World

Chinese President Xi Jinping said Hong Kong had been “reborn from the fire” as he arrived Thursday to mark the 25th anniversary of the city’s handover, in his first visit since the business hub’s democracy movement was crushed.

Xi’s trip is a chance for the Chinese Communist Party to showcase its control after huge protests engulfed the city in 2019, prompting Beijing to impose a harsh crackdown.

“In the past period, Hong Kong has experienced more than one serious test, and overcome more than one risk and challenge,” Xi said after arriving at a high-speed train station in the heart of the city. 

“After the storms, Hong Kong has been reborn from the fire and emerged with robust vitality.”

Friday’s anniversary also marks the halfway point of the 50-year governance model agreed by Britain and China under which the city would keep some autonomy and freedoms.

Critics say a national security law imposed by Beijing after the 2019 protests has eviscerated those promised freedoms. 

But Xi said Thursday “the facts have proved that One Country, Two Systems has great vitality”.

“It can guarantee long-term stability and prosperity in Hong Kong, and defend the well-being of Hong Kong people,” he added.

– ‘Closed loop’ –

Xi’s visit is the first time he has left mainland China since the Covid-19 pandemic began. 

Accompanied by his wife Peng Liyuan and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, he was greeted at the station by schoolchildren waving flags and bouquets of flowers and chanting “Welcome, welcome!” in Mandarin. 

Officials including outgoing city leader Carrie Lam and her successor John Lee were present, as well as lion dancers and select accredited media.

Details around the trip have been kept tightly under wraps, and the visit has sparked a massive security effort.

There are large-scale road closures on Hong Kong Island, and the flying of drones has been temporarily banned throughout the entire city, with police citing security concerns.

Those coming into Xi’s orbit during the trip have been made to limit their social contacts, take daily PCR tests and check into a quarantine hotel in the days leading up to the visit.

After arriving, Xi met with business and political elites, while Peng, a former celebrity singer, visited a Chinese opera theatre. 

Peng and Xi are expected to leave Hong Kong to spend the night in neighbouring Shenzhen on the mainland before returning in the morning for the handover celebration and Lee’s inauguration. 

Media coverage has been tightly restricted. 

AFP has confirmed that 13 local and international journalists were denied accreditation to cover the official events, many for “security reasons”. 

– Police warnings – 

Authorities have moved to eliminate any potential source of embarrassment during Xi’s time in the city, with national security police making at least nine arrests over the past week.

The July 1 handover anniversary in Hong Kong has traditionally been marked by tens of thousands taking to the streets in peaceful rallies every year.

But mass gatherings have essentially disappeared in Hong Kong over the past few years under a mixture of coronavirus restrictions and a security crackdown aimed at eliminating any public opposition to China’s uncompromising rule over the city. 

The League of Social Democrats (LSD), one of Hong Kong’s few remaining opposition groups, said it will not demonstrate on July 1 after national security officers spoke with volunteers associated with the group.

LSD leaders told AFP their homes had been searched, and that they had also had conversations with the police. 

Chan Po-ying, the group’s president, said that over the last few days she had begun to feel that she was being followed and watched.

“In the past there was something like this too, but not as bad as this year,” the veteran activist said.

Hong Kong’s top polling group announced that it would delay publishing the results of a survey that gauged government popularity “in response to suggestions from relevant government departments after their risk assessment”.

– ‘We must accept it’ –

The closed loop has kept Xi well out of the public’s way. 

At a high-end shopping mall next to the rail terminus where Xi arrived, a handful of spectators gathered near the edge of a glass facade but their view was completely blocked. 

In the ice-skating rink behind them, dozens of people were doing laps, oblivious to the Chinese leader’s arrival.

A housewife in her 40s surnamed Luk told AFP she was taking a look out of curiosity as her child was busy ice-skating.

“These couple of years, because of the pandemic, there’s not much of a festive atmosphere. Hopefully this (visit) can cheer everyone up, as it is something happy.”

But she said she had no plans to mark the 25th anniversary herself as her child had to prepare for exams. 

“Hong Kong’s handover is a historical fact, we can’t deny it so we must accept it. As a Chinese person, we may as well accept it gladly,” she said. 

“There’s nothing that can be changed anyway.” 

Canada will take part in the G20 summit in Bali in November even if Russian President Vladimir Putin attends, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday.

Indonesia holds the rotating presidency of the G20 and Jakarta has come under Western pressure to exclude Russia’s president from the gathering despite announcing in April that he had been invited.

Asked at a news conference the end of a NATO summit in Madrid if Ottawa would take part in the gathering if Putin is also present, Trudeau said: “We expect that Canada and all members of the G7 will be at the G20.”

“It is too important a conversation on the global economy. It is too important that we be there to counteract the voice and the lies that Russia will perhaps be putting forward. There are a number of months still to go before that and anything can happen,” he added.

The G7 also includes the Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States.

Indonesia, like most major emerging economies, has tried to maintain a neutral position and called for a peaceful resolution to Russia’s months-long offensive in Ukraine.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo met Putin in Moscow on Thursday, a day after he held talks with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv.

Widodo has also invited Zelensky to the November 15-16 summit in Bali. The Ukrainian president told Widodo on Wednesday that he will attend the summit depending on who else attends.

Putin joined last October’s G20 summit in Rome via videoconference due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Astronauts lose decades’ worth of bone mass in space that many do not recover even after a year back on Earth, researchers said Thursday, warning that it could be a “big concern” for future missions to Mars.

Previous research has shown astronauts lose between one to two percent of bone density for every month spent in space, as the lack of gravity takes the pressure off their legs when it comes to standing and walking.

To find out how astronauts recover once their feet are back on the ground, a new study scanned the wrists and ankles of 17 astronauts before, during and after a stay on the International Space Station.

The bone density lost by astronauts was equivalent to how much they would shed in several decades if they were back on Earth, said study co-author Steven Boyd of Canada’s University of Calgary and director of the McCaig Institute for Bone and Joint Health.

The researchers found that the shinbone density of nine of the astronauts had not fully recovered after a year on Earth — and were still lacking around a decade’s worth of bone mass.

The astronauts who went on the longest missions, which ranged from four to seven months on the ISS, were the slowest to recover.

“The longer you spend in space, the more bone you lose,” Boyd told AFP.

Boyd said it is a “big concern” for planned for future missions to Mars, which could see astronauts spend years in space.

“Will it continue to get worse over time or not? We don’t know,” he said.

“It’s possible we hit a steady state after a while, or it’s possible that we continue to lose bone. But I can’t imagine that we’d continue to lose it until there’s nothing left.”

A 2020 modelling study predicted that over a three-year spaceflight to Mars, 33 percent of astronauts would be at risk of osteoporosis.

Boyd said some answers could come from research currently being carried out on astronauts who spent at least a year onboard the ISS.

Guillemette Gauquelin-Koch, the head of medicine research at France’s CNES space agency, said that the weightlessness experienced in space is “most drastic physical inactivity there is”.

“Even with two hours of sport a day, it is like you are bedridden for the other 22 hours,” said the doctor, who was not part of the study.

“It will not be easy for the crew to set foot on Martian soil when they arrive — it’s very disabling.”

– ‘The silent disease’ –

The new study, which was published in Scientific Reports, also showed how spaceflight alters the structure of bones themselves.

Boyd said that if you thought of a body’s bones like the Eiffel Tower, it would as if some of the connecting metal rods that hold the structure up were lost.

“And when we return to Earth, we thicken up what’s remaining, but we don’t actually create new rods,” he said.

Some exercises are better for retaining bone mass than others, the study found.

Deadlifting proved significantly more effective than running or cycling, it said, suggesting more heavy lower-body exercises in the future.

But the astronauts — who are mostly fit and in their 40s — did not tend to notice the drastic bone loss, Boyd said, pointing out that the Earth-bound equivalent osteoporosis is known as “the silent disease”.

Canadian astronaut Robert Thirsk, who has spent the most time in space, said that for him bones and muscles took the longest to recover after spaceflight.

“But within a day of landing, I felt comfortable again as an Earthling,” he said in a statement accompanying the research.

The scant remains of DR Congo’s fiery independence hero Patrice Lumumba were interred on Thursday after a nine-day homage that stirred traumatic memories and national pride.

“Sleep in peace now,” President Felix Tshisekedi said.

Hailing Lumumba as “our national hero,” Tshisekedi declared: “May the land of our ancestors be sweet and mild to you.”

A single gold-crowned tooth, returned by Belgium, is all that remains of the young nationalist.

He was murdered in January 1961 at the age of 35, just months after becoming Congo’s first post-colonial prime minister.

In a solemn ceremony coinciding with the country’s 62nd anniversary, the remains were interred in a mausoleum beneath a statue of Lumumba on an avenue in the capital Kinshasa that also bears his name.

Didier Shonda, 24, told AFP that he had come from Lumumba’s home region of Sankuru for the ceremony.

With the return of the remains “his spirit will no longer wander,” said Shonda.

“We now know where to come to replenish our resources to totally free our country and the youth of Africa.”

– Radical –

Lumumba was among the vanguard of pan-African leaders who led the charge to end colonialism in the late 1950s.

He rose to prominence in 1958 when he launched a political party, the Congolese National Movement (MNC), which called for independence and a secular Congolese state.

He stunned Belgium with a speech on independence day on June 30, 1960 that was attended by the country’s monarch, King Baudouin.

In it, he accused the exiting colonial masters of racism and “humiliating slavery.”

“We experienced the slurs, the insults, the beatings that we had to undergo morning, noon and evening, because we were negroes,” he declared.

Just 75 days later, Lumumba was forced out by a coup fomented with the help of Belgium and the CIA, which also opposed the support he had requested from the Soviet Union.

In January 1961, Lumumba was handed over to the authorities in mineral-rich southeast Katanga province, which had seceded from the fledgling nation months earlier with Belgium’s support.

He was shot dead and his body was dissolved in acid, but a Belgian police officer involved in the killing kept one of his teeth as a trophy.

In 2016, the Belgian authorities seized the relic from his daughter.

After a long campaign by Lumumba’s family, Belgium returned the tooth on June 20, a move that followed a visit of reconciliation by Baudouin’s nephew and successor, King Philippe.

– Pilgrimage –

The remains were taken to Lumumba’s home area of Sankuru in the centre of the country, to his political stronghold of Kisangani in the northeast and finally to the place where he was murdered before being flown to Kinshasa.

Five former prime ministers joined a funeral vigil on Thursday alongside current government chief Jean-Michel Sama Lukonde.

“The figure of Patrice Lumumba is a prime symbol of national unity, transcending political differences,” said Evariste Mabi, a premier in the 1980s under Lumumba’s nemesis, dictator Mobutu Sese Seko.

“(He) embodies the people’s successful struggle for freedom.”

Belgium’s rule over what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo was one of the harshest imposed by the European powers that ruled most of Africa in the late 19th and 20th centuries.

King Leopold II governed the vast country — a swathe of central Africa the size of continental western Europe — as his personal property between 1885 and 1908, before it became a Belgian colony. 

Historians say millions were killed, mutilated or died of disease as they were forced to collect rubber under his rule. The land was also pillaged for its mineral wealth, timber and ivory. 

Tshisekedi thanked Lumumba’s family for their campaign but also singled out “the Belgian people and authorities” for praise.

“They have helped the restoration of truth… after years of denial,” he said. 

“It’s only after telling the truth, after establishing responsibilities, that we, Congolese and Belgians, can jointly enter the phase of forgiveness, justice and genuine and final reconciliation.”