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Annual vigil replaced by pro-Beijing carnival but some still manage to mark massacre amid heavy police presence
For the past three years, Hong Kong authorities have gone to great lengths to stop people from lighting candles in Victoria Park and publicly commemorating the Tiananmen Square massacre – an annual tradition tens of thousands of residents had kept alive for three decades since the bloody crackdown in 1989.
This year, the city . On Sunday, in place of a mass vigil was a patriotic carnival held by pro-Beijing groups, celebrating the city’s return to Chinese rule with food booths, and dance and music performances. Colourful banners urged carnival goers to “taste the joy”. Instead of candles, volunteers handed out plush toys.

Shadow foreign secretary says Britain risks isolation in global debates on China, AI and climate crisis
Rishi Sunak has demonstrated a “little England mentality” in foreign relations, David Lammy has argued, warning the UK risks marginalising itself in vital global debates on China, AI and the climate emergency.
Speaking shortly before Sunak heads to Washington for a meeting with Joe Biden, the shadow foreign secretary said cuts to areas such as overseas aid, the British Council and BBC World Service were further hampering the UK’s soft power and making it appear even more insular.

In a video released by the US Navy, the USS Chung-Hoon observes a Chinese navy ship conduct what is described as an 'unsafe' manoeuvre in the Taiwan Strait on 3 June. The Chinese navy ship moves across the path of the American destroyer, forcing the US ship to slow to avoid a collision, the US Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement. The incident occurred as the US destroyer and Canadian frigate HMCS Montreal were conducting a 'freedom of navigation' transit of the strait between Taiwan and mainland China. China's military rebuked the US and Canada for 'deliberately provoking risk'

The U.S. Navy released video of a Chinese maneuver in the Taiwan Strait in which a Chinese navy ship cut sharply across the path of a U.S. destroyer.

With candlelight vigils to the victims of the 1989 crushed student uprising in Beijing now only a memory, the anniversary is also a reminder of the freedoms Hong Kong has lost.

Hoon, a Navy destroyer, was operating in the area with a Canadian companion frigate. Over the radio the Chinese vessel then announced a change of course, as it

Hoon, a Navy destroyer, was operating in the area with a Canadian companion frigate. Over the radio the Chinese vessel then announced a change of course, as it ...

The video released Monday shows the Chinese ship cutting across the course of the American one, then straightening out to start sailing in a parallel direction. The island of Taiwan has been populated by Malayo-Polynesian peoples for centuries, later ...

US military says its ship had to reduce speed to avoid a collision and accuses China of violating maritime rules of safe passage in international water
The US military has released video of what it called an “unsafe” Chinese manoeuvre in the Taiwan Strait on the weekend, in which a Chinese navy ship cut sharply across the path of an American destroyer, forcing the US ship to slow to avoid a collision.
The incident occurred on Saturday as the American destroyer USS Chung-Hoon and Canadian frigate HMCS Montreal were conducting a so-called “freedom of navigation” transit of the strait between Taiwan and mainland China.

While some countries turn marriage into a patriotic act, it might just give us a radical new way to live our lives
One of the curious things about marriage is the role it’s played in embedding commonly held views about normality. Married people are generally considered normal people. As such, they have possessed inordinate power to dictate the terms of normality in a way that single people rarely can. And yet marriage, clearly, isn’t for everyone. Plenty of people have no desire to do it. Plenty of others have done it and haven’t liked it. The stats only corroborate this. Fewer people over the years have been getting married, while the stresses and strains of lockdown in 2020 (along with the temporary closure of venues) saw divorces in England and Wales for the first time.
Not everyone, however, is taking marriage’s declining popularity lying down. At the recent , delegates were promised a national revival founded on “faith, family and flag”. Likewise, China has just to actively encourage its young women to marry and have children (and not just one child any more: three, ideally). This is a national policy, but it’s one with global benefits: to stem the threat of economic stagnation, growing the population is supposed to ensure the continuity of a . In other words, unless more Chinese women have more children, we’ll all have to pay more for our merch – with matrimony here (never mind that not everyone who marries has children and not everyone who has children gets married) still framed by national governments as the gateway to maternity first of all. Other countries may well follow China’s lead. In , where they’ve just recorded a seventh consecutive year of declining birthrates, and fewer couplings, the government is accused of failing to act quickly enough to mitigate the effects of a rapidly ageing population.
Devorah Baum is associate professor of English literature at the University of Southampton and the author of

The U.S. military released video showing the moment a Chinese navy ship sailed across the path of USS Chung-Hoon and Canada’s HMCS Montreal in the Taiwan Strait, forcing the American destroyer to slow to avoid collision. The video, which was released ...