Hong Kong police arrest pro-democracy figures on Tiananmen Square anniversary
At least 10 people detained including activist Alexandra Wong and leader of opposition party
Hong Kong police have detained several pro-democracy figures attempting to commemorate the 34th anniversary of the bloody Tiananmen Square crackdown in China.
For years, Hongkongers would converge on the city’s Victoria Park and its surrounding neighbourhood to commemorate the events of 4 June 1989, taking part in candlelight vigils. But since Beijing’s imposition of the national security law on Hong Kong in 2020 to quell dissent, the annual vigil has been banned and the organisers were charged under the law.
This weekend, scores of police were deployed in the area, stopping people to search their belongings and question them.
The Pain of WarThe Families of Dead Wagner Fighters Speak Out
By Christina Hebel (story) and Dmitrij Serebrjakow (photos) from Bakinskaya and Volgograd, Russia
Larissa scrolls further and further through her nephew’s chat messages, eventually stopping at a photo of Andrei and enlarging it on the screen. A gaunt, pale young man in a dark sweater, he is gazing into the camera with a serious look on his face. Behind him, the bunkbeds of a prison barrack can be seen. Larissa’s eyes fill with tears. "Why him? He was so delicate," she sobs. When she is finally able to pull her gaze away from the picture, she begins playing an audio recording – the voice of her nephew Andrei.
Clearly trying to sound nonchalant, he says: "Hi, I’m doing well, but I’m going to war…" His tone sounds like he’s just telling her that he’s about to start another round of one of those shooter games she says he used to play as an adolescent. He continues: "But not for the draft board. For a private army … Don’t cry, calm down, everything will be fine … I’m going to fight for six months and then I’ll come home."
Is India doing enough to make train travel safe?
The Odisha train crash has put a fresh spotlight on safety as the government modernizes the country's extensive railway network and infrastructure.
With the death toll now at 300 and over 1,000 injured, the tragic accident in Balasore, eastern Odisha has once again focused attention on the issue of railway safety in India.
The crash was one of the country's deadliest train accidents in decades, and occurred at a time when the government has been trying to make rail travel a pleasurable, and, more importantly, safe experience.
Such crashes are far from unprecedented in India. In 1999, a collision between two trains in West Bengal killed 285 people, and in 2010, 145 died in the same state when a passenger train derailed and was hit by a cargo train. More recently, in 2016, 160 people died when a passenger train traveling between the cities of Indore and Patna slipped off its tracks.
More than 50 Ugandan peacekeepers killed in Al-Shabaab attack in Somalia
Some 54 Ugandan peacekeepers died when militants besieged an African Union base in Somalia last week, Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni said, in one of the worst recent attacks by Al-Shabaab jihadists in the war-torn country.
"We discovered the lifeless bodies of 54 fallen soldiers, including a commander," Museveni said in a Twitter post late Saturday.
The veteran leader was speaking during a meeting with members of his governing National Resistance Movement party, the presidency told AFP on Sunday.
The toll is one of the heaviest yet since pro-government forces backed by the AU force known as ATMIS launched an offensive against Al-Shabaab last August.
It was also a rare admission of a major military death toll by African Union members.
Al-Shabaab, which has been waging a deadly insurgency against Somalia's fragile central government for more than a decade, claimed responsibility for the May 26 attack, saying it had overrun the base and killed 137 soldiers.
GaaSyy: Japan YouTuber arrested over celebrity threats
Police in Japan have arrested a YouTuber and former MP over threats he allegedly made to celebrities.
Yoshikazu Higashitani, known on YouTube as GaaSyy, is famous for his celebrity gossip videos.
Local media said he returned to Japan from the UAE, two months after Tokyo police issued his arrest warrant.
He is accused of threatening to defame an actor, an entrepreneur and a designer between February and August last year.
He is also suspected of obstructing the designer's business activities.
Residents brace for Sudan army’s recapture of Khartoum from RSF
Analysts suggest the Sudanese army pulled out of ceasefire talks to launch a major offensive to retake the capital, Khartoum.
By
A barrage of artillery shells hit a poor neighbourhood on May 31 in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital.
Residents say the attack killed at least 18 civilians and wounded 106 others in a local market, yet nobody knows if it came from the Sudanese army or the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) – the two sides that have plunged the country into war to try to vanquish one another.
Residents said the RSF deployed to the neighbourhood shortly after the incident, resulting in continuing street battles with the army and fears that more civilians will die in the crossfire.
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