A Hong Kong court ruling has strengthened calls to establish an independent mechanism for complaints against the police amid intense outcry at home and abroad over alleged arbitrary arrests and excessive police use of force.Once regarded as Asia’s finest, the city’s 30,000-strong police force has come under fire for actions during widespread anti-government protests that gripped Hong Kong last year. Tear gas, water cannons, pepper spray and batons were widely used by police to disperse unrelenting protesters.On Nov. 29, the Court of First Instance ruled in favor of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, saying the existing system is inadequate for investigating complaints against the police violations of the city’s Bill of Rights on torture and cruel treatment. Also, the failure by the police to require anti-riot officers to display their numbered badges in the protests violated the Bill of Rights, the court said.“If the government still respects the court, it should take the responsibility to rectify the problems,” Eric Cheung Tat-ming, principal lecturer and director of clinical legal education at the University of Hong Kong said.“If the government loses its appeal case [in the Court of Appeal], it will have to take some time to come up with a new mechanism. If the officials ignore the judge’s suggestions, it will be considered overturning the ruling,” he said.Cheung reiterated calls for an independent body to process complaints and redress misconduct as well as any false accusations against police officers. Backers of the calls include pro-government legislators.“By doing so, the government can restore public confidence in the police,” Cheung said. “By the same token, if the complaints against the police are invalid, it won’t be fair to them that the system is inadequate.”He added that the government will have to come up with ways to address the two main issues the judge has raised in the verdict — the absence of independent oversight in the existing police complaint mechanism and police officers’ failure to display their badges.FILE – A police officer displays a warning banner on Oct. 1, 2020, China’s National Day, in Causeway Bay, Hong Kong.C.M. Chan, a lawyer and head of Centre for the Rule of Law of Hong Kong Policy Research Institute, an independent think tank, suggested that the Hong Kong government set up something similar to the Independent Police Complaints Commission in Britain, which he describes as a “tiger with teeth” as it has the authority to initiate investigations.“From a good governance point of view, the government should listen to the court’s recommendations,” he said, adding that, “At present, you make a complaint against the police and the complaint goes to the police and the IPCC only monitors their investigations,” he said, referring to Hong Kong’s Independent Police Complaints Council.Under the current two-tier mechanism, the Complaints Against Police Office, a unit within the police force, refers reportable complaints to the IPCC, which is responsible for monitoring and reviewing reportable cases. However, it cannot overturn Complaints Against Police Office conclusions or initiate investigations.Veteran Hong Kong-based China-watcher Johnny Lau Yui-siu has painted a less optimistic picture. He said, “The government may just indicate they respect the court’s ruling but brush aside any need to introduce reforms to the existing police complaint system.”Nevertheless, he sees the court judgement as a step toward a long process in cracking the Chinese Communist Party’s grip on Hong Kong. “It will have a snowballing effect in pushing for changes,” he said, adding that Chinese President Xi Jinping’s purported “law-based governance” is a sign that Beijing cannot ignore the fact that authorities must act according to the law, even though they try to sugarcoat arbitrary policies.Chan also said he has reservations about how willing Hong Kong authorities are to heed the court’s recommendations.“We have to accept that the Hong Kong government operates within the parameters of the one-country-two-systems, we can’t draw complete parallels with most Western societies,” he said, referring to the arrangement under which Hong Kong retains its legal system and wider civil liberties than those in mainland China.FILE – Police arrest a man and lead him to a nearby bus during a protest against China’s planned national security law in Hong Kong on June 28, 2020.As of August, the police complaints office had received 1,895 complaints, including 199 from the media that have been referred to the IPCC.Last year, a panel of international experts appointed by the IPCC to probe allegations of excessive police force during the protests resigned collectively. The panel said in a statement that the IPCC lacked the powers necessary “to meet the standards citizens of Hong Kong would likely require” in a society that “values freedom and rights.”In a report, Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice, published last month, Clifford Stott, a British panel member who stepped down, said, “Hong Kong police played a pivotal role in radicalizing protests.”Police Commissioner Chris Tang said the force will appeal the High Court’s decision that officers’ failure to show their identification numbers constituted a breach of the Bill of Rights.Hong Kong’s Beijing-backed Chief Executive Carrie Lam has repeatedly said that the existing mechanism is sufficient to deal with complaints and there is no need to set up an independent system.
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Month: December 2020
Japan Awaits Spacecraft Return with Asteroid Soil Samples
Japan’s space agency said the Hayabusa2 spacecraft successfully separated a capsule and sent it toward Earth to deliver samples from a distant asteroid that could provide clues to the origin of the solar system and life on our planet.The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said the capsule successfully detached Saturday afternoon from 220,000 kilometers away in a challenging operation that required precision control. The capsule is now descending to land in a remote, sparsely populated area of Woomera, Australia, on Sunday.Hayabusa2 left the asteroid Ryugu a year ago. After releasing the capsule, it is now moving away from Earth to capture images of the capsule descending to the planet.Yuichi Tsuda, project manager at the space agency JAXA, stood up and raised his fists as everyone applauded the moment command center officials confirmed the successful separation of the capsule.Hayabusa2’s return with the world’s first asteroid subsurface samples comes weeks after NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft made a successful touch-and-go grab of surface samples from asteroid Bennu. China, meanwhile, announced this week its lunar lander collected underground samples and sealed them within the spacecraft for return to Earth, as nations compete in space missions.Many Hayabusa2 fans gathered to observe the moment of the capsule separation at public viewing events across the country, including one at the Tokyo Dome stadium.In the early hours of Sunday, the capsule, protected by a heat shield, will briefly turn into a fireball as it reenters the atmosphere 120 kilometers above Earth. At about 10 kilometers above ground, a parachute will open to slow its fall and beacon signals will be transmitted to indicate its location.JAXA staff have set up satellite dishes at several locations in the target area to receive the signals, while also preparing a marine radar, drones and helicopters to assist in the search and retrieval of the pan-shaped capsule, 40 centimeters in diameter.Australian National University space rock expert Trevor Ireland, who is in Woomera for the arrival of the capsule, said he expected the Ryugu samples to be similar to the meteorite that fell in Australia near Murchison in Victoria state more than 50 years ago.“The Murchison meteorite opened a window on the origin of organics on Earth because these rocks were found to contain simple amino acids as well as abundant water,” Ireland said, “We will examine whether Ryugu is a potential source of organic matter and water on Earth when the solar system was forming, and whether these still remain intact on the asteroid.”Scientists say they believe the samples, especially ones taken from under the asteroid’s surface, contain valuable data unaffected by space radiation and other environmental factors. They are particularly interested in analyzing organic materials in the samples.JAXA hopes to find clues as to how the materials are distributed in the solar system and are related to life on Earth.For Hayabusa2, it’s not the end of the mission it started in 2014. After dropping the capsule, it will return to space and head to another distant small asteroid called 1998KY26 on a journey slated to take 10 years one way, for a possible research including finding ways to prevent meteorites from hitting Earth.So far, its mission has been fully successful. It touched down twice on Ryugu despite its extremely rocky surface, and successfully collected data and samples during the 1½ years it spent near Ryugu after arriving there in June 2018.In its first touchdown in February 2019, it collected surface dust samples. In a more challenging mission in July that year, it collected underground samples from the asteroid for the first time in space history after landing in a crater that it created earlier by blasting the asteroid’s surface.Asteroids, which orbit the sun but are much smaller than planets, are among the oldest objects in the solar system and therefore may help explain how Earth evolved.Ryugu in Japanese means “Dragon Palace,” the name of a sea-bottom castle in a Japanese folk tale.
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Russia Begins COVID Inoculations
Russia has begun its COVID-19 vaccination program. Seventy clinics in Moscow began inoculating people Saturday with the Sputnik-V COVID-19 shot, the city’s coronavirus task force said.The vaccine is being made available to health care workers, social workers and people who work in schools because they run the highest risk of exposure to the coronavirus. People over 60 are excluded from receiving the shot, media reports say.Russia’s vaccine is administered in two injections, with the second injection scheduled for three weeks after the first.Thousands of people have registered to receive the vaccine. It was not immediately clear, however, how much of the vaccine has been produced.Some scientists have questioned the efficacy of the Russian-manufactured vaccine because of its speedy appearance on the market. Russia has 2.4 million COVID infections and more than 42,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins. The California city of San Francisco and several Bay Area counties said Friday that they will begin imposing stay-at-home orders this weekend as part of their battle against the coronavirus.California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday that the state was on the verge of imposing stay-at-home orders on a regional basis once intensive care units in the state’s five regions reached more than 85% capacity.San Francisco and the Bay Area counties, however, are not waiting for the hospital capacity threshold and are instead voluntarily opting into the state’s regional stay-at-home order.”We are in our worst surge yet of COVID-19. It is stressing health care systems across the state of California and taxing our health care workers,” Dr. Grant Colfax, San Francisco’s director of health, said Friday. “We need urgent intervention now if we want to be able to care for the sick in mid-to-late December. We do not want your parent, your spouse, your child, your grandparent or any loved one to be in need of help and our hospitals too overwhelmed to properly care for them.”FILE – California Street, usually filled with cable cars, is seen empty in San Francisco, Calif., on March 18, 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic.Starting Sunday night, the order will close all outdoor dining, public outdoor playgrounds, outdoor museums, zoos and aquariums, drive-in theaters, and open-air tour buses and boats. Pet grooming and electronics or shoe repair, considered low-contact retail, will be allowed to operate on a curbside-dropoff basis. All other retail, including grocery stores, will be allowed to operate only at 20% capacity.“We must do whatever is necessary in order to get the virus under control,” said San Francisco Mayor London Breed. “This is about protecting people’s lives.”The head of the World Health Organization said Friday that with a COVID-19 vaccine on the horizon, nations must start investing and preparing for the next pandemic.“Despite years of warnings, many countries were simply not ready for COVID-19,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a special session of the U.N. General Assembly on the coronavirus. “Many mistakenly assumed their strong health systems would protect them.”He said countries that have dealt with recent coronaviruses, including SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, and MERS, or Middle East respiratory syndrome, as well as other infectious diseases, have done better in containing COVID-19.“Now all countries must develop that same muscle memory and invest in the measures that will prevent, control and mitigate the next crisis,” Tedros said. “It is also clear the global system for preparedness needs attention.”FILE – A pedestrian walks past a sign advising mask-wearing during the coronavirus outbreak in San Francisco, Nov. 21, 2020.The WHO has come in for criticism from some countries for its handling of the pandemic after China reported the first cases early this year. U.S. President Donald Trump has been one of the most vocal critics, and on May 29 announced the United States would withdraw from the global health organization. President-elect Joe Biden has said he will reverse that decision when he takes office in January.The WHO chief stressed the need for rich and poor countries alike to have equal access to a COVID-19 vaccine, saying sharing science is not charity, but in the best interest of every nation. He also urged nations to radically rethink how they prioritize and view health if they want to avoid another crisis on this scale.“The pandemic has proven that a health crisis is not just a health crisis, it’s a social, economic, political and humanitarian crisis,” he said. “The risks of under investment in health have wide-ranging impacts, and so do the benefits of investing in health.”On Friday, Bahrain became the second country to approve emergency use of the Pfilzer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine. Britain was the first nation to greenlight the vaccine.The challenge would be keeping the vaccine cold enough. It must be stored at temperatures around minus 70 degrees Celsius. Bahrain routinely registers summer temperatures of 40 degrees Celsius.Bahrain has already inoculated 6,000 people with a Chinese vaccine that uses a dead version of the virus. The Mideast nation has had nearly 88,000 cases of the coronavirus and almost 350 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.Global COVID-19 confirmed cases have surpassed 65 million with more than 1.5 million deaths. The U.S. continues to have the highest number of confirmed cases – more than 14 million so far — and nearly 279,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.
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California Bay Area to Begin Stay-at-Home Orders Amid COVID Surge
The California city of San Francisco and several Bay Area counties said Friday that they will begin imposing stay-at-home orders this weekend as part of their battle against the coronavirus.California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday that the state was on the verge of imposing stay-at-home orders on a regional basis once intensive care units in the state’s five regions reached more than 85% capacity.San Francisco and the Bay Area counties, however, are not waiting for the hospital capacity threshold and are instead voluntarily opting into the state’s regional stay-at-home order.”We are in our worst surge yet of COVID-19. It is stressing health care systems across the state of California and taxing our health care workers,” Dr. Grant Colfax, San Francisco’s director of health, said Friday. “We need urgent intervention now if we want to be able to care for the sick in mid-to-late December. We do not want your parent, your spouse, your child, your grandparent or any loved one to be in need of help and our hospitals too overwhelmed to properly care for them.”FILE – California Street, usually filled with cable cars, is seen empty in San Francisco, Calif., on March 18, 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic.Starting Sunday night, the order will close all outdoor dining, public outdoor playgrounds, outdoor museums, zoos and aquariums, drive-in theaters, and open-air tour buses and boats. Pet grooming and electronics or shoe repair, considered low-contact retail, will be allowed to operate on a curbside-dropoff basis. All other retail, including grocery stores, will be allowed to operate only at 20% capacity.“We must do whatever is necessary in order to get the virus under control,” said San Francisco Mayor London Breed. “This is about protecting people’s lives.”The head of the World Health Organization said Friday that with a COVID-19 vaccine on the horizon, nations must start investing and preparing for the next pandemic.“Despite years of warnings, many countries were simply not ready for COVID-19,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a special session of the U.N. General Assembly on the coronavirus. “Many mistakenly assumed their strong health systems would protect them.”He said countries that have dealt with recent coronaviruses, including SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, and MERS, or Middle East respiratory syndrome, as well as other infectious diseases, have done better in containing COVID-19.“Now all countries must develop that same muscle memory and invest in the measures that will prevent, control and mitigate the next crisis,” Tedros said. “It is also clear the global system for preparedness needs attention.”FILE – A pedestrian walks past a sign advising mask-wearing during the coronavirus outbreak in San Francisco, Nov. 21, 2020.The WHO has come in for criticism from some countries for its handling of the pandemic after China reported the first cases early this year. U.S. President Donald Trump has been one of the most vocal critics, and on May 29 announced the United States would withdraw from the global health organization. President-elect Joe Biden has said he will reverse that decision when he takes office in January.The WHO chief stressed the need for rich and poor countries alike to have equal access to a COVID-19 vaccine, saying sharing science is not charity, but in the best interest of every nation. He also urged nations to radically rethink how they prioritize and view health if they want to avoid another crisis on this scale.“The pandemic has proven that a health crisis is not just a health crisis, it’s a social, economic, political and humanitarian crisis,” he said. “The risks of under investment in health have wide-ranging impacts, and so do the benefits of investing in health.”On Friday, Bahrain became the second country to approve emergency use of the Pfilzer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine. Britain was the first nation to greenlight the vaccine.The challenge would be keeping the vaccine cold enough. It must be stored at temperatures around minus 70 degrees Celsius. Bahrain routinely registers summer temperatures of 40 degrees Celsius.Bahrain has already inoculated 6,000 people with a Chinese vaccine that uses a dead version of the virus. The Mideast nation has had nearly 88,000 cases of the coronavirus and almost 350 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.Global COVID-19 confirmed cases have surpassed 65 million with more than 1.5 million deaths. The U.S. continues to have the highest number of confirmed cases – more than 14 million so far — and nearly 279,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.
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Trump Signs Anti-Doping Act Into Law
U.S. President Donald Trump signed into law Friday a bill that lets U.S. justice officials pursue criminal penalties against those involved in doping conspiracies at international events involving American athletes, sponsors or broadcasters.The Rodchenkov Act, named after the whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov who helped expose Russia’s state-sponsored doping, empowers prosecutors to seek fines of up to $1 million and jail terms of up to 10 years, as well restitution to victims.”(The law gives) the Department of Justice a powerful and unique set of tools to eradicate doping fraud and related criminal activities from international competitions,” said Rodchenkov’s lawyer, Jim Walden, according to Inside the Games.It is now up to the Justice Department to develop a robust program, cooperating with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency and international law enforcement, to bring the guilty to justice and create zero tolerance for doping in sports, he added.The bill, passed unopposed by the U.S. Senate last month, was opposed by the International Olympic Committee, who have questioned why American professional and college athletes are exempt.The United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) said there was no need to include U.S. professional and college sports in the legislation as existing law allows their prosecution.The World Anti-Doping Agency also expressed concerns that the bill would destabilize the global anti-doping effort by extending U.S. jurisdiction beyond its own borders.”No nation has ever before asserted criminal jurisdiction over doping offenses that occurred outside its national borders — and for good reason,” the agency said last month when the bill passed the Senate.”WADA remains concerned that by unilaterally exerting U.S. criminal jurisdiction over all global doping activity, the Act will likely undermine clean sport by jeopardizing critical partnerships and cooperation between nations.”
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Biden Officially Secures Enough Electors to Become President
California certified its presidential election Friday and appointed 55 electors pledged to vote for Democrat Joe Biden, officially handing him the Electoral College majority needed to win the White House.Secretary of State Alex Padilla’s formal approval of Biden’s win in the state brought Biden’s tally of pledged electors so far to 279, according to a tally by The Associated Press. That’s just over the 270 threshold for victory.These steps in the election are often-ignored formalities. But the hidden mechanics of electing a U.S. president have drawn new scrutiny this year as President Donald Trump continues to deny Biden’s victory and pursues increasingly specious legal strategies aimed at overturning the results before they are finalized.Although it’s been apparent for weeks that Biden won the presidential election, his accrual of more than 270 electors is the first step toward the White House, said Edward B. Foley, a law professor at Ohio State University.”It is a legal milestone and the first milestone that has that status,” Foley said. “Everything prior to that was premised on what we call projections.”The electors named Friday will meet Dec. 14, along with counterparts in each state, to formally vote for the next president. Most states have laws binding their electors to the winner of the popular vote in their state, measures that were upheld by a Supreme Court decision this year. There have been no suggestions that any of Biden’s pledged electors would contemplate not voting for him.Results of the Electoral College vote are due to be received, and typically approved, by Congress on Jan. 6. Although lawmakers can object to accepting the electors’ votes, it would be almost impossible for Biden to be blocked at that point.The Democratic-controlled House and Republican-controlled Senate would both vote separately to resolve any disputes. One already has arisen from Pennsylvania, where 75 Republican lawmakers signed a statement on Friday urging Congress to block the state’s electoral votes from being cast for Biden. But the state’s Republican U.S. senator, Pat Toomey, said soon afterward that he would not be objecting to Pennsylvania’s slate of electors, underscoring the difficulty in trying to change the election results through Congress.”As a practical matter, we know that Joe Biden is going to be inaugurated on January 20,” Foley said.That was clear in the days after the election, when the count of mail ballots gradually made clear that Biden had won victories in enough states to win the Electoral College. It became even more apparent in late November, when every swing state won by Biden certified him as the winner of its elections and appointed his electors to the Electoral College. Trump has fruitlessly tried to stop those states from certifying Biden as the winner and appointing electors for the former vice president.Trump made no effort in deeply Democratic California, the most populous state in the nation and the trove of its largest number of electoral votes. Three more states won by Biden — Colorado, Hawaii and New Jersey — have not yet certified their results. When they do, Biden will have 306 Electoral College votes to Trump’s 232.Trump and his allies have brought at least 50 legal cases trying to overturn results in the swing states Biden won — mainly Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. More than 30 have been rejected or dropped, according to an AP tally.Trump and his allies have also raised the far-fetched notion that Republican state legislatures in those states could appoint a rival set of electors pledged to Trump.But state Republican leaders have rejected that approach, and it would likely be futile in any case. According to federal law, both chambers of Congress would need to vote to accept a competing slate of electors. If they don’t, the electors appointed by the states’ governors — all pledged to Biden in these cases — must be used.The last remaining move to block the election would be the quixotic effort to vote down the electors in Congress.This tactic has been tried — a handful of congressional Democrats in 2000, 2004 and 2016 objected to officially making both George W. Bush and Trump president. But the numbers were not enough to block the two men from taking office.
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Trump Orders Most American Troops to Leave Somalia
The Pentagon said Friday it is pulling most U.S. troops out of Somalia on President Donald Trump’s orders, continuing a post-election push by Trump to shrink U.S. involvement in counterterrorism missions abroad.Without providing details, the Pentagon said in a short statement that “a majority” of U.S. troops and assets in Somalia will be withdrawn in early 2021. There are about 700 troops in that Horn of Africa nation, training and advising local forces in an extended fight against the extremist group al-Shabab, an affiliate of al-Qaida.FILE – In this Sept. 22, 2020, file photo Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley listens before a meeting at the Pentagon in Washington.Trump recently ordered troop drawdowns in Afghanistan and Iraq, and he was expected to withdraw some or all troops from Somalia. Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had said on Wednesday that the future structure of the U.S. military presence in Somalia was still in debate.The adjusted U.S. presence, Milley said, would amount to “a relatively small footprint, relatively low cost in terms of number of personnel and in terms of money.” He provided no specifics but stressed that the U.S. remained concerned about the threat posed by al-Shabab, which he called “an extension of al-Qaida,” the extremist group that planned the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States from Afghanistan.”They do have some reach and they could if left unattended conduct operations against not only U.S. interests in the region but also against the homeland,” he said. “So they require attention.” Noting that Somalia remains a dangerous place for Americans, he said that a CIA officer was killed there recently.The acting secretary of defense, Christopher Miller, made a brief visit to Somalia last week and met with U.S. troops.Depending on what remains of the U.S. presence in Somalia when he takes office Jan. 20, President-elect Joe Biden could reverse Trump’s drawdown or make other adjustments to reflect his counterterrorism priorities. The U.S. military also has a presence in neighboring Djibouti on the Bab al-Mandab Strait.FILE – In this Jan. 3, 2019, file photo, Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., prepares the dais after he was chosen as Speaker pro tempore for the opening day of the 116th Congress, at the Capitol in Washington.Rep. Jim Langevin, a Rhode Island Democrat, criticized the Trump pullback in Somalia as a “surrender to al-Qaida and a gift of China.” Langevin is chairman of the House Armed Services Committee’s Intelligence and Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee.”When U.S. forces leave Somalia in response to today’s order, it becomes harder for diplomats and aid workers to help people resolve conflicts without violence and loss of life,” Langevin said. “With upcoming elections in Somalia and conflict raging in neighboring Ethiopia, abandoning our partners could not come at a worse time.”Langevin said China will use the opportunity to build its influence in the Horn of Africa.The Pentagon said the drawdown in Somalia does not mark the end of U.S. counterterrorism efforts there.”As a result of this decision, some forces may be reassigned outside of East Africa,” it said. “However, the remaining forces will be repositioned from Somalia into neighboring countries in order to allow cross-border operations by both U.S. and partner forces to maintain pressure against violent extremist organizations operating in Somalia.”It added: “The U.S. will retain the capability to conduct targeted counterterrorism operations in Somalia, and collect early warnings and indicators regarding threats to the homeland.”The nature of the threat posed by al-Shabab and the appropriate U.S. response has been a matter of increasing debate in the Pentagon, which has been looking for opportunities to shift its focus toward China as a greater long-term challenge.A Defense Department watchdog report last week said U.S. Africa Command has seen a “definitive shift” this year in al-Shabab’s focus to attack U.S. interests in the region. Africa Command says al-Shabab is Africa’s most “dangerous” and “imminent” threat.
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Biden Predicts ‘Bleak Future’ if Congress Doesn’t Act on Aid
President-elect Joe Biden is predicting a “bleak future” if Congress doesn’t take speedy action on a coronavirus aid bill, amid a nationwide spike in the virus that’s hampering the nation’s recovery.Biden delivered remarks Friday afternoon reacting to November’s national jobs report, which showed a sharp decrease in U.S. hiring even as the nation is about 10 million jobs below pre-pandemic levels. The Democrat called the report “dire” and said it “shows the economy is stalling,” but he said quick action from Congress can halt some of the damage.”If we act now, I mean now, we can begin to regain momentum and start to build back a better future,” he said. “There’s no time to lose.”Surging cases of the virus have led states and municipalities to roll back their re-opening plans. And more restrictions may be on the way as colder temperatures and holiday travel lead to new records for confirmed cases and deaths.While Biden has thrown his support behind a bipartisan economic relief bill of about $900 billion, he has called it just a “down payment” and has said much more will be needed once he takes office next year. On Friday, he said he and his team have been consulting with labor leaders, CEOs, mayors and governors in crafting their own coronavirus aid bill, which will be his first legislative priority as president.”The fight against COVID won’t be won in January alone,” he said.Biden expressed optimism he’ll be able to cut a deal with Republicans when he takes office, but he’s certain to face a heavy lift in navigating any bill through a closely divided Senate. Democrats and Republicans have been deadlocked on a coronavirus aid bill for months, with Republicans opposed to a previous, more expensive bill that passed the House.Biden himself said Friday that he plans to ask Congress for funding for expanded testing, vaccine distribution — which he’s said would be an expensive proposition — as well as jobless aid and help for those at risk of eviction. But he still expressed optimism at his ability to work with Republicans, because “the country’s gonna be in dire, dire, dire straits if they don’t.”House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, of Calif., speaks during her weekly briefing, Dec. 4, 2020, on Capitol Hill in Washington.Earlier Friday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gave an optimistic assessment of the prospects for a midsized COVID-19 relief bill and a separate $1.4 trillion governmentwide spending bill.Pelosi told reporters that she and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are in sync on a plan to reach agreement on the massive omnibus spending bill and to add COVID-19 relief to it.Pelosi said a bipartisan, middle-of-the-road plan being finalized by a diverse group of senators that she has endorsed as a foundation for the relief bill is a good effort, even though it’s a significant retreat from where Democrats stood before the election.Pelosi and McConnell often fight, but they are an unstoppable force when their interests align. They spoke on the phone Thursday, a conversation that came the day after Pelosi signaled a willingness to make major concessions in search of a COVID-19 rescue package in the $1 trillion range.“We had a good conversation. I think we’re both interested in getting an outcome, both on the omnibus and on a coronavirus package,” McConnell said Thursday.
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Family of Detained Chinese Rights Lawyer Silenced by Threats, Sources Say
The family of a rights lawyer detained in northwestern China has been warned to keep quiet after they publicly expressed concern about his deteriorating condition, according to sources close to the family.The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of political retaliation, also said that lawyer Chang Weiping, who is accused of inciting subversion of state power, was denied his right to legal representation after a defense team hired by the family was pressured into dropping his case.On Monday, Chang Shuanming, father of the 36-year-old lawyer, said he was recently granted a 10-minute meeting with his son at a police station in Baoji, Shaanxi province — the first since his arrest in late October.In a post on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like microblogging site, the elder Chang described his son as “fragile and tired with red eyes, speaking intermittently … as if he was reciting something.”In tears, the lawyer discouraged his father, wife and other family members from raising awareness about his case, saying it would be “futile,” according to the post.At the end of their meeting, the lawyer shouted, “You and Mom have to stay sound and alive,” as his 70-year-old father walked out the door.“Was he bidding farewell to me?” his father later wrote online. “His voice was so shrill and filled with horror that it instantly broke my heart into pieces. My son, please stay in faith. I will never give up fighting for you.”Baoji police responded to the Weibo post by threatening the family members, telling them to stay silent and refrain from speaking to media, sources close to the family told VOA.Sources also said the wife’s employers — top-level managers at a Shenzhen hospital — were also pressuring her into silence.Legal representation deniedSince founding his law practice in 2013, Chang Weiping represented victims of workplace discrimination over HIV/AIDS and litigated cases involving defective coronavirus vaccines. He also defended rights activists before his license was revoked.His first arrest, in January, followed his attendance at a gathering of lawyers and activists in the southeastern Fujian province port city of Xiamen. Sources told VOA he was placed under “residential surveillance” at a designated hotel for 10 days before he was released on bail.He was detained again in late October, six days after posting a YouTube video openly accusing Baoji police of torture during his January hotel detention. At that time, Chang said in the YouTube video, his hands were tightly cuffed to a so-called “tiger chair” — a device used immobilize suspects during interrogations, and sometimes to keep a detainee’s knees bent slightly in the wrong direction — for 24 hours.He concluded the video by insisting on his innocence, saying he had the right to attend the Xiamen meeting.The legal defense team hired by Chang’s family in November was granted access to its client before, sources tell VOA, the local justice department office forced the team to drop the case.Neither Guangzhou-based justice officials nor Baoji police have responded to multiple VOA phone and email requests for comment.Police tortureChang’s father believes his son is still being tortured — a suspicion shared by U.S.-based Chinese rights lawyer Chen Jiangang, who fled China in 2019 after being warned he would “disappear” if he continued to represent the daughter-in-law of jailed former Chinese leader Zhou Yongkang.Rights lawyers are largely deprived of sleep while in detention, given unknown medicine or put under isolation, Chen told VOA by phone, describing Chang’s decision to yell out to his father during their brief meeting as a sign of profound mental distress.The Chinese government will never allow a lawyer of the family’s free choice to represent Chang, Chen said. Instead, he said, a government-appointed lawyer will take up the job to later put on a show trial.That, Chen said, illustrates the collapse of China’s criminal defense system.Since the massive crackdown on rights lawyers in 2015, “it’s been the Xi Jinping administration’s blueprint to persecute all rights lawyers … whom the Chinese communist regime views as its enemy,” said Chen.Six international legal groups, including the Bar Human Rights Committee of England & Wales and the Hong Kong-based China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group, issued an open letter in November denouncing Chang’s arbitrary arrest.In their five demands, the groups urged China to unconditionally release Chang and allow him free access to lawyers of choice. They also called on authorities to investigate and punish all perpetrators involved in the lawyer’s earlier torture, based China’s obligations under national and international laws.Six China-based HIV-positive activists last week signed a petition demanding better physical and legal treatment by Baoji police.In their letter, they heralded Chang’s contributions to the HIV/AIDS community, saying he helped “eased stigma and discrimination against people with HIV.”“Every lawsuit he defended has changed the fate of those people,” they wrote.
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US Imposes Visas Restrictions on More Chinese Citizens
The State Department said Friday that the U.S. would impose visa restrictions on Chinese citizens engaged in overseas influence operations.Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the restrictions would apply to Chinese Communist Party officials or anyone else taking part in propaganda or influence campaigns linked to the United Front Work Department.The United Front has been involved in efforts to put pressure on people who criticize China for human rights abuses in the Uighur region, Tibet and elsewhere. Its “coercive tactics” have included publicly releasing personal details about critics and their family members online as a means of intimidation, Pompeo said in announcing the new restrictions.The measure is intended to show that “those responsible for actions that contravene the rules-based international order are not welcome in the United States,” he said.The restrictions are the latest punitive measure taken against China’s leadership and economy in response to sharpening disputes over human rights, the coronavirus pandemic, trade, technology, Taiwan and a host of other issues.It wasn’t immediately clear how many people would potentially be covered by the new restrictions.The move came the same week that the U.S. announced plans to place new time limits on visas for members of the Chinese Communist Party and their families, cutting the time that the travel documents are valid from 10 years to one month.China responded to those restrictions by accusing the U.S. government of “an escalation of political suppression.” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said Thursday that the travel restrictions were “totally inconsistent with the U.S.’s own interests” and would damage America’s global image.
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Germany: US Troops Welcome Here
Germany’s foreign minister said Friday he is glad the U.S. Congress appears to believe U.S. troops should stay in his country at current levels. At a news briefing Friday in Berlin, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas commented on the final version of the U.S. Defense Authorization Act released Thursday by Congress. That bill says U.S. troops stationed in Germany may not be withdrawn below current levels until 120 days after the secretary of defense submits a detailed analysis of the move to Congress. About 36,000 U.S. troops are in the country. FILE – German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas addresses the media during a statement at the foreign ministry in Berlin, Germany, June 3, 2020.In July, U.S. President Donald Trump called for a reduction of about 12,000 troops stationed in Germany. Trump told reporters at the time that Germany had not contributed its share to the NATO defense alliance. The move shocked some U.S. military officials, who see the troops as a safeguard to U.S. interests in Europe. Maas told reporters that despite comments by the president and the Defense Department in July, Germany has “never been given any information about the troop reductions that were announced in July,” so he could not say for sure what the plans are or if they even exist. But, referring to the measure agreed upon in Congress this week, he said Germany is glad there appears to be bipartisan support among U.S. lawmakers for revisiting the decision. He said his government plans to discuss the situation with the incoming administration and make it clear that Germany stands by its promises and its American allies. He said, “American soldiers are welcome here. They contribute not just to Germany’s but also to Europe’s security.”
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Top US Diplomat Says Iran Desperate to Negotiate Ending Sanctions
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday that Iran was “desperately” suggesting it is eager to resume negotiations to get sanctions relief.Pompeo, who did not elaborate on how the United States would respond to Iran’s return to the bargaining table, made the virtual remarks at the annual International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) Dialogue in Bahrain, which focuses on regional security challenges.The U.S. has imposed crippling economic sanctions on Iran to pressure it to negotiate stricter curbs on its nuclear program.FILE – President Donald Trump signs a Presidential Memorandum on the Iran nuclear deal from the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House, May 8, 2018.The sanctions were imposed after U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of the nuclear deal in 2018, causing relations to deteriorate between the two sides.“We know our campaign is working because now the Iranians are desperately signaling their willingness to return to the negotiating table to get sanctions relief,” Pompeo said.“This effort in the Middle East isn’t just about countering Iran, as vital as that is,” the secretary of state added. “American strength and resolve have given the leaders in the region the space and importantly, the confidence, to pursue peace and prosperity.”Iran did not immediately respond to Pompeo’s remarks.The Iranian Guardian Council, a constitutional monitor, approved legislation earlier this week that would stop allowing United Nations inspections of the country’s nuclear facilities if oil and banking sanctions are not eased.The measure gives European countries, Russia and China two months to ease sanctions on its energy sector and restore its access to the global banking system.The Guardian Council passed the measure a week after the killing of Iran’s top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.
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As Hospitals Cope With COVID-19 Surge, Cyber Threats Loom
By late morning on Oct. 28, staff at the University of Vermont Medical Center noticed the hospital’s phone system wasn’t working.
Then the internet went down, and the Burlington-based center’s technical infrastructure with it. Employees lost access to databases, digital health records, scheduling systems and other online tools they rely on for patient care.
Administrators scrambled to keep the hospital operational — cancelling non-urgent appointments, reverting to pen-and-paper record keeping and rerouting some critical care patients to nearby hospitals.
In its main laboratory, which runs about 8,000 tests a day, employees printed or hand-wrote results and carried them across facilities to specialists. Outdated, internet-free technologies experienced a revival.
“We went around and got every fax machine that we could,” said UVM Medical Center Chief Operating Officer Al Gobeille.
The Vermont hospital had fallen prey to a cyberattack, becoming one of the most recent and visible examples of a wave of digital assaults taking U.S. health care providers hostage as COVID-19 cases surge nationwide.
The same day as UVM’s attack, the FBI and two federal agencies warned cybercriminals were ramping up efforts to steal data and disrupt services across the health care sector.
By targeting providers with attacks that scramble and lock up data until victims pay a ransom, hackers can demand thousands or millions of dollars and wreak havoc until they’re paid.
In September, for example, a ransomware attack paralyzed a chain of more than 250 U.S. hospitals and clinics. The resulting outages delayed emergency room care and forced staff to restore critical heart rate, blood pressure and oxygen level monitors with ethernet cabling.
A few weeks earlier, in Germany, a woman’s death became the first fatality believed to result from a ransomware attack. Earlier in October, facilities in Oregon, New York, Michigan, Wisconsin and California also fell prey to suspected ransomware attacks.
Ransomware is also partly to blame for some of the nearly 700 private health information breaches, affecting about 46.6 million people and currently being investigated by the federal government. In the hands of a criminal, a single patient record — rich with details about a person’s finances, insurance and medical history — can sell for upward of $1,000 on the black market, experts say.
Over the course of 2020, many hospitals postponed technology upgrades or cybersecurity training that would help protect them from the newest wave of attacks, said health care security consultant Nick Culbertson.
“The amount of chaos that’s just coming to a head here is a real threat,” he said.
With COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations climbing nationwide, experts say health care providers are dangerously vulnerable to attacks on their ability to function efficiently and manage limited resources.
Even a small technical disruption can quickly ripple out into patient care when a center’s capacity is stretched thin, said Vanderbilt University’s Eric Johnson, who studies the health impacts of cyberattacks.
“November has been a month of escalating demands on hospitals,” he said. “There’s no room for error. From a hacker’s perspective, it’s perfect.”‘Call to Arms’ for Hospitals
The day after the Oct. 28 cyberattack, 53-year-old Joel Bedard, of Jericho, arrived for a scheduled appointment at the Burlington hospital.
He was able to get in, he said, because his fluid-draining treatment is not high-tech, and is something he’s gotten regularly as he waits for a liver transplant.
“I got through, they took care of me, but man, everything is down,” Bedard said. He said he saw no other patients that day. Much of the medical staff idled, doing crossword puzzles and explaining they were forced to document everything by hand.
“All the students and interns are, like, ‘How did this work back in the day?'” he said.
Since the attack, the Burlington-based hospital network has referred all questions about its technical details to the FBI, which has refused to release any additional information, citing an ongoing criminal investigation. Officials don’t believe any patient suffered immediate harm, or that any personal patient information was compromised.
But more than a month later, the hospital is still recovering.
Some employees were furloughed for weeks until they could return to their regular duties.
Oncologists could not access older patient scans which could help them, for example, compare tumor size over time.
And, until recently, emergency department clinicians could take X-rays of broken bones but couldn’t electronically send the images to radiologists at other sites in the health network.
“We didn’t even have internet,” said Dr. Kristen DeStigter, chair of UVM Medical Center’s radiology department.
The tech outage also delayed the reporting of about 50 coronavirus test results to the state, prompting the hospital to revert to a fax system for reporting results until its information technology problems are fixed, UVM Medical Center President Dr. Stephen Leffler said Thursday.
Soldiers with the state’s National Guard cyber unit have helped hospital IT workers scour the programming code in hundreds of computers and other devices, line-by-line, to wipe any remaining malicious code that could re-infect the system. Many have been brought back online, but others were replaced entirely.
Col. Christopher Evans said it’s the first time the unit, which was founded about 20 years ago, has been called upon to perform what the guard calls “a real-world” mission. “We have been training for this day for a very long time,” he said.
It could be several more weeks before all the related damage is repaired and the systems are operating normally again, Gobeille said.
“I don’t want to get peoples’ hopes up and be wrong,” he said. “Our folks have been working 24/7. They are getting closer and closer every day.”
It will be a scramble for other health care providers to protect themselves against the growing threat of cyberattacks if they haven’t already, said data security expert Larry Ponemon.
“It’s not like hospital systems need to do something new,” he said. “They just need to do what they should be doing anyway.”
Current industry reports indicate health systems spend only 4% to 7% of their IT budget on cybersecurity, whereas other industries like banking or insurance spend three times as much.
Research by Ponemon’s consulting firm shows only about 15% of health care organizations have adopted the technology, training and procedures necessary to manage and thwart the stream of cyberattacks they face on a regular basis.
“The rest are out there flying with their head down. That number is unacceptable,” Ponemon said. “It’s a pitiful rate.”
And it’s part of why cybercriminals have focused their attention on health care organizations — especially now, as hospitals across the country are coping with a surge of COVID-19 patients, he said.
“We’re seeing true clinical impact,” said health care cybersecurity consultant Dan L. Dodson. “This is a call to arms.”
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Philippines Parents Pimp Out their Children as COVID Job Losses Mount
Child prostitution is surging this year in the Philippines, where parents have lost jobs during strict anti-pandemic shutdowns and allowed their children to work the sex trade, often through online connections, activists and officials say.Officials in the Southeast Asian country believe COVID-19 is fueling an increase in online sexual exploitation of children, the government’s Commission on Human Rights said in September. UNICEF had already described the Philippines four years ago as “the global epicenter of the live-stream sexual abuse trade.” International advocacy group End Child Prostitution and Trafficking estimates a 264% increase in online sexual abuse and exploitation of children during the pandemic, the domestic news website Manila Bulletin reports.“The increasing cases of children in prostitution is alarming,” said Maria Teresa Dela Rosa, president of the National Association of Social Work Education advocacy group in the southern city Davao.“Parents, out of poverty, are pimping their children, even using the online platforms,” she said.
Stay-home orders enforced at the neighborhood level since April have made it tough for adults to keep or find jobs. The Philippine jobless rate was 10% in July, up from 5.4% a year earlier.
FILE – A woman wearing protective mask to prevent the spread of the coronavirus walk past a mural showing frontliners in Manila, Philippines on Oct. 21, 2020.Child prostitution is happening largely at home, often involving fathers, stepfathers, uncles or older brothers, Dela Rosa said. Now adults in the family are helping their children use the internet to set up paid sex with people from outside the home, a source of family income, she said. The internet’s prevalence facilitates advertising, finding customers and getting paid, she added.
The Philippines is the largest known source of online sexual exploitation of children, the ASEAN Post, a news and data website covering Southeast Asia, said in an October report.
Dela Rosa cited one reported case where a father found a customer for his 7-year-old boy for the equivalent of a few U.S. dollars and described a 9-year-old girl who was selling sex to taxi drivers.
Quarantined online sex offenders are spending more time online, since it’s more difficult to go out, the commission’s statement says. “Vulnerable” women and children are “confined at home” at the same time with their traffickers, it says.
About 1 in 5 Filipinos lives in poverty. In urban slums without lockdowns, children can normally go outside to sell sundries from street corners or panhandle for change. Some of the poor live in mountain villages that rely on subsistence farming.Residents bathe, wash, and pump water in their destroyed village following the damage caused by Typhoon Vamco, in Rodriguez, Rizal province, Philippines.The country’s regular typhoons, earthquakes and volcanic explosions along with COVID-19 have made poverty more acute, pushing children toward prostitution, experts believe.
“This normally happens when we have disasters and now with the pandemic with many people losing jobs,” said Maria Ela Atienza, political science professor at the University of the Philippines Diliman. “Even the children are sacrificed in the process,” she said.
Lory Pabunag remembers the struggle to leave prostitution, her work of eight years. She did it to give “respect” to her three children, now ages 13, 23 and 26. A lot of people leave only when local nonprofit groups arrange other work for them, but those jobs are temporary, she said.
Mothers and children in prostitution are answering pressure to provide for family, she said.
“Being poor and being vulnerable is very risky and very hard, especially for women and especially for children who want to finish studies and wanted to go to school and wanted to help the family,” said Pabunag, 45, who now works for an anti-prostitution, anti-trafficking aid group in the southern Philippines.
Philippine officials must step up enforcement against child prostitution, said Dela Rosa, also a social worker and on the faculty of Ateneo de Davao University. They do too little now to stop online pornography, a vehicle for child prostitution, she said.
Government stimulus spending to ease economic shocks from the pandemic doesn’t go far enough for families, especially those who suddenly need to buy laptops for online schooling, Dela Rosa added. The country approved about $4 billion in stimulus earlier in the year.
To help further, the Philippine Senate is reviewing a bill that would require internet service providers and tourism establishments to report child prostitution crimes.
The human rights commission acknowledges that the crime is now hard to police. “The challenge remains for us to protect the most vulnerable individuals while swiftly prosecuting their abusers,” its September statement says.
“The lack of [child prostitution] data, the inconsistency in data collection, sharing and analysis across agencies, and the complexity of internet-facilitated crimes has made it almost impossible to accurately capture the extent of the crime locally and globally,” the commission says.
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UN Rights Chief Condemns Deteriorating Human Rights in Belarus
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet condemned gross violations of human rights in Belarus on Friday, calling on the government to put an end to the abusive treatment of its people.Bachelet told the U.N. Human Rights Council that conditions in Belarus have deteriorated since the council held an urgent debate on the human rights situation in September, following Belarus’ widely criticized presidential elections August 9.FILE – United Nations’ High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet adjusts her mask during the 45th session of the Human Rights Council, at the European U.N. headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, Sept. 14, 2020.More than 27,000 people have been arrested, including senior citizens participating in peaceful marches, she said, adding that penalties imposed on protesters appear to be growing more severe, with over 900 people reportedly having been treated as suspects in criminal cases. Security forces have used tear gas, water cannons, rubber bullets and stun guns to disperse crowds, Bachelet said, and at least four people have been killed. “We also have multiple and credible reports of people beaten by members of the security forces during and after their transport to police stations or detention centers,” she said. “If confirmed, such incidents should constitute ill-treatment and, in some cases, may amount to torture. Moreover, masked men, without insignia or identification, have frequently taken part in the dispersal of protests, alongside riot police.” Up to 2,000 complaints of torture of people while in custody were lodged by the end of October. Such actions heighten a climate of fear and an atmosphere of lawlessness and impunity, she said. “Many people who have been detained have reported being held in overcrowded cells, without adequate ventilation — despite the risks linked to the COVID-19 pandemic — denied food, water, access to the toilet and medical treatment,” Bachelet said. “They have further reported violent and random beatings as well as acts of humiliation, insults and threats.” FILE – Belarusian law enforcement officers block opposition supporters during their rally to reject the presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus, Nov. 1, 2020.The high commissioner is calling on the government to immediately release all those unlawfully detained, to respect the right of peaceful assembly, and to ensure independent and impartial investigations into cases of alleged torture and other human rights violations. Belarus Ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva Yuri Ambrazevich accused the U.N. of distorting the situation. He said full-fledged wars have received less attention than is being directed at his country. The pressure being exerted on Belarus violates the U.N. Charter on the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state, he said, blasting the European Union for imposing sanctions on Belarus, which he said clearly violated international law.
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Will Erdogan Complaint About Anti-Turkish Conspiracy Become Self-Fulfilling Prophecy?
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has complained about an international conspiracy forming against Turkey, and he says it’s attempting to frustrate his projection of Turkish power and influence abroad.Domestic and foreign critics counter that there isn’t yet a conspiracy, but if one does emerge, it largely will be due to his picking fights with his country’s neighbors, including the European Union and Turkey’s NATO allies. They are exasperated by his threats, whenever he is crossed, to throw open the doors for migrants to once again flock into Europe.Erdogan has in recent months frequently blamed invisible, malevolent foreign enemies for Turkey’s sharply deteriorating economy. For most of this year, foreign investors have shunned the country, and an already weak Turkish lira plunged last month to record lows in value against the dollar and euro. Western critics say Turkish economic woes are the result of his own mishandling of the economy.FILE PHOTO: A merchant counts Turkish lira banknotes at the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, Turkey, March 29, 2019.Additionally, the Turkish leader and his aides have accused European nations of ganging up to sabotage his geopolitical ambitions, especially in the eastern Mediterranean, where Ankara is locked in an escalating maritime quarrel with Greece and Cyprus that risks getting out of hand over lucrative gas and oil drilling rights.The huge energy potential of the eastern Mediterranean has drawn other powers in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East into the destabilizing standoff. Western Europeans and Turkey’s other regional neighbors say maritime law is on the side of Athens and Cyprus, accusing Ankara of brinkmanship in a deadlock that’s seen opposing warships come close to clashing.“We see ourselves as an inseparable part of Europe,” Erdogan told members of his ruling Justice and Development Party [AKP] in a speech last month. “However, this does not mean that we will bow down to overt attacks to our country and nation, veiled injustices and double standards,” he added.Civilians flee from Idlib toward the north to find safety inside Syria near the border with Turkey, Feb. 15, 2020.In October, as European criticism mounted about Turkish adventurism, including a military intervention into northern Syria aimed at dislodging Syrian Kurds, Erdogan, retorted, “Hey EU, wake up. I say it again: If you try to frame our operation as an invasion, our task is simple — we will open the doors and send 3.6 million migrants to you.”Conspiracy theories have long been a feature of cultural and political life in Turkey, certainly since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. And during his 17-year-long rule, political critics have accused Erdogan of stoking the long-held Turkish fear of being surrounded by foreign powers and beset by shadowy outside forces eager to weaken the country and to prevent it from restoring Ottoman greatness.“In fueling the current disputes in the Eastern Mediterranean, the [Turkish] leadership is using a narrative revolving around themes such as conquest—referring to the 1453 Ottoman conquest of Constantinople, today’s Istanbul—battles and wars, a huge [and undefined] foreign conspiracy, and a return to glory,” Marc Pierini, an analyst at the research group Carnegie Europe, noted in a posted commentary.Erdogan’s frequent complaint about an anti-Turkish foreign conspiracy risks turning into a self-fulfilling prophecy, warn some analysts and Western diplomats.French President Emmanuel Macron greets Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during a joint news conference at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, Jan. 5, 2018.From a diplomatic row with NATO ally France over the enforcement of an international arms embargo on Libya, to the deployment of special forces and Ankara-paid mercenaries to the strife-torn North Africa country, from military adventurism in northern Syria and Nagorno-Karabakh, to Turkey’s illegal drilling in Cypriot waters, the Turkish leader is amassing an impressive list of opponents.Ankara seems ever more willing to challenge allies and enemies alike in pursuit of a larger role on the world stage. If Western nations, and Turkey’s near neighbors, start coordinating containment strategies, it will be as a consequence of Erdogan’s aggressive aim to expand, through assertive diplomacy and military means, Turkish influence in the Mediterranean, Aegean and Black Sea, say Western diplomats and analysts.There are increasing signs that Turkey’s NATO partners are tiring with Erdogan’s assertive geopolitical ambitions and irredentist claims against his neighbors. “The totality of Turkey’s policies and actions have now reached a point of dangerous escalation,” according to analysts Heather Conley and Rachel Ellehuus of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a research group in Washington.They noted in a commentary for CSIS that Erdogan’s actions “substantially challenge the coherence of NATO’s collective defense posture in the Mediterranean and weaken its political cohesion.”“To avoid this,” they say, Western allies “should approach the growing instability in the Mediterranean through an integrative policy that seeks to de-escalate tensions and define, with Ankara, common interests by identifying some agreed principles to guide regional behavior.” They add: “If Turkey is unwilling to join such an initiative, greater transatlantic tensions lie ahead.”NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, left, and Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu speak to the media after their talks in Ankara, Turkey, Oct. 5, 2020.Turkey’s wrangling with allies and neighbors have increased since 2015, when Erdogan adopted as policy the so-called Blue Homeland Doctrine, originally drawn up by Turkish Admiral Cem Gurdeniz in 2006. The doctrine outlined an ambitious goal to expand Turkish influence with an aim to improve access to important energy and other economic resources. Its implementation has seen Erdogan resorting to ad hoc arrangements, reversing bilateral understandings, and backsliding on multilateral agreements and Turkish obligations to NATO—creating even greater regional instability, say critics.Despite his complaints about an anti-Turkey international conspiracy, some analysts say Erdogan has been helped by the absence of coordination between Western allies and by their circumspection.They say Western officials have held off imposing further sanctions on Turkey or enforcing sanctions that have already been announced. In July, EU foreign ministers asked the bloc’s diplomatic corps to draw up possible enforcement options for sanctions imposed on Turkey for its gas and oil drilling activities in Cypriot territorial waters and what they see as Ankara’s “gunboat diplomacy” in the eastern Mediterranean.A man reads walks past Cypriot newspaper with a front page carrying a photo montage about Turkey’s actions over Cyprus and international companies exploration for gas in the eastern Mediterranean in capital Nicosia, Cyprus, Feb. 13, 2018.Likewise, the U.S. has held back. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said Turkey’s illegal drilling in Cypriot waters is “unacceptable,” but the Trump administration hasn’t followed up with concrete action and has not yet imposed sanctions for Turkey’s recent purchase of the Russian S-400 missile defense system, an acquisition seen as breaching Ankara’s NATO commitments.Western diplomats and analysts say there are increasing signs, though, that Turkey’s NATO partners are wary of Erdogan’s adventurism and go-it-alone strategy. Impatience is likely to build quickly next year when U.S. President-elect Joe Biden enters the White House.Erdogan clashed often with Donald Trump, but Washington backed off confronting Ankara and opted for backroom deal-making. The two leaders were at least united in antipathy toward the EU. But that won’t be the case next year, and Erdogan is likely to find himself dealing with a less forgiving U.S. leader, according to Western diplomats.FILE – Turkish Finance Minister Berat Albayrak speaks during a conference to ease investor concerns about Turkey’s economic policy, in Istanbul, Turkey, Nov. 8, 2020.Since the U.S. election, Erdogan has shown signs he knows he will need to adjust. Hours after the U.S. election, Erdogan’s son-in-law, Berat Albayrak, resigned as Turkey’s economy minister. Albayrak had a close friendship with Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law.The Turkish president has also since the election vowed to launch a period of economic and legal reforms, saying he will prioritize legislation to strengthen democracy and improve human rights, an announcement widely seen as anticipating the changed circumstances in Washington. Biden has promised to host next year a global Summit for Democracy.
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Japan’s Prime Minister Pledges $19 Billion Investment in Green Economy
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has pledged $19.2 billion toward achieving zero carbon emissions by 2050.
He made the remarks Friday during wide-ranging news conference that came a day before the Japanese parliament – the Diet – ends its legislative session, as is customary. Suga told reporters his proposal marks a big step forward in environmental investment for the country.
He also announced a nearly $10 billion investment in digitalization including research and development for wireless communications technologies supporting cellular data networks.
Regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, the Japanese leader said he would be introducing an economic package next week to help individuals and businesses recover and repair the economy from the coronavirus’s devastating effects.
As for a vaccine, the prime minister referenced “a few ongoing clinical trials in Japan and overseas,” some of which are in their final stages.
“Safety and efficacy will be the biggest priorities. We are making the utmost effort in preparation, to deliver the vaccinations that will be approved for those in need,” he said Friday.
Suga also said he would like to work closely with U.S. President-elect Joe Biden.
“(The) Japan-U.S. alliance is the cornerstone of Japan’s diplomatic security and is the very foundation of peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region and the international community,” he said, noting he would like to arrange a U.S. visit as soon as possible.
Suga took office on Sept. 16, pledging to carry on policies of his predecessor, Shinzo Abe, who resigned due to health problems.
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Greek-UAE Defense Deal Corners Turkey
Turkey is voicing concern over a new military alliance between Greece and the United Arab Emirates, warning it threatens to change the balance of power in the region. Turkey and Greece are engaged in a bitter dispute over territorial waters, as Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul
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New US Citizenship Test Adds Questions, Complexity
U.S. legal permanent residents on the path to naturalization will now be required to take a longer and more complex citizenship test. The new civics test is drawn from 128 questions test takers must be prepared to answer about American history and government, up from 100 questions previously. Anyone who applies for U.S. naturalization after December 1, 2020, must take FILE- George Washington’s signature is seen on his personal copy of the Acts of the first Congress (1789), containing the U.S. Constitution and the proposed Bill of Rights.Applicants must answer 12 out of 20 questions correctly to pass instead of the previous six out of 10.“But you are asked all 20 questions,” said Nancy Newton, program director of the Citizen Preparation Program at Montgomery College, a public community college in Montgomery County, Maryland.Passing the naturalization test is the final requirement for legal permanent residents, also known as green card holders, to become American citizens. The test is given orally during the naturalization interview, one of the final stages of the citizenship process.Newton told VOA the new test will require greater English proficiency, shifting from a high-beginning level of English to a high-intermediate level. With the assistance of a DHS grant and a partnership with local nonprofits, the Citizen Preparation Program helps about 300 legal permanent residents every year. Legal permanent residents eligible to naturalize spend months studying for the citizenship test.“What we need to ensure is that our learners know exactly what is required of them. And that we prepare them as best we can,” Newton said.FILE – Aisha Kazman Kammawie, of Ankeny, Iowa, takes the oath of allegiance during a drive-thru naturalization ceremony at Principal Park in Des Moines, Iowa.What’s new? While doubling the number of test questions, USCIS said the passing score will remain at 60%. While many questions have not changed, some have been reworded and others will require additional explanation in the answers.The former test asked, “There were 13 original states, name three.” The revised version says “There were 13 original states. Name five.”Instead of “What are two rights of everyone living in the United States?,” an applicant must answer “What are three rights of everyone living in the United States?”Some immigrant advocates criticized the test, saying some questions have been made more difficult without evidence there was a need for it. The questions have also taken on a “subtle political stance,” wrote Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy counsel at the FILE – High school teacher Natalie O’Brien, center, hands out papers during a civics class called “We the People,” at North Smithfield High School in North Smithfield, Rhode Island.A 2018 Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship FoundationFILE – Isabel Ruiz, right, receives a U.S. flag from Supervisory Immigration Services Officer James Fobert after she passed her citizenship interview in Newark, N.J.Montgomery College was part of the pilot program, and Newton said applicants agreed the wording of the questions was different but “it wasn’t something that was completely alien to them in terms of English language ability.”“Whilst we may think that the new test is more challenging than the current one, our learners are immigrants [and] have been through so much to get to this stage. There is so much that comes before even getting an application in to become a citizen. We’ll get through this. We’ll get through this together as a community,” Newton said.
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Among First Acts, Biden to Call for 100 Days of Mask-Wearing
Joe Biden said Thursday that he will ask Americans to commit to 100 days of wearing masks as one of his first acts as president, stopping just short of the nationwide mandate he’s pushed before to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
The move marks a notable shift from President Donald Trump, whose own skepticism of mask-wearing has contributed to a politicization of the issue. That’s made many people reticent to embrace a practice that public health experts say is one of the easiest ways to manage the pandemic, which has killed more than 275,000 Americans.
The president-elect has frequently emphasized mask-wearing as a “patriotic duty” and during the campaign floated the idea of instituting a nationwide mask mandate, which he later acknowledged would be beyond the ability of the president to enforce.
Speaking with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Biden said he would make the request of Americans on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20.
“On the first day I’m inaugurated, I’m going to ask the public for 100 days to mask. Just 100 days to mask — not forever, just 100 days. And I think we’ll see a significant reduction” in the virus, Biden said.
The president-elect reiterated his call for lawmakers on Capitol Hill to pass a coronavirus aid bill and expressed support for a $900 billion compromise bill that a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced this week.
“That would be a good start. It’s not enough,” he said, adding, “I’m going to need to ask for more help.”
Biden has said his transition team is working on its own coronavirus relief package, and his aides have signaled they plan for that to be their first legislative push.
The president-elect also said he asked Dr. Anthony Fauci to stay on in his administration, “in the exact same role he’s had for the past several presidents,” as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert.
He said he’s asked Fauci to be a “chief medical adviser” as well as part of his COVID-19 advisory team.FILE – Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, speaks during a Senate hearing on COVID-19, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, Sept. 23, 2020.Regarding a coronavirus vaccine, Biden offered begrudging credit for the work Trump’s administration has done in expediting the development of a vaccine but said that planning the distribution properly will be “critically important.”
“It’s a really difficult but doable project, but it has to be well planned, ” he said.
Part of the challenge the Biden administration will face in distributing the vaccine will be instilling public confidence in it. Biden said he’d be “happy” to get inoculated in public to assuage any concerns about its efficacy and safety. Three former presidents — Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton — have said they’d also get vaccinated publicly to show that it’s safe.
“People have lost faith in the ability of the vaccine to work,” Biden said, adding that “it matters what a president and the vice president do.”FILE – President Donald Trump participates in a Thanksgiving video teleconference with members of the military forces.In the same interview, Biden also weighed in on reports that Trump is considering pardons of himself and his allies.
“It concerns me in terms of what kind of precedent it sets and how the rest of the world looks at us as a nation of laws and justice,” Biden said.
Biden committed that his Justice Department will “operate independently” and that whoever he chooses to lead the department will have the “independent capacity to decide who gets investigated.”
“You’re not going to see in our administration that kind of approach to pardons, nor are you going to see in our administration the approach to making policy by tweets,” he said.
In addition to considering preemptive pardons, Trump has spent much of his time post-election trying to raise questions about an election he lost by millions of votes while his lawyers pursue baseless lawsuits alleging voter fraud in multiple states.
Republicans on Capitol Hill, meanwhile, have largely given the president cover, with many defending the lawsuits and few publicly congratulating Biden on his win.
But Biden said Thursday that he’s received private calls of congratulations from “more than several sitting Republican senators” and that he has confidence in his ability to cut bipartisan deals with Republicans despite the rancor that’s characterized the last four years on Capitol Hill.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
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Trump aides have expressed skepticism that the president, who continues to falsely claim victory and spread baseless claims of fraud, would attend Biden’s inauguration. Biden said Thursday night that he believes it’s “important” that Trump attend, largely to demonstrate the nation’s commitment to peaceful transfer of power between political rivals.
“It is totally his decision,” Biden said of Trump, adding, “It is of no personal consequence to me, but I think it is to the country.”
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Protests Break Out in Captured Ethiopian City, says Tigrayan Leader
The leader of Ethiopia’s rebellious Tigrayan forces said on Friday that protests were breaking out in the regional capital which fell to federal troops days ago in their monthlong war.However, state TV showed images of people shopping and sitting on stools in Mekelle, while the new government-appointed chief executive of Tigray said peace was returning to the area.Fighting between Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s federal army and forces loyal to the region’s former ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), has raged since Nov. 4.With communications largely down and access for media restricted, claims from all sides have been impossible to verify. But thousands of people are believed to have died while more than 45,000 refugees have crossed to neighboring Sudan.TPLF leaders, who have enjoyed strong popular support for years in Tigray, appear to have fled to surrounding mountains and begun a guerrilla-style resistance.TPLF No. 1 Debretsion Gebremichael, the most wanted man in Ethiopia, told Reuters in a text message on Friday that there were popular protests in Mekelle, which is home to 500,000 people, due to looting by Eritrean soldiers.”Eritrean soldiers are everywhere,” he said, repeating an accusation that President Isaias Afwerki has sent soldiers over the border to back Abiy against their mutual foe.Both Ethiopia and Eritrea have denied that.”Our people in town are protesting their looting. We do have captives, but we’ll gather more visual evidences,” added Debretsion, a 57-year-old former guerrilla radio operator who was once in a coalition government with Abiy.He gave no evidence of looting or the presence of Eritreans.Abiy’s spokesperson Billene Seyoum said she would not comment on unverifiable text messages. Previously, she has called them the “delusions of a criminal clique.”Fears of ‘protracted civil war’The United Nations and aid agencies are extremely worried about the humanitarian crisis in Tigray, where hundreds of thousands of people relied on food aid even before the war.Charitable organizations say food, fuel, medicines and even body bags are running low. Convoys are on standby.Mulu Nega, appointed by Abiy as chief executive of a new Provisional Administration of Tigray, said the government was channeling help to parts of west Tigray including the towns of Humera, Dansha and Mai Kadra.”Our priority in the region now is to restore peace, stability and order,” the 52-year-old former academic told state-run EBC.Abiy took office two years ago after nearly three decades of TPLF-led government following the overthrow of Marxist dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1991.He began opening up a closed economy and repressive political system, won a Nobel Peace Prize for a peace pact with Eritrea and took action over past rights abuses and corruption.But the particular targeting of Tigrayan officials irked the TPLF and Abiy’s initially glowing international reputation has come under scrutiny with the jailing of opposition figures and now his offensive against the northern region.The TPLF accuses their ex-military comrade and political partner of trying to increase his personal power over Ethiopia’s 10 regions. Abiy denies that, calling them criminals who mutinied against federal authority, attacked a military base, and were unfairly over-represented in government for a group that only accounts for 6% of the population.At a U.S. congressional online hearing on Ethiopia late Thursday, American politicians expressed anxiety about instability both for a U.S. ally and the wider east Africa region.”There is a concern … that the fall of the capital does not necessarily mark the end of the armed conflict,” said Republican legislator Chris Smith. “We’re very worried, all of us, about a protracted civil war.”
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Buddhist Prayer Ceremony Held in Cambodia for Missing Thai Activist
The sister of a Thai pro-democracy activist who rights groups say was abducted by unknown gunmen in Cambodia called on Friday for authorities to solve the case after holding a Buddhist prayer ceremony to mark six months since his disappearance.Wanchalearm Satsaksit, 37, was bundled into a vehicle in front of his Phnom Penh apartment in June, New York-based Human Rights Watch said. Cambodian police have previously said they were unaware a kidnapping had taken place.During the brief ceremony outside Wanchalearm’s apartment, Buddhist monks chanted and scattered sacred water.”We do not know the perpetrator; however, it is the duty and responsibility of authorities both in Cambodia and Thailand to find the truth,” Wanchalearm’s sister, Sitanun Satsaksit, told reporters after the ceremony.Wanchalearm was speaking on his mobile phone to Sitanun when he was abducted, the elder sister has said previously.Sitanun said the family still hoped to be reunited with their brother but said the response of authorities in both countries had not been sufficient.Sitanun is due to appear at a hearing about the case in a Phnom Penh court on Tuesday, where she plans to submit photographs and videos to show that her brother was in the city at the time of his alleged abduction.Cambodian national police spokesperson Chhay Kim Khoeun, who had previously said police were unaware of the incident, declined to comment on Friday.In a statement, Thailand’s embassy in Phnom Penh said it was following the case but could not provide specific comment at this time since “the case is currently under legal process.”The embassy said it was closely cooperating with Cambodian authorities and would continue to provide assistance to Wanchalearm’s family.At least eight other Thai activists who fled the country after a 2014 military coup have disappeared from Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, with some later found dead.Thai authorities have said they had nothing to do with the disappearances.
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Australian Telescope Finds 1 Million New Galaxies
A powerful new telescope in Australia has mapped vast areas of the universe in record time. The Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder was able to chart about 3 million galaxies in just 300 hours – 1 million of which have never been seen before.Galaxies are the building blocks of the universe. From a remote corner in the Western Australian outback, a new telescope, which has turned radio signals in space into images, has examined the entire southern sky in sharper detail than has ever been done before.The Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder, 800 kilometers north of Perth, is run by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, or CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency.The telescope is not just one dish or antenna, but 36. They are three stories high and connected by fiber-optic cable, so they combine to work as one supertelescope.The array is helping scientists study black holes, the nature of gravity and the origins of the first stars.By cataloging millions of galaxies, scientists hope to unlock the secrets of how the universe has evolved.“If we can look at the statistics of them, where they are on the sky, and how they interact with each other, then we learn about how galaxies like our own can form and how we came to be here on this Earth,” said Douglas Bock, he CSIRO’s director of astronomy and space science. “And if we look at a galaxy that is far away, perhaps 12 billion light years away, we are looking back in time. So, we are looking at the light from that galaxy that was emitted when it was only a few billion years after the beginning of our universe.”Researchers say the array’s isolated location in Western Australia is ideal for this type of astronomy because it’s quiet and far away from Earth-based radio transmissions. Much work lies ahead. The CSIRO estimates the universe could contain as many as 1 trillion galaxies.
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US Lawmakers Denounce Sentencing of Hong Kong Activists
The Hong Kong government’s decision to sentence three prominent activists to prison for organizing an unauthorized assembly drew fire from several key member of the U.S. Congress.On Wednesday, Hong Kong pro-democracy activists Joshua Wong, Agnes Chow and Ivan Lam received jail terms for organizing a protest that took place outside the Hong Kong Police Headquarters in the district of Wan Chai in June 2019.In this Sept. 28, 2019, photo, Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Agnes Chow stands next to a poster of activist Joshua Wong, in Hong Kong.Wong received a sentence of 13-and-a-half months in jail after pleading guilty to both inciting and organizing an unauthorized assembly. Chow received a 10-month sentence for inciting and taking part in the protest, while Lam received a seven-month sentence for inciting the protest.Wong is one of the most widely recognized activists engaged in the city’s resistance to Beijing’s crackdown. He, Chow and Lam were members of a now disbanded political group, called Demosisto.Bipartisan criticismBoth Democratic and Republican lawmakers in Washington responded angrily to the sentences. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, called the ruling “appalling” in Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., pauses as she meets with reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Nov. 12, 2020.“This injustice is clear proof that Beijing will stop at nothing to stamp out dissent and to destroy the freedoms and real autonomy guaranteed to the people of Hong Kong,” she said, adding that Congress will “speak with one voice in defense of those oppressed by Beijing and in support of freedom, justice and real autonomy for the people of Hong Kong.” Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida said the ruling sends a clear signal to the world.“Beijing completely controls Hong Kong,” said Rubio, chairman of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. “American and other companies should get out while they can.”He added that the sentences show that the Hong Kong government has failed to keep its promise of a One Country, Two Systems framework, which was meant to give Hong Kong greater autonomy than other Chinese cities.Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., asks a question to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during a Senate Foreign Relations committee hearing on the State Department’s 2021 budget, July 30, 2020, in Washington.“If this is how Hong Kong treats prominent pro-democracy activists, then the international community must watch closely for how Hong Kong treats the thousands awaiting their day in court and those charged under the National Security Law,” Rubio said in a statement. “I stand in solidarity with all Hong Kongers who are watching as their long-cherished freedoms are robbed by a corrupt and cruel regime in Beijing.”Josh Hawley, a Republican senator from Missouri, told VOA the ruling shows that China has no intention of living up to its obligations stated in the Ron Johnson, R-Wisc. speaks to a witness during a migration hearing in Washington, April 4, 2019.Senator Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican, called the court ruling “appalling” in an interview with VOA.“What Communist China is doing to Hong Kong is appalling. We should do everything we can to show support for the courageous people of Hong Kong who just want freedom,” he said.Senator Bob Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey and ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the incoming Biden administration would be tougher on China’s human rights issues.“[President-elect Joe Biden] intends to be an advocate for human rights and democracy and it will be one of the pillars of American foreign policy again,” he told VOA. “I think Hong Kong is a prime candidate for the voice of the Biden-elect administration to be raised as it relates to human rights and democracy.”Human rightsSamuel Chu, managing director of the Washington D.C.-based Hong Kong Democracy Council, told VOA that he is heartbroken over what happened to young activists in Hong Kong.“I’m really sad and I’m angered by the fact that the Hong Kong and Chinese government is essentially saying that they are willing to wipe out the brightest [minds] of the next generation just to buy some time to keep control of Hong Kong,” Chu said.Manpreet Anand, regional director for Asia-Pacific programs at the National Democratic Institute, was sanctioned by the Beijing government on Monday for his work on human rights issues in China. He told VOA that Beijing is clearly trying to silence, intimidate and deter people who are attempting to advocate for the rights promised to them by the territory’s Basic Law, or constitution.“It’s really unfortunate. I think you are seeing an outpouring of support from across the democratic world for those individuals, but broadly for all of those who want what was promised to them in terms of democracy in Hong Kong,” Anand said.Jimmy Lai of Next Digital, which publishes the Apple Daily newspaper, is escorted by Correctional Services officers to prison, in Hong Kong, Dec. 3, 2020.Meanwhile, Hong Kong pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai has been denied bail following his arrest for alleged fraud on Thursday. He was deemed an “absconding risk” by the court and is set to remain behind bars until the next court date in April 2021.Chung Kim-wah, deputy chief executive officer of the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute, told VOA the court decision is unusual in its nature.“The accusation was illegal use of his company’s premises. In fact, he lent office space to a foundation, that’s a common practice in Hong Kong,” Chung said. “I think the decision to deny bail is to target Jimmy Lai, and the fact that he needs to remain behind bars for more than five months equals political persecution.”This story originated in VOA’s Mandarin Service.
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