South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Pro-democracy paper editor, CEO denied bail in Hong Kong
HONG KONG — A Hong Kong court ordered the top editor of pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily and the head of its parent company held without bail Saturday in the first hearing since their arrest two days ago under the city’s national security law.
Ryan Law, the chief editor, and Cheung Kim-hung, the CEO of Next Digital, have been charged with collusion with a foreign country to endanger national security in a case widely seen as an attack on press freedom in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory.
Chief Magistrate Victor So said there were not sufficient grounds to believe they would not violate the security law again, and ordered them held at the Lai Chi Kok detention center. He set the next hearing for Aug. 13.
Law and Cheung arrived at the court in an unmarked white van with covered windows. A handful of activists held up a banner and copies of the Apple Daily outside before the hearing began.
Three others also arrested Thursday — two Apple Daily senior editors and another executive — have not been charged yet and were released on bail late Friday pending further investigation.
One of them, Associate Publisher Chan Pui-man, said after attending the bail hearing, “I think that all media workers in Hong Kong are worried. But for now, for us, tomorrow, we will still come out with our newspaper, and we’ll do our best to continue our work.”
The Apple Daily has long been one of the most outspoken defenders of civil liberties in Hong Kong. It supported massive protests demanding more democracy in 2019 and has criticized the subsequent crackdown, including the enactment of a national security law last year.
The central government in Beijing has defended the legislation and the crackdown on opposition voices as necessary to restore order and stability.
US triples vaccines to Taiwan: The United States is shipping 2.5 million doses of Moderna’s COVID19 vaccines to Taiwan on Saturday, tripling the original amount Washington had promised, Ned Price, the State Department spokesman, said in a tweet.
The shipment, first reported by Reuters, could add tension to the U.S.China relationship. Chinese officials were annoyed this month when three U.S. senators visited the island, which China regards as its own territory, to announce the original pledge of 750,000 doses, as well as when Japan said it was giving Taiwan 1.2 million AstraZeneca doses.
“We know that Taiwan has faced unfair challenges in its efforts to acquire vaccines, which makes this donation even more important,” a senior Biden administration official said.
Taiwan’s leaders have blamed “Chinese intervention” for their inability to buy doses from the German company BioNTech, which developed its vaccine with Pfizer.
China has called the accusation “fabricated out of nothing.”
Myanmar rejects UN resolution: Myanmar’s Foreign Ministry on Saturday rejected a U.N. General Assembly resolution calling for an arms embargo against the Southeast Asian nation and condemning the military’s seizure of power in
February.
Myanmar described the resolution, which passed Friday and is not legally binding, as being “based on one-sided sweeping allegations and false assumptions.”
The statement issued in the capital Naypyitaw said the Foreign Ministry had sent letters of objection to the U.N. secretary-general and the General Assembly’s president.
The resolution condemned the takeover that ousted Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government. It called on the military junta to restore the country’s democratic transition, condemned its “excessive and lethal violence” since the takeover and called on all countries “to prevent the flow of arms into Myanmar.”
Guinea says Ebola outbreak over: Guinea has declared an end to an Ebola outbreak that emerged in February and killed 12 people, according to the World Health Organization.
The latest outbreak was the first to emerge in Guinea since a deadly outbreak from 2014 to 2016 killed more than 11,300 people in West Africa.
That originated in the same region before spreading to neighboring Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Guinea’s latest outbreak was declared Feb. 14 after three cases were detected in Gouecke, a rural community in the southern N’zerekore prefecture. There were 16 confirmed and seven probable cases.
“I commend the affected communities, the government and people of Guinea, health workers, partners and everyone else whose dedicated efforts made it possible to contain this Ebola outbreak,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General.
Russia reports US student death: Russian news reports said searchers on Saturday found the body of an American student who went missing several days earlier and that a man has been arrested on suspicion of murder.
The body of Catherine Serou, 34, was found in a wooded area near the city of Bor, 250 miles east of Moscow, the reports said.
Russia’s Investigative Committee said that a woman’s body was found in Bor and that a suspect with a record of serious crimes had been arrested, but did not give names.
The cause of death was not specified.
Local news reports said Serou was last seen on Tuesday after getting into a car. Her mother, Beccy Serou, of Vicksburg, Mississippi, told NPR that her daughter had last texted her: “In a car with a stranger. I hope I’m not being abducted.
Catherine Serou moved from California to Russia in 2019 to study law at a university in Nizhny Novgorod, a major city near Bor, news reports said.
Beccy Serou told NPR that her daughter was in a hurry to get to a clinic Tuesday
On track for sainthood: Robert Schuman, a French statesman who paved the way for the bloc that eventually evolved into European Union, has moved ahead on the Catholic church’s path toward possible sainthood.
The Vatican said Pope Francis on Saturday approved a decree declaring the “heroic virtues” of Schuman, a former prime minister, finance minister and foreign minister for France after World War II. In 1950, as foreign minister, he developed a plan to promote European economic unity in hopes of furthering peace.
Schuman died in 1963 after serving as the first president of the forerunner of the European Parliament.
The pope’s decision means Schuman can be called ”venerable” by the Catholic faithful. It is one of several steps in a usually long process that can result in sainthood.