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.
Thousands gathered across New Zealand yesterday to celebrate the signing of the country’s founding document and some called for an end to government policies that critics say erode the rights promised to the indigenous Maori population. As the sun rose on the dawn service at Waitangi where the Treaty of Waitangi was first signed between the British Crown and Maori chiefs in 1840, some community leaders called on the government to honor promises made 185 years ago. The call was repeated at peaceful rallies that drew several hundred people later in the day. “This government is attacking tangata whenua [indigenous people] on all
A colossal explosion in the sky, unleashing energy hundreds of times greater than the Hiroshima bomb. A blinding flash nearly as bright as the sun. Shockwaves powerful enough to flatten everything for miles. It might sound apocalyptic, but a newly detected asteroid nearly the size of a football field now has a greater than 1 percent chance of colliding with Earth in about eight years. Such an impact has the potential for city-level devastation, depending on where it strikes. Scientists are not panicking yet, but they are watching closely. “At this point, it’s: ‘Let’s pay a lot of attention, let’s
UNDAUNTED: Panama would not renew an agreement to participate in Beijing’s Belt and Road project, its president said, proposing technical-level talks with the US US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday threatened action against Panama without immediate changes to reduce Chinese influence on the canal, but the country’s leader insisted he was not afraid of a US invasion and offered talks. On his first trip overseas as the top US diplomat, Rubio took a guided tour of the canal, accompanied by its Panamanian administrator as a South Korean-affiliated oil tanker and Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship passed through the vital link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. However, Rubio was said to have had a firmer message in private, telling Panama that US President Donald Trump
The administration of US President Donald Trump has appointed to serve as the top public diplomacy official a former speech writer for Trump with a history of doubts over US foreign policy toward Taiwan and inflammatory comments on women and minorities, at one point saying that "competent white men must be in charge." Darren Beattie has been named the acting undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, a senior US Department of State official said, a role that determines the tone of the US' public messaging in the world. Beattie requires US Senate confirmation to serve on a permanent basis. "Thanks to