International

Clockenflap, Hong Kong’s biggest music festival, has been cancelled, organisers said on Friday, the highest-profile event so far to fall victim to the increasingly violent political unrest engulfing the city. British folk-rock sensations Mumford & Sons and American star Halsey were among the headliners for the festival this year, which was scheduled for November 22-24. “Due to the escalation of …

The Philippines on Friday reported its first case of a vaping-linked illness, as health authorities expressed concern at court orders preventing them from regulating electronic cigarettes. A rash of vaping-linked deaths and illnesses in some countries has raised concern over the rising popularity of e-cigarettes, touted as less harmful than tobacco. India and some US states have banned e-cigarettes. A …

by Yan ZHAO / Catherine LAI Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters defied a warning by China’s President Xi Jinping and again took to the city’s streets on Friday, as the political turmoil seeped out to London where a minister from the Southern Chinese city was confronted by masked demonstrators. Hong Kong has seen relentless protests since June as many in the …

A DBS Bank branch in Hong Kong was vandalised with vulgarities aimed at Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, his family and the People’s Action Party (PAP). The Straits Times reported on Fri (15 Nov) a spokesperson for the Singapore bank as saying that the graffiti was removed upon discovery yesterday. Photos of the graffiti had first surfaced in a Facebook group …

Law enforcement exists to protect the people, while the government exists to serve the people, said Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen in a statement on Wed (13 Nov). Tsai warned that the people’s trust in the government will cease to exist when it “no longer does what is best for its people”, and when the police “no longer protect citizens”. Her …

Police have downgraded Hong Kong’s annual gay pride parade to a stationary rally, organisers said Thursday, after police banned the traditionally boisterous and colourful march through the territory as pro-democracy protests engulf the city. Police allowed the Saturday afternoon event on condition it takes the “form of a public meeting” and not a march, Hong Kong Pride Parade said in …

by Haeril HALIM Indonesian Mirnawati once ate rice with every meal, but its link to diabetes convinced her to join a growing movement to quit a staple food in the third biggest rice-consuming nation on Earth. As World Diabetes Day is held Thursday, the Southeast Asian nation is struggling to tackle a disease that affects as many as 20 million …

by Aidan JONES / Jasmine LEUNG With wooden catapults to launch petrol bombs and bows and arrows pilfered from sports departments, Hong Kong’s democracy protesters are combining new tactics with medieval tech as they battle police. Roads in the financial hub have been blockaded with bamboo lattices this week, while mini Stonehenge-like structures have been built from dug-up pavement as …

Festival Walk, a shopping mall in Hong Kong owned by Singapore-based Mapletree North Asia Commercial Trust Ltd, suffered “extensive damage” in another round of protests on Wed (13 Nov). Bloomberg reported Mapletree, a Temasek Holdings-linked company, as saying that protestors had “smashed” glass panels at the mall’s entrance, and that they had also “damaged the office lobby and balustrades on …

China said Tuesday that a World Bank decision to scale back a vocational education project was unrelated to allegations of mistreatment of minority Muslim Uighurs in the northwestern Xinjiang region. The World Bank launched a review in August of the programme after Foreign Policy magazine reported that a school which benefited from a tranche of the $50 million loan to China …