Zimbabweans are heading into the Christmas holiday facing one of the worst economies in years. Frequent power cuts, long fuel lines, a months-long doctors strike, soaring inflation, and cash shortages are making it hard to be festive. Columbus Mavhunga reports from the capital Harare.
After days of protests across Iran last month, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appeared impatient. Gathering his top security and government officials together, he issued an order: Do whatever it takes to stop them.
That order, confirmed by three sources close to the supreme leader’s inner circle and a fourth official, set in motion the bloodiest crackdown on protesters since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
About 1,500 people were killed during less than two weeks of unrest that started on Nov. 15. The toll, provided to Reuters by three Iranian Interior Ministry officials, included at least 17 teenagers and about 400 women as well as some members of the security forces and police.
The toll of 1,500 is significantly higher than figures from international human rights groups and the United States. A Dec. 16 report by Amnesty International said the death toll was at least 304. The U.S. State Department, in a statement to Reuters, said it estimates that many hundreds of Iranians were killed, and has seen reports that number could be over 1,000.
The figures provided to Reuters, said two of the Iranian officials who provided them, are based on information gathered from security forces, morgues, hospitals and coroner’s offices.
The government spokesman’s office declined to comment on whether the orders came from Khamenei and on the Nov. 17 meeting. Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
What began as scattered protests over a surprise increase in gasoline prices quickly spread into one of the biggest challenges to Iran’s clerical rulers since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
By Nov. 17, the second day, the unrest had reached the capital Tehran, with people calling for an end to the Islamic Republic and the downfall of its leaders. Protesters burned pictures of Khamenei and called for the return of Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the toppled Shah of Iran, according to videos posted on social media and eye witnesses.
That evening at his official residence in a fortified compound in central Tehran, Khamenei met with senior officials, including security aides, President Hassan Rouhani and members of his cabinet.
At the meeting, described to Reuters by the three sources close to his inner circle, the 80-year-old leader, who has final say over all state matters in the country, raised his voice and expressed criticism of the handling of the unrest. He was also angered by the burning of his image and the destruction of a statue of the republic’s late founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
“The Islamic Republic is in danger. Do whatever it takes to end it. You have my order,” the supreme leader told the group, one of the sources said.
Khamenei said he would hold the assembled officials responsible for the consequences of the protests if they didn’t immediately stop them. Those who attended the meeting agreed the protesters aimed to bring down the regime.
“The enemies wanted to topple the Islamic Republic and immediate reaction was needed,” one of the sources said.
The fourth official, who was briefed on the Nov. 17 meeting, added that Khamenei made clear the demonstrations required a forceful response.
“Our Imam,” said the official, referring to Khamenei, “only answers to God. He cares about people and the Revolution. He was very firm and said those rioters should be crushed.”
Tehran’s clerical rulers have blamed “thugs” linked to the regime’s opponents in exile and the country’s main foreign foes, namely the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia, for stirring up unrest. Khamenei has described the unrest as the work of a “very dangerous conspiracy.”
A Dec. 3 report on Iran’s state television confirmed that security forces had fatally shot citizens, saying “some rioters were killed in clashes.” Iran has given no official death toll and has rejected figures as “speculative.”
“The aim of our enemies was to endanger the existence of the Islamic Republic by igniting riots in Iran,” said the commander-in-chief of the elite Revolutionary Guards Corps, Hossein Salami, last month, according to Iranian media.
The Revolutionary Guards declined to comment for this report.
Iran’s interior minister said on Nov. 27 more than 140 government sites had been set on fire along with hundreds of banks and dozens of petrol stations, while 50 bases used by security forces were also attacked, according to remarks reported by Iran’s state news agency IRNA. The minister said up to 200,000 people took part in the unrest nationwide.
‘Smell of gunfire and smoke’
For decades, Islamic Iran has tried to expand its influence across the Middle East, from Syria to Iraq and Lebanon, by investing Tehran’s political and economic capital and backing militias. But now it faces pressure at home and abroad.
In recent months, from the streets of Baghdad to Beirut, protesters have been voicing anger at Tehran, burning its flag and chanting anti-Iranian regime slogans. At home, the daily struggle to make ends meet has worsened since the United States reimposed sanctions after withdrawing last year from the nuclear deal that Iran negotiated with world powers in 2015.
The protests erupted after a Nov. 15 announcement on state media that gas prices would rise by as much as 200% and the revenue would be used to help needy families.
Within hours, hundreds of people poured into the streets in places including the northeastern city of Mashhad, the southeastern province of Kerman and the southwestern province of Khuzestan bordering Iraq, according to state media. That night, a resident of the city Ahvaz in Khuzestan described the scene by telephone to Reuters.
“Riot police are out in force and blocking main streets,” the source said. “I heard shooting.” Videos later emerged on social media and state television showing footage of clashes in Ahvaz and elsewhere between citizens and security forces.
The protests reached more than 100 cities and towns and turned political. Young and working-class demonstrators demanded clerical leaders step down. In many cities, a similar chant rang out: “They live like kings, people get poorer,” according to videos on social media and witnesses.
By Nov. 18 in Tehran, riot police appeared to be randomly shooting at protesters in the street “with the smell of gunfire and smoke everywhere,” said a female Tehran resident reached by telephone. People were falling down and shouting, she added, while others sought refuge in houses and shops.
The mother of a 16-year-old boy described holding his body, drenched in blood, after he was shot during protests in a western Iranian town on Nov. 19. Speaking on condition of anonymity, she described the scene in a telephone interview.
“I heard people saying: ‘He is shot, he is shot,’” said the mother. “I ran toward the crowd and saw my son, but half of his head was shot off.” She said she urged her son, whose first name was Amirhossein, not to join the protests, but he didn’t listen.
Iranian authorities deployed lethal force at a far quicker pace from the start than in other protests in recent years, according to activists and details revealed by authorities. In 2009, when millions protested against the disputed re-election of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, an estimated 72 people were killed. And when Iran faced waves of protests over economic hardships in 2017 and 2018, the death toll was about 20 people, officials said.
Khamenei, who has ruled Iran for three decades, turned to his elite forces to put down the recent unrest — the Revolutionary Guards and its affiliated Basij religious militia.
A senior member of the Revolutionary Guards in western Kermanshah province said the provincial governor handed down instructions at a late-night emergency meeting at his office on Nov. 18.
“We had orders from top officials in Tehran to end the protests, the Guards member said, recounting the governor’s talk. “No more mercy. They are aiming to topple the Islamic Republic. But we will eradicate them.” The governor’s office declined to comment.
As security forces fanned out across the country, security advisors briefed Khamenei on the scale of the unrest, according to the three sources familiar with the talks at his compound.
The interior minister presented the number of casualties and arrests. The intelligence minister and head of the Revolutionary Guards focused on the role of opposition groups. When asked about the interior and intelligence minister’s role in the meeting, the government spokesman’s office declined to comment.
Khamenei, the three sources said, was especially concerned with anger in small working-class towns, whose lower-income voters have been a pillar of support for the Islamic Republic. Their votes will count in February parliamentary elections, a litmus test of the clerical rulers’ popularity since U.S. President Donald Trump exited Iran’s nuclear deal — a step that has led to an 80% collapse in Iran’s oil exports since last year.
Squeezed by sanctions, Khamenei has few resources to tackle high inflation and unemployment. According to official figures, the unemployment rate is around 12.5% overall. But it is about double that for Iran’s millions of young people, who accuse the establishment of economic mismanagement and corruption. Khamenei and other officials have called on the judiciary to step up its fight against corruption.
‘Blood on the streets’
Officials in four provinces said the message was clear — failure to stamp out the unrest would encourage people to protest in the future.
A local official in Karaj, a working-class city near the capital, said there were orders to use whatever force was necessary to end the protests immediately. “Orders came from Tehran,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Push them back to their homes, even by shooting them.” Local government officials declined to comment.
Residents of Karaj said they came under fire from rooftops as Revolutionary Guards and police on motorcycles brandished machine guns. “There was blood everywhere. Blood on the streets,” said one resident by telephone. Reuters could not independently verify that account.
In Mahshahr county, in the strategically important Khuzestan province in southwest Iran, Revolutionary Guards in armored vehicles and tanks sought to contain the demonstrations. State TV said security forces opened fire on “rioters” hiding in the marshes. Rights groups said they believe Mahshahr had one of the highest protest death tolls in Iran, based on what they heard from locals.
“The next day when we went there, the area was full of bodies of protesters, mainly young people. The Guards did not let us take the bodies,” the local official said, estimating that “dozens” were killed.
The U.S. State Department has said it has received videos of the Revolutionary Guards opening fire without warning on protesters in Mahshahr. And that when protesters fled to nearby marshlands, the Guards pursued them and surrounded them with machine guns mounted on trucks, spraying the protesters with bullets and killing at least 100 Iranians.
Iran’s authorities dispute the U.S. account. Iranian officials have said security forces in Mahshahr confronted “rioters” who they described as a security threat to petrochemical complexes and to a key energy route that, if blocked, would have created a crisis in the country.
A security official told Reuters that the reports about Mahshahr are “exaggerated and not true” and that security forces were defending “people and the country’s energy facilities in the city from sabotage by enemies and rioters.”
In Isfahan, an ancient city of two million people in central Iran, the government’s vow to help low-income families with money raised from higher gas prices failed to reassure people like Behzad Ebrahimi. He said his 21-year-old nephew, Arshad Ebrahimi, was fatally shot during the crackdown.
“Initially they refused to give us the body and wanted us to bury him with others killed in the protests,” Ebrahimi said. “Eventually we buried him ourselves, but under the heavy presence of security forces.” Rights activists confirmed the events. Reuters was unable to get comment from the government or the local governor on the specifics of the account.
U.S. Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell says Republicans have not ruled out calling witnesses in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.
“We haven’t ruled out witnesses,” McConnell told “Fox & Friends.” on Monday. “We’ve said, ‘Let’s handle this case just like we did with President Clinton.’ Fair is fair.”
Last week, the top Republican lawmaker dismissed calls by Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer to hear from four officials during a Senate impeachment trial, including former National Security Adviser John Bolton and Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney. The officials had refused to testify during the House impeachment inquiry of the president.
On a near straight party line vote, the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives approved two articles of impeachment against Trump last Wednesday, making him only the third U.S. president to be impeached in the country’s 243-year history. He is accused of abusing the power of the presidency to benefit himself politically and then obstructing congressional efforts to investigate his actions.
The allegations stem from a July call with Ukraine’s president in which Trump asks for an investigation into one of his chief political rivals.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said she will not send the articles of impeachment to the Senate or choose impeachment prosecutors until the Senate agrees on rules governing the process.
The Senate is not authorized to begin a trial until it receives the articles from the House.
Trump lashed out at Pelosi Monday, tweeting that she “gives us the most unfair trial in the history of the U.S. Congress, and now she is crying for fairness in the Senate, and breaking all rules while doing so. She lost Congress once, she will do it again!
Trump has insisted he did nothing wrong in his push to get Ukraine to investigate one of his chief 2020 Democratic challengers, former Vice President Joe Biden and, his son Hunter Biden’s lucrative work for a Ukrainian natural gas company. Trump had also called for a probe into a debunked theory that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election.
Trump made the appeal for the Biden investigations at a time when he was temporarily withholding $391 million in military aid Kyiv wanted to help fight pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.
The U.S. president eventually released the money in September without Zelenskiy launching the Biden investigations, proof, Republicans have said, that Trump had not engaged in a reciprocal quid pro quo deal, the military aid in exchange for the Biden probe.
Trump has on countless occasions described his late July call with Zelenskiy as “perfect,” when he asked him to “do us a favor,” to investigate the Bidens and Ukraine’s purported role in the 2016 election. As the impeachment controversy mounted, Trump has subsequently claimed the “us” in his request to Zelenskiy referred not to him personally but to the United States.
Aerospace giant Boeing’s CEO is resigning, effective immediately Monday, as the company continues to grapple with decreased confidence in its 737 Max jet.
Dennis Muilenburg is stepping down, following an announcement last week that Boeing would halt production of the 737 Max. The jet was grounded worldwide in March after a second 737 Max crash, killing a combined total of 346 people.
“The Board of Directors decided that a change in leadership was necessary to restore confidence in the Company moving forward as it works to repair relationships with regulators, customers, and all other stakeholders,” the company said in a statement.
Boeing’s current board chairman, David Calhoun, will officially assume the post on January 13th.
An Ethiopia Airlines 737 Max crashed just after takeoff in March, killing all 157 people on board. Five months earlier, the same type of plane flown by the Indonesian airline Lion Air crashed shortly after takeoff, killing 189 people.
Investigators have focused on the MCAS system in the planes, a new automated flight system that was not included in previous versions of the 737. Investigators believe a faulty sensor in the MCAS system pushed the nose of each plane down and made it impossible for the pilots to regain control.
Ecuador declared a state of emergency Sunday after a barge carrying nearly 2,300 liters of diesel fuel sank at the Galapagos Islands.
A crane collapsed while loading fuel onto the ship at a port on San Cristobal, the easternmost island of the Galapagos chain. A heavy container of fuel fell to the deck, causing the barge to go down while the crew jumped overboard for their lives.
Soldiers and environmentalists immediately deployed barriers and absorbent cloths to stop the spilled fuel from spreading. Experts will assess the damage.
The Galapagos, which are part of Ecuador, is a United Nations World Heritage Site and is one of the globe’s most fragile ecosystems.
Many of the plant and animal species who live on the islands are found nowhere else in the world.
The island chain is renowned for helping Charles Darwin develop his theory of evolution in the mid-19th century.
Israel says it will allow Christians from Hamas-ruled Gaza to visit the West Bank and the holy city of Bethlehem and Gaza during Christmas.
“Entry permits for Jerusalem and for the West Bank will be issued in accordance with security assessments and without regard to age,” the Israeli military liaison to the Palestinians announced Sunday.
It had been unclear how many Christians from Gaza, if any, would be permitted to enter Israel during the holiday.
Gaza’s Christian community is tiny, about 1,000 among a population of 2 million. Most are Greek Orthodox.
Israel considers Hamas a terrorist group and has fought two wars against Gaza in the last 10 years.
Hamas militants continue to fire rockets into Israel.
A team of Mexican entrepreneurs were the winners of the 2019 Hult Prize — a $1 million award presented each year to aspiring young visionaries from around the world who are creating businesses with a positive social impact.
This year’s contest focused on global youth unemployment and attracted more than 250,000 participants from around the world.
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton, who’s been a major supporter of the Hult Prize since its inception in 2009, announced the winners.
“These young people are our best hope for the future,” Clinton said. “Look at them! They are from all over the world. They are happy to be together. They think what they have in common is more important then what divides them.”
Rutopia
Rutopia, the winner, connects tourists with indigenous communities in rural areas of Mexico.
“It feels great! We are very excited and we cannot wait to come back to Mexico and share these with all the other people in Rutopia,” said Emiliano Iturriaga, who accepted the award along with three of his team members.
He also said it was a win for all the people they work with in the local communities.
Iturriaga describes Rutopia as an engine that empowers indigenous youth to design and sell trips online, while making it easy for travelers to find authentic cultural experiences.
“We’re turning unemployed youth into successful touristic entrepreneurs in their own villages,” he said.
The company is now collaborating with Airbnb to create eco-friendly, immersive travel experiences.
Business as a force for good
Ahmad Ashkar founded the Hult Prize Foundation in 2009, to inspire students on university campuses around the world to think differently about business, he said.
“I was an investment banker, the child of refugees, who felt unfulfilled with their own life and my contribution to society,” he said. “So I felt young people had to choose: be good or be cold-hearted investment bankers. So I created The Hult Prize as a platform to equip them, arm them, and then deploy capital to these young people and their ideas; capital that can help them change the world.”
A social entrepreneur himself, Ashkar feels he’s doing his part toward that goal. He’s the founder of Falafel Inc., a Palestinian-inspired small-food business in Washington, D.C., with a cause.
“With every dollar you spend in our restaurant, we help feed, employ and empower refugees,” Ashkar said. “I’m proud to say we fed more than a quarter-million refugees since launching Falafel Inc. around the world.”
Diego’s story
Diego Sandoval first heard about the Hult Prize when he was a sophomore in high school. He then became involved with the program during his sophomore year of university at NYU Abu Dhabi, bringing the Hult Prize competition to his university campus.
“That led to a series of internships with the Hult Prize accelerator program, where the best 50 teams get together over six weeks to compete and build their businesses,” he said.
“The accelerator program brings in 200 students from around the world from over 30 countries,” Sandoval said. “And I had the privilege of sitting down with every participant, every competitor, to study the social networks behind their business growth. And so as part of the Social Research branch of network science, I was able to investigate that social capital that we have embedded in the Hult Prize ecosystem.”
The experience gave him the opportunity to understand the message of what the Hult Prize stands for he said. “It really aims to inspire students to change the trajectory of their careers from a traditional, conventional path to a more entrepreneurial and more passion-driven, mission-driven career.”
Winners circle
Previous Hult Prize winners have included people like Mohammed Ashour, co-founder and CEO of the Aspire Food Group, which harvests crickets as a source of protein to feed the world.
And a winning start-up team from India called NanoHealth, devoted to bringing health care to India’s urban slums.
“We have companies in agriculture, in fishing, in youth unemployment, from Palestine to Zimbabwe,” Ashkar, of the Hult Foundation, said. “We’ve got over 25,000 students who organize programs across a hundred countries and 2,500 staff and volunteers.
“It’s just been a humbling experience to build this movement,” he said.
Hult Prize 2020
The theme for the 2020 Hult Prize is the issue of climate change.
For would-be contestants, Rutopia’s Iturriaga offered advice: “The important thing is that you really care about the problem. You don’t build a business and then make the impact, you first see what’s your passion, what do you want to solve in the world, and then you build a business around it.”
Tina Trinh contributed to this report from New York City.
Croatia’s conservative president trailed her leftist rival in Sunday’s election, but garnered enough votes to force a runoff early next year.
With nearly 98% of the votes counted, former prime minister and leader of the Social Democrats Zoran Milanovic was leading with nearly 30% of the vote, followed by President Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic with about 27%.
Milanovic and Kitarovic will face each other on January 5.
Croatia’s presidency is largely ceremonial but retaining the presidency is important to Kitarovic’s ruling Croatian Democratic Union party because the country is set to take over the European Union’s rotating presidency in February.
In that capacity, the Croatian leader will oversee Britain’s exit from the bloc and the post-Brexit trade talks that will determine the union’s future.
Congress is in recess after the House of Representatives voted to approve two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, stemming from a phone call in July with Ukraine’s president in which Trump urged an investigation of a political rival. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democratic leaders in the House must now decide when or whether to send the articles to the Republican-controlled Senate for trial. But some top senators have already said they do not intend to act as impartial jurors. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more.
Moviegoers in the U.S. and much of the world can now see “Star Wars, Episode 9: The Rise of Skywalker.” The final installment of the “Skywalker Saga” ends a story that spawned the most successful movie franchise of all time, with more than $9 billion in global box office receipts – and counting. The film’s release is bittersweet for those who look back and see “Star Wars” woven throughout their lives. Among them is VOA’s Midwest Correspondent, Kane Farabaugh
Voters in Croatia on Sunday cast ballots in a tight presidential election, with the ruling conservatives seeking to keep their grip on power days before the country take over the European Union’s presidency for the first time.
Some 3.8 million voters in the European Union’s newest member state can pick among 11 candidates, but only three are considered to be the front runners while the others are lagging far behind.
Conservative incumbent Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic is running for a second term, challenged by leftist former Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic and right-wing singer Miroslav Skoro.
Though the post is largely ceremonial in Croatia — the president formally commands the army and represents the country abroad — keeping the presidency is important for the ruling Croatian Democratic Union party as its government is set to assume the EU rotating chairmanship on Jan. 1 that that will include overseeing Brexit and the start of post-Brexit talks.
Analysts have predicted that a runoff vote will be held in two weeks as none of the candidates is expected to win an outright majority and they are all polling close to one another.
Grabar Kitarovic had started off stronger than other candidates but her position has weakened after the she made a series of gaffes during the campaign.
She is still believed to have a slight lead going into the election, followed closely by Milanovic. Skoro is trailing third, chipping away right-wing votes from Grabar Kitarovic.
Analysts believe that Grabar Kitarovic and Milanovic — who represent two main political options — will face each other in the Jan. 5 runoff, but they haven’t completely ruled out an upset by Skoro.
Though it has recovered since the 1991-95 war that followed the breakup of former Yugoslavia, Croatia still has one of the poorest economies in the EU and corruption is believed to be widespread.
Critics have blasted the government for setting the election three days before Christmas when many people travel abroad.
The Adriatic nation of 4.2 million people is best known for its stunning Adriatic Sea coast that includes over 1,000 islands and picturesque coastal towns such as the medieval walled city of Dubrovnik.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un held a meeting of top military officials to discuss boosting the country’s military capability, state news agency reported on Sunday amid heightened concern the North may be about to return to confrontation with Washington.
Kim presided over an enlarged meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party’s Central Military Commission, KCNA news agency said, to discuss steps “to bolster up the overall armed forces of the country … militarily and politically.”
“Also discussed were important issues for decisive improvement of the overall national defense and core matters for the sustained and accelerated development of military capability for self-defense,” KCNA said.
It did not give details on when the meeting was held nor what was decided.
The commission is North Korea’s top military decision-making body. Kim rules the country as its supreme military commander and is the chairman of the commission.
North Korea has set a year-end deadline for the United States to change what it says is a policy of hostility amid a stalemate in efforts to make progress on their pledge to end the North’s nuclear program and establish lasting peace.
Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump have met three times since June 2018, but there has been no substantive progress in dialogue while the North demanded crushing international sanctions be lifted first.
On Saturday, the state media said the United States would “pay dearly” for taking issue with the North’s human rights record and said Washington’s “malicious words” would only aggravate tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
North Korea has also repeatedly called for the United States to drop its “hostile policy” and warned about its “Christmas gift” as the end-year deadline it set for Washington to change its position looms.
Some experts say the reclusive state may be preparing for an intercontinental ballistic missile test that could put it back on a path of confrontation with the United States.
The U.S. envoy for North Korea, Stephen Biegun, has visited South Korea and China in the past week, issuing a public and direct call to North Korea to return to the negotiating table, but there has been no response.
At the end of a difficult year, Queen Elizabeth has posed for photographs with her son Prince Charles, grandson Prince William and great-grandson Prince George in an apparent message about the continuity of the British royal family.
Buckingham Palace released photographs on Saturday of the Queen and the three immediate members of the line of succession as they prepared traditional Christmas puddings.
Prince George, 6, is the focus of attention for his older relatives as he stirs pudding mixture in a bowl.
The palace said the four generations of royals represented a cross-section of people helped by a charity for serving and former members of the armed forces – the Royal British Legion – which the queen has supported since 1952.
The family scene struck a happy note for Queen Elizabeth, 93, after a difficult year.
Over the past 12 months, her husband Prince Philip got a police warning for his involvement in a car crash, grandsons Princes William and Harry publicly fell out and her second son Prince Andrew became more entangled in the furor over his links to disgraced U.S. financier Jeffrey Epstein.
On Friday, 98-year-old Philip was taken to hospital for treatment of an existing condition, Buckingham Palace said.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
U.S. President Donald Trump signed a directive on Tuesday to outline the establishment of the Space Force as the newest branch of the military.Space Policy Directive 4, which VOA obtained a copy of ahead of the signing, says the force will adapt U.S.
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.”