now scientists have discovered a method by which its complex structure can be reproduced and the enamel essentially “grown” back.
Continue reading...Chun Han Wong, who covered Xi Jinping extensively, is in effect expelled from country
Chinese authorities have declined to renew the press credentials of a Beijing-based Wall Street Journal reporter, in effect expelling a journalist who extensively covered President Xi Jinping and Communist party politics.
The foreign ministry said on Friday in response to a faxed question about the Singaporean reporter Chun Han Wong’s visa that some foreign journalists with the “evil intention to smear and attack China” were not welcome.
Continue reading...