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Hong Kong court upholds minimum sentences for breaching Beijing-imposed security law

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:30:48 GMT

HONG KONG (AP) — A jailed university student who pleaded guilty to inciting secession in Hong Kong lost his bid to reduce his five-year sentence in a court ruling Tuesday that is expected to set the bar for other cases brought under the national security law Beijing imposed on Hong Kong.Lui Sai-yu pleaded guilty in April 2022 and admitted that content on a Telegram channel he administered incited others to separate Hong Kong from China or alter the legal status of the city unlawfully. But his timely guilty plea did not get him a one-third reduction in the length of his imprisonment — like in many other cases under Hong Kong’s common law system — because the security law imposed minimum jail terms for serious offenses. Lui is one of the some 260 people who were arrested under the security law as Beijing tried to crush dissidents following the massive protests in 2019. The top court’s ruling on his appeal may guide sentencings in other national security cases, including fo...

More than 200 former Afghan officials and security forces killed since Taliban takeover, UN says

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:30:48 GMT

ISLAMABAD (AP) — More than 200 extrajudicial killings of former Afghan government officials and security forces have taken place since the Taliban took over the country two years ago, according to a U.N. report released Tuesday.The groups most targeted by the Taliban have been former army, police and intelligence forces, according to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan. UNAMA documented at least 800 human rights violations against former Afghan government officials and security forces between Aug. 15, 2021, when the Taliban seized power, and the end of June 2023.The Taliban swept across Afghanistan as U.S. and NATO troops were in the final weeks of their withdrawal from the country after two decades of war. The U.S.-trained and backed Afghan forces crumbled in the face of the Taliban advance and former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country.“Individuals were detained by the de facto (Taliban) security forces, often briefly, before being killed. Some were tak...

17-year-old Palestinian killed during Israeli military raid in northern West Bank

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:30:48 GMT

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli security forces stormed into a town the northern West Bank on Tuesday, leading to fighting that killed a 17-year-old Palestinian, according to Palestinian health officials, the latest violence to grip the occupied territory. The Israeli military conducted an arrest raid before dawn in the town of Zababdeh south of Jenin, local medics said. The Palestinian Health Ministry reported that 17-year-old Othman Abu Kharj was fatally shot in the head. The raid came as Israeli security forces were still searching for the Palestinian gunman that carried out a shooting in the northern Palestinian city of Hawara that killed an Israeli father and son on Saturday. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the raid in Zababdeh. In the southern West Bank, the Israeli army captured two Palestinians who were suspected in a shooting the day before that killed an Israeli woman and seriously wounded a man. The Israeli military said the two suspe...

Europe’s sweeping rules for tech giants are about to kick in. Here’s how they work

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:30:48 GMT

LONDON (AP) — Google, Facebook, TikTok and other Big Tech companies operating in Europe are facing one of the most far-reaching efforts to clean up what people encounter online.The first phase of the European Union’s groundbreaking new digital rules will take effect this week. The Digital Services Act is part of suite of tech-focused regulations crafted by the 27-nation bloc — long a global leader in cracking down on tech giants.The DSA, which the biggest platforms must start following Friday, is designed to keep users safe online and stop the spread of harmful content that’s either illegal or violates a platform’s terms of service, such as promotion of genocide or anorexia. It also looks to protect Europeans’ fundamental rights like privacy and free speech. Some online platforms, which could face billions in fines if they don’t comply, have already started making changes. Here’s a look at what’s happening this week:WHICH PLATFORMS ARE AFFECTED? S...

Voter fatigue edges out optimism as Zimbabwe holds 2nd general election since Mugabe’s ouster

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:30:48 GMT

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Colorful campaign posters adorn street poles, buildings, vehicles and trees in Zimbabwe, but the buzz surrounding the country’s upcoming general election appears to end there. The presidential and parliamentary elections taking place Wednesday are crucial to determining the future of a southern African nation endowed with vast mineral resources and rich agricultural land. But for many people in the educated but underemployed population, the daily grind to put food on the table inhibits interest in politics. “What elections?” Kaleen Mbase, a 33-year-old Kuwadzana township resident, quipped as she halfheartedly chipped into a subdued political discussion at a local bar in the capital, Harare. “Elections have brought nothing but suffering, I don’t expect anything different this year. There is no change, no matter how many times we vote.”It wasn’t like this five years ago, when Zimbabwe prepared to hold its first elections since a coup ended the repre...

Traditional stone carvers chisel on despite loss of quarries in village swallowed by Mexico City

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:30:48 GMT

XOCHIACA, Mexico (AP) — The sound of hammers and chisels striking stone rings out on most Sundays in the cemetery of ancient Xochiaca, a village swallowed up decades ago by the urban sprawl of Mexico City.It’s the sound of the stone carvers of Chimalhuacan — as the borough is known — who still pursue a craft passed down for generations, even after the local source of quarry stone was exhausted.The village cemetery is filled with yard-high (meter-high) statues of saints and a knot of men who coax flower garlands and flowers out of the blocks of stone with their chisels.Generations of stone carvers in Chimalhuacan, on Mexico’s City’s far east side, also created much of the stonework that adorns buildings and parks in the capital’s downtown.While carvers in other areas long ago turned to mechanical cutters and polishers, the craftsmen here use only hammers, mallets and a variety of chisels and gouges.Many are self-taught, but some, like Tomás Ugarte, 86, learned in the traditiona...

Hong Kong: Annual EU report illustrates further decline of fundamental freedoms

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:30:48 GMT

The European Commission and the High Representative have today adopted the 25th annual report to the European Parliament and the Council on political and economic developments in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. This report covers developments in 2022.2022 marked the 25th anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong to China and the second anniversary of the imposition of the National Security Law (NSL) on Hong Kong. The annual report illustrates the continued erosion of Hong Kong's high degree of autonomy, democratic principles, and fundamental freedoms that were supposed to be protected until at least 2047. These developments cast further doubt on China's commitment to the ‘one country, two systems' principle.Over the course of the year, law enforcement agencies continued to make arrests on national security grounds. As of 31 December 2022, 236 people had been arrested under the NSL and other security legislation while 145 individuals and 5 companies had been charged. The ...

Search underway for 19-year-old woman abducted after shooting

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:30:48 GMT

Friends and family of 19-year-old Andrea Vazquez, who may have been abducted after a shooting Sunday at a park in Whittier, gathered to pray for her safe return Monday.  “I’ve never experienced a heartbreak like this,” Edlyn Vazquez, the victim’s sister told KTLA’s Rick Chambers. “I’m just trying to stay strong for her because I know she’ll be back.”  According to the Whittier Police Department, officers responded to the parking stalls of Penn Park shortly after midnight on Sunday after a man reported that an armed suspect approached his vehicle — occupied by him and a female passenger — and fired gunshots in their direction.   Family members say that the 19-year-old was with her boyfriend in a car parked at the curb when another vehicle suddenly pulled up and fired a shot, striking Andrea. They claim that the boyfriend then ran to another couple in the park for help.  “He later returned and saw that his female companion that he was with there at the pa...

UK forces Microsoft to restructure Activision deal

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:30:48 GMT

LONDON — Microsoft has been forced to restructure its takeover of Activision and renotify it to the United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) after the watchdog confirmed its earlier decision to block its $69 billion takeover of the video-gaming giant.In a press release on Tuesday, the CMA said it had rejected Microsoft’s plea to revisit its original decision to block the merger. Instead, Microsoft has submitted a new, restructured deal for the British watchdog to review, under which Microsoft will sell the rights to stream existing and new Activision PC and console games to rival French game maker Ubisoft. The rights Ubisoft will acquire outside of the European Economic Area will be exclusive.“Under the restructured transaction, Microsoft will not be in a position either to release Activision Blizzard games exclusively on its own cloud streaming service — Xbox Cloud Gaming – or to exclusively control the licensing terms of Activision Blizzard games for rival services...

‘Daddy is in the building’ — Prigozhin resurfaces in Africa video

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:30:48 GMT

Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin has resurfaced in a video allegedly shot in an unnamed country in Africa and posted to a social media account with links to his paramilitary group late Monday.In a post that begins with the phrase “Daddy is in the building,” Grey Zone, a Telegram channel sympathetic to the warlord, said the 41-second video had been filmed in “one of the countries of Africa.”Appearing against a sandy backdrop and claiming it is over 50 degrees celsius — “just the way we like it” — Prigozhin says the Wagner Group “is conducting reconnaissance and search activities. Making Russia even greater on every continent, and Africa even freer.”It is the first time the warlord has appeared in a video address since his ill-fated attempted mutiny in June, when his troops marched to within 200 kilometers of Moscow before standing down. Last month, Prigozhin was photographed at a Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg, appearing on the si...