14/04/2025

MONDAY | APR 14, 2025

9 British MP denied entry to Hong Kong

o Lawmaker had passport confiscated

Hobhouse is a member of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC). “IPAC unites lawmakers worldwide, promoting democracy and addressing threats to the rules-based and human rights systems posed by the rise of China,” the group says on its website. The Sunday Times newspaper said Hobhouse, 65, flew to Hong Kong on Thursday on a personal trip to visit her newborn grandson. It said she had her passport confiscated, was asked about her job and the purpose of her visit, had her luggage searched and was then taken to the boarding gate.

“When I was given the decision my voice was shaking and I was just saying: ‘Why, please explain to me?,’” the British weekly quoted her as saying. “Authorities gave me no explanation for this cruel and upsetting blow. I hope the foreign secretary will recognise that this is an insult to all parliamentarians and seek answers.” AFP has contacted the Hong Kong government for comment. It comes a week after two British MPs from the governing Labour Party were blocked from entering Israel and deported. Hobhouse has been a member of the MacLean Foundation, Lachlan said. “Clean water is the most basic human need on the planet but 10% of people worldwide don’t have access to it,” they said on their website. Only 14% of Madagascar’s rural population has access to a clean water source, they said. “Ocean conservation and keeping our oceans clean, it’s all part of the same parcel,” Lachlan said. The brothers broke three world records crossing the Atlantic Ocean in 2020, without ever having rowed professionally, raising more than US$260,000 for charity. – AFP

parliament for the smaller opposition Liberal Democrats since 2017. “It is deeply concerning to hear that an MP on a personal trip has been refused entry to Hong Kong,” Lammy said. “We will urgently raise this with the authorities in Hong Kong and Beijing to demand an explanation. “As I made clear earlier this week, it would be unacceptable for an MP to be denied entry for simply expressing their views as a parliamentarian.” In Hong Kong, members of its Democratic Party voted yesterday to move forward with plans to dissolve the party as its leaders first proposed

in February, the party’s chair said. The party is the latest Hong Kong civil society group to meet its end amid a years-long political crackdown, with scores of activists arrested, jailed or in exile. The vote “means most of our members are willing to allow the Central Committee to take steps to dissolve the party”, said Lo Kin-hei, chair of the 30-year-old party that was once the city’s stalwart opposition force. “This is not the final decision. In the coming few months, I hope there would be another general meeting (at which) we will get that motion into debate and vote.” – AFP

LONDON: British Foreign Secretary David Lammy yesterday said he was deeply concerned after a UK lawmaker was denied entry to Hong Kong, and said he would be urgently raising the issue with the Chinese authorities. Wera Hobhouse claimed she was the first British MP to be refused entry on arrival in Hong Kong since the former British colony was handed back to China in 1997.

Brothers aim for record-breaking Pacific crossing LIMA: Three Scottish brothers have embarked on a mammoth journey from Peru hoping to set a record time for rowing across the Pacific Ocean. Ewan, Jamie and Lachlan MacLean set off in a carbon fibre dinghy from Lima, aiming to reach Sydney in Australia 14,500km away in about four months. They left on Saturday after a brief ceremony during which youngest brother Jamie played the bagpipes accompanied by the Peruvian Navy band. “One of the real challenges is sleep deprivation. You’re rowing through the day and through the night continuously and shifts. “It’s absolutely relentless,” eldest brother Ewan said.

The trio from Edinburgh, who previously rowed across the Atlantic Ocean, are hoping to raise more than US$1 million (RM4.42 million) for clean water projects in Madagascar. “We’re going to be rowing non-stop with no outside support, so we’ll be on our own,” Lachlan said.

The brothers plan to sleep five to six hours every 24 hours and row 12 to 14 hours a day for 120 to 150 days. “This project is all to raise money for clean water projects in Madagascar” through their charity,

Sanders fights apathy on American left Sanders greeting supporters at the rally in Los Angeles. – REUTERSPIC

LOS ANGELES: Bernie Sanders is emerging as one of the most vocal opponents to US President Donald Trump, with the 83-year-old senator drawing tens of thousands of people to his “fighting oligarchy” rallies around the country. Supporters packed the Gloria Molina Grand Park in Los Angeles on Saturday as guests including politicians, union representatives and musical acts took to the stage before speeches by Sanders and Democrat representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “There are some 36,000 of you, the largest rally that we have ever had,” Sanders told the cheering crowd. “Your presence here today is making Donald Trump and Elon Musk very nervous.” The self-described socialist, an independent who has never been a member of the Democratic Party, has been attracting crowds over the past two months on his “fighting oligarchy” tour. His progressive, leftist rhetoric has resonated with people opposed to Trump’s policies and with those disappointed in established Democrats’ lack of political resistance to Trump. Folk rock legend Neil Young led the LA crowd on Saturday in chanting “Take America Back!” while he played the electric guitar. Sanders addressed a litany of grievances, including Trump’s massive cuts to government funding and threats to healthcare and research. Sanders was “right the whole time”, said 27-year-old Vera Loh.

“The collusion of money and politics has had terrible effects.” Loh, a housekeeper, said she was stunned by the apathy of many Democrat leaders since Trump’s defeat of presidential candidate Kamala Harris in November. “The party put too much focus on minorities,” Loh said. “If people don’t see it as a class war, then we just get lost with the identity politics.” She said she wanted politicians to remember “we want higher pay, we want housing, we want to be able to afford things”. “We are living in a moment in which a handful of billionaires control the economic and political life of our country,” Sanders said on Saturday. Trump is moving the United States “rapidly toward an authoritarian form of society”, he said. The senator from Vermont hopes to encourage new independents to run for office without the Democrat label, at a time when the party is at an all-time low in the polls. Sanders has no plans to run for president in 2028, but has taken rising progressive Ocasio-Cortez under his wing. “No matter your race, religion, gender, identity or status, no matter if you disagree with me on some things. “I hope you see that this movement is not about partisan labels or purity tests, but it’s about class solidarity,” the 35-year-old congresswoman told the crowd on Saturday. – AFP

Ewan (left), Jamie (playing the bagpipe) and Lachlan set sail for Australia from Callao. – AFPPIC

‘New Zealand needs US as active partner’ SYDNEY: New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters said yesterday his country needed the United States as an “active” partner in the Indo-Pacific region, after a trip to Washington last month to bolster ties with the Trump administration. Washington and its suspension of aid funding will mean for the region. Speaking in Honolulu, Hawaii, on a week-long Pacific trip by a group of New Zealand politicians, Peters said the message he took to the US was that “New Zealand wants, indeed needs, for the United States to remain an active, engaged and constructive partner in the Indo-Pacific”. New Zealand and the US have worked together in the Pacific to offset the growing influence of China, but there are concerns among some lawmakers in New Zealand about what the change in administration in “We look forward to more constructive dialogue in the days ahead,”Winston said.

In Washington, Peters met Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, director of the US Office of Foreign Assistance Peter Marocco, and other administration and Congressional representatives. After the meetings, Peters said New Zealand’s relationship with the US was on a “strong footing” amid what he called “the most challenging strategic environment in at least half a century”. – Reuters