When Hong Kong’s ongoing mass demonstrations began on June 9, the streets were flooded by a peaceful sea of protesters, the majority of whom were dressed in white.
But in the 15 weeks since that day, the movement has transformed into something altogether bigger -- and more violent.
It's no longer about the withdrawal of an extradition bill, protesters are now calling for the "Liberation of Hong Kong."
Although today's demonstration started peacefully, it quickly turned into an aggressive face-off between police and protesters.
Earlier, black-clad protesters threw objects and smashed glass, tore bricks from the pavement and tossed petrol bombs. Riot police responded by firing water cannons with blue water and tear gas.
Now, the streets are left in disarray. Harcourt Road -- the street that leads to the city's Legislative Council -- is dyed blue and is marred with graffiti. There’s the faint smell of tear gas in the air.
With both protesters and police moving east, it seems likely that another face-off is on the cards.
HONG KONG—Political turmoil engulfing this global financial center showed no signs of abating Sunday as tens of thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators marched through the streets in defiance of a police ban on the protest.
People of all ages, many unmasked and some carrying children, walked more than 2 miles from a shopping district, where usually busy stores were shuttered, to downtown Hong Kong. Many chanted, “Five demands! Not one less!,” “Fight for freedom!” and “Revolution of our times!”
The demonstrations turned violent late Sunday as hundreds of protesters hurled bricks and Molotov cocktails over water-filled plastic barriers and into lines of riot police outside the government headquarters in Admiralty. Police used tear gas and water cannon to push back the group, including spraying blue dye to mark those involved and make them identifiable if they fled.
The 15th straight Sunday of demonstrations came after a day of localized clashes Saturday, a public holiday, between pro-democracy protesters and groups supporting the government inside shopping malls around the city, with police making some arrests.
The scale of the crowds Sunday evoked mass marches earlier this summer, suggesting efforts by Hong Kong Chief Executive
Carrie Lam
to weaken and divide the opposition movement are having little effect, and the crisis remains a challenge for the Chinese leadership in Beijing. Mrs. Lam on Sept. 4 withdrew an extradition bill that sparked the summer of unrest and pledged to start dialogue with the community.
The leader urged society not to support hard-core protesters who have used violent tactics. She promised to crack down hard on lawbreakers, while police banned Sunday’s proposed peaceful rally, citing the risk of violence breaking out as has happened in earlier weekends.
The Civil Human Rights Front, which had proposed the rally, has organized three earlier marches that it estimates drew at least a million each time.
The massive social unrest combined with the U.S.-China trade dispute and slowing Chinese growth are threatening to tip Hong Kong’s economy into recession, officials have warned. Violent protests have disrupted flight services and road transportation, putting a dent in the city’s image as a safe city and an international financial hub.
Some protesters carried American flags, and a sign calling on U.S. President Donald Trump to “liberate Hong Kong.”
Photo:
Vincent Yu/Associated Press
On Sunday, the city’s airport authority said passenger volume dropped 12.4% in August from a year ago, mainly due to significant declines in traffic to and from mainland China, Southeast Asia and Taiwan. Overall tourist arrivals fell 40% last month from a year earlier, the worst decline since May 2003, when Hong Kong was grappling with the deadly SARS virus.
Early Sunday afternoon, tens of thousands of protesters streamed down major streets heading toward Central, with some of them holding big U.S. flags and carrying a banner reading: “President Trump Please Liberate Hong Kong.”
Many in the crowd sang “Glory to Hong Kong,” a new anthem of the protest movement.
Some protesters brought their families despite the fact that the march was declared illegal.
“We hope our children have a future, because now in Hong Kong, we cannot see any hope,” said Charis, 30, who had her 7-month old daughter strapped to her front. “We need to stand here, we need to walk here. We need to tell government, we need five demands, not one less,” she added.
Protesters’ five demands include an inquiry into allegations of police brutality, amnesty for arrested protesters and electoral reforms to allow Hongkongers to vote for their leaders. Only one, the formal withdrawal of the extradition bill that would have allowed people to be sent to China, has been met.
The fact that large numbers turned out for Sunday’s March, including many families and elderly residents, suggest that many in Hong Kong believe that their government’s response so far isn’t sincere, said Mr. Law, a 49-year-old who works at a nonprofit focused on engaging youth and who declined to give his first name.
“What they have done so far is window dressing,” Mr. Law said. “They just want to show the rest of the world that they are doing something. But we Hong Kong people understand that they are not doing what we want.”
Sunday’s march drew many thousands of protesters, despite an official ban.
Photo:
Vincent Yu/Associated Press
Mr. Law, who like many other protesters didn’t wear a mask to veil his face, said he wasn’t worried that he might be identified by the authorities. “There are so many others like me,” he said. “We don’t need the government’s permission to take to the streets.”
A 57-year-old administrator in a property management office who called himself Mr. Pao, giving only his surname, said this was his fourth march—but it was the first he was able to convince his son to join. His son, a 25-year-old recent graduate with an architecture degree from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, said he had been deterred by scenes of violence on the television but decided he had to speak up.
“We need to stand here for our future,” said the younger Mr. Pao. “The freedom to speak anything we want. The freedom to protest. I think that’s the minimum foundation of everything.”
The sentiments echoed those voiced by many who marched chanting, “Liberate Hong Kong,” and expressing concerns in interviews that China’s central government is steadily eroding the city’s freedoms. On one block small, red Chinese flags were scattered on the ground to be trampled. Many protesters carried signs on which the yellow stars of China’s flag had been rearranged to form a swastika.
Many expressed anti-China sentiment.
Photo:
vivek prakash/Shutterstock
The elder Mr. Pao, who said he typically attended protests after church, said the erosion of the city’s freedom by Beijing has grown day by day since the handover from British control in 1997. “I think the parents want a better future for our teenagers,” he said.
A retired married couple, who gave only their surname, Lam, said they had protested almost every weekend since the first big march on June 9.
“We are not scared. We don’t even wear a mask today.” Mr. Lam said. “We are backed by so many people here. It’s impossible for the police to arrest all.”
Mrs. Lam, who is in her early 60s, says she’d want to fight the government with her life. “I feel really sorry for the kids,” she said. “I am too old to do anything. That’s why I have no choice but to come out to show my support.”
—Chun Han Wong and Andrew Dowell contributed to this article.
Smokes billows from the Abqaiq, Saudi Arabia crude processing facility after drone strikes Saturday, Sept. 14, 2019
Satellite imagery courtesy of Planet Labs
DUBAI — Saudi Arabia's stock market fell by 2.3% at Sunday's open as the country grappled with weekend drone attacks on the heart of its oil production facilities in Abqaiq and Khurais claimed by Yemen's Houthi rebels.
Reports that the country may take weeks to return to full oil supply capacity is set to send crude futures up by as much as $10 per barrel, analysts say, depending on the scale of the damage. Half the country's oil production was halted due to fire damage but is due to restart on Monday, Saudi energy ministry officials said in a statement.
"A small $2-$3 premium would emerge if the damage appears to be an issue that can be resolved quickly, and $10 if the damage to Aramco's facilities is significant leasing to prolonged supply outages," Ayham Kamel, practice head for the Middle East and North Africa at Eurasia group, said in a research note Sunday. That's up to 25 cents higher per gallon of gasoline.
Abqaiq, in the kingdom's eastern province, is the world's largest oil processing facility and crude oil stabilization plant with a processing capacity of more than 7 million barrels per day (bpd). Khurais is the second largest oil field in the country with a capacity to pump around 1.5 million bpd.
Saturday's attack is the biggest on Saudi oil infrastructure since Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
"Oil prices will surely spike on the news of the attacks when markets open on Sunday," Joseph McMonigle, an energy analyst at Hedgeye Research and former chief of staff at the U.S. Department of Energy, wrote in a client note. "In our view, there is almost no geopolitical risk priced into oil markets that are focused solely on the macro and trade narratives."
Saudi Aramco President and CEO Amin Nasser said no one was hurt in the attacks and emergency crews have contained the fires and brought the situation under control.
What Riyadh has called a terrorist attack on its state oil giant, Saudi Aramco, is also likely to unsettle future shareholders and market participants ahead of the company's highly anticipated initial public offering (IPO).
"Very hard to overstate the seriousness of the attacks, especially on Abqaiq. It is the nerve center of the country's energy infrastructure," Helima Croft, global head of commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets, told CNBC on Saturday. "Even if exports resume in the next 24 to 48 hours, the image of invulnerability has been erased."
While Yemen's Houthi rebels, who have been at war with the Saudis since 2015, claimed the attack, numerous officials and analysts point to Tehran. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo via Twitter blamed Iran for the attack, saying "Iran has now launched an unprecedented attack on the world's energy supply. There is no evidence the attacks came from Yemen."
Iran responded by calling the allegations "pointless."
Security experts say the attack likely came from an Iranian-backed militant group in Iraq. Baghdad on Sunday afternoon denied its territory was involved in any way.
The Houthis have been behind numerous attacks on Saudi infrastructure in recent years, but they were not viewed as serious by the market, McMonigle said. This time, the attacks — regardless of their source — are impossible to ignore.
Boris Johnson did not believe in Brexit during the referendum campaign and backed Leave "because it would help his political career", says David Cameron.
The pair were "ambassadors for the expert-trashing, truth-twisting age of populism", Mr Cameron writes.
And he also accuses Mr Gove of being disloyal to himself and Mr Johnson.
Of his former colleague, Mr Cameron writes: "One quality shone through: disloyalty. Disloyalty to me - and, later, disloyalty to Boris."
The latest revelations come after another extract published on Saturday accused the pair of behaving "appallingly" during the 2016 referendum campaign.
Mr Cameron called the poll after promising it in the Conservative Party's election manifesto.
He campaigned for Remain, but lost the vote by 52% to 48%, and resigned as prime minister shortly after.
Mr Cameron writes that when deciding whether to back Leave or Remain in the campaign, Mr Johnson was concerned what the "best outcome" would be for him.
"Whichever senior Tory politician took the lead on the Brexit side - so loaded with images of patriotism, independence and romance - would become the darling of the party," he says.
"He [Mr Johnson] didn't want to risk allowing someone else with a high profile - Michael Gove in particular - to win that crown."
The former Tory leader adds: "The conclusion I am left with is that he [Boris Johnson] risked an outcome he didn't believe in because it would help his political career."
He also says during the Leave campaign Mr Johnson, who has repeatedly said the UK must exit the EU on 31 October, privately raised the possibility of holding another referendum after fresh negotiations with the EU.
He criticises Mr Johnson's use of the Vote Leave campaign bus emblazoned by the much-criticised claim that leaving would mean £350m a week extra for the NHS.
"Boris rode the bus round the country, he left the truth at home," writes the former prime minister.
And of Mr Gove - a cabinet minister both now and then - he said: "I couldn't believe what I was seeing.
"Gove, the liberal-minded, carefully-considered Conservative intellectual, had become a foam-flecked Faragist warning that the entire Turkish population was about to come to Britain."
However, it was the behaviour of his then employment minister and current Home Secretary Priti Patel that "shocked" him the most, he says.
"She used every announcement, interview and speech to hammer the government on immigration, even though she was part of that government," he writes.
"I was stuck though: unable to fire her, because that would make her a Brexit martyr."
The prime minister, Mr Gove and Ms Patel are yet to respond to the criticisms of them contained in Mr Cameron's book.
In an interview with the Times published on Saturday, Mr Cameron said he was "hugely depressed" about the 2016 referendum result and he knew "some people will never forgive me".
But he defended his decision to call the poll, arguing the issue of the EU "needed to be addressed".
The prime minister is due to meet European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker in Luxembourg this week as negotiations aimed at securing a deal continue.
In an interview with the Mail on Sunday, Mr Johnson said he was still hopeful a new deal with the EU could be reached in time for the crucial EU summit on 17 October.
It would take a lot of work, he said, adding: "I think that we will get there."
He said there was a "real sign of movement" in Berlin, Paris and "most interestingly" in Dublin.
However, if he cannot negotiate a deal, the UK would break out of its "manacles" like cartoon character The Incredible Hulk on Halloween, he said.
"Hulk always escaped, no matter how tightly bound in he seemed to be - and that is the case for this country," he said. "We will come out on 31 October and we will get it done."
In the interview, Mr Johnson also repeated his opposition to an election pact with Nigel Farage's Brexit Party, saying the Conservative party was a "great" and "old" party that did not form electoral pacts with other parties.
Earlier this month, Mr Johnson expelled 21 MPs from the party after they rebelled against him in a bid to prevent a no-deal Brexit.
Asked if any would be allowed to stand as a Conservative at the next election, he did not rule it out but urged people not to underestimate the gravity of what they had done.
"They were effectively handing the initiative to our opponents," he said. "I just want people to understand why it was necessary to be so strict."
David Cameron as PM
Mr Cameron became the Conservative Party leader in 2005. Five years later he was voted into Downing Street as the UK's youngest prime minister in almost 200 years - aged 43.
His six-year tenure - firstly in coalition with the Liberal Democrats and latterly with a majority government - was dominated by his desire to reduce the deficit, and the introduction of austerity measures with his Chancellor George Osborne.
But when he pledged in his party's 2015 manifesto to hold a referendum on the UK's membership of the EU, the focus shifted.
Mr Cameron backed Remain during the 2016 campaign and, on the morning of the result after discovering he had lost, he announced he would be stepping down, saying: "I do not think it would be right for me to try to be the captain that steers our country to its next destination."
The former PM had remained silent until this weekend about both of his successors at the helm of the Tory Party - Theresa May and Boris Johnson.
But his allegedly fractious relationship with Mr Johnson has been well documented since their days together at Oxford University - most notably as members of the infamous Bullingdon Club.
There's more trouble for the hurricane-ravaged Bahamas. Tropical Storm Humberto is threatening Grand Bahama Island, creating new worries for more than 2,000 people living in shelters and those trying to rebuild their homes after Hurricane Dorian.
As of 11 a.m. ET, the storm was about 30 miles east-northeast of Great Abaco Island and about 145 miles east of Freeport, Grand Bahama Island, the National Hurricane Center said Saturday. Tropical Storm Humberto had maximum sustained winds of 50 mph and was nearly stationary for several hours.
Humberto is forecast to move away from the northwestern Bahamas by Saturday evening and become a hurricane by Sunday evening. By then, the storm will be moving away from the U.S.
Trending News
A group organized by retired Navy Seals and the conservation group Sea Shepherd has been loading up supplies to send to remote islands that may be impacted by the approaching storm. When CBS News caught up with them, the group had four tons of essentials — food, water and generators — it had loaded onto a ship.
Residents are doing whatever they can to prepare. With few boats intact, locals are shuttling them to the few dozen people who remain. "I mean, we really don't need another hurricane. As you can see, we don't need another one. But we just have to prepare," Sinetra Higgs told CBS News.
This image shows the trajectory of Tropical Storm Humberto on September 14, 2019.
National Hurricane Center
Hurricane Dorian devastated the northern Bahamas. Entire neighborhoods were flattened, homes shredded, shipping containers and boats hurled inland. Some airports were submerged, while terminals were covered in debris.
Some residents remain frustrated at the government's response, especially with another storm on the way. Many residents said that the only assistance they've gotten came from foreigners — and that they're still living without cell service, power and running water.
The Bahamian government said it's coordinating relief efforts from Nassau. But since most of the field teams come from private foreign aid groups, that's all the residents in hard-hit communities see.
Tropical Depression Nine strengthened into Tropical Storm Humberto near the Bahamas Friday night, the National Hurricane Center said. The Bahamian government issued a tropical storm warning for its northwestern islands — the same area devastated by Hurricane Dorian earlier this month.
As of 11 p.m. ET, the storm was about 130 miles east-southeast of Great Abaco Island and about 225 miles east-southeast of Freeport, Grand Bahama Island, the hurricane center said. Tropical Storm Humberto had maximum sustained winds of 40 mph and was moving northwest at 6 mph.
A group organized by retired Navy Seals and the conservation group Sea Shepherd has been loading up supplies to send to remote islands that may be impacted by the approaching storm. When CBS News caught up with them, the group had four tons of essentials — food, water and generators — it had loaded onto a ship.
Trending News
Residents are doing whatever they can to prepare. With few boats intact, locals are shuttling them to the few dozen people who remain. "I mean, we really don't need another hurricane. As you can see, we don't need another one. But we just have to prepare," Sinetra Higgs told CBS News.
This image shows the trajectory of Tropical Storm Humberto on September 13, 2019.
National Hurricane Center
Hurricane Dorian devastated the northern Bahamas. Entire neighborhoods were flattened, homes shredded, shipping containers and boats hurled inland. Some airports were submerged, while terminals were covered in debris.
Some residents remain frustrated at the government's response, especially with another storm on the way. Many residents said that the only assistance they've gotten came from foreigners — and that they're still living without cell service, power and running water.
The Bahamian government said it's coordinating relief efforts from Nassau. But since most of the field teams come from private foreign aid groups, that's all the residents in hard-hit communities see.
