Democratic party chair Lo Kin-hei would not comment on whether Beijing put pressure on members
Hong Kong’s oldest pro-democracy party, which became an influential voice of opposition before Beijing cracked down on dissent, will start preparations to shut down, its leader has said.
Lo Kin-hei, the chair of Hong Kong’s Democratic party, said on Thursday: “We are going to proceed and study on the process and procedure that is needed for the disbanding.”
Continue reading...Head of anti-trafficking agency says dozens of Chinese criminal gangs were running the centres
Tens of thousands of people could be living inside illegal scam compounds in Myanmar that have proliferated near Thailand’s border, according to the head of Thailand’s anti-trafficking agency, who warned it could take months before all foreign nationals are repatriated.
Thailand has launched a major crackdown on scam compounds over recent weeks, cutting off cross-border electricity and fuel supplies.
Continue reading...Israel has demanded the return of Shiri Bibas after it said testing showed that one of the four bodies released by Hamas did not belong to any other hostage
The Israeli military has said the two Bibas boys were “murdered by terrorists” in Gaza.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said earlier that Ariel and Kfir Bibas had been identified after their bodies were released by Hamas on Thursday under the current ceasefire agreement.
According to the assessment of professional officials, based on the intelligence available to us and forensic findings from the identification process, Ariel and Kfir Bibas were brutally murdered by terrorists in captivity in November 2023.
Continue reading...Charges of criminal negligence dropped against three key defendants over death of British singer in October
A court in Argentina has dropped charges of criminal negligence against three of the five people indicted in connection with the death of Liam Payne, the former One Direction singer who fell from a third-floor hotel balcony in Buenos Aires last October.
In a decision issued Wednesday, the Argentine federal appeals court ordered the other two defendants in the case to remain in custody. They are facing prosecution on charges they supplied the famed British boy band star with narcotics.
Continue reading...No injuries reported after three explosions in Bat Yam, near Tel Aviv, with two more bombs being defused
Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he has ordered the military to conduct an “intense operation” against “terror hubs” in the West Bank after a series of explosions on three parked buses that authorities said was a suspected terrorist attack. No injuries were reported.
The explosions on Thursday happened on a day when Israel was grieving after Hamas returned the bodies of four hostages from Gaza as part of a ceasefire deal. The bus explosions were reminiscent of bombings during the Palestinian uprising of the 2000s, but such attacks are now rare.
Continue reading...National security adviser says Ukraine is wrong to push back against Trump’s approach to peace talks with Russia
White House officials have told Ukraine to stop badmouthing Donald Trump and to sign a deal handing over half of the country’s mineral wealth to the US, saying a failure to do so would be unacceptable.
The US national security adviser, Mike Waltz, told Fox News that Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, should “tone down” his criticism of the US and take a “hard look” at the deal. It proposes giving Washington $500bn worth of natural resources, including oil and gas.
Continue reading...Velvet worms have rows of pudgy legs, skin speckled like a galaxy and dissolve their prey with sticky goo
An ancient gummy-looking worm-like creature with a vicious hunting method that involves projecting sticky goo from its head has been crowned New Zealand’s bug of the year.
The Peripatoides novaezealandiae is from the family of velvet worms, or Ngāokeoke in the Māori language. The invertebrates have rows of pudgy legs and skin speckled like a galaxy, and are considered “living fossils”, having remained virtually unchanged for 500m years.
Continue reading...US workers laid off despite years of experience and stellar performance describe widespread chaos and confusion
As protesters gathered outside the headquarters of US health agencies to call attention to mass layoffs devastating the federal service in recent days, more employees at health agencies were terminated on Wednesday, including employees with years of experience and stellar performance reviews who were not probationary.
Thousands of terminated employees across the federal government are appealing the decision. Some former employees are struggling to apply for unemployment or understand when their benefits expire in the chaotic termination process.
Continue reading...‘Kremlin whisperers’ have the president’s ear and dissenters are few – but a thin skin and self-interest are also at play
Donald Trump’s tarring of Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a “dictator” who is to blame for the war with Russia, plunging Ukraine into a Darwinian struggle for its very existence, landed like a bombshell on the diplomatic landscape. But it did not come out of nowhere.
The US president has left the already badly frayed western alliance in disarray with a devastating social media attack on his Ukrainian counterpart, just hours after he had already implicitly blamed Kyiv for Russia’s invasion.
Continue reading...Remains of two young children, an elderly man and an unidentified fourth person arrive in Tel Aviv after ‘cruel’ handover in Gaza
The remains of two young children and an elderly man who were taken hostage by Hamas, as well as a fourth person who remains unidentified, have been handed over to Israel in what onlookers described as one of the “hardest days” for Israelis since the Palestinian militant group attack that ignited the war in Gaza.
A convoy carrying what was thought to be the bodies of Shiri Bibas, 32, her sons Ariel and Kfir, four years and nine months old respectively, and 85-year-old Oded Lifshitz, all from the Nir Oz kibbutz, arrived at a forensics centre in Tel Aviv yesterday for DNA checks and autopsy procedures.
Continue reading...Claudia Sheinbaum’s warning follows Washington designating Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations
Mexico will never tolerate an “invasion” of its national sovereignty by the United States, Claudia Sheinbaum has warned after Washington designated Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations.
“This cannot be an opportunity for the US to invade our sovereignty,” the Mexican president said. “With Mexico, it is collaboration and coordination, never subordination or interventionism, and even less invasion.”
Continue reading...Jean-Noël Barrot tells G20 to prioritise those who support the law rather than power by force
European powers have made a plea at the G20 in South Africa to countries in the global south that they show unambivalent support for the international rules-based order, including the sovereignty of Ukraine.
Writing in the Guardian, the French foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, said the real line of geopolitical division was not between north and south but between those who supported the international rules-based order and those who did not.
Continue reading...Consumer group complains about song’s stereotypes of Italians – but other Italians say the lyrics are ‘no stresso’
The Eurovision song contest is several months away but the drama has already begun, with calls from Italy for Estonia’s catchy pick for the competition to be scrapped due to lyrics poking fun at Italian stereotypes of being coffee-drinking, spaghetti-eating mafiosi.
Espresso Macchiato, by the rapper Tommy Cash, is sung in a blend of broken English and Italian and depicts a life of sweet indulgence. “Ciao bella, I’m Tomaso, addicted to tobacco. Mi like mi coffè very importante,” the first verse begins.
Continue reading...US president issues order aimed at preventing taxpayer dollars supporting illegal immigration and another designed to get rid of regulations
Donald Trump has signed an executive order aimed at ending federal benefits for people in the country illegally, his latest in a blizzard of moves to crack down on immigration.
The White House said the order seeks to end “all taxpayer-funded benefits for illegal aliens” but it was not clear which benefits will be targeted. People in the country illegally generally do not qualify except for emergency medical care. Children are entitled to a free K-12 public education regardless of immigration status under a 1982 supreme court ruling.
Continue reading...Greenpeace argues European-backed projects hamper countries’ ability to decarbonise their own economies
European countries are extracting renewable energy from Morocco and Egypt to “greenwash” their own economies, while leaving north Africans reliant on dirty imported fuels and paying the environmental costs, a Greenpeace report says.
Both Morocco and Egypt are aiming to leverage their strategic locations south of the Mediterranean, and their solar and wind power potential, to position themselves as pivotal to Europe’s quest to diversify its energy supply.
Continue reading...Extremists tipped for second place after shifting debate to immigration and crime and winning endorsements from Musk and Vance
In the tumultuous German election campaign, which has been rocked by jaw-dropping US interference, a spate of violent attacks and rare fears for the country’s political stability, all eyes have been locked on the party most likely to finish second.
When the dust settles after Sunday’s vote and conservative opposition leader Friedrich Merz is – barring further surprises – elected chancellor, the 2025 race will be remembered as the moment the far-right Alternative für Deutschland, consistently polling in second place, went from sideshow to centre stage.
Continue reading...GFG chair Sanjeev Gupta says SA government is on the ‘wrong course’ after it forced the operation into administration
A support package of $2.4bn will be poured into the Whyalla steelworks to protect thousands of jobs and “invest in the nation”, the prime minister says.
The federal and South Australian governments would “combine dollar for dollar on administration” to ensure the steelworks kept operating, and staff and creditors were paid, while a new owner was found, Anthony Albanese told steelworkers.
Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email
Continue reading...Lawyers for impeached South Korean president who caused chaos argue that court has no jurisdiction to put him on trial for ‘act of governance’
Lawyers for Yoon Suk Yeol have told a court in Seoul that the impeached president declared martial law in late 2024 to prevent the country becoming a “legislative dictatorship” controlled by his political opponents.
The claim came as Yoon became the first South Korean president to stand trial in a criminal case, brought over his short-lived declaration of martial law in early December.
Continue reading...Zheng Lijuan fled Panama City hotel as 170 of deported migrants were transported to dense, lawless region
Police are searching for a Chinese woman who escaped from a downtown Panama City hotel where she was being held following her deportation from the US under Donald Trump’s intensified campaign against immigrants.
Zheng Lijuan was one of 299 migrants – from China, Afghanistan, Iran and other countries with which the US lacks extradition agreements – who have been flown in shackles to Panama since last Wednesday. Panamanian authorities say they believe that Zheng was aided by locals who had been “prowling” outside the Decapolis hotel in the capital city where the deportees had been held.
Continue reading...Black bear weighing 500lb found in crawlspace in Pasadena, two weeks after Altadena man discovered unfamiliar tenant
Two 500-plus pound black bears have laid claim to homes evacuated during the destructive Eaton fire in southern California.
Last month, when Samy Arbid returned to his Altadena home, he found “Barry” – a 525lb black bear – living under the house. This week, another Californian reported a different unexpected visitor living in his house’s crawlspace in neighboring Pasadena: another 500 to 600lb bear.
Continue reading...