A former Australian spy announced a surprise guilty plea Tuesday for exposing an alleged 2004 bugging operation against East Timor officials, after years of fighting the charges. Lawyers for the former agent, known only as “Witness K”, told a Canberra court he would plead guilty to blowing the whistle on the spying operation against the […]
Hong Kong police on Tuesday said 148 people were arrested during running battles with protesters the day before, the largest daily toll since huge pro-democracy protests kicked off two months ago. On Monday Hong Kong buckled under a general strike followed by the most widespread and sustained clashes so far with tear gas fired at […]
by Douglas Gillison with Kelly Wang in Shanghai The United States on Monday formally accused China of manipulating its currency, marking the second major escalation in the two countries’ spiraling trade war in just 24 hours. Washington’s sudden move came the day China allowed the yuan to fall below 7 to the dollar for the […]
by Jalees ANDRABI The Indian government on Monday revoked Kashmir’s special status, stripping the significant autonomy it has enjoyed for seven decades in a move expected to further inflame tensions in the Muslim-majority region and infuriate rival Pakistan. India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi Hindu-nationalist party rushed through a presidential decree to scrap the disputed region’s […]
by Elaine YU / Yan ZHAO Hong Kong riot police clashed with pro-democracy protesters for a third straight day Monday as the city’s leader warned the global financial hub was nearing a “very dangerous situation”, and a rare strike caused transport chaos. Clouds of tear gas billowed across the working-class district of Wong Tai Sin […]
President Jair Bolsonaro argued Sunday for his signature policy of relaxing gun control measures, saying they will not stop mass shootings such as those that left 29 dead in the US over the weekend. “Disarming people isn’t going to keep that from happening,” Bolsonaro said. “Brazil is, on paper, extremely unarmed; and a similar thing […]
US singer Katy Perry copied the beat of her 2013 hit “Dark Horse” from a Christian rap song, a Los Angeles jury found Monday. The nine-member panel ruled that similarities between Perry’s song and “Joyful Noise” by Marcus Gray — who performs as “Flame” — constituted copyright infringement. The week-long trial saw Perry take the […]
Illegal coca plantations in Colombia reduced slightly in 2018 but the country remains the world’s biggest producer of the primary ingredient in cocaine production, the United Nations said on Friday. The area of land used for cultivating coca leaf dropped from 171,000 hectares in 2017 to 169,000 in 2018, a fall of just 1.2 percent, […]
China’s military has released a slick propaganda video showing a drill of armed troops quelling a protest in Hong Kong, in a thinly veiled warning to the city’s pro-democracy movement. The video, posted to social media on Wednesday by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) garrison in Hong Kong, has a caption in which the […]
