Calling her “the mother of the mafia police,” pro-democracy lawmakers yesterday twice forced Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥) to stop delivering a speech laying out her policy objectives and then clamored for her resignation in chaotic scenes that caused her to walk out of the Legislative Council.
Lam was able to deliver the annual address more than an hour later by video, but the hostile reception inside the Legislative Council marked a slap in the face for the embattled chief executive grappling with anti-government protests now in their fifth month.
When Lam started delivering the speech, she was shouted down by chanting pro-democracy lawmakers, who held aloft placards showing her waving with hands colored blood-red.
Photo: AFP
They also used a projector to light up Lam’s face and the wall behind her with the protesters’ key demands.
Lam left the chamber and then came back about 20 minutes later to try again, only to be met with further fury.
One legislator brandishing a placard climbed onto a desk. Again, the council president stopped the session and Lam left.
Finally, 75 minutes after the previously scheduled start of the lengthy address, Lam delivered it via video link.
She appealed for Hong Kong’s 7.5 million residents to “cherish the city,” warning that “continued violence and spread of hatred will erode the core values of Hong Kong.”
Standing ramrod-straight, she then launched into a dry and detailed explanation of plans to tackle the territory’s shortage of affordable housing, a long-standing source of discontent, and other welfare issues.
With its focus on such minutiae as building new tunnels and freeing up land for development, the 50-minute speech, titled: “Treasure Hong Kong Our Home,” was likely to fuel protesters’ criticism that Lam is deaf to their concerns about the future of the territory’s freedoms.
Even before Lam delivered it, protesting Hong Kong Legislator Claudia Mo (毛孟靜) dismissed the address as a “shame and a sham.”
“She is just a puppet on strings, being played by Beijing,” Mo said at a news conference with other lawmakers outside the chamber after they successfully thwarted Lam’s address.
They played a recording on a small loudspeaker that they said was the sound of police tear-gassing protesters and of protesters’ wails.
“These are the voices of people screaming and they are just ordinary Hong Kong people,” Hong Kong Legislator Tanya Chan (陳淑莊) said. “Please, please, please Mrs Carrie Lam, don’t let us suffer any more.”
She and the others called for Lam’s resignation.
“This is the only way that we can have a good future,” Chan said.
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
DEFENDING DEMOCRACY: Taiwan shares the same values as those that fought in WWII, and nations must unite to halt the expansion of a new authoritarian bloc, Lai said The government yesterday held a commemoration ceremony for Victory in Europe (V-E) Day, joining the rest of the world for the first time to mark the anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. Taiwan honoring V-E Day signifies “our growing connections with the international community,” President William Lai (賴清德) said at a reception in Taipei on the 80th anniversary of V-E Day. One of the major lessons of World War II is that “authoritarianism and aggression lead only to slaughter, tragedy and greater inequality,” Lai said. Even more importantly, the war also taught people that “those who cherish peace cannot
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
RSS