Hong Kong – Chinese media on Saturday (Aug 6) dismissed Hong Kong’s independence movement as a political “gimmick”, following the city’s first pro-independence rally that was attended by more than 2,000 people.

The unprecedented rally saw people fill a park near the government’s headquarters on Friday night, chanting “Hong Kong independence”.

The protest was led by five pro-independence candidates who were banned from standing for election in Hong Kong because they advocate a split from mainland China.

Critics have slammed the move as censorship as fears grow over Beijing interference in the semi-autonomous city in a range of areas, from politics to media and education.

“Hong Kong independence follows the fantasies of certain people and has become one of the city’s most extreme political gimmicks,” China’s Global Times newspaper said Saturday.

“It is completely impossible to be realised,” the state-run paper said.

It added that Hong Kong authorities would feel the need for “institutional restrictions” in the face of the independence movement “to prevent it from being taken seriously and ultimately polluting the city’s politics”.

Independence calls, which until recently were a taboo topic, have evolved out of the “localist” movement of mainly young campaigners disappointed after mass rallies in 2014, known as the Umbrella Movement, failed to win concessions from China on political reform.

Some “localists” do not advocate independence, but are instead pushing for self-determination for Hong Kong, an idea which has taken root among other pro-democracy campaigners.

Demosisto, a new party set up by Umbrella Movement activists including well-known campaigner Joshua Wong, has made self-determination its central platform, although it does not cast itself as a “localist” organisation.

The party is standing in the upcoming elections, but faced a setback on Friday night after election officials banned a leaflet it planned to distribute to more than 100,000 people.

The Electoral Affairs Commission told candidate Nathan Law, a former Umbrella Movement leader, that the use of the words “binding referendum” for self-determination was unlawful.

“Officials have not kept political neutrality and abused their authority and intervened in the election,” Demosisto said in a statement.

Hong Kong was handed back to China by Britain in 1997 under an agreement that protects its freedoms for 50 years, but concern is growing that those liberties are disappearing.

See also: Anger as Hong Kong pro-independence leader barred from polls

Tokyo – Some 230 Chinese fishing vessels and seven coast guard ships, including four apparently carrying weapons, sailed into waters close to disputed East China Sea islands on Saturday (Aug 6), Japan’s foreign ministry and coastguard said.

Six Chinese coast guard ships were spotted earlier in the day and late on Saturday afternoon.

Japanese officials said they spotted another, which seemed to be carrying arms, in the contiguous waters of the uninhabited islands.

The two countries are locked in a long-running dispute over the rocky islets – known as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China – but it is rare for so many Chinese fishing vessels to be spotted in the disputed waters.

“We cannot be sure about what the Chinese coast guards are doing for what purposes in the waters,” a Japanese coast guard official told AFP.

The 230 fishing vessels and seven coast guard boats remained in the area nine hours after they were first spotted, he added.

The fishing vessels appeared to be engaged in operation, he said.

After catching sight of the coast guard ships in the contiguous waters at 8.05 am, the Japanese foreign ministry’s Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau lodged a strong protest with the Chinese embassy in Tokyo, it said.

The foreign ministry, which also submitted a protest through its embassy in Beijing, demanded the vessels leave the disputed waters immediately and “never enter Japan’s territorial waters”, the ministry said in a statement.

“Japan can never accept activities by (Chinese) official vessels near the Senkaku islands, because it will unilaterally escalate the situation and raise tensions in the area,” it said.

Saturday’s protest came a day after Japanese vice-foreign minister Shinsuke Sugiyama summoned Cheng Yonghua, Beijing’s ambassador to Tokyo, to protest over intrusions into its territorial waters by Chinese coast guard and fishing vessels on Friday afternoon.

Tensions over the islands have seriously harmed bilateral relations.

The two sides have gradually taken steps to ease tensions through dialogue but the fundamental divide over the islands remains unresolved and tensions occasionally flare up.

Japan also lodged a protest in June after it said a Chinese navy frigate sailed close to territorial waters near the islands for the first time.

Manila – Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has vowed to maintain his “shoot-to-kill” order against drug dealers while in office and says he “does not care about human rights”.

About 800 people have been killed since Duterte won a landslide election in May, according to reports by the local press which has been tracking the maverick politician’s campaign pledge to kill tens of thousands of criminals.

“This campaign (of) shoot-to-kill will remain until the last day of my term if I’m still alive by then,” the 71-year-old said at a news conference in his southern hometown of Davao.

“I don’t care about human rights, believe me,” he said, according to official transcripts released by the presidential palace on Saturday (Aug 6).

Drug killings in Manila

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Reuters

He said government officials who use their positions to engage in a trade that wrecks the lives of many Filipinos were first on his list.

Duterte said he was also offering soldiers and police his “official and personal guarantee” of immunity from prosecution for killings undertaken in the performance of their duties.

The president dismissed critics’ suggestions some of the 402 suspects whose killings have been acknowledged by the police were “salvaged”, the local police term for summary execution.

Hundreds of others have been killed by suspected vigilantes, according to unofficial tallies by local newspapers and television networks.

The UN anti-drugs office on Wednesday joined international rights organisations in condemning the rash of killings.

“The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime remains greatly concerned by the reports of extrajudicial killing of suspected drug dealers and users in the Philippines,” its executive director Yury Fedotov said in a statement.

“I join the United Nations secretary general in condemning the apparent endorsement of extrajudicial killing, which is illegal and a breach of fundamental rights and freedoms,” Fedotov added.

In June, UN chief Ban Ki-moon strongly condemned Duterte’s apparent support of extrajudicial killings.

“These NGOs (non-governmental organisations) that are complaining to the United Nations, this is none of their business,” Duterte retorted.

“I’m waging a war. I am now invoking the articles of war.” Duterte said he had no fear the anti-crime campaign would cause his impeachment and removal from office.

“The Filipino is crying for justice” from crimes committed by drug dependents, he said.

Police say more than 500,000 people have surrendered to the local authorities and pledged to stop using illegal drugs.

Kokrajhar, India – The death toll from an attack in India’s north-eastern Assam state, where gunmen opened fire on a busy market, jumped to 15 on Saturday (Aug 6) as three more people succumbed to their injuries.

The dead included a militant from a faction of the outlawed National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), which has waged a decades-long campaign for an independent homeland for the indigenous Bodo people.

Police say that around six gunmen were behind Friday’s attack, one of whom was later killed by security forces who were searching for the other attackers.

“One person died on Saturday morning and another two succumbed to their injuries overnight. The death toll from the attack is now 15 including one militant,” Assam state health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma told AFP on Saturday.

Sarma said that around 900 soldiers and police reinforcements had reached the site of the attack in Balajan, around 220km west of Assam’s main city of Guwahati and near the border with Bhutan.

“They have started a massive combing operation for the attackers and are being supported by the security forces on other side of the international border,” he added.

Several security check points were put up a day after the attack, and there was a massive and visible presence of the security forces. The area was tense but peaceful early Saturday.

Assam’s newly elected Chief Minister Sarbanand Sonowal, from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), condemned the killings and pledged strong action against the perpetrators.

On Friday, Modi too expressed his grief at the loss of life on Twitter.

“Saddened by the attack in Kokrajhar (district). We strongly condemn it. Thoughts & prayers with the bereaved families & those injured,” the prime minister said.

North-east India, which is linked to the rest of the country by a narrow land bridge, has seen decades of unrest among ethnic and separatist groups.

Assam has been relatively peaceful in recent years, but tensions between the Bodo and other communities in the area persist, particularly over land rights.

Bodo guerrillas have in recent years launched ferocious attacks on both Muslim settlers and other tribal communities in the tea-growing state of Assam.

In 2014 thousands of people fled their homes in Assam after a series of coordinated attacks by armed rebels left at least 69 people dead, 18 of them children.

Two years earlier, ethnic clashes in the same area claimed about 100 lives and displaced more than 400,000 people.