Iraqi security forces fired rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse crowds of protesters Saturday, killing two people in a third day of fierce clashes in central Baghdad, security and hospital officials said.
Two protesters were struck with rubber bullets and died instantly and over 20 others were wounded in the fighting on Rasheed Street, a famous avenue known for its old crumbling architecture and now littered with rubble from days of violence. Sixteen people have died and over 100 have been wounded in the renewed clashes. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.
At least 342 protesters have died in Iraq’s massive protests, which started October 1 when thousands of Iraqis took to the streets to decry corruption and lack of services despite Iraq’s oil wealth.
Separately, Iraq’s parliament failed to hold a session Saturday because of a lack of a quorum. Lawmakers were supposed to read reform bills introduced to placate protesters. The next session was postponed until Monday.
Iraqi demonstrators throw fireworks toward security forces during anti-government protests in Baghdad, Iraq, Nov. 23, 2019.
The fighting has centered on Rasheed Street and started Thursday when protesters tried to dismantle a security forces barricade on the street, which leads to Ahrar Bridge, a span over the Tigris River that has been a repeated flashpoint. Security forces responded with tear gas and live ammunition.
The violence took off again Friday afternoon. Live rounds and tear gas canisters were fired by security forces from behind a concrete barrier on Rasheed Street.
On Saturday, fighting picked up in the late afternoon and again in the evening, with security forces firing rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse crowds.
Protesters have occupied part of three bridges — Ahrar, Jumhuriya and Sinak — in a standoff with security forces. The bridges lead to the fortified Green Zone, the seat of Iraq’s government.
Hong Kongers are voting Sunday in a local election widely seen as a de facto referendum on pro-democracy protests that have recently taken a more aggressive turn.
The territory is on edge following days of intense clashes between police and groups of mostly student protesters, though the violence has subsided in the past few days.
Though the district council members being chosen Sunday have little power, pro-democracy forces still hope for a big win that will confirm public support for the protests.
Police have promised a heavy security presence at voting locations. Public broadcaster RTHK reports officers will be stationed inside and outside polling stations in riot gear.
“If there’s any violence, we will deal with it immediately, without hesitation,” Chris Tang, Hong Kong’s police commissioner, said.
A riot policeman stands as voters line up outside a polling place in Hong Kong, Nov. 24, 2019. Voting was underway Sunday in Hong Kong elections that have become a barometer of public support for anti-government protests.
District councils
Hong Kongers are choosing more than 400 members of 18 district councils scattered across the tiny territory. The district councils essentially serve as advisory bodies for local matters such as building roads or schools.
“I think the political message is more important than anything else,” Ma Ngok, a political scientist and professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said. “If the democrats really score a landslide victory, it will show very clearly that the public is in support of the movement.”
Hong Kong has seen five months of pro-democracy protests. The protests initially took the form of massive demonstrations against a reviled extradition bill, which could have resulted in Hong Kongers being tried in China’s politicized court system.
The protests have escalated in recent weeks, with smaller groups of hard-core protesters destroying public infrastructure, defacing symbols of state power and clashing with police. Protesters defend the moves as an appropriate reaction to police violence and the government’s refusal to meet their demands.
Despite the protester violence, polls suggest the movement still enjoys widespread public support. Meanwhile, the approval of Hong Kong’s Beijing-friendly chief executive, Carrie Lam, has fallen to a record low of about 20%.
Quasi-democratic system
Under Hong Kong’s quasi-democratic system, district councils have no power to pass legislation. But the vote could affect how the territory’s more influential Legislative Council and chief executive are selected in the future.
“That’s a big deal,” said Emily Lau, a former Legislative Council member and prominent member of the pro-democracy camp. “Because of this constitutional linkage, it makes the significance of the district council much bigger than its powers show you.”
The pro-democracy camp has tried to use the protests as a mobilizing force ahead of the vote and is fielding an unprecedented number of candidates.
A volunteer medic searches for protesters inside a building on the campus of Hong Kong Polytechnic University, where dozens of pro-democracy protesters remain holed up, in the Hung Hom district of Hong Kong, Nov. 23, 2019.
But they have a lot of ground to make up. Pro-government forces make up the majority in all 18 district councils, with the so-called “pan-democrats” taking up only about 25% of the overall seats, Ma said.
Hong Kong has seen a major surge in voter registration, particularly among young people. Nearly 386,000 people have registered to vote in the past year, the most since at least 2003, according to the South China Morning Post.
Voter sentiment mixed
At a recent pro-democracy rally in central Hong Kong, many protesters said they plan to vote, but they were divided on whether the election will lead to real change.
“I’m not excited,” said Ip, giving only her first name. “I think voting is one of our ways to express our voice, but I doubt the results will be very good.”
Another demonstrator, who gave the name Ms. Chan, said she also intends to send a message by voting.
“The government needs to listen to the people,” she said. “They do many wrong things, so I think many people will go out and vote.”
President Donald Trump’s new national security adviser is criticizing what he says is silence from the rest of the world about China’s confinement of more than 1 million Muslims in re-education camps, linking the lack of a global outcry to China’s economic clout.
National security adviser Robert O’Brien also questioned whether international leaders will stand up if Beijing carries out a Tiananmen Square-style crackdown on the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.
O’Brien met with journalists and was interviewed by a moderator at the Halifax International Security Forum on Saturday.
Speak up
“Where is the world? We have over a million people in concentration camps,” O’Brien said. “I’ve been to the genocide museum in Rwanda. You hear `never again, never again is this going to happen,’ and yet there are re-education camps with over a million people in them.”
O’Brien said the lack of criticism is especially surprising from Islamic states.
China is estimated to have detained up to 1 million minority Muslim Uighurs in prisonlike detention centers. The detentions come on top of harsh travel restrictions and a massive state surveillance network equipped with facial recognition technology.
FILE – An imam calls Uighur Muslims for afternoon prayer in China’s Xinjiang region, in 2012.
China has denied committing abuses in the centers and has described them as schools aimed at providing employable skills and combating extremism.
China and the U.S. are locked in a trade war, and the Trump administration has alternated between blasting the country’s leadership and reaching out to it. Trump imposed tariffs last year on billions of dollars’ worth of Chinese exports to the U.S., seeking to ramp up pressure for changes in Chinese trade and investment policies. China has retaliated with tariff hikes of its own.
O’Brien said that an initial trade agreement with China is still possible by year’s end, but that the U.S. won’t take a bad deal and won’t ignore what happens in Hong Kong.
O’Brien also said U.S. allies should think hard before allowing Chinese technology giant Huawei into their next generation of telecommunication networks, citing surveillance concerns.
“What the Chinese are doing makes Facebook and Google look like child’s play as far as collecting information on folks. Once they know the full profile of every man, woman and child in your country, how are they going to use that?” he asked.
Huawei spokespeople did not immediately return an email seeking comment Saturday.
Dolkun Isa, president of the World Uyghur Congress, said at Saturday’s conference that Trump himself has not addressed the camps publicly. Isa said his mother recently died in one of the camps.
Pompeo statements
O’Brien responded that the administration has spoken out about it. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is among the Trump officials who have raised China’s mistreatment of the Muslim Uighur minority, including citing it as a violation of religious freedom in a speech last month.
O’Brien declined to say what the U.S. would do if there was a crackdown in Hong Kong that rivaled the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989. More than 100,000 Americans and over 300,000 Canadians live in Hong Kong.
“I don’t want to get into tools or what the U.S. might or might not do,” he said. “But much of the world and many or our allies, and many of the countries represented at this conference, have been willing to forget Tiananmen Square and are heavily engaged in business with China.”
O’Brien is the fourth person in two years to hold the job of national security adviser. He previously served as Trump’s chief hostage negotiator. O’Brien made headlines in July when he was dispatched to Sweden to monitor the assault trial of American rapper A$AP Rocky.
As the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs at the State Department, O’Brien worked closely with the families of American hostages and advised administration officials on hostage issues.
Italian coast guards on Saturday said they had rescued 143 migrants off the island of Lampedusa, although around 20 others were apparently missing, according to the survivors.
“The crews of four patrols rescued 143 people who had fallen into the sea” from a 10-meter boat, the coast guard said in a statement.
Two men, an Eritrean and a Libyan, said they had been unable to locate their wives following the rescue.
A search for those missing continued Saturday evening with two planes from Frontex — the border and coast guard agency for the EU’s Schengen area — and the Italian navy flying over the area.
Police were also searching the Lampedusa coast to see if any of the migrants had swum ashore.
Those rescued were taken to Lampedusa, where they disembarked.
Meanwhile, Italy, Germany, France and Malta jointly asked the European Commission to activate a migrant-relocation scheme for 213 migrants on board the Ocean Viking rescue ship, the Italian Foreign Affairs Ministry said.
The ministry said “this is the first time this has happened” since the four nations in September signed a pre-agreement for the automatic distribution of rescued migrants in the Mediterranean.
The Ocean Viking, chartered by SOS Mediterranee with Doctors Without Borders, has rescued 215 people in three operations in recent days. One injured man and a pregnant woman had already been taken off the boat.
A Hong Kong university campus under siege for more than a week was a deserted wasteland Saturday, with a handful of protesters holed up in hidden refuges across the trashed grounds, as the city’s focus turned to local elections.
The siege neared its end as some protesters at Polytechnic University on the Kowloon peninsula desperately sought a way out and others vowed not to surrender, days after some of the worst violence since anti-government demonstrations escalated in June.
“If they storm in, there are a lot of places for us to hide,” said Sam, a 21-year-old student, who was eating two-minute noodles in the cafeteria, while plotting his escape.
Another protester, Ron, vowed to remain until the end with other holdouts, adding, “The message will be clear that we will never surrender.”
A protester who calls himself “Riot Chef” and said he was a volunteer cook for protesters smokes in a canteen in Hong Kong Polytechnic University in Hong Kong, Nov. 23, 2019.
Many arrests
About 1,000 people have been arrested in the siege in the Chinese-ruled city, about 300 of them younger than 18.
Police have set up high plastic barricades and a fence on the perimeter of the campus. Toward midday, officers appeared at ease, allowing citizens to mill about the edges of the cordon as neighborhood shops opened for business.
Rotting rubbish and boxes of unused petrol bombs littered the campus. On the edge of a dry fountain at its entrance lay a Pepe the frog stuffed toy, a mascot protesters have embraced as a symbol of their movement.
A worker repairs toll booths that were damaged during protests, at the Cross Harbour Tunnel near Hong Kong Polytechnic University in Hong Kong, Nov, 23, 2019.
Scores of construction workers worked at the mouth of the Cross-Harbour Tunnel, closed for more than a week after it was first blockaded, to repair toll booths smashed by protesters and clear debris from approach roads.
The road tunnel links Hong Kong island to the Kowloon area.
Elections Sunday
The repairs got underway as a record 1,104 people gear up to run for 452 district council seats in elections Sunday.
A record 4.1 million Hong Kong people, from a population of 7.4 million, have enrolled to vote, spurred in part by registration campaigns during months of protests.
Young pro-democracy activists are now running in some of the seats that were once uncontested and dominated by pro-Beijing candidates.
The protests snowballed since June after years of resentment over what many residents see as Chinese meddling in freedoms promised to Hong Kong when the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
Beijing has said it is committed to the “one country, two systems” formula by which Hong Kong is governed. It denies meddling in the affairs of the Asian financial hub and accuses foreign governments of stirring up trouble.
Trump says he spoke to Xi
In an interview with Fox News Channel on Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump said he had told Chinese President Xi Jinping that crushing the protests would have “a tremendous negative impact” on efforts to end the two countries’ 16-month-long trade war.
“If it weren’t for me Hong Kong would have been obliterated in 14 minutes,” Trump said, without offering any evidence.
“He’s got a million soldiers standing outside of Hong Kong that aren’t going in only because I ask him, ‘Please don’t do it, you’ll be making a big mistake, it’s going to have a tremendous negative impact on the trade deal,’ and he wants to make a trade deal.”
U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland has been a key witness in the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump. Sondland was appointed to his post after donating $1 million to Trump’s inaugural committee. The practice of awarding ambassador positions to wealthy political supporters is not new to either party, but some lawmakers and presidential candidates say it is time to limit the practice. VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports from the State Department.
In late December, it will be one year since Moscow detained U.S. citizen Paul Whelan on espionage charges. During his 11 months in the infamous Lefortovo prison, Whelan has denied the allegations and complained of systematic mistreatment. His family in the U.S. is working to bring the former Marine home. Yulia Savchenko met with Whelan’s sister, Elizabeth, in Washington to get the latest on the case.
A group of nine Nicaraguan mothers whose hunger strike became emblematic of protests roiling the Central American country were taken Friday to a hospital in stable condition, according to a doctor treating the group and a Reuters witness.
The nine mothers, along with three activists opposed to Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, spent nine days locked in a church in the city of Masaya to demand the freedom of their children, whom they consider to be political prisoners.
On Friday, the group of protesters and a Catholic priest serving the church were taken to a hospital in the capital by a representative of the Vatican for treatment.
“Everyone is in stable health. Some are dehydrated from prolonged fasting and two are under observation for their chronic conditions,” Maria Eugenia Espinoza, a doctor who serves as director of Vivian Pellas Hospital, told reporters.
Father Edwin Roman, the priest who joined the mothers, has complained on social media that after the group began their protest, the police cut off electricity and water in the church and prevented locals from assisting them.
Nicaragua’s churches have become political battlegrounds in recent weeks amid protests that have been raging for more than a year and a half.
Both the Organization of American States and the United Nations raised alarms this week about human rights in Central America’s largest country, as protests have intensified.
On Monday, Nicaraguan police arrested 16 anti-government protesters, accusing them of planning to carry out terrorist attacks. Some of their families say they were arrested after bringing water to the mothers in Masaya.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s indictment is expected to sharpen the battle lines in Israel’s already deadlocked political system and could test the loyalty of his right-wing allies, Israeli commentators said Friday.
The serious corruption charges announced Thursday appear to have dashed already slim hopes for a unity government following September’s elections, paving the way for an unprecedented repeat vote in March, which will be the third in less than a year.
In an angry speech late Thursday, Netanyahu lashed out at investigators and vowed to fight on in the face of an “attempted coup.”
His main opponent, the centrist Blue and White party, called on him to “immediately resign” from all his Cabinet posts, citing a Supreme Court ruling that says indicted ministers cannot continue to hold office. Netanyahu also serves as minister of health, labor and Diaspora affairs, as well as acting minister of agriculture.
He is not legally required to step down as prime minister, but Netanyahu faces heavy pressure to do so, and it is unclear whether an indicted politician could be given the mandate to form a new government. Netanyahu has already failed to form a majority coalition of 61 seats in the 120-seat Knesset after two hard-fought elections this year.
“This will not be an election, it will be a civil war without arms,” columnist Amit Segal wrote in Israel’s Yediot Ahronot newspaper. “There is a broad constituency that believes what Netanyahu said yesterday, but it is far from being enough for anything close to victory.”
Reactions Mixed on Netanyahu’s Corruption Charges video player.
Writing in the same newspaper, Sima Kadmon compared Netanyahu to the Roman emperor Nero, saying “he will stand and watch as the country burns.”
Netanyahu was indicted on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust stemming from three long-running corruption cases. He has denied any wrongdoing and accused the media, courts and law enforcement of waging a “witch hunt” against him.
The corruption charges will weigh heavily on Netanyahu’s Likud party in future elections, but it’s unclear if any senior member has the support or willingness to replace him.
Hours before the indictment was announced, Gideon Saar, a senior Likud member, said a party primary should be held ahead of any future elections and that he would compete. But there are several other leading members of the party, and it’s unclear if any one of them can gain enough support to topple its longtime leader.
Some Likud members expressed support for Netanyahu after the indictment was announced, but most have remained mum.
“If the attorney general should indeed announce that Netanyahu can no longer form a government, will (Likud members) stand up openly and work to form an alternative government? For that to happen, they will have to sit together in one room and trust each other, which is something that has not happened for the past decade,” Segal wrote.
Nevertheless, he concluded, “the great threat to Netanyahu is now posed from within.”
Amid all the political machinations, Netanyahu will have to prepare to go on trial. He can battle the charges, or he might seek a plea bargain in which he agrees to resign in return for avoiding jail time or hefty fines. Either process could drag on for months.
Netanyahu is Israel’s first sitting prime minister to be charged with a crime. His predecessor, Ehud Olmert, was forced to resign a decade ago ahead of a corruption indictment that later sent him to prison for 16 months.
“We’ve got a number of political and legal processes which are all going to be happening now simultaneously,” Anshel Pfeffer, a Haaretz columnist and the author of a biography of Netanyahu, told The Associated Press.
“It’s impossible to predict which one will bring about the end of Netanyahu’s career,” he said. “All these things are going ahead now, but slowly.”
Tens of thousands of people in Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore are at risk of respiratory disease because of poor air quality related to thick smog hanging over the region, an international rights group said Friday.
Amnesty International called for “urgent action” for residents of Lahore in a bid to mobilize supporters around the world to campaign on their behalf due to smog that has engulfed the city of more than 10 million people over the past week.
Amnesty says Pakistani officials’ inadequate response to the smog raises significant human rights concerns.
“The hazardous air is putting everyone’s right to health at risk,” said Rimmel Mohydin, South Asia Campaigner at Amnesty. “The issue is so serious that we are calling on our members around the world to write to the Pakistani authorities to tell them to stop downplaying the crisis and take urgent action to protect people’s health and lives.”
Once known as the “city of gardens,” Lahore is considered one of the world’s most polluted cities, where many residents have been forced to stay at home.
Mohydin said on one out of every two days since the beginning of November the air quality in Lahore has been classified as “hazardous” by air quality monitors installed by the United States Consulate in Lahore and the Pakistan Air Quality Initiative.
She said people in Lahore have not had healthy air for a single day this year and that the air quality deteriorated to “hazardous” levels in November. Air quality measuring systems advise people to avoid all outdoor activity when that happens.
Air becomes unhealthy when the Air Quality Index level reaches 100. Mohydin said at 300 and above, the air is considered “hazardous” and the Air Quality Index in Lahore skyrocketed to 598 on Thursday.
She said the so-called “smog season,” which runs from October to February, is when poor fuel quality, uncontrolled emissions and crop burning worsens the quality of the already unhealthy air in eastern Punjab Province, where Lahore is the capital.
Authorities in Lahore and elsewhere in the province have asked parents not to send their children to school on Friday to avoid being in the bad air.
Pakistan often blames farmers in neighboring India for burning waste from their crops in open farms fields.
“The fast blowing winds brought thick smog from India to Lahore and the international community should pressure India to take measures for controlling air pollution as it also affects us,” said Naseem-Ur-Rahman Shah, who heads the provincial Environment Protection Department in Punjab.
It’s a popular practice among poor farmers in Pakistan and India to set fire to remnants of the previous season’s crop before preparing their land for the next planting. Punjab Province is considered Pakistan’s breadbasket.
Rahman said thousands of people were treated this week at hospitals and private clinics for respiratory-related diseases, including asthma, flu, fever and cough.
“People should not expose themselves to smog because it is harmful,” he said. “We are also taking steps to control air pollution in Punjab.”
But many residents in Lahore blame the government for not taking adequate measures to contain air pollution.
“I can show you several factories releasing smoke in the heart of Lahore. I can show you brick kilns on the outskirts of Lahore and you can see smoke-emitting vehicles everywhere,” said 23-year-old Mohammad Abdullah, a college student, as he sat in a bed at Mayo Hospital after having breathing problems.
Uzma Tareen, 56, also complained she had to come to the same hospital on a smoke-emitting rikshaw as she could not afford a taxi.
“Doctors say smog will end when rains come so I am praying for rain,” she said. “I don’t expect any action from the government to control toxic air.”
Pope Francis Friday called on bishops in Thailand to keep their doors open for priests and to spread the faith as their missionary predecessors did.
“Be close to your priests, listen to them and seek to accompany them in every situation, especially when you see that they are discouraged or apathetic, which is the worst of the devil’s temptations. Do so not as judges but as fathers, not as managers who deploy them, but as true elder brothers.”
Francis gave a speech to the Asian Bishops Conference at the Shrine of Blessed Nicholas Bunkerd Kithamrung in Sam Phran, 56 kilometers west of capital Bangkok.
Huge crowds, including faithful from Vietnam, Cambodia and China welcomed the pope when he earlier arrived for a meeting with clergy and seminarians at Saint Peter’s Parish in Nakhon Pathom province.
Francis concluded the day’s celebrations with a Mass dedicated to young people at Bangkok’s Cathedral of the Assumption.
Francis is only the second pope to visit Thailand. Pope John Paul II, now Saint John Paul II, was the first in 1984.
A Hong Kong court on Friday suspended its decision to strike down a government ban on wearing face masks at protests, allowing police to enforce the decree for another week around keenly contested local elections in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory.
The court had ruled Monday that the ban, imposed in October under rarely used emergency powers to prevent anti-government protesters from hiding their identity, infringed on fundamental rights more than was reasonably necessary.
The government had appealed for a freeze on the ruling while it appeals to higher courts.
The High Court agreed Friday to grant a one-week suspension in view of the “highly exceptional circumstances that Hong Kong is currently facing,” local broadcaster RTHK reported. China’s rubber-stamp parliament rebuked the court ruling this week, in what some interpreted as an indication it might overrule the verdict.
Many Hong Kong protesters have defied the ban, and during lunchtime rallies Friday, some chanted “We have the right to wear masks.”
The city’s new police commissioner, Tang Ping-keung, told reporters police would be out in force at polling stations Sunday to respond to any outbreak of violence “without hesitation.”
Six masked protesters surrendered before dawn Friday, bringing to about 30 the number that have come out in the past day from a university campus surrounded by police.
The group emerged from a campus entrance and held hands as they walked toward a checkpoint around 3 a.m. Five wore the black clothing favored by the protest movement and the other was in a blue checked shirt.
Most of the protesters who took over Hong Kong Polytechnic University last week have left, but an unknown number have remained inside for days, hoping somehow to avoid arrest.
Tang Chun-Keung, head of the Hong Kong Association of the Heads of Secondary Schools, said the holdouts include minors, numbering less than 10, and they are emotionally unstable. Tang entered the campus Friday with some others but failed to find them.
“We have lawyers and social workers ready to provide assistance and we hope to persuade them to leave the campus. We are worried our work is getting more and more difficult because students are refusing to meet us,” he told reporters.
Police chief Tang reiterated that those under 18 can leave, although they may face charges later, and pledged impartial treatment for all adults facing arrest.
“The condition is deteriorating and dangerous, there are many explosives and petrol bombs inside … we hope to end the matter peacefully,” he said, adding police didn’t set any deadline to end the siege.
The anti-government protesters battled with police and blocked the nearby approach to a major road tunnel, which remains closed. It was the latest bout in more than five months of unrest. Protesters are demanding fully democratic elections and an investigation into alleged police brutality in suppressing the demonstrations.
Anti-government rallies were held sporadically in the past two days. Riot police broke up minor scuffles between protesters and pro-Beijing supporters at a downtown bridge Friday, but there were no major clashes ahead of Sunday’s district council elections.
City leaders have said they want to go ahead with the vote, seen as a bellwether of public support for the protests, but warned violence could make it impossible to hold a fair and safe election.
Asked if the police presence would make voters feel uncomfortable, police chief Tang said it will make citizens “feel safe to go out and vote.”
