Chinese President Xi cements his grip on power with rare party move
Updated 0840 GMT (1640 HKT) October 24, 2017
China has elevated the stature of President Xi Jinping and cemented his grip on power by including his name and political ideology in the Communist Party constitution.
At the end of a pivotal twice-a-decade meeting, party delegates voted unanimously Tuesday to make "Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era" a guiding principle for the party.
The move puts Xi on par with Chairman Mao Zedong who founded the People's Republic of China in 1949 and paramount leader Deng Xiaoping, who oversaw China's opening up to the world. China's previous two presidents, Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin, haven't had their names enshrined in the constitution in this way.
Hong Kong: democracy activists Joshua Wong and Nathan Law granted bail
Leaders of the Chinese-ruled city’s democracy movement were jailed in August, dealing a blow to the youth-led push for universal suffrage
Hong Kong’s highest court has granted bail to two prominent young democracy activists, Joshua Wong and Nathan Law, who were jailed for unlawful assembly linked to the city’s large-scale pro-democracy protests in 2014.
Hong Kong’s appeals court in August jailed Wong, Law and Alex Chow, leaders of the Chinese-ruled city’s democracy movement, dealing a blow to the youth-led push for universal suffrage and prompting accusations of political interference.
Hong Kong’s chief justice Geoffrey Ma, who heads the court of final appeal, granted Wong and Law bail while they appeal their six month and eight month jail terms respectively, saying there was no flight risk.
North Korea could be mass producing biological weapons to unleash smallpox and plague, report warns
Programme to develop deadly chemicals such as anthrax reportedly began in 1960s
North Korea is likely to be developing biological weapons alongside its nuclear programme, a new report has warned.
A new study by the Belfer Centre, a US thinktank, warns that Pyongyang is likely to have a programme to develop its biological weaponry.
Based on testimony from defectors, it is believed to have begun in the 1960s after the Korean War between 1950 and 1953 caused the deaths of thousands in outbreaks of cholera, typhus, typhoid, and smallpox which the regime blamed on biological attacks by the US.
Following the assassination of Kim Jong-un’s brother Kim Jong-nam in Malaysia with the deadly nerve agent VX in February which reputedly came from the Pyongyang Bio-technical Institute.
Opinion: Czech voters more than simply right-wingers
Czech billionaire Andrej Babis' election victory has triggered widespread warnings of a shift to the political right in Eastern Europe. We should avoid making such blanket generalizations, however, writes Keno Verseck.
Earthquake, hurricane, tsunami: There was no shortage of colorful catastrophic comparisons following Saturday's general election in the Czech Republic. About 60 percent of voters in one of Central and Eastern Europe's shining examples of democracy opted for anti-establishment parties, despite the fact the country has a prospering economy. The dramatic electoral shift in a European Union member state is cause for concern.
Around the EU there is talk of Eastern Europe tilting ever further to the right. It may seem that the Czech Republic is following a similar path forged by Hungary and Poland, but despite the consternation brought on by the election results, differences abound. Alarming statements about the East's euroskepticism and rightward shifts are generalizations that explain very little.
'We have imprisoned no political activists', Egypt's Sisi tells FRANCE 24
Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is meeting with President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Tuesday, a visit that represents a delicate balancing act for the French leader.
Macron is under pressure from human rights groups for France to put an end to what Human Rights Watch has deemed “disgraceful policies of indulgence” towards the former Egyptian general, who ousted the elected Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013. Egypt is a key French partner in the Middle East and a major buyer of French weapons with orders exceeding five billion euros since 2015.
“We have imprisoned no political activists,” Sisi told FRANCE 24 in an interview that will air on Tuesday. “Everything has been done according to the law, within its jurisdiction. Our friends can come and confirm this themselves.”From ISIS to elephants: the tale of a unique anti-poaching force
From ISIS to elephants: the tale of a unique anti-poaching force
The same geospatial mapping techniques and data analysis used by the US military to fight terrorism are now being deployed in a sophisticated offense to rival poachers’ criminal networks.
Lt. Col. Faye Cuevas says the two decades she spent fighting terror networks was the perfect preparation for her current job: saving elephants in Kenya.
Intelligence missions, including the 2006 kidnapping of Christian Science Monitor reporter Jill Carroll, taught the US Air Force officer that classified intelligence is “only one piece of the puzzle.” She and other intelligence support officers learned to look for nontraditional clues when assessing the security of an area. It was in Africa, while working on a mission targeting the Lord’s Resistance Army, that she first started relying on the intuition of elephants.
The presence of elephants, it turned out, was a surprisingly reliable indicator of an area’s safety. During migration, elephants follow paths etched in memory, but they adjust those routes to avoid areas that they sense may be unsafe. By studying the movements of elephant herds, she was able to help keep the members of her unit safe.
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