Four Palestinians were fatally wounded during the fifth consecutive Friday of mass protests as part of the Great March of Return demonstrations along Gaza’s eastern boundary with Israel.
The health ministry announced on Saturday that Azzam Oweida, 15, died from his injuries sustained during protests east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza a day earlier. He is the fifth child to be killed during the Great March of Return protests since their launch on 30 March.
Abd al-Salam Eid Zuhdi Baker, 33, was shot in the stomach, also east of Khan Younis.
Two Palestinians were killed east of Gaza City, where Palestinians defied Israel’s shoot-to-kill-and-maim policy and placed their national flag on the boundary fence:
The two slain men were identified as Khalil Naim Mustafa Atallah, 22, from Gaza City and Muhammad Amin Ahmad al-Muqid, 21, from Beach refugee camp. Al-Muqid was wounded by a live bullet to his head and Atallah was injured by shrapnel.
Israel claimed that its forces “operated in accordance with the rules of engagement and thwarted the attempted infiltration” by “rioters” who “approached the security fence, hurled rocks and firebombs, and tried to light the fence on fire.”
The New York Times, citing four unnamed witnesses, said that two Palestinians with handguns opened fire during the incident. Two other witnesses denied to the paper that anyone fired a gun toward the Israelis.
The Israeli military published its own video of the incident, showing protesters approaching the boundary fence as a military jeep fires on them from the other side:
Intelligence and transportation ministries chief suggests Korean reconciliation could lead to Iran deal renegotiation
Israeli Intelligence and Transportation Minister Israel Katz poses for a portrait following an interview with Reuters in New York (Reuters)
Saturday 28 April 2018
Friday's historic pledge by the leaders of the two Koreas to work to denuclearize the Korean peninsula should give US President Donald Trump a stronger hand to renegotiate the treaty curtailing Iran's nuclear programme, Israel's intelligence minister said.
Israel Katz, who runs both the intelligence and transportation ministries, spoke in a Reuters interview after North Korea's Kim Jong-Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in agreed to work for a "complete denuclearization" of the peninsula at a summit meeting in Seoul.
Such a development, should it come to fruition, could have a larger impact of minimizing the threat of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, Katz said.
The 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, which Israel's government vehemently opposed, is in danger of unraveling should Trump decide by May 12 to restore US economic sanctions against Iran.
Trump has called the accord the worst deal ever negotiated and threatened to reimpose the US penalties unless Britain, France and Germany can fix its "flaws". The deal lifted economic sanctions on Iran in return for curbing its nuclear programme.
"He [Trump] will have more power against Iran now and maybe to convince the European Union not to be the weak link in the coalition," Katz said.
"I think it will be very good if the North Koreans will finish and go out of the nuclear business and capabilities. It will also be good to our region, because there is a connection," he said.
Katz said the connection between Iran and North Korea pertains to missile technology.
"Yes, I think there is cooperation as it belongs to developing the ballistic missiles. And we have the evidence," he said.
"We have a lot of evidence," Katz added, shrugging his shoulders without elaborating.
Russia, China, Germany, Britain and France, which all struck the accord with Iran and the United States, see the deal as the best way to stop Iran from developing a nuclear bomb.
During his state visit earlier this week with Trump in Washington, French President Emmanuel Macron called for the US not to abandon the deal and said a new package of terms was being prepared with Britain and Germany.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel held a one-day working visit with Trump on Friday, where she was careful to praise Trump's progress on North Korea.
"I think that now we have to be very tough with Iran," said Katz, who wants to succeed Benjamin Netanyahu as Israel's next prime minister.
Attacks in Syria
While Iran's nuclear capabilities are curtailed for the time being, Katz reiterated that Israel would remain vigilant in seeking to curb Tehran's increased activities in Syria.
On 9 April, an air strike killed seven Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps members at a Syrian base. Tehran blamed Israel and vowed unspecified retaliation, drawing Israeli counter-threats to broaden attacks on Iranian military assets in Syria.
The Israelis have said their strikes aim to prevent Iran's garrison in Syria from entrenching itself deeper in support of President Bashar al-Assad and linking with Hezbollah in Lebanon to form a broad front against them.
"Iranians don't have to be in Syria. It is not to say we are going to attack every Iranian soldier in Syria, but bases, military bases, and munitions bases, and sophisticated missiles and other things like that? Yes," Katz said.
Russia, a key ally of Assad, has said it would provide advanced weapons to Syria. Israel is concerned that might include the S-300 surface-to-air missile system, which military analysts say would improve Russia's ability to control air space in Syria.
"They are talking about to supply advanced missiles, but they didn't say the words S-300," Katz said.
"Personally, it is hard for me to believe that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin will give them the S-300," he said. "Because this is his main card that he is holding now in the discussions with Israel ... If he will give them the S-300, about what can he talk about with us afterward?"
After the bloody birth of Bangladesh, most of those butchers were arrested and some fled away from the country. However …
by Swadesh Roy-
(April 27, 2018, Islamabad, Sri Lanka Guardian) Dhaka University of Bangladesh is a historical University. Even though it is not a top ranking University in the world, it is the only University which was the center of the language movement and freedom movement for a nation. Thousands of students of this University had sacrificed their lives for freedom struggle of Bangladesh. Their holy blood was mingled with the soil of the campus of this historical University. Not only the students’ blood, the blood of the teachers was also mixed with dust and mud of this campus. So, this University is the icon of the country, even in the world; and it is not only the place of learning academic contents, it is the place for learning patriotism, it is the place of learning how to uphold the spirit of the nationality.
Given this context, every student of Dhaka University has a pride that they were the soldiers of the language movement, freedom movement, and restoring democratic movement. As the present students of this university think themselves as the vanguard of the freedom struggle’s spirit of Bangladesh, they always try to uphold the circumstances of the University in a way that the Islamic fundamentalists cannot enter into this campus because the Islamic fundamentalists were the collaborator of Pakistani army, and they fought against the freedom fighters of Bangladesh in 1971 when huge numbers of Dhaka University students were fighting for freedom. Besides that, the very night when Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the father of the nation of Bangladesh and the leader of the freedom struggle, declared the independence of Bangladesh, Pakistani Army along with their collaborators, the Islamic fundamentalist group, committed a genocide at Dhaka University. On that time, Jamat-E- Islam and their the then student organization Islamic Chatra Shangho (Islamic student organization) played the main role of killing the teachers of Dhaka University. Moreover, at the end of the freedom fight, when Pakistani army was going to surrender, the members of this student organization killed the intellectuals all over the country including the teachers of Dhaka University.
After the bloody birth of Bangladesh, most of those butchers were arrested and some fled away from the country. However, it is a matter of misfortune for Bangladesh that within three and a half years with the help of some military officers the fundamentalists succeeded to do a counterrevolution by assassinating Mujib and his entire family including most of the national leaders of the country. Although they killed Sheikh Mujib and succeeded to do a counterrevolution, the Jammat- E- Islami did not dare to start their student organization under their previous name as Islami Chatra Sangho. At first, they started their student organization in the name of Islami Chatra Sena, but now their name is Islami Chatra Shibir.
At the age of counterrevolution, Dhaka University passed much worst time, but the students of Dhaka University never forgot that they are the vanguard of the freedom’s spirit, even they never forgot the fact that the campus of Dhaka University is a holy place for the nation, for the teachers, and for the students of the University because the blood of martyr’s- students and teachers- is mingled with the soil of the campus. After the counterrevolution in Bangladesh, fundamentalists have become very much powerful, and they occupied many educational institutions, even they tried several times to enter in the Dhaka University, but the majority of the students resisted them and drove them away from this holy campus.
Since the progressive media was always with the progressive students, they played a vital role for driving the terrorist Chatra Shibir away from the holy campus of that University.
On a contrary, now a part of the media of Bangladesh is in dilemma about that terrorist Chatra Shibir, even they are supporting those terrorists. In Bangladesh, there is a reservation system in the government job for the successors of the freedom fighters. The successors of Pakistani collaborators, Islami Chatra Shibir, are against it from 1996, but in the second week of this month, they succeeded to bring a huge number of common students with them by using fake information and rumors through social media. However, the government has tackled that movement, and common students are now happy with the government and most of them now understand that they were fallen into a trap of Shibir. In this situation, by misguiding the common students, four Chtara Sibir leaders have entered into Dhaka University from the beginning of the movement. The progressive students and teachers could not understand first that they are Islamic terrorists, but in the meantime, they got their real identity that they are the members of terrorist Shibir though they could not drive them away from the holy campus. Because, if they went for driving them away on that time, the larger part of the media would portray the matter in a way that the government supporter’s students are attacking the boys who are in the anti-reservation movement. That would give a wrong message to the common people. So, the patriot students have no other way but to keep patience, and they are tolerating an unbearable pain as the inheritors of the killer of their elder brothers and respected teachers are now showing their bloody teeth in this historical University campus. Basically, every day those notorious terrorists are moving at the holy and historical campus of Dhaka University. It is not only a matter of shame for the freedom fighter’s spirit of Bangladesh, it is dangerous for the country. If terrorists are able to fix their roots in Dhaka University, it may be a cause of big debacle for Bangladesh.
Swadesh Roy, Executive Editor. The Daily Janakantha, Dhaka, Bangladesh. He is a highest state award winning journalist and can be reached at swadeshroy@gmail.com
Friends, Republicans, countrymen, lend me your ears. I come to praise President Trump, not to place him in an elder-care home. Any concerns regarding my old friend’s mental health are as distant a memory as the Mooch’s reign as communications director. That’s because earlier this year, Americans received blessed assurance — from no less an authority than the White House physician — that their president is of sound mind and herculean body.
Dr. Ronny L. Jackson is an honorable man, and just more than three months ago, he declared to a watchful world that the Manhattan billionaire’s ability to draw boxes, tell time and identify giraffes in pictures was all the proof he needed that our commander in chief’s mental health was strong. For good measure, Jackson deduced that Trump is so genetically superior to mere mortals, the Queens native could live 200 years if he just stopped supersizing his Big Mac value meals.
And why should we doubt his word? Dr. Ronny L. Jackson is an honorable man.
But how comforting are Jackson’s assurances when America’s president calls into a morning cable-news show and launches into a nearly 30-minute tiradethat places himself in greater legal jeopardy while simultaneously encouraging his personal lawyer to turn state’s evidence against him? Trump’s performance last week was so unhinged, it ultimately provoked the increasingly uncomfortable “Fox & Friends” hosts to nudge him off their air.
Trump’s nationally televised rant no doubt left presidential fixer Michael Cohen crestfallen, but it had the lawyer for Stormy Daniels, an adult-film actress whom Cohen paid to keep quiet about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump, salivating. Cohen must have been asking himself why anyone would go on television and damage his legal standing in both California and the Southern District of New York. The president’s unmoored performance also prompted prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office to amend their pleadings to insert Trump’s statements. Cohen, we learned from the president, was actually nothing more than a bit player in the Trump Organization’s legal schemes. So how much of his communications with Trump could even be privileged?
President Trump, for the first time, said that Michael Cohen represented him in efforts to silence Stormy Daniels in an interview with "Fox & Friends" April 26.(Allie Caren/The Washington Post)
It goes without saying, but still bears repeating, that any chief executive who surrendered so many statements against interest would immediately be removed. And any man who used a television interview to make such damaging legal admissions would be fired by his lawyers and put to bed by anxious family members. But Jackson has told us Trump is in peak mental health — and the good doctor is an honorable man.
Never mind that this week’s “Fox & Friends” appearance was one of the president’s first television interviews since he sat down with NBC News’s Lester Holt and admitted having fired then-FBI Director James B. Comey in an effort to obstruct the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
And let us not forget that, a few days later, the genetically superior former reality star also confessed to Russia’s foreign minister and ambassador that he had fired Comey to end the Russian investigation and relieve “pressure” that had been building from the inquiry. These self-destructive admissions by Trump helped to launch the special counsel’s exploration of possible obstruction of justice.
But despite a multitude of mental lapses, I am no longer concerned by the president’s troublesome behavior, or his Olympian ability to self-incriminate whenever he talks on live TV. Jackson has assured me that Trump is a mentally fit specimen, and Dr. Ronny is an honorable man.
This has to be true because a White House spokesman channeled Shakespeare this week saying just that. “He is an honorable man,” deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley offered of Jackson in response to allegations that the White House doctor drank alcohol on the job and freely handed out prescription drugs. Jackson denied those accusations, then withdrew his nomination to be Trump’s secretary of veterans affairs.
So I have come to conclude that the fault is not in our stars, but in my own personal misdiagnosis of what ails Donald Trump. Given his recent history of self-defeating statements, the president is clearly not suffering through the early stages of dementia , but is afflicted instead by the political equivalent of self-harm syndrome. What else could explain continued rants so personally destructive that no rational person — let alone a sitting president — would behave in such a way?
This is not about Trumpian political disruption. It is, instead, a study in self-immolation. And one of the many tragedies of Donald Trump’s life is that there is no one on this Earth who can save this tortured man from himself. Not even the honorable Dr. Jackson.
Germany's economy is far more vulnerable than it seems, but its government is completely uninterested in doing anything about it.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel attends a press conference with U.S. President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House on April 27, 2018. (Chris Kleponis-Pool/Getty Images)
BYPHILIPPE LEGRAIN-
The going seems good in Germany right now. The economy is booming. Unemployment is at record lows. Inflation is negligible. Public finances are in rude health. The crises in the eurozone and over refugees have abated. And veteran Chancellor Angela Merkel, who made a flying visit to Washington on April 27, has finally formed a new coalition government.
So it’s perhaps understandable that Germany has been content to coast along with its existing economic policies in Europe and at home. Why mess with an ostensibly winning formula? Steady-as-she-goes, business-as-usual Merkelism seems successful and safe.
Yet Germany is actually far more vulnerable than it seems. Europe’s export powerhouse has long been a free-rider on both the open markets and the nuclear security guarantee provided by the United States. Both of those are under threat from Merkel’s ungracious host in Washington, U.S. President Donald Trump. The crumbling of that liberal international order seems likely to make Germany even more reliant on the European Union for its future prosperity and security.
Yet Merkel seems unwilling to make the short-term concessions needed to secure the longer-term stability and effectiveness of both the eurozone and the EU. This complacency is dangerously shortsighted — and a potentially historic tragedy for Europe.
Germany’s economic growth model relies heavily on two big things: incremental improvements to the industrial goods, notably cars, in which it has long specialized and the ability to find other countries willing to absorb its trade surpluses by running deficits. Both are now in jeopardy. Digital technologies are disrupting manufacturing; in the case of cars, Germany languishes behind China and the United States in the development of autonomous electric vehicles while sales of the “clean” diesel automobiles that it produces are plummeting now that it turns out they are poisonously dirty.
Meanwhile, the United States is increasingly unwilling to absorb Germany’s export surpluses. Indeed, Trump’s obsession with eliminating America’s bilateral trade deficits threatens a trade war with Germany and the entire EU. Merkel seems likely to fail in her bid to persuade Trump to suspend the imposition of punitive U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from the EU, which are due to come into force on May 1. That, in turn, could provoke EU retaliation, to which Trump has threatened to respond with tariffs on German cars.
Germany is doing little to respond to these economic challenges. While Merkel enjoys lecturing other European leaders on the need to “do their homework” on economic reform, she hasn’t implemented any growth-enhancing structural reforms in more than a decade. Should it be any wonder that Germany is a digital laggard, given the analog-age dinosaurs dominating its telecoms sector and the red tape making it difficult to start a business?
Nor is Germany investing enough in its future. Bridges are crumbling. Other vital trade arteries such as the Kiel Canal are in disrepair. Universities are underfunded. Broadband internet speeds are shockingly slow. German carmakers’ response to the diesel scandal, in which they were revealed to have systematically deceived consumers and regulators about harmful emissions, was telling: They sought — and obtained — lower fuel emission standards instead of investing much more in electric cars.
Moreover, while countries such as China that previously relied unduly on net exports for their growth have shrunk their current account surplus since the financial crisis, Germany’s current account surplus — the world’s biggest — has swelled to $310 billion in the year to February, a whopping 8 percent of GDP. That leaves it dangerously dependent on foreign demand.
Germany is increasingly vulnerable not just economically but also in security terms. President Vladimir Putin’s revanchist Russia is on Germany’s doorstep; its heavily militarized Kaliningrad region is a mere 373 miles’ tank ride to Berlin. Meanwhile, Trump has cast doubt on the U.S. nuclear security guarantee. Yet Germany’s attitude to its defense borders on carelessness. Decades of underinvestment have left its armed forces in a sorry state, with submarines that don’t sail, tanks that don’t drive, and planes that don’t fly. It spends a mere 1.2 percent of GDP on defense, well below the NATO target of 2 percent that Trump is rightly (albeit obnoxiously) demanding be met. While politicians in Berlin are correct in pointing out that Germany’s generous foreign aid also enhances the security of its neighborhood, soft power is not much of a deterrent to Russian tanks.
Given its World War II history, Germany’s queasiness about all things military is understandable. And to its credit, it is playing a more active role in NATO, not least in leading the tripwire forces in Lithuania that seek to deter Russian aggression. But its penny-pinching on defense is still perilously complacent. It also refuses even to consider the need for a German — or eventually a European — nuclear deterrent. Both of those hobble efforts to strengthen common EU defense as a hedge against U.S. disengagement from NATO. After Brexit, France will be the EU’s only significant military power.
All the more reason, one would think, for Germany to do all it can to strengthen the EU and the euro on which it relies for its prosperity, political identity, and place in the world. While the EU has shrugged off Brexit and the eurozone weathered its existential crisis in 2011-2012, these remain weak and unstable. The victory of populist parties in the recent Italian elections is a reminder that the euro is a flawed and fragile construct that politics or panic could yet tear apart. Putin-friendly parties on both the far-right and far-left are increasingly popular in many European countries — and in government in Hungary, Austria, and Greece. France, Germany’s essential European partner, came perilously close to a presidential runoff between far-right and far-left anti-EU candidates last year.
In the end, fortunately, French voters chose Emmanuel Macron, perhaps the most pro-German and pro-EU president ever, and one who is living up to his promises (and German demands) to reform the French economy, including by liberalizing its labor laws. But having for years lamented the lack of a strong and reliable French partner to drive forward European integration, Merkel is now spurning Macron’s bid to reform the eurozone and strengthen the EU by, for instance, completing the banking union, creating a eurozone budget, and increasing democratic accountability. Whatever the suggestion, her answer is nein.
The point is not that Macron is right about everything, still less that Germany should go along with all France wants. It is that the future of the eurozone and the EU matters immensely to Germany, and so it ought to engage constructively with this exceptional opportunity to put things right while the European economy is faring well and there is some political momentum ahead of next year’s EU elections.
After a decade in the driving seat as the eurozone’s leading creditor, Germany can scarcely imagine being at the sharp end of an economic crisis, let alone empathize with those that have suffered one. But not seizing this opportunity to fix the eurozone is still a huge gamble. Economic fortunes change. And Merkel will rue her foolishness if France’s next president is Marine Le Pen.
It is always hard to change when the sun is shining but much less painful than doing so when storms arrive. Those storms are now visible on the horizon. Germans would do well to wake up from their slumber, while their country is still economically strong, before the lightning strikes.
More than 20 shots fired at protest camp in southern city of Curitiba, where Lula is jailed
Supporters of former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva protest in front of federal police headquarters. Photograph: Rodolfo Buhrer/Reuters
Sam Cowie in São Paulo@samcowie84- Two people have been taken to hospital, one in serious condition, following a shooting on an encampment set up to protest against the imprisonment of Brazil’s former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the southern city of Curitiba.
More than 20 shots were fired at the camp at around 4am, according to reports from supporters.
A man identified as Jeferson, 39, was shot in the neck and a woman received arm injuries from shrapnel when a chemical toilet was hit, according to local media. Photos of a bloodsoaked shirt circulated on Brazilian news sites.
“This is the result of this constructed process of persecution against Lula, the Worker’s party and the leftist movements,” the Worker’s party president and senator, Gleisi Hoffmann, said in a video posted on Facebook.
Brazil’s Agência Estado news service reported that police and a forensic team had attended the scene and found shell casings from a 9mm pistol, a weapon only used by police and armed forces. The authorities are investigating.
The supporters’ camp, visited by hundreds of activists including allied politicians, leftwing intellectuals and the Argentinian Nobel peace prize winner, Adolfo Pérez Esquível, was set up when Lula was jailed earlier this month on corruption charges.
The once wildly popular former president says the charges are to keep him from running in Brazil’s October elections for which he leads the polls by a comfortable margin.
One of Lula’s buses with guests and journalists inside was shot at in March while the former president was touring Brazil’s southern states. No one was injured.
Brazil is one of the world’s most violent countries with around 60,000 homicides annually, the vast majority of which go unsolved.
As the country has plunged into political and economic crisis in recent years, it has seen a rise in the number of killings of political, rural and environmental activists and leaders. The recent killing of Marielle Franco, a Rio de Janeiro city councillor, was one of the most shocking and emblematic cases.
YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar civil groups signed an open letter to the country’s president on Thursday, urging him to immediately release two Reuters reporters accused of possessing secret government papers and police officers involved in what it called an “obviously an unreasonable case”.
The letter, signed by 163 civil society groups, also asked newly-elected Myanmar President Win Myint to “seek justice and truth” and to set up an investigation committee to “reveal justice as soon as possible in order to maintain people’s trust in the judiciary sector.”
Myanmar government spokesman Zaw Htay did not respond to requests for comment. He has declined to comment on the case after previous court hearings, saying the country’s courts are independent.
A court in Yangon has been holding preliminary hearings since January to decide whether Reuters reporters Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, will be charged under the colonial-era Official Secrets Act, which carries a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison.
Myanmar in December also arrested two police officers who were identified as “allegedly involved in the case”.
It has become a landmark press freedom case after a police officer told the court last week that a senior officer had ordered police to “trap” one of the two journalists arrested in December, telling police to meet reporter Wa Lone and give him “secret documents”.
At the time of the reporters’ arrest, they had been working on an investigation into a killing of 10 Rohingya men and boys in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state, during an army crackdown that United Nations agencies say has sent nearly 700,000 people fleeing to Bangladesh.
FILE PHOTO: Detained Reuters journalist Kyaw Soe Oo carries his daughter Moe Thin Wai Zin during a break at the court hearing in Yangon, Myanmar April 20, 2018 . REUTERS/Ann Wang
Police Captain Moe Yan Naing, who described to the court how police planted secret documents on Reuters reporters, faces charges of violating police regulations and faces up to two years in prison and dismissal.
His family was evicted from their home in police housing at the weekend, which has become front page news and was widely shared on social media in Myanmar. Many expressed sympathy for the family’s plight.
Police have said the eviction order was not related to Moe Yan Naing’s testimony, without elaborating further.
“We believe that this is not a fair case ... What we all want is truth and justice,” said Thatoe Aung, a rights activist who helped organize the petition to the president.
Senior U.N. officials, Western nations and press freedom advocates have called for the reporters’ release.
A judge will rule next week on whether the police captain was credible.
A pro-democracy protester holds a portrait of Li Wenzu, the wife of a detained human rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang, during a demonstration in Hong Kong, China April 10, 2018. Picture taken April 10 2018. Source: rueters/Venus Wu
HONG KONG’S Chief Executive has said she cannot guarantee people will not be prosecuted in future for calling for the end of one-party rule in mainland China.
During a meeting of Hong Kong’s Executive Council on Tuesday, Carrie Lam said that people criticising one-party rule in China would be dealt with in accordance to the law and that she could not rule out that there would be prosecutions, reported RTHK.
“I cannot give a solid promise or answer on the consequences for chanting the slogan. Every matter in Hong Kong should be dealt with in accordance with the law,” said Lam as quoted by Hong Kong Free Press.
Hong Kong has been governed under a “one country, two systems” formula since its return from British to Chinese rule in 1997, allowing freedoms not enjoyed on mainland China that include an independent judiciary.
On whether those shouting "end of one party rule" can stand in future #HongKong elections, #Beijing Liaison Office director Wang Zhimin: I heard that on my way in, that's not a fact, no where in Chinese constitution says 1 party rule, it's a "people's democracy" in #China
The particular question on 1 Party rule was asked by a Ta Kung Pao politics reporter, who seldom appears in #Legco to cover regular meetings nowadays. A source told me the journalist was here specifically to ask this Q to Wang
Pro-democracy campaigners in regularly call for an end to “one-party dictatorship” in China.
“Director Wang Zhimin is much more familiar with the constitution compared to me, so he has made his response yesterday,” Lam said, referring to the head of Hong Kong’s China Liaison Office.
“Is ‘one-party dictatorship’ correct? Director Wang said that there is no such statement in the constitution.”
Tens of thousands of Hong Kongers marched in protest against Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Hong Kong last July, during which he oversaw the swearing-in of Lam.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel attends a press conference with U.S. President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House on April 27, 2018. (Chris Kleponis-Pool/Getty Images)
Supporters of former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva protest in front of federal police headquarters. Photograph: Rodolfo Buhrer/Reuters
