As authoritarian countries such as Russia, China and Iran are more active in engaging in long-arm strategies to silence their critics in the UK, transnational repression is garnering more attention. It is right that the Metropolitan police and other British law enforcement agencies have specific units and mechanisms to counter it. But it takes more than just confronting this long-distance repression to make political dissidents of these authoritarian countries feel safe in the UK, and the UK government is not living up to expectations. The threat is real. Members of…
Tag: Hong Kong
Cars swept away and trees toppled as Typhoon Noul brings flooding to southern China – video
Typhoon Noul made landfall early on Sunday in southern China, bringing heavy rain and gale-force winds across Guangdong province. Authorities said heavy to torrential rain would continue until Tuesday. The rapidly developing storm is the strongest to hit China so far in 2026, according to state media. It has forced the relocation of more than 715,000 people in Guangdong province, authorities said on Sunday. The Guardian
Typhoon Noul forces more than 715,000 from homes and cancels hundreds of flights in China and Hong Kong
Typhoon Noul made landfall early Sunday bringing winds and heavy rain to southern China, including Hong Kong, over the weekend. It prompted the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people in Guangdong province with the region on high alert and hundreds of flights cancelled. China’s national weather centre said Noul made landfall along the Huidong county coast in the city of Huizhou in southern Guangdong province at approximately 3:50 am Sunday. China’s official Xinhua news agency said Noul was the strongest typhoon to make landfall in China so far this…
‘A statement of freedom’: T-shirt slogan goes viral and book sales rocket in Taiwan after Hong Kong raids
Walking out of one of Hong Kong’s last remaining independent bookstores, hands behind her back but head held high, the woman’s T-shirt was emblazoned with a simple slogan: “I am a bookstore employee”. Escorted by police, the woman was among five people arrested during raids on two bookstores last week, suspected of displaying and selling publications with “seditious” content, a national security crime which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years. Since then, the T-shirt phrase has spread far and wide on Taiwanese social media amid concern for the fate…
Trump Pursues a Deeper Bond With China’s Leader, Despite Hostile Speech
Just two months ago, President Trump and China’s leader, Xi Jinping, strolled together through a garden of the secretive leadership compound in the heart of Beijing, past rows of bright flowers and leafy plants. The U.S. president toasted Mr. Xi as “my friend” at a state banquet during his visit. He declared that he had received a “magnificent welcome like none other” that had helped smooth the way to “fantastic trade deals.” The stage was set, Mr. Trump said, for Mr. Xi to make a reciprocal state visit to Washington…
Lam Wing-Kee, Hong Kong Bookseller Who Defied Authorities, Dies at 70
Lam Wing-kee, a bookseller in Hong Kong whose abduction and imprisonment by Chinese authorities, forced confession to selling forbidden books and subsequent public stand against his detention made him an international cause célèbre, died on July 2 in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan. He was 70. Mr. Lam’s death in a hospital, from lung cancer, was announced by the ministry of culture in Taiwan, where Mr. Lam had been living in exile since 2019. For two decades, Mr. Lam’s celebrated Hong Kong storefront, Causeway Bay Bookstore, specialized in titles that…
Five booksellers arrested in Hong Kong police raids in latest crackdown on ‘seditious’ materials
Hong Kong authorities have raided two bookstores and arrested five people on suspicion of selling allegedly seditious publications, according to local media reports, in the latest step targeting independent booksellers. Videos and photos from multiple media outlets on Wednesday showed officers wearing vests marked with “police” seizing boxes from the building that houses Have A Nice Stay, a bookshop founded by former journalists. AFP reporters saw officers also lead away a woman in handcuffs to a van. A few streets away a similar scene played out, with boxes taken from…
Girlfriends review – love and growing pains in queer coming-of-age tale that goes from Hong Kong to Taiwan
It can stretch credibility a little when an actor plays the same character over a long time span in one film. Richard Linklater solved the problem in Boyhood by shooting scenes over succeeding years; AI and de-ageing effects are now an option. With this intimate queer coming-of-age drama, film-maker Tracy Choi instead casts a trio of actors to play one woman from high school to her mid-30s. The three don’t look particularly alike; their temperaments overlap but are by no means identical. The point is perhaps to show how intense…
Absent From the SpaceX and OpenAI I.P.O.s? Chinese Investors.
When SpaceX starts trading this week, one group will be noticeably absent from the frenzy: investors from China and Hong Kong. They are also likely to miss out on the upcoming initial public offering for OpenAI. SpaceX, Elon Musk’s rocket maker and artificial intelligence company, has excluded investors in China and Hong Kong from participating in its I.P.O., according to five people with knowledge of the decision, who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak publicly. OpenAI, another leading A.I. company, is likely to impose…
Four New Zealand Lawmakers Banned From China After Taiwan Trip
Four lawmakers from New Zealand have been barred from traveling to China for a year following a visit to Taiwan last month, government officials said on Thursday, the first time such a restriction has ever been imposed. The lawmakers, Maureen Pugh, Duncan Webb, Laura McClure and David Wilson, visited Taipei for five days in May as part of a cross-party group that was established in 2023 to maintain relations between Taiwan and New Zealand, the local media reported. The travel ban, which emerged on Thursday, was met with shock in…