This article was published more than 2 years agoCommentGift ShareHONG KONG — Secret police, surveillance, arbitrary detentions, propaganda in classrooms — all of these will be coming to Hong Kong under a far-reaching national security law Beijing is unilaterally imposing on the territory.Details of the measure submitted to China’s rubber-stamp legislature on Friday specify that the Communist Party can deploy to Hong Kong, giving legal cover for the first time for the mainland security apparatus to operate in the previously autonomous financial center.With approval expected within a...…This article was published more than 2 years agoCommentGift ShareHONG KONG — Secret police, surveillance, arbitrary detentions, propaganda in classrooms — all of these will be coming to Hong Kong under a far-reaching national security law Beijing is unilaterally imposing on the territory.Details of the measure submitted to China’s rubber-stamp legislature on Friday specify that the Communist Party can deploy to Hong Kong, giving legal cover for the first time for the mainland security apparatus to operate in the previously autonomous financial center.With approval expected within a...WW…

This article was published more than 2 years agoCommentGift ShareHONG KONG — Martin Lee has tangled with the Chinese Communist Party countless times in his decades-long fight to achieve free elections in Hong Kong and for the city's democratic ambitions.Last weekend, the police came knocking. Seven officers appeared at Lee’s home and arrested the 81-year-old for participating in an unauthorized protest last year that 1.7 million people attended. other democracy activists were detained the same day.The arrests buttressed a week of coordinated actions by Beijing that experts say...…This article was published more than 2 years agoCommentGift ShareHONG KONG — Martin Lee has tangled with the Chinese Communist Party countless times in his decades-long fight to achieve free elections in Hong Kong and for the city's democratic ambitions.Last weekend, the police came knocking. Seven officers appeared at Lee’s home and arrested the 81-year-old for participating in an unauthorized protest last year that 1.7 million people attended. other democracy activists were detained the same day.The arrests buttressed a week of coordinated actions by Beijing that experts say...WW…

This article was published more than 4 years agoCommentGift ShareMAE SAI, Thailand — Rescuers were poised late Monday for the next day’s push in the painstaking, dangerous mission to free the young soccer players still trapped in a flooded cave in northern Thailand, 17 nights after their group went missing.The mission to extract the 12 Thai boys and their coach accelerated Monday, with four more brought to safety in the second day of rescue efforts. The boys are being led out one at a time, each with two divers from an international team of 18, through winding, narrow passageways...…This article was published more than 4 years agoCommentGift ShareMAE SAI, Thailand — Rescuers were poised late Monday for the next day’s push in the painstaking, dangerous mission to free the young soccer players still trapped in a flooded cave in northern Thailand, 17 nights after their group went missing.The mission to extract the 12 Thai boys and their coach accelerated Monday, with four more brought to safety in the second day of rescue efforts. The boys are being led out one at a time, each with two divers from an international team of 18, through winding, narrow passageways...WW…

This article was published more than 3 years agoCommentGift ShareIn the wee hours of a rainy Monday, more than a dozen buses sat on the tarmac at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport. Inside, 328 weary Americans wearing surgical masks and gloves waited anxiously to fly home after weeks in quarantine aboard the Diamond Princess, the luxury liner where the novelhad ­exploded into a shipwide epidemic.But as the buses idled, U.S. officials wrestled with troubling news. New test results showed that 14 passengers were infected with the virus. The U.S. State Department had promised that no one with the...…This article was published more than 3 years agoCommentGift ShareIn the wee hours of a rainy Monday, more than a dozen buses sat on the tarmac at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport. Inside, 328 weary Americans wearing surgical masks and gloves waited anxiously to fly home after weeks in quarantine aboard the Diamond Princess, the luxury liner where the novelhad ­exploded into a shipwide epidemic.But as the buses idled, U.S. officials wrestled with troubling news. New test results showed that 14 passengers were infected with the virus. The U.S. State Department had promised that no one with the...WW…

HONG KONG — Choy Yuk-ling, better known as Bao Choy, is among this city's most dogged journalists. Her work for public broadcaster Radio Television Hong Kong has tackled police misconduct, election-rigging, and flaws in personal protective equipment during the coronavirus pandemic.Last week, nearly a dozen officers arrested Choy at her home for a routine journalistic practice: accessing a public database of car registrations. She was investigating the failure of police to keep a and others at a subway station last year. Two were that same week, one for resisting the police while filming and...…HONG KONG — Choy Yuk-ling, better known as Bao Choy, is among this city's most dogged journalists. Her work for public broadcaster Radio Television Hong Kong has tackled police misconduct, election-rigging, and flaws in personal protective equipment during the coronavirus pandemic.Last week, nearly a dozen officers arrested Choy at her home for a routine journalistic practice: accessing a public database of car registrations. She was investigating the failure of police to keep a and others at a subway station last year. Two were that same week, one for resisting the police while filming and...WW…

This article was published more than 3 years agoCommentGift ShareHONG KONG — The looming new crisis came into view late last week, when an oddly large proportion of people on Hong Kong's streets could be seen clutching bags of toilet paper, sometimes supplemented with boxes of tissues.Curious, I toured my local grocery stores. Supplies of meat seemed to be flowing back in after a brief absence, and the vegetable aisle once again was a rainbow of color, as greens, carrots, peppers and other basics returned to shelves. I was cautiously optimistic that two weeks of panic-buying — on a...…This article was published more than 3 years agoCommentGift ShareHONG KONG — The looming new crisis came into view late last week, when an oddly large proportion of people on Hong Kong's streets could be seen clutching bags of toilet paper, sometimes supplemented with boxes of tissues.Curious, I toured my local grocery stores. Supplies of meat seemed to be flowing back in after a brief absence, and the vegetable aisle once again was a rainbow of color, as greens, carrots, peppers and other basics returned to shelves. I was cautiously optimistic that two weeks of panic-buying — on a...WW…

Listen15 minCommentGift ShareIn February 2019, not long before India’s general election, a pair of Facebook employees set up a dummy account to better understand the experience of a new user in the company’s largest market. They made a profile of a 21-year-old woman, a resident of North India, and began to track what Facebook showed her.At first, her feed filled with soft-core porn and other, more harmless, fare. Then violence flared in Kashmir, the site of a long-running territorial dispute between India and Pakistan. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, campaigning for reelection as a...…Listen15 minCommentGift ShareIn February 2019, not long before India’s general election, a pair of Facebook employees set up a dummy account to better understand the experience of a new user in the company’s largest market. They made a profile of a 21-year-old woman, a resident of North India, and began to track what Facebook showed her.At first, her feed filled with soft-core porn and other, more harmless, fare. Then violence flared in Kashmir, the site of a long-running territorial dispute between India and Pakistan. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, campaigning for reelection as a...WW…

This article was published more than 2 years agoCommentGift ShareHONG KONG — Bank tellers, cooks, grocery workers and hundreds of thousands of others in Myanmar answered a call for a general strike on Monday to protest the military coup, bringing cities to a standstill despite fears of a violent crackdown.The show of defiance was the largest and most coordinated since the military , and it came against the backdrop of official warnings of bloodshed. Protesters hoped to send a signal that they will not accept military rule and are willing to cripple the economy and risk death to achieve...…This article was published more than 2 years agoCommentGift ShareHONG KONG — Bank tellers, cooks, grocery workers and hundreds of thousands of others in Myanmar answered a call for a general strike on Monday to protest the military coup, bringing cities to a standstill despite fears of a violent crackdown.The show of defiance was the largest and most coordinated since the military , and it came against the backdrop of official warnings of bloodshed. Protesters hoped to send a signal that they will not accept military rule and are willing to cripple the economy and risk death to achieve...WW…

This article was published more than 2 years agoCommentGift ShareHONG KONG — Hong Kong's national security police on Thursday arrested 11 people accused of helping a group of activists attempt to , according to and friends of those detained, expanding the dragnet around those connected with the democracy movement.The group of activists, known as the Hong Kong 12, were captured by Chinese authorities at sea in August and held incommunicado for months; 10 were by a Chinese court to prison terms of between seven months and three years. The other two, both minors at the time of their...…This article was published more than 2 years agoCommentGift ShareHONG KONG — Hong Kong's national security police on Thursday arrested 11 people accused of helping a group of activists attempt to , according to and friends of those detained, expanding the dragnet around those connected with the democracy movement.The group of activists, known as the Hong Kong 12, were captured by Chinese authorities at sea in August and held incommunicado for months; 10 were by a Chinese court to prison terms of between seven months and three years. The other two, both minors at the time of their...WW…

This article was published more than 2 years agoCommentGift ShareHONG KONG — The police officers who came to take away Owen Chow on last week left little to chance.Determined to find his phones, they had prepared a list of cellphone numbers registered to his name, even one he used exclusively for banking, the 23-year-old Hong Kong activist said. Officers called each number in succession, the vibrations revealing the locations of three iPhones around his apartment.By the end of their raids, police had amassed more than 200 devices from Chow and 52 others held that day for alleged...…This article was published more than 2 years agoCommentGift ShareHONG KONG — The police officers who came to take away Owen Chow on last week left little to chance.Determined to find his phones, they had prepared a list of cellphone numbers registered to his name, even one he used exclusively for banking, the 23-year-old Hong Kong activist said. Officers called each number in succession, the vibrations revealing the locations of three iPhones around his apartment.By the end of their raids, police had amassed more than 200 devices from Chow and 52 others held that day for alleged...WW…