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The first person convicted under Hong Kong's national security law was jailed for nine years on Friday for terrorist activities and inciting secession, judges said, in a watershed ruling with long-term implications for the city's judicial landscape.

Former waiter Tong Ying-kit, 24, was accused of driving his motorcycle into three riot police last year while carrying a flag with the protest slogan "Liberate Hong Kong. Revolution of our times."

Tong's lawyer, Clive Grossman, told reporters outside the court the defence would appeal both the verdict and the sentence. He made no further comment.

Judges Esther Toh, Anthea Pang and Wilson Chan - picked by city leader Carrie Lam to hear national security cases - ruled on Tuesday that the slogan was "capable of inciting others to commit secession". 

On Friday, the judges sentenced Tong to 6.5 years for inciting secession and 8 years for terrorist activities. Of these, 2.5 years will run consecutively, resulting in a total term of 9 years.

"We consider that this overall term should sufficiently reflect the defendant's culpability in the two offences and the abhorrence of society, at the same time, achieving the deterrent effect required," they said in a written judgment.

Human rights groups have criticised Tong's conviction, saying it imposes new limits on free speech, as well as the precedents set by the trial, which they say contrast with Hong Kong's common law traditions.

"The sentencing of Tong Ying-kit to nine years confirms fears that the national security law is not merely a tool to instil terror into government critics in Hong Kong; it is a weapon that will be used to incarcerate them,” Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific Regional Director Yamini Mishra said in a statement.

The Hong Kong government did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the accusationsbut Secretary for Security Chris Tang told reporters he welcomed the sentence.

"The court has ruled that the slogan connotes Hong Kong independence," Tang said. "If you say this slogan, you need to bear the consequences."

'SECESSIONIST' AGENDA

Tong was denied bail in line with a provision of the national security law that puts the onus on the defendant to prove they would not be a security threat if released. Tong also did not get a trial by jury because of "a perceived risk of the personal safety of jurors and their family members or that due administration of justice might be impaired". 

Hong Kong and Chinese authorities have repeatedly said that all the rights and freedoms promised to the former British colony upon its return to Chinese rule in 1997 were intact, but that national security was a red line. All cases have been handled in accordance with the law, both governments have said.

At a pre-sentencing hearing on Thursday, Grossman pleaded for lenience, saying any incitement was of a minor nature and Tong was a decent young man who did something stupid. 

Tong, who pleaded not guilty to all charges, was also found guilty of terrorist activities, with judges saying on Tuesday his motorcycle was potentially a lethal weapon and his actions "a deliberate challenge mounted against the police".

In their reasons for sentencing, the judges wrote: "whoever carries out terrorist activities with a view to intimidating the public in order to pursue political agenda, whatever that is, should be condemned and punished.

"But when the political agenda is secessionist in nature, it is our view that there is an added criminality in that such an agenda is seeking to undermine national unification."

A charge of dangerous driving causing grievous bodily harm was not considered.

Tong's trial focused mostly on the meaning of the slogan, which was ubiquitous during Hong Kong's 2019 pro-democracy protests.

The arguments over its interpretation drew on topics such as ancient Chinese history, the U.S. civil rights movement and Malcolm X. 

The judges said on Tuesday they were "sure that the defendant fully understood the slogan to bear the meaning of Hong Kong independence". Tong did not testify during the trial. (Reuters)

Some 200 Afghans were set to begin new lives in the United States on Friday as an airlift got under way for translators and others who risk Taliban retaliation because they worked for the United States during its 20-year war in Afghanistan, U.S. officials said.

The operation to evacuate U.S.-affiliated Afghans and family members comes as the U.S. troop pullout nears completion and government forces struggle to repulse Taliban advances.

The first planeload of 200 evacuees arrived at Fort Lee, a military base in Virginia, for final paperwork processing and medical examinations.

The Afghans are being granted Special Immigrant Visas (SIV) entitling them to bring their families. As many as 50,000 or more people ultimately could be evacuated in "Operation Allies Refuge".

"These arrivals are just the first of many as we work quickly to relocate SIV-eligible Afghans out of harm's way — to the United States, to U.S. facilities abroad, or to third countries — so that they can wait in safety while they finish their visa applications," President Joe Biden said in a statement.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a separate statement that the U.S. would continue to use "the full force of our diplomatic, economic, and development toolkit" to support the Afghan people after the United States' longest war.

The first group of arrivals is among some 2,500 SIV applicants and family members who have almost completed the process, clearing them for evacuation, said Russ Travers, Biden's deputy homeland security adviser.

The Afghans were expected to remain at Fort Lee for up to seven days before joining relatives or host families across the country.

The evacuees underwent "rigorous background checks" and COVID-19 tests, Travers added. Some were already vaccinated, and the rest will be offered shots at Fort Lee.

Approximately 300 U.S. service members from several installations will provide logistics, temporary lodging, and medical support at Fort Lee, said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

Around 75,000 other Afghans have been resettled in the United States in the last decade, he said in a statement, adding there is a "moral obligation" for the country "to help those who have helped us."

The surging violence in Afghanistan has created serious problems for many SIV applicants whose paperwork is in the pipeline amid reports - denied by the Taliban - that some have been killed by vengeful insurgents.

Some applicants are unable to get to the capital Kabul to complete the required steps at the U.S. embassy or reach their flights.

The SIV program has also been plagued by long processing times and bureaucratic knots that led to a backlog of some 20,000 applications. The State Department has added staff to handle them.

The majority of those would likely miss out on the airlift operation, including the roughly 50% who were in the early stages of the process as the clock counts down towards the U.S. withdrawal by September.

Applicants in that group have held multiple protests in Kabul in recent months and they and advocates say they face the risk of violence while they wait that will be heightened once troops withdraw.

Ross Wilson, Charge D’Affaires of the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, told reporters that after the initial round of flights taking out those who received security clearances, around 4,000 applicants and their families who were in the later stages but still needed interviews would be taken somewhere outside the United States for processing.

That left roughly 15,000 applicants in earlier stages waiting in Afghanistan.

"We've felt it appropriate that we focus our energies on those parts of the SIV applicant pool who have demonstrated that they meet the criteria under the law and then work to relocate them," he said, adding efforts were taking place in Washington to help early-stage applicants access documents.

Adam Bates, policy counsel for the International Refugee Assistance Project, which provides legal aid for refugees, said the United Stateshad had 20 years to anticipate what the withdrawal would look like.

"It's unconscionable that we are so late," he said.

Kim Staffieri, co-founder of the Association of Wartime Allies, which helps SIV applicants, said surveys conducted over Facebook show that about half of the applicants cannot reach Kabul, including many approved for evacuation.

Wilson said that they believed the "overwhelming majority" of people the airlift was offered to were able to get to Kabul.

"We're focusing our efforts on those that we can get out," he said. "We cannot through this program solve every problem in this country."

Congress created SIV programs in 2006 for Iraqi and Afghan interpreters who risked retaliation for working for the U.S. government. (Reuters)

A grisly murder in the heart of Islamabad involving families from the privileged elite of Pakistani society has dominated headlines for the past week, stirring national outrage over femicides in the South Asian nation.

Noor Mukadam, 27, the daughter of a former Pakistani diplomat, was found beheaded in a posh neighborhood of the capital on July 20. Police have charged Zahir Jaffer, a U.S. national and scion of one of Pakistan's wealthiest families, with murder.

Investigators say the two were friends, and Jaffer lured Mukadam, the daughter of Pakistan's former envoy to South Korea, to his home, held her there for two days, and then brutally murdered her.

Hundreds of women are killed in Pakistan annually, and thousands more are victims of brutal violence, but few cases get sustained media attention, and only a small fraction of perpetrators are ever punished.

This killing though, which touched a segment of society that is often thought to be immune to that systemic injustice, has sparked a public outcry unlike any other recent case.

"The status of the families involved, especially the family of Zahir Jaffer, and of course Noor's father being a former ambassador, and this happening within the elite circles of Islamabad...all of that combined definitely has brought more attention to this case," commented Nida Kirmani, Associate Professor of Sociology at the Lahore University of Management Sciences.

Mukadam's murder has become the most keenly reported femicide in recent history. Social media erupted with furious disgust, and there have been protests and vigils in major cities, as well as among the Pakistani diaspora as far away as Canada and the United States.

Facing public anger, the Jaffer family took out full page advertisements in newspapers distancing themselves from the murder and calling for justice.

Life for women in Pakistan's rural areas is markedly different from that in urban centres, particularly Islamabad, where chic cafes and shopping areas cater to the city's mix of wealthy intelligentsia, government officials, diplomats, expatriates, and foreign journalists.

For many women in the country's capital, even that semblance of freedom and safety has been shattered.

"I have daughters, too, and I worry day and night if this happens to my own daughter who will stand with me?," Amna Salman Butt, told Reuters at a vigil for Mukadam in Islamabad this week that drew hundreds. "When someone mistreats us will we have to come up with hashtags too?," she said, referring to the #JusticeForNoor hashtag that has dominated Twitter in Pakistan.

"Every woman I have spoken to after Noor's case speaks about them feeling a heightened sense of fear, from the men around them," said Benazir Shah, a Lahore-based journalist. She said some complain of not being able to sleep at night.

While the daily twists and turns of the trial unfold in the national media gaze, rights groups in Pakistan say the government should pass a landmark bill meant to tackle domestic violence in order to assuage some anger.

The bill streamlines the process for obtaining restraining orders, and defines violence broadly, to include "emotional, psychological and verbal abuse."

Earlier this month, lawmakers sought the opinion of a council of Islamic scholars on whether the legislation adhered to Islamic principles.

Qibla Ayaz, who heads the council, told Reuters they had only informally discussed the bill, but felt its ambiguous language was unacceptable in Pakistan's conservative society.

"Does this mean that a daughter or wife can complain when a father or husband is stopping them from going outside the house? This may not be acceptable to all Pakistanis," he told Reuters.

"We all agree on the goal of stopping violence against women...but our sense is this bill might actually cause new social tension and lead to more domestic violence," Ayaz added. (Reuters)

The International Space Station (ISS) was thrown briefly out of control on Thursday when jet thrusters of a newly arrived Russian research module inadvertently fired a few hours after it was docked to the orbiting outpost, NASA officials said.

The seven crew members aboard - two Russian cosmonauts, three NASA astronauts, a Japanese astronaut and a European space agency astronaut from France - were never in any immediate danger, according to NASA and Russian state-owned news agency RIA.

But the malfunction prompted NASA to postpone until at least Aug. 3 its planned launch of Boeing's (BA.N) new CST-100 Starliner capsule on a highly anticipated uncrewed test flight to the space station. The Starliner had been set to blast off atop an Atlas V rocket on Friday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Thursday's mishap began about three hours after the multipurpose Nauka module had latched onto the space station, as mission controllers in Moscow were performing some post-docking "reconfiguration" procedures, according to NASA.

The module's jets inexplicably restarted, causing the entire station to pitch out of its normal flight position some 250 miles above the Earth, leading the mission's flight director to declare a "spacecraft emergency," U.S. space agency officials said.

An unexpected drift in the station's orientation was first detected by automated ground sensors, followed 15 minutes later by a "loss of attitude control" that lasted a little over 45 minutes, according to Joel Montalbano, manager of NASA's space station program.

'TUG-OF-WAR'

Flight teams on the ground managed to restore the space station's orientation by activating thrusters on another module of the orbiting platform, NASA officials said.

In its broadcast coverage of the incident, RIA cited NASA specialists at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, as describing the struggle to regain control of the space station as a "tug of war" between the two modules.

At the height of the incident, the station was pitching out of alignment at the rate of about a half a degree per second, Montalbano said during a NASA conference call with reporters.

The Nauka engines were ultimately switched off, the space station was stabilized and its orientation was restored to where it had begun, NASA said.

Communication with the crew was lost for several minutes twice during the disruption, but "there was no immediate danger at any time to the crew," Montalbano said. He said "the crew really didn't feel any movement."

Had the situation become so dangerous as to require evacuation of personnel, the crew could have escaped in a SpaceX crew capsule still parked at the outpost and designed to serve as a "lifeboat" if necessary, said Steve Stich, manager of NASA's commercial crew program.

What caused the malfunction of the thrusters on the Nauka module, delivered by the Russian space agency Roscosmos, has yet to be determined, NASA officials said.

Montalbano said there was no immediate sign of any damage to the space station. The flight correction maneuvers used up more propellant reserves than desired, "but nothing I would worry about," he said.

After its launch last week from Kazakhstan's Baikonur Cosmodrome, the module experienced a series of glitches that raised concern about whether the docking procedure would go smoothly.

Roscosmos attributed Thursday's post-docking issue to Nauka's engines having to work with residual fuel in the craft, TASS news agency reported.

"The process of transferring the Nauka module from flight mode to 'docked with ISS' mode is underway. Work is being carried out on the remaining fuel in the module," Roscosmos was cited by TASS as saying.

The Nauka module is designed to serve as a research lab, storage unit and airlock that will upgrade Russia's capabilities aboard the ISS.

A live broadcast showed the module, named after the Russian word for "science," docking with the space station a few minutes later than scheduled.

"According to telemetry data and reports from the ISS crew, the onboard systems of the station and the Nauka module are operating normally," Roscosmos said in a statement.

"There is contact!!!" Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Roscosmos, wrote on Twitter moments after the docking. (Reuters)