Leaving behind their pens and voice recorders, journalists switched roles yesterday to march in defence of press freedom. The "Free Speech, Free Hong Kong" protest was organised by the Hong Kong Journalists Association, which said 6,000 took part. Police put the figure at 1,600. "Such a big number of people illustrates that the public has started to feel that press freedom is at risk," association chairwoman Sham Yee-lan said.

Does Singapore have a problem with xenophobia? It seems that barely a month goes by these days without news reports highlighting friction between Singaporeans and foreign workers in the tiny, multi-ethnic city-state. The population has increased dramatically in recent decades thanks to an influx of foreigners, who now make up around two out of five residents. This has put a growing strain on jobs, housing and infrastructure, and raised fears about the dilution of the Singaporean national identity.

Not long ago, China was a soft-power juggernaut. Media accounts highlighted Chinese leaders’ thoughtful forays abroad, depicting policymakers that were respectful of others’ opinions, willing to listen, humble to a fault, and reluctant to dispense unsolicited advice. Here was a country that was content to allow its own example of success to speak for itself.

Romania has announced its doors are wide open to the Chinese after Canada tightened its immigration policy. Chinese looking to migrate to the southeast European country would be warmly welcomed, former Romanian prime minister Petre Roman said on a trip to Beijing.

The prospect of greater Chinese involvement in the Middle East peace process was raised in mid 2013 when Beijing invited both Israeli and Palestinian leaders for separate meetings to discuss the resumption of the Arab-Israeli peace process. Newly elected Chinese leader Xi Jinping used the meetings to unveil his four-point peace proposal for the settlement of the Palestinian issue.

Films from Asia are the clear winners at the 2014 Berlinale film festival in the German capital. Chinese thriller “Black Coal, Thin Ice”, scooped the top Golden Bear prize, while Liao Fan, who played the lead role in the film, won the Silver Bear for Best Actor. Told through flashbacks, the story is about a former policeman investigating gruesome murders in 1990s northern China.

A group of Chinese bloggers asked the United States to take up the cause of Internet freedom in an unusual meeting on Saturday with Secretary of State John Kerry. One by one, the bloggers voiced concerns to Mr. Kerry, who arrived here on Friday to discuss regional issues with China’s leaders, that the ability of Chinese citizens to gain access to information was under siege and that the country’s prospects for becoming a democracy were uncertain at best.