Vote in Hong Kongraises Beijing's ire

HONG KONG -- Tens of thousands of people in Hong Kong lined up to vote Sunday, joining hundreds of thousands of others who cast electronic ballots in the first three days of an unofficial referendum on democratic change that Beijing has blasted as a farce.

Tensions have soared in Hong Kong over how much say residents of the former British colony can have in choosing their next leader, who's currently hand-picked by a 1,200-member committee of mostly pro-Beijing elites.

Beijing, which has pledged to allow Hong Kong citizens to choose their own leader starting in 2017, has balked at letting members of the public nominate their own candidates, saying they would have to be vetted by a Beijing-friendly committee.

The central government's liaison office has called the vote "a political farce that overtly challenges the Basic Law," referring to the mini-constitution that promises a high degree of autonomy under the principle of "one country, two systems" for Hong Kong after it became a specially administered Chinese region in 1997.

3 Quebec fugitivescaptured by police

MONTREAL -- Three men who escaped by helicopter from a Quebec City-area prison two weeks ago were captured early Sunday at a Montreal residence, Quebec provincial police said.

Quebec police Sgt. Audrey-Anne Bilodeau said further arrests in the case are likely as the investigation into the June 7 escape continues.

Police did not divulge further details about how they finally found the fugitives.

The three men were originally arrested as part of Operation Crayfish in 2010, which dismantled a network of drug traffickers, and were awaiting trial on charges that included gangsterism and murder.

Police in Thailandarrest 8 protesters

BANGKOK -- Police in Thailand arrested eight people Sunday for demonstrating against the nation's military junta, including a man who was dragged away by undercover officers for reading a copy of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four outside one of Bangkok's most luxurious shopping malls.

Handfuls of anti-coup protesters have staged several silent readings of the book in recent weeks because they say its indictment of totalitarianism has become relevant after the army deposed the nation's elected government in a May 22 coup.

A Thai reporter, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the situation, witnessed the lone man reading Orwell's book and said he was taken away by half a dozen plainclothes police.

Several other people were also detained in the shopping mall's food court for preparing to hand out sandwiches, mimicking another recent protest in which a small group of student activists from Bangkok's Thammasat University gave out what they said were "sandwiches for democracy."

-- Compiled by Democrat-Gazette staff from wire reports

A Section on 06/23/2014