Media mogul Jimmy Lai and veteran activist Lee Cheuk Yan each sentenced to 12 months over protests
A group of high-profile Hong Kong pro-democracy activists including the media mogul Jimmy Lai have been sentenced to jail terms of up to 18 months for organising or attending ?€?unauthorised assemblies?€? during mass protests that rocked the city in 2019.
In the latest blow to Hong Kong?€?s pro-democracy movement, Lai and the veteran activist Lee Cheuk Yan were each sentenced to 12 months in jail. Another activist, ?€?Long Hair?€? Leung Kwok-hung, received the longest sentence, of 18 months, while Martin Lee, an 82-year-old barrister widely known as the father of Hong Kong democracy, and Margaret Ng, a 73-year-old barrister and former legislator, were given 11 and 12 months respectively, both sentences suspended for two years.
Ten diplomats expelled as part of fresh package of sanctions announced by US president as Russia says retaliation ?€?inevitable?€?
The Biden administration has announced the expulsion of 10 Russian diplomats and broad sanctions against Russian officials and companies in retaliation for Moscow?€?s interference in elections and cyber-espionage campaigns such as the SolarWinds hack.
The sanctions, which were the Biden administration?€?s largest punitive action against the Kremlin yet, also targeted six Russian cybersecurity companies deemed to be involved in the SolarWinds hack, as well as 32 individuals and entities deemed to be involved in efforts to influence the outcome of the 2020 US presidential election.
Chicago mayor urges calm in the city as body-cam footage of fatal shooting of Toledo is released for first time
Body camera video footage released for the first time on Thursday appears to show a Chicago police officer fatally shooting Adam Toledo, a 13-year-old, as he raised his hands into the air.
The footage has ignited fresh outrage in the city where Toledo was shot last month. On Thursday, Chicago?€?s mayor, Lori Lightfoot, stood alongside Latino community leaders and called for calm.
Brexit minister David Frost says momentum has been established in efforts to ease tensions
Talks between the EU and UK to ease tensions in Northern Ireland have been described as ?€?productive?€? and ?€?constructive?€? with momentum now established to achieve a solution to the crisis, the Brexit minister, David Frost, has said.
But the EU used the first face-to-face meeting since lockdown between Lord Frost and the European commission vice-president, Maro? ?ef?ovi?, to warn that the outcome needed to be jointly agreed.
Dust blown in from drought-hit areas to the north sends pollution soaring to twice the hazardous level
The third major sandstorm in five weeks turned Beijing?€?s skies sepia on Thursday, and sent air quality plummeting in the Chinese capital.
The storms, caused by winds from drought-hit Mongolia and north-western China, sent levels of the pollutant PM10, which can penetrate the lung, to 999 micrograms per cubic metre - a level almost double the ?€?hazardous?€? stage indicated by the Beijing air pollution real time quality index.
Brothers will be separated by cousin Peter Phillips as they walk behind coffin, Buckingham Palace reveals
The Dukes of Cambridge and Sussex will walk apart for their grandfather?€?s funeral, which is likely to see the Queen sitting alone, details released by Buckingham Palace reveal.
Prince William and Prince Harry, whose troubled relationship was further strained after the Sussexes?€? controversial interview with Oprah Winfrey, will be separated by their cousin Peter Phillips as they walk behind the coffin of the Duke of Edinburgh on Saturday.
Proposals include making sale of cigarettes to anyone born after 2004 illegal
New Zealand has announced a suite of proposals aimed at outlawing smoking for the next generation and moving the country closer to its goal of being smoke-free by 2025.
The plans include the gradual increase of the legal smoking age, which could extend to a ban on the sale of cigarettes and tobacco products to anyone born after 2004, making smoking effectively illegal for that generation.
US publishing giant was due to distribute Jonathan Mattingly?€?s The Fight for Truth for rightwing outlet Post Hill Press
Simon & Schuster has said that it will not be distributing a book by one of the police officers who shot Breonna Taylor, after a small publisher whose books are distributed through S&S announced the book to widespread criticism.
The Fight for Truth: The Inside Story Behind the Breonna Taylor Tragedy is by Sgt Jonathan Mattingly, a Louisville, Kentucky, officer who shot Taylor and was wounded in the raid on her home in March last year. The book is being published by Post Hill Press, a small independent that specialises in ?€?conservative politics?€? and Christian titles, and home to authors including far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer and the embattled Republican congressman Matt Gaetz.
Pakistani government bans religious leader as row over satirical cartoons simmers
French nationals and companies in Pakistan have been advised by their embassy to leave temporarily after violent anti-France protests brought large parts of the country to a standstill.
Anti-French sentiment has been simmering for months in Pakistan since Emmanuel Macron expressed support for a satirical magazine?€?s right to republish cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad, deemed blasphemous by many Muslims.
New York bankruptcy court rules in favour of payout to 277 people who travelled to Bahamas for notorious ?€?luxury?€? event
A group of 277 attendees at the notorious Fyre festival are to receive settlement payouts of $7,220 (£5,240) each after the conclusion of a lawsuit against the organisers.
The 2017 event drew global attention after the supposedly luxury music experience, promoted by supermodels and set to feature artists such as Major Lazer and Migos, turned out to resemble a disaster relief camp with windswept tents and decidedly non-gourmet food. Attendees had spent between $1,000 and $12,000 on tickets to the festival, which was cancelled on its opening day.
One month after Michel Castro?€?s premature brush with death, the coronavirus infection has receded but the nightmares persist.
In them the 31-year-old father relives the spine-chilling scenes he witnessed as his Covid-hit body battled for survival in a Rio ICU. The six-month-old baby who appeared to be suffocating right next to him. The man urinating blood after his kidneys failed. The unnerving bleep-bleep-bleep of machines warning doctors that yet another life was on the line.
Just a bit more from Thailand here. As expected, the country will close schools, bars and massage parlours, as well as ban alcohol sales in restaurants, for at least two weeks starting from Sunday, after a jump in Covid-19 cases, Reuters report.
Activities involving more than 50 people will also be prohibited, Thailand?€?s coronavirus taskforce spokesman, Taweesin Wisanuyothin, said, adding that 18 provinces including Bangkok had been labelled as red zones with the rest of the country categorised as orange zones.
The French president Emmanuel Macron told local mayors in a video-link up last night that the epidemic was likely to progress in France over the next eight to 10 days, with a peak of infections between the 25 April and 30 April, and a peak in hospital admissions between now and the end of the month.
The government spokesman said this morning that creches, nursery schools and primary schools would definitely reopen as planned on 26 April, with secondary schools following on 3 May. The government has not yet set a date for gradually reopening outdoor dining or museums, which could progressively begin from mid-May, and might be organised by region.
Pfizer CEO has also said it is ?€?likely?€? people will need a third coronavirus vaccine dose within a year
The US is preparing for the possibility that a booster shot will be needed between nine and 12 months after people are initially vaccinated against Covid-19, a White House official said on Thursday.
The mysterious world under our feet is under threat. Protecting it is as vital as tackling the climate crisis, scientists warn
Hidden under our feet is a miniature landscape made up of tunnels, caves and decaying matter. Soil is where a quarter of the species on our planet are believed to live and in this dark, quiet, damp world, death feeds life. Rotting leaves, fruits, plants and organisms are folded into the soil and burped out as something new.
Good soil structure provides many nooks and crannies that house organisms, which, in turn, create an environment that suits them, directly altering - and improving - the structure of soil. Like a collective of tiny chemists, they keep soils healthy and productive by passing nutrients between them, either by collaborating or killing each other.
The duke was instrumental in getting the royals on screen, but his reduced funeral coverage will reflect how he came to regret the increasingly torrid exposure
By numerous accounts, Prince Philip liked being proved right - so there might be posthumous vindication in his death getting broadcasters into trouble. The BBC?€?s decision to reduce its five national TV networks and 11 radio networks into a single obituary stream for much of the day led to a rush of complaints - and a rapid email to staff acknowledging that subsequent coverage would be scaled back.
This diminution of coverage neatly reflected the duke?€?s relationship with broadcast media: over eight decades he went from not being able to get enough airtime to not wanting any. In line with his wishes, his funeral tomorrow will be televised, by modern royal standards, as minimally as possible.
A collective of projects across Iberia is protecting commercial signs to create a living archive
Fire engine red, bordered by polka dots and stretching the length of three cars, the sign for the Orte clothing store had long loomed over Madrid?€?s Alcalá thoroughfare, its presence steady even as fast-food restaurants and chain stores began moving into the area.
When the store closed its doors and the space was poised to be rented, news swiftly reached Alberto Nanclares. Within days he was on site, working with a team to painstakingly pry the sign from the facade where it had sat for more than five decades.
I have two pieces of fish, an onion, an egg, baked beans and biscuits. Being a farmer means every day is the same
I have lived in the Teifi valley, in west Wales, all my life: 72 years. I?€?m a farmer and look after 71 sheep. My boyhood was spent helping my family on the farm. I have never wanted to run away from it, even as a young lad. This valley is cut in the shape of my heart. I once visited a farm in England, about 30 years ago; that was the only time I left Wales.
Many of the friends I grew up with left to find work in the big cities. As a young man, I was offered a job in Scotland on the oil rigs, but I could never leave. My heart belongs here with the birds and the trees. I knew, if I left, I?€?d be thinking about my valley the whole time, so what would be the point? All I want is right here.
?€?Restaurants are back, back, back, so I booked breakfast to see off the misery of the past year?€?
In the happy run-up to last Monday?€?s grand reopening of restaurants and pubs, a fleck of disquiet seeped into the shallower end of my brain. I have craved many things over these recent months of confinement - printed menus, petits fours, the chance to wear smoky eye kohl - but one thing I?€?d not missed was Fomo (that?€?s ?€?fear of missing out?€?, should you not be up on modern acronyms). Fomo is the pernicious, all-consuming suspicion that other people elsewhere are having fun or, in my case as a restaurant critic, eating at better, more exclusive restaurants on nicer tables, which they booked ages ago. If I were to put a face on this hypothetical person, he would be a tall man with shaggy brown hair who plays jazz piano. Let?€?s call him Jay Rayner. OK, it is Jay Rayner, but, sometimes, it is other people.
Fomo is pathetic, but also sinister, because it sabotages your ability just quietly to ?€?be?€?. Thankfully, it?€?s at its most acute in teenagers, which is why merely asking one of them to look directly at you for upwards of half a minute, rather than at a phone displaying constantly revolving reels of ?€?other people having fun?€?, is deemed an act of war. Fomo is more complex still by your late 20s, when it comes with a second layer of the lesser-known Jomo (joy of missing out). This is when anxiety about Friday night Fomo is followed by waking brightly at 7am on a Saturday without a hangover, and with the freedom to make wholesome plans: hot yoga, bottomless brunch and, inevitably, a saunter to a farmers?€? market to spend £35 on four heritage parsnips.
Pre-pandemic, and now in my 40s, I experienced both Fomo and Jomo, as well as that sharpest, diary-related thrill of all: ?€?High as a kite on cancelled plans.?€? This is when the date you made six weeks ago to ?€?catch up?€? at 8pm this coming Friday with an old colleague ?€?for a bite?€? is cancelled by the other party at 5.20pm, leaving me to haul my grumbling knee home, unhook my bra as I walk up the corridor and drape it over the bannister before eating leftover pasta out of Tupperware in front of The One Show. Actual ecstasy. Then came Covid, and all these things were taken away.
But now they?€?re back, back, back. At the start of April, as whispers began to reach me of other people?€?s holiday cottages in the Ribble Valley and someone who?€?d booked the private room at a fun Soho restaurant for every weekend in May, an inner voice told me that I was already way behind. There was a level of emotional calm back in those days when nobody seemed to be having fun, except the Kardashians and the Beckhams, both of whom learned by the 10th internet pile-on to be discreet.
On cars, restaurant walls and buildings reduced to rubble, Bashar al-Assad?€?s face is plastered across the country, a decade after he crushed the first protests against his rule. By photographer Rami al-Bustan
New stations at health clinics improve hygiene in locations where warm water seen as ?€?an absolute luxury?€?, helping to tackle Covid
In Eswatini, the southern African country which lost a prime minister to Covid-19 in December and where most people have no access to hot water, handwashing - a key weapon in the fight against the pandemic - has been a problem.
No government health clinic in the kingdom, formerly known as Swaziland, had hot running water for patients. Nine out of 10 didn?€?t have hot water for operations and cleaning instruments.
The most conservative Democrat can decide whether bills are signed or left to meander in political purgatory in Congress
An increasing large number of lobbyists and outside groups in America all have a similar target: Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia.
And it?€?s understandable why. In a Senate where Democrats hold the slimmest of majorities a vote by Manchin, the most conservative Senate Democrat, can decide whether legislation is signed into law or left to meander in political purgatory in Congress.
The veteran activists and politicians Martin Lee, Jimmy Lai, Margaret Ng and Lee Cheuk-yan have been sentenced to up to 12 months in jail for their involvement in Hong Kong?€?s protest movement.
The prime minister says a 48-year-old NSW woman who died after receiving the Covid vaccine had ?€?comorbidities and other issues?€?
The prime minister, Scott Morrison, and Australia?€?s chief medical officer have warned people not to ?€?jump to conclusions?€? and assume a 48-year-old woman who died with blood clots developed them due to the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine.
The woman, from Lake Macquarie on the state?€?s Central Coast, died on Wednesday after receiving the vaccine, reportedly last Friday.
As Britain cuts aid to war-torn country on brink of famine Muslim charities are directing donations towards feeding population
The Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, which started this week, is the biggest period of giving for UK Muslims.
According to research by the Muslim Charities Forum, in 2018 the UK?€?s estimated 3.5 million Muslims donated more than £120m to global charitable causes during Ramadan, at a rate of £46 every second.
Rwanda study raises fears erosion of efficacy may have begun, with children at greatest risk
Resistance to malaria drugs in Africa may be starting to take hold, according to a study that maps changes similar to those seen a decade ago when drug resistance spread in south-east Asia.
In Cambodia and neighbouring countries, the artemisinin drug compounds widely used against malaria are no longer always effective. The falciparum malaria parasites have developed genetic mutations that allow them to evade the drugs. There has been great concern that drug resistance could spread to Africa, which has the highest burden of cases of this type of malaria - and the highest toll of child deaths from it.
Proposals follow Kenyan government?€?s ultimatum to UN refugee agency to close Dadaab and Kakuma camps
The UN refugee agency has given the Kenyan government ?€?sustainable and rights-based?€? proposals for the closure of Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps.
The response follows a 14-day ultimatum issued by the Kenyan government for the UN high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR) to come up with a plan for closing the two camps, which are home to some 430,000 refugees and asylum seekers from more than 15 countries.
Women in the Middle East and north Africa say social codes leave them unable to talk about social media abuse as pandemic pushes sexual harassment off the streets
The first pornographic picture sent shivers of shock through Amal as she stared in horror at the phone screen. Until now, she had responded politely to the older man who had been messaging her on Facebook, hoping to deter his questions about her life with curt, one-word replies.
More lurid pictures followed, some from pornographic magazines, others of the man himself in sexual poses. ?€?I started to blame myself and feel that I invited this because I had replied to him,?€? says the 21-year-old, who is a university student in Amman, Jordan.
Doctors have expressed fears for patients after the government ordered that the majority of the beds in 14 of Delhi?€?s biggest private hospitals be reserved exclusively for Covid patients, as the Indian capital?€?s healthcare system struggles to cope with a virulent second wave.
The announcement by the government came as the situation in Delhi grew increasingly dire, with over 17,000 new cases reported on Wednesday, breaking all records since the pandemic began, and 104 deaths. The capital has overtaken Mumbai, previously Covid ground zero in India, in terms of the number of new cases reported every day.
Analysis: Ukraine?€?s military is in better shape than at outbreak of war in 2014, but still no match for Russia?€?s larger force
Russia?€?s unexplained buildup along Ukraine?€?s border set alarm bells ringing in the west last month as military analysts noted unusual flourishes - such as new field hospitals, long-distance shipments of armour and artillery and last-minute railcar bookings - that did not feel like a normal exercise.
Whether it is merely an attention-grabbing feint or a prelude to an escalation will depend on the Kremlin?€?s will. But through the buildup, Russia has already signalled that if a larger war does take place, it is prepared to deliver a hammer blow to its neighbour.
Analysis: Despite warnings not enough has been done to stablise the country, the president has decided to set aside the rule ?€?if you break it, you fix it?€?
Joe Biden has decided that 20 years is enough for America?€?s longest war, and has ordered the remaining troops out no matter what happens between now and September.
Biden?€?s withdrawal is one area of continuity with his predecessor, although unlike Donald Trump, this administration consulted the Afghans, US allies and its own agencies before announcing the decision. But both presidents were responding to a national weariness of ?€?forever wars?€?.
The call in the US for a pause in the use of the single-shot Johnson & Johnson Covid vaccine is another blow to hopes of vaccinating the whole world as fast as possible.
Health agencies recommended that US states pause use of the jab while investigations take place into six cases of women who have experienced rare blood clotting events combined with low platelets in the days following vaccination.
Evidence is growing of a link between the Covid-19 vaccine and a deadly thrombosis - and theories are emerging as to why
Since rare but severe clotting was seen in some people following vaccination with AstraZeneca?€?s Covid-19 vaccine, researchers worldwide have been grappling to understand why the clotting syndrome, known as ?€?thrombosis with thrombocytopenia?€? (clotting with a low platelet count), occurs.
Most cases of these clots occurred in veins in the brain (a condition called cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, or CVST), though some occurred in other veins, including those to the abdomen (splanchnic vein thrombosis). It has a high death rate.
At least eight people have been shot and killed at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis and the suspected gunman killed himself, police have said. Multiple other people were injured and taken to local hospitals, a police spokesperson, Genae Cook, said at an early morning news conference on Friday
Adam Toledo, a 13-year old boy shot and killed by a Chicago police officer, was not carrying a gun, his family's lawyer has said, contrary to claims made by the police department. Officials released to the public graphic body-camera footage showing an officer shooting Adam, who appeared to have his hands raised. 'Those videos speak for themselves,' said Adeena J Weiss-Ortiz, the family's lawyer. 'Adam, during his last second of life, did not have a gun in his hand'
Thousands of Nepalese gathered to celebrate the Bisket Jatra festival in the town of Thimi, despite a government request for gatherings not to exceed 25 people. As part of the celebrations, coloured powder is spread to welcome the arrival of spring. Bisket Jatra began on Saturday and lasts for nine days
The family of Daunte Wright expressed their grief and shock after he was shot dead by a white police officer in Minnesota last Sunday. His mother, Katie Wright, said it was impossible for her to imagine justice for her son's death. 'We're never going to be able to see our baby boy again,' she said. Wright's father, Aubrey, said: 'He was a good kid. And the way he was killed, he did not deserve that. Can you blame my son for being scared of the police?'
Adelaida Sánchez is a member of the community police force in Cherán, a Purépecha indigenous town in Michoacán, Mexico, which declared itself autonomous in 2011. When the town was under siege from illegal logging, cartel criminals, and corrupt authorities and the men of the town stood by and did nothing, it was left to women to lead the fightback. On the tenth anniversary of the uprising, Adelaida patrols the town and its forests, providing an oasis amidst the murder, kidnap and extortion across the state
Joe Biden has declared that it is time 'to end America?€?s longest war', announcing that nearly 10,000 US and Nato troops would return home in the run-up to the 20th anniversary of 9/11. Biden said he was the fourth US president to serve in office during the US-led fight against the Taliban. 'I will not pass this responsibility on to a fifth,' he said
Three days after La Soufrière volcano began to erupt on St Vincent, the eastern Caribbean island remains under a shower of ash and subject to water restrictions as authorities grow concerned for the safety of those who did not evacuate.
Large number of US citizens demonstrated against the war in Iraq (and the possible war in Iran) during this October weekend. Massive turnout in Boston and San Fransisco, and also in Chicago, LA and DC people took to the streets. The message was: NO more war in Iraq! NO to a war with Iran!
