protests

A few people protested outside of the White House on Wednesday, claiming President Trump created “systemic racism” and poverty in America.

Thousands of Hong Kong residents held a sit-in on Wednesday at the MTR railroad station in Yuen Long, where protesters were savagely attacked on July 21 by thugs linked to organized crime gangs. The demonstrators used the one-month anniversary of the attack to complain about the lack of an independent investigation of the Yuen Long incident and instances of excessive force used by the police against protesters.

Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing chief executive Carrie Lam spun this weekend’s titanic peaceful protest as a victory for her administration on Monday, claiming the lack of violence was a sign the city is “returning to peace” and vaguely offering a “platform for dialogue with people from all walks of life” to find “a way out” of the crisis.

Employees of Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific airline on Tuesday described a “white terror” gripping the company as the Chinese Communist Party forces a purge of staffers who support the Hong Kong Protest movement, a campaign that has already ended the careers of several pilots, top executives, and CEO Rupert Hogg.

The British Foreign Office on Tuesday said it was “extremely concerned” by reports that trade and investment officer Simon Cheng Man-kit of the Hong Kong office has been detained by Communist China while traveling to the mainland for a business event. Cheng was listed as a “missing person” for over a week before there was any official confirmation he was in custody. The Chinese government has not explained why he was arrested.

The Hong Kong protest movement filled the streets on Sunday with an estimated 1.7 million people, almost a quarter of the city’s population, eleven weeks after protest marches began. The rally was a remarkable demonstration of defiance against Communist China, which has been sending ominous signals that a crackdown is imminent and ratcheting up pressure against supporters of the movement, including foreign companies that do business in Hong Kong.

All hands are on deck – including the state police and FBI – for planned protests expected to take place Saturday in Portland, Oregon.

China’s state-controlled Global Times on Friday lashed out at U.S. President Donald Trump, accusing him of feigning support for Chinese President Xi Jinping in a ruse to squeeze trade concessions out of China. The Communist paper interpreted Trump’s good wishes as a “bullying” tactic and a tacit admission the U.S. is manipulating the Hong Kong protests to further its own ends.

Thursday was the 74th annual Liberation Day in South Korea, commemorating the end of Japanese occupation after World War Two, featured demonstrations denouncing both Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo and South Korean President Moon Jae-in at a time of heightened tensions between the two countries.

China’s nightmare scenario is that Hong Kong’s huge protest movement could spread to other cities – especially Macau, which is only an hour away and also has semi-autonomous “Special Administrative Region” status.

Rupert Hogg, chief executive officer of Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific, announced his resignation on Friday along with chief customer and commercial officer Paul Loo.

A group of over 350 Hong Kong civil servants wrote a petition to the government on Thursday that said they are “absolutely disgusted” by the excessive use of police force against demonstrators and warning they might call a strike if the abuse continues.

Similarities between the protest movements in Hong Kong and Moscow have not gone unnoticed by the authoritarian rulers of China and Russia. Russia’s state-run Tass news service on Wednesday quoted the new Chinese ambassador calling for the two countries to “cultivate our relations at a higher level” and “open a new page” in their friendship.

Fresh from a successful campaign to force several foreign fashion designers to pull shirts off the market, Chinese Internet users trained their sights on Starbucks this week, demanding the American coffee company fire a Hong Kong barista accused of writing pro-democracy messages on cups.

Residents of Hong Kong have been nervously watching Chinese military and police movements near their borders, fearing each new report of personnel or vehicles arriving near the border city of Shenzhen could be the prelude to a Tiananmen Square-style crackdown.

Hong Kong’s embattled chief executive Carrie Lam lashed out against the immense protest movement on Tuesday, accusing “hard-hearted” demonstrators of using “hate speech against the police” and trying to “push the city into the abyss of destruction.”

About 50,000 people filled the streets of Moscow over the weekend for the fifth straight week of demonstrations, making it the largest Russian protest movement of the past decade.

Hong Kong police officials on Friday announced that former Deputy Commissioner Alan Lau is coming out of retirement to accept a temporary position as second-in-command of the force, with a focus on controlling the enormous anti-government protests that have rocked the island. Lau, who retired late last year, was instrumental in suppressing the 2014 democracy movement, the most vigorous challenge to mainland China’s authority until now.

The U.S. State Department denounced the Chinese Communist government as a “thuggish regime” after a pro-Beijing newspaper published personal information about an American diplomat who met with Hong Kong student leaders, including the names of the diplomat’s children.

The New Zealand Foreign Ministry met with Chinese officials on Monday and formally denounced China for attempting to suppress freedom of speech by encouraging violence against supporters of the Hong Kong protest movement in New Zealand last week.

The South China Morning Post on Wednesday noted a sharp escalation in Chinese information warfare against the Hong Kong protest movement as an army of trolls poured out of a forum supported by Chinese state media to push pro-Beijing memes and harass protest supporters.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry railed against the United States in its Monday press conference, accusing the U.S. of “conniving with violent criminals” in Hong Kong in an “arrogant” bid to undermine China’s national unity.

Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam again refused calls for her resignation and lashed out at the immense protest movement on Monday, condemning participants as “radical elements” whose goal is to “foment revolution” against Communist China.

Guatemalans protested House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and “The Squad,” which consists of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), demanding that they stay out of the country’s public policy decisions.

A pro-Hong Kong rally at the University of Queensland in Australia last week turned ugly after a violent group of pro-Beijing students crashed the event and attacked the pro-democracy demonstrators.

DETROIT, Michigan — Several hundred left-wing activists marched past the Fox Theatre in downtown Detroit, the site of the second Democratic debate, demanding a “Green New Deal” and declaring that “capitalism isn’t working.”

Chinese media is working overtime to paint the Hong Kong protest movement as a gang of violent radicals driven mad by Western propaganda. The latest round of editorial broadsides was fired over charges brought against four protesters for carrying “offensive weapons” to Saturday’s protest at the Yuen Long train station.

The Chinese government on Monday restated its support for Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam, insisted Hong Kong police acted appropriately to control violent protests, and suggested the massive protest movement is filled with unwitting dupes who have been misled about the Chinese legal system.

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, currently serving a 30-day jail sentence for violating Russia’s strict laws on political protests, was hospitalized Sunday morning with symptoms that resembled an acute allergic reaction.

Police in Hong Kong injured nearly two dozen and arrested at least 14 throughout the weekend as anti-China protesters defied a ban on marching against the use of violence to silence dissent.