Hong Kong handover anniversary to involve Xi, but visit uncertain
BEIJING — President Xi Jinping will participate in upcoming this week’s celebrations of the 25th anniversary of the return of Hong Kong to China, the government said Saturday, but it left unclear whether he will visit the former British colony for the highly symbolic event after a crackdown on a pro-democracy movement.
Xi, who also is general secretary of the ruling Communist Party, will attend a meeting for the anniversary and the inauguration of Hong Kong’s government led by newly appointed Chief Executive John Lee, the official Xinhua News Agency said. The announcement gave no other details.
The anniversary is one of the highest-profile political events in a year when Xi is widely believed to be trying to break with tradition and award himself a third fiveyear term as party leader.
Xi hasn’t made a trip outside the Chinese mainland since the start of the coronavirus pandemic 2½ years ago. Hong Kong faces a renewed rise in infections after a flood of cases this year threatened to overwhelm its hospitals.
The anniversary follows a crackdown led in part by Lee, a former Hong Kong security chief. Activists have been sentenced to prison, scores of others arrested and Hong Kong’s most prominent pro-democracy newspaper shut down.
The tighter controls under a national security law imposed in 2020 have prompted some people to leave for Taiwan, Britain and other countries. That has led to concerns the ruling party is ruining Hong Kong’s status as a global business and financial center.
Hong Kong, one of Asia’s richest cities and a global business center with thriving film, publishing and other creative industries, returned to China on July 1, 1997, under an agreement that promised a “high degree of autonomy” for 50 years.
Activists and foreign governments say Beijing has reneged on that. The United States suspended agreements that treated Hong Kong as a separate territory for trade, saying the city no longer had enough autonomy from Beijing.
The European Union and Iran agreed on Saturday to resume negotiations in Vienna in the coming days over Tehran’s tattered nuclear deal with world powers.
The agreement could help relieve tensions after talks stalled for months, while Iran enriches uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels under decreasing international oversight.
At a joint press conference with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian in Tehran, the EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borell, said the negotiations would restart soon.
Borell added that the United States, which unilaterally withdrew from the nuclear deal in 2018 and imposed tough economic sanctions on Iran, should also return to the negotiations.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has caused a “tectonic change” in geopolitics, making it more urgent than ever to reach an agreement that would allow Iran to sell its oil to world markets, Borell said.
Former President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the deal four years ago, and the sanctions he imposed severed most of Iran’s oil revenues and international
Iran nuclear talks:
financial transactions.
Vaccine-boosting tweak:
Pfizer announced Saturday that tweaking its COVID-19 vaccine to better target the omicron variant is safe and works. The announcement came days before regulators debate whether to offer Americans updated booster shots this fall.
The vaccines used in the U.S. still offer strong protection against severe COVID-19 disease and death — especially if people have gotten a booster dose. But those vaccines target the original coronavirus strain and their effectiveness against any infection dropped markedly when omicron emerged.
Pfizer and its partner BioNTech studied two different ways of updating their shots — targeting just omicron, or a combination booster that adds omicron protection to the original vaccine.
In a study of more than
1,200 middle-aged and older adults who’d already had three vaccine doses, Pfizer said both booster approaches spurred a substantial jump in omicron-fighting antibodies.
Maxwell accusers: Seven women who say Ghislaine Maxwell helped Jeffrey Epstein steal the innocence of their youth and poison the promise of their future are asking a judge to consider their pain as she decides what prison sentence she will dispense Tuesday to the incarcerated British woman.
Their statements were put in the public case file late Friday by Manhattan prosecutors who have asked U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan to sentence Maxwell to 30 to 55 years in prison for “monstrous” crimes resulting in a December sex trafficking conviction.
Defense lawyer Bobbi Sternheim included the statements in a submission to the judge after the defense asked for a sentence of no
more than five years, but heavily redacted portions in asking the judge to disregard some entirely because they were not directly a part of the case that resulted in Maxwell’s conviction.
UK rail strike: Train stations were all but deserted across Britain on Saturday, as the third day of a national strike snarled the weekend plans of millions.
Train companies said only 20% of passenger services would run, as about 40,000 cleaners, signalers, maintenance workers and station staff walked off the job in Britain’s biggest and most disruptive railway strike for 30 years.
The same workers held 24-hour strikes on Tuesday and Thursday in a dispute over jobs, pay and working conditions.
The Rail, Maritime and Transport Union is seeking a substantial pay raise as workers face a cost-of-living squeeze amid high inflation. Train companies, meanwhile,
are seeking to cut costs and staffing after two years of emergency government funding.
Juul reprieve: A federal appeals court granted a temporary reprieve to Juul Labs that will allow it to keep its e-cigarettes on the market, pending further court review of an earlier decision by the Food and Drug Administration to ban sales of the company’s products.
The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on Friday issued a temporary stay sought by Juul. The brief order cautioned that the stay “should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits.”
The stay involves the FDA’s order Thursday, when the agency said Juul had to stop sales because it had provided conflicting and insufficient data that prevented the FDA from assessing the potential health risks of its products.