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HONG KONG, China (AFP) — A key Hong Kong protest group behind mass rallies against a widely loathed China extradition bill vowed on Tuesday to hold fresh protests as they rejected a promise from the city’s leader that the bill was “dead”. “If our five demands are still not heard by Carrie Lam and her government, the Civil Human Rights Forum will continue to hold protests and assemblies,” spokeswoman Bonnie Leung told reporters, adding details […]
by Kay Armin Serjoie TEHRAN, Iran (AFP) — Iran on Monday breached a uranium enrichment cap set by a troubled 2015 nuclear deal and warned Europe against taking retaliatory measures, as France decided to send an envoy to Tehran to try to calm tensions. The move came more than a year after Washington pulled out of the landmark accord between world powers and Tehran, which says it has lost patience with perceived inaction by the […]
HONG KONG, China (AFP) — Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing leader Carrie Lam on Tuesday said a widely loathed proposal to allow extraditions to the Chinese mainland “is dead” — but again stopped short of protester demands to withdraw the bill. The finance hub has been plunged into its worst crisis in recent history following a month of huge marches as well as separate violent confrontations with police involving a minority of hardcore protesters. “There are […]
DUSHANBE, Tajikistan (AFP) — Tajikistan has opened a criminal investigation after 14 prisoners were fatally poisoned while they were being transported between jails, the justice ministry said Monday, suggesting that another inmate may have given them contaminated bread. The incident happened on Sunday as more than a hundred prisoners, including eight women, were being transferred in a convoy from prisons in the north of the Central Asian country to jails in the south. The justice […]
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AFP) — A strong magnitude 6.9 earthquake struck off Indonesia on Sunday, the US Geological Survey reported, triggering a brief tsunami warning that sent panicked residents fleeing to higher ground. The Southeast Asian nation is one of the most disaster-hit on Earth due to its position straddling the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, where tectonic plates collide. Earthquakes and tsunamis have claimed thousands of lives in recent years. Sunday’s quake struck at […]
by Jerome TAYLOR / Elaine YU Agence France Presse HONG KONG, China (AFP) — Thousands of anti-government protesters began a march in Hong Kong Sunday that will end outside a controversial train station linking the territory to the Chinese mainland, as activists try to keep pressure on the city’s pro-Beijing leaders. The rally is the first major large-scale protest since last Monday’s unprecedented storming of parliament by largely young, masked protesters — a move […]
TEHRAN, Iran (AFP) — Iran said Sunday it was set to breach the uranium enrichment cap set by an endangered nuclear deal within hours as it seeks to press signatories into keeping their side of the bargain. The Islamic republic also threatened to abandon more commitments unless a solution is found with parties to the 2015 agreement. The move to start enriching uranium above the agreed maximum purification level of 3.67 percent comes despite […]
by Marina KORENEVA Agence France Presse SAINT PETERSBURG, Russia (AFP) — Russia buried 14 navy officers amid tight security in Saint Petersburg on Saturday who were killed in a fire on a nuclear-powered submersible in circumstances that have not been fully revealed by the Kremlin. The officers died in the Barents Sea on Monday, but the accident was only made public a day later. Moscow has said the crew was studying the sea floor […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — An Australian student who was released after being held in North Korea had been “spying” in the reclusive country, state media said Saturday. Alek Sigley, 29, disappeared around two weeks ago prompting deep concern about his fate, but was freed and flew to Japan on Thursday. Official North Korean news agency KCNA said Sigley had admitted “he had been spying by collecting our internal information and sharing with others […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — A foundation set up to compensate victims of Japan’s wartime sex slavery has been formally dissolved, South Korean officials said Friday, the latest chapter in a bitter dispute over the two countries’ shared history. The $8.8 million fund was established in 2015 as Tokyo and Seoul made a renewed effort to push past their continuing row over Japan’s brutal 1910 – 1945 occupation. The money — which the two […]
HONG KONG, China (AFP) — A Hong Kong street artist was charged on Friday with assaulting a police officer and criminal damage, the first prosecution against an anti-government protester since the city was rocked by unprecedented demonstrations. Sparked by a law that would have allowed extraditions to mainland China, the city has witnessed three huge peaceful rallies as well as civil disobedience and violence from a hard core of younger protesters who have besieged […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — A 29-year-old Australian student detained in North Korea surfaced in Beijing airport on Thursday, saying he was in “very good” spirits after being released. Alek Sigley — one of a handful of Westerners living and studying in North Korea — disappeared without a trace around June 23, prompting a week of deep concern and frantic speculation about his fate. For days Sigley’s family received no word about his whereabouts or […]
