Officers were seen loading confiscated items into the back of a van five people suspected of selling and displaying books deemed “seditious” in Hong Kong have been arrested after police raided two independent bookshops.

Authorities said the publications incited “hatred” against the territory’s government, judiciary and law enforcement agencies. Officers seized books from both shops, the government said in a statement.

The group – two men aged 37 and 57, and three women aged between 30 and 59 – are suspected of violating national security legislation by “acting with seditious intent”.

They are currently being held for investigation. If convicted, they could face up to seven years in prison.

Officials did not name the businesses raided by police. Reporters from the AFP news agency saw officers leading a woman in handcuffs the Have A Nice Stay bookshop into a van.

The shop in the city’s densely packed Mong Kok area was founded in 2022 by a group of former journalists, stocking literature on democracy, authoritarianism and media literacy.

The raid came a day after it announced it would be shutting down in August, citing financial reasons and what it called an “elusive ‘red line'” over what material is considered problematic.

Local media reported the nearby Greenfield Book Store was also targeted.

On its Facebook page, the shop says it stocks books from Hong Kong and Taiwan, covering “literature, history, philosophy, art, sociology and self-improvement”.

Neither business is attending this year’s Hong Kong Book Fair, which opened on Wednesday.

There have been two other raids on bookshops in Hong Kong in 2026. Two workers were arrested at the Hunter store in June, and a further four were arrested from Book Punch in March.

Amnesty International said the raids indicated “the chilling reality of what the city has become: a place where you can be criminalised simply for what’s on your bookshelf”.

Detained Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been allowed to meet a delegation from the International Committee of the Red Cross, the first confirmed outside contact with her since a letter to her son two and a half years ago.

In photographs of the meeting released by the military government Suu Kyi appeared to be healthy.

She was detained shortly after the armed forces deposed her government in 2021, and sentenced to 33 years in jail on what are widely viewed as trumped-up charges, though her sentence has been reduced and she has been moved to house arrest.

Despite repeated assurances from the military that Suu Kyi is alive and well, they have never provided any convincing evidence of this.

Her son Kim Aris has in recent months mounted an international campaign demanding proof of life for the 81-year-old democracy icon.

Now a delegation from the ICRC has been allowed to meet her – her first confirmed meeting with anyone outside the government for nearly four years.

Photographs released of her with the ICRC team show Suu Kyi looking relaxed and well, although no details of her state of health have been given, nor of what they talked about.

The Myanmar government, still headed by coup leader Min Aung Hlaing and dominated by the military despite an election held earlier this year, is trying to end its diplomatic isolation in a series of official visits to neighbouring countries.

Among the top demands being made of Myanmar’s military leadership is that they end the aerial bombardment of opposition-held areas, start negotiations to end the civil war, and release Aung San Suu Kyi.

The US military says it has completed a wave of strikes against Iran in retaliation for attempted ballistic missile attacks on American forces.

The United States has carried out a wave of air strikes against Iran in retaliation for an attempted ballistic missile attack on American forces on Tuesday, the US military said. US Central Command said dozens of targets belonging to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had been hit, in response to Iranian strikes on US bases in Jordan and on vessels in the Strait of Hormuz.

Meanwhile, Iranian state radio reported that three people, including a two-year-old child, had been killed in the strikes on Qeshm island, with further locations hit in the south and west of the country. 

The strikes come during a week in which the conflict has widened, with the first publicly confirmed joint US-Saudi strikes on Iranian-backed proxy forces in Iraq.

The US and Iran have exchanged a series of strikes and counterstrikes since a ceasefire agreed in April collapsed in June. That truce had been intended to halt months of fighting between the two countries.

Meanwhile, Pakistan said on Thursday that it was continuing diplomatic efforts to ease tensions between Washington and Tehran, and called on both sides to return to the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding. “The negotiations between the parties are ongoing to normalise the situation, particularly the situation in the Strait of Hormuz, and to de-escalate,” Tahir Hussain Andrabi, spokesman for Pakistan’s Foreign Office, told a briefing in Islamabad.

As the one year countdown to World Youth Day Seoul 2027 begins on August 3, Cardinal Kevin Farrell, Prefect of the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life, urges Catholics to walk alongside young people towards Seoul 2027.

With one year to go until world Youth Day 2027, the Local Organizing Committee (LOC) is hard at work as it is moving preparations from groundwork to full implementation across all sectors, including international cooperation, pilgrim services, accommodation, transportation, safety, medical care and communications.

World Youth Day (WYD) occurs every couple of years and gathers together millions of young Catholics, and the 2027 edition will be held in the South Korean capital, Seoul, from August 3 to 8. It will be the second WYD to take place in Asia – following the 1995 one in Manila – and the first in a country where Christianity is a minority faith.

“Over the past three years, we have concentrated on laying the foundations for the event,” said Archbishop Peter Soon-taick Chung of Seoul, President of the LOC.

“The year ahead will be the time to complete our preparations and welcome young people from every part of the world. We will do everything possible to make WYD Seoul 2027 a celebration of hope and a witness to the hospitality and solidarity of Korea and Seoul.”

“With one year to go until the start of World Youth Day Seoul 2027,” said Cardinal Kevin Farrell, Prefect of the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life, “the young people who will be travelling to Korea alongside their pastors are increasingly at the heart of the preparations for the event.”

“Over its forty-year history,” he emphasized, “World Youth Day has been progressively enriched thanks to the faith, enthusiasm, and active participation of young people and the local Churches.”

The Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue is bringing together Christian and Confucian leaders and scholars to explore how the two traditions can help build a more just, peaceful and humane world.

Christian and Confucian religious leaders, scholars, and representatives are gathering at Sogang University in Seoul on August 4-5 for the first Christian–Confucian Colloquium.

The event is organized by the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue in collaboration with the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Korea, Sogang University, and the Korean Confucian Academy.

The colloquium will be held under the theme: “New Heaven, New Earth and Datong (Great Harmony, Great Unity): Christian–Confucian Dialogue for Building an Ideal Society.”

Participants will explore how Christianity and Confucianism can jointly inspire responses to some of the most urgent challenges facing society today.

The press release noted that the two traditions are rooted in distinct theological and philosophical foundations.

However, it added, the two religious traditions share a concern for human dignity, moral integrity, responsible leadership, and the common good.

Discussions will focus particularly on social fragmentation, moral uncertainty, environmental degradation, and threats to peace.

The press release said the colloquium is expected to wrap up with a call for continued Christian–Confucian cooperation in the fields of education, ethical formation, and peace building.

Organizers hope the meeting will mark the beginning of a lasting tradition of dialogue between followers of Christianity and Confucianism.