HONG KONG
Nine activists arrested
Nine pro-democracy advocates were yesterday arrested over an anti-Beijing rally in November last year. “I believe the police have set out to arrest all street activists so they won’t dare to protest when [Chinese President] Xi Jinping (習近平) visits,” pro-democracy leader Joshua Wong (黃之鋒) said. Two of those arrested belong to new pro-democracy party Demosisto, founded by Wong and Nathan Law (羅冠聰), who is now a legislator. Others include members of the pro-democracy party League of Social Democrats (LSD), as well as student or former student protesters. All nine protesters emerged from the territory’s Western police station in the afternoon and said they had been charged and released on bail. LSD chairman Avery Ng (吳文遠), who was charged with inciting others to cause disorder in public, said he would not back down.
NEW ZEALAND
Tourist survives shark attack
A French tourist yesterday survived a rare shark attack, suffering only moderate injuries, rescuers and locals said. The woman, aged in her 20s, was bodyboarding in the afternoon at Curio Bay in the South Island when the shark attacked her leg, St John Ambulance said. She was airlifted to Dunedin Hospital’s emergency department for treatment. Nick Smart, who runs the Caitlin Surf School, said the woman was in the water with friends when the shark attacked “out of nowhere.” He said the woman’s companions dragged her onto the beach and she remained calm as locals took her to a shelter, before applying pressure to her wound while awaiting a rescue helicopter.
ISRAEL
Cyberattack repelled
The government said it has repelled a large cyberattack on government offices and private citizens. The National Cyber Bureau at the Prime Minister’s Office on Wednesday said that hackers posed as a “legitimate organization,” had targeted “about 120 organizations, government offices, public institutions and private citizens.” The Haaretz daily said the government believes the attack was directed by a foreign country with a group of hackers. It said the attack was aimed at infiltrating organizations involved in civilian research, development and “advanced technologies.”
IRAN
Border guards killed
Ten border guards were on Wednesday killed by Sunni militants in a cross-border attack on the frontier with Pakistan, Tasnim news agency reported. A militant group called Jaish al-Adl, or the Army of Justice, has claimed responsibility, the report said. “Ten border guards of Mirjaveh County in Sistan and Baluchestan Province were martyred in an ambush by the terrorists in the Pakistani border’s zero-point,” Tasnim said.
VIETNAM
Facebook commits to filters
The government said Facebook Inc has committed to work with it to prevent content that violates the country’s laws from appearing on its platform. In February, the nation complained about “toxic” anti-government and offensive content on Facebook and Google Inc’s YouTube, and pressured local companies to withdraw advertising until the social media firms found a solution. Facebook’s commitment came during a meeting between its head of global policy management Monika Bickert and Minister of Information and Communications Truong Minh Tuan in Hanoi on Wednesday, a statement on the government’s Web site said.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of