Hello and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio.

I'm your host, Jason Palmer.

Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

Researchers have made embryos that are part human and part monkey.

It's a corner of science with plenty of potential to shed light on developmental problems

or even grow organs for transplant, but it's also a discipline with a serious ethical dimension.

And the Arab world has long turned to Egypt for its popular entertainment, particularly television.

But what's on the tube under the current leadership is looking more and more like propaganda,

so Egyptians and others are changing the channel.

First up, though.

In Hong Kong, nine high-profile democracy activists were sentenced on Friday for their roles in the protests that roiled the territory two years ago.

The list is a who's who of Hong Kong's most prominent, outspoken and storied campaigners who entered the courthouse in the past.

We are not the first part of personnel of control and we will not be the last. I'm ready to face the penalty of the same thing.

As the defendants exited and were driven away, chance broke out in a sparse crowd.

A bold expression of what remains of Hong Kong's protest spirit.

Hong Kong is supposed to have a unique arrangement with the rest of China, one country, two systems.

Its politics and policing were notionally independent from the mainland.

But with last week's sentencing, the unilateral imposition of a draconian new national security law and changes to Hong Kong's electoral system, it increasingly seems there's just one system.

One that, as on the mainland, leaves little space for dissent.

The nine people who were charged on Friday received prison sentences ranging from eight to eighteen months.

Four of them received suspended sentences because of their age and their contributions to Hong Kong society.

Su Lin-Wong is a China correspondent for the economist and is based in Hong Kong.

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