HONG KONG: The founders of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy Occupy movement surrendered to police Wednesday in a symbolic move, as they try to take the protests off the streets after more than two months of rallies punctuated by violence.
Dozens of supporters, carrying yellow umbrellas which have become a symbol of the movement and shouting “I want true democracy without fear!,” surrounded the trio as they turned themselves in at a central police station.
However Benny Tai, Chan Kin-man and Chu Yiu-ming quickly emerged from the station, saying they had not been arrested despite admitting “participating in unauthorized assembly.”
“We have not been arrested so we are allowed to leave with no restriction on our liberty,” said Tai.
He told AFP there were “political considerations” behind their swift release to avoid crowds flocking to the protest zones, but said it was inevitable they would eventually be arrested.
“I don’t think the matter will be resolved on this occasion, later we may be arrested, even prosecuted for more serious offenses,” Tai added.
The three had been joined by 82-year-old Cardinal Joseph Zen, a prominent pro-democracy supporter, who also gave himself up.
About 40 other supporters waiting outside the police station also queued up to fill out forms turning themselves in.
“This is for the fortune of the next generation,” said secondary school teacher April Fan, 55. Police said Wednesday afternoon that 24 people had so far surrendered.
“They were explicitly told by the interviewing officers that illegal occupation of public places was an unlawful act and they should stop such act immediately,” a statement said.
“Police will conduct follow-up investigations based on the information provided.”
The founders’ “surrender” and their call to end the road blockades followed violent clashes between protesters and police outside the government headquarters late Sunday which left dozens injured.
Tai said the Occupy movement would now take a different approach to promoting democracy, including through education and a new social charter. Protesters began blocking three major intersections in late September to demand free leadership elections in the semi-autonomous Chinese city. One has since been cleared by police.
China insists that candidates for the 2017 leadership vote must be vetted by a loyalist committee, which demonstrators say will ensure the election of a pro-Beijing stooge.
China refuses to budge despite the student-led protests and Hong Kong’s current leader Leung Chun-ying has also taken a tougher line since Sunday’s violence.
On Wednesday he rejected a call made by three students on hunger strike, for the constitutional reform process to be re-launched.
Leung’s office said in a statement there was no legal way to restart the process.
“Expressing views on constitutional reform through illegal and confrontational means is bound to be futile,” it added.
HK Occupy protest leaders turn themselves in to police
HK Occupy protest leaders turn themselves in to police
Bus crash blaze kills 38 in Tanzania
The accident in Sabasaba, in the Kilimanjaro region, on Saturday evening occurred after one of the bus’s tires punctured, causing the driver to lose control.
“A total of 38 people died in the crash, including two women,” a presidency statement said, adding that 28 others were wounded.
“However, due to the extent of the burns, 36 bodies remain unidentified,” the presidency said.
Six of the injured were still in hospital for treatment, it added.
Deadly crashes are frequent on Tanzania’s roads.
In a 2018 report, the World Health Organization estimated that 13,000 to 19,000 people in Tanzania were killed in traffic accidents in 2016, far higher than the government’s official toll of 3,256.
EU must be more assertive with Israel: Ex-foreign policy chief
- Josep Borrell: Europe has been ‘relegated to the sidelines’ in mediating conflict
- Country ‘carrying out the largest ethnic-cleansing operation since end of Second World War’
LONDON: The EU must adopt a more assertive posture against Israel over its violations of international law in Gaza, Josep Borrell, the bloc’s former foreign policy chief, has said.
In an article for Foreign Affairs magazine, Borrell argued that the EU has a “duty” to intervene over the humanitarian catastrophe in the Palestinian enclave, The Guardian reported.
Rather than relying on the US to bring an end to the war, Europe must launch its own plan, he said.
The article was co-authored with Kalypso Nicolaidis, a Franco-Greek academic who has advised the EU.
“Europe can no longer afford to linger at the margin. The EU needs a concerted plan,” the two authors said.
“Not only is Europe’s own security at stake, but more important, European history imposes a duty on Europeans to intervene in response to Israel’s violations of international law.
“Europeans cannot stay the hapless fools in this tragic story, dishing out cash with their eyes closed.”
Borrell’s successor, Kaja Kallas, said last week that it was “very clear” Israel had breached its human rights commitments during its war on Gaza.
However, the “concrete question” remains the choice of action EU member states can agree on in response, she added.
Last month, 17 EU member states, in protest against Israel’s blockade of humanitarian aid to Gaza, triggered a review of the bloc’s association agreement with Israel, which covers trade and other cooperation.
Borrell last month accused Tel Aviv of “carrying out the largest ethnic-cleansing operation since the end of the Second World War.”
Europe’s inconsistent response to the humanitarian crisis can be partly explained by the reluctance of some countries — including Germany, Hungary and Austria — to take action against Israel for historical reasons, Borrell and Nicolaidis wrote.
Yet there are ways for other EU member states to take action without requiring a continent-wide consensus, they said, highlighting the EU’s financial leverage and the utility of European programs for Israel, including the Erasmus student exchange scheme.
EU member states could also invoke Article 20 of the EU’s treaty to “allow for at least nine member states to come together to utilize certain foreign policy tools not related to defense,” they wrote.
“Because such an action has never been taken before, those states would have to explore what (it) … would concretely allow them to do,” the Foreign Affairs article said.
The EU has been rendered ineffective in applying pressure due to disunity, the two authors said, arguing that the bloc should act as a powerful mediator in the Middle East.
“Some EU leaders cautiously backed the International Criminal Court’s investigations, while others, such as Austria and Germany, have declined to implement its arrest warrants against Israeli officials,” they wrote.
“And because EU member states, beginning with Germany and Hungary, could not agree on whether to revisit the union’s trade policy with Israel, the EU continues to be Israel’s largest trading partner.
“As a result, the EU, as a bloc, has been largely relegated to the sidelines, divided internally and overshadowed in ceasefire diplomacy by the US and regional actors such as Egypt and Qatar. Shouldn’t the EU also have acted as a mediator?”
Ukraine on track to withdraw from Ottawa anti-personnel mines treaty, lawmaker says
KYIV: Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has signed a decree on the country’s withdrawal from the Ottawa Convention, which bans the production and use of anti-personnel mines, a senior Ukrainian lawmaker said on Sunday.
Ukraine ratified the convention in 2005 and a parliamentary decision is needed to withdraw from the treaty.
The document is not yet available on the website of the president’s office.
“This is a step that the reality of war has long demanded. Russia is not a party to this Convention and is massively using mines against our military and civilians,” Roman Kostenko, secretary of the Ukraine parliament’s committee on national security, defense and intelligence, said on his Facebook page.
“We cannot remain tied down in an environment where the enemy has no restrictions,” he added, saying that the legislative decision must definitively restore Ukraine’s right to effectively defend its territory.
Russia has intensified its offensive operations in Ukraine in recent months, using significant superiority in manpower.
Kostenko did not say when the issue would be debated in parliament.
Air India plane crash probe looking at all angles: minister
- All but one of the 242 people on board the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner were killed when it crashed in the western city of Ahmedabad on June 12
- Authorities have identified 19 others who died on the ground, but a police source said after the crash that the toll was 38
NEW DELHI: An Indian aviation minister on Sunday said investigators were probing “all angles” behind an Air India crash when asked by media about possible sabotage.
All but one of the 242 people on board the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner were killed when it crashed in the western city of Ahmedabad on June 12.
Authorities have identified 19 others who died on the ground, but a police source told AFP after the crash that the toll was 38.
India’s minister of state for civil aviation, Murlidhar Mohol, said the investigation was looking at “all angles” when asked specifically about possible “sabotage,” in an interview with Indian news channel NDTV.
“It has never happened before that both engines have shut off together,” Mohol said earlier in the interview, in reference to theories by some experts of possible dual-engine failure.
The minister added that until the investigation report is published, it would be premature to comment on the cause.
The team appointed to investigate the crash started extracting data from the plane’s cockpit voice and flight data recorders this week, in an attempt to reconstruct the sequence of events leading to the disaster.
Air India has said that the plane was “well-maintained” and that the pilots were accomplished flyers.
Germany seeks Israeli partnership on cyberdefense, plans ‘cyber dome’
BERLIN: Germany is aiming to establish a joint German-Israeli cyber research center and deepen collaboration between the two countries’ intelligence and security agencies, German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said on Sunday.
Germany is among Israel’s closest allies in Europe, and Berlin has increasingly looked to draw upon Israel’s defense expertise as it boosts its military capabilities and contributions to NATO in the face of perceived growing threats from Russia and China.
“Military defense alone is not sufficient for this turning point in security. A significant upgrade in civil defense is also essential to strengthen our overall defensive capabilities,” Dobrindt said during a visit to Israel, as reported by Germany’s Bild newspaper.
Dobrindt, who was appointed by new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz last month, arrived in Israel on Saturday.
According to the Bild report, Dobrindt outlined a five-point plan aimed at establishing what he called a “Cyber Dome” for Germany, as part of its cyberdefense strategy.
Earlier on Sunday, Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Soeder called for the acquisition of 2,000 interceptor missiles to equip Germany with an “Iron Dome” system similar to Israel’s short-range missile defense technology.
