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A glimmer of hope emerged in Hong Kong last week after the formal withdrawal of the extradition bill by Chief Executive Carrie Lam. Demonstrations have been ongoing since June when protestors took to the streets in opposition to the bill, which they claim erodes the legal system. As of now, it appears the withdrawal of the bill has done nothing to placate demonstrators.Another round of violence between protesters and police broke out on Sunday night which ended with a volunteer aid worker shot by police with a bean bag round or rubber bullet. Riot officers lobbed multiple tear gas...

The change of power in Russia will be very similar to my arrest. On the night of Aug. 2, when the longest day of my life finally ended and I laid down on a hard bunk bed in an isolation cell of a detention center, the similarity of these two events suddenly became clear to me. And while my cellmates slept — one young and one middle-aged man who were facing prison terms for armed robbery — my tired and screaming brain continued to draw parallels…. However repressive the ruling regime is, however widespread lawlessness becomes, you never think that...

After more than three months of massive protests, strikes from professionals to students, and increasing brutality from police and street gangs, it seems Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement finally got one of their five demands met this week. On Wednesday morning, Hong Kong Chief Carrie Lam announced a formal withdrawal of the extradition bill, which would have allowed Beijing to demand Hong Kong hand over anyone to China, including human rights activists and dissidents. If this bill becomes law, it will erode Hong Kong’s independent judicial system and endanger the freedom of residents as well as visitors.Lam’s withdrawal announcement marks a...

Weeks of demonstrations over elections for the city legislature have turned into the biggest sustained protest movement in Russia since 2011-2013. Russia has accused the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, Germany’s Deutsche Welle media outlet and Google of meddling in Russia's internal affairs by allegedly promoting the protests and encouraging people to attend them. Almost one-third of Russian respondents (32%) dismissed the Western interference claims as attempts to smear the protesters, Levada’s survey published Tuesday said. Another 26% of respondents said that even if meddling did take place, it likely had no effect on the protest movement. Only 26% of Russians...

Proponents of the so-called China model heap praise on the central government. They assert that China’s remarkable economic rise is because of the Communist Party’s system of meritocracy, adaptability and legitimacy with the people. Whatever the merits of such arguments, it is obvious that such features are the opposite of what Beijing’s appointees in Hong Kong have managed to achieve, in the aftermath of their disastrously misguided extradition bill efforts. Meritocracy has failed — no government official has resigned. Adaptability has been weakened by the absence of political reform and reassurance. And political legitimacy with the public has been crippled...

Few understand how big an influence Hong Kong money is on the PRC. Over two decades ago I followed that money. In The Year of The Rat days in the late nineties, as the financial crimes investigator for the House Committee on Rules, I followed the actions of one of the wealthiest men in the world. Based in Hong Kong, multi-billionaire Li Ka-shing was one of the most important and richest men in Asia. His financial empire, Hong Kong based, was an important PRC early indicator of Chinese ruling class money and influence in their emergence into global financial markets....

Beijing keeps signaling that it has no appetite for compromise with the people of Hong Kong, let alone adhere to the agreement made for its transfer to China in 1997. As protests enter the fourth month, touched off by an extradition bill that the government refuses to fully withdraw, police have seized pro-democracy leaders in an attempt to silence the dissent. Two leaders of the 2014 Umbrella Movement were charged with illegal protests: Hong Kong authorities have made their highest-profile arrests, detaining three well-known activists as they clampdown on a wave of unrest in the city. More here: https://t.co/1UxXII9M5I...

Progressive activists crashed an award ceremony honoring House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) at a San Francisco hotel on Wednesday night, demanding she support the introduction of articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump. Armed with signs that read “We can’t wait,” demonstrators stood on chairs while shouting, “Which side are you on, Pelosi? Impeach!” inside the InterContinental hotel, where the San Francisco Democrat Party members honored the longtime California lawmaker with a lifetime achievement award.

It’s hard for Americans to understand why so many Chinese students attending school in Western countries have turned out in recent days to express support for the Chinese government in its current conflict with Hong Kong protesters. The Chinese students have tried to shout down demonstrators at pro-democracy rallies in the United States, Canada, Australia and United Kingdom. I don’t agree with the students’ pro-Beijing sentiments on Hong Kong, but I think I understand them. They remind me of myself when I first came to the U.S. to study in 2009. Soon after arriving, I saw protests in front of...

Before we get started, I wanted to bring up a curious item. We recently received feedback from a reader who was visiting China and reported that Hot Air appears to be blocked in that country. (We are available in Hong Kong, it seems.) If anyone is viewing the site from China without any issues, could you please drop a note to [email protected]? Thanks.On to the main story. As we’ve been covering the protests in Hong Kong (which may have led to us being blocked), one recurring question has involved the relatively small number of protesters who have engaged in violence...

The Hong Kong anti-government protests have now turned into a flashpoint in an information war between China and the US, after American social media giants Twitter and Facebook struck back at what they said was a state-backed disinformation campaign focused on events in the city. Both companies announced on Monday that they had suspended accounts on their platforms they alleged were part of a Chinese government-backed, coordinated campaign. Twitter said the accounts were meant “to sow political discord in Hong Kong”. The San Francisco-based company also announced, in a separate statement, that it would no longer accept advertising dollars from...

Hong Kong has not yet warranted any call for Beijing to send troops to the city for security purposes amid ongoing protests against the now-abandoned extradition bill, top Beijing adviser and the city’s former justice secretary Elsie Leung Oi-sie said on Sunday. Leung said on a radio programme that even if the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in Hong Kong were deployed according to the Basic Law – Hong Kong’s mini-constitution – she did not think the move would damage the governing principle of “one country, two systems”. Leung’s remark came in light of recent reports that large numbers of armed...

Portland, Oregon — The serenity of downtown Portland will be tested yet again on Saturday afternoon. Stores began closing Friday night ahead of dueling protests between groups of right-wing extremists and anti-fascist demonstrators. Several extremist groups are expected to show up, but no one has applied for any type of permit. Police learned about the protest from monitoring social media, and from what they read, there is concern for possible violence.

As a confrontation between Hong Kong protesters and Chinese authorities escalates, Donald Trump has decided to turn up the heat a little himself. Trump had been oddly quiet about the pro-democracy protests in China’s administrative state, even though they have adopted the American flag as one of their symbols of protest. Over the last twenty-four hours, however, Trump has used his Twitter feed to urge Xi Jinping to have a “personal meeting” with protesters to resolve the standoff — and hinted at US trade action if Xi plans any other kind of response.This began last night: I know President...

Aug. 13 (UPI) -- North Korean state media is singling out U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi after she expressed opposition to the use of force against protesters in Hong Kong. An article in Korean Workers' Party newspaper Rodong Sinmun that condemned the protests and alleged the demonstrators were being spurred on by "Western interference" also accused Pelosi, 79, of tampering with Chinese sovereignty. **SNIP** On Monday, Pelosi tweeted, "It is alarming to watch the #HongKong police with support from Beijing intensify their use of force against the protesters and label them violent criminals."

The ongoing protests in Hong Kong have grown recently, with the tactics of the protesters shifting in response to increasingly aggressive actions by the police. They’ve begun shutting down major roadways, as well as closing the airport for two straight days now. Their leader, Carrie Lam, appears to be completely ineffective in either satisfying the protester’s needs and getting them to disperse or gaining any concessions from China to ease the tensions.The Washington Post editorial board has a deep dive into the current state of affairs, claiming that China is the party that has “misread” the protests from the...

A full-scale military crackdown on the Hong Kongers resisting imposition of mainland-style tyranny may be in the cards, but President Xi and his supporters must understand that they will pay a monumental price for any bloodbath. From Xi’s perspective, this is terrible timing, all the more painful because it was a change in Hong Kong’s extradition law pushed by Beijing that set off the protests. A pair of videos on YouTube appear to show columns of military units moving into Hong Kong (hat tip: Conservative Treehouse) And the regime has ended the three days of protests (video here) at...

The biggest protest movement in Moscow in years has gripped the capital in recent weeks as loyalty to Mr. Putin has been waning among Russians who have seen their living standards slip under the weight of chronic economic problems and Western sanctions...approximately 50,000 people had joined the authorized march that took place behind police cordons with hundreds of armored riot police looking on. Demonstrations have been held weekly since July... “For a long time I’ve watched the situation in this country get worse and worse,” said Sergei Pushkaryov, 58, a businessman, who said he had protested against Mr. Putin’s re-election...

All flights grounded: All departing flights have been cancelled in Hong Kong, as thousands of demonstrators descend on the city's International Airport. Alleged police brutality: A small number of protesters have been demonstrating at the airport all weekend, but today's mass gathering was sparked by allegations of unnecessary police violence on Sunday. World transport hub: Hong Kong International Airport is one of the busiest in the world, handling 1,100 flights daily across about 200 destinations. Several countries including the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Japan, and Singapore have already issued travel advisories, warning of "violent clashes" between pro-democracy...

Nearly 50,000 Russian opposition activists and their supporters have taken to Moscow’s streets for a fifth consecutive weekend in spite of a government crackdown as support from citizens and celebrities grows across the county. The protests, which demand that Moscow authorities allow independent candidates to appear on the ballot in the city’s upcoming elections, have been the largest wave of demonstrations in Russia since 2011-2012. Independent polling this week said that Moscow residents are more likely to support the protests than oppose them. Moscow police have detained more than 2,300 people at rallies this summer protesting the candidates' exclusion. While...