Day: December 21, 2019

Hong Kong Protesters Face Off With Police in Mall Protests

Hong Kong riot police swept into several shopping malls on Saturday, chasing off and arresting some anti-government Hong Kong demonstrators who had gathered to press their demands in the peak shopping weekend before Christmas.
 
In a mall in Yuen Long, close to the China border, hundreds of black-clad protesters marked the five-month anniversary of an attack in a train station by an armed mob wearing white T-shirts which beat up bystanders and protesters with pipes and poles.
 
Police have been criticized for not responding quickly enough to calls for help, and for not arresting any alleged culprits at the scene. They later made several arrests and said the assailants had links to organized criminal gangs, or triads.
 
The protesters demanded justice for the attack, shouting “Fight for Freedom” and “Stand With Hong Kong”.
 
“The government didn’t do anything so far after 5 months …  I deserve an answer, an explanation,” said a 30-year-old clerk surnamed Law.
 
“Yuen Long is no longer a safe place … and we all live in white terror when we worry if we will be beaten up when dressed in black.”

 
As dozens of riot police stormed into the mall to chase protesters off, a sushi restaurant had its window smashed and shops were forced to close.
 
Protests in Hong Kong are now in their seventh month, albeit in a relative lull. Residents are angry at what they see as China’s meddling in the city’s freedoms guaranteed under the “one country, two systems” formula when it returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
 
Many are also outraged by perceived police brutality, and are demanding an independent investigation into allegations of excessive force. Other demands include the release of all arrested demonstrators and full democracy.
 
On Friday night, police arrested a man who fired a single shot with a pistol at plain clothes officers in the northern Tai Po district. No one was injured.
 
A search of a nearby flat revealed a cache of weaponry including a semi-automatic rifle and bullets. Steve Li, a senior police officer on the scene, told reporters the police had information that the suspect planned to use the pistol during a protest to “cause chaos and to hurt police officers.”
 
In Tsim Sha Tsui on Saturday, groups of protesters also converged on a mall popular with mainland Chinese luxury shoppers.
 
“We can’t celebrate Christmas when our city is taken over by the police. When you see the police outside the mall, do you feel like shopping for presents?” said Bob, 17, a protester.
 

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DC Volunteer Group Cooks Up Holiday Meals for the Needy

Since 1954, Mother Dear’s Community Center has been providing services for the needy in the Washington metropolitan area. During the holiday season, the center’s volunteers serve up meals-on-wheels, feeding homebound seniors and the homeless.

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Death Toll in India Citizenship Law Protests Climbs to 17, Hundreds Detained

Three people died during clashes between demonstrators and police in northern India on Saturday, raising the nationwide death toll in protests against a new citizenship law to 17.

O.P. Singh, the chief of police in Uttar Pradesh state, said the latest deaths have increased the death toll in the state to nine. “The number of fatalities may increase,” Singh said.

He did not give further details on the latest deaths.

Police said that over 600 people in the state have been taken into custody since Friday as part of “preventive action.”

Protesters are angered by a new law that allows Hindus, Christians and other religious minorities who are in India illegally to become citizens if they can show they were persecuted because of their religion in Muslim-majority Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The law does not apply to Muslims.

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Space Force Will Start Small But Let Trump Claim a Big Win

President Donald Trump on Friday celebrated the launch of Space Force, the first new military service in more than 70 years.

In signing the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act that includes Space Force, Trump claimed a victory for one of his top national security priorities just two days after being impeached by the House.

It is part of a $1.4 trillion government spending package — including the Pentagon’s budget — that provides a steady stream of financing for Trump’s U.S.-Mexico border fence and reverses unpopular and unworkable automatic spending cuts to defense and domestic programs.

“Space is the world’s new war-fighting domain,” Trump said Friday during a signing ceremony at Joint Base Andrews just outside Washington. “Among grave threats to our national security, American superiority in space is absolutely vital. And we’re leading, but we’re not leading by enough, and very shortly we’ll be leading by a lot.”

Later Friday, as he flew to his Florida resort aboard Air Force One, Trump signed legislation that will keep the entire government funded through Sept. 30.

Space Force has been a reliable applause line at Trump’s political rallies, but for the military it’s seen more soberly as an affirmation of the need to more effectively organize for the defense of U.S. interests in space — especially satellites used for navigation and communication. Space Force is not designed or intended to put combat troops in space.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper told reporters Friday, “Our reliance on space-based capabilities has grown dramatically, and today outer space has evolved into a warfighting domain of its own.” Maintaining dominance in space, he said, will now be Space Force’s mission.

Space has become increasingly important to the U.S. economy and to everyday life. The Global Positioning System, for example, provides navigation services to the military as well as civilians. Its constellation of about two dozen orbiting satellites is operated by the 50th Space Wing from an operations center at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado.

In a report last February, the Pentagon asserted that China and Russia have embarked on major efforts to develop technologies that could allow them to disrupt or destroy American and allied satellites in a crisis or conflict.

“The United States faces serious and growing challenges to its freedom to operate in space,” the report said.

When he publicly directed the Pentagon in June 2018 to begin working toward a Space Force, Trump spoke of the military space mission as part of a broader vision of achieving American dominance in space.

Trump got his Space Force, which many Democrats opposed. But it is not in the “separate but equal” design he wanted.

Instead of being its own military department, like the Navy, Army and Air Force, the Space Force will be administered by the Secretary of the Air Force. The law requires that the four-star general who will lead Space Force, with the title of Chief of Space Operations, will be a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but not in Space Force’s first year. Trump said its leader will be Air Force Gen. John W. Raymond, the commander of U.S. Space Command.

Space Force is the first new military service since the Air Force was spun off from the Army in 1947. Space Force will be the provider of forces to U.S. Space Command, a separate organization established earlier this year as the overseer of the military’s space operations.

The division of responsibilities and assets between Space Force and Space Command has not been fully worked out.

Space Force will be tiny, compared to its sister services. It will initially have about 200 people and a first-year budget of $40 million. The military’s largest service, the Army, has about 480,000 active-duty soldiers and a budget of about $181 billion. The Pentagon spends about $14 billion a year on space operations, most of which is in the Air Force budget.

Kaitlyn Johnson, a space policy expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, sees the creation of Space Force as an important move but doubts it will prove as momentous as Trump administration officials suggest. Vice President Mike Pence has touted Space Force as “the next great chapter in the history of our armed forces.” And Esper earlier this week called this an “epic moment” in recent American military history.

Johnson says Democrats’ opposition to making Space Force a separate branch of the military means it could be curtailed or even dissolved if a Democrat wins the White House next November.

“I think that’s a legitimate concern” for Space Force advocates, she said. “Just because it’s written into law doesn’t mean it can’t be unwritten,” she said, adding, “Because of the politics that have started to surround the Space Force, I worry that that could damage its impact before it even has time to sort itself out” within the wider military bureaucracy.

Some in Congress had been advocating for a Space Force before Trump entered the White House, but his push for legislation gave the proposal greater momentum.

Trump’s first defense secretary, Jim Mattis, was initially cool to the idea, arguing against adding new layers of potentially expensive bureaucracy. Mattis’ successor, Esper, has been supportive of Space Force. In September he said it will “allow us to develop a cadre of warriors who are appropriately organized, trained and equipped to deter aggression and, if necessary, to fight and win in space.” He added, “The next big fight may very well start in space, and the United States military must be ready.”

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Syria Says Possible Drone Attacks Hit 3 Oil, Gas Facilities

Near-simultaneous attacks believed to have been carried out by drones hit three government-run oil and gas installations in central Syria, state TV and the Oil Ministry said Saturday.

No one claimed responsibility for the attacks, which targeted the Homs oil refinery — one of only two in the country — as well as two natural gas facilities in different parts of Homs province.

Syria has suffered fuel shortages since earlier this year amid Western sanctions blocking imports, and because most of the country’s oil fields are controlled by Kurdish-led fighters in the country’s east.

State TV said it believes the attacks were carried out by drones and happened at the same time. It said a fire at the Homs oil refinery was soon put under control. The report said the Rayan gas facility and a third installation, also in Homs province, were hit.

Syria’s Oil Ministry said the attacks damaged some “production units” in the facilities. It said fires were being fought, and that repairs were already underway in some places.

The city of Homs and its suburbs have been fully under Syrian government control since 2017. However, some parts of the province near the border with Jordan remain in rebel hands.

In June, sabotage attacks damaged five underwater pipelines off the Mediterranean coastal town of Banias in Tartous province.

Syria’s oil imports dropped in October 2018 and shortages began in early 2019, largely the result of tighter Western sanctions on Syria and renewed U.S. sanctions on key Syrian ally Iran.

Before the Syrian conflict erupted in 2011, the country exported around half of the 350,000 barrels of oil it produced per day. Now its production is down to around 24,000 barrels a day, covering only a fraction of domestic needs.

In September, a drone and missile attack in Saudi Arabia hit the world’s largest crude oil processing plant, dramatically cutting into global oil supplies. Saudi Arabia says “Iranian weaponry” was used. Iran denies its weapons were involved.

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