A top opposition lawmaker was trapped in Hong Kong's airport yesterday for nearly half an hour as his supporters and pro-Beijing protesters shouted at each other when he returned from a US trip during which he discussed the territory's fight for full democracy, police said.
Martin Lee Chu-ming (
Lee's supporters greeted him with a banner that read "Patriotic hero for democracy," and began yelling back at his deriders.
PHOTO: REUTERS
The verbal sparring among the crowd of about 100 hemmed Lee in for nearly 30 minutes at the airport, police spokesman T.K. Ng said. He was eventually led out by a police escort.
The pro-democracy lawmaker headed a delegation to Washington this week to brief US administration officials and senators on Hong Kong's battle for democratic reform. He met with US Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.
The visit drew strong protests from Beijing officials. Some called Lee "a clown" and accused Hong Kong politicians of inviting foreign meddling in China's affairs.
Lee said the visit was only meant to communicate Hong Kong's situation to US officials, adding he will continue to do what he thinks is right for the former British colony, returned to China in 1997.
"Many officials' criticisms went too far and were improper," Lee said.
"Looking at what the central government leaders said in the past two days, they didn't say Hong Kong cannot have democracy," he said.
Many Hong Kongers are demanding the right to pick their leader and all lawmakers.
Hong Kong's political leader was elected by an 800-member elite committee loyal to Beijing, and ordinary citizens were allowed to choose only 24 out of 60 lawmakers in the 2000 elections -- though that number will rise to 30 in the next contest in September.
Full democracy is set out as a constitutional goal in Hong Kong, but there is no timetable.
Showcasing phallus-shaped portable shrines and pink penis candies, Japan’s annual fertility festival yesterday teemed with tourists, couples and families elated by its open display of sex. The spring Kanamara Matsuri near Tokyo features colorfully dressed worshipers carrying a trio of giant phallic-shaped objects as they parade through the street with glee. The festival, as legend has it, honors a local blacksmith in the Edo Period (1603-1868) who forged an iron dildo to break the teeth of a sharp-toothed demon inhabiting a woman’s vagina that had been castrating young men on their wedding nights. A 1m black steel phallus sits in the courtyard of
HIGH HOPES: The power source is expected to have a future, as it is not dependent on the weather or light, and could be useful for places with large desalination facilities A Japanese water plant is harnessing the natural process of osmosis to generate renewable energy that could one day become a common power source. The possibility of generating power from osmosis — when water molecules pass from a less salty solution to a more salty one — has long been known. However, actually generating energy from that has proved more complicated, in part due the difficulty of designing the membrane through which the molecules pass. Engineers in Fukuoka, Japan, and their private partners think they might have cracked it, and have opened what is only the world’s second osmotic power plant. It generates
JAN. 1 CLAUSE: As military service is voluntary, applications for permission to stay abroad for over three months for men up to age 45 must, in principle, be granted A little-noticed clause in sweeping changes to Germany’s military service policy has triggered an uproar after it emerged that the law requires men aged up to 45 to get permission from the armed forces before any significant stay abroad, even in peacetime. The legislation, which went into effect on Jan. 1 aims to bolster the military and demands all 18-year-old men fill out a questionnaire to gauge their suitability to serve in the armed forces, but stops short of conscription. If the “modernized” model fails to pull in enough recruits, parliament will be compelled to discuss the reintroduction of compulsory service, German
Hundreds of Filipinos and tourists flocked to a sun-bleached field north of Manila yesterday, on Good Friday, to witness one of the country’s most blood-soaked displays of religious fervor, undeterred by rising fuel prices. Scores of bare-chested flagellants with covered faces walked barefoot through the dusty streets of Pampanga Province’s San Fernando as they flogged their backs with bamboo whips in the scorching heat. Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists said they saw devotees deliberately puncturing their skin with glass shards attached to a small wooden paddle to ensure their bleeding during the ritual, a way to atone for sins and seek miracles from
RSS