Facebook pushed content by Myanmar junta: report

ACCOUNTABILITY NEEDED: The network recommended groups that support violence against civilians to users who had ‘liked’ military-linked pages, a rights group said

Facebook’s recommendation algorithm amplifies military propaganda and other material that breaches the company’s own policies in Myanmar following a military takeover in February, rights group Global Witness said in a report on Tuesday. One month after the Burmese military seized power in the country and imprisoned elected leaders, Facebook’s algorithms were still prompting users to view and “like” pro-military pages with posts that incited and threatened violence, pushed misinformation that could lead to physical harm, praised the military, and glorified its abuses, Global Witness said. That was even though the social media giant vowed to remove such content following the coup, announcing it would remove military and military-controlled pages from its site and from Instagram, which it also owns. It has since enacted other measures intended to reduce offline harm in the country. Facebook on Tuesday said in a statement that its teams “continue to closely monitor the situation in Myanmar in real-time and take action on any posts, Pages or Groups that break our rules.” Days after the Feb. 1 coup, the military temporarily blocked access to Facebook, because it was being used to share anti-coup comments and organize protests. Access was later restored. In the following weeks, Facebook continued to tighten its policies against the military, banning all military entities from its platforms and saying that it would remove praise or support for violence against civilians and their arrest. “Once again, Facebook shows that it’s good at making broad sweeping announcements and bad at actually enforcing them. They’ve had years to improve their work in Myanmar, but once again they are still failing,” said Sophie Zhang, a former Facebook data scientist and whistleblower who found evidence of political manipulation in countries such as Honduras and Azerbaijan while she worked there. The struggle between the military regime that deposed Burmese State Counselor Aung San

Panda gives birth to twins at Tokyo zoo

A panda at Tokyo’s Ueno Zoo gave birth to twins yesterday, weeks after news of the pregnancy sent stocks in nearby restaurants soaring. They were born in the early hours, the zoo said in a statement, adding that it had not yet confirmed the sex of the pair. Zoo director Yutaka Fukuda said the twin birth was a first for the Ueno facility. “When I heard the news that the second baby was born, I couldn’t help but whoop,” he told reporters. One of the cubs, weighing 124 grams, was placed in an incubator, zoo spokesman Naoya Ohashi told a news conference later that day. The mother, Shin Shin, “is in good health and carefully looking after” the other baby, Ohashi added. When pandas have twins, they usually only raise one, “so we will be making sure the mother panda will breastfeed one while we keep the other in the incubator,” he said. Zookeepers would be swapping the babies so that both cubs experience natural feeding, Ohashi added. Shin Shin sparked a rally in stocks of eateries near the zoo earlier this month when her suspected pregnancy was announced, with investors anticipating a visitor boom to the area after the delivery. Shares of a Chinese restaurant nearby spiked nearly 30 percent on the pregnancy and were up 6.4 percent early yesterday. Even the Japanese government weighed in, with Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato calling the birth of the cubs “cheerful news” and inviting “all of Japan to watch over them.” Zookeepers had been on alert for a possible pregnancy after Shin Shin and her partner, Ri Ri, mated in early March. The pair are also parents of a female panda, Xiang Xiang, who was born in June 2017 and became a massive draw for the facility. She was scheduled to be repatriated to China two years after her birth, but Japanese officials

UN report says heat wave threat rising

WET-BULB WATCH: The draft report said burgeoning megacities in the developing world that generate additional heat of their own would face the largest increases

A draft UN report to be released next year warns of dire consequences for billions of people if global warming continues unchecked. Earlier climate models suggested that it would take nearly another century of unabated carbon pollution to spawn heat waves exceeding the absolute limit of human tolerance, but updated projections warn of unprecedented killer heatwaves on the near horizon. A 4,000-page Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, seen by reporters before its scheduled release in February next year, paints a grim picture. If the world warms by 1.5°C above preindustrial levels — 0.4°C above today’s level — 14 percent of the population will be exposed to severe heat waves at least once every five years, “a significant increase in heatwave magnitude,” the report says. Going up 0.5°C would add another 1.7 billion people, it says. Worst hit would be burgeoning megacities in the developing world that generate additional heat of their own, including Karachi, Pakistan; Kinshasa; Manila; Mumbai, India; Lagos, Nigeria; and Manaus, Brazil. It is not just thermometer readings that make a difference — heat becomes more deadly when combined with high humidity. It is easier, in other words, to survive a high temperature day if the air is bone-dry than it is to survive a lower temperature day with very high humidity. That steam-bath mix has its own yardstick, known as wet-bulb temperature. Experts say that healthy human adults cannot survive if wet-bulb temperatures (TW) exceed 35°C, even in the shade with an unlimited supply of drinking water. “When wet-bulb temperatures are extremely high, there is so much moisture in the air that sweating becomes ineffective at removing the body’s excess heat,” said Colin Raymond, lead author of a recent study on heat waves. “At some point, perhaps after six or more hours, this will lead to organ failure and death in the absence of

Hospital in Afghanistan burns after rocket attack

TRADING TOWN: Tajikistan border officials said that Afghan security forces had been allowed to enter after Taliban militants captured the town of Shir Khan Bandar

Suspected Taliban fighters yesterday fired a rocket into a hospital in Afghanistan, sparking a blaze that caused extensive damage and destroyed COVID-19 vaccines, although there were no reports of casualties, government officials said. In northern Afghanistan, the Taliban captured the town of Shir Khan Bandar, a dry port on the border with Tajikistan, sending customs workers and members of the security forces fleeing over the border. Fighting between government forces and the militants has surged in the past few weeks, with the Taliban gaining control of more territory as the last US-led international forces prepare to leave after two decades of fighting. Taliban spokesmen Zabihullah Mujahid denied responsibility for the attack on the hospital in Kunar province, which a provincial health director said resulted in the loss of crucial supplies. “Different types of vaccine, including doses meant to fight polio and COVID-19, were destroyed in the fire,” Kunar health official Aziz Safai said. COVID-19 has been spreading as insecurity has been growing, especially since May 1, when the US began the final stages of its troop withdrawal and the Taliban stepped up attacks on government forces. Tajikistan’s border guard service said in a statement late on Tuesday that it had allowed 134 Afghan servicemen to retreat into Tajikistan from Shir Khan Bandar, about 50km from the city of Kunduz. The Taliban seized ammunition and armored vehicles in the town after Afghan authorities surrendered it to the advancing insurgents, Afghan officials said. The loss of the trading town will be a blow to the US-backed government as it struggles to stop Taliban advances across the country.

Afghans sift through the leftovers of US occupation

Squatting in the dust by the main road to Afghanistan’s biggest air base, Mir Salam sifts through a pile of broken electronics salvaged from departing US troops. All around are heaps of junk and scrapped equipment — ranging from telephones and thermos flasks to computer keyboards and printer cartridges. “This is what the Americans do,” the 40-year-old told reporters. “They destroy absolutely everything.” The Pentagon is vacating Bagram Air Base as part of its plan to withdraw all forces by Sept. 11 and it could be completed by the end of this month. Military gear is being taken home or given to Afghan security forces, but a lot of civilian equipment must be left behind. The result is a booming scrap business that is making money for some, but leaving many resentful. “They blow it up or are burning it,” Salam said of the equipment being discarded. “There were lots of new things in this base — enough to rebuild Afghanistan 20 times — but they destroyed everything.” For two decades, Bagram served as the nerve center for US operations in Afghanistan. A sprawling mini-city visited by hundreds of thousands of service members and contractors, it boasted swimming pools, cinemas and spas — and even a boardwalk featuring fast-food outlets such as Burger King and Pizza Hut. It also has a prison that held thousands of Taliban and militant inmates over the years. Bagram was built by the US for its Afghan ally during the Cold War in the 1950s as a bulwark against the then-Soviet Union in the north. Ironically, it became the staging point for the Soviet invasion of the country in 1979, and the Red Army expanded it significantly during its near decade-long occupation. When Moscow pulled out, it became central to the raging civil war — it was reported that at one point the Taliban controlled one end

Images show likely Iran failed rocket launch

Iran likely conducted a failed launch of a satellite-carrying rocket in the past few days and now appears to be preparing to try again, the country’s latest effort to advance its space program amid tensions with the West over its tattered nuclear deal. Satellite images, a US official and a rocket expert all confirmed the failed launch this month at the Imam Khomeini Spaceport in Iran’s Semnan Province. The attempt comes as Iran’s space program has suffered a series of high-profile losses, while its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard runs its own parallel program that launched a satellite into orbit last year. As with other failed launches, Iranian state media did not acknowledge that it took place. Iran’s mission to the UN did not immediately respond to a request for comment yesterday. Satellite photographs from Planet Labs Inc and Maxar Technologies show preparations at the spaceport on June 6. Those images include what appears to be fuel tanks alongside a massive white gantry that houses a rocket, while scientists fuel it and prepare for launch. Before the launch, workers tow the gantry away to expose the rocket. The number of fuel tanks, based on their size, appear to have been enough to fill the first and second stages of an Iranian Simorgh rocket, said Jeffrey Lewis, an expert at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Vermont. The Simorgh is a rocket that carries satellites that has been launched from that same area of the spaceport, Lewis said. Later satellite images on Thursday last week showed a decrease in activity at the site. Lewis said that analysts believe Iran launched the rocket at some point in that window. “Nothing had blown up. There wasn’t a giant stain — like they had dumped the fuel — and the vehicles had kind of just moved around,” he said. “The

Cat burglar suspects who targeted rich go on trial in Paris

A gang of cat burglars accused of scaling buildings to steal millions in jewelry, fashion items and other valuables from rich and famous people, including Paris Saint-Germain star Thiago Silva, went on trial in Paris yesterday. The group of seven men and one woman is believed to have burgled not just top players from the soccer team, but also music and TV personalities. Silva — PSG’s captain at the time, but who now plays for Chelsea in the English Premier League — returned home after a first division match on Dec. 23, 2018, to find his safe, jewelry and watches worth a combined 1.2 million euros (US$1.4 million) were gone. Surveillance camera footage showed two men climbing a drainpipe and entering Silva’s mansion through a French window. Minutes later, they reappeared, apparently carrying their loot in a backpack and a suitcase they took from the house. Less than a month earlier another PSG player, Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting, was burgled of 600,000 euros of leather goods and jewelry while he was on the pitch playing a Champions League match. The investigation first led police to two potential suspects, and then a third. Thanks to telephone taps and tails on the three, police identified a group of seven men in their 20s based in a Paris neighborhood known as the Goutte d’Or (Drop of Gold), and the two vehicles they used. After arresting them in August 2019, police came to believe that the gang had also carried out a burglary a year earlier at the home of French rapper Elie Yaffa, better known as Booba. Operating in units of two, three or four, they are also suspected of stealing from the homes of TV host Patrick Sebastien, celebrity chef Jean-Pierre Vigato and an unnamed wealthy Saudi Arabian national, taking a combined 4.2 million euros of goods. Police seized bracelets, rings,

Garland calls for more cyber protection

PRIORITIES: The US attorney general also reiterated his concerns about the death penalty and promised to protect journalists’ safety and right to conceal sources

Private industry needs better safeguards to avoid calamitous consequences in the event of cyberattacks like the ones that have targeted US infrastructure and corporations, US Attorney General Merrick Garland said on Tuesday. “You have to have a secondary method if your first method is shut down. You have to have depth, and we need to work with them on that,” Garland said, one week after a meeting between US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin, which included discussion of a spate of Russia-linked ransomware attacks in the past few months. Such hacks, including a ransomware attack last month on Colonial Pipeline, are “extremely dangerous,” Garland said. The US Department of Justice has responded with a task force focused on ransomware. In a wide-ranging question-and-answer session with reporters, his first since being confirmed in March as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer, Garland also reiterated his concerns about the death penalty, defended the department’s position in a defamation case against former US president Donald Trump and said that the government would work to protect journalists’ personal safety and their ability to conceal their confidential sources. The conversation occurred as Garland has faced demands from Democrats to swiftly undo or reverse positions taken by the department during the Trump administration, including aggressive leak investigations in which law enforcement obtained telephone records of journalists and congressional officials. The department inspector general is now investigating, and Garland last week met with executives from news media organizations after pledging that the government would abandon the practice of seizing reporters’ records in an effort to identify their sources. Garland, who has made several major announcements during his tenure, but taken no questions from reporters before Tuesday, did not reveal any new details about how those subpoenas were authorized and did not answer when asked when he had learned about

Republican filibuster blocks US voting bill

US Democrats’ sweeping attempt to rewrite US election and voting law on Tuesday suffered a major setback in the US Senate, blocked by a filibuster wall of Republican opposition to what would be the largest overhaul of the electoral system in a generation. The vote leaves the Democrats with no clear path forward, although US President Joe Biden said: “This fight is far from over.” The bill, known as the For the People Act, would touch on virtually every aspect of how elections are conducted, striking down hurdles to voting, while also curbing the influence of money in politics and limiting partisan influence over the drawing of congressional districts. However, many Republicans say the measure represents instead a breathtaking federal infringement on states’ authority to conduct their own elections without fraud — and is meant to ultimately benefit Democrats. It failed on a 50-50 vote after Republicans, some of whom derided the bill as the “Screw the People Act,” denied Democrats the 60 votes needed to begin debate under senate rules. US Vice President Kamala Harris presided over the chamber as the bill failed to break past that filibuster barrier. Biden praised Democratic senators for standing together “against the ongoing assault of voter suppression that represents a Jim Crow era in the 21st century.” In a statement from the White House, he said that in their actions, though unsuccessful on Tuesday, they “took the next step forward in this continuous struggle.” The rejection forces Democrats to reckon with what comes next for their top legislative priority in a narrowly divided senate. They have touted the measure as a powerful counterweight to scores of proposals advancing in Republican-controlled statehouses making it more difficult to vote. “Once again, the senate Republican minority has launched a partisan blockade of a pressing issue,” US Senate Majority Leader

Houston hospital workers fired, resign over vaccine

ANTI-VAX: A US federal judge on June 12 dismissed a complaint by 117 employees at Houston Methodist who likened taking COVID-19 vaccines to Nazi medical experiments

More than 150 employees at a Houston, Texas, hospital system who refused to get the COVID-19 vaccine have been fired or resigned after a judge dismissed an employee lawsuit over the vaccine requirement. A spokesperson for Houston Methodist hospital system said 153 employees either resigned in the two-week suspension period or were terminated on Tuesday. A federal judge on June 12 threw out the lawsuit filed by 117 employees over the requirement. The hospital system’s decision in April to require the vaccine for workers made it the first major US healthcare system to do so. The Houston Methodist employees who filed the lawsuit likened their situation to medical experiments performed on unwilling victims in Nazi concentration camps during World War II. US District Judge Lynn Hughes called that comparison “reprehensible,” and said claims made in the lawsuit that the vaccines are experimental and dangerous are false. Hughes, who dismissed the lawsuit on June 12, said that if the employees did not like the requirement, they could go work elsewhere. Those who filed the lawsuit have already appealed the judge’s dismissal to the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals. The hospital system had required employees to complete their immunization by June 7. The next day, 178 employees were suspended for two weeks without pay for not complying. Jennifer Bridges, a registered nurse who is the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit against Houston Methodist, said her director called her on Tuesday to ask if she had gotten the vaccine yet or made any effort to do so. She said that when she replied “absolutely not,” she was told that she was terminated. “We all knew we were getting fired today,” said Bridges, 39. “We knew unless we took that shot to come back, we were getting fired today. There was no ifs, ands or buts.” She had worked for six-and-a-half

Oil firms challenged over ‘greenwashing’ ads

As oil and gas majors increasingly tout their green credentials, climate change activists who say such claims are misleading are pursuing a new avenue to hold companies to account. While several US states and cities have filed lawsuits against fossil fuel firms over “greenwashing” in the past few years, three environmental groups took a different tack in March when they launched a landmark complaint against Chevron Corp. Rather than going through the courts, the green groups — Global Witness, Greenpeace and Earthworks — filed a false advertising complaint against Chevron with the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which enforces rules against deceptive ads. The three organizations are hopeful that their complaint to the national agency under US President Joe Biden’s administration will gain more traction than a lawsuit filed in a federal or state court, and lay down a marker for further action against “greenwashing.” “We would hope that a successful case against Chevron would set a precedent that would discourage other companies ... from engaging in these kinds of greenwashing tactics,” Zorka Milin, a senior legal adviser at Global Witness, said in a telephone interview. The FTC can send warnings or seek civil or financial penalties if it finds that firms have broken advertising laws that prohibit unfair or deceptive ads. The agency has said warnings are often enough to bring offending companies in line. The environmental groups said in the complaint that despite Chevron’s ads touting its investment in renewable energy, the company spent just 0.2 percent of its annual capital expenditure budget — about US$26 million a year — on lower-carbon energy sources. In a statement, Chevron called the complaint “frivolous” and said it was investing US$3 billion from this year to 2028 “to advance the energy transition.” The American Petroleum Institute (API), a leading trade group, rejected the notion that green ad campaigns by

Four Khashoggi hit squad members US-trained: report

Four members of the Saudi Arabian hit squad that killed US-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 had received paramilitary training in the US that had been approved by the US Department of State, the New York Times reported late on Tuesday. Khashoggi, a Saudi-born US resident who wrote for the Washington Post, was an outspoken critic of the Saudi Arabian leadership, with which he had once been close. He was murdered on October 2, 2018, in Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul by a team of agents sent from Riyadh. Four of those operatives had received training from a private US security group, Tier 1 Group, a move first authorized by the administration of then-US president Barack Obama in 2014, the New York Times said. That training continued at least until the start of Donald Trump’s presidency, it said. It cited a document provided to the Trump administration by a top official from the parent company of Tier 1 Group, the private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management, who had applied for a senior post at the Pentagon. In his written testimony, Louis Bremer confirmed that Tier 1 Group did provide training to the Saudi agents, but insisted that the training was “protective in nature” and “unrelated to their subsequent heinous acts.” Bremer said that the four members of the kill team received the training in 2017, and that two of them had already participated in a previous course from October 2014 to January 2015. The state department, contacted by Agence France-Presse, said it could not comment on this information, but called for the “responsible use ... of American military equipment and training.” According to a US report released in February, seven members of an elite unit tasked with protecting Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman were part of the hit squad that killed

World News Quick Take

UNITED STATES COVID-19 hits birth rate Nine months after the declaration of a national emergency due to the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, births across the nation fell by 8 percent in a month. The drop in December last year marked an acceleration in declines in the second half of the year. For the full year, the number of babies born fell 4 percent to about 3.6 million, the largest decline since 1973, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a report yesterday. The latest data are early evidence of the drastic impact from the health crisis on birth rates, with the full effect expected to show in this year’s data. The December declines were led by states like California, which experienced a 19 percent drop that month. In the second half of the year, New Mexico, New York, Hawaii and West Virginia also posted substantial decreases, ranging from 8 to 11 percent. Coupled with the more than 500,000 Americans who have died from COVID-19, the drop in births would have long-term consequences for the population growth. By race, the drop in births in December was most evident among Asian mothers, falling 19 percent from the same period in 2019. Black and Hispanic births dropped at about half that rate, while those among white mothers fell 6 percent. COLOMBIA Nation leads in butterflies The nation is home to the world’s largest variety of butterflies, about 20 percent of all known species, a study published on Tuesday by the Natural History Museum in London said. An international team of scientists catalogued 3,642 species and 2,085 subspecies, registering them in a document titled “Checklist of Colombian Butterflies.” More than 200 butterfly species are found only in the South American nation, said Blanca Huertas, the museum’s senior butterfly collection curator who was part of the

Cambodian eco-advocates charged with royal insult

‘CONSPIRACY’: Three environmentalists of advocacy group Mother Nature were arrested for documenting waste drainage into Phnom Penh’s Tonle Sap River

A Cambodian court has charged four environmental advocates with insulting the king and plotting against the government, an official said on Monday, after three of them were arrested for documenting waste run-off into a river. Use of royal defamation laws in Cambodia is a relatively new phenomenon, with the legislation only enacted in 2018. The three environmentalists — Sun Ratha, Ly Chandaravuth and Yim Leanghy of advocacy group Mother Nature — were on Wednesday arrested for documenting the draining of waste into Phnom Penh’s Tonle Sap River. Over the weekend, they were “charged with conspiracy to plot and for insulting the king,” Phnom Penh Municipal Court spokesman Plang Sophal said by text message on Monday. Also charged was Mother Nature cofounder Alejandro Gonzalez-Davidson, a Spanish environmentalist who was deported from Cambodia in 2015 after he criticized the government’s plans for a controversial dam. Sophal did not elaborate on why the environmentalists were hit with those particular charges. While Cambodia has a constitutional monarch, King Norodom Sihamoni, it is ruled by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, Asia’s longest-serving leader. In 2018, the enactment of the lese majeste laws triggered alarm from rights groups, who said that they could be used to target dissent. If sentenced, the Mother Nature environmentalists face a maximum penalty of five years in prison for insulting the king, as well as 10 years behind bars for the conspiracy charge. US Ambassador to Cambodia Patrick Murphy said he was “very troubled” to hear about the arrests. “Documenting pollution is a public service, not terrorism,” Murphy wrote on Twitter on Monday. “We urge authorities to be responsive to its citizens, not to silence them.” Last week, the US embassy condemned the “worsening” situation in Cambodia and announced that it was redirecting millions in funds from government entities to local non-governmental organizations. Mother Nature has faced a raft of legal troubles from

Australia defies UNESCO downgrade of barrier reef

Australia yesterday said that it would strongly oppose a UNESCO plan to list the Great Barrier Reef as “in danger” over deterioration caused by climate change. The UN body on Monday released a draft report recommending that the reef’s World Heritage status be downgraded because of its dramatic coral decline. Environmental campaigners said that the decision highlighted Australia’s lack of action to curb the carbon emissions that contribute to global warming. Australian Minister for the Environment Sussan Ley said that Australia would challenge the move, accusing UN officials of going back on assurances ahead of the World Heritage Committee’s 44th session in China next month, where the recommendation is to be formally considered. “Politics have subverted a proper process and for the World Heritage Committee to not even foreshadow this listing is, I think, appalling,” she told reporters in Canberra. The UN body did not consider the billions of dollars spent attempting to protect the world’s largest coral reef, she added. The committee’s draft report did commend Australia’s efforts to improve reef quality and its financial commitment, but added that “with the utmost concern and regret ... the long-term outlook for the ecosystem of the property has further deteriorated from poor to very poor,” referring to Australia’s move to downgrade the reef’s health status after back-to-back mass bleaching events in 2016 and 2017. Ley said that she had spoken to UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay late on Monday to express “very clearly our strong disappointment, even bewilderment.” Placement on the UN body’s in-danger list is not considered a sanction. UNESCO said that some nations have their sites added to gain international attention and help to save them, but it is seen as a dishonor by others. Australia has resisted calls to commit to a target of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison saying that the country

Singaporean woman gets 30 years for killing maid

A Singaporean woman who starved, assaulted and ultimately killed her domestic worker was yesterday sentenced to 30 years in prison, with the judge describing the case as “among the worst types of culpable homicide.” The abuse inflicted on Burmese national Piang Ngaih Don, 24, was particularly awful and captured on closed-circuit television installed in the family’s home. The domestic worker was stamped on, strangled, choked, battered with brooms and burnt with an iron, court documents showed. The domestic worker died in July 2016, after her employer, Gaiyathiri Murugayan, repeatedly assaulted her over several hours. Gaiyathiri, 41, pleaded guilty in February to 28 charges, including culpable homicide. After hearing an additional plea of mitigation submitted by Gaiyathiri in a bid to avoid the life sentence sought by the prosecution, Justice See Kee Oon sentenced her to 30 years in prison starting from the date of her arrest in 2016. See cited the “abject cruelty of the accused’s appalling conduct” in his sentencing, which he said must signal “societal outrage and abhorrence” at the crime. However, taking into account the defendant’s obsessive compulsive disorder and the depression she developed around the time she gave birth, See said that he did not think that life imprisonment was “fair and appropriate.” The maid was employed by Gaiyathiri and her husband in 2015 to help take care of their four-year-old daughter and one-year-old son, but Gaiyathiri physically assaulted the victim almost daily, often several times a day, with her 61-year-old mother sometimes joining in, court documents showed. The domestic worker, who had been employed by the family for more than one year at the time of her death, was only allowed to sleep for five hours per night, and was forced to shower and relieve herself with the door open. Provided very little food, she lost about 38 percent of her body weight during her

Hong Kong accused loses jury trial bid

CONCERNING: Denying Tong Ying-kit a jury could set a dangerous precedent, an academic said, adding that the government is chipping away at due process rights

A Hong Kong court yesterday ruled that the trial of the first person charged under the National Security Law can be held without a jury, likely setting a precedent for future cases. The Hong Kong Court of Appeal rejected a bid by Tong Ying-kit (唐英杰) for his trial to be heard by a jury, a break with the territory’s common law tradition. Instead, his case is to be decided by three national security judges picked by Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥). The trial should be held before judges because the personal safety of jurors or their relatives could be threatened during the proceedings, the appeals judges said in a written ruling. Tong’s trial on charges of incitement to secession and engaging in terrorist activities is to begin today. The case is being watched for signs of how the Hong Kong government plans to handle the National Security Law, which allows for punishments of as long as life in prison for subversion, secession, terrorism and collusion with foreign powers “The effort to deny Tong a jury trial could set a dangerous precedent, effectively allowing the government to deny all National Security Law defendants the right to a jury trial if they decide that doing so is in their interest,” said Thomas Kellogg, executive director of the Georgetown Center for Asian Law in Washington. “The government has been chipping away at various due process rights for the defendants since day one.” Tong, a waiter, was among several people arrested over protests held on July 1 last year against the legislation, which was handed down by Beijing the previous night without input from the Hong Kong Legislative Council. He is accused of driving a motorcycle into a group of police officers, while displaying a banner reading “Liberate Hong Kong; Revolution of our Times,” a popular protest slogan that