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Japan’s national sales tax was raised to 10% from 8% on Tuesday, amid concerns that the long-delayed move could derail the fragile growth path of the world’s third largest economy.
Officials said ample measures were taken to cushion the impact of the hike after previous tax increases – a 2-point increase to 5% in 1997 and another to 8% in 2014 – brought on recessions.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe postponed this hike twice but said it was unavoidable given rising costs for elder care and a growing national debt as the population ages and shrinks. After decades of fiscal deficits that have taken the debt to more than twice the size of the economy, Abe has promised a return to balance by 2025, but that will require growth to be sustained at a healthy pace.
The sales tax hike coincided with the release of data showing business sentiment among large manufacturers worsening in September to its worst level since 2013.
The result was better than expected, but the outlook is forecast to deteriorate further by December’s quarterly report of the Bank of Japan’s survey, called the “tankan.”
“Particularly affected are producers of basic materials, reflecting recent commodity market movements, as well as producers of general-purpose and production machinery, who are exposed to risks posed by recent re-escalation of US-China trade frictions,” Oxford Economics said in a commentary.
Other data released this week have shown industrial output decreasing in August, while unemployment remained at a 26-year low of 2.2%.
The economy expanded at an annual pace of 1.8 percent in April-June, faster than anticipated. But slowing exports and rising prices for oil are expected to drag growth lower in coming months.
The sales tax increase covers most goods and services from clothes, electronics to transportation and medical fees, but the government has sought to soften its impact with tax breaks for home and car purchases. It also kept the tax for groceries unchanged for low-income households and is providing free pre-school education to families.
“We’ll take expeditious and utmost efforts to ward off any risk of a downward swing in the economy,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said on the eve of the tax hike.
Analysts say the tax hike poses a deflationary risk at a time of growing uncertainty over trade tensions between the U.S. and China.
That’s after years of ultra-loose monetary policy aimed at trying to convince businesses and consumers to spend more money. More than six years after Bank of Japan Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda launched his “big bazooka” injections of billions of dollars of cash into the economy, aimed at prying the country out of its deflationary doldrums
“Considering the current economic conditions, the timing is bad,” said Toshihiro Nagahama, chief economist at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute.
He noted that the economy has slowed since late last year and that demand generated by the construction boom for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics is fading. The fear is that might undo years of efforts to escape a deflationary rut where falling prices due to slack demand depress investment, a main driver of growth.
The tax hike will put an estimated additional burden on households of more than 2 trillion yen ($18 billion).
The exceptions and incentives built into the new sales tax regime are causing confusion. For instance, purchases “to go” at Starbucks Coffee outlets are still taxed at 8%, while customers choosing to dine in have to pay 10%.
Businesses are adapting with price cuts and rewards for cashless payments to attract customers. So economists said there was not a huge rush to beat the increase. That may mean the higher tax’s impact will be less severe than the blows of previous hikes.
“Stores seem to provide discounts, so I will go for those, plus, I don’t plan to buy luxurious goods with big price tags,” Junko Matsumoto, a homemaker in her 60s, said as she walked past a Tokyo train station. “I must admit the tax increase was unavoidable.”
Toru Yokoyama, a 31-year-old office worker, was less upbeat.
“The government could have taken measures other than tax increase, but it’s already done and there is not much I can do at this point,” he said. “I don’t think my shopping patterns would change very much, but I may not be able to go on trips as often as used to.”
Thousands of Vietnam’s ethnic Cham people met under rainy late September skies for their annual “Kate” festival that, according to the multi-faith community’s calendar, marks the end of one harvest season and the beginning of another.
The Cham are descendants of a powerful ancient kingdom that once spanned large parts of central and southern Vietnam a millennium ago.
They are a traditionally matriarchal society, which worships a female goddess and expects the youngest daughter to inherit family assets.
Vietnam’s ethnic Cham religious leaders take part in a procession to the Po Klong Garai temple during the ‘Kate’ festival which marks the end of harvesting season in Phan Rang, Vietnam, Sept. 28, 2019.
A rich history of trading and movement across Asia have made the Cham a uniquely multi-faith group, divided into predominantly Hindu and Muslim branches, all of whom come together to celebrate “Kate.”
The week-long festival, which began last Friday, marks the Cham calendar’s de facto new year, at the onset of a new harvest.
At the Po Klong Garai temple in the southern town of Phan Rang – a Vietnamese rendering of Panduranga, the Cham Kingdom’s ancient capital – dozens of men in bright red and white traditional costume paraded with a sacred garment.
The holy dress, which is kept in the nearby commune of Phuoc Ha, is brought to the crumbling, clay-brick 13th Century temple, within which lies a statue of the Hindu god, Shiva.
Behind a small door, the deity is dressed in the sacred Cham garments by religious leaders, who perform traditional rites and blessings. Others make offerings of fruit, boiled chicken and white rice on bamboo mats laid at the foot of the ancient temple.
The U.S. Secretary of Interior has extended the tenure of the Trump administration’s top steward of public lands, rebuffing Democrats’ calls for his termination.
Interior Secretary David Bernhardt on Monday extended William Perry Pendley’s role as Bureau of Land Management Acting Director to Jan. 3.
Pendley has been in the post since July. Senate Democrats, including presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris, had called for Pendley’s ouster over his longstanding support for selling public lands.
He previously worked as a property rights attorney with clients including mining, energy and agriculture interests. Earlier this month Pendley recused himself from work involving dozens of former clients following conflict of interest allegations.
Benhardt also extended the tenures of the acting heads of the National Park Service and Fish and Wildlife Service.
China warned on Monday of instability in international markets from any “decoupling” of China and the United States, after sources said the Trump administration was considering delisting Chinese companies from U.S. stock exchanges.
The move would be part of a broader effort to limit U.S. investment in Chinese companies, two sources briefed on the matter told Reuters last week, in what would be a radical escalation of U.S.-China trade tensions. The news had earlier been reported by Bloomberg.
A third source said the delisting idea was motivated by growing security concerns within the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump over Chinese companies’ activities.
White House trade adviser Peter Navarro on Monday dismissed the reports as “fake news.”
“That story, which appeared in Bloomberg: I’ve read it far more carefully than it was written,” Navarro told CNBC. “Over half of it was highly inaccurate or simply flat-out false.”
Shares of U.S.-listed Chinese stocks reversed direction on Monday after a sharp fall on the delisting reports. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and JD.Com Inc rose 2% each in early trading after tumbling more than 5% on Friday.
Also on Monday, e-learning firm Youdao Inc became the latest Chinese company to file for an initial public offering in the United States. Chinese online pharmacy Ecmoho filed to list its shares on the Nasdaq last week.
Ecmoho is planning to start pre-marketing next week, IFR reported, citing people familiar with the matter. The company was not immediately available for comment.
Earlier in the day, stocks in China fell to their lowest in almost a month on the reports, which came at a sensitive time ahead of celebrations on Tuesday to mark 70 years since the founding of the People’s Republic of China.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a daily news briefing on Monday he had noted the response from the U.S. Treasury, which said there were no plans to block Chinese listings “at this time.”
“Exerting maximum pressure and even seeking the forced decoupling of China-U.S. relations will harm the interests of Chinese and American companies and people, create turmoil in financial markets, and endanger global trade and economic growth,” Geng added. “This does not accord with the interests of the international community.”
Geng said he hoped that the United States would take a “constructive attitude” toward resolving differences.
The United States and China have been locked in an escalating trade war for nearly 15 months. They have levied punitive duties on hundreds of billions of dollars of each other’s goods, roiling financial markets and threatening global growth.
In June, U.S. lawmakers from both parties introduced a bill to force Chinese companies listed on American stock exchanges to submit to regulatory oversight, including providing access to audits, or face delisting.
Chinese authorities have long been reluctant to let overseas regulators inspect local accounting firms – including member firms of the Big Four international accounting networks – citing national security concerns.
China and the United States are due to resume high-level trade talks next week in Washington.
In advance of the talks, Chinese firms bought up to 600,000 tons of U.S. soybeans for shipment from November to January on Monday, two sources with knowledge of the deals said. The purchases form part of a tariff-free quota allotted for up to 2 million tonnes this week. China has frequently made goodwill purchases of U.S. agricultural goods ahead of trade talks.
China hopes Beijing and Washington will resolve their trade dispute “with a calm and rational attitude”, Vice Commerce Minister Wang Shouwen, who has been part of China’s negotiating team, said on Sunday.
The winds are blowing fair for America’s wind power industry, making it one of the fastest-growing U.S. energy sources.
Land-based turbines are rising by the thousands across America, from the remote Texas plains to farm towns of Iowa. And the U.S. wind boom now is expanding offshore, with big corporations planning $70 billion in investment for the country’s first utility-scale offshore wind farms.
“We have been blessed to have it,” says Polly McMahon, a 13th-generation resident of Block Island, where a pioneering offshore wind farm replaced the island’s dirty and erratic diesel-fired power plant in 2016. “I hope other people are blessed too.”
But there’s an issue. And it’s a big one. President Donald Trump hates wind turbines.
He’s called them “disgusting” and “ugly” and “stupid,” denouncing them in hundreds of anti-wind tweets and public comments dating back more than a decade, when he tried and failed to block a wind farm near his Scottish golf course.
And those turbine blades. “They say the noise causes cancer,” Trump told a Republican crowd last spring, in a claim immediately rejected by the American Cancer Society.
Now, wind industry leaders and supporters fear that the federal government, under Trump, may be pulling back from what had been years of encouragement for climate-friendly wind.
The Interior Department surprised and alarmed wind industry supporters in August, when the agency unexpectedly announced it was withholding approval for the country’s first utility-scale offshore wind project, a $2.8 billion complex of 84 giant turbines. Slated for building 15 miles (24 kilometers) off Martha’s Vineyard, Vineyard Wind has a brisk 2022 target for starting operations. Its Danish-Spanish partners already have contracts to supply Massachusetts electric utilities.
Investors backing more than a dozen other big wind farms are lined up to follow Vineyard Wind with offshore wind projects of their own. Shell’s renewable-energy offshoot is among the businesses ponying up for federal leases, at bids of more than $100 million, for offshore wind farm sites.
The Interior Department cited the surge in corporate interest for offshore wind projects in saying it wanted more study before moving forward. It directed Vineyard Wind to research the overall impact of the East Coast’s planned wind boom.
Interior Department spokesman Nicholas Goodwin said offshore energy remains “an important component” in the Trump administration’s energy strategy. But the strategy includes “ensuring activities are safe and environmentally responsible,” Goodwin said in a statement.
Wind power now provides a third or more of the electricity generated in some Southwest and Midwest states. And New York, New Jersey and other Eastern states already are joining Massachusetts in planning for wind-generated electricity.
Along with the U.S. shale oil boom, the rise in wind and solar is helping cushion oil supply shocks like the recent attack on Saudi oil facilities.
But the Interior Department’s pause on the Vineyard Wind project sent a chill through many of the backers of the offshore wind boom. Critics contrast it with the Republican administration’s moves to open up offshore and Arctic areas to oil and gas development, despite strong environmental concerns.
“That I think is sort of a new bar,” for the federal government to require developers to assess the impact of not just their projects but everyone’s, said Stephanie McClellan, a researcher and director of the Special Initiative on Offshore Wind at the University of Delaware. “That worries everybody.”
Thomas Brostrom, head of U.S. operations for Denmark’s global offshore wind giant Orsted and operator of the pioneering Block Island wind farm, said that “the last three, four years have seen unbelievable, explosive growth, much more than we could have really hoped for,” in the U.S., compared to Europe’s already established wind power industry.
Given all the projects in development, “we hope that this is a speed bump, and certainly not a roadblock,” Brostrom said.
Wind power and the public perception of it have changed since America’s first proposed big offshore wind project, Cape Wind off Cape Cod, died an agonizing 16-year death. Koch and Kennedy families alike, along with other coastal residents, reviled Cape Wind as a potential bird-killing eyesore in their ocean views.
But technological advances since then mean wind turbines can rise much farther offshore, mostly out of sight, and produce energy more efficiently and competitively. Climate change — and the damage it will do these same coastal communities — also has many looking at wind differently now.
Federal fisheries officials have been among the main bloc calling for more study, saying they need to know more about the impacts on ocean life. Some fishing groups still fear their nets will tangle in the massive turbines, although Vineyard Wind’s offer to pay millions of dollars to offset any harm to commercial fishing won the support of others. At least one Cape Cod town council also withheld support.
A rally for Vineyard Wind after the Interior Department announced its pause drew local Chamber of Commerce leaders and many other prominent locals. Massachusetts’ Republican governor, Charlie Baker, has been traveling to Washington and calling Interior Secretary David Bernhardt to try to win his support.
At Cape Cod Community College in West Barnstable, instructor Chris Powicki’s Offshore Wind 101 classes and workshop have drawn nuclear and marina workers, engineers, young people and others. People are hoping wind will provide the kind of good-paying professions and trades they need to afford to stay here, Powicki says.
“Cape Cod has always been at the end of the energy supply line, or at least ever since we lost our dominance with the whale oil industry” after the 19th century, the community college instructor said. “So this is an opportunity for Cape Cod to generate its own energy.”
On land, the wind boom already is well established. By next year, 9% of the country’s electricity is expected to come from wind power, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The wind industry already claims 114,000 jobs, more than twice the number of jobs remaining in U.S. coal mining, which is losing out in competition against cleaner, cheaper energy sources despite the Trump administration’s backing of coal.
The Trump animosity to wind power has gone beyond words in some states, especially in Ohio. A Trump campaign official was active this summer in winning a state ratepayer subsidy for coal and nuclear that also led to cutting state incentives for wind and solar.
But despite the steady gales of condemnation from the country’s wind-hater in chief, wind is booming most strongly in states that voted for Trump.
Then-Texas Gov. Rick Perry, now Trump’s energy secretary, pushed his state to one of the current top four wind power states, along with Oklahoma, Kansas and Iowa.
In Iowa, home to nearly 4,700 turbines that provided a third of the state’s electricity last year, wind’s popularity is such that Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley had a drone film him as he sat, grinning, atop one of the country’s biggest wind turbines.
Grassley had no patience for Trump’s claim in April that wind turbines like Iowa’s beloved ones could cause cancer.
“Idiotic,” Grassley said then.
On the East Coast, many developers and supporters of offshore wind politely demur when asked about Trump’s wind-hating tweets and comments.
But not on Block Island.
“We’re very fortunate that we got it. Very fortunate. It’s helped us,” McMahon, the retiree on Block Island, said of wind energy. “And don’t worry about the president. He’s not a nice man.”
Days ahead of the anniversary of the grisly slaying of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday that his country will press ahead with efforts to shed light on the killing.
In a Washington Post op-ed, Erdogan described the journalist’s killing by a Saudi hit squad as “arguably the most influential and controversial incident of the 21st century” and blamed the murder on a “shadow state within the kingdom’s government — not the Saudi state or people.”
The Turkish leader wrote: “We will keep asking the same questions… Where are Khashoggi’s remains? Who signed the Saudi journalist’s death warrant? Who dispatched the 15 killers, including a forensic expert, aboard the two planes to Istanbul?”
Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2, 2018, to collect a document that he needed to marry his Turkish fiancee. Agents of the Saudi government killed Khashoggi inside the consulate and apparently dismembered his body, which has never been found.
Saudi Arabia initially offered multiple, shifting accounts about Khashoggi’s disappearance. As international pressure mounted, the kingdom eventually settled on the explanation that he was killed by rogue officials in a brawl inside their consulate.
The kingdom has put 11 people on trial in non-public proceedings. No one has been convicted so far.
Erdogan criticized the court proceedings in Saudi Arabia, which he said lacked transparency and maintained that some of Khashoggi’s murderers “enjoy de facto freedom.” The court proceedings “tarnish the image of Saudi Arabia,” Erdogan added.
A U.N. report released earlier this year asserted that Saudi Arabia bore responsibility for the killing and that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s possible role should be investigated.
On Sunday, Prince Mohammed said in a television interview that he takes “full responsibility” for Khashoggi’s death but denied allegations that he ordered it.
“This was a heinous crime,” Prince Mohammed, 34, told “60 Minutes.” ″But I take full responsibility as a leader in Saudi Arabia, especially since it was committed by individuals working for the Saudi government.”
The Moscow City Court has changed actor Pavel Ustinov’s 3 1/2-year prison sentence into a one-year suspended sentence amid an outcry over punishments being handed out after a series of pro-democracy rallies over the summer.
The court also ruled on Monday that Ustinov will be put on a two-year probation period.
Ustinov and his lawyer had asked the court to fully acquit the actor, saying his previous conviction for assaulting a law enforcement officer during a rally in August was unjust.
The 23-year-old, who once worked as a National Guard officer, pleaded not guilty, saying he was standing nearby and was not participating in the rally at which activists challenged the refusal by officials to register opposition and independent candidates for Moscow city-council elections that took place on September 8.
Video of Ustinov’s arrest appears to back up his claims, and his imprisonment and harsh sentence sparked an outcry among the entertainment community, as well as from teachers, priests, and even some members of the Moscow city council.
After the September 30 ruling, Ustinov’s legal team said they would continue to fight for their client’s full exoneration.
Police and legal officials have been sharply criticized for their heavy-handed tactics during and after the protests, which drew some of the biggest crowds since the breakup of the Soviet Union.
Critics say the convictions have been overly harsh and are an overt attempt to scare off others from joining the protests.
Prosecutors appeared to acknowledge the unjust situation, noting at the start of the appeal hearing on September 26 that Ustinov’s sentence was “too severe” and “the convict’s reformation is possible without his isolation from society.”
On September 20, amid protests challenging his conviction, Ustinov was released from custody by a court and ordered not to leave Moscow before his appeal was ruled upon.
Yemen’s rebels Sunday claimed they launched a major attack on the border of Saudi Arabia, releasing video purporting to show captive Saudi soldiers and equipment.
The images of the attack released by the rebels, known as Houthis, show armored vehicles with stenciled Saudi markings, arms and ammunition the rebels claim they seized.
The video also shows fighting in a mountainous area, with Houthi fighters apparently attacking Saudi troops in armored vehicles.
It shows what appear to be corpses and wounded in Saudi military uniforms. Several troops identified themselves as Saudis.
The kingdom did not immediately acknowledge the attack. A Saudi-led coalition has been battling the Houthis on behalf of an internationally recognized Yemeni government since 2015.
In the past, the Houthis have claimed that they occupied Saudi villages after cross-border attacks, but often they enter a village, raise a banner, then pull out.
They have also held Saudi soldiers and officers captive in the past, using them as bargaining chips. Usually, they force the soldier to show his ID and speak on camera as proof. This time they did not show IDs.
Yahia Sarie, a spokesman for Houthi forces, claimed in a news conference Sunday the rebels took captive more than 2,000 troops, without offering evidence.
He also alleged that “three brigades have fallen,” and that the Houthis “liberated 350 kilometers square (135 square miles).”
Yemeni military officials said Sunday the soldiers the Houthis claimed they captured were fighters recruited informally by the Saudi-led coalition to fight inside Saudi Arabian borders. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media.
Yemen’s stalemated war has killed tens of thousands of people, badly damaged Yemen’s infrastructure and crippled its health system.
A leading Egyptian pro-democracy activist was re-arrested Sunday while on probation, his family and a security official said, amid a sweeping security clampdown following small but rare anti-government protests earlier this month.
Alaa Abdel-Fattah rose to prominence with the 2011 pro-democracy uprisings that swept the Middle East and in Egypt toppled long-time President Hosni Mubarak. To many, his imprisonment three years later — at a time when authorities imposed draconian laws banning public gatherings and unauthorized demonstrations — was another sign of Egypt’s return to autocratic rule.
His release in March came after five years in prison for taking part in a peaceful protest against military trials for civilians.
Abdel-Fattah’s mother, Laila Soueif, told The Associated Press that her son was arrested Sunday from the police station in the Dokki area of Cairo.
“I was waiting for him to walk out this morning, but the area around the police station was sealed off. They did not allow me to get in as they were doing every day,” she said.
Under the terms of his release, authorities required Abdel-Fattah to report to a police station and spend every night there for the next five years.
Soueif, a university professor, said she had gone to pick him up every morning in recent days for fear he could be re-arrested after a wave of arrests targeting anti-government protesters.
A spokesman for Egypt’s Interior Ministry did not respond to requests for comment.
A security official said Abdel-Fattah was taken to prosecutors for an investigation into claims he has called for protests. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media.
Mohammed el-Baker, a rights lawyer who was attending the questioning of Abdel-Fattah by prosecutors, was also arrested, the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights, a local non-governmental group, said late Sunday. El-Baker had attended the interrogation of many people who were rounded up in the recent wave of arrests since last weekend
Abdel-Fattah has been detained several times before under different governments for lobbying for civil rights on social media and in public. An influential blogger, he hails from a family of political activists, lawyers and writers. His late father was one of Egypt’s most tireless rights lawyers, his sisters are also political activists and his aunt is the award-winning novelist Ahdaf Soueif.
Sunday’s arrest came two days after Egyptian authorities stifled calls for fresh protests against President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi’s rule, deploying security forces and closing many of Cairo’s main thoroughfares.
Scattered protests had erupted on Sept. 20 after corruption allegations by an Egyptian businessman living in self-imposed exile against the president and the military. The allegations were dismissed by el-Sissi as “sheer lies.”
More than 2,000 people were arrested in the days after, according to right lawyers. The country’s general prosecutor said his office had questioned no more than 1,000 people over the protests.
Protesters and police clashed in Hong Kong for a second straight day on Sunday, throwing the semiautonomous Chinese territory’s business and shopping belt into chaos and sparking fears of more ugly scenes leading up to China’s National Day holiday this week.
Riot police repeatedly fired blue liquid – used to identify protesters – from a water cannon truck and multiple volleys of tear gas after demonstrators hurled Molotov cocktails at officers and targeted the city’s government office complex.
It was a repeat of Saturday’s clashes and part of a familiar cycle since pro-democracy protests began in early June. The protests were sparked by a now-shelved extradition bill and have since snowballed into an anti-China movement.
“We know that in the face of the world’s largest totalitarian regime – to quote Captain America, ‘Whatever it takes,'” Justin Leung, a 21-year-old demonstrator who covered his mouth with a black scarf, said of the violent methods deployed by hard-line protesters. “The consensus right now is that everyone’s methods are valid and we all do our part.”
Protesters are planning to march again Tuesday despite a police ban, raising fears of more violent confrontations that would embarrass Chinese President Xi Jinping as his ruling Communist Party marks 70 years since taking power. Posters are calling for Oct. 1 to be marked as “A Day of Grief.”
“So many youngsters feel that they’re going to have no future because of the power of China,” Andy Yeung, 40, said as he pushed his toddler in a stroller. “It’s hopeless for Hong Kong. If we don’t stand up, there will be no hope.”
Hong Kong’s government has already scaled down the city’s National Day celebrations, canceling an annual fireworks display and moving a reception indoors.
Despite security concerns, the government said Sunday that Chief Executive Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s leader, will lead a delegation of over 240 people to Beijing on Monday to participate in National Day festivities.
Sunday’s turmoil started in the early afternoon when police fired tear gas to disperse a large crowd that had amassed in the popular Causeway Bay shopping district. But thousands of people regrouped and defiantly marched along a main thoroughfare toward government offices, crippling traffic.
Protesters, many clad in black with umbrellas and carrying pro-democracy posters and foreign flags, sang songs and chanted “Stand with Hong Kong, fight for freedom.” Some defaced, tore down and burned National Day congratulatory signs, setting off a huge blaze on the street. Others smashed windows and lobbed gasoline bombs into subway exits that had been shuttered.
Police then fired a water cannon and tear gas as the crowd approached the government office complex. Most fled but hundreds returned, hurling objects into the complex.
Members of an elite police squad, commonly known as raptors, then charged out suddenly from behind barricades, taking many protesters by surprise. Several who failed to flee in time were subdued and detained in a scene of chaos.
The raptors, backed by scores of riot police, pursued protesters down roads to nearby areas. Officers continued to fire a water cannon and more tear gas, and the cat-and-mouse clashes lasted late into the night. Streets were left littered with graffiti on walls and debris.
The demonstration was part of global “anti-totalitarianism” rallies to denounce “Chinese tyranny.” Thousands rallied in Taipei, Taiwan’s capital, while more than 1,000 took part in a rally in Sydney.
The protracted unrest, approaching four months long, has battered Hong Kong’s economy, with businesses and tourism plunging.
Chief Executive Lam held her first community dialogue with the public on Thursday in a bid to defuse tensions but failed to persuade protesters, who vowed to press on until their demands are met, including direct elections for the city’s leaders and police accountability.
Earlier Sunday, hundreds of pro-Beijing Hong Kong residents sang the Chinese national anthem and waved red flags at the Victoria Peak hilltop and a waterfront cultural center in a show of support for Chinese rule.
“We want to take this time for the people to express our love for our country, China. We want to show the international community that there is another voice to Hong Kong” apart from the protests, said organizer Innes Tang.
Mobs of Beijing supporters have appeared in malls and on the streets in recent weeks to counter pro-democracy protesters, leading to brawls between the rival camps.
Many people view the extradition bill, which would have sent criminal suspects to mainland
China for trial, as a glaring example of the erosion of Hong Kong’s autonomy when the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
China has denied chipping away at Hong Kong’s freedoms and accused the U.S. and other foreign powers of fomenting the unrest to weaken its dominance.
Health experts say Nigeria is seeing increasing cases of heart disease. Low awareness, lack of adequate medical facilities and expertise are major factors worsening the situation in the country. But a non profit is collaborating with the World Heart Federation to provide proper education and treatment for underprivileged patients.
Participants chat at an awareness and fundraising event to mark World Heart Day in Abuja, the Nigerian capital.
The program is organized by the non-profit, Global Development and Charity Support Foundation in collaboration with the World Heart Federation.
Head of the non profit, Samuel Asomugha says apart from educating locals on the early signs of heart disease, his organization is making funds available to treat patients.
“When you have a healthy heart, then you can lead a healthy life, then a lot of these health and heart related mortalities can be avoided,” he said.
The non-profit targets about 1,000 patients for treatment.
A 2018 WHO country profile reveals cardiovascular diseases is the leading cause of deaths among non-communicable diseases in Nigeria with over 11 percent prevalence.
“Whichever heart disease you want to look at, whether it’s heart failure, whether it’s coronary artery disease, the incidence of patients who are coming forward to hospital is on the rise,” says cardiologist Dauda Balami.
Congenital heart deformities in children are also on the rise.
Nnamdi Azubuike’s one-year-old child was diagnosed with a heart condition in 2015.
“We found out that he was not breathing very well, so we went to the hospital and after the analysis, then a doctor now told us that he’s having a hole in his heart,” said Azubuike.
Heart related conditions often require tertiary level care and sophisticated surgeries but Nigeria lacks medical facilities and the expertise needed.
Paediatrician and cardiologist Tolu Utele, admits the situation is serious.
“It is almost like a death sentence for children that are born with these heart defects, all we do in most places is to manage them until they die and many of them actually end up dying,” said Utele.
As talks around heart issues continue in Nigeria, citizens, nonprofits and many with conditions hope things get better.
The Middle East. Trade tensions. Iran’s nuclear program. Venezuela’s power struggle. Civil wars in Syria and Yemen. Familiar flashpoints such as these got plenty of airtime at the U.N. General Assembly’s big annual gathering this week.
But some leaders used their time on the world stage to highlight international conflicts and disputes that don’t usually command the same global attention.
A look at some of the less-discussed controversies trying to be heard:
Nagorno-Karabakh
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Sept. 24, 2019.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan landed one of the coveted first few speaking slots, and he devoted a bit of his wide-ranging speech to a clash in the Caucasus: a standoff between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
The mountainous, ethnic Armenian area of about 150,000 people is recognized as part of Azerbaijan in U.N. Security Council resolutions dating to the 1990s. But Nagorno-Karabakh and some neighboring districts have been under the control of local ethnic Armenian forces, backed by Armenia, since a six-year separatist war ended in 1994.
Both Azerbaijan and Turkey have closed their borders with Armenia because of the conflict, cutting trade and leaving Armenia with direct land access only to Georgia and Iran.
Russia, the U.S. and France have co-chaired the so-called Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, attempting to broker an end to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
In speeches and rebuttals at the General Assembly, Armenia and Azerbaijan accused one another of misstating history, disrespecting human rights and standing in the way of a settlement.
North Macedonia’s Prime Minister Zoran Zaev addresses the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Sept. 26, 2019, at the United Nations headquarters.
North Macedonia
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ “state of the world” address was largely a grim one, but he pointed to a few matters moving “in promising directions” — among them relations between Greece and the new Republic of North Macedonia.
Greece and what the U.N. cumbersomely used to call the “Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” sparred for nearly three decades over the latter’s name. It was adopted when the nation, which has a current population of about 2.1 million, declared independence from the former Yugoslavia in 1991.
Greece said the use of “Macedonia” implied territorial claims on its own northern province of the same name and its ancient Greek heritage, not least as the birthplace of ancient warrior king Alexander the Great. Athens blocked its Balkan neighbor’s path to NATO and EU membership over the nomenclature clash.
It became “infamous as a difficult and irresolvable problem,” in the words of now-North Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev.
Repeated rounds of U.N.-mediated negotiations proved fruitless until June 2018, when the Skopje government agreed to change the country’s name to North Macedonia. The switch took effect this February.
European Council President Donald Tusk said this month that North Macedonia is now ready to start EU membership talks. It expects to become the 30th NATO member soon.
The deal has been contentious within both countries, though, with critics accusing their governments of giving up too much. Regardless, North Macedonia’s prime minister highlighted it with pride from the world’s premier diplomatic podium.
“We can see nothing but benefits from settling the difference,” Zaev said, calling it “an example for overcoming difficult deadlocks worldwide.”
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis didn’t expand on the deal, saying only that his country supports EU bids by all the western Balkan countries if they respect their obligations to the EU and their neighbors.
FILE – Protesters chant slogans at a rally in Rabat, Morocco, as they accuse the U.N. Secretary-General of “abandoning neutrality, objectivity and impartiality” during a recent visit, March 13, 2016.
Western Sahara
A mostly desert expanse along the northwest coast of Africa, Western Sahara has been a center of friction between Morocco and Algeria for almost half a century.
Morocco annexed the phosphate- and fishing-rich former Spanish colony in 1975, then fought the Algerian-backed Polisario Front independence movement until 1991, when the U.N. brokered a cease-fire and established a peacekeeping mission to monitor the truce and facilitate a referendum on the territory’s future.
The vote has never happened. Morocco has proposed wide-ranging autonomy for Western Sahara, while the Polisario Front insists that Western Sahara’s Sahrawi people — a population the independence movement estimates at 350,000 to 500,000 — have the right to a referendum.
Last year, the U.N. Security Council called for stepping up efforts to reach a solution to the dispute.
A U.N. envoy brought representatives of Morocco, the Polisario Front, Algeria and neighboring Mauritania together last December for the first time in six years, followed by a second meeting in March. But the issue of how to provide for self-determination remains a key sticking point.
The envoy, former German President Horst Kohler, resigned in May for health reasons.
At the General Assembly, Moroccan Prime Minister Saad-Eddine El Othmani said his country’s autonomy proposal “is the solution,” while Algerian Foreign Minister Sabri Boukadoum reiterated hopes for Western Sahara residents “to be able to exercise their legitimate right to self-determination.”
Cyprus’ President Nicos Anastasiades speaks during the United Nations General Assembly at United Nations headquarters, Sept. 26, 2019.
Cyprus
A U.N.-controlled buffer zone that cuts across the city of Nicosia evinces a fraught distinction: Cyprus is the last European country to have a divided capital.
After 45 years, could that finally change? There’s “a glimmer of hope,” Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades told to the assembly.
The eastern Mediterranean island has been split into an internationally recognized Greek Cypriot south and a breakaway Turkish Cypriot north since 1974, when Turkey invaded following a coup by supporters of uniting the island with Greece. Turkey continues to maintain more than 35,000 troops in the northern third of the island, which only Turkey recognizes as an independent state. The U.N. also has a peacekeeping force in Cyprus.
Tensions have ticked up lately, particularly over natural gas exploration in waters in the internationally recognized state’s exclusive economic zone. Turkey is also drilling there, saying it’s defending Turkish Cypriots’ rights to energy reserves.
On-and-off talks about reunification have spanned decades.
Greek Cypriots have rejected Turkish Cypriots’ demands for a permanent Turkish troop presence and veto power in government decisions in a future federated Cyprus. Turkish Cypriots, meanwhile, want parity in federal decision-making, believing they would otherwise be relegated to junior partners to the majority Greek Cypriots.
A U.N. envoy made a shuttle-diplomacy effort in recent weeks in hopes of paving the way for formal talks, and Anastasiades suggested in his General Assembly speech there was some agreement on starting points for potential discussion. But he also complained that Turkey’s drilling and other activities “severely undermine” the prospect of negotiations.
Turkey’s Erdogan, meanwhile, complained about “the uncompromising position” of the Greek Cypriots.
Belize-Guatemala
Guatemala’s President Jimmy Morales addresses the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Sept. 25, 2019, at the United Nations headquarters.
It’s been a big year in a centuries-old argument between Belize and Guatemala.
Guatemala claims more than 4,000 square miles (10,350 square kilometers) of terrain administered by Belize — essentially the southern half of Belize. It’s an area of nature reserves, scattered farming villages and fishing towns, and some Caribbean beach tourism destinations.
The dispute’s roots stretch to the 19th century, when Britain controlled Belize and Spain ruled Guatemala.
Guatemala, which became independent in 1821, argues that it inherited a Spanish claim on the territory. Belize considers Guatemala’s claim unfounded and says the borders were defined by an 1859 agreement between Guatemala and Britain (Belize remained a British colony until 1981).
The land spat has strained diplomatic relations and at times even affected air travel between the two Central American countries.
Belize and Guatemala agreed in 2008 to ask the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, for a binding ruling.
Guatemalans voters gave their assent to the plan in a referendum last year, and Belizeans gave their approval this May.
Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales celebrated the developments in his General Assembly speech.
“This is a milestone for Guatemala, for Central America and for the world,” he said, emphasizing the peaceful process toward resolving the disagreement. “Currently, bilateral relations between Guatemala and Belize are the best they’ve ever been.”
Belizean Foreign Minister Wilfred Elrington told the assembly Saturday that his country also looked forward to resolving “an age-old, atavistic claim that has hindered Belize’s development” and undercut friendship between the countries.
While Belize remains concerned about various activities by Guatemalan troops and citizens, he said, Belizeans “certainly have the most fervent wish to live side by side with the government and people of Guatemala in peace, harmony and close cooperation.”
