Hong Kong protests: Trump signs Human Rights and Democracy Act into law
US President Donald Trump has signed into law a bill that supports pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong.
The Human Rights and Democracy Act will mandate an annual review, to ensure Hong Kong has significant autonomy from the rest of China.
Mr Trump said he signed the law "out of respect for President Xi [Jinping], China, and the people of Hong Kong".
But the law will anger Beijing - Chinese officials have previously called for the US to "stop meddling".
On Tuesday, China's foreign ministry said it had summoned the US ambassador to Beijing to warn the US would "bear all the consequences" if the bill was signed into law.
Climate emergency: world 'may have crossed tipping points’
Warning of ‘existential threat to civilisation’ as impacts lead to cascade of unstoppable events
The world may already have crossed a series of climate tipping points, according to a stark warning from scientists. This risk is “an existential threat to civilisation”, they say, meaning “we are in a state of planetary emergency”.
Tipping points are reached when particular impacts of global heating become unstoppable, such as the runaway loss of ice sheets or forests. In the past, extreme heating of 5C was thought necessary to pass tipping points, but the latest evidence suggests this could happen between 1C and 2C.
The planet has already heated by 1C and the temperature is certain to rise further, due to past emissions and because greenhouse gas levels are still rising. The scientists further warn that one tipping point, such as the release of methane from thawing permafrost, may fuel others, leading to a cascade.
Iraq: Protesters set fire to Iran consulate in Najaf
Protesters have stormed the Iranian consulate in the Iraqi city of Najaf and set fire to the entire building, authorities said. Police reportedly fired live rounds into the crowd but failed to prevent the breach.
Authorities in Najaf, southern Iran, declared a curfew after a group of protesters breached the Iranian consulate and started a fire on Wednesday evening. The protesters chanted "victory to Iraq" and "Iran out."
Consulate staff had evacuated before the breach, police and civil defense sources said. However, the AP news agency cited a police official as saying that one person was killed and at least 35 wounded when police fired live rounds into the crowd.
Protesters managed to enter the compound and replace the Iranian flag with an Iraqi one.
Mission impossible for France in the Sahel?
The death of 13 French soldiers in a helicopter accident in Mali on November 25 has underlined the challenges France's armed forces face in the Sahel, amid intensifying insurgent attacks and doubts about the effectiveness of its military allies in this vast region to the south of the Sahara Desert.
The largest single loss of life for the country’s military forces since 1983, Monday’s helicopter crash increased France’s death toll in its Sahel campaign to 41.
France started its military operations there in 2013, after Mali asked it to help regain territory seized by Islamist extremists who had hijacked a Touareg rebellion in the country’s northern desert regions the previous year.
Monster paper shredder comes to symbolise Japanese government secrecy
By Simon Denyer and Akiko Kashiwagi
The guest list for a controversial state-funded party? Shredded.
Lists of visitors to the prime minister's office? Shredded.
Journals showing the dangers encountered by Japan's Self-Defence Forces on duty in Sudan and Iraq? Initially said to have been shredded, although they were later rediscovered.
Important papers relating to a school scandal that threatened to bring down the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe? Some falsified, some shredded.
A TikTok beauty video with a hidden anti-China message has gone viral
Updated 2133 GMT (0533 HKT) November 27, 2019
The video starts with a teenager offering eyelash curling advice to her followers. But this is no ordinary beauty tip.
Just seconds into Feroza Aziz's seemingly straightforward tutorial, the 17-year-old Afghan American woman tells the viewer to put down the lash curler and seamlessly transitions from eyelash curling to politics. "Use the phone that you're using right now to search up what's happening in China," she states matter of factly.
She spends the rest of the 40-second clip — which has racked up more than 1.5 million views on the wildly popular short video app TikTok — criticizing the Chinese government and its detention centers, which hold mostly Muslim Uyghurs in the country's far western region of Xinjiang.
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