Pro-democracy protesters staged a series of small rallies in Hong Kong on Christmas Eve. Police arrested 12 people following scuffles at one demonstration in Mong Kok. Protesters carrying yellow umbrellas, the symbol of the ‘umbrella revolution’, also staged marches in Causeway Bay and Admiralty. Footage is described as showing a number of demonstrators being arrested near Admiralty. Credit: YouTube/SocREC 社會記錄協會
A former researcher working in the U.K. Parliament and another man charged with spying for China were granted bail Friday after an initial court appearance in London. Christopher Cash, 29, and Christopher Berry, 32, were charged with violating the Official Secrets Act by providing information or documents that could be “useful to an enemy” — China — and “prejudicial to the safety or interests” of the U.K. between late 2021 and February 2023. Cash, a parliamentary researcher who worked with senior lawmakers from the governing Conservatives, was ordered not to enter Parliament or contact members of the House of Commons.
Egypt sent a high-level delegation to Israel on Friday with the hope of brokering a cease-fire agreement with Hamas in Gaza, two officials said. At the same time, it warned that a possible Israeli offensive focused on Gaza's city of Rafah on the border with Egypt could have catastrophic consequences to regional stability. Egypt's top intelligence official, Abbas Kamel, is leading the delegation and plans to discuss with Israel a “new vision” for a prolonged cease-fire in Gaza, an Egyptian official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the mission freely.
Zuckerberg's track record of making money only after achieving a kind of critical mass is a harder sell for AI.
Philippine forces killed an Abu Sayyaf militant, who had been implicated in past beheadings, including of 10 Filipino marines and two kidnapped Vietnamese, in a clash in the south, police officials said Friday. Philippine police, backed by military intelligence agents, killed Nawapi Abdulsaid in a brief gunbattle Wednesday night in the remote coastal town of Hadji Mohammad Ajul on Basilan island after weeks of surveillance, security officials said.
The Burkinabe army has repeatedly committed mass atrocities against civilians in the name of fighting terrorism, HRW said, calling on authorities to investigate the massacres. However, the country's communication council said HRW's report contains "peremptory and tendentious" declarations against the army likely to create public disorder and it would suspend the programmes of the broadcasters over their coverage of the story.
Burkina Faso suspended the BBC and Voice of America radio stations for their coverage of a report by Human Rights Watch on a mass killing of civilians carried out by the country's armed forces. Burkina Faso's communication spokesperson, Tonssira Myrian Corine Sanou, said late that Thursday that both radio stations would be suspended for two weeks, and warned other media networks to avoid reporting on the story. According to the report published by Human Rights Watch on Thursday, the army killed some 223 civilians, including 56 children, in villages accused of cooperating with militants.
Russia and its allies in Asia should expand joint military exercises as they face a direct threat from attempts by the United States to expand its security influence in the region, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Friday. He was speaking at a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a security grouping that includes Russia, India, China, Iran, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. "I believe that everyone present shares the opinion that the deployment of military infrastructure in the region by the United States and its allies is unacceptable," Shoigu said.
The Israeli army said Friday a civilian was killed near the country's northern border with Lebanon, as near-daily exchanges of fire with Hezbollah rage.Israel says 11 soldiers and nine civilians have been killed on its side of the border.
Criticism of Qatar over its role as a mediator between Israel and Hamas has prompted a rare pushback by the Gulf state against its detractors, analysts have said.But, as talks have stalled, and in the face of calls -- particularly from Israel and the United States -- for Qatar to exert pressure on Hamas, the gas-rich emirate has warned it could walk away as a mediator.
TikTok is in the crosshairs of authorities in the U.S., where new legislation threatens a nationwide ban unless its China-based parent ByteDance divests. TikTok is already banned in a handful of countries and from government-issued devices in a number of others, due to official worries that the app poses privacy and cybersecurity concerns. TikTok has long maintained that it doesn’t share data with the Chinese government and its CEO has taken a defiant stance, vowing to fight back.
Microsoft reported better than anticipated Q3 earnings on Thursday, powered by growth in its cloud products.
In a darkly lit arts studio in London, five young actors highlight their scripts and go over their lines: the latest cast of "Phosphoros Theatre", a company that empowers refugees and asylum seekers to tell their story on stage.The latest Phosphoros production, "Tender", tells the story of a group of refugee friends in London.
Alphabet reported Q1 earnings on Thursday that beat estimates. The company also announced its first-ever dividend.
India's six-week-long election resumed Friday with millions of people lining up outside polling stations in parts of the country hit by a scorching heatwave.More than 968 million people are eligible to take part in India's election, with the final round of voting on June 1 and results expected three days later. sai-abh/gle/pbt
Chevron and ExxonMobil are expected to report a year-over-year decline in earnings per share.
Fresh data on Thursday showed further signs of sticky inflation, pushing bond yields higher and weighing on stocks.
China's vision of the future of the automobile — electrified and digitally connected — is on display at the ongoing Beijing auto show. Organizers say that 117 new models are making their debut at Auto China 2024, which runs through May 4. Xiaomi announced that it had received more than 75,000 orders in the four weeks since the launch of its first car, the SU7, with a list price of 215,900 to 299,900 yuan ($29,800-$41,400).
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday told top US diplomat Antony Blinken that the world's two biggest economies should be "partners, not rivals", but that there were a "number of issues" to be resolved in their relations."There are still a number of issues that need to be resolved, and there is still room for further efforts," the Chinese leader added.
British mining giant Anglo American on Friday rejected a blockbuster $38.8-billion takeover bid from Australian rival BHP, slamming it as "highly unattractive" and "opportunistic"."The proposed structure is also highly unattractive, creating substantial uncertainty and execution risk borne almost entirely by Anglo American, its shareholders and its other stakeholders."
During nearly three hours of historic Supreme Court arguments, John Roberts said little. But the cagey chief justice made some points abundantly clear.
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