Authorities in the Chinese territory of Macau moved to thwart protests calling for the release of Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波) during the first ever visit by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) yesterday.
Immigration officials in the former Portuguese colony refused entry to a prominent opposition lawmaker from nearby Hong Kong, Albert Ho (何俊仁), who planned to join in the protests.
Ho, chairman of Hong Kong’s Democratic Party, said he and four other activists were stopped and briefly detained before being sent back to Hong Kong.
“They said we would be causing a threat to internal security,” Ho told reporters. “I’m not surprised, but this shows the Macanese government is not respecting freedom of expression and opinion.”
Macau police stepped up security ahead of Wen’s arrival and said they had been notified that at least five local groups would stage protests, according to local media.
Another Hong Kong legislator, Lee Cheuk-yan (李卓人), was also expected to join in the protest.
Wen is attending a two-day economic forum with ministers from seven Portuguese-speaking countries, including Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates and officials from Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and East Timor.
Liu was jailed in December last year for 11 years on subversion charges after co-authoring Charter 08, a petition calling for sweeping political reform that has been circulated online and signed by thousands.
China has said the honor was tantamount to “encouraging crime” and warned European and other governments not to support the veteran activist.
Macau and Hong Kong were both handed back to China by their respective colonial powers in the 1990s and given separate constitutions that guarantee various freedoms not available on the mainland.
Yesterday, Wen said he wanted to see China raise annual trade volume with Portuguese-speaking countries to US$100 billion by 2013.
“As our economies rapidly grow, our common interests have been expanding and our mutual needs increasing,” he told conference delegates.
Wen’s trip comes less than a week after Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) wrapped up a visit to Portugal with pledges to support its battered economy.
Hu held off committing to buy Portuguese debt however, as Beijing pledged for debt-battered Greece last month.
The Portuguese government said two of its major lenders signed deals with the Bank of China and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, to identify investment opportunities in the world’s second-largest economy.
TIT-FOR-TAT: The arrest of Filipinos that Manila said were in China as part of a scholarship program follows the Philippines’ detention of at least a dozen Chinese The Philippines yesterday expressed alarm over the arrest of three Filipinos in China on suspicion of espionage, saying they were ordinary citizens and the arrests could be retaliation for Manila’s crackdown against alleged Chinese spies. Chinese authorities arrested the Filipinos and accused them of working for the Philippine National Security Council to gather classified information on its military, the state-run China Daily reported earlier this week, citing state security officials. It said the three had confessed to the crime. The National Security Council disputed Beijing’s accusations, saying the three were former recipients of a government scholarship program created under an agreement between the
Sitting around a wrestling ring, churchgoers roared as local hero Billy O’Keeffe body-slammed a fighter named Disciple. Beneath stained-glass windows, they whooped and cheered as burly, tattooed wresters tumbled into the aisle during a six-man tag-team battle. This is Wrestling Church, which brings blood, sweat and tears — mostly sweat — to St Peter’s Anglican church in the northern England town of Shipley. It is the creation of Gareth Thompson, a charismatic 37-year-old who said he was saved by pro wrestling and Jesus — and wants others to have the same experience. The outsized characters and scripted morality battles of pro wrestling fit
SUSPICION: Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing returned to protests after attending a summit at which he promised to hold ‘free and fair’ elections, which critics derided as a sham The death toll from a major earthquake in Myanmar has risen to more than 3,300, state media said yesterday, as the UN aid chief made a renewed call for the world to help the disaster-struck nation. The quake on Friday last week flattened buildings and destroyed infrastructure across the country, resulting in 3,354 deaths and 4,508 people injured, with 220 others missing, new figures published by state media showed. More than one week after the disaster, many people in the country are still without shelter, either forced to sleep outdoors because their homes were destroyed or wary of further collapses. A UN estimate
Australia’s opposition party yesterday withdrew election promises to prevent public servants from working from home and to slash more than one in five federal public-sector jobs. Opposition leader Peter Dutton announced his conservative Liberal Party had dropped its pledge that public servants would be required to work in their offices five days a week except in exceptional circumstances. “I think we made a mistake in relation to this policy,” Dutton told Nine Network television. “I think it’s important that we say that and recognize it, and our intention was to make sure that where taxpayers are working hard and their money is
RSS