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Decision comes amid growing public support for Guan Heng – who secretly filmed detention facilities in China – after he illegally entered US by boat
The Department of Homeland Security has dropped its who entered the country illegally, two rights activists have said, after his plight raised public concerns that if deported the man would be punished by Beijing for helping expose human rights abuses in China’s Xinjiang region.
Rayhan Asat, a human rights lawyer who assisted in the case, said Guan Heng’s lawyer received a letter from the department stating its decision to withdraw its request to send Guan to Uganda. Asat said she now expected Guan’s asylum case to “proceed smoothly and favourably”.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the ship seizures were meant to force Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro from power.

Trump again called for Venezuela’s president to leave power and said the US would keep or sell the oil it had seized
China and Russia have expressed support for Venezuela as it confronts a US blockade of sanctioned oil tankers, while Donald Trump continues to ramp up his pressure campaign on the South American country’s president, Nicolás Maduro.
Amid reports of slowing activity at Venezuelan ports, the US president again called for Maduro to leave power, and reiterated that the US would keep or sell the oil it had seized off the coast of Venezuela in recent weeks.

Church leaders and members detained as government tightens controls on underground Christian gatherings
The knocks came at 2am. Hiding out at a friend’s house in a Beijing suburb, Gao Yingjia and his wife, Geng Pengpeng, rushed downstairs to meet the group of plain-clothed men who said they were police officers. Their son, nearly six, was sleeping upstairs, and Gao and Geng wanted to minimise the ruckus. They knew their time was up.
Two months later, Gao is in a detention centre in Guangxi province, southern China, charged with “illegal use of information networks”. His arrest was part of the biggest since 2018. It has prompted alarm from the US government and human rights groups, with some analysts describing it as the death knell for in China.

Chinese takeout on Christmas. How did this happen? A group of New York City high schoolers shared their reporting with NPR's Student Podcast Challenge.

Move made after first phase of anti-subsidy investigation widely seen as retaliation for bloc’s EV tariffs
China will impose provisional duties of up to 42.7% on certain dairy products imported from the EU from Tuesday after concluding the first phase of an anti-subsidy investigation widely seen as retaliation for .
The tariffs will range from 21.9% to 42.7% – although most companies will pay about 30% – and target products such as milk and cheese, including protected origin brands such as French roquefort and Italian gorgonzola.

Firms agree deals with Beijing-based Baidu to take self-driving cabs to UK capital
Chinese robotaxis are due to be on the streets of London next year after the US ride-hailing companies Lyft and Uber announced tie-ups with Beijing-based Baidu to deploy its self-driving technology.
Lyft is the third firm to announce plans to introduce self-driving taxis to the UK capital next year, after Uber and Waymo, the main operator of robotaxis in the US.

In the first 10 months of this year, South Korea imported $159m worth of kimchi, almost entirely from China, while exporting $137m
The pungent scent of red chilli powder hangs in the air at Kim Chieun’s kimchi factory in Incheon, about 30km west of Seoul. Inside, salted cabbage soaks in large metal vats in the first stage of a process that Kim has followed for more than 30 years.
But watching over the production line has become increasingly fraught. imports more kimchi than it exports, and the gap has widened as cheaper Chinese-made products take hold in the domestic market.

The Chinese government once focused on political dissidents and exiled activists. Now, federal officials say, it is targeting artists in the United States whose creative protests test its tolerance.

The conviction of Jimmy Lai in Hong Kong is another hostile act. How can Britain ignore Beijing’s provocations and human rights abuses?
The UK pushed hard to secure the release of Jimmy Lai, the newspaper publisher and British citizen who was a leading light in Hong Kong’s brutally suppressed pro-democracy movement. So, too, did press freedom and human rights campaigners. But the Beijing-appointed high court judges in the former colony convicted him anyway, finding Lai guilty last week on fake charges of trying to (CCP). For Xi Jinping, China’s dictator-emperor, there is no greater crime.
Protesting to China’s ambassador, the UK’s foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, as “politically motivated”. She’s right, of course – but her angry words will make no difference. Beijing’s contempt for Britain’s views is as painfully obvious as the UK’s weakness and indecision in the face of Chinese hubris. The breaking of its solemn promise to respect Hong Kong’s freedoms after the 1997 handover typifies the arrogance and untrustworthiness of Xi’s CCP.
Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator

Videos and photographs show how the Chinese authorities have tried to dismantle Zion Church, a Christian network with branches across the country.

Lai, who is facing life in prison, always said he owed Hong Kong, a city that had given him "everything".