HONG KONG: Hong Kong’s metro rail system will shut early again on Thursday to allow time to repair damaged facilities, its operator said as the city braced for more anti-government demonstrations after a string of violent protests in the Asian financial hub.
MTR Corp, whose network carries about 5 million passengers a day, said a line servicing a densely populated area in the city’s New Territories would not operate and all lines would close by 9p.m., more than three hours earlier than normal.
The usually efficient service was forced to shut down after arson attacks by anti-government protesters on Friday night, paralyzing transport across the Chinese-ruled city. It has operated only partially since.
The closures also come ahead of more protests on Thursday and others planned for the rest of the week.
The unrest started more than four months ago in what began as opposition to a now-withdrawn extradition bill but has since widened into a pro-democracy movement amid fears that China is encroaching on Hong Kong’s freedoms.
Those freedoms were guaranteed under a “one country, two systems” formula when Britain returned Hong Kong to China in 1997, a formula that allows wide-ranging autonomy not enjoyed on the mainland.
However, the unrest has pushed the special administrative region into its worst political crisis since 1997 and poses the biggest popular challenge to Chinese President Xi Jinping since he came to power in 2012.
Demonstrations planned for Thursday include some in support of Taiwan on its National Day and rallies against perceived police brutality, with protesters expected to wear eye patches to show solidarity with a young protester who was injured in clashes with police.
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said in a National Day speech Hong Kong was “on the edge of disorder” because of the failure of “one country, two systems,” and she vowed to defend Taiwan’s sovereignty as Beijing ramps up pressure on the self-ruled island.
Beijing regards Taiwan as a renegade province and there had been suggestions in China after Hong Kong’s 1997 return that Taiwan could be brought back into the fold under a similar formula.
Hong Kong is still recovering from a long weekend of violent clashes between police and tens of thousands of protesters.
Scores of shops remain boarded up after being trashed or torched, anti-government graffiti is scrawled over bus stops and buildings, and some streets are still strewn with broken glass and twisted metal debris.
Protest violence has often targeted the MTR mass transit system, which has been accused of closing stations at the government’s behest to stop demonstrators gathering.
The city’s economy has been hammered by the protests as it faces its first recession in a decade. The tourism and retail sectors have been hit particularly hard as visitors stay away.
Shopping malls and businesses have been forced to shut repeatedly, while a slew of events and conferences have moved to other locations, including Singapore.
The political sensitivities of the protests have also ensnared international businesses, with the US National Basketball Association the latest example after Chinese organizers on Wednesday canceled a fan event over a tweet by a team official supporting the Hong Kong protests.
China has warned foreign governments to stay out of the protests which they deem as an internal affair and have accused some, including Britain and the United States, of fanning anti-China sentiment.
More Hong Kong protests planned as metro limps back to business
More Hong Kong protests planned as metro limps back to business
- MTR Corp, whose network carries about 5 million passengers a day, said all lines would close more than three hours earlier than normal
- Closures come ahead of more protests on Thursday and others planned for the rest of the week
India minister pledges to evict ‘illegal’ immigrants from capital
NEW DELHI: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s closest political ally has pledged to rid the capital of “illegal’ immigrants if his party wins looming elections, in a forceful appeal to his party’s Hindu constituency.
Interior minister Amit Shah said every unlawful migrant from neighboring Bangladesh would be expelled from New Delhi “within two years” if his party succeeded in next month’s provincial polls.
“The current state government is giving space to illegal Bangladeshis and Rohingyas,” Shah told an audience of several thousand at Sunday’s rally.
“Change the government and we will rid Delhi of all illegals.”
India shares a porous border stretching thousands of kilometers with Muslim-majority Bangladesh, and illegal migration from its eastern neighbor has been a hot-button political issue for decades.
There are no reliable estimates of the number of Bangladeshis living illegally in Delhi, a city to which millions have flocked in search of employment from elsewhere in India over recent decades.
Critics of Modi and Shah’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) accuse the party of using the issue as a dog whistle against Muslims to galvanize its Hindu-nationalist support base during elections.
Delhi, a sprawling megacity home to more than 30 million people, has been governed for most of the past decade by charismatic chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
Kejriwal rode to power as an anti-corruption crusader a decade ago and his profile has bestowed upon him the mantle of one of the chief rivals to Modi and Shah’s party.
His popularity has been burnished by extensive water and electricity subsidies for the capital’s millions of poorer residents.
But he spent several months behind bars last year on accusations his party took kickbacks in exchange for liquor licenses, along with several fellow party leaders.
Kejriwal denies wrongdoing and characterised the charges as a political witch-hunt by Modi’s government, and despite resigning as chief minister last year vowed to return to the office if his party won re-election.
The BJP has led a spirited campaign in its efforts to dislodge Kejriwal’s party ahead of the February 5 vote.
Modi is expected to make a pilgrimage to the ongoing Kumbh Mela, the biggest festival on the Hindu calendar, to bathe in the sacred Ganges river on the day of the Delhi assembly vote.
Results of the election will be published on February 8.
Ukraine’s Zelensky urges action against ‘evil’ on Auschwitz anniversary
- The Kremlin launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022
- Zelensky warned that the memory of the Holocaust is growing weaker
KYIV : Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday said the world must unite against evil, in comments marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz Nazi death.
The Kremlin launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 claiming that the government in Kyiv contained neo-Nazi elements and saying the country must be demilitarized.
Zelensky warned that the memory of the Holocaust is growing weaker and said some countries are still trying to destroy entire nations.
“We must overcome the hatred that gives rise to abuse and murder. We must prevent forgetfulness,” he said, according to a statement from the presidency.
“And it is everyone’s mission to do everything possible to prevent evil from winning,” he added.
The foreign ministry said in a statement that Russia’s invasion “brought back to Ukrainian soil horrors that Europe has not seen since World War II.”
“Jewish communities of Ukraine are also suffering from constant Russian terror, in particular in the cities of Dnipro and Odesa, which have a population of over a million, and other localities,” it added.
The Holocaust decimated the Jewish community in Ukraine, which during World War II was part of the Soviet Union.
It was not the first massacre of Jewish people in Ukraine’s history, which had seen previous anti-Semitic pogroms.
Russia drone barrage sparks fire in western Ukraine
KYIV: A barrage of more than 100 Russian drones sparked a fire at an industrial facility in western Ukraine and damaged residential buildings in other regions, Ukrainian officials said Monday.
The Ukrainian airforce said Moscow had dispatched 104 drones, including attack drones, and that 57 of the unmanned aerial vehicles had been shot down.
Emergency services in the western Ivano-Frankivsk region said the strikes had resulted in two fires at an industrial facility, and that firefighters were working to extinguish one.
They did not specify the type of facility hit but said there were no casualties.
The airforce said there was damage in four Ukrainian regions including Kyiv, where AFP journalists heard drones flying overhead and air defense systems countering the attack.
’Deaths’ during mass prison break in DR Congo’s Goma: security source
The prison, which holds around 3,000 inmates, was “totally torched” following a huge jailbreak that resulted in “deaths,” the security source said, without giving further details.
Fleeing prisoners could be seen in the surrounding streets, according to an AFP journalist.
Bird feathers and bloodstains found in Jeju jet engines: South Korea report
- The Boeing 737-800 was flying from Thailand to Muan in South Korea on Dec. 29 when it crash landed
- It was the worst aviation disaster on South Korean soil, killing 179 of the 181 passengers and crew
SEOUL: Bird feathers and bloodstains were found in both engines of the Jeju Air plane that crashed in December, according to a preliminary investigation released Monday.
The Boeing 737-800 was flying from Thailand to Muan in South Korea on December 29 when it crash landed and exploded into a fireball after slamming into a concrete barrier.
It was the worst aviation disaster on South Korean soil, killing 179 of the 181 passengers and crew.
South Korean and American investigators are still probing the cause of the disaster, with a bird strike, faulty landing gear and the runway barrier among the possible issues.
Both engines recovered from the crash site were inspected, and bird bloodstains and feathers were “found on each,” the report said.
“The pilots identified a group of birds while approaching runway 01, and a security camera filmed HL8088 coming close to a group of birds during a go-around,” the report added, referring to the Jeju jet’s registration number.
It did not specify whether the engines had stopped working in the moments leading up to the crash.
DNA analysis identified the feathers and blood as coming from Baikal teals, migratory ducks which fly to Korea in winter from their breeding grounds in Siberia.
After the air traffic control tower cleared the jet to land, it advised the pilots to exercise caution against potential bird strikes at 8:58 am, the report said. Just a minute later, both the voice and data recording systems stopped functioning.
Seconds after the recording systems failed, the pilots declared mayday due to a bird strike and attempted a belly landing.
The Jeju plane exploded in flames when it collided with a concrete embankment during its landing, prompting questions about why that type barricade was in place at the end of the runway.
Last week, authorities said they would replace such concrete barriers at airports nationwide with “breakable structures.”
The captain had over 6,800 flight hours, while the first officer had 1,650 hours, according to the report. Both were killed in the crash, which was survived only by two flight attendants.
