HONG KONG: For Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement, 2021 has been a year in which the city’s authorities and the central government in Beijing stamped out nearly everything it had stood for.

The crackdown, which took root 18 months ago with the enactment of the National Security Law, played out this year as the world’s two major powers, the United States and China, battled over democracy and good governance.

The Biden administration has been sharply critical of China’s moves in Hong Kong as it tries to support democracy globally and deepen ties with other democracies in the face of China’s rise. China, ruled by the Communist Party, has pointed out flaws in American democracy and argued that its own system has delivered both stability and a better response to COVID-19 compared to what it describes as chaos in the United States.

Hong Kong, a former British colony that was seen as a bastion of freedom after its return to China in 1997, has gone through an overhaul of its political system and a crackdown on political dissent as Beijing and Hong Kong authorities sought to suppress anti-government sentiment that led to months of political strife in 2019.

On Wednesday, Hong Kong police raided the office of online pro-democracy news outlet Stand News and arrested six people — two current and former editors and four former board members including popular singer Denise Ho — for alleged sedition under a colonial-era crime ordinance.

The outlet announced Wednesday afternoon that it would halt operations following the raid.

Stand News is the second media outlet in Hong Kong to cease operations after being targeted by authorities, following the now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper which shut down earlier this year after authorities raided its offices for a second time and froze millions in assets.

A string of arrests of activists and election law amendments this year have all but quashed the pro-democracy movement in the city.

More than 100 pro-democracy figures and others have been arrested under the National Security Law, which penalizes actions seen as separatist or subverting the Hong Kong or Chinese governments.

That includes 47 people charged with subversion under the new law in February over their roles in an unofficial primary election held in 2020 to determine the best candidates to field in planned legislative elections.

Authorities accused the activists of subversion, saying they planned to win a majority and use it to paralyze the government and eventually force Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam to step down.

The government postponed the 2020 elections, citing public health risks from COVID-19. Then, the central government in Beijing announced new election laws earlier this year that reduced the proportion of directly elected seats to less than a quarter and required all candidates to be loyal to Beijing.

The results were predictable: Earlier this month, pro-Beijing lawmakers won a landslide victory in the postponed polls. The city’s largest opposition party, the Democratic Party, fielded no candidates for the first time since Hong Kong’s 1997 handover to China.

Several pro-democracy trade unions and organizations have also been dissolved this year. The city’s largest teachers’ union disbanded in August due to the political climate, followed later by the city’s largest independent trade union, reducing the space for civil society groups.

The Civil Human Rights Front, a pro-democracy group that organized some of the biggest protests in 2019, also disbanded following a police investigation under the National Security law.

Other pro-democracy activists have also been arrested for involvement in unauthorized protests and the annual Tiananmen candlelight vigil — held to commemorate China’s bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989 — which has been banned for two consecutive years. Currently, most of the city’s pro-democracy activists are behind bars or have fled abroad.

As the year drew to a close, several artworks were removed that commemorated the Tiananmen massacre.

Two days before Christmas, the University of Hong Kong, citing legal risks, ordered the removal of the 8-meter (26-foot) -tall Pillar of Shame monument, which depicts a pile of torn and twisted bodies of Tiananmen victims. Several other universities followed suit, removing pro-democracy and Tiananmen commemoration statues.

China’s Communist Party has long sought to erase Tiananmen from the public consciousness in the mainland, forbidding any commemorative events. Now it seems determined to do the same in Hong Kong in the name of restoring stability to the city.

LAHORE: Authorities in Pakistan’s Punjab province on Wednesday said they have detained 85 main suspects after determining their role in the brutal lynching of a Sri Lankan national in Sialkot city earlier this month.

“Currently 85 main suspects whose role has been identified through video footages and investigation in the brutal lynching of Priyantha Kumara are detained on physical remand,” an official of the Punjab police told PTI on Wednesday.

The official said over 100 other suspects were also included in the investigation but no evidence of their involvement in the case was detected, thus they were not named in the FIR and some of them who were detained were released.

“We want to present a strong case against prime suspects in the court and investigation teams are working hard on it,” he said, adding the police will submit the investigation report against the 85 detained suspects in the anti-terrorism court likely at the end of next month.

On Tuesday, the Lahore High Court Chief Justice Muhammad Ameer Bhatti directed Sialkot District Police Officer (DPO) Omar Saeed Malik to complete investigation of the suspects and submit the report to the court at the earliest so that the trial in the case could begin.

DPO Malik gave a detailed briefing to the chief justice on the progress made so far in the lynching case of the Sri Lankan citizen.

The Sialkot District Bar Association has already announced not to represent the suspects.

“No lawyer will pursue the case on behalf of the suspects,” the bar said in a statement.

The business community has collected USD 100,000 for the family of Kumara.

The factory management has also decided to send the monthly salary of the deceased to his family.

The federal or the provincial government has yet to announce any compensation package for the victim’s family so far.

Kumara was working as general manager in the Rajko industries (dealing in garments – sportswear) in Sialkot district for over seven years.

The incident sparked outrage across Pakistan with all sections of society condemning it and calling for the culprits to be punished.

Pakistan’s Senate on Friday passed an unanimous resolution condemning the lynching.

The Sri Lankan Parliament, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa have condemned the brutal killing and expressed hope that Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government would bring the guilty to justice.

London: A video has surfaced on social media in which a fully masked man with a crossbow, identifying himself as an Indian Sikh, is seen declaring to “assassinate” Queen Elizabeth II to avenge the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre, prompting Scotland Yard to launch a probe, days after an intruder armed with a crossbow was arrested at the monarch’s Windsor Castle.

The video, shared on Snapshot, is that of a fully masked man who identifies himself as Indian Sikh Jaswant Singh Chail and declares that he wants to “assassinate” the monarch in revenge for the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre, according to The Sun newspaper which obtained the video.

Meanwhile, the 19-year-old intruder, who has not yet been named by the Metropolitan Police, is now being held over mental health issues.

Scotland Yard officers were investigating the video reportedly linked to the intruder armed with a crossbow arrested at Windsor Castle on Christmas Day.

The Metropolitan Police said that the arrested suspect has been sectioned under the UK’s Mental Health Act after a mental health assessment and remains in the care of medical professionals .

I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what I’ve done and what I will do. I will attempt to assassinate Elizabeth, Queen of the Royal Family, the masked man is seen saying in the video.

This is revenge for those who have died in the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre. It is also revenge for those who have been killed, humiliated and discriminated on because of their race. I’m an Indian Sikh, a Sikh. My name was Jaswant Singh Chail, my name is Darth Jones, he says.

The massacre took place at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar during the Baisakhi festival in April 1919 when the British Indian Army under the command of Colonel Reginald Dyer opened fire at a crowd staging a pro-independence demonstration, leaving scores dead.

In the video clip posted on The Sun website, the ‘Star Wars’ film-like masked figure holds a shiny black weapon and speaks in a distorted voice.

It was reportedly sent to followers of the man’s Snapchat account 24 minutes before armed security officers arrested him near the 95-year-old Queen’s private apartments.

In a message sent on Snapchat alongside the video, the teenager wrote: I’m sorry to all of those who I have wronged or lied to. If you have received this then my death is near. Please share this with whoever and if possible, get it to the news if they’re interested.

Police are also carrying out searches at a housing estate in Southampton, where the suspect reportedly lived with his family.

A 19-year-old man from Southampton was arrested on suspicion of breach or trespass of a protected site and possession of an offensive weapon, Met Police said in a statement.

Following a search of the man, a crossbow was recovered. The man was taken into custody and has undergone a mental health assessment he has since been sectioned under the Mental Health Act and remains in the care of medical professionals.

Enquiries into the full circumstances of this incident are being progressed by Metropolitan Police Specialist Operations, the statement added.

The police spokesman declined to comment on the identity of the person in the video.

Buckingham Palace has also declined to comment, the BBC reported.

Prince Charles and wife Camilla are spending Christmas with the monarch at Windsor Castle in Berkshire, south-east England, after she took the decision to call off her traditional Christmas at Sandringham estate in Norfolk amidst a surge in COVID-19 cases.

Officers from Thames Valley and the Metropolitan Police said they responded to the breach on Saturday morning and arrested the man from Southampton.

WASHINGTON: With Omicron cases on the rise, New York health officials have reported an increase in hospitalized children, as the White House promised Sunday to quickly resolve the United States’ COVID-19 test shortage.

The New York State Department of Health warned “of an upward trend in pediatric hospitalizations associated with COVID-19”, in a statement on Friday. “In New York City, it identified four-fold increases in COVID-19 hospital admissions for children 18 and under beginning the week of December 5 through the current week,” it said.

The department added that approximately half of the admissions are younger than five, an age group that is vaccine ineligible. The number of COVID-19 cases in the United States is on the rise, with an average of nearly 190,000 new infections daily over the past seven days, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University.

The arrival of the new Omicron variant, compounded by holiday celebrations that typically include travel and family reunions, have caused a rush on tests in the United States, where it is difficult to get one in many locations.

Top US pandemic advisor Anthony Fauci on Sunday acknowledged a COVID “testing problem” and vowed to make more tests available to Americans next month. “One of the problems is that that’s not going to be totally available to everyone until we get to January and there are still some issues now of people having trouble getting tested,” Fauci told ABC News.

“But we’re addressing the testing problem,” he added, saying it should be corrected “very soon.”

On Tuesday, President Joe Biden announced a raft of new measures as the United States battles its latest COVID surge, including shipping half a billion free home tests in the wake of the Christmastime testing crunch.

However, the White House, whose strategy has for weeks been mainly focused on vaccinations, has faced strong criticism over the fact that many tests won’t be available until January.

‘Extraordinarily contagious’

Fauci on Sunday emphasized that the administration was ramping up to tackle the spike and stressed that Omicron was “extraordinarily contagious.” 

Apart from overwhelming hospitals and COVID testing sites, the Covid variant has forced the cancellation of hundreds of flights in the United States, as crews called in sick or had to quarantine after exposure to the virus. 

Recent studies in South Africa and Britain indicate that Omicron was less likely to lead to hospitalization than the previous strains of the virus and that the duration of hospital stays and oxygen needs for patients were lower, Fauci noted.

But he also warned that Omicron’s apparent lower severity is likely to be neutralized by how fast it is spreading. “The issue that we don’t want to get complacent about… is that when you have such a high volume of new infections, it might override a real diminution in severity,” Fauci said.

Port-Au-Princ (Haiti): A truck carrying gasoline exploded in northern Haiti, killing more than 40 people and injuring dozens of others, officials and news reports said Tuesday.

The blast occurred late Monday in the city of Cap-Haitien, Prime Minister Ariel Henry said, adding that he was devastated.

No further details were immediately available. Police didn’t immediately return calls requesting information.

Le Nouvelliste newspaper reported that dozens have been hospitalized with injuries and that hospitals were seeking supplies.

We are overwhelmed, a person identified as Dr. Calhil Turenne told the paper.

Dave Larose, a civil engineer who works in Cap-Haitien, told The Associated Press that he was driving when he saw ambulances and a crowd of people gathered along a road around 1 a.m.

He said he observed how some people were using buckets to scoop up gasoline from the truck and the street to take back to their house. The explosion occurred as Haiti struggles with a severe shortage of fuel and spiraling gas prices.

It’s terrible what our country has to go through Larose said.

Former Prime Minister Claude Joseph also mourned the victims, tweeting, I share the pain and sorrow of all the people.”