Protest in Hong Kong to scrap extradition Bill
HONG KONG • At least half a million people in Hong Kong are expected to brave the sweltering heat today to press the government to scrap a proposed extradition law that would allow suspects to be sent to China to face trial, organisers of the march said.
A committee of pro-democratic groups has raised turnout estimates and are now eyeing the biggest single-day rally since 2003, when a similar number of protesters forced the government to shelve tighter national security laws.
Today's march will end at the city's Legislative Council, where debates on sweeping amendments to the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance start on Wednesday. The extradition Bill is due to be passed by the end of the month.
REUTERS
Terror plot: Bulgarian student under probe
SOFIA • Bulgarian prosecutors yesterday said they had opened a probe into a bomb attack being planned by a student from an elite high school who was inspired by Islamic State in Iraq and Syria militants.
The student was "extremely intelligent" and lived in Plovdiv, Bulgaria's second-largest city, Deputy Prosecutor-General Ivan Geshev said, adding that this was the first investigation of its kind in the country.
Bulgaria, which neighbours Turkey, is used by many militants to travel and return from the Middle East, but no national has so far been caught for planning attacks on home soil.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Detained Russian reporter hospitalised
MOSCOW • Police said yesterday that a Russian investigative journalist who was detained last week for alleged drug offences had been taken to hospital, Russian news agencies reported.
Ivan Golunov, 36, was on his way to a meeting with a source on Thursday when he was taken into custody in central Moscow and illegal drugs were found in his rucksack, according to police and his employer, the online news portal Meduza.
A lawyer for Golunov, who is known for investigating alleged corruption among Moscow city officials, said he believed police had planted the drugs on his client to frame him and that Golunov had been physically beaten.
REUTERS
Bhutan decriminalises homosexuality
BHUTAN • Bhutan's LGBT community celebrated yesterday after the Himalayan kingdom's Parliament became the world's latest to decriminalise homosexuality.
The Lower House overwhelmingly voted late on Friday to repeal two sections of the 2004 criminal code which made "unnatural sex" illegal.
The law had never been used, but Finance Minister Namgay Tshering, who submitted the recommendation to repeal the sections, said they had become "a stain" on the country's reputation.
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE
