Police in Hong Kong arrest newspaper editors under security law

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Hong Kong arrests
Five editors and executives of the Hong Kong pro-democracy newspaper, Apple Daily, were arrested on Thursday on charges of colluding with foreign powers under the sweeping — and controversial — national security law, in the latest crackdown by the Chinese government. In what was a massive show of force and a clear message to other news organizations in Hong Kong, 500 police conducted the raid at the newspaper. Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai was arrested earlier, and is now in jail serving a 20-month sentence over an alleged role in the 2019 protests.

Myanmar fire
A village in central Myanmar has been left in ashes after troops loyal to the ruling military junta allegedly set the blaze, following residents clashing with security forces.  About 200 homes were destroyed in the fire in Kin Ma, a village of about 800 people, and at least two people were burnt to death. Hundreds of protesters have been killed in the ongoing unrest in Myanmar, since the Feb. 1 coup, and as many as 5,000 people have been detained.

Iran election
Iran will hold its presidential elections on Friday. Analysts and polling suggest that hard-line judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi is the clear front-runner. Much of the power in Iran is still controlled by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, including decisions on the military and the country’s nuclear program. But the presidency does control domestic matters, such as the economy. World leaders are keeping a watchful eye on the election, with the fate of the Iran nuclear deal possibly in the balance.

From The World

Biden and Putin both place a ‘high priority’ on cybersecurity, says presidential adviser after Geneva summit

Despite tensions in the lead-up to the summit, US President Joe Biden and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin were overly cordial in their remarks following their meeting in Geneva on Wednesday. But with many areas of disagreement between the two leaders, did Biden make any progress on key issies, such as democracy and human rights?

“… All the remarks of Putin were not taking any blame whatsoever for human rights violations in the Russian Federation, or in any way indicating he was ready to make anything right,” said Rose Gottemoeller, lead US negotiator for the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START).

For Putin, this is certainly not his first rodeo, with Biden ? being the fifth US president he’s met since coming to power in Russia. 

The Netherlands hosts a new slavery exhibit, as historical debates continue

As people return to arts and cultural institutions this summer, the Netherlands’ national museum of art and history is getting a lot of buzz for its first-ever major exhibition dedicated to the subject of human enslavement.

“Slavery,” an exhibit in the Rijksmuseum collection, doesn’t attempt to explore all 250 years of Dutch colonial rule, or tell the stories of the more than 600,000 people enslaved by Dutch traders in the Americas. Instead, it focuses on specific individuals from the past.

Bright Spot

Two fields, a former barley plantation and a grassland, located near the Monks Wood nature reserve in Cambridgeshire, England, have seen “passive rewilding” with trees growing over the past decades. But it was not humans or charities that planted the trees. It was jays. ?? According to a new study, more than half of the trees in these new woodlands in southern England had been planted by the birds.

In case you missed it

Listen: Biden and Putin meet in Geneva

Despite tensions in the lead-up to the Biden-Putin summit, the two leaders were overly cordial in their remarks following their meeting in Geneva on Wednesday. And, dozens of Roma from Romania are reported to be among the thousands of undocumented migrants and asylum-seekers crossing the US-Mexico border in the last month. Also, Israel launched airstrikes on Gaza early Wednesday following Hamas sending incendiary balloons into Israel. This comes days after Israel’s government shakeup and weeks after a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

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