HONG KONG
Activist Albert Ho arrested
One of the territory’s best-known rights activists, Albert Ho (何俊仁), 71, was yesterday arrested by national security police for alleged witness tampering, a police source said. The lawyer and former lawmaker used to lead the now-disbanded Hong Kong Alliance, which organized an annual candlelight vigil for more than three decades to mourn the victims of China’s Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989. Ho is already facing up to a decade in jail over an “incitement to subversion” charge under the National Security Law, which Beijing imposed on Hong Kong in 2020. Ho was yesterday arrested for “allegedly interfering with witnesses” while on bail, said the source, who asked to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the case. Violation of bail conditions can lead to immediate arrest.
HONG KONG
‘Pooh’ horror film canned
The screening of Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, a British slasher film due to be released in the territory this week, has been canceled for “technical reasons,” movie Web sites said yesterday. Moviematic, which had organized a screening of the film for yesterday evening, reported the cancelation on its social media page. Several other Web sites and media also reported the cancelation of screenings. The movie’s distributor in Hong Kong, VII Pillars Entertainment, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A ticket-booking link on its Facebook page brought up a message saying ticketing was temporarily unavailable. Chinese censors have in the past targeted the film’s main character, originally conceptualized by English author A.A. Milne, due to memes that compare the bumbling bear to Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平).
INDIA
Internet cut for fugitive hunt
Police in India’s border state of Punjab yesterday continued their hunt for a fugitive Sikh separatist leader for a fourth day — with mobile Internet and messaging services for the region’s more than 27 million people cut off to prevent his supporters from gathering and inciting violence. The self-styled preacher, Amritpal Singh, has called on his followers to revive a banned secessionist movement that fought to create an independent state called Khalistan for followers of the Sikh faith in Punjab in the 1980s and early 1990s. A state-wide search for Singh was launched over the weekend, but the 30-year-old has so far evaded arrest. Punjab security personnel yesterday continued patrolling several districts, said Swarandeep Singh, a senior police official in the city of Jalandhar.
PAKISTAN
Eleven die in ‘family feud’
Shooters killed 11 people, including a prominent local politician in the country’s northwest, police said yesterday, blaming the ambush on a decades-long vendetta between families. Inter-family feuds are common in Pakistan. Police said 42-year-old Atif Munsif Khan, leader of a district council in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, was killed on Monday night in the town of Havelian, 33km north of Islamabad. District police official Omar Tufail said that “up to five people opened fire from two sides” on a vehicle carrying Khan and 10 others, including bodyguards and a police escort, “killing them all on the spot.” The Khan family registered a police complaint “blaming the assassination on their rivals” in a feud “said to be almost five decades old,” Tufail said. “Dozens of people from both sides have been killed as a result of this family feud so far,” he added.
UNITED STATES
Intel on COVID declassified
President Joe Biden on Monday signed into law a bill requiring the release of intelligence materials on potential links between the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and a laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan. “We need to get to the bottom of COVID-19’s origins ... including potential links to the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” Biden said in a statement. “In implementing this legislation, my administration will declassify and share as much of that information as possible,” he added. Biden said that in 2021, after taking office, he had “directed the Intelligence Community to use every tool at its disposal to investigate.” That work is “ongoing,” but as much as possible will be released without causing “harm to national security,” the president said.
UNITED STATES
Two wild areas protected
President Joe Biden was to announce yesterday that he was designating two giant wilderness areas in Nevada and Texas as national monuments, as well as considering a new marine sanctuary in the Pacific. The White House said Biden would establish the Avi Kwa Ame National Monument in Nevada and the Castner Range National Monument in Texas, protecting from development more than 200,00 hectares of public land. “He will also direct the secretary of commerce to consider initiating a new National Marine Sanctuary designation within the next 30 days to protect all US waters around the Pacific Remote Islands,” the White House press office said.
THAILAND
Elections set for May 14
The nation is to hold a general election on May 14, with a pre-poll survey showing opposition parties holding a clear lead over military-backed establishment parties in the outgoing government led by Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha. Candidates should register to contest the 400 constituency seats to the House of Representatives between April 3 and 7, the Election Commission said in a statement yesterday. Political parties will need to nominate their candidates for the 100 party-list seats during those dates, it said in a statement. Parties must submit a list of their prime ministerial nominees to the election agency by April 7. After the May vote, the newly elected members of the lower house and the military-appointed Senate will pick the nation’s next leader from the list of candidates.
ETHIOPIA
US comments ‘inflammatory’
The government yesterday accused the US of taking a “partisan” approach by alleging that its forces, and Eritrean troops, had committed war crimes during the two-year conflict in Tigray. “The US statement is inflammatory,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement, a day after Washington accused all parties to the conflict of committing war crimes, but singled out Ethiopian, Eritrean and regional Amhara forces for crimes against humanity, without mentioning the Tigrayan rebels. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who last week made his first visit to Ethiopia since a breakthrough peace deal between the federal government and Tigrayan rebels, on Monday made a forceful call for accountability on his return to Washington.He said the Department of State had carried out a “careful review of the law and the facts,” and concluded that war crimes were committed by federal troops from both Ethiopia and its ally Eritrea, as well as by the rebel Tigray People’s Liberation Front.
BACKLASH: The National Party quit its decades-long partnership with the Liberal Party after their election loss to center-left Labor, which won a historic third term Australia’s National Party has split from its conservative coalition partner of more than 60 years, the Liberal Party, citing policy differences over renewable energy and after a resounding loss at a national election this month. “Its time to have a break,” Nationals leader David Littleproud told reporters yesterday. The split shows the pressure on Australia’s conservative parties after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor party won a historic second term in the May 3 election, powered by a voter backlash against US President Donald Trump’s policies. Under the long-standing partnership in state and federal politics, the Liberal and National coalition had shared power
CONTROVERSY: During the performance of Israel’s entrant Yuval Raphael’s song ‘New Day Will Rise,’ loud whistles were heard and two people tried to get on stage Austria’s JJ yesterday won the Eurovision Song Contest, with his operatic song Wasted Love triumphing at the world’s biggest live music television event. After votes from national juries around Europe and viewers from across the continent and beyond, JJ gave Austria its first victory since bearded drag performer Conchita Wurst’s 2014 triumph. After the nail-biting drama as the votes were revealed running into yesterday morning, Austria finished with 436 points, ahead of Israel — whose participation drew protests — on 357 and Estonia on 356. “Thank you to you, Europe, for making my dreams come true,” 24-year-old countertenor JJ, whose
A documentary whose main subject, 25-year-old photojournalist Fatima Hassouna, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza weeks before it premiered at Cannes stunned viewers into silence at the festival on Thursday. As the cinema lights came back on, filmmaker Sepideh Farsi held up an image of the young Palestinian woman killed with younger siblings on April 16, and encouraged the audience to stand up and clap to pay tribute. “To kill a child, to kill a photographer is unacceptable,” Farsi said. “There are still children to save. It must be done fast,” the exiled Iranian filmmaker added. With Israel
Africa has established the continent’s first space agency to boost Earth observation and data sharing at a time when a more hostile global context is limiting the availability of climate and weather information. The African Space Agency opened its doors last month under the umbrella of the African Union and is headquartered in Cairo. The new organization, which is still being set up and hiring people in key positions, is to coordinate existing national space programs. It aims to improve the continent’s space infrastructure by launching satellites, setting up weather stations and making sure data can be shared across
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