Pro-democracy protesters, a number of them students, have barricaded themselves at universities in Hong Kong as the schools become the latest flashpoints in the demonstrators’ quest for greater autonomy from China. Violent confrontations between authorities and demonstrators continue to erupt.In an attempt to quell street protests this week, police entered the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Polytechnic University and the University of Hong Kong, lobbing tear gas inside the first two institutions. That touched off fights at several schools.The biggest battles raged at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. After police stepped onto campus and arrested several students who were later charged with rioting, the campus transformed into a barricaded encampment. Students, alumni and students from other universities occupied a campus bridge, setting fires and hurling Molotov cocktails, to keep police off campus property. Riot police withdrew Tuesday night. As of late Wednesday, police said protesters were still occupying the campus.”We have to fight for our freedom. This is not right,” said Venus, a 25-year-old CUHK alumna, helping to move resources on Tuesday night. “Police don’t have the right to come onto our campus.”Pro-democracy protesters take a nap while charging their devices inside the campus of the Hong Kong Baptist University in Hong Kong, Nov. 13, 2019.Police said they have employed “the minimum necessary force … to assist those in leaving the scene,” adding that “multiple warnings have been avoided.” Police said they took action after crowds threw bricks, gasoline bombs and launched arrows.Speaking to the media, police spokesman Kong Wing-cheung said there had been “countless examples of rioters using random and indiscriminate violence against innocent” people. “Hong Kong’s rule of law has been pushed to the brink of total collapse as masked rioters recklessly escalate their violence under the hope that they can get away with it,” he said.In a development that has worried many in the city, organizations are helping students from mainland China leave Hong Kong. The city’s marine police used a boat on Wednesday to evacuate mainland students from Chinese University. Police said they did so when a mob on campus blocked the students.In addition, universities have organized shuttle buses and online classes for students who wish to return to mainland China and finish their work. Organizations in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen invited Chinese students to stay there.Tensions have been building since last Friday when a student from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology died after falling one story in a parking garage during a police clearance operation. Alex Chow was believed to be the first student to die in the five months of protests that began over concerns that Chinese law would be applied in Hong Kong, which has a separate constitution. That protest has grown to demand that Hong Kong have more democratic rights and investigate police tactics.A general strike, called by protesters online, took a dark turn on Monday when a traffic police officer shot and severely wounded a young protester who was joining others to block traffic on Hong Kong Island.Those actions ignited a growing anger on campuses. At Polytechnic, protesters set trash ablaze, broke windows and tossed chairs and even a fuel bomb onto roads feeding into the Cross Harbor Tunnel. On the window of one campus building, someone wrote, “We will revenge.”The most dangerous battles raged at Chinese University. There, police stepped onto campus in northeast Hong Kong on Monday and arrested five students, then doused a sports field with tear gas as students ran to escape. While university Vice Chancellor Rocky Tuan tried to broker a deal, students demanded that police release those arrested that afternoon, and for police to leave the campus. Police accused students of throwing objects onto the highway below.
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The United Nations has called on Cambodia to repeal its decision criminalizing surrogacy and asked the government to ensure that its draft law will not impose criminal liability on surrogate mothers.In its concluding observations adopted on Friday, the U.N. Committee on Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) decried ongoing harassment and discrimination against women in Cambodia.One of the concerns the report highlighted was the criminalization of surrogacy in the country. Surrogacy over the last years has sparked international criticism, with children being sold to foreign parents. Surrogate mothers themselves are often victims of exploitation, according to observers.  Since surrogacy was outlawed in October 2016, CEDAW said, over 60 surrogate women had been arrested and were subject to criminal proceedings.The women were only released under the condition of raising the surrogate children until they are 18.“The Committee is particularly concerned that such an obligation creates an additional financial and emotional burden on women who are in precarious situations, which led them to act as surrogates in the first place,” the report reads, “and that they face discrimination and stigma from their families and communities for having acted as surrogates.”The U.N. therefore calls on the government to repeal the October 2016 decision and end the practice of only releasing the women from imprisonment if they raised the children as their own.But Chou Bun Eng, the Secretary of State and Permanent Vice Chair of the National Committee for Counter Trafficking of Cambodia (NCCT) argued that international actors sometimes were unaware of the local context. “Sometimes the persons from the outside do not know the situation inside Cambodia and may not understand the crime and how it happened, and what impact it causes on our people,” she said. “Sometimes they just focus on the rights of women and they ignore the rights of children.”She said that all arrested surrogate mothers had been released from jail, although they do remain under court supervision for an unspecific term.Bun Eng said the draft law would be discussed with stakeholders at the beginning of 2020. In addition to outlawing surrogacy in 2016, the government has been drafting a law to set out punishment and regulations in a separate legal text.The government, CEDAW said, had to ensure that the new law “does not impose criminal liability or administrative sanctions” on surrogate women. In addition, the law should “take into account the unequal relations between the parties to a surrogacy arrangement.”Executive Director of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights Chak Sopheap explained that many women were pushed into being surrogate mothers.“Surrogate women in Cambodia are likely to be at the sharp end of various economic and political hardships that caused them to make the decision to become a surrogate,” she told VOA in an email. “We have seen, over the past year, women surrogates raided, charged with human trafficking, and detained, with no transparency from the authorities as to their wellbeing or that of the children they have given birth to.”Ros Sopheap, director of NGO Gender and Development for Cambodia, echoed similar concerns and said that although ethical and cultural concerns had to be considered, surrogate women should not be jailed. “To me, they are not criminals. They’re just victims,” she said.Instead of forcing the women, who already faced economic hardship, to raise the children, the government should ensure the children’s wellbeing. “They are not able to afford to support the children,” she said. “The government needs to have a strategy.”
But Bun Eng said since the outlawing of surrogacy, women were fully aware they were committing a crime and had to be held responsible.    
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Australia’s highest court agreed Wednesday to hear an appeal from the most senior Catholic to be found guilty of sexually abusing children, giving Cardinal George Pell his last chance at getting his convictions overturned.The decision by the High Court of Australia comes nearly a year after a unanimous jury found Pope Francis’ former finance minister guilty of molesting two 13-year-old choirboys in Melbourne’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral in the late 1990s, shortly after Pell became archbishop of Australia’s second-largest city.The 78-year-old was sentenced to six years in prison in March and is no longer a member of Francis’ Council of Cardinals or a Vatican official. The Victoria state Court of Appeal rejected his appeal in August.Pell is in a Melbourne prison, where the Herald Sun newspaper reported last month that he had been given a gardening job. He did not attend the High Court in Canberra to hear the decision Wednesday.Two of the seven justices — Michelle Gordon and James Edelman — heard Pell’s application for an appeal and unanimously approved it for a hearing by the full bench. The court rejects around 90% of such applications.An appeal hearing cannot happen before the justices return from their summer break in early February.Pell’s lawyers argued in their 12-page application for a High Court appeal that two state appeals court judges made error in dismissing his appeal in August.The judges made a mistake by requiring Pell to prove the abuse was impossible, rather than putting the onus of proof on prosecutors, the lawyers said.They also said the two judges erred in finding the jury’s guilty verdicts were reasonable. Pell’s lawyers argued there was reasonable doubt about whether opportunity existed for the crimes to have occurred.Pell’s lawyers also argued that changes in law over the years since the crimes were alleged have increased the difficulty in testing sexual assault allegations.They say Pell should be acquitted of all charges for several reasons, including inconsistencies in the accuser’s version of events.Prosecutors argued there is no basis for the appeal and that the Victorian courts made no errors.In their written submission to the High Court, prosecutors wrote that Pell’s legal team was asking High Court judges to apply established principles to the facts of the case, which were already carefully and thoroughly explored by the state appeals court.Pell was largely convicted on the testimony of one victim. The second victim died of an accidental heroin overdose in 2014 when he was 31 without complaining that he had been abused.After Pell lost his first appeal, the surviving victim said, “I just hope that it’s all over now.”Clerical sexual abuse and the Catholic Church’s handling of such cases worldwide have thrown Francis’ papacy into turmoil.In a little more than a year, the pope has acknowledged he made “grave errors” in Chile’s worst cover-up, Pell was convicted of abuse, a French cardinal was convicted of failing to report a pedophile, and U.S. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick was defrocked after a Vatican investigation determined he molested children and adults.Pell must serve at least three years and eight months behind bars before he becomes eligible for parole. As a convicted pedophile, he is provided with extra protection from other inmates and spends 23 hours a day in solitary confinement. 
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The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, agreed with Japanese officials Tuesday that three-way cooperation with South Korea is key to regional security and that an intelligence sharing pact between Tokyo and Seoul should not be scrapped.Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said he told Milley that discord among the three countries would only destabilize the region and benefit North Korea, China and Russia.“We shared a view that Japan-U.S.-South Korea cooperation is more important now than ever, as we discussed the latest situation related to North Korea, including the North’s latest launch of ballistic missiles,” Motegi said.He and Milley also agreed on the importance of the Japan-South Korea intelligence sharing pact. Motegi added that Milley promised to convey that message to South Korea during his upcoming visit there.South Korea has announced plans to scrap the General Security of Military Information Agreement, or GSOMIA, amid disputes with Japan over trade and wartime history.The deal, which is set to expire later this month, symbolizes the Asian neighbors’ security cooperation with Washington in the face of North Korea’s nuclear and missile threat and China’s growing influence. U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has been exerting last-minute pressure on Japan and South Korea to keep the deal.Milley also met with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Defense Minister Taro Kono, according to the Foreign Ministry and news reports.Kono said recently that scrapping GSOMIA would send the “wrong signal to nearby countries, especially at a time when cooperation among Japan, the U.S. and South Korea is necessary.” He said “the ball is in South Korea’s court” and urged Seoul to “make a wise decision.”Japan also appears to be making a last-ditch effort to patch up its relations with South Korea to save the intelligence-sharing agreement.Kono has expressed a willingness to meet with his South Korean counterpart, Jeong Kyeong-doo, on the sidelines of regional meeting in Thailand later this week.Separately, Japanese media said Tuesday that Motegi may also meet with his South Korean counterpart, Kang Kyung-wha, at a G-20 foreign ministers’ meeting next week in central Japan.Relations between Japan and South Korea in recent months have been their lowest in decades.Japan has denounced South Korean court rulings that ordered Japanese companies to compensate elderly South Koreans for forced labor during World War II, insisting that all compensation issues were settled by a 1965 treaty normalizing relations between the two countries.  South Korea accuses Tokyo of ignoring its people’s suffering under Japan’s 1910-1945 brutal colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula, and criticized Japan of tightening trade controls on key technology exports to South Korea and the downgrading of its trade status as a retaliation to the wartime compensation rulings.Motegi said Tuesday that South Korea’s decision to scrap GSOMIA in retaliation for Japan’s trade controls was a “complete misjudgment of the current regional security environment and is extremely regrettable.” He said export controls and security issues should not be linked. 
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Hong Kong’s embattled leader Carrie Lam on Tuesday said protesters who are trying to
“paralyze” the city were extremely selfish and hoped all universities and schools would urge students not to participate in violence.Lam was speaking a day after police shot a protester and a man was set on fire in some of the most dramatic scenes to grip the city during the more than five months of civil unrest.On Monday, Lam said that the violence roiling the former British colony exceeded protesters’ demands for democracy and demonstrators are now the people’s enemy. 
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Amid tensions with Taiwan, China appears to be flexing its political muscle by capturing a growing number of Taiwanese for suspected political crimes, say analysts.At least four people have vanished since 2017 on suspicion of spreading information that offends Chinese leaders, according to local media reports and Taiwan government officials.Hundreds of thousands of Taiwanese invest in China but lack foreign diplomatic protection because the two governments do not get along.Regional experts say these disappearances remind Taiwanese academics, merchants and investors to avoid spreading word of their homeland’s democracy to China, including on social media, where firms such as China-based messaging app WeChat make it easier than ever to spread views among Chinese citizens. These users are at risk of being  caught by authorities who can check internet traffic.”I think basically it’s an intimidation strategy. Taiwanese people are very easily intimidated,” said Shane Lee, a retired political science professor from Chang Jung Christian University in Tainan, Taiwan. “I would think that fewer and fewer people would venture into China in the future. They are scared.”China sees Taiwan as part of its territory, but more than 80% of Taiwanese have told government surveys in Taipei this year they prefer autonomy over Beijing’s goal of unification. China ended formal talks in 2016, because Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen rejects its dialogue precondition that both sides fall under the same flag.And Taiwan and China have no diplomatic relations, making it hard for Taipei to intervene when someone is detained or arrested.Four political disappearances since 2017Taiwanese political activist Lee Ming-che was the first high-profile person to disappear over the past two years. He went missing in March 2017 after arriving in the Chinese territory Macau. In November that year, a Chinese court sentenced him to five years in prison for subverting state power.At the time of his disappearance, people who knew him said Lee had used a social media group to spread democratic ideals among mainland Chinese.In August of this year, Taiwanese local government volunteer Lee Meng-chu went missing after distributing photos he had taken of Chinese troops near Hong Kong. Anti-China demonstrators feared at the time China would start a paramilitary crackdown against their protests that had broken out in June.The Chinese government’s Taiwan Affairs Office said in September that Lee Meng-chu was being investigated on suspicion of endangering national security.Taiwanese media said separately in September that Tsai Chin-shu, the head of a private Taiwan-China exchange association, had gone missing in China for 14 months. He was reportedly being held there for national security reasons.The latest case involves a retired Taiwanese university professor, Shih Cheng-ping, who has been out of contact with family and former colleagues since August 2018, per local media reports. He may have been detained in Beijing this past June or July for similar reasons, some media outlets reported this month.The Taiwan government’s Mainland Affairs Council says it is investigating this case.That council says 149 Taiwanese have gone missing in China since 2016, although political cases make up just a slim number.Fear of politics, courtsThe council says it warns citizens about China since its legal system is “very different from Taiwan or other international democracies.”China may be inventing the charges, which will erode trust in the Chinese legal system, some analysts say.”Whether the criminal activities are made up or they are fabricated in order for the mainland government to pursue a political agenda, I think that’s more of a legal issue,” said Yun Sun, East Asia Program senior associate at the Stimson Center research group in Washington. “That’s why people don’t trust the mainland legal system. It does not generate that fair trial.”Officials in China do not publicly link national security cases to politics. The government in Beijing has instead created 47 special incentives, including 26 announced last week, to make it easier for Taiwanese residents to get set up in China for business, work or study. Analysts describe those measures as China’s effort to merge the two sides economically, consistent with its unification goal.Chinese officials are more likely to be harsher on suspects who sympathize with the Tsai government in Taiwan, Shane Lee said. Whoever they may be, they will worry now about being detained for anything, possibly with no immediate reason given, he said. Some scholars, he added, are already avoiding travel to China.Authorities in China have been detaining Taiwanese over national security for more than just Tsai’s presidential term and the actual number of cases since 2017 may exceed four, said Andy Chang, China studies professor at Tamkang University in Taiwan.But when the authorities catch people with links to Taiwan’s more China-friendly political opposition, or with strong connections within China, they are more likely to handle the cases in ways that do not alarm people in Taiwan, Chang said. Under former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou, China would notify the other side, for example. Ma’s government had fostered closer ties with Beijing.”If it’s these so-called pan-green and deep green people, once they’re detained they lack a channel for communication or understanding, therefore they go through the Mainland Affairs Council or Straits Exchange Foundation or to the media,” Chang said.The term “green” refers to Taiwanese who favor today’s ruling party and greater autonomy for Taiwan rather than closer China ties. The foundation is a de facto consular office.”They use these channels hoping to create pressure on Beijing,” Chang said. 
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Hong Kong’s leader pledged on Monday to “spare no effort” in bringing an end to anti-government protests that have wracked the city for more than five months, following a day of violence in which one person was shot and another set on fire.  
 
Carrie Lam’s comments are likely to fuel speculation that harsher legal and police measures may be in the works to curb the protests.
 
“I do not want to go into details, but I just want to make it very clear that we will spare no effort in finding ways and means that could end the violence in Hong Kong as soon as possible,” Lam told reporters.
 
Lam also refused to accept the protesters’ demands for political concessions.
 
“If there is still any wishful thinking that, by escalating violence, the Hong Kong SAR government will yield to pressure to satisfy the so-called political demands, I am making this statement clear and loud here: That will not happen,” Lam said, using the initials for Special Administrative Region, which describes the city’s status as a semi-autonomous Chinese territory.   
 
Monday’s violence is likely to further inflame passions in Hong Kong after a student who fell during an earlier protest succumbed to his injuries on Friday and police arrested six pro-democracy lawmakers over the weekend on charges of obstructing the local assembly during a raucous May 11 meeting. All were freed on bail.  
 
China’s ruling Communist Party has also indicated it may try to find a way to enact anti-subversion laws in the territory, after such measures were shelved previously due to public opposition.While Beijing has dismissed reports it may replace Lam next year, the party last week issued a statement saying it would “perfect” the system to appoint and dismiss Hong Kong’s leader and top officials.In a widely distributed video, a police officer is shown shooing away a group of protesters at an intersection Monday morning, then drawing his gun on a masked protester in a white hooded sweatshirt who approaches him.As the two struggle, another protester in black approaches, at whom the officer points his gun. He then fires at the stomach area of the second protester, who falls to the ground. The officer appeared to fire again as a third protester in black joined the tussle.The protester in white manages to flee, bounding up a nearby stairway, and the officer and a colleague pin the two in black to the ground.
 
Police said that only one protester was hit and that he was undergoing surgery. A spokeswoman for the Hong Kong hospital authority said the person was in critical condition but gave no further details.
 
It was the second time a protester has been shot since the demonstrations began in early June, although police have repeatedly drawn their firearms to ward off attacks. More than 3,300 people have been arrested in the protests.
 
Few details were available about the burning incident in the Ma On Shan neighborhood. Video posted online shows the victim arguing with a group of young people before someone douses him with a liquid and strikes a lighter.
 
Police fired tear gas and deployed a water cannon in various parts of the city on Monday and charged onto the campus of Chinese University, where students were protesting. Video posted online also showed a policeman on a motorcycle riding through a group of protesters in an apparent attempt to disperse them.
 
Police spokesman Tse Chun-chung said the shooting, burning and motorcycle incidents were all under investigation, but defended the officers’ actions as necessary to safeguard their own safety. Tse said two people were arrested in the shooting incident, including the person shot, but no one has yet been detained over the burning.
 
Protesters built barricades and blocked roads at about 120 locations across the city of 7.4 million and demonstrations were still ongoing, Tse said.
 
“Continuing this rampage is a lose-lose situation for Hong Kong. Everyone is a loser,” Tse said.
 
Rail service was partly suspended because of fires and obstacles on the tracks and windows were smashed at a branch of the state-owned Bank of China. Large parts of the downtown business district were closed to traffic as protesters surrounded by onlookers engaged in a standoff with police.
 
The protests began over a proposed extradition law and have expanded to include demands for greater democracy and police accountability. Activists say Hong Kong’s autonomy and Western-style civil liberties, promised when the former British colony was returned to China in 1997, are eroding.The video of Monday’s shooting was posted on Facebook by Cupid Producer, an outlet that started last year and appears to post mostly live videos related to local news.
 
The shooting occurred in a crosswalk at a large intersection strewn with debris that had backed up traffic in Sai Wan Ho, a neighborhood on the eastern part of Hong Kong Island.In a statement, the Hong Kong government said police had been responding to vandalism and disruptions of traffic, including protesters throwing heavy objects onto roads from above.
 
“During police operations, one police officer has discharged his service revolver, one male was shot,” the statement said, adding that officers also drew their guns in the Shatin and Tung Chung neighborhoods.
 
The statement denied what it called online rumors that police had been ordered to “recklessly use their firearms,” calling the allegation “totally false and malicious”
 
“All police officers are required to justify their enforcement actions,” the statement said.
 
A patch of what looked like dried blood could be seen in a cordoned-off area after the shooting, as onlookers shouted insults at the police.Masked protesters continued to try to block other intersections in the area. Police chased them away with pepper spray, hitting some bystanders as well.On Sunday, police fired tear gas and protesters vandalized stores at shopping malls in anti-government demonstrations across Hong Kong. They targeted businesses whose owners are seen as pro-Beijing and also damaged the Sha Tin train station.
 
Police said they arrested at least 88 people on various charges, including unlawful assembly, possession of an offensive weapon, criminal damage and wearing masks at an unlawful assembly.The city has been rocked by the death Friday of the university student who fell from a parking garage when police fired tear gas at protesters.
 
The territory is preparing for Nov. 24 district council elections that are viewed as a measure of public sentiment toward the government.Pro-democracy lawmakers accuse the government of trying to provoke violence to justify canceling or postponing the elections.
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A Hong Kong policeman shot a masked protester in the torso on Monday morning, igniting clashes across the city and renewed fury towards the force as crowds took to the streets to block roads and hurl insults at officers.The shooting, which was broadcast live on Facebook, is the latest escalation in more than five months of pro-democracy protests that have engulfed the international financial hub.Footage showed a police officer drawing a pistol in the district of Sai Wan Ho as he tried to detain a masked person at a junction that had been blocked by protesters.Another unarmed masked individual then approached the officer and was shot, quickly falling to the ground.Seconds later, two more live rounds were fired as the officer scuffled with another masked protester who fell on the floor. Both were detained by officers.A pool of blood could be seen near the first man whose body initially appeared limp, although he was later filmed conscious and even trying to make a run for it.The second man was conscious, shouting his name to reporters as he was handcuffed.Hong Kong police said one person was struck by a bullet while hospital authorities said a 21-year-old man was admitted with a gunshot wound.Commuter chaos The semi-autonomous Chinese city has been upended by 24 consecutive weeks of huge and increasingly violent rallies, but Beijing has refused to give in to a movement calling for greater democratic rights and police accountability.Monday’s shooting has only added to the tinderbox atmosphere.”I don’t understand why the police has to use that kind of brutality to hurt innocent people. I think it’s just out of sense, out of control,” a 22-year-old IT worker, who gave her surname Chan, told AFP as she joined angry crowds in Sai Wan Ho after the shooting.The city was already reeling from the death on Friday of a 22-year-old student who succumbed to injuries sustained from a fall in the vicinity of a police clearance operation the weekend before.After a weekend of clashes and huge vigils, Monday’s chaos began with small groups of masked protesters hitting subway stations and roads during the rush hour commute.But as footage of the shooting went viral, the protests snowballed.During the lunchtime break in Central, a downtown district that hosts blue-chip international conglomerates and luxury retailers, police fired tear gas to disperse thousands of protesters, many dressed in office attire, chanting “Murderers” and “Triads.”Many expressed anger over the shooting that morning.”He was not carrying any weapon, what threat could he pose on the officer,” a 29-year-old office worker, who gave her first name Elaine, told AFP as fellow office workers coughed and wretched from the acrid clouds.Tear gas and rubber bullets were fired in multiple districts throughout the morning, including at two university campuses and in multiple districts across the harbour.One video circulated by protesters on messaging channels from Kwai Fong district showed a police officer trying to drive his motorbike multiple times into protesters who had gathered on a road.Unpopular police forceMonday’s shooting is the third time protesters have been shot with live rounds by police.With no political solution on the table, officers have been left to battle violent protesters and are now loathed by large chunks of the deeply polarized population.Police have defended their tactics throughout the summer as a proportionate response to protesters who have embraced throwing bricks and petrol bombs as well as vandalizing pro-China businesses and beating opponents.But an independent inquiry into the police has become a core demand of the protest movement, with public anger fueled by weekly videos of controversial police tactics and aggressive interactions with locals.In one incident which sparked uproar, a police officer on Friday evening shouted at protesters that he and his colleagues were “opening a bottle of champagne” after the death of the student.The force said the officer was later reprimanded for his language.Both Beijing and Hong Kong’s unelected leader Carrie Lam have rejected an independent inquiry, saying the city’s current police watchdog is up to the task.But last week, in an embarrassing setback, an international panel of experts appointed by authorities said the watchdog did not currently have the capability or resources to carry out such a huge probe.The watchdog is due to release a report in early 2020 and in a statement on Monday said the panel’s views should not have been published on Twitter by one of its members. 
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A Hong Kong police officer shot at masked protesters on Monday morning, hitting at least one in the torso, as anger sparked by the recent death of a student spilled into the rush hour commute.The shooting, which was broadcast live on Facebook, is the latest escalation in more than five months of seething pro-democracy protests that have engulfed the international financial hub and battered its reputation.Footage showed a police officer drawing his sidearm in the district of Sai Wan Ho as he tried to detain a masked person at a junction that had been blocked by protesters.Another masked individual then approached the officer and was shot in the chest area, quickly falling to the ground, clutching their left side.Seconds later, two more live rounds were fired by the officer during a scuffle and another masked protester went to ground, although the footage was less clear as to whether he was struck.Police then detained the two people on the ground.A pool of blood could be seen near the first individual whose body initially appeared limp, although the person was later filmed conscious and even trying to make a run for it.The second man was conscious, shouting his name to reporters as he was handcuffed.A police source, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed to AFP that live rounds were fired at more than one protester in Sai Wan Ho and that a statement would be issued.Hospital authorities said three people were admitted from the incident, one with a gunshot wound.Commuter chaosHong Kong has been upended by 24 consecutive weeks of huge and increasingly violent rallies, but Beijing has refused to give in to a movement calling for greater democratic rights and police accountability.Tensions have soared in recent days following the death on Friday of a 22-year-old student who succumbed to injuries sustained from a fall in the vicinity of a police clearance operation the weekend before.The city has seen four days of violent protests since Alex Chow’s death as well as tens of thousands attending peaceful mass vigils.Using online messaging forums, activists had called for a general strike on Monday morning.Flashmob protests sprung up in multiple districts during the commuter period, with small groups of masked protesters targeting subway stations and building barricades on road junctions.Even before the shooting in Sai Wan Ho, tear gas had been fired in at least two other locations.One video circulated by protesters on messaging channels from Kwai Fong district showed a police officer trying to drive his motorbike multiple times into protesters who had gathered on a road.Unpopular police forceMonday’s shooting is the third time protesters have been shot with live rounds by police. The two previous instances last month came as protesters attacked police officers and the victims, both teenagers, survived their wounds.With no political solution on the table, officers have been left to battle violent protesters and are now loathed by large chunks of the deeply polarized population.Immediately after Monday’s shooting, crowds of locals gathered to hurl insults at officers who responded with pepper spray and made multiple arrests.Police have defended their tactics as a proportionate response to protesters who have embraced throwing bricks and petrol bombs as well as vandalizing pro-China businesses and beating opponents.But an independent inquiry into the police has become a core demand of the protest movement, with public anger fuelled by weekly videos of controversial police tactics and aggressive interactions with locals.In one incident which sparked uproar, a police officer on Friday evening shouting at protesters that he and his colleagues were “opening a bottle of champagne” after the death of the student.The force said the officer was later reprimanded for his language.Both Beijing and Hong Kong’s unelected leader Carrie Lam have rejected an independent inquiry, saying the city’s current police watchdog is up to the task.But last week, in an embarrassing setback, an international panel of experts appointed by authorities to advise the watchdog said it did not currently have the capability or resources to carry out such a huge probe.
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The U.S.-South Korean alliance is strained by their differences over military pacts, and if the allies fail to reach agreements, Seoul’s national security could be at risk, experts said.The pressure stems from two military agreements nearing expiration: Seoul’s intelligence sharing pact with Tokyo, set to expire Nov. 23, and Seoul’s defense cost sharing deal with Washington, expiring Dec. 31.“There’s a lot of pressure on the alliance right now,” said Bruce Bennett, a senior defense analyst at the Rand Corp. research center. “Because of that pressure, the alliance is not quite as strong as it’s been at some points in the past.”Seoul has been refusing Washington’s demands to reverse its decision to terminate an intelligence-sharing pact with Tokyo.Withdrawal from GSOMIAIn August, Seoul announced it would withdraw from General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) with Tokyo. That came during a trade row that broke out in the summer, a disagreement rooted in South Korea’s historical grievances over forced labor during the Japanese colonial period from 1910 to 1940.Washington sees GSOMIA as a crucial vehicle for its two allies to share sensitive military information, such as threats from North Korea or to communicate during a crisis.“The U.S. government has ratcheted up considerable public pressure on South Korea not to go through with its GSOMIA nonrenewal decision,” said Scott Snyder, director of the Program on U.S.-Korea Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations.“The U.S. sees GSOMIA less as a Japan issue than a regional security issue, while South Korea seems to be approaching GSOMIA solely in the context of bilateral relations with Japan,” he said.FILE – South Korean protesters shout slogans during a rally demanding withdrawal of the U.S. troops from Korea Peninsula near the U.S. embassy in Seoul, South Korea, July 31, 2019.Defense cost sharingAdding to the pressure is Washington’s push for Seoul to pay $5 billion next year to share the costs of maintaining 28,500 American troops in South Korea.The U.S. made the request during the last round of negotiations for the Special Measures Agreement (SMA) in Honolulu in October, and the increase is more than five times the $924 million that South Korea agreed to shoulder this year.“Seoul and Washington will have to eventually compromise on defense cost sharing,” Snyder said, adding, “But how the issue is managed will have an impact on the quality of the relationship. Both sides need to bear that in mind.”In considering how to reconcile the differences, Bennett said the allies have to bear in mind Pyongyang’s objective, which is to break the alliance so North Korea can have military superiority over South Korea, which it sees as a threat.North Korea’s objective “has been to break the alliance totally, have U.S. forces completely withdrawn from Korea, no plan to bring them back to Korea, end the nuclear umbrella,” Bennett said. “If it’s got military superiority, the question is how does it decide to use that superiority? Does it invade the South? Perhaps, but maybe it only coerces the South and tells the South, ‘Look, we’re prepared to live peacefully. Just give us a hundred trillion won (about $85 billion) a year to help us build up our economy.’”David Stilwell, U.S. assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, answers reporters’ questions after a meeting with his South Korean counterpart Cho Sei-young at the Foreign Ministry in Seoul, South Korea, Nov. 6, 2019.David Stilwell, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, met with South Korean officials in Seoul this week to discuss GSOMIA.James DeHart, U.S. negotiator in the defense cost-sharing talks with South Korea, is in Seoul to gauge public sentiment ahead of another round of negotiations to take place in Seoul later this month.According to a survey published by the government-funded Korea Institute for National Unification (KINU), 96% of South Koreans do not want Seoul to pay an increased share of its defense cost, although 91% think the U.S. military presence is necessary in South Korea.FILE – U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper clasps hands with South Korean Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo during their meeting in Seoul, South Korea, Aug. 9, 2019.Annual defense talksThe Pentagon on Thursday said Secretary of Defense Mark Esper will be in Seoul Nov. 15 to attend annual defense talks, the Security Consultative Meeting. He will meet with South Korean Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo and discuss security issues surrounding the alliance and “bilateral defense cooperation.”Experts think Seoul should renew GSOMIA but that the U.S. has overburdened Seoul with a steep increase in SMA.David Maxwell, a former U.S. Special Forces colonel and current fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the relationship of the allies could be further strained if Seoul does not renew GSOMIA.“The best way out of this is for [South Korean] President Moon [Jae-in] to seize the moral high ground, and he needs to stand up and say he is not going to withdraw from GSOMIA because he is going to put the national security of Korea and the alliance with the United States and trilateral coordination with the United States and Japan first,” Maxwell said.He continued, “If he doesn’t, I think there will be further strain in the ROK-U.S. alliance … because I think the United States is going to remain very disappointed.”Gary Samore, White House coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction during the Obama administration, expects the GSOMIA issue to be resolved but said, “SMA is more difficult to resolve because [President Donald] Trump is asking for an unreasonable increase.”Bennett thinks Seoul would not be able to meet the increased cost demand in SMA because of constraints in its defense budget.“That’s a major hit and a major disruption of the alliance for South Korea to have to give up that much money,” he said. “I just don’t see that as being feasible. If you look at the defense budget, you can’t cut salaries. You can’t do much to cut operations and maintenance. Acquisition [for weapons] is what you’d have to cut to provide even one trillion won [$850 million], and there’s just no slack there.”If Seoul does not renew GSOMIA with Tokyo against the U.S., and if Washington and Seoul do not come to a compromise on SMA by the deadline, experts believe South Korean national security could be at risk.South Korean Army soldiers participate in the 71st anniversary of Armed Forces Day at the Air Force Base in Daegu, South Korea, Oct. 1, 2019.Far-reaching effectConsequences of Seoul’s permanent decision to terminate GSOMIA could have a far-reaching effect in a wartime crisis, Bennett said, because Japan plays a critical role in the U.S. military support for South Korea. He added GSOMIA is more than just for sharing intelligence during peacetime.“If a war suddenly broke out, it gives us a vehicle through which other sensitive information about military operations and so forth could be shared. This is really about can the U.S. support Korea as well as it would like to given that it needs Japan’s assistance to do that?” Bennett said.GSOMIA is particularly crucial, he said, when South Korea is expected to slash its military manpower by 2020 and American troops would need to be brought from the U.S. through Japanese military bases to reinforce military forces on the Korean Peninsula in wartime, which requires Seoul to share information with Tokyo.“The question is: Does South Korea really want to delay the deployment of U.S. forces to South Korea when it’s also reducing its own ability to repel a North Korean invasion?” Bennett said.The South Korean government said it will reduce the number of its troops to 500,000 by 2020. In 2018, it had 599,000 troops, and the number is expected to fall to 225,000 in 2025 because of the country’s declining fertility rate.As a tradeoff, South Korea is looking into reforming its military to rely more on technologies such as unmanned aircrafts and weaponized drones.South Korean Air Forces’ KF-X Mock-up is displayed during the press day of Seoul International Aerospace and Defense Exhibition 2019 at the Seoul Military Airport in Seongnam, South Korea, Oct. 14, 2019.However, this clashes with Washington’s demand that Seoul pay more for its share of defense costs, which Bennett said most likely needs to come out of Seoul’s defense budget marked for the research and development and acquisition of weapons. In that case, Seoul’s ability to devote funds to develop and purchase military technologies could be curtailed.“Everything South Korea is trying to acquire are critical systems,” Bennett said. “It would be interesting to ask the Americans to propose what exactly [South] Korea should cut from its defense budget in order to provide the money that President Trump is asking because that puts it into more realistic terms.”If the allies do not come to a comprise on SMA, Seoul faces a potential risk of U.S. troops being withdrawn from South Korea, Maxwell said.If the SMA expires Dec. 31, U.S. forces in Korea will be not be able to function normally because military personnel will need to be diverted from their regular duties, such as performing military operations and trainings, to support logistics and administrative work provided by South Korean workers who will be furloughed, Maxwell said.“If there is not an agreement, then we are in a real difficult situation because we cannot leave the U.S. military forces on the peninsula and not be able to train and maintain readiness,” he said. “The question is going to be how long will the U.S. government, the U.S. military in the U.S. government allow that to go on before they make a decision [to withdraw], which of course, is the most damaging thing to the alliance.”
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Tens of thousands of people lined up on a 5-kilometer stretch in central Tokyo Sunday to catch a rare glimpse of Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako.The motorcade was one of the final events of Naruhito’s ascension to the throne.FILE – Japan’s Emperor Naruhito, center, leaves at the end of the enthronement ceremony where he officially proclaimed his ascension to the Chrysanthemum Throne at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, Oct. 22, 2019.Naruhito officially began his reign on the Chrysanthemum Throne in May, when his 85-year-old father, Emperor Emeritus Akihito, officially abdicated after four decades, citing failing health. Akihito, who succeeded his father, World War II-era Emperor Hirohito, was the first Japanese emperor to abdicate the throne in 200 years.The 30-minute parade Sunday began at the Imperial Palace.  Some onlookers had camped out overnight in an effort to see the Japanese royalty in a specially-designed Toyota convertible.The parade was originally scheduled for last month but was postponed in the wake of Typhoon Hagibis, a massive storm that left 80 dead.Security was extremely tight for the royal event.  “We’re at Disneyland levels of crowding,” a policeman said on a loudspeaker minutes before the parade began, “The security check won’t finish in time for you to see the parade.”Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government chose the name “Reiwa” for Emperor Naruhito’s reign, which the prime minister explained as culture created by and nurtured by people who “beautifully care about each other.”  
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Australian firefighters raced Sunday to contain widespread bushfires that have left three people dead, and warned of “catastrophic” fire conditions ahead, including around the country’s biggest city of Sydney.Authorities upgraded the forecast for the greater Sydney region to catastrophic fire danger on Tuesday, the first time the city has been rated at that level since new fire danger ratings were introduced in 2009.”High temperatures, strong winds and low humidity are forecast, making conditions dangerous,” the New South Wales state Rural Fire Service said in a statement.Conditions on Tuesday in the greater Hunter region north of Sydney were also rated as catastrophic, the highest level of bushfire danger, while extreme or severe conditions were predicted for other parts of the state.”If a fire starts and takes hold during catastrophic fire danger conditions, lives and homes will be at risk,” the statement said.Australia is suffering one of its worst bushfire seasons, which is occurring even before the start of the Southern Hemisphere summer, with parts of the country crippled by severe drought.Three people have died in New South Wales since Friday, when a record number of emergency-level fires were declared in the state, and at least 150 homes have been destroyed.Five people were listed by authorities as missing on Saturday afternoon, but local media said Sunday they had now been accounted for.By Sunday afternoon, about half of the more than 70 fires burning in New South Wales were still not under control, with two burning at an emergency level.Education authorities said more than 40 schools in New South Wales would be shut on Monday due to the fires.Further north in Queensland, more than 50 fires were burning on Sunday, with emergency warnings in place for two fires.Thousands of residents in Queensland have been evacuated and authorities warned severe fire danger was expected on Wednesday, with little reprieve this year.”There is really no rainfall, no significant rainfall, until at least the end of the year and possibly into the new year,” Queensland Fire and Emergency Services acting commissioner Mike Wassing told a news conference on Sunday.
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