China’s Xi hails ‘old friend’ Kissinger in Beijing meeting

Kissinger’s visit to China this week has seen him call for a rapprochement between Washington and Beijing, which remain at loggerheads over a range of issues, from human rights to trade and national security.

The 100-year-old diplomat was central to the United States establishing ties with communist China in the 1970s and has maintained close contact with the country’s leaders over the years.

“Chinese people value friendship, and we will never forget our old friend and your historic contribution to promoting the development of China-US relations and enhancing the friendship between the Chinese and American peoples,” President Xi told Kissinger on Thursday, according to state media.

“This not only benefited the two countries, but also changed the world,” Xi added.

“The world is currently experiencing changes not seen in a century, and the international order is undergoing enormous change,” the Chinese leader said.

“China and the United States are once more at a crossroads, and both sides must once again make a choice.”

Kissinger, in response, thanked Xi for hosting him at the Diaoyutai State

Guesthouse’s building number five— where he met with then premier Zhou Enlai in 1971.

“The relations between our two countries will be central to the peace in the world and to the progress of our societies,” the former diplomat said.

‘Legendary diplomat’

Kissinger secretly flew to Beijing in 1971 on a mission to establish relations with communist China.

The trip set the stage for a landmark visit by former US president Richard Nixon, who sought both to shake up the Cold War and enlist help in ending the

Vietnam War.

Washington’s overtures to an isolated Beijing contributed to China’s rise to become a manufacturing powerhouse and the world’s second-largest economy. Since leaving office, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Kissinger has grown wealthy advising businesses on China— and has warned against a hawkish turn in US policy.

His trip this week also overlapped with a trip by US climate envoy John Kerry, and follows recent visits by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Secretary of State Antony Blinken.AFP

Hundreds of Iraq protesters torch Swedish embassy

BAGHDAD, Iraq—Hundreds of Iraqi protesters stormed and set fires inside Sweden’s embassy compound in Baghdad early Thursday, angered by an expected burning of the Koran later in the day in Stockholm.

Iraqi riot police used electric batons and water cannon to disperse demonstrators who had scaled the walls and were hurling stones at them, as Sweden reported all its embassy staff were safe.

“We didn’t wait until morning, we broke in at dawn and set fire to the Swedish embassy,” one young demonstrator told AFP during the protest as smoke billowed into the sky.

The expected Koran burning in Sweden—in an event approved for Thursday by authorities on free speech

HK man jailed for replacing nat’l anthem with protest song

HONG KONG—A Hong Kong man was sentenced to three months in prison on Thursday for insulting China’s national anthem by swapping it in an online sports video with a song from the city’s 2019 democracy protests.

The jailing of Cheng Wing-chun, 27, came one day before the government was set to ask a separate court for an unprecedented and sweeping ban of protest anthem “Glory to Hong Kong.”

Insults to the national anthem are already criminalised in Hong Kong, under a 2020 law which carries a maximum penalty of three years in jail.

Magistrate Minnie Wat on Thursday sen- tenced Cheng to three months in jail, saying the video racked up more than 90,000 views and the court had to deter imitators.

Cheng “incited people in the comments section to insult the dignity of the national anthem” and showed no remorse, Wat said.

The court had ruled earlier this month that Cheng deliberately switched out the audio in a video clip he published on YouTube in 2021.

The clip, which showed Hong Kong fencer Edgar Cheung receiving his gold medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, originally had “March of the Volunteers”—the official anthem for both

BERLIN—German man police urged residents of Berlin’s southern suburbs to stay indoors on Thursday, as they scoured the area for a wild animal on the loose, apparently a lioness.

Police first issued the alarm in the early morning hours, after two people saw what appeared to be a lioness chasing a wild boar down a street less than five kilometres (three miles) from the German capital.

“Around midnight, we received a message hard to imagine. Two passersby who saw one animal chasing another,” Daniel Keip, Brandenburg police spokesman, told RBB radio.

China and Hong Kong—playing in the background.

The protest song “Glory to Hong Kong”, penned anonymously, first emerged in August 2019 when Hong Kong was undergoing massive and at times violent democracy demonstrations.

It is now all but illegal to perform or play a recording of it in Hong Kong, after Beijing crushed the protests and imposed a national security law in 2020 to quell dissent.

But the song has been mistakenly played multiple times as the city’s anthem at international sporting events—raising the ire of Hong Kong officials. AFP grounds—would be the second incident of its kind within weeks in the Nordic country.

On June 28, Sweden-based Iraqi refugee Salwan Momika had also burnt pages of the Islamic holy text outside a Stockholm mosque, sparking a wave of indignation and anger across the Muslim world.

Momika on Facebook confirmed Swedish media reports that he was one of the organisers of the planned event, this time outside Iraq’s embassy, where they were also planning to burn the Iraqi flag.

One of the Iraqi protesters in Baghdad, Hassan Ahmed, told AFP that “we are mobilised today to denounce the burning of the Koran, which is all about love and faith.” AFP

2 killed in Auckland shooting as city hosts World Cup opener

AUCKLAND, New Zealand—A gunman killed two people and wounded six others in central Auckland Thursday, hours before the New Zealand city hosted the opening match of the 2023 FIFA football World Cup.

A 24-year-old shooter tore through the waterfront construction site with a shotgun in the early morning, plunging the busy centre of New Zealand’s largest city into lockdown.

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said the gunman also died at the scene and there was no national security threat, so the marquee tournament could go ahead as planned.

Police believe the attack was not directly linked to the World Cup, nor was it politically or ideologically motivated.

“One was a wild boar and the other apparently a wild animal, a lioness. The two men recorded a video on their phones and even experienced policemen had to concede that it was probably a lioness,” he said.

Berlin police then alerted the public to the beast’s presence, initially putting the southwestern suburbs on alert and then expanding the area of the search.

As authorities, backed by several helicopters, scoured the area around the communities of Kleinmachnow, Teltow and Stahnsdorf at the start of the workday, according to local media, police urged residents to stay indoors. AFP

But the gunman was known to police and said to have had a history of family violence and mental health issues.

Police said he had been subject to a home detention order but had an exemption to work at the site. He did not have a license to own a firearm.

Police Commissioner Andrew Coster said there had been “nothing to suggest he presented a higher-level risk”.

‘Pretty somber’ Aucklanders had circled today’s date as the start of a month-long festival of football that would showcase their city and country to the world. AFP