Senin, 09 September 2019

'Grand Bahama right now is dead': A firsthand look at Dorian's destruction - CNN

At least 45 people are dead, hundreds are missing and some 70,000 are homeless. There is no power or running water. Aid is arriving slowly on the island of Grand Bahama, where Dorian parked for almost two days and caused damage one usually witnesses in a war zone.
It's impossible to fully capture the devastation we see every day. We're only about 80 miles from Florida, but the miles of rubble Dorian left in its wake have made this part of the Bahamas feel as remote as any place on Earth.
On August 30, CNN sent the three of us to Freeport, on Grand Bahama, to cover the storm. The trip was so last-minute that we bought many of the staples of hurricane coverage at an airport newsstand: beef jerky, peanut butter and as many water bottles as we could carry.
We had to scramble to catch American Airlines flight 3489 from Miami, which turned out to be the last from the US to Grand Bahama before Dorian hit.
Our first sign that this hurricane was going to be exceptionally dangerous was when a gate agent announced over the intercom that only Grand Bahama residents would be allowed on the flight. All hotels would be closed, he said. If you didn't live there, you would have nowhere to stay.
Then a supervisor walked over and overruled him.
"These are the guys that go stand in the rain on TV," he said, motioning to us. "If you want to risk your lives, go for it."

Cut off from the outside world

The plane was nearly empty. Within minutes we landed in Freeport on a sunny day. With the storm approaching and the airport due to close, the customs agent waved us through with barely a glance.
We squeezed our gear into a rental car and raced to a beach to report live on CNN about the incoming storm.
Workers board up a shop's window front as they make preparations for the arrival of Hurricane Dorian in Freeport on August 30.
As we finished for the day, a man and woman strolling down the beach stopped to ask what we were doing. Without a moment's hesitation the couple -- Kristine and her boyfriend Graham -- invited us to ride out the storm with them in their ocean-view apartment.
Late the next night, Dorian began pummeling the Abacos and Grand Bahama as an insanely powerful Category 5 Hurricane. Our weather forecasters told us that if there were a Category 6 ranking, Dorian would qualify.
The storm howled for hours in the darkness. Winds and rain pounded the building from all sides. Daylight finally came, but the sun never showed.
Jose Armijo shoots Patrick Oppmann's live shot from the balcony of an ocean-view apartment as Hurricane Dorian pounds the town of Freeport on September 2.
The apartment had a protected balcony, and we were able to continue transmitting throughout the storm even as we lost power and cell service.
We realized the storm surge was flooding the island Sunday night when a group of neighbors banged on the lobby door and begged to come in. Their houses were underwater and most of them had barely made it out with the clothes on their backs. Several had managed to carry their pets. One woman sobbed that she had not been able to find her two cats as the water came in.
A group carried in a soaking wet, elderly woman who had fallen and broken her hip during the rush to escape her home. We brought them towels and shared our supplies as they settled in for the first of several nights on the lobby floor.

One man said he saw his wife drown

On Tuesday, Dorian's winds had subsided enough that we ventured out to survey the damage. Downed power lines and trees were everywhere. A submerged school bus blocked one roadway.
We reached an area called "the bridge" where a hastily organized rescue operation was being mounted to save hundreds of people trapped in their homes.
There we found the bridge itself was underwater and was being used as a ramp to launch Jet Skis and rescue boats into the churning floodwaters. The storm was still blowing with hurricane strength, and volunteers told us several boats had flipped over in the winds.
There was little coordination or organization to the rescue effort, but limitless bravery.
Many evacuees had held onto rafters of their flooded homes for hours, whipped by the wind and the rain. We asked where their houses were but could only make out a few roofs and trees in the distance. There were hundreds of homes there, rescuers told us, we just couldn't see them.
In some towns in the east of Grand Bahama Island, residents say the majority of all homes were destroyed. Many people are still looking for relatives taken by the storm.
As the rescued evacuees climbed off Jet Skis in the waist-deep water, many collapsed and had to be carried to safety.
"People are exhausted," rescuer Rochenel Daniel told us as the driving winds forced the rescuers to suspend their operations. "Some we had to carry, some couldn't even make it."
Howard Armstrong
As we fled the worsening weather, a wraith of a man in a red rain jacket approached us and whispered, "I've lost my wife."
He said his name was Howard Armstrong, he was a crab fisherman and hours before he had seen his wife, Lynn, slip beneath floodwaters in their home as they awaited rescue. He was covered in bruises.
"My poor little wife got hypothermia and she was standing on top of the cabinets until they disintegrated," he said. "I kept with her and she just drowned on me."
Armstrong said he then swam to his neighbor's house. She was dead, too, he said.

The airport is crippled

The next day we drove to the airport where we had arrived five days before. As we approached we saw a small plane flipped on its side.
One of the terminals was ripped open on all sides. Shrapnel was scattered across the inside of the domestic terminal, and the storm had flung the wing of a plane with such force that it had pierced a wall and lay mangled on the floor.
The other two terminals were still standing but had been underwater for days, and the airport's single runway was littered with debris.
This was the island's only airport. We all realized we were going to be on the island for a while.
Despite no electricity or running water, we coped in Kristine and Graham's apartment as best we could. We slept with all the windows open in the sweltering heat and lugged buckets of water up three flights of stairs from the swimming pool to make the toilets run.
The inside of the apartment team Oppmann used as base, seen on September 3. Graham Couser and Kristine Mills found the CNN team on the beach doing live shots the day before the storm hit and insisted they use their balcony for liveshots and stay with them throughout the storm.
Whatever the challenges, none of us would choose to be anywhere else.
In the days after the storm, Bahamian officials have talked constantly of "assessments." Assessing the port, assessing the airport, assessing the power grid. There has been a lot of assessing but too little action.
The aid that has trickled into Freeport -- the island's largest town -- has improved conditions, but only a little. Cell phone service is back for the most part, some stores are open and you can even get the occasional hot meal and cold beer.
As soon as one leaves Freeport though, those scant privileges vanish.

Residents say the aid they need hasn't come

The only road to the hard-hit east end of the island is still underwater in parts and completely washed away in others.
Apocalyptic rubble lies where houses stood before.
Residents say the storm surge topped 30 feet in some places and tore whole houses off their foundations.
A grim Washington "Smitty" Smith sat in the front yard of the house he built in Bevans Town. Dorian tore the roof off and punched holes through the cement walls. The gas station he owned across the street was also completely destroyed.
"Grand Bahama right now is dead," Smith said, trauma carved into his face.
"One of the hurtful parts about all of this ... is I haven't seen a government official yet to come say, 'Here's a bottle of water' or to see what's going on."
"Grand Bahama right now is dead," resident Washington Smith says. His home and business were destroyed by the storm.
Government assistance has also been slow to reach the town of High Rock, a few miles further down the road.
There, resident Marilyn Laing got tired of waiting for officials to show up and instead organized her own relief system, with water and food delivered by friends and family members.
At least 14 people remain missing from this town of about 300 people. Five others have been confirmed dead, residents say.
CNN producer Jaide Timm- Garcia and photojournalist Jose Armijo set up for a liveshot from the hard hit town of High Rock in Grand Bahama Island.
One man sat, near-catatonic, on a white plastic chair. Neighbors say three of his family members, a daughter and two grandchildren, were swept away by the surging waters.
A US Coast Guard helicopter hovered over a wooded area nearby, searching for the dead. Residents say that's usually how they know another body has been found.
When the wind picks up, you smell death.
Laing said she has to keep working to help others in her shattered community or the desperation will overcome her.
"I have no words to say how bad," Laing said. "Maybe one in 10 houses is standing."
We lent her our satellite phone so she could contact family to tell them she's alive.
Nearby a man who had lost his house took tiny sips from a bottle of water. He knew he would need to make every drop last.

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https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/09/world/bahamas-dorian-aftermath-reporters-notebook/index.html

2019-09-09 12:06:00Z
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Analysis: Why did Donald Trump cancel peace talks with Taliban? - Al Jazeera English

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY73VQLleaY

2019-09-09 10:26:29Z
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Typhoon leaves 100 flights canceled and 1 million without power in Japan - CNN

Typhoon Faxai, which made landfall early Monday morning in the coastal city of Chiba, brought heavy rain and winds of 120 miles per hour, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA).
The storm then moved over Tokyo and paralyzed transport. Major subway stations in Tokyo were crammed full of commuters on Monday morning, all stuck waiting for bullet trains and subway services that had shut down.
Commuters at a Japan Railways station, where trains were suspended due to Typhoon Faxai in Saitama on September 9, 2019.
The train services gradually resumed mid-morning, but all lines are still experiencing delays.
More than 100 flights to and from airports in the Tokyo area were canceled on Monday, including 49 Japan Airlines flights and 41 by All Nippon Airways, according to the airport website. The entire Keikyu rail line, which connects Tokyo and Yokohama to Haneda Airport, is still suspended.
Highways were shut down, departing ships were canceled at Tokyo Port, and rail lines closed on Sunday and Monday.
A woman cycles through a flooded area in Tokyo on September 9, 2019.
Photos show flooded streets, littered with downed trees and branches. Workers on Monday tended to signposts and lamps that had blown over, and employees at the Higashi Chiba train station inspected the roof, which was twisted and torn apart.
There are also widespread blackouts -- nearly a million households are without power, according to public broadcaster NHK. The entire islands of Shikinejima and Oshima off the country's south coast lost power, according to the Tokyo Disaster Prevention Department.
The damaged roof of Higashi Chiba station caused by typhoon Faxai in Chiba on September 9, 2019.
So far there have been no deaths reported, but at least ten people have been hospitalized, NHK said on Monday.
Ahead of the typhoon, JMA issued storm surge, flood, and landslide warnings, and asked the public to avoid going outdoors.
An evacuation advisory was issued Sunday night for about 150,000 people in the Kanagawa, Shizuoka, and Tokyo prefectures, with evacuation preparation information delivered to about 2.5 million people, according to NHK. Evacuation shelters were set up across Tokyo, including the city wards of Minato, Machida, Meguro and more.
A firefighter walks past a fallen tree caused by Typhoon Faxai in Tokyo on September 9, 2019.
By Monday mid-morning, most of the evacuation orders across Tokyo had been canceled, and storm warnings in the Tokyo area lifted. However, the Tokyo Disaster Prevention Management warned residents to remain alert for strong winds.
The typhoon is now forecast to move northeast away from Japan and into the open Pacific over the next day, with maximum wind speeds expected to weaken to 26 mph by Tuesday, according to JMA.

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https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/09/asia/typhoon-faxai-japan-intl-hnk-scli/index.html

2019-09-09 07:14:00Z
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Minggu, 08 September 2019

U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson under fire as Brexit reality hits - NBCNews.com

LONDON — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was last week stripped of his authority over Brexit, denied a new election and abandoned by his little brother.

Now another senior minister has quit his government, and the ruling Conservative Party, in protest at Johnson's efforts to lead the U.K. out of the European Union on Oct. 31 with or without a deal.

Amber Rudd resigned Saturday, piling more pressure on the increasingly embattled prime minister.

Johnson expelled 21 members of his own party Tuesday after they supported an opposition plan to try to block a "no deal" Brexit.

Rudd, a former interior minister who voted to remain in the E.U. in the June 2016 referendum, said the ousting of the rebel lawmakers was an "assault on democracy" and an "act of political vandalism."

"I cannot stand by as good, loyal moderate Conservatives are expelled," she said in a tweet announcing her decision.

British media reports Sunday suggested more members of Johnson's government could follow Amber Rudd and quit.BEN STANSALL / AFP - Getty Images

Johnson swept to power in July, uniting the party around his leadership after Theresa May’s failure to solve the country’s Brexit impasse.

As lawmakers returned from summer recess, he began the week dismissing accusations from protesters in the London streets that he had conducted a coup — such was the seemingly decisive nature of his power grab to suspend Parliament until mid-October in an effort to clear the way for his hardline Brexit plans.

But in a sign of how things have turned, the prime minister was forced to insist he would not himself resign.

“That is not a hypothesis I'm willing to contemplate," he said Friday during a visit to a farm in Scotland.

Rudd's resignation is the latest sign that Johnson's uncompromising approach to Brexit, an issue that has obsessed the country and paralyzed its politics, could break his party and threaten his tenuous hold on power.

Those who were kicked out of the party last week included the longest sitting lawmaker in the House of Commons and the grandson of Winston Churchill.

The prime minister's little brother, Jo Johnson, quit on Thursday.

"In recent weeks I’ve been torn between family loyalty and the national interest," the junior minister said on Twitter.

Jeremy Hunt, the former foreign minister who finished as a runner-up to Johnson in the Conservative Party leadership race earlier this summer, said Sunday that Rudd's resignation was “desperately sad news.”

“When she and other brilliant people like Jo Johnson feel they can’t take the whip on top of the loss of so many other distinguished colleagues this week, we must pause for thought,” he said.

As politicians, commentators and experts alike scramble to assess the prime minister’s dwindling options — bringing down his own government has been raised as a potential last, desperate course of action — Johnson pushed ahead with his election demands.

Sept. 6, 201901:46

The bill forcing him to request a further extension to the U.K.’s divorce date with the E.U — possibly until January 2020 — is expected to become law on Monday.

Johnson says he would rather be "dead in a ditch" than request an extension.

His government says it will therefore again attempt to force an election in order to avoid an embarrassing climbdown or more drastic measures, including breaking the law.

But his efforts — under U.K. law a "snap" election can be called if a two-thirds majority of the House of Commons approve it — continue to be rebuffed.

Opposition parties don't want to agree to a vote unless they can ensure Johnson can't take Britain out of the E.U. without a deal.

In an effort to pressure them into granting an election before Johnson's "do or die" deadline at the end of October, the government has sought to brand opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn a coward.

Johnson's team even distributed pieces of chicken to the Westminster press Friday in boxes bearing Corbyn’s face and the letters “JFC.”

The Conservative Party also shared a mocked-up image of Corbyn dressed in a yellow chicken suit.

The gambit sparked outrage from some lawmakers, who derided it as "playground behavior" amid what many see as a national crisis.

Max Burman, Reuters and Mo Abbas contributed.

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2019-09-08 13:14:00Z
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Hong Kong protesters sing Star Spangled Banner, call on Trump to ‘liberate’ the city - The Washington Post

Vincent Yu AP Protesters wave U.S. flags and shout slogans as they march from Chater Garden to the U.S. Consulate in Hong Kong, Sunday, Sept. 8, 2019.

HONG KONG — Tens of thousands of demonstrators took to Hong Kong streets on Sunday and marched to the U.S. Consulate, urging American lawmakers to pass legislation in support of the territory’s democratic aspirations.

The police-sanctioned rally and march through the city center had some of the trappings of a 4th of July parade, as protesters waved American flags and played the Star Spangled Banner. Demonstrators carried red, white and blue signs calling for President Trump to “Liberate Hong Kong” and chanted: “Free Hong Kong, pass the act!” 

As has happened in the past with the generally peaceful demonstrations, violence broke out at the end of the day. By early evening, groups of protesters had vandalized a main subway station in central Hong Kong that was closed by police earlier in the day and set a fire around one of its entrances. Demonstrators wearing face masks and helmets smashed station windows leaving glass piled on the sidewalk. They tossed street signs and emptied trash cans down the subway stairwells and began building barricades in the streets. 

Later in the night, police fired repeatedly tear gas to disperse protesters in the popular shopping district of Causeway Bay.

The pockets of violence continued two consecutive nights of clashes, despite Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam’s decision to withdraw the widely unpopular extradition bill that had originally sparked the months-long political crisis — a clear sign that her concession has been roundly rejected by the majority of pro-democracy protesters. 

As dissent in Hong Kong — and the accompanying police crackdown — continues, Lam and her government will have to face the possibility of growing international criticism particularly from the United States where lawmakers have now returned from their summer recess. 

Authorities have even targeted prominent activists who have not been at the forefront of the recent protests. Former student leader Joshua Wong, who is due to visit the United States soon to testify at a congressional hearing in support of the Hong Kong bill, was arrested at the city’s airport while returning from a trip in Taiwan, he said through a legal representative on Sunday evening.

Wong was detained for “breaching bail conditions” following his arrest last month, but said this was due to mistakes on his bail certificate. He said he expected to be released Monday but called his overnight detention “utterly unreasonable.”

Organizers handed a petition to a consulate official calling for the swift passage in Congress of the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, a bill that has bipartisan backing. This latest protest will likely draw the ire of Beijing, which has already accused the United States of meddling in the months-long political crisis and warned that Hong Kong is an internal Chinese matter. 

Members of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China reintroduced the bill in June, days after a million people marched calling for the extradition legislation to be scrapped. 

The bill would require an annual review of the special treatment afforded by Washington to Hong Kong under the U.S. Hong Kong Policy Act of 1992. This would include the trade and business privileges Hong Kong enjoys, separate from China. The legislation also calls for asset freezes and denial of entry into the United States for people found to be “suppressing basic freedoms” in Hong Kong. 

“The Chinese government is breaking their promises to give freedom and human rights to Hong Kong. We want to use the U.S. to push China to do what they promised over 20 years ago,” said a 24-year-old protester who declined to be named. He wore a red “Make America Great Again” hat. “The U.S. government can make China think; do they really want to lose Hong Kong?” 

Carl Court

Getty Images

Protesters hold U.S. flags as they march from the U.S. Consulate during a demonstration on Sept. 8, 2019 in Hong Kong, China.

Lam, Hong Kong’s chief executive, suspended the extradition bill in mid-June, but did not fully withdraw it until Wednesday. In the weeks between those actions, the protests expanded in intensity and scope to more broadly focus on Beijing’s erosion of the “one country, two systems,” framework under which Hong Kong has existed since it was handed back to China in 1997. 

In an indication of the growing anti-China flavor of protests, demonstrators on Sunday carried posters and stickers depicting the Chinese flag with its yellow stars rearranged into a swastika.

Swastikas with the term “Chinazi” were also spray painted in the Central district.

Lam’s concessions, which also included beefing up the independent police oversight committee, were met with hostility among protesters, who want her to meet the four other demands they have laid out.

Her move to fully withdraw the bill “was a public relations exercise vis-a-vis Beijing and Washington,” said Andreas Fulda, the author of a book on efforts at democratization in China and a senior fellow at the University of Nottingham’s Asia Research Institute. “Carrie Lam has every reason to be worried about a strong U.S. response” when Congress sits again, he said. 

The growing distrust and public animosity toward police was again evident on Sunday after dozens of police stopped and searched protesters on a glitzy stretch of road in the Central district lined with luxury shops. Bystanders jeered at the police, yelling “shame” and cheered when a group of tactical officers left the area.

“They think that this is perhaps a tactical retreat and a way to pacify the movement, but it is so evident that it doesn’t address the elephant in the room, which is the militarization of the Hong Kong Police Force,” he added. 

Earlier Saturday, a second “stress test” was scheduled by demonstrators to disrupt transportation to Hong Kong International Airport but it was thwarted by police. Last weekend protesters caused massive traffic jams and rail delays on lines heading toward the airport. Police stymied Saturday’s effort with officers in riot gear stationed at subway stops and ferry terminals as well as boarding buses to check for demonstrators. 

[Hong Kong leader fully withdraws extradition bill, but protesters say it’s not enough]

“We are in a very urgent situation. We need all the support we can get,” said Cody a 30-year-old IT worker attending the march. 

Those who are pushing for a stronger U.S. government response on the situation in Hong Kong say Washington has several options, including tweaking language in the Hong Kong Policy Act in a way that would effectively limit government to government interaction and alter the U.S. economic relationship with Hong Kong. 

Conversations have been ongoing between lawmakers and members of foreign relations committees over the summer, as Congress has been in recess, and lawmakers have been watching further developments before deciding on how actively to push the bill when back in session. 

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat said earlier this week that lawmakers should move to quickly advance the bill. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, said in an interview Tuesday that he would support legislation to “enhance” the Hong Kong Policy Act he helped to pass in 1992.

Carl Court

Getty Images

A barricade burns at an entrance to a train station on Sept. 8, 2019 in Hong Kong, China.

The push to pass the law has frustrated pro-establishment lawmakers in Hong Kong.

“Traditionally, these bills targeting specific countries, they are developing countries, with dictators in those countries,” said Felix Chung, a pro-Beijing lawmaker who traveled as part of a delegation of Hong Kong lawmakers last month to Montana to meet with congressmen and senators. 

“But Hong Kong has been so close to the U.S., economically and socially, it has never been a target of the U.S. government, so why should they use such a particular bill to punish Hong Kong?” he added. 

While leaders from both parties have been vocal in their support of Hong Kong’s protesters, Trump has taken a largely hands-off response to the upheaval. Last month, he said Chinese President Xi Jinping could “quickly and humanely solve the Hong Kong problem.” Previously, he described protesters as “riots,” a term used by Hong Kong authorities and a characterization protesters are fighting to have withdrawn as one of their demands. 

Kurt Tong, who served as U.S. Consul General in Hong Kong until this summer, said during a speech in Washington in late July that Hong Kong was treated as a “second-tier” issue by the administration, which put more focus on Iran, North Korea and the trade war with China. 

Shibani Mahtani contributed to this report.

Read more:

With Hong Kong in turmoil, questions grow over leader’s refusal to offer concessions to protesters

With threats and propaganda, China tries to silence support for Hong Kong protests

First day of school in Hong Kong brings class boycotts and more rallies

Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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2019-09-08 12:15:55Z
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U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson under fire as Brexit reality hits - NBCNews.com

LONDON — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was last week stripped of his authority over Brexit, denied a new election and abandoned by his little brother.

Now another senior minister has quit his government, and the ruling Conservative Party, in protest at Johnson's efforts to lead the U.K. out of the European Union on Oct. 31 with or without a deal.

Amber Rudd resigned Saturday, piling more pressure on the increasingly embattled prime minister.

Johnson expelled 21 members of his own party Tuesday after they supported an opposition plan to try to block a "no deal" Brexit.

Rudd, a former interior minister who voted to remain in the E.U. in the June 2016 referendum, said the ousting of the rebel lawmakers was an "assault on democracy" and an "act of political vandalism."

"I cannot stand by as good, loyal moderate Conservatives are expelled," she said in a tweet announcing her decision.

British media reports Sunday suggested more members of Johnson's government could follow Amber Rudd and quit.BEN STANSALL / AFP - Getty Images

Johnson swept to power in July, uniting the party around his leadership after Theresa May’s failure to solve the country’s Brexit impasse.

As lawmakers returned from summer recess, he began the week dismissing accusations from protesters in the London streets that he had conducted a coup — such was the seemingly decisive nature of his power grab to suspend Parliament until mid-October in an effort to clear the way for his hardline Brexit plans.

But in a sign of how things have turned, the prime minister was forced to insist he would not himself resign.

“That is not a hypothesis I'm willing to contemplate," he said Friday during a visit to a farm in Scotland.

Rudd's resignation is the latest sign that Johnson's uncompromising approach to Brexit, an issue that has obsessed the country and paralyzed its politics, could break his party and threaten his tenuous hold on power.

Those who were kicked out of the party last week included the longest sitting lawmaker in the House of Commons and the grandson of Winston Churchill.

The prime minister's little brother, Jo Johnson, quit on Thursday.

"In recent weeks I’ve been torn between family loyalty and the national interest," the junior minister said on Twitter.

Jeremy Hunt, the former foreign minister who finished as a runner-up to Johnson in the Conservative Party leadership race earlier this summer, said Sunday that Rudd's resignation was “desperately sad news.”

“When she and other brilliant people like Jo Johnson feel they can’t take the whip on top of the loss of so many other distinguished colleagues this week, we must pause for thought,” he said.

As politicians, commentators and experts alike scramble to assess the prime minister’s dwindling options — bringing a vote of no confidence in his own government has been raised as a potential last, desperate course of action — Johnson pushed ahead with his election demands.

Sept. 6, 201901:46

The bill forcing him to request a further extension to the U.K.’s divorce date with the E.U — possibly until January 2020 — is expected to become law on Monday.

Johnson says he would rather be "dead in a ditch" than request an extension.

His government says it will therefore again attempt to force an election in order to avoid an embarrassing climbdown or more drastic measures, including breaking the law.

But his election efforts continue to be rebuffed.

Opposition parties don't want to agree to a vote unless they can ensure Johnson can't take Britain out of the E.U. without a deal.

In an effort to pressure them into granting a snap election before Johnson's "do or die" deadline at the end of October, the government has sought to brand opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn a coward.

Johnson's team even distributed pieces of chicken to the Westminster press Friday in boxes bearing Corbyn’s face and the letters “JFC.”

The Conservative Party also shared a mocked-up image of Corbyn dressed in a yellow chicken suit.

The gambit sparked outrage from some lawmakers, who derided it as "playground behavior" amid what many see as a national crisis.

Max Burman, Reuters and Mo Abbas contributed.

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https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/brexit-referendum/u-k-prime-minister-boris-johnson-under-fire-brexit-reality-n1051171

2019-09-08 11:33:00Z
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Hong Kong Protesters Flood Streets to Call for U.S. Support - The Wall Street Journal

Sunday’s demonstration was intended to call on the U.S. to act to protect Hong Kong. Photo: Kin Cheung/Associated Press

HONG KONG—Tens of thousands of demonstrators called on the U.S. to protect human rights in Hong Kong, capping a weekend of smaller, heated protests that continued even after the government’s recent attempt at conciliation.

Protesters, many waving American flags, gathered at a park in the city’s main business district during the early afternoon on Sunday and for hours marched past the sprawling U.S. consular complex up a nearby hill.

Protests on Friday and Saturday turned violent at several subway stations toward the late hours. On Sunday, demonstrators shouted at police who had cordoned off city streets, and authorities closed down a main subway station near the U.S. consulate as protesters swelled in number.

Early in the evening, cardboard boxes and displaced road fencing were set on fire in front of an entrance to the station. At other entrances, windows were smashed and protesters threw rocks.

The weekend of demonstrations signals that recent moves by the government—including withdrawing a bill that would have allowed the extradition of criminal suspects to mainland China for trial—have failed to pacify the city’s protest movement. That bill sparked the unrest, now in its 14th weekend.

Sunday’s demonstration was intended to call on the U.S. to act to protect Hong Kong and support the protest movement. The day’s march began with organizers playing the U.S. national anthem as many waved large American and British-colonial flags. Later in the afternoon, chants of “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” could be heard.

Organizers and marchers specifically urged Congress to pass the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, which would impose penalties on Hong Kong or Chinese officials who suppress basic freedoms in the city.

Joe Lau, 36, was at the rally with his wife and wore a Trump 2020 hat while holding an American flag. He said Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s leader, needed to do more to protect the territory’s autonomy and said he wanted to see universal suffrage in the city.

“I don’t think she is willing to do that,” he said. “But I think the U.S. government has the ability to force the Hong Kong government to do that.”

Many protesters have carried American or British flags during recent marches in a bid to draw international support for their cause, and many have been bolstered by lawmakers and others in Washington who have voiced support for the pro-democracy movement.

A a fire at an entrance to the Central subway station. Photo: anushree fadnavis/Reuters

Though some in Congress have called for more overt support for Hong Kong’s protest movement, the Trump administration has been largely restrained in its response to this summer’s demonstrations. President Trump initially described Hong Kong as an internal matter for China, though he later warned Chinese President Xi Jinping that a violent reaction to the protests could threaten a trade deal.

Beijing has repeatedly said that Hong Kong is an internal affair and has demanded that U.S. lawmakers “mind your own business” when it comes to matters concerning the semiautonomous city.

Chinese officials have also accused the U.S. of involvement in the protest movement. In one photo widely circulated by Chinese state media outlets, a U.S. consular official in Hong Kong was seen meeting in a hotel lobby with prominent pro-democracy figures. China Daily and other mainland outlets pointed to the image as evidence of a U.S. “black hand” behind the protests.

The U.S. Embassy in Beijing has denied that Washington was behind the protests. The U.S. consulate in Hong Kong had no immediate comment on Sunday.

Sunday’s march followed two smaller demonstrations on Friday night and Saturday that descended into street skirmishes with police into the late hours. On Friday, police fired tear gas into a crowd and closed a subway station in the city’s Kowloon district that had been the site of numerous arrests during a previous protest.

Saturday saw similar battles after an attempt to once again rally at the city’s airport failed to gather steam.

On Saturday, police said there had been no deaths resulting from the recent clashes in the city’s subway and dismissed online rumors of such deaths as “not only false, but also malicious.”

Sunday afternoon’s demonstration appeared to gather additional numbers as the demonstrators wound their way through the city. Authorities closed the Central Station subway interchange, in the heart of the city’s financial district, following what they described as “an escalation of the situation in the station.”

Other demonstrators could be seen hauling traffic cones and street railings into a barricade on the one of the neighborhood’s main thoroughfares.

One masked 23-year-old protester who gave a speech at the rally’s starting point said that the demonstrators hoped to win over the U.S. because previous rallies haven’t worked to achieve all of their aims.

“Hong Kongers ourselves do not have enough power to fight for this,” she said. “We are now hoping to ask for the international community to help us with fighting for democracy.”

Write to Dan Strumpf at daniel.strumpf@wsj.com and Mike Cherney at mike.cherney@wsj.com

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https://www.wsj.com/articles/hong-kong-protesters-call-for-u-s-support-11567931423

2019-09-08 10:19:00Z
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