HONG KONG
Deadline for protesters set
Pro-democracy activists have until tomorrow morning to leave their main camp in Admiralty district that has blocked traffic for more than two months before authorities clear it out, a lawyer said yesterday. Authorities are set to move in after a court order authorized the removal of barricades, tents and other obstructions, setting the stage for one last showdown with activists demanding greater democracy. Workers will dismantle the protest camp starting at 9am, said a lawyer for the bus company that took out the injunction. “What I would like to do now is to perhaps make a public plea to the students to stay away from the scene when there is plenty of time,” he told reporters, adding the company wanted to give protesters enough time to pack their belongings and leave the site. The court order was published in newspapers yesterday. The South China Morning Post said a site in the Causeway Bay district is also expected to be dismantled tomorrow, although it is not covered by any court order.
CHINA
PLA general detained
The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is investigating a general who worked at a prominent military university on suspicion of graft, media reports said yesterday. Major General Dai Weimin (戴維民), 52, was “taken away” in the middle of last month by military prosecutors, according to a report by respected news magazine Caixin. Dai was a deputy dean at the PLA’s Nanjing Political College. The Caixin report said authorities suspect Dai of taking “huge bribes” related to land and construction projects.
CHINA
Students sentenced
A court in Urumqi has handed down sentences of up to eight years in prison to seven students of jailed Uighur academic Ilham Tohti, two rights lawyers said yesterday. Prosecutors had charged the students with separatism, said Li Fangping (李方平), the lawyer who defended Tohti. Li said he was told by the students’ lawyer on Monday that they had been sentenced by the intermediate court to between three and eight years. The seven students were separated into two trials last month, one conducted in Chinese and a second held in the Uighur language for a single student.
UNITED STATES
Los Angeles fire probed
A fierce blaze that destroyed a controversial Los Angeles apartment complex under construction and damaged three nearby buildings on Monday is being examined by arson investigators as a “criminal fire,” authorities said. The fire erupted overnight and took three hours to bring under control. About 250 firefighters, roughly one-fourth of the city’s on-duty force, battled the blaze at its height, said Katherine Main, a spokeswoman for the city’s fire department. Fire Captain Jamie Moore said size of the blaze, as well as the speed and intensity with which it spread, gave investigators cause for concern that it may have been intentionally set.
FRANCE
Mom sues over son’s trip
A mother whose teenaged son traveled unsupervised to Syria is suing the government, alleging it should have stopped the 16-year-old from leaving the country. The teen left Nice nearly a year ago, heading to Syria via Turkey for what he described to his mother as humanitarian work. He used just his national ID to travel, having left his passport at home. In 2012, an administrative change allowed minors with valid ID to leave the country without parental authorization.
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
Some things might go without saying, but just in case... Belgium’s food agency issued a public health warning as the festive season wrapped up on Tuesday: Do not eat your Christmas tree. The unusual message came after the city of Ghent, an environmentalist stronghold in the country’s East Flanders region, raised eyebrows by posting tips for recycling the conifers on the dinner table. Pointing with enthusiasm to examples from Scandinavia, the town Web site suggested needles could be stripped, blanched and dried — for use in making flavored butter, for instance. Asked what they thought of the idea, the reply
US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen on Monday met virtually with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰) and raised concerns about “malicious cyber activity” carried out by Chinese state-sponsored actors, the US Department of the Treasury said in a statement. The department last month reported that an unspecified number of its computers had been compromised by Chinese hackers in what it called a “major incident” following a breach at contractor BeyondTrust, which provides cybersecurity services. US Congressional aides said no date had been set yet for a requested briefing on the breach, the latest in a serious of cyberattacks
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
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