Hong Kong endured a third straight day of political unrest over the Christmas period Thursday as police and pro-democracy protesters clashed inside shopping malls. Protesters spent the afternoon on Thursday marching through multiple malls chanting anti-government and anti-police slogans. Riot police swooped on dozens of black-clad protesters in one mall in Tai Po district using […]
The year 2019 saw an explosion of demonstrations across the world as people demanded an overhaul of entrenched political systems and action on climate change. Here is a look back at these and other events that marked the year. Protests sweep Latin America On January 23, Venezuela’s opposition chief Juan Guaido declares himself interim president, […]
Thousands of mourners flocked to mass graves Thursday in Indonesia’s Aceh province to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, one of the worst natural disasters in history. On a grassy field in Aceh Besar district where at least 47,000 victims were laid to rest, family members and relatives prayed, scattered flower […]
A white-bearded man robbed a bank two days before Christmas, but threw the stolen cash in the air and wished passers-by a merry Christmas, US media reported. Colorado police confirmed in a statement an “older white male” robbed the Academy Bank in Colorado Springs after threatening workers with an unidentified weapon and leaving with an […]
Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris was unable to hold Christmas Eve Mass for the first time in more than 200 years — after a fire ravaged its structure in April. With heavy hearts, French Catholics instead gathered at the nearby church of Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois, a few hundred metres away, for a service celebrated by the cathedral’s […]
by Véronique DUPONT After a torrid 2019 in which the queen’s son Prince Andrew was implicated in an underage sex abuse scandal, many in Britain are again asking if the monarchy has gotten too big — and rich — for its own good. The family’s year to forget may encourage Prince Charles, set to eventually […]
China made overtures on trade to Japan and South Korea and offered support for an infrastructure initiative as it hosted the leaders of its two neighbours this week amid strained ties with the US. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said Wednesday at a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that Beijing was willing to strengthen […]
A single woman in China has gone to court challenging rules that forbid unmarried women from freezing their eggs in the first case of its kind in the country. Teresa Xu said she was prompted to take legal action after a top hospital in Beijing declined to freeze her eggs last year, and instead told […]
A Japanese government agency has proposed releasing radioactive water from the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant into the environment, as storage space runs out. The plant suffered a meltdown about nine years ago after it was hit by an earthquake-triggered tsunami. About a million tonnes of contaminated water has built up since then and the tanks […]
