China to 'complete' South China Sea land reclamation
- 16 June 2015
- China
China will complete a series of controversial land reclamation projects in the South China Sea "soon", the foreign ministry says.
The US and countries with competing claims in the area maintain that China is creating artificial islands to use as military bases.
The ministry says they are for defence, but also maritime search and rescue, disaster relief and research.
China claims most of the South China Sea.
Last year, China increased its land reclamation activity prompting the US in May to call for an "immediate and lasting halt" to land reclamation in disputed areas of the South China Sea.
There has also been a spike in tensions between the US military and Chinese navy near the Spratlys in recent weeks.
Bahrain opposition leader Ali Salman sentenced to four years in jail
Shia leader convicted of inciting disobedience and hatred in Sunni-led kingdom but is acquitted of seeking to overthrow the monarchy
A Bahraini court has jailed Shia opposition leader Ali Salman for four years after convicting him of inciting disobedience and hatred in the Sunni-ruled kingdom.
But the court acquitted him of the more serious charge of seeking to overthrow the monarchy and change the political system.
Salman, 49, was also found guilty of “insulting an official body,” the source said, referring to the interior ministry.
Salman’s al-Wefaq movement said on Twitter: “The regime is pushing toward aggravation and issued a sentence of four years for the Bahraini opposition leader Sheikh Ali Salman.”
Hong Kong on high alert as democracy showdown looms
Protests crippled parts of the former British colony last year over plans for how its next leader will be elected
Dozens of police stood guard around Hong Kong government headquarters on Tuesday, a day after authorities arrested 10 people and seized suspected explosives ahead of a crucial vote on a China-backed electoral reform package this week.
The Chinese-ruled city is bracing for a fresh democracy showdown after protests crippled parts of the former British colony last year, and resulted in sometimes violent clashes with police, over plans for how its next leader will be elected.
Hong Kong’s legislature is due to begin debate on the electoral reform package in theLegislative Council on Wednesday, with a vote due by the end of the week. Pro-democracy protesters are staging evening rallies throughout the week.With tensions running high before the debate, Hong Kong’s Independent Commision Against Corruption has also said it is investigating allegations by an unidentified legislator that he was offered a bribe to vote for the package.
People smuggler cash: Stacks police say were paid to send asylum seekers on a 'suicide mission'
June 16, 2015 - 7:07PMJewel Topsfield and Amilia Rosa
Kupang, Indonesia: Photographs of thousands of US dollars handed to six people smugglers, which Indonesian police say is proof of bribery by Australian officials, have been provided to Fairfax Media,
"We have given you the evidence," said General Endang Sunjaya, the police chief of Nusa Tenggara Timur province. "It's now up to you and other organisations to demand an answer from the Australian government."
And in a blistering attack, the head of the people smuggling division of Nusa Tenggara Timur province, Ibrahim, said sending 65 asylum seekers back to Indonesia on two boats with just a drum of fuel each was akin to "a suicide mission", asking: "Where is the humanity?"
He said the boat had hit a reef and been stranded off Landu island, and if it had been high tide it would have been too dangerous for the local villagers to rescue them.
Africa and the ICC: A vexed relationship
A court order blocking the departure from SA of Sudan's president al-Bashir brings to the fore the troubled relationship between Africa and the ICC.
The ICC indicted the Sudanese leader in 2009 for war crimes and crimes against humanity and later genocide in Darfur. But despite that, Bashir has travelled to numerous African countries – including Chad, Kenya and Nigeria – where anger at the ICC’s perceived bias against Africa meant calls for his arrest were ignored.
“The process the ICC is conducting in Africa has a flaw,” Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn told the African Union (AU) in 2013. “The intention was to avoid any kind of impunity, but now the process has degenerated into some kind of race hunting.”
And last December Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni called the ICC a “tool to target” Africa, but he failed in his effort to orchestrate a mass withdrawal by African states.
Pope: Wasteful consumption and fossil fuels driving climate change
An Italian weekly magazine received a leaked draft of Pope Francis' encyclical on the environment. The document calls for urgent action against climate change and presents both scientific and moral reasons for protecting God's creation.
VATICAN CITY — A draft copy of Pope Francis' eagerly awaited encyclical on the environment calls for urgent action to protect the Earth and fight global warming, which the pope says is "mostly" due to human activity and the burning of fossil fuels.
The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the document that was leaked to the Italian newsweekly L'Espresso and published on its website Monday was not the final version and that the official encyclical would still be released as scheduled on Thursday.
The L'Espresso draft, which was published in galley form in Italian, makes many of the same points that Francis and his advisers have been making in the months-long rollout of the document.
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