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Minggu, 16 Juni 2019

Hundreds rally in Moscow over journalist case - Reuters

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Several hundred protesters gathered in Moscow on Sunday in a small, government-authorized rally supporting investigative journalist Ivan Golunov and decrying abuse of power over his five-day arrest this month on drug charges.

People attend a rally organised by Union of Journalists and approved by authorities in support of the investigative journalist Ivan Golunov in Moscow, Russia June 16, 2019. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

The 36-year-old reporter, known for exposing corruption among Moscow officials, was freed following an outcry by supporters who said he was framed by corrupt police.

Journalists critical of Russian authorities have led a dangerous existence since the 1990s - sometimes threatened, attacked or even murdered over their work - but Golunov’s case triggered an unusually strong backlash.

An unsanctioned rally on June 12, the day after he was released, led to more than 500 detentions, including opposition politician Alexei Navalny.

But Sunday’s event was given the go-ahead, raising questions over whether President Vladimir Putin’s government was trying to provide a safety valve for public anger.

The rally, called by the Russian Union of Journalists and named “Justice and Fairness to Everyone”, had drawn a few hundred people by early afternoon, a Reuters witness said. State news agency TASS cited police saying around 1,600 were there.

Computer programmer Sergey, 28, said he was attending in the hope the protest would help stop others having drugs planted on them as he believes happened to Golunov. “Someone has to (protest),” he said, noting the small number at the rally.

Other demonstrators drew attention to detentions of regional journalists. “Moscow, Golunov is free. What about the others?” one of the banners read.

Putin fired two police generals over the case on Thursday, and other officers involved have been suspended pending an investigation.

Golunov was invited to Sunday’s event but did not turn up.

Reporting by Polina Ivanova; Writing by Katya Golubkova; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-journalist/hundreds-rally-in-moscow-over-journalist-case-idUSKCN1TH0GA

2019-06-16 13:20:00Z
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Hong Kong’s Retreat Chips Away at Xi Jinping’s Iron Image - The New York Times

BEIJING — China’s leader, Xi Jinping, was in Tajikistan on Saturday, celebrating his 66th birthday with the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, when the political crisis in Hong Kong took a dramatic turn with an unexpected retreat in the face of mass protests.

Mr. Xi’s trip fortuitously gave him some distance from the events in Hong Kong, where the leadership on Saturday suspended a rushed campaign to adopt a Beijing-backed proposal to allow extraditions to mainland China. But there was no mistaking that it was a stinging setback for him.

The move, the biggest concession to public pressure during Mr. Xi’s nearly seven years as China’s paramount leader, suggests that there are still limits to his power, especially involving events outside the mainland, even as he has governed with an increasingly authoritarian grip.

“This is a defeat for Xi, even if Beijing frames this as a tactical retreat,” said Jude Blanchette, a consultant and the author of a new book on the revival of revolutionary ideology in the country, “China’s New Red Guards.”

The Hong Kong police used tear gas against protesters on Wednesday.CreditLam Yik Fei for The New York Times

The extraordinary events — street protests, which continued on Sunday, have been some of the largest since the British handover of the territory in 1997 — could even inspire Mr. Xi’s beleaguered critics at home, who, despite vigorous censorship, managed to follow what unfolded over the last week.

[Protesters in Hong Kong once again took to the streets on Sunday.]

“This further chips away at the image of Xi as an all-powerful, omnicompetent and visionary leader,” Mr. Blanchette added.

The demonstrations also made clear that after 22 years, Beijing has had minimal success in weaving Hong Kong into the country’s central political, economic and security systems, all dominated by the Communist Party. This could motivate Mr. Xi and his cadres to proceed more forcefully than before, although that could invite new waves of protest.

The controversy over the legislation has also hardened views toward Mr. Xi’s China abroad, particularly regarding the lack of judicial independence or basic rights for defendants plunged into the Chinese judicial system.

The idea of a law that would allow transfers of criminal suspects into the Communist Party-controlled system provoked fear among Hong Kong’s seven million residents, including business executives, consultants and investors who have made the city a global hub of finance, trade and transportation.

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Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, announcing the shelving of an extradition bill on Saturday.CreditAnthony Wallace/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

“The proposed law, the protests and the Hong Kong government’s response has heightened international awareness of the repressive policies of the Xi era,” said Anne-Marie Brady, a professor at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, adding that China was not living up to its pledge to honor Hong Kong’s autonomy for 50 years after the 1997 takeover.

During Mr. Xi’s four-day trip for previously scheduled summit meetings in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, the events in Hong Kong were portrayed in China’s state media not as a retreat but as a well-considered move receiving Beijing’s full support.

“Sometimes we have to be on duty on our birthday,” Mr. Putin told Mr. Xi in a carefully choreographed exchange at a hotel in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, even as Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, prepared to announce the suspension of the legislation.

Mr. Putin presented the man he has taken to calling a dear friend with a decorative vase, a cake and an entire box of ice cream that Mr. Xi had previously pronounced as the most delicious in the world.

Mr. Putin’s party for Mr. Xi was broadcast on China’s state television network, which had not even mentioned the protests in Hong Kong until Friday night — and only then to describe them as riots sponsored by foreign actors.

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Mass protests continued in Hong Kong on Sunday.CreditLam Yik Fei for The New York Times

Both men are of similar age and temperament, sharing an abiding fear of foreign efforts to undermine their rule. Both have experienced the simmering fury of constituents nonetheless, suggesting that popular sentiment still plays a role in the era of strongman leaders. Mr. Putin, too, had to bow to public pressure last week following protests over a false arrest of a prominent investigative journalist, Ivan Golunov.

“This is an important time to see whether Xi is a rigid ideologue like Mao or the pragmatist that previous Chinese leaders like Deng, Jiang and Hu were,” said Susan L. Shirk, the chairwoman of the 21st Century China Program at the University of California, San Diego, referring to Mr. Xi’s predecessors.

As evidence of a pragmatic tinge, she cited recent adjustments that Mr. Xi made — at least cosmetically — to his signature “One Belt, One Road” international infrastructure initiative following criticism that it was ensnaring countries in indebtedness to Beijing.

“Pragmatic leaders adjust their policies when they become too costly,” she said.

As for the Hong Kong debacle, from the beginning the government in Beijing tried to keep a distance from the controversy over the extradition legislation, which Mrs. Lam was pushing through with unusual speed. She has said that she did so on her own initiative, though it remains unknown what role exactly Mr. Xi and his deputies played.

Beijing and Hong Kong had decided that they already faced enough challenges with the economic headwinds and trade tensions with the United States heading into the Group of 20 summit meeting in Japan this month, according to a person in Hong Kong with a detailed knowledge of local policymaking, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the political sensitivities inflamed by the protests.

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Mr. Putin presented Mr. Xi with a cake on Friday, a day before the Chinese leader’s birthday.CreditPool photo by Alexei Druzhinin

President Trump and Mr. Xi are expected to meet in less than two weeks at the summit, in Osaka, although formal trade talks between them have not yet been confirmed.

Mr. Xi has never publicly commented on the Hong Kong matter, but two of the seven members of the governing Politburo Standing Committee that he presides over — Wang Yang and Han Zheng — expressed their support for the legislation.

On Friday, a vice foreign minister in Beijing summoned the deputy chief of mission at the American Embassy to complain about a congressional bill, drawn up in support of the protesters, that called for a broad review of Washington’s relationship with Hong Kong.

The suspension of the legislation — which stopped short of dropping it altogether — has fueled concerns that Mrs. Lam’s retreat was a tactical one, probably endorsed at least tacitly by Beijing. She met with senior Chinese officials on Friday before announcing her decision the following day, a person with knowledge of the government’s policymaking said. She declined to comment on Saturday on any private meetings she might have had.

Mr. Xi is not prone to concession or compromise, especially when under threat, as Mr. Trump has learned during his public efforts to negotiate an end to the trade war. This latest setback, analysts said, could be merely temporary.

“Postponement is not withdrawal,” Ryan Hass, a fellow at the Brookings Institution who served as the director for China at the National Security Council during the Obama administration, wrote in an email. “Beijing likely will be willing to let Lam take heat for mismanaging the process of securing passage of the bill, bide its time, and wait for the next opportunity to advance the legislation.”

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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/16/world/asia/hong-kong-xi-jinping.html

2019-06-16 12:47:06Z
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Saudi prince vows to confront threats after U.S. blames Iran for tanker attacks - NBC News

Saudi Arabia will not hesitate to confront regional threats, the country's powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has said in an interview published days after the U.S. blamed Iran for attacking two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman.

“The kingdom does not want war in the region, but we will not hesitate to deal with any threat to our people, our sovereignty and our vital interests," Salman told influential pan-Arabic newspaper Asharq al-Awsat.

In the interview published Sunday, the crown prince blamed Saudi Arabia's arch rival Iran and its agents for carrying out “acts of sabotage” to four tankers near the port of Fujairah, including two Saudi carriers, last month.

June 15, 201901:29

The attacks on two oil tankers near the strategic Strait of Hormuz earlier this week stoked fears of a broader conflict in the region. Iran has denied any role in the incidents.

The U.S. alleges Iran used limpet mines to target the tankers. The Japanese owner of the tanker later said it was struck by a flying projectile, contradicting reports by U.S. officials and the military on the source of the blast.

The explosions occurred while Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was in Iran’s capital Tehran trying to help ease rising tensions between the U.S. and Iran.

"The Iranian regime did not respect the Japanese prime minister's visit to Tehran, and while he was there replied to his efforts by attacking two tankers, one of which was Japanese," Salman told al-Awsat.

Meanwhile, Iran's semi-official Tasnim news agency reported that Iranian officials will on Monday announce additional steps to reduce the country's commitments under the landmark 2015 nuclear pact, which Washington withdrew from last year.

Salman, who is also defense minister and oversees all major levers of power in the country, said recent events in the region underscore the importance of the kingdom's demands for the international community to take “a firm stand” against Iran.

“The choice is clear to Iran,” the crown prince said in the interview, ratcheting up the rhetoric on Tehran. “Do you want to be a normal state with a constructive role in the international community, or do you want to remain a rogue state?”

Salman’s government is at the head of a coalition involved in a bloody, four-year war with Iran-backed Houthi militia in Yemen, which has led to one of the biggest humanitarian crises in the world.

Saudi Arabia accuses Iran of arming the Houthis, who claimed responsibility for a missile strike on a Saudi airport in the city of Abha that the kingdom said wounded 26 passengers last week. The Houthis also carried out a drone strike last month on a key Saudi oil pipeline.

Salman said Saudi Arabia will continue its operations in Yemen and support its people “in their quest to protect their independence and sovereignty."

The crown prince also touched on other topics, such as the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi last year, which he called “a very painful crime.”

The death of the Washington Post writer, a longtime Saudi insider who became a critic of Salman, caused international outrage and left the crown prince’s reformist image in tatters. U.S. intelligence services have said it was inconceivable that bin Salman had no connection to the journalist’s killing.

The crown prince told al-Awsat the Kingdom is seeking “full justice and accountability” in Khashoggi’s murder.

Yuliya Talmazan

Yuliya Talmazan is a London-based journalist.

Associated Press contributed.

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https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/saudi-prince-vows-confront-threats-after-u-s-blames-iran-n1017981

2019-06-16 12:58:00Z
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Hong Kong protest sees thousands call for city leader to step down: live updates - CNN

Protesters fill the streets of Hong Kong on Sunday. Anthony Kwan/Getty Images

Continued protests in Hong Kong couldn't come at a worse time for Chinese President Xi Jinping and his government, who are still struggling with the fallout from a trade war with the United States and a faltering domestic economy.

In Chinese state media, the tone has been defiant. A spokesman for the country's foreign ministry even blamed the US for the chaos in Hong Kong.

The reality, however, is that Beijing will be wary of the possibility that ongoing protests could damage Hong Kong's business sector -- especially at a time of growing pressure on China's economy.

Hong Kong is allowed economic freedoms that are restricted to the rest of the country, which, tied with an unbiased court system left over from the UK colonial period, have led to many large Western businesses basing their lucrative China operations out of the city.

There is no end in sight to the trade war between the US and China after negotiations collapsed in early May and new tariffs were imposed by both sides on hundreds of billions of dollars of exports.

The Chinese government maintains it is not afraid of a trade war but there are already signs that the economy is continuing to slow.

As more US businesses begin to look at investments outside of China, Hong Kong's role as the country's most economically liberal city is more important than ever.

Hong Kong protest sees thousands call for city leader to step down: live updates - CNN

In Chinese state media, the tone has been defiant. A spokesman for the country's foreign ministry even blamed the US for the chaos in Hong Kong.

The reality, however, is that Beijing will be wary of the possibility that ongoing protests could damage Hong Kong's business sector -- especially at a time of growing pressure on China's economy.

There is no end in sight to the trade war between the US and China after negotiations collapsed in early May and new tariffs were imposed by both sides on hundreds of billions of dollars of exports.

The Chinese government maintains it is not afraid of a trade war but there are already signs that the economy is continuing to slow.

As more US businesses begin to look at investments outside of China, Hong Kong's role as the country's most economically liberal city is more important than ever.

Hong Kong protest sees thousands call for city leader to step down: live updates - CNN

In Chinese state media, the tone has been defiant. A spokesman for the country's foreign ministry even blamed the US for the chaos in Hong Kong.

The reality, however, is that Beijing will be wary of the possibility that ongoing protests could damage Hong Kong's business sector -- especially at a time of growing pressure on China's economy.

There is no end in sight to the trade war between the US and China after negotiations collapsed in early May and new tariffs were imposed by both sides on hundreds of billions of dollars of exports.

The Chinese government maintains it is not afraid of a trade war but there are already signs that the economy is continuing to slow.

As more US businesses begin to look at investments outside of China, Hong Kong's role as the country's most economically liberal city is more important than ever.

Hong Kong protest sees thousands call for city leader to step down: live updates - CNN

Protesters attend a demonstration demanding Hong Kong's leaders to step down. Tyrone Siu/Reuters

The atmosphere at the protest has so far been relaxed, with little sign of the violence that marred Wednesday's demonstrations.

But there is still clear anger towards the city's police force.

On seeing police vans travel over the crowd on a bridge in Admiralty, the crowd breaks out in a loud chorus of boos.

The city was brought to a standstill Wednesday, when tens of thousands of mostly young protesters blocked the route leading to the Legislative Council buildings, where lawmakers were due to debate the extradition bill.

As many as 5,000 riot police were deployed to break up the crowd, leading to violent clashes and allegations of police brutality.

Videos from Wednesday's protest showed police spraying tear gas directly into protester's faces and beating them with batons.

Many of today's protesters are holding signs condemning police action. Protest organizers meanwhile have called on authorities to drop charges against the 11 people arrested during protests Wednesday.

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https://www.cnn.com/asia/live-news/hong-kong-protests-june-16-intl-hnk/index.html

2019-06-16 11:20:00Z
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