HONG KONG (Reuters) - Stress and trauma over the political turmoil surrounding Hong Kong’s extradition bill has created an unprecedented mental health problem that the city is not equipped to deal with, medical professionals say. Discussion of mental health carries a huge stigma in the Chinese-ruled territory, and younger people are particularly vulnerable because of the stresses of everyday life: exorbitant living costs, cramped housing, academic pressure and a gloomy view of the future, medical professionals say. On Tuesday, embattled Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam said the bill, which would allow people to be extradited to mainland China for trial, was “dead.” In the same remarks, she acknowledged that there were entrenched social problems in Hong Kong. “I come to the conclusion that there are some fundamental deep-seated problems in Hong Kong society. It could be economic problems, it could be livelihood issues, it could be political divisions in society,” Lam said. “The first thing we should do is identify those fundamental issues and hopefully find some solutions to move forward.” Hong Kong’s youth have been at the forefront of the city’s biggest and most violent protests in decades, with police firing rubber bullets and tear gas in chaotic scenes that grabbed global headlines. Anger and frustration over the extradition bill, and the government’s handling of it, have pushed many to desperation. The deaths of four young people have been linked to frustration with the legislation, while messages from at least three others have triggered emergency responses. “It’s hard to see the future if there is no solution. Our government should understand how we think,” said Kayi Wong, a 23-year-old designer who attended the city’s latest protest on Sunday, which organisers said drew 230,000 people. Wong said she felt depressed reading about the recent deaths. Many people feared there would be more amid multiple societal problems, she added, including housing issues, family troubles and what she described as an inability to communicate feelings effectively to each other. The special administrative region is still reeling from events on July 1, when protesters smashed their way into the Legislative Council building and ransacked it. Lam had suspended the bill after earlier protests in June and said it would lapse next year, but protesters want it scrapped altogether and have pressed her to step down. She said on Tuesday the government had felt “pain” over recent deaths in the city. FILE PHOTO: Demonstrators stand outside the Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam's office during a demonstration demanding Hong Kong's leaders to step down and withdraw the extradition bill, in Hong Kong, China, June 17, 2019. REUTERS/Thomas Peter/File PhotoCalls to support groups and local non-governmental organisations have surged, particularly after storming of the legislative building, said Karman Leung, chief executive of one such group, Samaritans Hong Kong. “The news repeats day after day. Everybody is talking about it. It causes them stress and they feel like they cannot get out of that environment,” Leung said. Because of the stigma surrounding mental health and with a heated political issue at the root of their stress, people don’t feel they can talk about it, said Zoe Fortune, the chief executive of City Mental Health Alliance. “It’s a double whammy and people don’t know where to go for support,” she said. Conflict between family members with different standpoints increases tension and further fractures society, say volunteer counselling groups. Some such organisations, including the Division of Counselling Psychology, under the Hong Kong Psychological Society, have started offering free counselling. A person seeking treatment for mild depression at a public facility would have to wait more than a year to see a psychologist, said Jasmin Fong, a counselling psychologist for the Psychological Society. A private 50-minute session with a psychologist costs between HK$800-HK$3000 ($102-$384), making private treatment out of reach for large swathes of the population. Online groups using mobile applications such as Telegram have sprung up to prevent future deaths. One chat assembled thousands of members to find a Facebook user who posted that he planned to kill himself. Members split into teams at 40 spots around the city’s Admiralty district, the scene of some of the largest protests, and tried to get him to talk to trained social workers. He was later found unharmed. Slideshow (2 Images)Unless issues are solved fundamentally, the mounting mental stress won’t ease, said Joe, a Hong Kong student who declined to give his last name because of the sensitivity of the issue. The arrests of young people, including a 14-year-old, in connection with the attack on the legislative building have only added to the burden, he said. “They are Hong Kong people, just like our family members,” Joe said. “Very serious things are happening, so it is hard to stay positive and optimistic.” Reporting by Farah Master; additional reporting by Donny Kwok; Editing by Anne Marie Roantree and Gerry DoyleOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Lawyers for Paul Manafort are seeking to delay one of his criminal trials and move the location away from Washington, where they say the bias against their client is so great that a fair trial would be “impossible,” according to court documents filed in federal court on Friday.The legal team for Mr. Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman, asked a federal judge to move the trial from Alexandria, Va., to Roanoke, Va., about 240 miles away.Roanoke is in southwest Virginia, in a smaller media market where potential jurors would be less likely to be influenced by news media coverage of Mr. Manafort’s case, his lawyers argued. The defense also suggested that Roanoke offered a pool of jurors with more “balanced” political views.Voters in the Alexandria area voted two to one in favor of Mr. Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton, in 2016, the defense said. Mr. Trump won the county that surrounds Roanoke.“Mr. Manafort’s legal issues and the attendant daily media coverage have become theatre in the continuing controversy surrounding President Trump and his election,” his lawyers wrote.They added that it would be “difficult, if not impossible, to divorce the issues in this case from the political views of potential jurors.”Mr. Manafort’s lawyers did not respond to a request for comment Friday night. A representative for the United States attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia also did not respond to a request for comment.Mr. Manafort has been charged in two jurisdictions with a host of federal crimes as part of the special counsel inquiry into Russia’s influence on the presidential campaign.The trial in Alexandria is set to begin July 25. He is also scheduled to go on trial in September in a separate case in Washington.His lawyers on Friday asked to delay the first trial until after the one in Washington is finished. The special counsel opposed that motion, according to paperwork filed by the defense.In June, a federal judge revoked Mr. Manafort’s bail and ordered him to jail after prosecutors filed new charges of attempted witness tampering.Before that, Mr. Manafort had been meeting with his lawyers multiple times a week, for many hours at a time, his lawyers said. They argued that their client’s detention hampered their ability to prepare for trial.

(Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort on Friday asked for his July trial to be moved further away from Washington D.C., saying potential jurors in the capital had consumed too much negative press coverage about him and were biased against Trump. FILE PHOTO: Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort departs from U.S. District Court in Washington, DC, U.S., February 28, 2018. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas/File PhotoManafort’s trial in a federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, is due to start on July 25, but in court filings on Friday his lawyers also asked for postponement until another trial due to start in September in Washington, D.C. runs its course. They said his pretrial detention made it hard to prepare his defense. Special Counsel Robert Mueller has indicted Manafort on charges including bank and tax fraud. Friday’s filings are Manafort’s latest attempt to stall the legal process, after a judge overseeing the Alexandria case last month rejected an effort to have the indictment dismissed. Manafort’s lawyers said on Friday the trial should be moved from Alexandria, which is a short drive from Washington, to Roanoke, Virginia about 240 miles (386 km) away. They cited voting data showing Hillary Clinton took two-thirds of the 2016 presidential vote in Alexandria, which was part of an “inside-the-Beltway” area preoccupied with political media coverage, much of it negative towards Manafort and Trump. They argued that Roanoke, which Trump carried, would draw a less biased jury pool. “Nowhere in the country is the bias against Mr. Manafort more apparent than here in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area,” Manafort’s lawyers wrote. “It is not a stretch to expect that voters who supported Secretary Clinton would be predisposed against Mr. Manafort.” Manafort was jailed last month by the judge overseeing the Washington, D.C. case after Mueller submitted witness tampering charges. The jail is about a two-hour drive from Washington. Manafort’s lawyers urged the judge in the Virginia case to postpone the trial until after the Washington trial wraps up. “Mr. Manafort’s current detention has made meetings with his attorneys to prepare his defense far more infrequent and enormously time-consuming,” his lawyers wrote. Also on Friday, prosecutors said they would introduce evidence at trial showing that a senior bank executive helped Manafort get $16 million in loans in return for efforts to get him positions on the campaign and in the administration. The bank, identified as “Lender D” in Friday’s filing, is the Federal Savings Bank, a Chicago-based lender, according to prior filings in the case. Federal’s chief executive is Steven Calk, who had an advisory role in the Trump campaign. “During the loan application process, the senior executive expressed interest in working on the Trump campaign, told the defendant about his interest, and eventually secured a position advising the Trump campaign,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Uzo Asonye wrote. In April Democratic lawmakers questioned whether Calk was seeking a favor from the incoming Trump administration when he inquired about the confirmation process for a top U.S. Army position before extending the loans to Manafort. A spokeswoman for Federal Savings did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday. The bank has previously denied there was any connection between the loans and Calk’s position on the Trump campaign. Reporting by Nathan Layne; Editing by Clive McKeef and Clarence FernandezOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

US President Donald Trump's former election campaign chief Paul Manafort should be jailed for up to 24 years, special counsel Robert Mueller says. Manafort was convicted of financial fraud on charges relating to his work as a political consultant in Ukraine.He accepted a plea deal on the charges in return for co-operating with Mr Mueller's probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 US election campaign.But he was found guilty earlier this week of breaching his plea deal.The 69 year old, who was one of the first people to be investigated in the probe, was found to have lied to prosecutors.On Thursday, US District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled that Manafort had "made multiple false statements" to the FBI, Mr Mueller's office and a grand jury. Winners and losers from Manafort's plea deal Manafort: The man who helped Trump win Russia-Trump: Who's who in the drama to end all dramas? On Friday, a court document filed by Mr Mueller's office said it agreed with a US Department of Justice calculation that Manafort should face between 19 and 24 years in prison and a fine of between $50,000 (£39,000) and $24m."While some of these offences are commonly prosecuted, there was nothing ordinary about the millions of dollars involved in the defendant's crimes, the duration of his criminal conduct or the sophistication of his schemes," the document reads."The sentence here should reflect the seriousness of these crimes, and serve to both deter Manafort and others from engaging in such conduct."In her ruling on Wednesday, Judge Berman Jackson said there was evidence that showed Manafort had lied about three different topics, including his contacts with Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian political consultant. Prosecutors claim Mr Kilimnik had ties to Russian intelligence.Last August, Mr Manafort was convicted on eight counts of fraud, bank fraud and failing to disclose bank accounts.A month later he pleaded guilty to one charge of conspiracy against the US and one charge of conspiracy to obstruct justice in a plea bargain with Mr Mueller. The agreement avoided a second trial on money laundering and other charges.Mueller: America's most mysterious public figureThe plea deal meant Manafort would face up to 10 years in prison and would forfeit four of his properties and the contents of several bank accounts - but deadlocked charges from the previous trial would be dismissed.It was the first criminal trial arising from the Department of Justice's investigation into alleged Russian interference in the presidential election.However, the charges related only to Manafort's political consulting with pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine, largely pre-dating his role with the Trump campaign.

Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, should be sentenced to up to 24 years in prison, the special counsel Robert Mueller said on Friday.Mueller’s team said in a court filing that Manafort should face a prison term of 235 to 292 months, or between 19 and a half and 24 and a half years, for “serious, longstanding, and bold” financial crimes.Manafort, 69, could also receive financial penalties totaling more than $50m, according to the filing by Mueller’s prosecutors. His sentence will be decided by federal judge TS Ellis.The new court filing dealt with Manafort’s convictions in Virginia last year for fraud and other crimes that the veteran political consultant began committing before he joined Trump’s campaign in 2016.“Manafort acted for more than a decade as if he were above the law, and deprived the federal government and various financial institutions of millions of dollars,” Mueller’s team said. “The sentence here should reflect the seriousness of these crimes, and serve to both deter Manafort and others from engaging in such conduct.”A jury found Manafort guilty in August on eight counts of tax fraud, bank fraud and concealing a foreign bank account. They could not reach a verdict on 10 other charges.He was found to have hidden more than $16m in income from US authorities, which allowed him to avoid paying $6m in taxes. He also hid tens of millions of dollars in foreign bank accounts secured $25m in loans from banks through fraud.Manafort had “ample funds” to cover the tax bills he should have paid, the filing said, but “he simply chose not to comply with laws that would reduce his wealth”.Mueller’s team said Manafort resorted to fraud to maintain a lifestyle of “lavish spending” – spanning multiple homes, luxurious rugs and an ostrich-skin leather jacket – after his lucrative work for pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine dried up.Following his convictions, Manafort admitted other crimes in a plea deal to avoid a second trial on other charges in Washington DC. But the deal was scrapped by Mueller after Manafort continued to lie to investigators.Friday’s court filing said Manafort’s “concerted criminality”, even while out on bail and under indictment last year, should be a factor in his Virginia sentence. He also faces sentencing next month in Washington for crimes he admitted in that case.Mueller is investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 US election, which intelligence agencies concluded was aimed at helping Trump. Prosecutors from Mueller’s team have said Manafort’s interactions in 2016 with Konstantin Kilimnik, an alleged Russian intelligence operative, are a central focus of their inquiries.Manafort has been in jail since June last year, when he and Kilimnik were charged with witness tampering while Manafort awaited his trial in Virginia. Kilimnik denies the allegations and insists he has not worked for Russian intelligence.Mueller’s team said on Friday that Manafort had resorted to crime despite having had “every opportunity to succeed” – including a good education at Georgetown university and law school. His sentence should punish him for serious wrongdoing and serve as a deterrent to others tempted to commit similar crimes, they said.The court filing said Manafort was the ringleader of a financial criminal operation that also involved his accountants, Kilimnik and Rick Gates, Manafort’s deputy chairman on the Trump campaign. Gates has pleaded guilty to lying to investigators.“Manafort solicited numerous professionals and others to reap his ill-gotten gains,” the prosecutors wrote.Separately on Friday, the transcript of a hearing held in Manafort’s case in Washington DC on Wednesday was unsealed. The transcript showed judge Amy Berman Jackson explaining why she agreed with Mueller that Manafort had breached his plea deal by lying.Jackson said Manafort had been caught lying repeatedly about his interactions with Kilimnik, which she said went to the “undisputed core” of Mueller’s search for any “links and/or coordination” between Trump’s campaign and the Russian government.“Mr Kilimnik doesn’t have to be in the government or even be an active spy to be a link,” she said.Jackson said Manafort had forced Mueller’s investigators “to pull teeth” by withholding facts if he thought he could get away with it, before learning that Mueller’s team actually already knew the truth.By lying about the witness-tampering conspiracy with Kilimnik, Manafort also seemed to be trying to protect “his Russian conspirator” from legal peril, Jackson said, raising “legitimate questions about where his loyalties lie.” Topics Paul Manafort Robert Mueller Trump-Russia investigation news

The 2016 presidential race was fought online in a swamp of disinformation, conspiracy theories and fake news. Now a Guardian investigation has uncovered evidence suggesting YouTube’s recommendation algorithm was disproportionately prompting users to watch pro-Trump and anti-Clinton videos 'Fiction is outperforming reality': how YouTube's algorithm distorts truth

There’s a photo, taken in 1936, of Al Jaffee and Wolf Eisenberg, a.k.a. Will Elder, goofing around in the cafeteria of the High School of Music and Art in New York, where they were students. They’re mugging for the camera, their faces pulled into the kinds of caricatures they would later draw — Jaffee grimacing with his eyes squinched up and nose twisted to one side while shoving a whole sandwich in his mouth, Elder making a cross-eyed Quasimodo face and tipping a milk bottle toward his protruding lips and tongue, their hands clawed and gesticulating — basically acting like wiseass teenagers of any era. But these boys grew up to become two of “the usual gang of idiots” — the stable of artists for Mad magazine, who turned teenage wiseassery into an art form and an institution, and eventually turned all America into one big high school cafeteria.The announcement last week that Mad would cease monthly publication of new material made me sad in the far-off way you feel when you hear that a celebrity you didn’t know was still alive has died. I was a regular reader of Mad in the 1970s, when the magazine was at the height of its popularity and influence. I learned many things from Mad: who Spiro Agnew was, the plots of R-rated movies like “Coma” and show tunes like “I Got Plenty o’ Nuttin’,’” which the writers of Mad evidently assumed would be familiar enough to 10-year-olds of the ’70s to parody — “I Got Plenty of Muslims,” sung by a black militant. I also learned about black militants.I also learned from Mad that politicians were corrupt and deceitful, that Hollywood and Madison Avenue pushed insulting junk, that religion was more invested in respectability than compassion, that school was mostly about teaching you to obey arbitrary rules and submit to dingbats and martinets — that it was, in short, all BS. Grown-ups who worried that Mad was a subversive influence, undermining the youth of America’s respect for their elders and faith in our hallowed institutions, were 100 percent correct.I never wrote or drew for Mad (though I have several friends who did) but my own cartooning was deeply influenced by its artists, from Mort Drucker’s obsessive perfectionism for the most inconspicuous detail to Don Martin’s wild, spontaneous precision. I learned from Mad that a line could be funny: not just a face but the cock of an eyebrow, the sploosh of a bowl of soup. Certain expressions drawn by Harry North, Esq. — a vacationing veteran’s hollow-eyed paranoia at the lying smiles of the Japanese all around him, a guy realizing what he should’ve said to the jerk who cut him off in traffic earlier that day — have become engraved as the dictionary illustrations in my brain for “xenophobia” and “l’esprit d’escalier.” Even Dave Berg, ostensibly the squarest of Mad’s artists, is a kind of elbow-patched George Grosz in retrospect. “Berg’s characters grin with sickening expressions,” Austin English wrote in The Comics Journal, and “appear constipated and on the verge of tears even when at rest.” Mad’s roster of talent was too idiosyncratic to have a house style, but it was all loud: kinetic, expressive, a brand of caricature that’s out of fashion these days, when an amateurish D.I.Y. aesthetic or dreary minimalism is de rigueur.But Mad’s influence went deeper than aesthetics; it had a comedic sensibility, a view of the world as a hilarious cavalcade of hypocrisy and folly — an attitude embodied by the insolent simpleton’s grin of Alfred E. Neuman, a figure whose origins are untraceable, that seems to have arisen from the collective moronic American unconscious. By the time most of us hit adolescence and learn that the world is unfair, exploitative and brutal, and that most people in it live in shocking poverty and squalor, and that we’re all somehow implicated in this even though it wasn’t our idea, plus there’s no God and we’re all going to die and the grown-ups have been secretly having sex the whole time, you feel ripped off. You feel lied to.So you turn to art that rips the facades off everything, exposing adults and their institutions as swinish and rotten. Humor is adolescents’ reflexive defense against all the unpleasantness they’re confronting for the first time. It’s a distinctively adolescent form of humor we now call “snark” — irony, sarcasm, satire and parody — whose agenda is to mock and tear down and caper gleefully upon the grave of everything sacred and respectable.It’s no coincidence that Mad reached its highest circulation in the era of the Vietnam War, Watergate and the “credibility gap” — the collapse of public faith in the integrity and honesty of our government. It was a healthy antidote to earlier generations’ automatic deference to an authority that too seldom deserved it. It’s hard to believe now that there was really a time when people trusted their elected officials to act in the best interest of the country or had reverence for the presidency: They seem, to us, like a race of credulous children. But the ’60s and ’70s were America’s adolescence. I still have a Mad article by Larry Siegel called “Those Wonderful ’70s!” that serves as a bracing antidote to any Gen Y or Z illusions that it was a simpler time — it’s an extended piece of mock-nostalgic reminiscence, from the future year 2000, about political scandals, nuclear accidents, gas lines, hijackings, death cults and really bad TV. “How we laughed and sang and danced,” he wrote, “as we wiped up the ground with each other and blew up our cities and destroyed our land and wildlife and polluted our air and ruined our water and did a thousand other loony things.”Adolescents are also scarily passionate absolutists, and there is, behind all parody and satire, a moral agenda; people like Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert aren’t America haters but closet patriots and true believers. Mad’s ethos was essentially conservative: its all-fronts, iconoclastic assault on bigotry and hypocrisy was a tacit appeal to good old-fashioned decency and integrity. Mad made good enemies: The Ku Klux Klan once demanded an apology and threatened to sue over what it considered a libel against its organization.Even in 2018, Mad hadn’t lost its edge: A parody of Edward Gorey’s droll “The Gashlycrumb Tinies,” called “The Ghastlygun Tinies,” showed wan tots alternately practicing the cello or cowering under their desks, accompanied by rhymes like: “Q is for Quinn, whose life had just begun/R is for Reid, valued less than a gun.” But this Swiftian bitterness was mostly disguised with huge dollops of the stupidest, most puerile humor imaginable. I once misguidedly tried to console a friend after a breakup by showing her an enormous treasury of Don Martin cartoons — this was well into adulthood — and ended up laughing so uncontrollably that she eventually excused herself and went home. By contrast, New Yorker cartoons are humor for grown-ups, for people who have forgotten how actual out-loud, can’t-breathe, 10-year-olds-on-a-sleepover laughter felt, the same way “Fifty Shades of Grey” is erotica for people who don’t remember orgasms.In a way, the eulogies for Mad are coming late. The magazine was dead to me the day it started accepting advertisements — real ads, as opposed to the countless fake ones it had always run to parody the stratagems of advertising. Even though I was no longer a reader by then, it felt like a betrayal. That magazine had been an agenda-free zone, one place where grown-ups who hadn’t quite gone over to the other side would tell you the truth.Mad’s influence is ubiquitous now. The glut of satire and subversive comedy we all now consume daily is created by kids who grew up on Mad or on humor inspired by it: “Saturday Night Live,” “The Simpsons,” “The Daily Show,” “The Colbert Report” and The Onion are all in one way or another the spawn of Mad. But in the end, the magazine largely obviated itself as a cultural force by becoming the dominant mode of humor in America. The language of advertising, P.R. and even politics have all appropriated the snark and irony of Mad. Even The Man wants to be a wiseass now.Tim Kreider is the author of two collections of essays, “We Learn Nothing” and “I Wrote This Book Because I Love You.” The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email:[email protected] The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.

Chinese telecom giant Huawei has long caused tension between Washington and Beijing. WSJ’s Shelby Holliday explains what the company does and why it’s significant. (Photo: Aly Song/Reuters) By Updated Dec. 7, 2018 1:39 pm ET SEOUL—Samsung Electronics Co. is replacing the head of its unit that provides next-generation 5G equipment, according to people familiar with the matter, a shake-up atop a key business looking to rapidly grow sales as global pushback builds against market leader Huawei Technologies Co. Kim Young-ky, president of Samsung’s networks business, will step down and assume an adviser role at the company, the people said. His replacement hasn’t yet been decided, the people said. A strong contender under consideration is Cheun Kyung-whoon,... To Read the Full Story Subscribe Sign In

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said he felt very badly for his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, who was sentenced a day earlier to less than four years in prison for financial crimes uncovered as part of the U.S. special counsel’s Russia probe. Trump, speaking to reporters at the White House, also said it has been a tough time for Manafort, and said he was honored by the judge’s remarks at the Thursday sentencing. “I feel very badly for Paul Manafort. I think it’s been a very, very tough time,” he said. “The judge - I mean for whatever reason I was very honored by it - also made the statement that this had nothing to do with collusion with Russia.” Trump reiterated his position that he did not assist Russia in allegedly interfering in the 2016 presidential election that he won, saying, “I don’t collude with Russia.” Russia has denied the allegations that it meddled in the election, which led to the investigation spearheaded by Special Counsel Robert Mueller that has ensnared Manafort and others in Trump’s orbit. Reporting by Roberta Rampton and Lisa Lambert; Writing by Susan Heavey; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Jonathan OatisOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (Reuters) - U.S. prosecutors on Friday agreed to drop criminal charges against Paul Manafort that a jury deadlocked on in August, as a federal judge set a Feb. 8 date for the former Trump campaign manager’s sentencing on charges of bank fraud and filing false tax returns. FILE PHOTO: Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort departs from U.S. District Court in Washington, U.S., February 28, 2018. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas/File PhotoProsecutors had initially favored waiting until Manafort finished cooperating with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election before addressing the remaining charges. But U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis rejected the timetable so he could move forward with sentencing Manafort, who appeared in court in a wheelchair and was said to be suffering significant health issues. “I have not heard any estimation from the government of when his cooperation will be complete,” Ellis said, referring to the special counsel investigation. “I’m not willing to go on endlessly” before sentencing Manafort, he added. Uzo Asonye, a lawyer for the government, told Ellis it was not clear when Manafort’s cooperation would be completed. The Special Counsel’s Office also said it would not oppose Ellis’ new timetable. Ellis dropped the charges on which the jury had deadlocked but did so without prejudice, meaning the prosecution could reintroduce them at a later date. He set the Feb. 8 sentencing date for the tax and bank fraud charges on which Manafort was convicted. At his trial in August, Manafort was convicted on eight counts of bank fraud, tax fraud and failing to disclose foreign bank accounts. But the jury was unable to reach a verdict on 10 other charges, including failure to register foreign bank accounts and conspiracy to commit bank fraud, so a mistrial was declared on those. Ellis’ decision to push ahead with sentencing could result in Manafort receiving a higher prison sentence at first, which prosecutors could then seek to have reduced if he furthers the Mueller probe. Several sentencing experts predicted Manafort, a 69-year-old former political consultant, would receive a prison term of about 10 years. Manafort is the most senior of President Donald Trump’s former aides to be convicted in Mueller’s Russia investigation. Prosecutors accused him of hiding from U.S. tax authorities $16 million he earned as a political consultant for pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine to fund an opulent lifestyle, and then lying to banks to secure $20 million in loans after his Ukrainian income dried up and he needed cash. The charges largely predated Manafort’s tenure on Trump’s successful presidential campaign in 2016. After months of refusing to assist Mueller’s probe, Manafort finally took a plea deal in September and agreed to cooperate in return for reduced charges. Manafort appeared in court in green prison uniform that said “Alexandria inmate.” He was in a wheelchair and had a bandage on his right foot. A source familiar with his health said he had a “serious medical condition related to his diet.” Manafort had asked permission to wear a suit but Ellis rejected the request, saying he should be treated no differently from other defendants in custody post-conviction. Reporting by Jan Wolfe; Editing by David Alexander and Tom BrownOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Russians working for an ally of Vladimir Putin are waging an “information warfare” campaign to disrupt the 2018 midterm elections and discredit Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia investigation, US authorities said on Friday.The allegations were outlined by the FBI as a Russian woman accused of playing a senior role in the influence operation was charged with conspiring to interfere in the US political system.Elena Khusyaynova, 44, is said to be the chief accountant for a $35m project orchestrated by Yevgeniy Prigozhin, an oligarch known as “Putin’s chef” who has already been charged by the US with interfering in the 2016 election.Prigozhin’s team allegedly used social media and other web platforms to promote Donald Trump’s agenda and stoke conflict among Americans on divisive topics. Those included Mueller’s inquiry into whether Trump’s team colluded with Russian officials in an effort to swing the 2016 campaign.Court filings in Virginia unsealed on Friday said that, as early as July 2017, the Russians were spreading online messages that Trump was the victim of a “witch-hunt” and that Mueller was a “puppet of the establishment” tied to Democrats whose investigation was “damaging to the country”.Trump has repeatedly denounced Mueller’s inquiry in similar terms since then.Christopher Wray, the director of the FBI, said in a statement the charges against Khusyaynova highlighted “threats to our democracy” from online propaganda campaigns.The case, Wray said, “serves as a stark reminder to all Americans: our foreign adversaries continue their efforts to interfere in our democracy by creating social and political division, spreading distrust in our political system, and advocating for the support or defeat of particular political candidates.”Prigozhin’s influence campaign, known internally as “Project Lakhta”, has allegedly been working to “inflame passions” on controversial news topics. The court documents contained multiple examples of the operation advocating for Trump’s agenda.Russian operatives were allegedly directed to share a pro-Trump article from the rightwing conspiracy site InfoWars, along with messages that “fully support Donald Trump” and stating that “Trump once again proved that he stands for protecting the interests of the United States of America”.The operatives were also told to push questionable research by Judicial Watch, a conservative campaign group frequently praised by Trump online.Those perceived to be standing in Trump’s way were attacked. The Russian operation allegedly shared an article attacking Mueller published by the rightwing website World Net Daily and used critical talking points that have also been used by Republican allies of the president.Operatives were also directed to share articles published by the rightwing sites True Pundit, Breitbart and Fox News attacking the late Senator John McCain, House speaker, Paul Ryan, Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, and Senator Marco Rubio for being insufficiently supportive of Trump’s agenda.Members of the Russian operation also posed as Americans to create bogus profiles on Facebook under names such as “Helen Christopherson”, “Bertha Malone” and “Rachell Edison”, according to prosecutors. These accounts then contacted real Americans to promote political events, share racist content or show support for groups such as the National Rifle Association (NRA).Late in 2017, the Russians also used the Twitter account @CovfefeNationUS – the name referring to a notorious typing error in a tweet by Donald Trump – to post or repost more than 23,00 messages. They had previously created other pro-Trump accounts including @UsaUsaforTrump, @TrumpWithUSA and @swampdrainer659.Russians working for the operation were directed to create “political intensity” by supporting “radical groups” and “users dissatisfied with the social and economic situation” in the US, according to prosecutors. One of the Russians said they sought to “aggravate the conflict between minorities and the rest of the population”.They created bogus social media profiles purporting to be African Americans railing against the Trump administration, black voting rights and the debate over NFL players kneeling during the national anthem.Having pushed criticism of Mueller, the Russians allegedly later used Twitter accounts to retweet messages endorsing his investigation and to stoke anger among his supporters, urging people to “take to the streets in protest” if Trump fired the special counsel.The prosecution of Khusyaynova is being handled by the US attorney’s office in Alexandria, Virginia, rather than by Mueller. Topics Trump-Russia investigation Donald Trump Russia Trump administration Europe news

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (Reuters) - U.S. prosecutors on Friday agreed to drop criminal charges against Paul Manafort that a jury deadlocked on in August, as a federal judge set a Feb. 8 date for the former Trump campaign manager’s sentencing on charges of bank fraud and filing false tax returns. FILE PHOTO: Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort departs from U.S. District Court in Washington, U.S., February 28, 2018. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas/File PhotoProsecutors had initially favored waiting until Manafort finished cooperating with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election before addressing the remaining charges. But U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis rejected the timetable so he could move forward with sentencing Manafort, who appeared in court in a wheelchair and was said to be suffering significant health issues. “I have not heard any estimation from the government of when his cooperation will be complete,” Ellis said, referring to the special counsel investigation. “I’m not willing to go on endlessly” before sentencing Manafort, he added. Uzo Asonye, a lawyer for the government, told Ellis it was not clear when Manafort’s cooperation would be completed. The Special Counsel’s Office also said it would not oppose Ellis’ new timetable. Ellis dropped the charges on which the jury had deadlocked but did so without prejudice, meaning the prosecution could reintroduce them at a later date. He set the Feb. 8 sentencing date for the tax and bank fraud charges on which Manafort was convicted. At his trial in August, Manafort was convicted on eight counts of bank fraud, tax fraud and failing to disclose foreign bank accounts. But the jury was unable to reach a verdict on 10 other charges, including failure to register foreign bank accounts and conspiracy to commit bank fraud, so a mistrial was declared on those. Ellis’ decision to push ahead with sentencing could result in Manafort receiving a higher prison sentence at first, which prosecutors could then seek to have reduced if he furthers the Mueller probe. Several sentencing experts predicted Manafort, a 69-year-old former political consultant, would receive a prison term of about 10 years. Manafort is the most senior of President Donald Trump’s former aides to be convicted in Mueller’s Russia investigation. Prosecutors accused him of hiding from U.S. tax authorities $16 million he earned as a political consultant for pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine to fund an opulent lifestyle, and then lying to banks to secure $20 million in loans after his Ukrainian income dried up and he needed cash. The charges largely predated Manafort’s tenure on Trump’s successful presidential campaign in 2016. After months of refusing to assist Mueller’s probe, Manafort finally took a plea deal in September and agreed to cooperate in return for reduced charges. Manafort appeared in court in green prison uniform that said “Alexandria inmate.” He was in a wheelchair and had a bandage on his right foot. A source familiar with his health said he had a “serious medical condition related to his diet.” Manafort had asked permission to wear a suit but Ellis rejected the request, saying he should be treated no differently from other defendants in custody post-conviction. Reporting by Jan Wolfe; Editing by David Alexander and Tom BrownOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (Reuters) - U.S. prosecutors on Friday agreed to drop criminal charges against Paul Manafort that a jury deadlocked on in August, as a federal judge set a Feb. 8 date for the former Trump campaign manager’s sentencing on charges of bank fraud and filing false tax returns. FILE PHOTO: Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort departs from U.S. District Court in Washington, U.S., February 28, 2018. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas/File PhotoProsecutors had initially favored waiting until Manafort finished cooperating with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election before addressing the remaining charges. But U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis rejected the timetable so he could move forward with sentencing Manafort, who appeared in court in a wheelchair and was said to be suffering significant health issues. “I have not heard any estimation from the government of when his cooperation will be complete,” Ellis said, referring to the special counsel investigation. “I’m not willing to go on endlessly” before sentencing Manafort, he added. Uzo Asonye, a lawyer for the government, told Ellis it was not clear when Manafort’s cooperation would be completed. The Special Counsel’s Office also said it would not oppose Ellis’ new timetable. Ellis dropped the charges on which the jury had deadlocked but did so without prejudice, meaning the prosecution could reintroduce them at a later date. He set the Feb. 8 sentencing date for the tax and bank fraud charges on which Manafort was convicted. At his trial in August, Manafort was convicted on eight counts of bank fraud, tax fraud and failing to disclose foreign bank accounts. But the jury was unable to reach a verdict on 10 other charges, including failure to register foreign bank accounts and conspiracy to commit bank fraud, so a mistrial was declared on those. Ellis’ decision to push ahead with sentencing could result in Manafort receiving a higher prison sentence at first, which prosecutors could then seek to have reduced if he furthers the Mueller probe. Several sentencing experts predicted Manafort, a 69-year-old former political consultant, would receive a prison term of about 10 years. Manafort is the most senior of President Donald Trump’s former aides to be convicted in Mueller’s Russia investigation. Prosecutors accused him of hiding from U.S. tax authorities $16 million he earned as a political consultant for pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine to fund an opulent lifestyle, and then lying to banks to secure $20 million in loans after his Ukrainian income dried up and he needed cash. The charges largely predated Manafort’s tenure on Trump’s successful presidential campaign in 2016. After months of refusing to assist Mueller’s probe, Manafort finally took a plea deal in September and agreed to cooperate in return for reduced charges. Manafort appeared in court in green prison uniform that said “Alexandria inmate.” He was in a wheelchair and had a bandage on his right foot. A source familiar with his health said he had a “serious medical condition related to his diet.” Manafort had asked permission to wear a suit but Ellis rejected the request, saying he should be treated no differently from other defendants in custody post-conviction. Reporting by Jan Wolfe; Editing by David Alexander and Tom BrownOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was back in a federal court in Virginia on Friday to hear when he will be sentenced on fraud charges .Manafort was convicted in Alexandria earlier this year on tax- and bank-fraud charges largely unconnected to his work on the Trump campaign.He appeared in court on Friday in a green prison jumpsuit with the words ‘Alexandria inmate’ printed on the back, and, without explanation, unexpectedly sitting in a wheelchair. The judge had denied a request he be allowed to wear civilian clothes. Manafort was known for his expensive and flamboyant clothing taste.Manafort was told he will be sentenced on 8 February 2019, at 9AM.His lawyers indicated, but without giving details, that his confinement has led to “significant issues” with his health.After his conviction, Manafort struck a plea deal on separate charges brought in the District of Columbia and agreed to cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.There was no indication on Friday of when Manafort’s cooperation with the government will be complete.Manafort was convicted in August on eight fraud charges, in the first trial arising from Mueller’s investigation. There was a mistrial declared on 10 other charges, and those were dismissed by the judge on Friday.He was accused of lying to banks while seeking personal loans, and lying to the Internal Revenue Service in reporting income related to his political consulting work in Ukraine and elsewhere.Last month, Manafort agreed to cooperate with Mueller’s investigation in a move that could mean legal trouble for Trump, confessing to two additional criminal charges, including a conspiracy to defraud the US government, as part of a plea deal.He pledged in his plea agreement to assist government prosecutors with “any and all” matters, and brief officials about “his participation in and knowledge of all criminal activities”. Topics Paul Manafort US politics Trump-Russia investigation Russia Donald Trump Trump administration news

LONDON/BEIJING (Reuters) - British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said on Thursday that he had not backed violent protests in Hong Kong, after Chinese state media blamed “Western ideologues” for fomenting unrest in the former British colony. FILE PHOTO: Anti-extradition bill protesters stand behind a barricade during a demonstration near a flag raising ceremony for the anniversary of Hong Kong handover to China in Hong Kong, China July 1, 2019. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu/File PhotoHundreds of protesters broke into the Hong Kong legislature on Monday after a demonstration marking the anniversary of the return to Chinese rule in 1997 under a “one country, two systems” formula that includes freedoms not enjoyed in mainland China, including the right to protest. That followed weeks of protests against a now-suspended extradition bill that opponents say would undermine Hong Kong’s much-cherished rule of law and give Beijing powers to prosecute activists in mainland courts, which are controlled by the Communist Party. China has stepped up a war of words with Britain over Hong Kong, especially after Hunt warned of consequences if China neglects commitments made when it took back Hong Kong to allow its way of life for at least 50 years. State media in particular has blamed London, Washington and other Western capitals for offering succour to the demonstrators. “Ideologues in Western governments never cease in their efforts to engineer unrest against governments that are not to their liking, even though their actions have caused misery and chaos in country after country in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia,” the official China Daily said in an editorial. “Now they are trying the same trick in China,” the English-language newspaper said. Hunt, speaking to BBC radio, reiterated his condemnation of the violence. “Let me be clear what I said. I said that I condemned, and we as the United Kingdom condemn, all violence and that people who supported the pro-democracy demonstrators would have been very dismayed by the scenes they saw,” said Hunt, who is vying to become Britain’s next prime minister. China has said Britain has no more responsibility for Hong Kong. Britain says it still considers the Joint Declaration in 1984 on the terms of the return of Hong Kong, which guarantees its freedoms, to be valid. “I don’t think it’s a big surprise that China would react that way but they need to understand that Britain is a country that honors its international obligations and what I was saying was something very uncontroversial, actually, which is that we signed an agreement in 1984 which lasts for 50 years and we would expect all sides to honor that agreement,” Hunt said. “Hong Kong has an independent judiciary and it’s not for me as foreign secretary of the UK to second guess how that judiciary works. What I was saying was that there would be serious consequences if the legally binding international agreement between the UK and China, if that was violated.” On Wednesday, British Prime Minister Theresa May also said China must respect the rights and freedoms of people in Hong Kong and that she had been in touch with Beijing to raise concerns. Hunt warned on Tuesday of consequences if China did not abide by the Sino-British Joint Declaration. His comments were met by a sharp rebuke from China’s ambassador to the UK, who told Britain to keep its hands off Hong Kong. Speaking at a daily news briefing in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang did not offer any new criticism about Britain having the day before accused Hunt of being “shameless” for his remarks on Hong Kong. “For the time being today, I’ll restrain myself and won’t say anymore. But if certain people in Britain obstinately stick to the wrong path, and keep repeating their mistakes, then I fear I may have more to say.” Widespread damage inside the Legislative Council building, where protesters smashed furniture and daubed graffiti over chamber walls, forced the government to close it for two weeks. The Legislative Council Commission is due to hold a closed-door special meeting at an undisclosed venue later on Thursday. The China Daily accused Western forces of instigating unrest against Hong Kong’s government “as a means to put pressure on the central government”. “The violent behavior that these Western agitators are emboldening tramples on the rule of law in Hong Kong and undermines its social order,” it said. An editorial in the widely read tabloid The Global Times, published by the Communist Party’s People’s Daily, criticized Hunt’s comments and said “the UK’s diplomacy toward China will pay for his behavior”. Additional reporting by Andrew Galbraith in SHANGHAI and Anne Marie Roantree in HONG KONG; Editing by Nick MacfieOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

An exhibition of Hong Kong art in Switzerland that coincided with the city’s biggest protests ever became, briefly, a cultural reference point for understanding Hong Kong’s political struggles.The show, which took place during the Art Basel fair in the Swiss town of Basel earlier this month, is the first part of an on-going curatorial project entitled Homeland in Transit spearheaded by Hong Kong curator Angelika Li, who relocated to Switzerland two years ago.“I’m often asked, ‘where are you from?’ in my new home in Switzerland. And this simple question triggers quite a lot of conversations and thoughts on the shifting nature of our cultural identity,” Li told Quartz. “I always see ourselves as orphans on our floating city that goes through waves of changes and transformations.”Li said her initial intention was to prompt audience members from different parts of the world to contemplate their own roots and stories through 18 works about identity by eight Hong Kong artists. But the show just happened to open as her home city was about to witness its biggest protests ever—triggered by anger over a proposed law that would have allowed extradition to mainland China. At their heart, though, they were about Hong Kong’s present and future identity too.The exhibition’s June 7 opening was scheduled to coincide with the opening of the week-long Art Basel in Basel. Two days later, on June 9, Hong Kong saw and estimated 1 million people take to the streets to protest the law, viewed as a dire threat to the autonomy and freedom the city has enjoyed since returning to Chinese sovereignty.This was followed on June 12 by violent confrontations between the police and some of the tens of thousands of protesters who occupied the government district. The government announced on June 15 that it was indefinitely suspending the bill but protests have continued, including one on June 16 estimated at 2 million demonstrators, to seek the full withdrawal of the bill and an apology from the police.During the week of unrest, Li joined some members of Hong Kong’s art circle to rally outside the Art Basel fair ground.For the exhibition taking place in the heart of Basel’s Old Town, Li selected artworks that illustrated the troubles Hong Kong faces.Two Green Tapes (2014) by Kitty Chou shows organized chaos along borders and boundaries, a reflection of the ongoing tension of the border between Hong Kong and mainland, as well as many places abroad.Five works from Lee Ka-sing’s photographic series Z Fiction (2010-2011) form a narrative about Hong Kong’s constant search for the definition of its cultural identity, and a contemplation of its British past. The image below from the series depicts a man climbing up a ladder aiming to reach the sky—an ongoing process that never ends, the artist’s metaphor for Hong Kong people’s constant search not only for their identity, but also for their ideal version of Hong Kong.Courtesy Lee Ka-singReaching to the sky: After Climbing Intensively for Three Days (2011) by Lee Ka-sing.Leung Chi-wo’s video work My Name is Victoria (2008) contains footage shot along Victoria Road all the way to Aberdeen, where the British troops first landed Hong Kong during the reign of Queen Victoria, accompanied by a voice over telling the stories of 40 women about why they were named Victoria.Li said a lot of visitors to the exhibition, which ended last week, expressed their views on the extradition bill and human rights issues in China. The second part of the project, a book that will document the artworks featured as well as dialogues between the curator and the artists will be published next year. She added that there are plans to expand the project further to other parts of Switzerland with local partners.“Many visitors are very engaged in the complexity and frustrations in the ever-shifting cultural identity of Hong Kongers,” she said. “Through the recent happenings in our city and with more than 2 million people marching down the streets to have their voices heard, it seems that the city is redefining a collective cultural identity.”

Scuffles have broken out across "Lennon Walls" in Hong Kong, as those supporting a controversial extradition bill clashed with those against it.One man was arrested after he was filmed punching another in front of a Lennon Wall on Wednesday night.At another Lennon Wall, three were arrested after fights between anti-bill and pro-bill supporters.Lennon Walls - walls plastered with colourful protests notes - have in recent weeks spread across Hong Kong.The emergence of the walls follows weeks of protests in Hong Kong over a bill that would allow suspects in the city to be extradited to mainland China.The bill has now been suspended and declared "dead" but demonstrators say they will not stop until it has been completely withdrawn. As protests continue, many have taken to sticking messages supporting the protests, and expressing anger against the government, on walls to express themselves.On Wednesday night, a 46-year-old man was filmed repeatedly punching a younger man at a Lennon Wall in Hong Kong's Kowloon Bay. According to local media reports, the man had been tearing down sticky notes on the wall - it is not clear if the younger man had tried to stop him. The 46-year-old was later arrested.Video of the attack went viral on social media in Hong Kong, with many applauding the younger man who did not retaliate or defend himself.Conflict also broke out at another Lennon Wall near Hong Kong's Yau Tong metro station on the same night.According to the South China Morning Post, anti-bill campaigners were tidying up sticky notes at the wall when dozens of pro-bill supporters turned up.They attempted to remove the messages and to stop the campaigners from sticking any more messages.More people from both sides soon arrived to join the dispute, and scuffles quickly broke out. Police later appeared and three men, who were said to have pushed an 18-year-old to the ground, were later arrested. Another separate incident earlier this week saw dozens of police officers removing notes from the Lennon Wall, after some messages were found to contain the personal details of a police officer. The background you need on the Hong Kong protests Young, radical and ready for tear gas Why are the UK and China arguing about Hong Kong? What graffiti says about Hong Kong's evolving anger Lennon Walls - which gets its name from a wall in Prague that has been filled with John Lennon inspired graffiti - have sprung up across numerous districts across Hong Kong.They first made an appearance in Hong Kong in 2014 during the Occupy Protests when thousands took over the streets to protest against Beijing's decision to rule out fully democratic elections in Hong Kong.As a former British colony, Hong Kong is part of China but run under a "one country, two systems" arrangement that guarantees it a high level of autonomy, except in foreign affairs and defence.It has its own judiciary and a separate legal system from mainland China - but critics fear the bill would erode this independence.

LONDON/BEIJING (Reuters) - British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said on Thursday that he had not backed violent protests in Hong Kong, after Chinese state media blamed “Western ideologues” for fomenting unrest in the former British colony. FILE PHOTO: Anti-extradition bill protesters stand behind a barricade during a demonstration near a flag raising ceremony for the anniversary of Hong Kong handover to China in Hong Kong, China July 1, 2019. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu/File PhotoHundreds of protesters broke into the Hong Kong legislature on Monday after a demonstration marking the anniversary of the return to Chinese rule in 1997 under a “one country, two systems” formula that includes freedoms not enjoyed in mainland China, including the right to protest. That followed weeks of protests against a now-suspended extradition bill that opponents say would undermine Hong Kong’s much-cherished rule of law and give Beijing powers to prosecute activists in mainland courts, which are controlled by the Communist Party. China has stepped up a war of words with Britain over Hong Kong, especially after Hunt warned of consequences if China neglects commitments made when it took back Hong Kong to allow its way of life for at least 50 years. State media in particular has blamed London, Washington and other Western capitals for offering succour to the demonstrators. “Ideologues in Western governments never cease in their efforts to engineer unrest against governments that are not to their liking, even though their actions have caused misery and chaos in country after country in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia,” the official China Daily said in an editorial. “Now they are trying the same trick in China,” the English-language newspaper said. Hunt, speaking to BBC radio, reiterated his condemnation of the violence. “Let me be clear what I said. I said that I condemned, and we as the United Kingdom condemn, all violence and that people who supported the pro-democracy demonstrators would have been very dismayed by the scenes they saw,” said Hunt, who is vying to become Britain’s next prime minister. China has said Britain has no more responsibility for Hong Kong. Britain says it still considers the Joint Declaration in 1984 on the terms of the return of Hong Kong, which guarantees its freedoms, to be valid. “I don’t think it’s a big surprise that China would react that way but they need to understand that Britain is a country that honors its international obligations and what I was saying was something very uncontroversial, actually, which is that we signed an agreement in 1984 which lasts for 50 years and we would expect all sides to honor that agreement,” Hunt said. “Hong Kong has an independent judiciary and it’s not for me as foreign secretary of the UK to second guess how that judiciary works. What I was saying was that there would be serious consequences if the legally binding international agreement between the UK and China, if that was violated.” On Wednesday, British Prime Minister Theresa May also said China must respect the rights and freedoms of people in Hong Kong and that she had been in touch with Beijing to raise concerns. Hunt warned on Tuesday of consequences if China did not abide by the Sino-British Joint Declaration. His comments were met by a sharp rebuke from China’s ambassador to the UK, who told Britain to keep its hands off Hong Kong. Speaking at a daily news briefing in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang did not offer any new criticism about Britain having the day before accused Hunt of being “shameless” for his remarks on Hong Kong. “For the time being today, I’ll restrain myself and won’t say anymore. But if certain people in Britain obstinately stick to the wrong path, and keep repeating their mistakes, then I fear I may have more to say.” Widespread damage inside the Legislative Council building, where protesters smashed furniture and daubed graffiti over chamber walls, forced the government to close it for two weeks. The Legislative Council Commission is due to hold a closed-door special meeting at an undisclosed venue later on Thursday. The China Daily accused Western forces of instigating unrest against Hong Kong’s government “as a means to put pressure on the central government”. “The violent behavior that these Western agitators are emboldening tramples on the rule of law in Hong Kong and undermines its social order,” it said. An editorial in the widely read tabloid The Global Times, published by the Communist Party’s People’s Daily, criticized Hunt’s comments and said “the UK’s diplomacy toward China will pay for his behavior”. Additional reporting by Andrew Galbraith in SHANGHAI and Anne Marie Roantree in HONG KONG; Editing by Nick MacfieOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Hong Kong has seen a second day of violent clashes between police and pro-democracy demonstrators who are also angry at alleged police brutality.Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters trying to reach the Chinese government's office.Tens of thousands of demonstrators have taken over streets near Sai Wan and Causeway Bay on Hong Kong Island.Hong Kong has seen eight consecutive weekends of anti-government and pro-democracy protests.It is ranked as one of the safest cities in the world - but recent protests have been followed by violent clashes between demonstrators, police and masked men wielding sticks suspected of being criminal gang members. The background you need on the protests Were triads involved in the attacks? Police fire tear gas at Yuen Long protest Sunday's protests saw activists wearing protective helmets and goggles erecting barricades at several different locations and chanting "free Hong Kong".The protests began as a police-authorised gathering in a park in the central business district before protesters defied the authorities and marched west towards the Chinese liaison office in Sai Wan and east towards the Causeway Bay shopping area.Hundreds of police blocked the protesters from reaching the Chinese liaison office. The building had been fortified with plastic barricades and a Chinese government emblem above the front door had been covered with a plastic shield, Reuters news agency reported.Last Sunday the office was targeted by protesters who wrote graffiti and threw paint on its walls. Chinese officials said this was a challenge to Beijing's authority that would not be tolerated.Some protesters chanted "reclaim Hong Kong" and "revolution of our times", or held up banners that read "end the violence".Meanwhile in the Causeway Bay shopping area, protesters with helmets and masks waited for police as tourists carrying shopping bags, including many from mainland China, continued to walk the streets.Demonstrations began when the Hong Kong government introduced a controversial bill that would have enabled extraditions to mainland China.It sparked huge protests as critics feared the bill would undermine Hong Kong's freedoms, and be used to target political activists.The row intensified as police were accused of using excessive force on anti-extradition bill protesters. Tensions increased further last Sunday, when suspected triad members descended on a subway station in Yuen Long, beating protesters, passersby and journalists with sticks. Demonstrators accused the police of colluding with the triads - claims angrily denied by the police.The authorities say they have arrested 12 people over the attack, including nine men with links to triads.The anti-extradition protests have morphed over time into a wider movement.While the government has paused work on the extradition bill, protesters now want it withdrawn completely, as well as an independent inquiry into police violence, and democratic reform.They want the territory's leader, Carrie Lam, who is not democratically elected, and whose handling of the crisis has been widely criticised, to resign.Some protesters have also expressed their anger at the mainland Chinese government, which they say has been eroding freedoms in Hong Kong.Last week, demonstrators stormed the Chinese government's office and defaced the national emblem.The authorities have now installed a protective casing around the sign.As a former British colony, Hong Kong has its own legal and judicial systems, and has been promised "a high degree of autonomy" from the Chinese government, except in foreign and defence affairs.China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) does have troops stationed in Hong Kong, but they are not expected to interfere in local issues.However, the law does permit Hong Kong's government to request assistance from the PLA for purposes of maintaining public order, or disaster relief.Last week China's defence ministry spokesman condemned protesters who had vandalised the government's offices, and said there were "clear stipulations" in the law allowing Hong Kong's leaders to ask the army for help.Hong Kong's government and police have stated in recent weeks that they have no plans to involve the army - while some commentators argue that China would consider using its troops in Hong Kong to be too politically risky. 3 April - Hong Kong government introduces amendments to the city's extradition laws to the legislature that would allow criminal suspects to be extradited to mainland China.9 June - In the first of many huge protests against the changes, an estimated million people march to government headquarters. 12 June - Anti-extradition bill protesters block roads and try to storm government buildings - police fire tear gas, rubber bullets and bean bag rounds at protesters, in the worst violence the city has seen in decades.15 June - Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam indefinitely delays the bill in a dramatic reversal.16 June - Despite this, an estimated two million people take to the streets demanding the complete withdrawal of the bill, an investigation into alleged police violence, and Carrie Lam's resignation.21 June - As anger grows towards police, protests blockade police headquarters for 15 hours. They now also want protesters that were arrested to be exonerated.1 July - On the anniversary of Hong Kong's handover from the UK to China, the Legislative Council (LegCo) building is stormed and broken into by protesters.21 July- Protesters deface China's Liaison Office in Hong Kong. That same night mobs of men wearing white shirts attack protesters and commuters in Yuen Long station, near mainland China, in a new escalation of violence.

At least 12 people have been arrested in the first wave of detentions linked to anti-government protests in Hong Kong that led to the storming and vandalising of the city’s parliament.At least 11 men and one woman were arrested on suspicion of trying to disrupt celebrations marking the 22nd anniversary of the former British colony’s return to Chinese rule on Monday.On Thursday police said they have been been charged with offences that range from “possession of offensive weapons, unlawful assembly, assaulting a police officer, obstructing a police officer, offence against air navigation ( HK) order 1995 and failing to carry identity document”. The oldest was 31 and the youngest was just 14.For the past month, protesters have been demanding the withdrawal of a bill that would allow extraditions to the Chinese mainland as anger has grown against Hong Kong authorities and morphed into a wider political crisis.The occupation of the legislature on Monday night coincided with a massive peaceful protest in which organisers say more than half a million people marched through the city on the anniversary of Hong Kong’s 1997 return to Chinese rule.Officers on Wednesday had gathered debris from the legislature as evidence, showing pictures of bricks, metal bars and shields stacked neatly outside the damaged legislature on their Facebook page on Wednesday.“Police will certainly follow up and bring the culprits to justice for any unlawful acts,” the force said in a statement.Police also arrested a 31-year-old man for assaulting police, criminal damage, forcible entry and disorderly conduct in a public place for his role on 1 July and and an earlier protest in June when thousands of demonstrators had gathered around police headquarters to voice concerns over police violence.On 12 June, police fired 150 rounds of tear gas and rubber bullets at a mostly peaceful crowd.Another eight people were arrested earlier on Wednesday for releasing personal information of police officer’s online, including phone numbers and addresses. Officers were harassed with late night phone calls and threatening text messages.Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, has asked to meet with the city’s university students, her office said on Thursday. The student union at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, one of the eight major higher education institutions, turned down the request, saying that the city’s leader had requested a closed-door meeting and that any dialogue must be open to all.Meanwhile, police also arrested people at a rally in support of police on 30 June.Five men and one woman were arrested for possessing offensive weapons, assault occasioning actual bodily harm, common assault and fighting in a public place.On Thursday, Chinese state media blamed meddling by Western governments for unrest in Hong Kong amid an escalating diplomatic spat between China and the United Kingdom the protests.“Ideologues in Western governments never cease in their efforts to engineer unrest against governments that are not to their liking, even though their actions have caused misery and chaos in country after country in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia,” the official China Daily said in an editorial.“Now they are trying the same trick in China.”Reuters contributed to this report Topics Hong Kong Protest Asia Pacific news