HONG KONG
Wong gets 10 extra months
The District Court yesterday added 10 months to democracy advocate Joshua Wong’s (黃之鋒) jail term after the 24-year-old recently pleaded guilty to taking part in an unauthorized assembly last year, a crime punishable by up to five years in jail. Wong and thousands of others held a vigil on June 4 to commemorate the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, defying an unprecedented ban on the event that authorities said was necessary due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Wong was already serving a 13-and-a-half-month sentence for leading a protest outside police headquarters in 2019.
CHINA
US embassy post backfires
On Sina Weibo on Wednesday, the visa section of the US embassy asked students what they were waiting for since US President Joe Biden’s administration had eased restrictions. “Spring has come and the flowers are in bloom. Are you like this dog who can’t wait to go out and play?” said the post in Chinese, which was accompanied by a video of an excited puppy trying to climb over a safety gate. However, the post drew an angry backlash from some users, who felt the comparison was inappropriate, and it was later deleted. “Is this American humor? I believe they did it on purpose,” one user wrote. Others quipped that the students’ “master” was calling them back to the US.
MYANMAR
NUG forms ‘defense force’
The National Unity Government (NUG), set up by opponents of military rule, on Wednesday said that it had formed a “people’s defense force” to protect its supporters from military attacks. The NUG said that the new force is the precursor to a Federal Union Army and that it has the responsibility to end decades-old civil wars and deal with “military attacks and violence” by the ruling State Administration Council against its people. The unity government, established last month by an array of groups opposed to the military, among them ethnic minority militias, has pledged to end violence, restore democracy and build a “federal democratic union.”
ROMANIA
Prince ‘shoots largest bear’
The non-governmental organization (NGO) Agent Green and the Austrian NGO VGT have alleged in a statement that Arthur, the country’s largest bear, was shot in March in a protected area of the Carpathian Mountains by Prince Emanuel von und zu Liechtenstein. The NGOs said that the prince had been given authorization by the Ministry of the Environment to shoot a female bear that had been causing damage on farms in Ojdula. “But in reality, the prince did not kill the problem bear, but a male that lived deep in the woods and had never come close to localities,” they said.
KENYA
Oldest human burial found
Archeologists have identified the oldest known human burial in Africa during field work that uncovered the remains of a child laid carefully to rest in a grave nearly 80,000 years ago. The arrangement of the bones shows that the three-year-old — named Mtoto, after the Swahili word for “child” — was placed with legs tucked to chest, and perhaps wrapped in a shroud with their head on a pillow, before being gently covered in soil. Researchers discovered the delicate and degraded bones while excavating the floor beneath a sheltered overhang at the mouth of the Panga ya Saidi cave in the tropical uplands of Kenya’s coastal plains.
Four contenders are squaring up to succeed Antonio Guterres as secretary-general of the UN, which faces unprecedented global instability, wars and its own crushing budget crisis. Chile’s Michelle Bachelet, Argentina’s Rafael Grossi, Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan and Senegal’s Macky Sall are each to face grillings by 193 member states and non-governmental organizations for three hours today and tomorrow. It is only the second time the UN has held a public question-and-answer, a format created in 2016 to boost transparency. Ultimately the five permanent members of the UN’s top body, the Security Council, hold the power, wielding vetoes over who leads the
A humanoid robot that won a half-marathon race for robots in Beijing on Sunday ran faster than the human world record in a show of China’s technological leaps. The winner from Honor, a Chinese smartphone maker, completed the 21km race in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, said a WeChat post by the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, also known as Beijing E-Town, where the race began. That was faster than the human world record holder, Ugandan Jacob Kiplimo, who finished the same distance in about 57 minutes in March at the Lisbon road race. The performance by the robot marked a significant step forward
An earthquake registering a preliminary magnitude of 7.7 off northern Japan on Monday prompted a short-lived tsunami alert and the advisory of a higher risk of a possible mega-quake for coastal areas there. The Cabinet Office and the Japan Meteorological Agency said there was a 1% chance for a mega-quake, compared to a 0.1% chance during normal times, in the next week or so following the powerful quake near the Chishima and Japan trenches. Officials said the advisory was not a quake prediction but urged residents in 182 towns along the northeastern coasts to raise their preparedness while continuing their daily lives. Prime
HAZARDOUS CONDITION: The typhoon’s sheer size, with winds extending 443km from its center, slowed down the ability of responders to help communities, an official said The US Coast Guard was searching for six people after losing contact with their disabled boat off the coast of Guam following Typhoon Sinlaku. The crew of the 44m dry cargo vessel, the US-registered Mariana, on Wednesday notified the coast guard that the boat had lost its starboard engine and needed assistance, Petty Officer 3rd Class Avery Tibbets said yesterday. The coast guard set up a one-hour communication schedule with the vessel, but lost contact on Thursday. A Coast Guard HC-130 Hercules aircraft was launched to search for the six people on board, but it had to return to Guam because of
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