[News] Around The Rest of World

A posting place for news from places around the globe, outside of the US/Europe.

Well the protesters went and shut down Hong Kong Airport, causing untold millions of damages to the regional economy, and it seems they don't intend on vacating it, either. China is not going to let that sort of disruption continue unabated. I read somewhere there are something like 10-15,000 PRC troops already stationed in or around HK who have not come out of their barracks yet. So if this large convoy of infantry are one bridge away from HK it may well mark a very dark chapter in history for the people of HK.

I would steer clear of any travel to HK for the foreseeable future. Our department of foreign affairs and trading fairly recently escalated travel advice for HK as "high degree of caution".

Something is going to go down in Hong Kong based on the news I have been seeing. Lots of Chinese military vehicles massing nearby etc.

I just hope it doesn't turn into a blood bath.

It probably wont end well. Best scenario was CPC allowing Hong Kong to be a "democratization" experiment for mainland China. But any such notion is probably pushed back decades with how quickly they lost control over the situation.

NPR reports that in Mainland China the news shows a wee bit of bias, the coverage going from describing small gangs of hoodlums to an "almost mafia-like" group of people and activity. They edit footage heavily to portray the police as overwhelmed. I'm envisioning something like the Axe Gang dance.

Mainland China news - Fox news what is the difference?

Russia and the U.S. have proven that no one is going to do anything real to interfere in this type of thing, so China can do whatever it wants. What is Britain going to do since China is violating their 50 year agreement? Nothing. What is the U.N. going to do? Nothing. They could mow down 50,000 protestors with machine guns and release official video evidence and they might get a strongly worded letter and a slap on the wrist sanction designed to be trivial to evade.

Plus this is a nice distraction for China from the economic problems they have bubbling.

farley3k wrote:

Mainland China news - Fox news what is the difference?

One likes Trump more?

Hong Kong: 1.7m people defy police to march in pouring rain

I have to admit, I am genuinely shocked and amazed at how long this has gone on.

An estimated 1.7 million people in Hong Kong – a quarter of the population – defied police orders to stage a peaceful march after a rally in a downtown park, after two months of increasingly violent clashes that have prompted severe warnings from Beijing and failed to win concessions from the city’s government.

Huge crowds filled Victoria Park on Sunday afternoon and spilled on to nearby streets, forcing police to block traffic in the area. Torrential rain came down an hour into the rally, turning the park into a sea of umbrellas. At the same time, protesters walked towards Central, the heart of Hong Kong’s business district, and surrounded government headquarters.

Police had turned down a plan for Sunday’s march submitted by the Civil Human Rights Front group and gave permission only for a rally in the park. Those defying the ban risked being charged with unlawful assembly, which can lead to up to five years in prison.

“Stand with Hong Kong! Fight for freedom!” protesters shouted at the rally.

Throughout the afternoon, streets around Victoria Park were so densely packed that the march frequently came to a complete standstill. Some protesters walked on to a flyover near the park as the crowds on the streets were unable to move.

Protesters were orderly but burst into choruses of slogans as they waited to move forward. “Hong Kong people, go!”, “Reclaim Hong Kong, revolution of our era!” they chanted.

Observers saw Sunday’s rally, the largest in weeks, as a test of the movement’s momentum and public support as tensions between police and protesters have escalated.

“Even though the weather was so bad, even in the face of threats of the People’s Liberation Army and water cannons, Hong Kong people never back down,” said Wong, 21, a university student.

Wong did not expect this to be the last major rally. “For as long as the government doesn’t respond, there will only be more large-scale protests.”

I think questions about "public support" for the protesters are kind of settled when a quarter of the public itself is actively participating in the protest.

At least it is quite positive the Chinese government has not interfered, yet. There was a time where I doubt they would have shown this much restraint.
Also really positive that todays event seemed mostly non-violent, as there has been some indications in recent days that some small violent groups, had started to abuse the marches, kinda similar to what seemed to happen with the Yellow vest protests in France.

Give it time. Chinese authority is nothing if not patient. I suspect they are just waiting for one of any number of scenarios to eventuate that will give them the internal and external diplomatic cover to strike. I suspect they learned a great deal from Tiananmen square and this is their chance to apply that knowledge (hint - it won't result in a free and democratic Hong Kong).

No that is probably the only guaranteed outcome in all of this. At best they get to keep most of what they have now.
More a question of whether it ends in a massacre or not.

The Amazon rain forest has been burning for weeks and seems to be getting worse. The smoke from it is bloating out the sun miles away. Seems odd I just found out about it a minute ago. What is going to happen if it is completely destroyed.

On China, Hong Kong and possible reactions, there is unconfirmed reports that what actually happened was that there was almost a civil war sparked off with actual army units trading fire. It's impossible to say as the Chinese government suppresses all information coming from the incident.

Some do claim that other army groups were so enraged at the 27th Combined Group who killed some of their own men, that they went back to their barracks, armed themselves and sought blood. We've no idea what happened after that.

I will say this, why does the Chinese government get so worried about people talking about Tiananmen Square? Is it because they massacred a few thousand civilians or is it because they very nearly lost control? Which would it fear the most?

So, as far as Hong Kong goes, I remained convinced how far the Chinese government is prepared to go and how far their army is will to go for them. I really hope I'm right.

Baron Of Hell wrote:

The Amazon rain forest has been burning for weeks and seems to be getting worse. The smoke from it is bloating out the sun miles away. Seems odd I just found out about it a minute ago. What is going to happen if it is completely destroyed.

Looks like a lot of the fires may have been deliberately started to clear the land.

BBC: Amazon fires: Brazilian rainforest burning at record rate, space agency warns

Brazil's Amazon rainforest has seen a record number of fires this year, according to new data from the country's space research agency.

The National Institute for Space Research (Inpe) said its satellite data showed an 83% increase on the same period in 2018.

It comes weeks after President Jair Bolsonaro fired the head of the agency amid rows over its deforestation data.

Smoke from the fires caused a blackout in the city of Sao Paulo on Monday.

The daytime blackout, which lasted for about an hour, came after strong winds brought in smoke from forest fires burning in the states of Amazonas and Rondonia, more than 2,700km (1,700 miles) away.

The largest rainforest in the world, the Amazon is a vital carbon store that slows down the pace of global warming.

Conservationists have blamed Mr Bolsonaro, saying he has encouraged loggers and farmers to clear the land.

I think a month or so back I read the Amazon tribes won a court battle that prevented portions of the Amazon from being used for whatever big business. I guess this could be a attempt to burn them out and take their land.

The problem is the comparison with 2018. Go further back and you'll have a different idea. The 2000's were devastating.

It's good that people are becoming aware of the Amazon yearly fires and deforestation but a lot of disinformation is being passed like it produces 20% of our oxygen and that Bolsonaro, as much of an awful person he is, is to blame for it all. And this disinformation problem I put squarely on the feet of influential people who are disseminated this like wildfire (I won't expect someone like Cristiano Ronaldo to investigate this stuff, but Macron has an environment minister).

After months of protests, Hong Kong leader withdraws controversial extradition bill

Hong Kong's embattled leader Carrie Lam has finally fully withdrawn a controversial bill that allowed extradition to mainland China and sparked three months of dramatic protests in the financial hub.

The decision to cave in to one of protesters' five core demands marked a dramatic U-turn for Lam, who for months has refused to withdraw the bill.
"We must find ways to address the discontent in society and look for solutions," Lam said in a a video statement Wednesday evening. "After more than two months of social unrest, it is obvious to many that this discontentment extends far beyond the bill."
But Lam refused to give ground on protesters' four other demands, including greater democracy for the city and an independent commission into police conduct, saying all investigations would be carried out by the existing Independent Police Complaints Council (IPCC).

It's a pretty huge thing, but also too late. The protests aren't just about the bill anymore.

Stars boycott South Africa over xenophobic attacks

Africans have come out to boycott South Africa after days of looting and violence targeting foreigners in which five people died.

Nigerian singers and Zambia's football team are among those in the boycott.

South Africa's social development minister told the BBC the rioters feared losing their jobs to foreigners.

The country has become a magnet for migrants from other parts of Africa. It has one of the continent's biggest and most developed economies.

If one can say anything, it's that so many of the complaints here are the same as in any of the other articles I've posted in this thread about international xenophobia. Immigrants are accused of stealing jobs, dealing drugs, taking the local women. Every time. Same in Poland, same in Peru, same in South Africa.

I've been working in South Africa for the last year and it's true that illegal immigration is a real problem in this country.

Absolutely! The damage he caused...

Not the first man to become a national hero, and then to abuse that power once he received it. Nevertheless, not sad to see him gone, I'm just sad the damage he wrought will haunt Zimbabwe for decades.

No place at Hong Kong hip-hop festival Rolling Loud for Vava after Chinese rapper backed police amid protests in city

Bit of a palate-cleansing post here, rather than the usual doom and gloom, although she probably would've gotten a less-than-positive response in Hong Kong had she performed.

That said, I feel like you cannot be a rapper and also be out her on some "Help the Police" stuff.

EDIT: LOL, some dude in Russia also tried it.

Prederick wrote:

That said, I feel like you cannot be a rapper and also be out her on some "Help the Police" stuff.

We'll have to see how it turns out for Jay-Z.

NathanialG wrote:
Prederick wrote:

That said, I feel like you cannot be a rapper and also be out her on some "Help the Police" stuff.

We'll have to see how it turns out for Beyonce’s husband.

ftfy

Inside the Minds of the Women Who Joined ISIS

Azadeh Moaveni has written a powerful, indispensable book on a challenging subject: the inner lives and motivations of women who joined or supported the Islamic State militant group. It is a great read, digestible and almost novelistic, but it is much more than that. “Guest House for Young Widows: Among the Women of ISIS” tackles many taboos that have hampered cleareyed discussion of Islamist extremism in general and ISIS in particular. The book provides an illuminating, much-needed corrective to stock narratives, not only about the group that deliberately and deftly terrified officials and publics across the world, but also about the larger “war on terror” and the often ineffective, even counterproductive policies of Western and Middle Eastern governments.

Moaveni follows 13 women and girls — Tunisian, British, Syrian and German — creating three-dimensional portraits of their worlds, their logic, the choices available and unavailable to them. She made me hang on every turn to find out what would happen to them. This approach will likely infuriate some audiences, especially after years of media coverage that portrayed such women as uniquely evil, bloodthirsty extremists, or as brainwashed fetishists hot for jihadi men.

Moaveni anticipates such objections, acknowledging “the extraordinary horror and centrality” of the suffering of women victimized by Islamic State, like the Yazidis whose enslavement and rape have received enormous, sometimes prurient, coverage. “But along the way,” she writes, “we have been perhaps too caught up in revulsion to fully appreciate the conditions that gave rise to the group’s female adherents.” To truly understand these conditions, Moaveni argues, we must look at these women “with more nuance and compassion.”

Her call is urgent now, as hundreds of female ISIS members, or former members, and their children languish in camps and detention centers across the Middle East, subject to summary trials, the stripping of citizenship and indefinite incarceration in dangerously filthy conditions. Governments, including the United States and the United Kingdom, are dumping the problem of their own citizens who joined ISIS on ill-equipped authorities in Iraq and Syria.

Might have to get this.

As the Hong Kong protest escalated, I discovered and began reading the South China Morning Post a lot.

.......but the protests aren't what I'm linking today, i'm linking something else from the SCMP I found interesting.

Xi Jinping’s biggest headache isn’t Hong Kong. It’s the price of pork in China

Perhaps it’s no coincidence that we’re in the Year of the Pig. Rarely has a single food source played as big a role in the nation’s politics as now.

Fears over a year-long outbreak of deadly African swine fever have steadily grown to the point that the topic now dominates the nation’s domestic and foreign agenda with talk of “pork politics”, “pork economics” and “pork diplomacy”.

There’s good reason for the fuss. Pork is the principal source of dietary protein for the Chinese, who consume half the world’s supplies. Since the virus was discovered at a farm not far from China’s border with Russia in August last year, it has spread to all 31 mainland provinces and up to 200 million pigs – nearly half the number in the country – have either died from the disease or been culled.

The Beeb also had a nice story on abuses of migrant workers in Japan.

'We Don't Want To Die': Women In Turkey Decry Rise In Violence And Killings

Emine Dirican, a beautician from Istanbul, tried to be a good wife. But her husband hated that she worked, that she socialized, even that she wanted to leave the house sometimes without him.

She tried to reason with him. He lashed out.

"One time, he tied me — my hands, my legs from the back, like you do to animals," recalls Dirican, shuddering. "He beat me with a belt and said, 'You're going to listen to me, you're going to obey whatever I say to you.' "

She left him and moved in with her parents. In January, he showed up, full of remorse and insisting he had changed. She let him in.

In her mother's kitchen, he grabbed her by the hair, threw her to the floor and pulled out a gun.

"He shot me," she says. "Then he went back to my mom and he pulled the trigger again, but the gun was stuck. So he hit her head with the back of the gun."

Her father, who was in another room in the house, heard the gunshots and ran over. Dirican almost bled to death after a bullet ripped through a main artery in one of her legs.

I feel like I've read stories like this from everywhere recently. South Africa. Mexico. Several other places i'm definitely forgetting.