World Briefs … Hong Kong cabinet reshuffle not an ‘immediate task’

HONG KONG – A reshuffle of Hong Kong’s cabinet is not an “immediate task”, the city’s Beijing-backed leader, Carrie Lam, said yesterday, as she prepared to visit the Chinese capital for the first time since her government’s humiliation at local polls last month.

On Sunday, pro-democracy protesters participated in the largest mass rally since their candidates scored a landslide victory in the district elections, raising further doubts over how long Beijing is prepared to back Lam. Declaring her priority was to restore law and order after more than six months of often violent protests, Lam said at a weekly media address that she would depart on Saturday for a regular visit to Beijing, where she would brief officials on Hong Kong’s biggest political crisis in decades.

LONDON – A multiple rapist described as one of Britain’s “most dangerous” criminals was jailed for life on Monday for carrying out dozens of sex attacks in just a two-week period. Judge Andrew Edis branded Joseph McCann a “coward, a violent bully and a paedophile” for his campaign of rape, violence and abduction in and around London. The youngest of the 34-year-old convicted burglar’s 11 victims was aged just 11 while the oldest was 71. The attacks began in late April this year. Sentencing him at London’s Old Bailey, judge Edis also said McCann had shown no remorse. “You are entirely obsessed with yourself and believe you are entitled to use other people in any way you want. You think that other people exist only for your pleasure,” he said. “You are a classic psychopath; I don’t think you will ever cease to be dangerous.”

BEIJING – The Chinese government on Monday defended its vast network of re-education camps in Xinjiang and said it would continue “training” residents, following explosive government document leaks detailing surveillance and control of the region’s Uighur population. The government has launched a propaganda drive in recent days to justify its security crackdown after the leaks emerged and the US Congress passed a bill calling for sanctions against officials involved in the controversial policy. In a press conference, Shohrat Zakir, chairman of the far-west region, rejected estimates by rights groups and foreign experts that more than one million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim minorities are held in the facilities. But he did not provide a figure for the number of people housed in what the government describes as “vocational education centres”.

– Nampa-AFP-Reuters