Hong Kong grounds all flights as protest paralyzes airport: Live updates - CNN

When protesters in Hong Kong targeted the Chinese government's headquarters in the city last month, social media users in China were united in outrage.

"The dignity of our motherland won't be allowed to be trampled," one person wrote on Weibo, the country's highly-censored equivalent to Twitter, while another warned the young protesters that "playing violently is how you seek death."

A third commenter sought to reassure others, writing that "the central government promised that Hong Kong won't be changed for 50 years. There's only 28 years left before Hong Kong becomes part of (China)."

A looming deadline: That 2047 deadline, on which the clock began ticking after the United Kingdom handed Hong Kong over to China in 1997, is at the forefront of the minds of the mostly young protesters who have been taking to the streets for over two months now, in increasingly violent confrontations with police and pro-government groups.

What began as protests over a now-suspended extradition bill have broadened to cover a host of demands, including calls for greater democracy and more government accountability, that many feel they are running out of time to achieve.

Even as democratic values have increasingly come under threat around the world, and many voters in democracies are increasingly expressing apathy or despair, young Hong Kongers are determined to continue a fight for freedom which began decades ago under British rule, before time runs out and Hong Kong becomes just another Chinese city.

"Liberate Hong Kong, the revolution of our times," the slogan of the protests has become.

Read more analysis here.

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2019-08-12 10:15:00Z
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Hong Kong grounds all flights as protest paralyzes airport: Live updates - CNN

Hong Kong permanent resident Lawrence Hahn (left) said he was supposed to be flying to New York today. Ben Westcott/CNN

Milling about among the thousands of protesters at Hong Kong's international airport are many confused passengers who don't know what's happening with their flights, dozens of which have been cancelled this evening.

Hong Kong permanent resident Lawrence Hahn said he had arrived to find his flight canceled and no Cathay Pacific staff to be found. 

"There's not a single Cathay staff member here," he said. "Not a single one."

He was supposed to be flying to New York. 

Fitness worker Rachel Moon said she supported the protesters but shutting down the airport was too "extreme."

Kim Macaranas, right, expressed frustration at the lack of news. Helen Regan/CNN

Kim Macaranas, from Brisbane, shared Hahn and Moon's frustration. Her family's flight has been cancelled and they are just waiting for news.

"We are devastated there are no staff here to tell us what to do. Thats the worst of it. Stuck trying to ring our airlines and family in Australia trying to rebook. Got told to come early but they should have known and told us. Have had to put data on -- no signal," she told CNN.

There are long queues for the toilets and 7/11 convenience stores, with few places to get water or other supplies.

"We are waiting to hear what's happened, do we get on a flight later? Do we wait? Family in Australia are trying to find out," she said, adding that airline staff were "very rude."

"There are no loudspeakers giving us information," Macaranas said. "We love Hong Kong but it does change our whole perspective. I understand the protests but this is not helping tourism."

Flyers at the airport, where many international tourists are now trapped alongside thousands of protesters. Helen Regan/CNN

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2019-08-12 10:02:00Z
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Hong Kong airport cancels all departures: Live updates - CNN

With the airport now closed and tear gas being fired across the city almost every weekend, many travelers are wondering -- is it still safe to visit Hong Kong?

Several countries including the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Japan, and Singapore have already issued travel advisories, warning of "violent clashes" between pro-democracy protesters and police.

The Hong Kong Tourism Commission has said the city is still open to travelers. And key major attractions such as the Peak Tram, the Ladies' Market and the Star Ferry, which takes passengers across the Victoria Harbor to Kowloon, have been unaffected.

But there are signs the mass protests are having an impact on tourism.

Between June 16 and July 13, during which time there were several huge demonstrations, flight bookings to Hong Kong from Asia fell by 5.4% on the same period last year, according to analysis firm ForwardKeys.

Read more here.

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2019-08-12 09:16:00Z
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Hong Kong Protesters Battle Police, Despite Beijing’s Warnings - The Wall Street Journal

A protester throws a tear gas cannister fired by police in Hong Kong during a 10th consecutive weekend of unrest. Photo: manan vatsyayana/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

By

Natasha Khan,

Natasha Khan
The Wall Street Journal
• Biography
• @natashakhanhk
• natasha.khan@wsj.com

Wenxin Fan and

Wenxin Fan
The Wall Street Journal
• Biography
• @xinwenfan
• wenxin.fan@wsj.com

Joyu Wang

Joyu Wang
The Wall Street Journal
• Biography
• @joyuwang
• joyu.wang@wsj.com

Updated Aug. 11, 2019 11:51 am ET

HONG KONG—Police made dozens of arrests late Sunday as clashes with protesters fanned across the city, cracking down hard on antigovernment demonstrators who defied warnings from Beijing and took to the streets for a 10th consecutive weekend.

In a shift of tactics, police in riot gear charged groups in several districts: In one subway station, they used batons to beat protesters who were running away and pinned several to the ground; in another, snatch squads grabbed protesters from the streets; barrages of tear gas and rubber bullets were fired in another clash outside a police station.

Thousands of angry citizens, many dressed in shorts and flip flops, poured onto the streets of two districts where police made arrests, chanting “mafia” at police officers. Some were inflamed after video footage circulating on social media showed police officers had ambushed some demonstrators after posing undercover as protesters.

The few hours of violence came after Beijing officials last week 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. On Friday, the city’s police force brought back a retired senior officer who handled earlier protests in 2014 and 2016 to oversee operations.

The fluid nature of the increasingly violent protests has presented a challenge for authorities and residents, with demonstrators stretching police resources by using the subway to hop between districts. Late Sunday afternoon, thousands of protesters descended on tourist destinations and residential neighborhoods alike, building metal barricades and some throwing bricks and what police identified as smoke bombs.

Hong Kong police fire tear gas as protests continue to rock the city. Photo: Kin Cheung/Associated Press

Police said an officer was hospitalized with burns to his legs after being hit by a Molotov cocktail hurled by a protester.

The scenes contrasted with several other protests over the weekend, including a three-day peaceful sit-in at the airport, and marches on Saturday attended by elderly people and families who chanted against the government.

The protests this summer reflect an outpouring of public anger at Hong Kong’s government, sparked by an extradition bill that would allow those in the city to be tried under mainland China’s opaque legal system. The Hong Kong government eventually shelved the bill, declaring it “dead,” but hasn’t formally withdrawn it.

The protest movement has maintained its momentum—fueled by frustrations with the government’s handling of the situation, allegations that police have used excessive force while dispersing protesters and demands for democratic overhauls—even as Beijing has signaled its growing intolerance for the dissent and local authorities have said the protracted tensions could plunge the city in a recession.

On Sunday, officers appeared to change their tactics somewhat, in some cases shooting tear gas from police stations at demonstrators gathered nearby, then charging out to make arrests.

“Before, the police would try to disperse us, now they are rounding us up,” said one protester, a teacher who would only give his name as Desmond. He said the police now wait for a while before suddenly firing multiple tear-gas rounds, with elite officers known as raptors immediately charging toward protesters.

In the Wan Chai area of Hong Kong island, lined with open-front bars and near the main police headquarters, there was little out of the ordinary at 5 p.m. Sunday, with patrons enjoying drinks. An hour later, protesters arrived and began building barricades and waving lasers at police. Soon, riot police fired multiple volleys of tear gas. Bars closed and hotels lowered their shutters, keeping guests inside for their safety. By 8:30 p.m., things were back to normal.

Across the harbor, a group of protesters hurled bricks at a police station in the tourist hub of Tsim Sha Tsui. Live footage showed at least one fiery projectile that appeared to be a Molotov cocktail bursting into flames. Police later drove demonstrators back and made at least 10 arrests of mostly young protesters dressed in black. It was during that confrontation that the woman sustained the head wound.

Clashes had been expected in North Point, an area populated with immigrants from Fujian province in southeast China and the site of a clash between protesters and stick-waving men a week before. On Saturday, representatives of the Fujian group held a rally and vowed to protect their adopted home. Chanting slogans in both Mandarin and Cantonese supporting the chief executive and the police, they said the violence needed to be stopped and chaos should end.

Protesters shine laser pointers at a police station in Hong Kong, part of a series of demonstrations that have rocked the city for 10 consecutive weekends. Photo: jerome favre/Shutterstock

On Sunday, police officers and reporters gathered around a group of men in red T-shirts who said they were from Fujian. Around 8 p.m. in North Point, video footage from local news outlets showed a group of men, some of them wearing red T-shirts, kicking and punching a young man in black who was sitting on the ground.

But by 9 p.m. the masses of protesters still hadn’t shown up to North Point. On the messaging app Telegram, protesters asked each other to avoid the area, calling it a trap.

As they had done Saturday, protesters Sunday spontaneously crowded around the entrance of a cross-harbor tunnel, letting vehicles go without paying toll fees. They appeared to have adopted suggestions from the chat groups frequented by protesters, after the blocking of a tunnel last on Monday annoyed other citizens.

The huge crowds of hundreds of thousands of demonstrators 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.

Police said Sunday that they arrested 16 people the day before, on charges including unlawful assembly. Hong Kong’s police said they have made nearly 600 arrests and fired more than 1,800 rounds of tear gas and at least 160 rubber bullets since the protests began two months before.

Kitty Chan, who has run a flower business in the Wan Chai market for the past four decades, prepared to close for the day slightly earlier than usual. She said the usually busy street was almost empty because of the confrontation between protesters and the police, which was only one block away from her stall.

“It has affected my business to some extent without a doubt,” said Ms. Chan, adding that while she had empathy for both sides she’s had enough of the expanding demonstrations. “I just hope everybody could use less violence.”

—John Lyons and Jon Emont contributed to this article.

Write to Natasha Khan at natasha.khan@wsj.com, Wenxin Fan at Wenxin.Fan@wsj.com and Joyu Wang at joyu.wang@wsj.com

Copyright ©2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

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2019-08-11 15:51:00Z
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Europe isn't that scared of Boris Johnson - CNN

He hasn't been terribly subtle about this. During his campaign to replace Theresa May, Johnson repeatedly said that if he became prime minister, he would ramp up preparations for leaving the European Union without a deal.

The logic goes something like this: a no-deal Brexit will wreak havoc not only in the UK but in European countries as well. And having seen that Johnson is serious, Europe will eventually blink and renegotiate the deal it struck with May last year (and which has since been voted down three times by the UK Parliament).

Since taking office, Johnson hasn't exactly softened his approach. He brought a load of hardline Brexiteers into his cabinet and onto his team of advisors, and in the past few weeks, no deal has gone from something barely anyone believed could happen to arguably the most likely outcome.

But if the aim of all of this is too spook the EU, it isn't working. "Ever since article 50 was triggered, we knew no deal was a possibility. That's why we prepared for it long before the UK," an EU official told CNN.

Brussels certainly appears relaxed about all this. "The threat of a no deal won't get you anywhere with the EU," said Georgina Wright, a senior researcher at the Institute for Government. "Threats are not going to change their mind, only credible alternatives will."

The alternatives Wright is talking about refer to a specific section of the Brexit withdrawal agreement known as the Irish border backstop -- an insurance policy that is designed to prevent the return of a hard border between Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK, and the Republic of Ireland, which is part of the EU.

The backstop is the Brexiteers' single biggest problem with the existing deal, as it keeps the UK tied to the EU in some respects, preventing a clean break from the European Union, and therefore doesn't honor the result of the referendum.

The problem is that keeping the backstop in the deal is a red line for Ireland. As Wright points out, "unity of the 27 [EU countries] is the most important thing. It's why the EU is an incredibly powerful actor in negotiations with third actors." So, a red line for Ireland becomes a red line for the whole of the EU, and that's the end of that.

Johnson has formally made his hard position on the backstop clear to Europe. His top Brexit negotiators have already been to Brussels and said that getting rid of the backstop is, from London's perspective, the starting point of renegotiations. Otherwise the UK is leaving on October 31 without a deal.

But far from rattling Brussels, Johnson's absolutism appears to be having the reverse impact. When the European Parliament goes back to work in September, it's expected to pass a resolution reaffirming its commitment to the existing withdrawal agreement and restating its view that it's the only deal the UK is going to get.

The logical conclusion of this standoff is Johnson attending the European Council summit of EU leaders on October 17, no new deal being on the table, and Johnson refusing to request another Brexit extension to avoid a no-deal exit.

So, given the fact that lawmakers in Brussels accept that no deal will be bad for Europe as well as the UK, why aren't they in panic mode?

One reason is anger. Officials in the EU Commission are privately furious that Britain is trying to bully Ireland into requesting that changes are made. "The UK triggered article 50, the UK didn't accept our deal and only the UK can revoke article 50. Blaming us -- especially Ireland -- for a situation they created is outrageous," said the EU official.

They are also angry that Johnson and his government are trying to pin the blame for a lack of progress on Brussels. Michael Gove, one of Johnson's cabinet ministers, said this week that he was saddened that the EU was "refusing to negotiate with the UK."

Another Brussels source with detailed knowledge of the negotiations said: "Boris is trying to ramp up the blame game, but we are not going to play along. Keep calm, keep united. That is our policy." While it might be tempting to lash out at the UK, the EU is instead focusing on sticking to its previously-stated position and not showing any cracks.

A second reason for the lack of panic is that people in Brussels take everything Johnson says with a pinch of salt. Johnson has previous form for sudden changes of heart, and no one is ruling out the possibility that, come the October 17 EU summit, he will request another Brexit extension if it suits him politically.

"For a very long time, they assumed that Boris Johnson would request an extension and make it sound like it's not his choice, but that he's being forced into it, either by his own Parliament or the EU," said Wright.

While this might sound like kamikaze politics for a man who has said he will deliver Brexit on October 31 "do or die", the political situation Britain might make another extension a preferable option to Johnson.

Johnson has a parliamentary majority of one. This makes him vulnerable to losing a vote of no confidence. And while bringing down his government wouldn't automatically stop a no-deal Brexit, it could trigger a series of events that leads to him requesting a Brexit extension.

Should Parliament topple the government, it becomes very likely that Johnson would have to call a general election. When that election would be has become one of the most talked-about issues in Britain and in Brussels. Some think that Johnson would call for an election after the Brexit date, meaning in theory that he can run the clock down to a no-deal Brexit with nothing in his way.

The thing is, if no deal really is as catastrophic as some have predicted, then it's hard to see how that would help Johnson during an election campaign. At that point, he would own no deal.

If he loses a confidence vote, however, Johnson could theoretically play another card. He could request an extension, then immediately unleash hell on the people who made him do it -- the majority of Parliament who do not want to leave without a deal. That could turn a general election into be a fight between the people who "stole" Brexit and the man who, with a bigger majority in Parliament, would finally get the job done.

"It's no secret here that we think an election is inevitable," said the Brussels source. "All of this blame game rhetoric is probably for a domestic audience rather than for us."

Should that happen and should Johnson win a parliamentary majority, then expect to see the language harden. Johnson will have a mandate to deliver a no-deal Brexit and he will have the majority to do it. He will probably revert to his plan of trying to scare Brussels into making concessions.

In the meantime, the inescapable reality is that the EU thinks it is ready for no deal and is almost out of patience with a UK that it feels it has bent over backwards to help. And should we reach that point, it might not be the officials in Brussels that fear the outcome of a no deal. Boris Johnson has some big decisions to make and not much time to make them in.

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2019-08-11 06:59:00Z
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Tens of thousands rally at election protest in Moscow - Aljazeera.com

Tens of thousands of people demanding free elections have rallied in Russia's capital, Moscow, in one of the country's biggest political protests in recent years.

Protesters gathered on Saturday at the central Prospekt Andreya Sakharova street for their fourth consecutive weekend demonstration over the exclusion of opposition and independent candidates from the Moscow city council ballot.

Some carried placards with slogans such as "Give us the right to vote!" and "You've lied to us enough," while others held up pictures of activists arrested at earlier protests.

"I'm outraged by this injustice at every level. They're not letting candidates stand who have collected all the necessary signatures. They are arresting people who are protesting peacefully," said one protester, Irina Dargolts, a 60-year-old engineer.

The White Counter, an NGO that tracks participants in rallies, counted 49,900 people, while Moscow police gave a much lower attendance figure of 20,000.

Moscow officials authorised Saturday's rally, unlike last weekend when police detained more than 1,000 people, sometimes violently, at an unauthorised demonstration.

'Provocation'

Hours before the protest, police detained a leading opposition activist, Lyubov Sobol, who is on a hunger strike to protest denied a place on the ballot.

Masked men raided her office and the police said they had information she and other activists were plotting a "provocation" at Saturday's rally. A video on Sobol's Twitter feed showed officers breaking into her office as she demanded an explanation for their actions.

Полиция https://t.co/RTA4TqPbtZ

— Соболь Любовь (@SobolLubov) August 10, 2019

"I won't make it to the rally but you know what to do without me," she wrote on Twitter.

190730011624727

Sobol is an ally of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is serving a 30-day prison sentence for breaking a protest law in July. 

Most opposition candidates banned from participating in the Moscow election have now been jailed for violating protest laws.

One of the speakers at the rally was the wife of opposition politician Dmitry Gudkov, who is serving a 30-day sentence.

"Each of us has the right to run for office and they are very afraid of that," said Valeriya Gudkova.

"We have real support from the public and they just have criminals in their electoral commissions."

Victor Olevich of the Moscow-based think-tank, Centre of Actual Politics, told Al Jazeera that previous police crackdowns on protests appear to have been counterproductive as the number of people attending the protests has increased.

"[The number of protesters] matters because the more protesters attend these events, the more influence protesters are going to have to reach some sort of a compromise with the authorities," Olevich said.

"[A] compromise may include changes to city election laws that ... would make sure that in the next election cycles, this is not repeated," she said. 

"We are going to see in the next few weeks and months what that compromise is going to look like."

Al Jazeera's Step Vaessen reporting from Moscow said that protesters are now also demonstrating against "the crackdown, the repression that authorities committed after the protests started.

"Thousands have been detained and some people are facing very serious criminal charges and years in prison for what human rights organisations call peaceful protests," Vaessen said.

"People are really fed up; that's why they're here to show to the government that they are having a right to protest."

Some opposition figures called for an unauthorised march to follow Saturday's permitted rally.

"After the demonstration, we're going for a walk round Moscow," Navalny's team wrote on social media. 

But police in Moscow issued a warning against the move, saying unsanctioned protests would be "immediately halted".

Russian activists say more than 200 people have been arrested in the country. OVD-Info, a monitoring body, said 146 people were arrested at Saturday's demonstration in Moscow and 86 in St Petersburg. A small number of other arrests also took place in other cities.

Saturday's protest came as authorities mounted their harshest attack yet on Navalny's team, focusing on his anti-corruption foundation which publishes investigations of officials close to President Vladimir Putin.

Investigators raided the foundation's office on Thursday as part of an inquiry into alleged acceptance of donations of laundered money and a court froze the foundation's accounts.

"This is the most aggressive attempt yet to gag us," Navalny wrote in a blog entry he issued through lawyers. 

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2019-08-10 17:25:00Z
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Hong Kong’s Protesters Test Riot Police With Cat-and-Mouse Tactics - The Wall Street Journal

A protestor throws a flammable object during a protest standing off against riot police in the Tai Wei district on August 10, 2019 in Hong Kong, China. Photo: Billy H.C. Kwok/Getty Images

By

Jon Emont,

Jon Emont
The Wall Street Journal
• Biography
• @JonathanEmont
• jonathan.emont@wsj.com

Wenxin Fan and

Wenxin Fan
The Wall Street Journal
• Biography
• @xinwenfan
• wenxin.fan@wsj.com

Joyu Wang

Joyu Wang
The Wall Street Journal
• Biography
• @joyuwang
• joyu.wang@wsj.com

Updated Aug. 10, 2019 10:50 am ET

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.

Demonstrations in Hong Kong against an extradition bill have morphed and spread into increasingly violent protests about the encroaching authoritarianism of Beijing. Can this semiautonomous city remain an attractive financial hub for international companies? Photo composite: Sharon Shi

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.

Demonstrators held a sit-in for a second day at the city’s international airport. Photo: issei kato/Reuters

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.

Related

• China Claims U.S. ‘Black Hand’ Is Behind Hong Kong Protests (Aug. 9, 2019)
• Spiraling Clashes Risk Pushing Hong Kong’s Economy Into Recession (Aug. 9, 2019)
• China Orders Cathay Pacific to Remove Employees Involved in Hong Kong Protests From Mainland Flights (Aug. 9, 2019)
• ‘Prepared to Die’: Hong Kong Protesters Embrace Hard-Core Tactics, Challenge Beijing (Aug. 6, 2019)

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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2019-08-10 14:50:00Z
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