Members of Hong Kong’s Democratic Party yesterday voted to proceed with plans to dissolve the party as its leaders first proposed in February, the party’s chair said.
The vote “means most of our members are willing to allow the Central Committee to take steps to dissolve the party,” said Lo Kin-hei (羅健熙), chair of the 30-year-old party that was once the city’s stalwart opposition force.
“This is not the final decision that the party is dissolving,” Lo told a news conference.
Photo: AP
“In the coming few months, I hope there will be another general meeting [where] we actually will get that motion into debate and vote,” he said.
More than 90 percent of the 110 or so attendees supported the motion to let party leaders deal with the procedures required for dissolution, such as accounting requirements.
Lo in February said that the disbandment was due to Hong Kong’s “overall political environment,” but declined to say if the group had come under pressure from Beijing.
Photo: AFP
The party is the latest civil society group to shut down following a years-long political crackdown in Hong Kong after massive and sometimes violent pro-democracy protests in 2019.
Four Democratic Party lawmakers were jailed last year for subversion under a Beijing-imposed national security law.
The Burmese junta has said that detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi is “in good health,” a day after her son said he has received little information about the 80-year-old’s condition and fears she could die without him knowing. In an interview in Tokyo earlier this week, Kim Aris said he had not heard from his mother in years and believes she is being held incommunicado in the capital, Naypyidaw. Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was detained after a 2021 military coup that ousted her elected civilian government and sparked a civil war. She is serving a
REVENGE: Trump said he had the support of the Syrian government for the strikes, which took place in response to an Islamic State attack on US soldiers last week The US launched large-scale airstrikes on more than 70 targets across Syria, the Pentagon said on Friday, fulfilling US President Donald Trump’s vow to strike back after the killing of two US soldiers. “This is not the beginning of a war — it is a declaration of vengeance,” US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth wrote on social media. “Today, we hunted and we killed our enemies. Lots of them. And we will continue.” The US Central Command said that fighter jets, attack helicopters and artillery targeted ISIS infrastructure and weapon sites. “All terrorists who are evil enough to attack Americans are hereby warned
Seven wild Asiatic elephants were killed and a calf was injured when a high-speed passenger train collided with a herd crossing the tracks in India’s northeastern state of Assam early yesterday, local authorities said. The train driver spotted the herd of about 100 elephants and used the emergency brakes, but the train still hit some of the animals, Indian Railways spokesman Kapinjal Kishore Sharma told reporters. Five train coaches and the engine derailed following the impact, but there were no human casualties, Sharma said. Veterinarians carried out autopsies on the dead elephants, which were to be buried later in the day. The accident site
‘NO AMNESTY’: Tens of thousands of people joined the rally against a bill that would slash the former president’s prison term; President Lula has said he would veto the bill Tens of thousands of Brazilians on Sunday demonstrated against a bill that advanced in Congress this week that would reduce the time former president Jair Bolsonaro spends behind bars following his sentence of more than 27 years for attempting a coup. Protests took place in the capital, Brasilia, and in other major cities across the nation, including Sao Paulo, Florianopolis, Salvador and Recife. On Copacabana’s boardwalk in Rio de Janeiro, crowds composed of left-wing voters chanted “No amnesty” and “Out with Hugo Motta,” a reference to the speaker of the lower house, which approved the bill on Wednesday last week. It is