“You still have the apparent institutions in place, you still have the buildings, you still have judges, you still have lawyers. But in fact, the fundamental principle of the rule of law is eroded,” says Jonathan Price, a barrister on Mr Lai’s international legal team which cannot represent him in Hong Kong. BBC
Since his arrest in August 2020, Mr Lai has been held in solitary confinement in a maximum-security prison for more than 1,00 days. The trial, which has been delayed for a year, is expected to last for about 80 days. It has already sparked calls for his release. BBC
“Does Beijing Subway have no maintenance staff? No routine inspection?… Are we taking the lives of hundreds of people too lightly,” wrote a Weibo user. Beijing Subway, owned by the municipal government, operates the 27 subway and rail lines that run through the city. BBC
“These bounties not only threaten the liberty and safety of the activists targeted, they also have far-reaching consequences on other activists who are now left feeling increasingly uncertain about their security, whether in Hong Kong or overseas,” said Sarah Brooks, the group’s deputy regional director for China. BBC
He says his nightmare is being named and attacked by Beijing-backed media, which could cost him his job, or worse, his freedom. That fear has swept through Hong Kong’s universities and academic circles, which once attracted top talent. The city was close to the mainland, yet far enough to host progressive classrooms, world-class libraries and archives that allowed academic freedom, even in Chinese studies. BBC
What they will certainly not talk about, at least publicly, is the bitter territorial dispute between them over islands in the South China Sea, nor their acrimonious relationship in the 1970s and 80s, which included a full-scale border war in 1979 that killed thousands of soldiers on both sides. There will also certainly be no mention of China’s long historic colonisation of Vietnam, known there as “nghìn năm bắc thuộc” or 1,000 years of northern occupation, or of Vietnam’s grievances over the impact of Chinese dams on the Mekong river.…
Selling blood was common in rural areas such as Henan, where Dr Gao lived, in the 1980s and 1990s. Limited economic opportunities among farming communities left them with few other options to make a living – and blood-selling was often backed by local governments. But with few cases of HIV being diagnosed in rural China at the time, and low awareness of the disease, blood was also collected from HIV+ patients, leading to the spread of the disease. BBC
But he lived in great fear for several months after that. He was scared authorities would show up at his door and whisk him away. He cut up his Sim card, quit his job, and moved to a remote, mountainous area in Yunnan. He told a trusted friend that if he texted them a smiling emoji, it would mean that he had been detained. BBC
However, social media offers some anecdotal evidence. Under a post praising the development, one buyer from Liaoning province said: “This is very misleading. The current Forest City is a ghost town. There are no people at all. It is far from the city, has incomplete living facilities, and it is difficult to move without a car”. BBC
As long as that pledge remains unfulfilled, major developing countries will always have an argument for not making any contribution to the loss and damage climate fund, says Aarti Khosla, the director of Climate Trends, a Delhi-based organisation that researches loss and damage negotiations and other climate issues. BBC