Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
4 Hong Kong youths arrested under new national security law
HONG KONG — Hong Kong police have made their first major arrests under a new national security law, detaining four young people Wednesday on suspicion of inciting secession.
Three males and one female, aged 16 to 21, were arrested at three locations, a police official said at an 11 p.m. news conference. All are believed to be students.
Police said the group had made comments on social media since the law took effect that urged independence for Hong Kong, a semi-autonomous Chinese territory.
“They say they want to establish a Hong Kong republic, and that they will unreservedly fight for it,” said Li Kwai-wah, senior superintendent of a newly formed unit to enforce the security law. “They also said they want to unite all proindependence groups in Hong Kong for this purpose.”
The law, which took effect late on June 30, was imposed on Hong Kong by the central government in Beijing and has raised fears that the city’s autonomy and freedoms are being taken away.
Hong Kong was promised its own governing and legal system until 2047, or 50 years after the former British colony was returned to China in 1997. China says that issues such as separatism concern national security and as such fall under its purview.
Police did not identify the suspects or their organization, but a group called Studentlocalism said on Twitter and Facebook that its former leader, Tony Chung, had been arrested at 8:50 p.m. for allegedly inciting secession.
A different hajj: Muslim pilgrims, donning face masks and moving in small groups after days in isolation, began arriving at Islam’s holiest site in Mecca on Wednesday for the start of a historically unique and scaled-down hajj experience reshaped by the coronavirus pandemic.
The hajj is one of Islam’s most important requirements, performed once in a lifetime. It follows a route the Prophet Muhammad walked nearly 1,400 years ago and is believed to ultimately trace the footsteps of the prophets Ibrahim and Ismail, or Abraham and Ishmael as they are named in the Bible.
The hajj, both physically and spiritually demanding, is intended to bring about greater humility and unity among Muslims.
Rather than standing and praying shoulder-to-shoulder in a sea of people from different walks of life, pilgrims this year are social distancing — standing apart and moving in small groups of 20 to limit exposure and the potential transmission of the coronavirus.
While the experience is starkly different, it remains an opportunity for pilgrims to wipe clean past sins and deepen their faith.
Civil rights icon: The body of John Lewis was brought Wednesday to Atlanta to lie in repose at the Georgia capitol in one of the last memorial services for the late Democratic congressman before he is buried.
Members of the public were to pay their respects to Lewis at the state Capitol Rotunda.
A private burial service in Atlanta is scheduled for Thursday.
People lined the streets as the hearse carrying Lewis’ body moved through downtown. It stopped briefly in front of a mural of Lewis with the word, “Hero,” before arriving at the state Capitol, where it was met by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms.
A memorial service at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Monday drew congressional leaders from both parties. Lewis was the first Black lawmaker to lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda.
He spent more than three decades in Congress, and his district included most of Atlanta.
Storm pummels Caribbean: Heavy rains pummeled the eastern Caribbean on Wednesday due to a weather system headed to Puerto Rico and other islands that was expected to develop into a tropical storm and unleash flooding and landslides.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said the storm system was expected to move near or just south Puerto Rico on Wednesday night, then brush the northern shores of Hispaniola the following day on a path that could take it to the U.S. mainland by the weekend.
The center said the system is expected to strengthen before it moves near or over the Dominican Republic on Thursday and eastern Cuba on Friday, although it cautioned it’s still unclear what it would do in upcoming days.
College bribery scandal:
The founder of a Silicon Valley venture capital firm was sentenced Wednesday to six months behind bars for paying about $450,000 in bribes to boost his two daughters’ entrance exam scores and get one of them into Georgetown University as a bogus tennis recruit.
Manuel Henriquez, the 57-year-old founder and ex-CEO of Hercules Capital based in Palo Alto, California, cried and dabbed his eyes with a tissue as he prayed for forgiveness from his children and other families he hurt, and asked the judge for mercy.
“There is no perfect way to express how broken I feel in my heart and soul,” said Henriquez, who sat next to his lawyer and wore a face mask for much of the hearing held via videoconference because of the coronavirus pandemic.
His wife, Elizabeth Henriquez, was sentenced in March to seven months behind bars. She is currently locked up at a prison in California and is expected to be released in January, according to online records.
Billion-dollar deal: Zimbabwe’s government Wednesday signed a deal with former white farmers to pay them billions of dollars in compensation roughly two decades after they lost their land in often violent invasions. But because the government does not have the money, the farmers will be part of a team tasked with raising the cash.
About 4,000 farmers lost swathes of land when Zimbabwe’s late leader Robert Mugabe launched a land reform program, which he said was aimed at addressing colonial-era land inequities. White farmers had owned the majority of prime farmland. Agricultural land now belongs to the government.
According to the agreement, the $3.5 billion compensation is not for the land but for infrastructure such as wells, irrigation equipment and buildings. The farmers initially wanted over $5 billion.