China slams 'senseless' US move at UN over Hong Kong

Beijing (AFP) - China accused the US of taking the UN hostage on Friday over a controversial security law for Hong Kong and warned Western nations to stay out of its internal affairs.

The US, Britain, Canada and Australia led criticism of the planned law, which would punish secession, subversion of state power, terrorism and acts that endanger national security, as well as allow Chinese security agencies to operate openly in Hong Kong.

China's rubber-stamp parliament on Thursday approved the plans for the law, which followed seven months of huge and sometimes violent pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong last year.

After China fended off initial American efforts this week to have the controversy put on the agenda of the United Nations Security Council, the US and Britain succeeded in securing an informal discussion about it for Friday, diplomatic sources told AFP.

Beijing's proposed security law "lies in direct conflict" with China's international obligations to guarantee certain freedoms in Hong Kong, the four countries said in a joint statement.

"The proposed law would undermine the One Country, Two Systems framework," they added, referring to Hong Kong's special status within China under the terms of its handover from Britain in 1997.

Beijing said Friday it had lodged official protests to the four countries.

"We urge the related countries to respect China's sovereignty (and) stop interfering in Hong Kong's and China's internal affairs," foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said at a regular press briefing.

He also slammed the US approach as "totally unreasonable" and said China would not allow the US to "kidnap the Council for its own purposes."

"We urge the US to immediately stop this senseless political manipulation," Zhao said.

British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab also said London would widen its rules around the rights of British National (Overseas) passport holders a status offered to many Hong Kongers at the time of handover if China went ahead with the new law.

Zhao warned that Beijing reserves the right to take "corresponding countermeasures".

The Chinese parliament's vote came just hours after Washington revoked the special status conferred on Hong Kong, paving the way for the territory to be stripped of trading and economic privileges.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the status had been withdrawn because China was no longer honouring its handover agreement with Britain to allow Hong Kong a high level of autonomy.

President Donald Trump also announced he would hold a press conference on Friday about China, with Hong Kong and other flashpoint issues including the coronavirus, espionage and trade almost certain to be brought up.

"We're not happy with China," Trump told reporters on Thursday.

China has remained defiant in the face of Western criticism on Hong Kong, insisting "foreign forces" are to blame for fuelling the pro-democracy movement and creating turmoil in the city of 7.5 million people.

Li Zhanshu chairman of the NPC Standing Committee which will now draft the law said Thursday the move was "in line with the fundamental interests of all Chinese people, including Hong Kong compatriots".

Under the "one country, two systems" model agreed before the city's return from Britain to China, Hong Kong is supposed to be guaranteed certain liberties until 2047 that are denied to those on the mainland.

The mini-constitution that has governed Hong Kong's affairs since the handover obliges the territory's authorities to enact national security laws.

But huge protests blocked an effort to do so in 2003, and Hong Kong's government then shelved it while watching the pro-democracy movement grow.

China's state-run media on Friday said the law was in the interests of protecting peace and autonomy in Hong Kong.

"Safeguarding national security is a must, rather than a choice," the official news agency Xinhua in a commentary.

Communist Party mouthpiece the People's Daily said in an editorial that law would only target "a small minority of people who are suspected of committing crimes that endanger national security."

In Hong Kong, the pro-democracy movement voiced the opposite sentiments.

"It's the end of Hong Kong," opposition lawmaker Claudia Mo told AFP.

"They are cutting off our souls, taking away the values which we've always embraced – values like human rights, democracy, rule of law."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/china-faces-mounting-pressure-over-hong-kong-security-042513288.html

New video appears to show George Floyd on the ground with three officers

A new video capturing the moment George Floyd was detained by members of the Minneapolis Police Department appears to show multiple officers on the ground with him. The angle of the video, which is circulating on social media, has not been seen previously.

The footage was filmed from the opposite side of the street from where a white officer pressed his knee onto Floyd's neck in the Memorial Day incident. The new video appears to have been recorded just prior to the initial video.

Video in link

https://www.yahoo.com/news/video-appears-show-george-floyd-045549101.html

Interesting that the restaurant it's filmed in front of is Cup Foods?

CF? Clinton Foundation.

Iran Guards warn US after receiving new combat vessels

Tehran (AFP) - Iran's Revolutionary Guards on Thursday warned the United States against its naval presence in the Gulf as they received 110 new combat vessels.

The vessels included Ashura-class speedboats, Zolfaghar coastal patrol boats and Taregh submarines, state television reported.

"We announce today that wherever the Americans are, we are right next to them, and they will feel our presence even more in the near future," the Guards' navy chief Rear Admiral Alireza Tangsiri said during a ceremony in southern Iran.

Iran and the United States have appeared to be on the brink of an all-out confrontation twice in the past year.

The latest confrontation between the arch-foes came after the United States accused the Guards of harassing its ships in the Gulf in mid-April.

"Advancing while remaining defensive is the nature of our work," said Guards commander Major General Hossein Salami.

"But this does not equal passivity against the enemy," he added, noting that Iran "will not bow down to any foe."

According to Salami, the Guards' navy had been instructed to expand Iran's naval power until it can adequately defend "territorial independence and integrity, protect naval interests and pursue and destroy the enemy".

Decades-old acrimony between the two worsened in 2018 when US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from a deal that gave Iran relief from sanctions in return for curbs on its nuclear programme.

Tensions escalated further in January when a US air strike killed Qasem Soleimani, the top Iranian general who headed the Guards' foreign arm, the Quds Force.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/iran-guards-warn-us-receiving-combat-vessels-131547592.html