https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/10/europe/europe-isnt-scared-of-boris-johnson-analysis-intl-gbr/index.html
2019-08-11 06:59:00Z
52780350226382
There have been ten consecutive weekends of pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong.
But while many have involved tear gas and violent clashes between police and protestors - this is not the full story.
In the latest peaceful rally, parents and their children have taken to the streets .
Video by Simon Atkinson. Filmed by Danny Bull.
Tens of thousands have attended Moscow's largest opposition rally since 2011, independent monitors say.
Up to 60,000 people reportedly gathered in the rain to demand fair elections.
The protest was officially authorised but dozens of people were arrested as they moved to other parts of the city, many outside President Vladimir Putin's offices in the city centre.
Unauthorised rallies on the last two Saturdays saw hundreds detained. This is the fifth demonstration in a month.
Many Muscovites are unhappy that opposition candidates have been banned from running in municipal elections in September, but anger has increased after apparent incidences of police brutality in previous weeks.
Protests in solidarity with Moscow in several other Russian cities on Saturday also saw dozens of people detained.
This protest and one on 20 July were authorised by the city authorities.
The latest arrests took place after groups of demonstrators left the official rally outside the city centre. Protest leaders had encouraged people to join an unauthorised "stroll" afterwards.
An organisation that tracks participants in demonstrations, The White Counter, counted 49,900 people at the authorised march in Moscow.
But it later said more people had arrived through side streets, boosting numbers above 50,000.
Police estimated a lower turnout figure of 20,000.
Some protesters carried placards with slogans such as "Give us the right to vote!" and "You've lied to us enough".
Others held up pictures of activists arrested at earlier demonstrations.
Opposition politician, Lyubov Sobol, an ally of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, was detained by police ahead of the protest.
Around 600 people were arrested after an unauthorised protest last weekend, amid reports of police violence. More than 1,000 were detained the week before.
HONG KONG—Protesters led riot police on a game of cat and mouse, splitting up and moving throughout the city and blocking traffic, as Hong Kong’s summer of dissent stretched into a 10th weekend.
Hundreds of families gathered near Victoria Harbour to call for Hong Kong’s democratic values to be protected from Beijing’s growing influence, as nearby a pro-Beijing group led supporters to a police station, carrying cards to thank officers for their work in dealing with the protests. At the city’s international airport, protesters packed the arrivals hall and greeted passengers with a peaceful sit-in for a second day.
Clashes broke out by the early evening, as small groups of protesters wearing gas masks blocked roads and tunnels at several spots, before being chased away by police officers with riot shields. Police fired tear gas to disperse them.
At the Tai Wai metro station, in the north of the city, protesters blocked roads with barricades before police fired the first rounds of tear gas. Not long after, hundreds of protesters rushed into the city’s cross-harbor tunnel, scattering traffic cones, trash cans and metal barricades to disrupt traffic, before dispersing.
As protesters quickly disappeared from the busy tourist area of Tsim Sha Tsui, one post on a popular protester forum cheered the action as a successful tactic. “Let’s be water and keep so,” it said.
A Tsim Sha Tsui resident who saw the confrontation between police and protesters said the government had been useless and arrogant. The 50-year-old woman, who originally came from mainland China, said she doesn’t support either side, though she feels bad for the protesters. “I felt heartbroken. They are all young people. And now their future got ruined.”
“Everyone’s been having a tough time,” she said.
The protests this summer reflect the outpouring of public anger at Hong Kong’s government, sparked by an extradition bill that would make it easier for Beijing to prosecute Hong Kong citizens under mainland China’s opaque legal system. The Hong Kong government eventually shelved the bill, declaring it “dead,” but it has yet to formally withdraw it. Frustrations with the government’s handling of the situation, allegations that police have used excessive force while dispersing protesters and demands for democratic overhauls have sustained the protest movement, even as Beijing has signaled its growing intolerance for the dissent.
The huge crowds of hundreds of thousands of protesters at the start of the summer have given way to smaller groups of mobile protests using more-aggressive tactics, such as lighting fires on roads and hurling objects toward police.
Last week, Beijing officials said they strongly supported the actions of Hong Kong police in trying to end the chaos, and asked patriotic citizens in the city to stand up against protesters as well.
Write to Jon Emont at jonathan.emont@wsj.com, Wenxin Fan at Wenxin.Fan@wsj.com and Joyu Wang at joyu.wang@wsj.com
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HONG KONG — Defying warnings from China of a crackdown if they continued more than two months of protests, young demonstrators blocked a vital tunnel under Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbor on Saturday, barricaded a traffic intersection and set fires outside a police station in a shopping district popular with tourists.
The Hong Kong police force said in a statement that the fires in the Tsim Sha Tsui district of the city posed “a serious threat to the safety of everyone at the scene.”
Police officers fired tear gas in several locations as a day that began with a show of peaceful defiance outside the headquarters of China’s military garrison descended into an evening of clashes, panic and widespread disruption.
Thousands of activists continued a sit-in at Hong Kong’s international airport, one of the world’s busiest air-travel hubs, on the second day of what they said would be a three-day occupation. The airport demonstration, unlike scattered and often-chaotic protests on the Kowloon Peninsula on Saturday evening, has so far been peaceful.
Stores along Nathan Road, normally crowded with evening shoppers and tourists, closed their doors as the police moved into the area, charging into passers-by caught up in a melee that was shrouded in clouds of tear gas.
Amy Havart, a 32-year-old Hong Kong resident, said she had been leaving a hotel on Nathan Road after drinks with friends when hotel staff members “told us that the police are dropping tear gas outside; we don’t know what is happening at all.”
She said she could not see any protesters or acts of violence so could not understand why there were so many police officers.
“We are all just here trying to have some fun tonight. So why are the police here?” she asked. “I don’t know what is happening to this city. This is just heartbreaking to see.”
[What’s going on in Hong Kong? Here’s how the protests have evolved.]
Assailed for days by China’s propaganda machine as violent thugs who must be stopped, Hong Kong’s protest movement — a largely leaderless jumble of groups and causes — started the day with a display of what activists say was their peaceful intent. Several thousand people marched in an orderly procession past China’s military headquarters in the former British colony.
That protest march in Central District, billed by organizers as a “family friendly” event, featured parents, baby strollers and children with balloons, and avoided incendiary slogans about “retaking Hong Kong” that have angered China’s governing Communist Party.
“Xi Jinping should come and take a look at us here, now, and then say whether we are hooligans,” said Ina Wong, a 34-year-old designer, referring to China’s hard-line leader. Ms. Wong took part in the rally along with her husband, a civil servant, and their 2-year-old son.
But the mood turned grimmer as darkness fell and the Kowloon Peninsula, across Victoria Harbor, became the focus for a new round of protests, which, unlike the morning rally in Central, had not been authorized by the police.
The number of protesters was far below the huge demonstrations last month, and Saturday evening’s events in Kowloon were driven largely by groups of a few hundred activists who roamed from area to area in an effort to avoid arrest for participation in an unauthorized gathering. After one group blocked a tunnel under the harbor from Kowloon to Central in the early evening, a different group occupied the entrance to the Lion Rock Tunnel, under a mountain in Kowloon.
The blocking of roads and tunnels recalled some of the disarray that convulsed Hong Kong on Monday, when a wave of protest rallies and strikes bought much of the city to a standstill, with the police and demonstrators clashing in several areas. Monday’s unrest prompted a barrage of warnings from the Communist Party in Beijing and its allies in Hong Kong that further unrest would not be tolerated.
On Saturday, party-controlled newspapers in Hong Kong published what they said was an open letter signed by more than 700 patriotic residents voicing support for the city’s police, whom protesters have accused of brutality, and demanding that the local government “swiftly stop this chaotic situation.”
The letter, and a series of small counterprotests in support of the government, followed a demand this past week from Beijing’s top official responsible for Hong Kong that China’s supporters there speak out against the protest movement and mobilize to resist any concessions to its demands.
Those demands include the resignation of Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, as well as an independent inquiry into the police’s conduct and the full withdrawal of the extradition bill that sparked the protests.
China’s characterization of the Hong Kong protests as “turmoil” — the word it used to describe protests in Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989 — has fueled rumors that another crackdown was being planned. But few expect China to send in the People’s Liberation Army, as it did to crush the student-led Tiananmen movement 30 years ago.
Watched by a lone Chinese soldier with an assault rifle guarding the gate to China’s military compound in Central, the morning protesters marched without incident past the garrison, shouting, “Go Hong Kong! Go Hong Kong! Fathers and mothers please preserve our future!”
They ended their parade outside the offices of Hong Kong’s Legislative Council, a body that helped to spur the protest movement by moving in June to adopt legislation that would allow extradition to mainland China. Mrs. Lam, the chief executive, has since suspended the bill, but she has resisted demands that it be formally withdrawn.
Many in Hong Kong are not willing to accept Mrs. Lam’s assurances that the bill is “dead.”
“People don’t trust the government. This is the main problem,” said Ken Lin, an unemployed 39-year-old office worker who helped organize the Saturday march. “The government only obeys Beijing, not what the people of Hong Kong want.”
HONG KONG — Defying warnings from China of a crackdown if they continued more than two months of protests, young demonstrators blocked a vital tunnel under Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbor on Saturday, barricaded a traffic intersection and set fires outside a police station in a shopping district popular with tourists.
The Hong Kong police force said in a statement that the fires in the Tsim Sha Tsui district of the city posed “a serious threat to the safety of everyone at the scene.”
Police officers fired tear gas in several locations as a day that began with a show of peaceful defiance outside the headquarters of China’s military garrison descended into an evening of clashes, panic and widespread disruption.
Thousands of activists continued a sit-in at Hong Kong’s international airport, one of the world’s busiest air-travel hubs, on the second day of what they said would be a three-day occupation. The airport demonstration, unlike scattered and often-chaotic protests on the Kowloon Peninsula on Saturday evening, has so far been peaceful.
Stores along Nathan Road, normally crowded with evening shoppers and tourists, closed their doors as the police moved into the area, charging into passers-by caught up in a melee that was shrouded in clouds of tear gas.
Amy Havart, a 32-year-old Hong Kong resident, said she had been leaving a hotel on Nathan Road after drinks with friends when hotel staff members “told us that the police are dropping tear gas outside; we don’t know what is happening at all.”
She said she could not see any protesters or acts of violence so could not understand why there were so many police officers.
“We are all just here trying to have some fun tonight. So why are the police here?” she asked. “I don’t know what is happening to this city. This is just heartbreaking to see.”
[What’s going on in Hong Kong? Here’s how the protests have evolved.]
Assailed for days by China’s propaganda machine as violent thugs who must be stopped, Hong Kong’s protest movement — a largely leaderless jumble of groups and causes — started the day with a display of what activists say was their peaceful intent. Several thousand people marched in an orderly procession past China’s military headquarters in the former British colony.
That protest march in Central District, billed by organizers as a “family friendly” event, featured parents, baby strollers and children with balloons, and avoided incendiary slogans about “retaking Hong Kong” that have angered China’s governing Communist Party.
“Xi Jinping should come and take a look at us here, now, and then say whether we are hooligans,” said Ina Wong, a 34-year-old designer, referring to China’s hard-line leader. Ms. Wong took part in the rally along with her husband, a civil servant, and their 2-year-old son.
But the mood turned grimmer as darkness fell and the Kowloon Peninsula, across Victoria Harbor, became the focus for a new round of protests, which, unlike the morning rally in Central, had not been authorized by the police.
The number of protesters was far below the huge demonstrations last month, and Saturday evening’s events in Kowloon were driven largely by groups of a few hundred activists who roamed from area to area in an effort to avoid arrest for participation in an unauthorized gathering. After one group blocked a tunnel under the harbor from Kowloon to Central in the early evening, a different group occupied the entrance to the Lion Rock Tunnel, under a mountain in Kowloon.
The blocking of roads and tunnels recalled some of the disarray that convulsed Hong Kong on Monday, when a wave of protest rallies and strikes bought much of the city to a standstill, with the police and demonstrators clashing in several areas. Monday’s unrest prompted a barrage of warnings from the Communist Party in Beijing and its allies in Hong Kong that further unrest would not be tolerated.
On Saturday, party-controlled newspapers in Hong Kong published what they said was an open letter signed by more than 700 patriotic residents voicing support for the city’s police, whom protesters have accused of brutality, and demanding that the local government “swiftly stop this chaotic situation.”
The letter, and a series of small counterprotests in support of the government, followed a demand this past week from Beijing’s top official responsible for Hong Kong that China’s supporters there speak out against the protest movement and mobilize to resist any concessions to its demands.
Those demands include the resignation of Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, as well as an independent inquiry into the police’s conduct and the full withdrawal of the extradition bill that sparked the protests.
China’s characterization of the Hong Kong protests as “turmoil” — the word it used to describe protests in Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989 — has fueled rumors that another crackdown was being planned. But few expect China to send in the People’s Liberation Army, as it did to crush the student-led Tiananmen movement 30 years ago.
Watched by a lone Chinese soldier with an assault rifle guarding the gate to China’s military compound in Central, the morning protesters marched without incident past the garrison, shouting, “Go Hong Kong! Go Hong Kong! Fathers and mothers please preserve our future!”
They ended their parade outside the offices of Hong Kong’s Legislative Council, a body that helped to spur the protest movement by moving in June to adopt legislation that would allow extradition to mainland China. Mrs. Lam, the chief executive, has since suspended the bill, but she has resisted demands that it be formally withdrawn.
Many in Hong Kong are not willing to accept Mrs. Lam’s assurances that the bill is “dead.”
“People don’t trust the government. This is the main problem,” said Ken Lin, an unemployed 39-year-old office worker who helped organize the Saturday march. “The government only obeys Beijing, not what the people of Hong Kong want.”
President Trump said Saturday that he had received a “small apology” from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for testing short-range missiles -- while appearing to side with him on what he called “ridiculous and expensive” joint exercises conducted by the U.S. and South Korea.
"In a letter to me sent by Kim Jong Un, he stated, very nicely, that he would like to meet and start negotiations as soon as the joint U.S./South Korea joint exercise are over,” Trump tweeted. “It was a long letter, much of it complaining about the ridiculous and expensive exercises.”
NORTH KOREA AGAIN FIRES PROJECTILES INTO SEA OF JAPAN, OFFICIALS SAY
He went on to say that he is looking forward to meeting with him soon.
“It was also a small apology for testing the short range missiles, and that this testing would stop when the exercises end. I look forward to seeing Kim Jong Un in the not too distant future!” he said. “A nuclear free North Korea will lead to one of the most successful countries in the world!”
Trump’s tweet comes as the isolated country continued, as Trump indicated, to continue to test short-range missiles on Saturday. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the missiles were fired from the North’s east coast and landed in waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.
Pyongyang has claimed that the U.S.-South Korea exercises force it to "develop, test and deploy the powerful physical means essential for national defense."
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Trump has made unprecedented efforts to resolve the crisis in the Peninsula, shifting dramatically from warnings of “fire and fury” for North Korea if it continued to defy the international community in 2017 to two friendly summits in 2018 and 2019. He said on Friday that he received a "beautiful" three-page letter from Kim and predicted more talks.
However, this year talks have stalled on the question of Pyongyang’s denuclearization. Seoul and Washington have scaled down exercises since the first talks in 2018, but North Korea has continued to insist that even those violate agreements between Trump and Kim.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.