TAIPEI/HONG KONG (June 18): For Hong Kong resident Yung Xiu Kwan, 67, a proposed extradition law that would allow people in the former British colony to be sent to mainland China for trial was the final straw.
Yung is packing her bags and leaving the Chinese-ruled city to set up a new life in proudly democratic Taiwan, fed up with what she sees as Beijing's ever encroaching grip over the city that has led to an erosion of civil liberties.
(June 16): Hundreds of thousands of black-clad demonstrators are marching through central Hong Kong in a show of defiance after the city’s leader suspended consideration of the China-backed extradition plan that has already sparked some of the biggest protests in the city in decades.
Organisers say that Sunday’s protest may be larger than last week’s demonstration, when they estimated more than 1 million people filed through the city center. The police say that rally drew 240,000.
(June 15): Hong Kong’s leader suspended efforts to pass a bill allowing extraditions to China, in a dramatic reversal that she said was necessary to restore order in the Asian financial hub and avoid further violence and mass protests.
SINGAPORE (June 17): What is it about the rivalry between Singapore and Hong Kong? On the face of it, the two cities have much in common: former British colonial outposts turned cosmopolitan centres for international business and finance. Underpinning their success have been their open, trade-friendly economies and a legal system based on English common law.
SINGAPORE (June 17): “We remain firmly committed to our growing traditional meat business and expect to be a market leader in alternative protein.” — Noel White, CEO of Tyson, a leading producer of meat.
Fear of China’s growing influence in Hong Kong has sent stocks reeling and some investors are rethinking their asset allocations. But an exodus to Singapore is not a given, and the city state may not welcome one anyway.
SINGAPORE (June 17): Chris Niem, a communications consultant, was one of tens of thousands of protesters who crowded central Hong Kong to literally try and block the passage of a piece of legislation that would allow anyone in the territory to be extradited to mainland China for certain crimes.
SINGAPORE (June 17): The world has been riveted by the protests raging in Hong Kong against the city government’s proposed law to allow the extradition of criminal suspects to mainland China. About one million people — roughly one-seventh of the former British colony’s population — took to the streets on June 9 to denounce the draft law, and another large protest on June 12 resulted in violent clashes between demonstrators and police.
(June 12): Protesters who have flooded downtown Hong Kong to stop the government’s proposed extradition law effectively present the city’s leaders with an ultimatum: back down, or risk violent clashes that could be worse than the Occupy movement in 2014.
HONG KONG (June 12): Tens of thousands of demonstrators in Hong Kong surrounded the city's legislature on Wednesday, forcing it to postpone a second round of debate on an extradition bill that would allow people to be sent to mainland China for trial.
The protesters, most of them young people dressed in black, erected barricades as they prepared to hunker down for an extended occupation of the area, in scenes reminiscent of pro-democracy "Occupy" protests that rocked the city in 2014.
(June 11): Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam vowed on Monday to push ahead with amendments to laws allowing suspects to be extradited to mainland China, a day after the city’s biggest protest since its handover from British to Chinese rule in 1997.
Riot police ringed Hong Kong’s legislature and fought back a group of several hundred protesters who stayed behind early on Monday after Sunday’s peaceful march that organisers said drew more than a million people, or one in seven of the city’s people.
