Hong Kong student leaders of pro-democracy protests were blocked from flying to Beijing as they sought to meet with Chinese leaders to press their case for open elections for the territory’s chief executive in 2017.
Three members of the Hong Kong Federation of Students were told by airline personnel that they could not board because Chinese authorities canceled their so-called “home return permits,” federation Secretary-General Alex Chow told reporters at Hong Kong International Airport yesterday, in comments broadcast live on Cable TV Hong Kong.
The students had planned to seek talks with Chinese officials on their own after requests to former Hong Kong chief executive Tung Chee-hwa (董建華) and Rita Fan (范徐麗泰), a Hong Kong deputy to China’s National People’s Congress, to arrange a meeting apparently went unheeded. The federation wants Beijing to reverse its decision to vet candidates for Hong Kong’s chief executive election in 2017, the group said in a statement on Facebook.
Photo: Reuters
Hong Kong Police Commissioner Andrew Tsang (曾偉雄) yesterday said that his force would help clear protest sites that have blocked main roads and disrupted the territory for more than seven weeks after a judge dismissed demonstrators’ appeals against orders to remove them.
The street occupations are illegal and protesters should not interfere when the removal of blockades begins, Tsang said in a press briefing broadcast live on Cable TV Hong Kong. He did not say when that would be.
Hong Kong High Court Chief Judge Andrew Cheung Kui-nung’s (張舉能) ruling means that bailiffs can remove obstructions at two protest sites in Mong Kok on the north side of Victoria Harbour. An injunction was also granted against protesters in Admiralty, where the city’s government headquarters are located. Under the injunctions, police are authorized to assist in the clearing and to arrest anyone who interferes.
The ruling risks reigniting violent clashes between police and protesters as government talks with student leaders are stalled. Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) last week expressed support for Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying (梁振英) while hosting the APEC summit in Beijing.
The protests were sparked by China’s decision to control the nomination process for the city’s first leadership election in 2017, issuing the biggest challenge that Hong Kong has posed for China since its resumption of sovereignty over the territory in 1997.
The protest movement that has occupied Hong Kong’s streets in main commercial districts since September is losing momentum amid dissent among its leaders and dwindling crowds. Hong Kong Chief Secretary Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥) has ruled out more talks with the students.
The Mong Kok injunctions were brought by taxi and bus drivers who said that their business has been impaired by the blockage of key roads by the students.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most
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