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...Meng Meng delivered two cubs, which must eventually be returned to China
Berlin zoo has said its resident panda Meng Meng has delivered twins, the first time one of the endangered animals has given birth in the country.
“Meng Meng became a mom – twice! We are so happy, we are speechless,” the zoo tweeted on Monday, posting a video of Meng Meng guiding one of her pink cubs to feed.
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...Chinese exports worth $125bn will face new taxes from 1 September, while China places levy on oil as agreement becomes more distant
China and the United States have begun imposing additional tariffs on each other’s goods in the latest escalation of their bruising trade war that has sent shockwaves through the global economy.
A new round of tariffs took effect from 0401 GMT on Sunday, with Beijing’s levy of 5% on US crude oil marking the first time the fuel has been targeted since the world’s two largest economies started their trade war more than a year ago.
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...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...The Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong says he will not surrender after he was charged with organising an illegal protest on Friday. Wong, who led pro-democracy demonstrations five years ago, is the most prominent activist to be arrested since protests escalated in mid-June over fears China is exerting greater control over the territory. Police arrested several other activists and blocked plans for a mass demonstration on Saturday
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...Wong and fellow activist Agnes Chow subsequently released
Several prominent pro-democracy figures have been arrested in Hong Kong in an apparent crackdown on protests that have plunged the city into its worst political crisis in decades.
The democracy activists Joshua Wong and Agnes Chow, former student leaders of pro-democracy protests in 2014, were arrested on Friday and Andy Chan, the head of a now banned pro-independence party, was detained by police on Thursday. Wong and Chow were charged with offences including taking part in an unlawful assembly on 21 June 21 at Hong Kong police headquarters and released.
Continue reading...Beijing’s worldview cannot conceive of a leaderless movement: there have to be saboteurs behind it
On Friday morning, as Hong Kong woke up, the news came in as thick as the incessant rain: Andy Chan Ho-tin, the head of the outlawed Hong Kong National party, was arrested overnight at the airport as he was about to go to Japan.
Then came the news of Joshua Wong’s arrest – one of the most famous pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong. Wong’s name became known in 2012 when, at 15, he organised the protests against the national education curriculum. The curriculum was seen as an attempt at instilling patriotism in Hong Kong’s youth, but described as “brainwashing” by Wong and his supporters. He was one of the leaders of the Umbrella Movement, in 2014 – for which he served time in jail, and is still facing a number of charges. Among the Umbrella Movement’s leaders was Agnes Chow: she, too, was arrested on Friday. Wong and Chow are the co-founders of the political party Demosisto, which, like Chan’s Hong Kong National party, is one of the organisations that emerged from the Umbrella Movement.
Continue reading...This documentary dared to do what politicians the world over would not, asking tough questions of Xi Jinping’s hardline rule
The drink Mihrigul Tursun’s captors offered her was strangely cloudy. It resembled, she said, water after washing rice. After drinking it, the young mother recalled in China: A New World Order (BBC Two), her period stopped. “It didn’t come back until five months after I left prison. So my period stopped seven months in total. Now it’s back, but it’s abnormal.”
We never learned why Tursun was detained – along with an estimated one million other Uighurs of Xinjiang province, in what the authorities euphemistically call re-education centres – but we heard clearly her claims of being tortured. “They cut off my hair and electrocuted my head,” Tursun said. “I couldn’t stand it any more. I can only say please just kill me.”
Continue reading...Signs Beijing may be importing Iranian oil as Trump’s two biggest foreign policy headaches converge
In early June, a Chinese-owned supertanker abruptly went dark in the Indian Ocean, the tracking system signalling its course apparently deactivated.
It was not the first ship to vanish from the monitors. The deactivation of transponders that generate a unique ID issued to ships by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has become increasingly familiar in recent weeks to the companies that track tankers.
Continue reading...Movements, which have been portrayed as a scheduled troop rotation, come days ahead of anti-government protests
Chinese military vehicles have been seen moving across the border into Hong Kong, in what the military said were regular troop movements, as fears rose that the city could see a Beijing-led crackdown after months of political unrest.
Following witness reports of the movements in the early hours of Thursday, state-run news agency Xinhua released a report that the Hong Kong Garrison of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) was making a scheduled rotation and that it was an “annual normal routine”.
Continue reading...The US retailer Costco has said it will limit the number of shoppers at its first store in China after overcrowding forced it to shut early on the opening day. Large crowds caused traffic jams as they flocked to the store in Shanghai on Tuesday, and shoppers jostled to grab products off the shelves before joining the huge queues at checkouts
Continue reading...Overcrowding and traffic jams forced first Costco in China to shut early
The American retailer Costco has said it will limit the number of shoppers at its first store in China after overcrowding forced it to shut early on the opening day.
No more than 2,000 shoppers at any given time will be allowed into the store in a Shanghai suburb and police will help to improve the flow of traffic near the store, it said on Wednesday.
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