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LAST UPDATE | 13 Aug 2019
CHAOS ERUPTED AT Hong Kong’s airport for a second day today as pro-democracy protesters staged a disruptive sit-in that paralysed hundreds of flights, saw police fire pepper spray, and a mainland journalist beaten.
Demonstrators defied warnings from the city’s leader who said they were heading down a “path of no return”, and US President Donald Trump called for calm, saying his intelligence had reported Chinese troop movements toward the Hong Kong border.
The latest protest led to ugly scenes at one of the world’s busiest airports where small groups of hardcore demonstrators turned on two men they accused of being spies or undercover police – and as desperate travellers pleaded in vain to be allowed onto flights.
Hong Kong’s ten-week-long political crisis has seen millions of people take to the streets calling for a halt to sliding freedoms and was already the biggest challenge to Chinese rule of the semi-autonomous city since its 1997 handover from Britain.
But two days of protests at the airport have again raised the stakes for the financial hub.
Beijing is sending increasingly ominous signals that the unrest must end, with state-run media showing videos of security forces gathering across the border.
All check-ins were cancelled this afternoon after thousands of protesters wearing their signature black T-shirts made barricades using luggage trolleys to prevent passengers from passing through security gates.
Scuffles broke out between protesters and travellers who pleaded to be allowed past.
Mob justice
Vigilantism also broke out when crowds turned on two men suspected of being interlopers.
Police recently disguised themselves as activists to make arrests, a move which has sent paranoia soaring about potential infiltrators.
The first man was held for about two hours before eventually being led away in an ambulance. Riot police briefly deployed pepper spray and batons to beat back protesters while they escorted the vehicle away from the departures hall.
Soon afterwards a second man – wearing a yellow journalist vest – was surrounded, zip-tied and then beaten by a small group who accused him of being a spy.
In a tweet, Hu Xijun, the editor of China’s state-controlled Global Times tabloid – which has vociferously condemned the protests – confirmed the man was a journalist working for the paper.
The man was later driven away in an ambulance after fellow protesters and volunteer medics carried him away.
‘Into an abyss’
This morning, the city’s leader, Carrie Lam, gave an at-times emotional press conference in which she warned of dangerous consequences if escalating violence was not curbed.
“Violence… will push Hong Kong down a path of no return,” she said.
Lam, who faced fierce questioning from local reporters and at one point appeared to be on the verge of tears, appealed for calm.
“Take a minute to think, look at our city, our home, do you all really want to see it pushed into an abyss?” Lam said, although she again refused to make any concessions to the protesters.
AFP news agency / Twitter
AFP news agency / Twitter / Twitter
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell 2.10% in its third straight day of losses.
The airport became a target yesterday and today after especially fierce clashes between police and protesters over the weekend in which a woman suffered a severe injury to her right eye.
Protesters blamed the injury on a police bean-bag round and used social media to gather their numbers at the arrival and departure halls, with hundreds of flights cancelled in the pandemonium.
Some travellers voiced sympathy with the protesters.
“I understand the basics of the protest and they’ve got a point: it’s about freedom and democracy and it’s incredibly important,” said Pete Knox, a 65-year-old Briton on his way to Vietnam.
Others were conflicted.
“I do really feel for the protesters here, I really do. But I can’t quite reconcile with myself whether this is the right way of doing it,” said Chun-sun Chan, 46, who was trying to fly home to his two children in Britain.
‘Mobsters’
The protests began in opposition to a bill that would have allowed extraditions to the mainland, but quickly evolved into a broader battle to reverse a slide of rights and freedoms in the southern Chinese city.
Authorities in Beijing yesterday slammed violent protesters who threw petrol bombs at police officers, linking them to “terrorism”.
Today, state media upped the ante, calling protesters “mobsters”, warning they must never be appeased and raising the spectre of mainland security forces intervening.
Videos promoted by state media showed Chinese military and armoured vehicles appearing to gather in the southern city of Shenzhen, which borders Hong Kong.
Donald J. Trump / Twitter
Donald J. Trump / Twitter / Twitter
“Our Intelligence has informed us that the Chinese Government is moving troops to the Border with Hong Kong. Everyone should be calm and safe!” US President Donald Trump said in a tweet today.
Earlier, speaking to reporters in New Jersey, Trump said he hoped no one would be killed in the city’s protests.
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Reminds me of the Judge Dredd movie from last year.
What a stupid design for a building.
Similar to gasworks in Dublin..
Similar but completely different…
“Typical of apartheid, the desirable outward-facing apartments were reserved for white people, while the dark inner apartments were rented to black people”
During the apartheid era, this building, located in Berea, was in a white residential area … by apartheid laws, no blacks could rent or stay there. When apartheid fell, all race groups could rent or buy.
It is therefore nonsense to assert that blacks had to rent “dark inner apartments”! The whole Berea, Hillbrow, Johannesburg area has since degenerated into a slum area, forcing most whites to leave for safer residential area’s.
“forcing most whites to leave”
Oh boo hoo, my heart’s breaking!
Insert “Palestinians were forced to leave” and check Petrs reaction…
@Petr Tarasov What a nasty, petty comment that is. Speaks volume about your character.
“Insert “Palestinians were forced to leave” and check Petrs reaction…”
That analogy doesn’t work. The Palestinians are the indigenous people of Palestine. Think before you type.
Simon you berk, I’m not going to shed tears for SA whites who have to move to ‘safer areas’; they ran, or went along with, a grotesquely racist system for generations, they can suck it up now if things ain’t going their way.
@ Petr, the lumping of an entire people together based on their skin colour (white in your case) is exactly what apartheid is. Your comments are trash from a rank, noxious, garbage pit of a mind. I don’t know how you become the way you did but it is your type of diseased thinking that needs to be eradicated from the planet.
What’s the definition of a Palestinian person Petr? What exactly defines you as indigenous of Palestine…..Think now before you type Petr.
Used to go bowling there in 1983/4, it certainly was known as a good area to rent, I stayed nearby in Hillbrow. From my recollection it was hijacked – literally hijacked by Nigerian drug lords, that is when it went into total decline. Not only did whites move out in the late 80′s and early 90′s, but so did the blacks all fearing for their lives. Many suicides did happen, jumping from the windows on the inner part of the building.
By the mid ’90s, Hillbrow’s murder and rape rates were worse than almost any place in the world. Ponte City’s owners hadn’t stepped foot in the building for years, and rubble piled up five stories high in the core. Despite the expansive views from every unit, the building was better known for rats, guns, drugs, and violence. Ponte City’s notoriety even spilled into the literary world – German novelist Norman Ohler centered his book, “Stadt des Goldes,” on Ponte, telling the violent story of a young woman who falls in love with a Nigerian drug lord who lives there.
Hope they get it back to its original state and it’s great that they are investing in Hillbrow, it used to be a great spot.
Anybody else noticed in the so called “financial crash” the poor of the world got poorer and the rich got richer!
Maybe the world needs a good smack of communism
And that would solve what?
The irony of Communism is that those with power end up living an obscenely extravagant lifestyle compared to the average person in that country. You only need to look at the sort of lifestyle individuals like Stalin or Castro lived compared to a farmer or factory worker.
In all fairness, free market economies give a much better average quality of life compared to communist ones.
@Tony Clifton. Not sure making even more people poor is the solution. More poor people tends to be Communisms main outcome. Compare East & West Germany after 50 years of communism and free marketing economics. Both the same people starting from the same point with very different outcomes.
Well said Tony Clifton!
What’s needed is revolutionary socialism.
And what exactly is that? Apart from utopian bunkum
Oh, I found it
“it is defined as seizure of political power by mass movements of the working class so that the state is directly controlled by the working class as opposed to the capitalist class and its interests. Revolutionary socialists believe such a state of affairs is a precondition for establishing socialism.”
Well personally is don’t want the working class running anything. I’d prefer a broad spectrum of people representing all facets of society working for a greater good, rather than some self pitying gimmes following antiquated doctrines proven not to work.
But that’s just me :)
Yup, that’s you alright: a predictable, mainstream, centrist, sheep.
Well why don’t you try and educate this poor sheep then Petr? Was that an inaccurate description I lifted from t’interweb? If so do please elaborate. What would the benefit be to non working class citizens of such a revolution?
Petr just got taken to school :)
Yeah, tony, as if we don’t have a touch of the communism already with the rich paying such a high proportion of the taxes!!! The fact that middle class and low class are getting poorer, is purely incidental of a global shortage of fuel, food and space.
It’s nicer than Ballymun to be fair.
Insert scene from dark knight rises. “rise” here.
What a horrible building that is. A good idea to attract new renters, would be to thread some dynamite through it, level it, and build something people would actually *want* to live in.
No one to take out the rubbish
Must have been a bummer living on the lower levels
They should just flatten the building altogether. Was a dumb ass idea to have built it in the first place! As for it being built so that the white people could have the outer view and the black people the inner view, well that’s a load of crap as well.. During apartheid in SA, no black people were allowed to live in a white residential area at all. This building never really took off at all and and so became a slum.
Horrendous
Kempston may have an office in London but it is actually owned by Tony Cottrell who started Kempston hire in Kempston road on Port Elizabeth. The head office is in East London, South Africa.
“Typical of apartheid, the desirable outward-facing apartments were reserved for white people, while the dark inner apartments were rented to black people.” This is WRONG. The entire Hillbrow neighborhood was restricted for whites during apartheid. The reason why this building has a hollow core was the building code regulations required all kitchens and bathrooms to have windows with access to natural light.
There were no inward facing apartments in this building. This article is full of misinformation. Fix your article.
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