Court grants prosecutors’ request to appeal against bail order on media mogul
The Hong Kong media mogul and pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai has been returned to jail after the city’s highest court ruled in favour of prosecutors’ request for leave to appeal against his already highly restrictive bail order.
The decision will keep the 76-year-old in jail until at least February, even though he has not been accused of a violent crime and is not considered a flight risk.
Continue reading...Despite court battles, female officers face limited career opportunities and inferior pension rights to male counterparts
Nidhi Rao* has 13 years’ experience serving in the communications wing of the Indian army. Now she is looking for work online and doesn’t know where to start. “I am jobless in the middle of a pandemic, with no financial security.”
When Rao joined the army, female officers were contracted for five years, after which time they might get an extension of five more years. Unlike men, they were not offered a permanent job. Later, the initial commission period was changed to 10 years, which could be extended a further four years.
Continue reading...Navy seizes UUV, likely a Chinese Sea Wing, that experts say could be used to plot routes for military subs
An Indonesian fisher has found what experts say is likely to be a Chinese submarine drone in waters on a strategic maritime route from the South China Sea to Australia.
According to Indonesian media the unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) was found on 20 December near Selayar Island in South Sulawesi. Six days later it was handed to police and then transferred to the Indonesian military.
Continue reading...Minister from Hindu nationalist BJP says schools should be producing Muslim professional workers, rather than future imams
An Indian state ruled by Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party has passed a law converting state-run Islamic schools into regular schools, saying they provided sub-standard education.
Opposition politicians criticised the move and said it reflected the government’s anti-Muslim attitude in the Hindu-majority country.
Continue reading...Lockdowns and curfews curtail celebrations, with limited exceptions, after year most would prefer to forget
In Sydney the fireworks soared into the sky above the Opera House, but the harbour below was empty. In New York, Times Square will be mostly deserted. No light show illuminated Beijing from the top of the TV tower.
With revelry around the world curtailed by lockdowns and curfews imposed to stem the spread of Covid-19, the lions of London’s Trafalgar Square will be barricaded off, and there will be no crowds in St Peter’s Square and no one diving into the Tiber in Rome.
Continue reading...As China’s leadership celebrates national triumph over virus, some residents want an investigation into the start of the pandemic
Jianghan Road in Wuhan throngs with shoppers and strollers bundled up against the late December freeze. Bells ring out on the hour from the landmark Hankou Customs House where the road terminates near the wide banks of the Yangtze River.
Restaurants along the city’s main pedestrian thoroughfare are packed, even on an icy weekday night, and resound with loud conversation.
Continue reading...Ontario premier Doug Ford under pressure after he admits knowing about Rod Phillips’s trip for weeks
Ontario premier Doug Ford is under pressure after admitting that he has known for weeks that his finance minister – who faked social media posts to conceal his location – had ignored a coronavirus lockdown to go on holiday in the Caribbean.
Posts on Rod Phillips’s social media accounts suggested that he remained home over Christmas, but it emerged on Tuesday that the minister flew to the island of St Barts in mid-December – despite his own government’s advice to avoid non-essential travel.
Continue reading...Landslide north of Oslo prompts evacuation of 700 residents, with more than 20 people still unaccounted for
A landslide has smashed into a residential area near the Norwegian capital, injuring at least 10 people, leaving 21 unaccounted for and destroying several homes, authorities said. About 700 people have been evacuated amid fears of further landslides.
Norwegian police were alerted at 4am to the slide in the village of Ask, in the municipality of Gjerdrum, some 20km (12 miles) north-east of Oslo.
Continue reading...Calf carcass from thawing ground in north-east region of Yakutia found with many internal organs intact
A well-preserved ice age woolly rhino with many of its internal organs still intact has been recovered from the permafrost in Russia’s extreme northern region.
Russian media reported on Wednesday that the carcass was revealed by thawing permafrost in Yakutia in August. Scientists are waiting for ice roads in the Arctic region to become passable to deliver the animal to a laboratory for studies in January.
Continue reading...Research finds those who couple up after swiping right have stronger long-term intentions
With the Covid crisis putting paid to New Year’s Eve celebrations and many other opportunities to seek romance in person, dating apps have thrived.
But while such tech has long been associated with hookups, a study suggests those who couple up after swiping right have as satisfying a relationship as those who met via traditional encounters – and might even be keener to settle down.
Continue reading...Arms deals with Middle East dictatorships are being rushed through by Trump, critics say, despite opposition over human rights records
The US state department has approved the sale of $290m in bombs to Saudi Arabia as part of a flurry of arms deals with Middle Eastern dictatorships in the last weeks of the Trump administration.
Critics of the sales say they are being rushed through despite broad congressional and public opposition to such military support because of the human rights records of the regimes involved and in the case of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the huge civilian death toll from the war in Yemen.
Continue reading...Prosecutors reject Italy’s finding that Egyptian security officials were behind kidnap and torture
Egypt’s public prosecution has officially closed its investigation into the murder of Giulio Regeni, rejecting Italian prosecutors’ findings that accused four Egyptian security officials of kidnapping and torturing the Italian doctoral student in 2016.
Italy officially indicted four Egyptian security officials including two from Egypt’s national security agency in early December. The four men were accused of kidnapping Regeni, whose body was found on an outlying Cairo highway in February 2016 showing signs of torture. One of the suspects, named as Magdi Ibrahim Abdel Al Sharif, is accused of grievous bodily harm.
Continue reading...Explosions struck after plane carrying the Yemen prime minister and cabinet politicians landed
At least 26 people have been killed and more than 60 injured after an attack on the airport in the Yemeni city of Aden that appeared to be targeted at a plane carrying members of the newly formed government.
Three loud explosions and gunfire were heard on Wednesday afternoon as members of Yemen’s cabinet disembarked. Clouds of smoke billowed from the terminal building. Initial reports suggested the blasts had been caused by mortar shelling or missiles.
Continue reading...Argentina has become the largest Latin American country to legalise abortion after its senate approved the law change by 38 votes in favour to 29 against, with one abstention. Elated pro-choice campaigners who had been keeping vigil outside Buenos Aires’s congressional palace erupted in celebration after more than 30 years of activism
Continue reading...‘Extremely dangerous’ if personal information needed to process mobile payments is lost or falls into wrong hands, say staff
The rapid upscaling of digital technology use by international groups in Somalia is causing concern about the risk to the people whose data is being collected.
The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the use of programming by humanitarian organisations to deliver aid, but local staff working with several different NGOs say the organisations are not thinking enough about data protection or obtaining informed consent.
Continue reading...A lack of trial data transparency from China has raised concerns, but the country is confidently pushing ahead
When Egypt’s health ministry sent out an invitation to doctors to be vaccinated against Covid-19, they neglected to make clear it was a clinical trial.
Instead, it assured them that two Covid-19 vaccines developed by China’s National Biotec Group, part of a state-owned conglomerate known as Sinopharm, had no side-effects and that “the minister of health was vaccinated today, and orders were issued to vaccinate all doctors and workers who wish to be vaccinated”.
Continue reading...Group’s trial on the mainland lasted just one day and was held with few public witnesses
Ten people who tried to flee Hong Kong for Taiwan have been sentenced in a Chinese court to up to three years in jail, while two minors will be returned home without charge.
On Wednesday the Yantian people’s court ordered the group to serve varying sentences of between seven months and three years in jail. Of the two people charged with organising the illegal border crossing, one was sentenced to three years and fined RMB20,000 (£2,260), and the other to two years and fined RMB15,000.
Continue reading...Twelve-year-old boy was killed when a white police officer shot him in a playground in 2014
The US justice department has closed its civil rights investigation into the fatal 2014 shooting by Cleveland police of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old Black youth, and said that no federal criminal charges would be brought in the case.
The announcement came five years after an Ohio grand jury cleared two Cleveland officers, Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garmback, of state charges of wrongdoing in the death of Rice, who was shot in a playground while holding a toy gun capable of shooting pellets.
Continue reading...Casualties include girl, 12, as mayor of town of Petrinja says ‘half of the city no longer exists’
At least seven people have been killed and dozens injured after a strong earthquake hit central Croatia, destroying buildings and sending panicked people fleeing into rubble-covered streets in a town south-east of the capital Zagreb.
The European Mediterranean Seismological Center said an earthquake of 6.4 magnitude hit 28 miles (46km) from Zagreb at 12.19pm, at a depth of 10km. Initial reports said the earthquake caused extensive damage, causing roofs, building facades and entire buildings to collapse.
Continue reading...As Covid-19 surges across the US, Colorado’s governor announced the case of B.1.1.7, a significantly more contagious strain
A man in Colorado has become the first known US case of the newly identified strain of Covid-19 circulating in the UK. The new variant is thought to be more contagious than other, established variants and has prompted some countries to restrict travel from the UK.
The Colorado man who contracted the new variant, called B.1.1.7, is in his 20s, and had no travel history, according to the state’s health department. In a statement, Governor Jared Polis said that health officials are conducting an investigation into how the man might have contracted the virus, while he recovers in isolation.
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