HONG KONG: A committee dominated by pro-Beijing elites chose Hong Kong’s next leader Sunday in the first vote since huge pro-democracy protests erupted over the election system in 2014.
Carrie Lam, the government’s former No. 2 official and Beijing’s favored candidate, received 777 votes and will become the first female leader for the city and its fourth since British colonial control ended.
China’s communist leadership had lobbied for her so Lam’s victory came as no surprise. After the votes were counted, Lam bowed to the crowd and shook hands with second-place finisher, former finance secretary John Tsang, who received 365 votes.
Some pro-democracy supporters in the official seating area yelled slogans and held up a yellow umbrella, the symbol of the 2014 protests, as the results were announced. The elite election committee was at the root of the protests as activists decried the lack of a direct choice by Hong Kong residents.
Lam is an efficient and pragmatic administrator but unpopular with Hong Kongers because she’s seen as a proxy for Beijing and out of touch with ordinary people. Tsang, in contrast, is highly popular because of his easygoing persona and deft use of social media. He has been nicknamed “Pringles” or “Uncle Chips” in Cantonese for his signature mustache that draws comparisons to the snack food mascot and his followers call themselves “small potatoes.”
The third candidate, retired judge Woo Kwok-hing, had 21 votes.
Lam will take over from current leader Leung Chun-ying who is not seeking a second term, citing family reasons. Political analysts suspect Beijing asked Leung, a highly polarizing figure, to step aside for someone better liked.
Members of the Hong Kong’s election committee include tycoons like Li Ka-shing, Hong Kong’s richest person. They represent industry and trade groups such as finance, accounting, real estate and textiles.
Hong Kong lawmakers, local councilors and delegates to China’s parliament also have votes and some seats, mostly in the education, legal, health and social welfare sectors, are held by pro-democracy supporters.
No surprise: Beijing’s pick Lam chosen as Hong Kong leader
No surprise: Beijing’s pick Lam chosen as Hong Kong leader
Kyiv says Russian forces shot dead five captured soldiers
There was no immediate response to the accusations from Moscow
KYIV: Kyiv said on Thursday that Russian forces had shot dead five Ukrainian servicemen who had surrendered in the eastern Zaporizhzhia region, marking the latest war crimes allegations levied against Moscow.
Both Moscow and Kyiv have accused each other’s armies of committing atrocities since Russian forces launched their full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Prosecutors said the incident had taken place on November 24 near the village of Novodarivka in the Pologiv district of the Zaporizhzhia region.
“Servicemen of the Russian armed forces shot dead five Ukrainian defenders out of six who had been taken prisoner,” a statement read.
There was no immediate response to the accusations from Moscow, which claimed to have annexed Zaporizhzhia along with three other partially occupied Ukrainian territories in late 2022.
Ukrainian human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said he had contacted the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) over the allegations.
Kyiv earlier this month accused Russian forces of killing five other surrendered soldiers, this time in the eastern Donetsk region, which Moscow also claims.
The UN has documented “numerous violations of international humanitarian law against prisoners of war, including cases of summary execution of both Russian and Ukrainian POWs,” a spokeswoman for the UN Human Rights Office told AFP last year.
UK net migration hit record of more than 900,000 in 2023
- Immigration is a big political issue in Britain where voters worry public services cannot cope with immigrants
- Current Labour government says it wants to reduce immigration numbers by training workers to fill skills gaps
LONDON: Net migration to Britain hit a record of more than 900,000 in 2023, much higher than original estimates, although tougher visa rules have started to reduce the number of arrivals, official data showed.
Immigration is a big political issue in Britain, where voters worry that already stretched public services cannot cope with such large numbers arriving, but sectors such as health care say they cannot function without foreign workers.
Data from the Office for National Statistics on Thursday showed net migration of 906,000 for the year to the end of June 2023, revised up from the previous estimate of 740,000, in what the ONS described as “unprecedented levels” since 2021.
Numbers did fall 20 percent from the record high to 728,000 for the year to the end of June 2024, the ONS said, driven by declining numbers of dependents coming with those on study visas after the rules were changed.
The jump to a record level in 2023 came under the previous Conservative government’s watch. It had promised to cut immigration and introduced measures to curb students and care workers bringing in family members.
The current Labour government, elected in July, has also said it wants to reduce numbers by training workers to fill skills gaps.
The big jump to 2023 numbers was attributed to more available data, more information on Ukraine visas and improvements to how it estimates migration, the ONS said.
High levels of legal migration in 2016 was one of the driving forces behind Britain’s vote to leave the European Union.
While post-Brexit changes to visas saw a sharp drop in the number of European Union migrants to Britain, new work visa rules led to a surge in immigration from India, Nigeria and Pakistan, often to fill health and social care vacancies.
Cyprus could become a member of NATO when conditions permit, the country’s president says
- Turkiye maintains more than 35,000 troops in the breakaway Turkish Cypriot northern part of ethnically divided Cyprus, doesn’t recognize the island’s government
NICOSIA: Cyprus could apply to become a member of NATO once its armed forces receive the necessary training and equipment with US help to bring them up to the standards of the world’s premier military alliance, the president of the Mediterranean island nation said Thursday.
President Nikos Christodoulides put Cyprus on a trajectory for possible NATO membership, ending weeks of media speculation about his government’s intentions following his meeting with US President Joe Biden in Washington last month. The development goes against Cyprus’ long-held policy of neutrality harking back to the Cold War era, when it walked a political tightrope between Washington and Moscow.
Christodoulides said although Cyprus can’t join NATO at this time because of objections that Turkiye would raise to its potential membership, the Cypriot National Guard shouldn’t be denied the opportunity to upgrade its defensive capabilities with US assistance.
Turkiye, which maintains more than 35,000 troops in the breakaway Turkish Cypriot northern part of ethnically divided Cyprus, doesn’t recognize the island’s government, which is based in the Greek Cypriot southern part.
Christodoulides didn’t elaborate on how Turkish objections could be sidestepped. But the UN is currently working to prepare for a resumption of peace talks between the rival sides in Cyprus, which was split in 1974 when Turkiye invaded following a coup by supporters of uniting the island with Greece.
“And because we don’t want the National Guard to lose such opportunities, we’re in talks with the US — and we thank them for their positive response — on how the Cyprus Republic can make the best use of these opportunities, so when everything is in its place, the Cyprus Republic can become a member state of NATO,” Christodoulides told The Associated Press.
“The strengthening of the Cyprus Republic’s deterrent capabilities is of the utmost importance, and we take advantage of every opportunity, both in the direction of the United States and NATO, but also the European Union.”
Christodoulides said Cyprus’ geographic location — it’s the closest EU member state to the Middle East at just 182 kilometers (114 miles) from the Lebanese capital, Beirut — has given impetus to planned upgrades to its military infrastructure. He said the government is currently in talks with the US for upgrades to a key air base and with the EU for a naval base.
Following his meeting with Biden, Christodoulides told the AP of his government’s commitment to expanding defense and security cooperation with the US
Cyprus’ Andreas Papandreou air base on its southwestern edge is currently hosting a US Marine contingent and a number of V-22 Osprey tiltrotor military transport and cargo aircraft prepositioned to assist in potential evacuations from nearby Lebanon and elsewhere.
Russian attacks leave one million Ukrainians without power
- Ukraine is bracing for what could be its toughest winter of the almost three-year war
KYIV: More than a million Ukrainians were left without power in freezing cold temperatures on Thursday after a massive nationwide Russian missile and drone attack.
Ukraine is bracing for what could be its toughest winter of the almost three-year war as Moscow steps up its aerial bombardment of the war-torn country and its troops advance on the frontlines in the east.
“There are emergency blackouts all over the country due to the enemy’s attack on our energy sector. There is no end in sight,” said the CEO of the Yasno energy supplier Sergey Kovalenko.
President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff said Russia was “continuing their tactics of terror,” seeking to plunge Ukrainian civilians into darkness and cut of heating in the coldest months of the year.
“They stockpiled missiles for attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure, for warfare against civilians during... winter,” Andriy Yermak said in a post on Telegram.
The combined missile and drone attack, launched in waves throughout the early hours of Thursday, knocked out electricity for more than a million subscribers in Ukraine’s west, hundreds of kilometers from the front lines.
“As of now, 523,000 subscribers in Lviv region are without electricity,” regional head Maksym Kozytskyi said on social media.
The western region, which borders EU and NATO member Poland, has been spared the worst of the fighting of Russia’s 33-month invasion but has been targeted in Russian drone and missile attacks sporadically.
Regional officials said at least another 280,000 were cut off in the western Rivne region and another 215,000 in the northwestern Volyn region, which also borders Poland.
The full extent of the damage was still being assessed on Thursday morning, with Russian drones also having targeted the capital Kviv, the northeastern city of Kharkiv and port city of Odesa on the Black Sea and other regions reporting power outages.
“Power engineers are working to ensure backup power supply schemes where possible. They have already started restoration work where the security situation allows,” the energy ministry said.
It said it was the 11th massive Russian attack on Ukraine’s civilian energy infrastructure this year.
In an early morning warning posted on social media as the strikes were unfolding, Ukraine’s Energy Minister German Galushchenko said facilities were “under massive enemy attack.”
The strikes, which came as temperatures hit 0 degrees Celsius in many Ukrainian cities, are the latest in two weeks of dramatic escalation in the near three-year war.
A senior UN official, Rosemary DiCarlo, this month warned Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure may make this winter the “harshest since the start of the war.”
Both sides have fired new weapons in an attempt to gain an upper hand ahead of Donald Trump being inaugurated as US president in January.
Russia earlier this week said it was preparing its own retaliation for Ukrainian strikes on its territory using US-supplied ATACMS missiles.
Kyiv has launched at least three attacks on Russian border regions with the missiles since the White House gave it permission to fire them on Russian territory.
Moscow responded to the first strike by firing a never-before-seen hypersonic ballistic missile at the Ukrainian city of Dnipro and Russian President Vladimir Putin warned the nuclear-capable missile could be used against Western countries next.
Trump on Wednesday named staunch loyalist and retired general Keith Kellogg as his Ukraine envoy, charged with ending the Russian invasion.
The incoming president has criticized US aid to Ukraine and boasted he could secure a ceasefire in hours — comments that have triggered concern in Kyiv that the US could push it to cede land.
Kellog, an 80-year-old national security veteran, co-authored a paper this year calling for Washington to leverage military aid as a means of pushing for peace talks.
Concerned at a string of Russian advances on the frontline, the outgoing Joe Biden administration has also urged Ukraine drop the minimum age of conscription from 25 to 18 to plug severe manpower shortages.
Russia’s defense ministry also said Thursday it had downed 25 Ukrainian drones fired overnight, including 14 over the southern Krasnodar territory — just to the east of the annexed Crimean peninsula.
China says top military official Miao Hua suspended, under investigation
- Latest senior apparatchik to fall in a sweeping crackdown on graft in the country’s armed force
- Unconfirmed reports say defense minister Dong Jun was also placed under investigation for corruption
BEIJING: China said Thursday that top military official Miao Hua had been removed from office and was suspected of “serious violations of discipline,” the latest senior apparatchik to fall in a sweeping crackdown on graft in the country’s armed forces.
The ruling Chinese Communist Party “has decided to suspend Miao Hua from duty pending investigation,” Wu Qian, spokesman of China’s Ministry of Defense, told a press briefing.
Wu did not provide further details about the charges against Admiral Miao, a member of Beijing’s powerful Central Military Commission.
But “serious violations of discipline” are commonly used by officials in China as a euphemism for corruption.
The announcement follows reports, unconfirmed by Beijing, that Defense Minister Dong Jun has been placed under investigation for corruption.
If confirmed, Dong would be the third Chinese defense minister in a row to be probed for graft.
