A Hong Kong police officer was hit in the leg by an arrow and protesters yesterday set an overhead footbridge on fire as they fought to keep police using tear gas and water cannons from advancing on their university campus stronghold.
Police said the arrow struck a media liaison officer in the calf and he was taken to a hospital.
Photographs on the department’s Facebook page show the arrow sticking out of the back of the officer’s leg through his pants.
Photo: EPA-EFE
As riot police moved in from all sides, some protesters retreated inside Hong Kong Polytechnic University, while others set fires on bridges leading to it.
A huge blaze burned along much of a long footbridge that connects a train station to the campus over the approach to the Cross-Harbour Tunnel, a major roadway that has been blocked by the protesters for days.
The use of bows and arrows, along with Molotov cocktails launched with catapults, threatened to escalate the violence in the more than five-month-long anti-government movement.
Photo: AFP
Police and protesters faced off all day yesterday outside Polytechnic after a pitched battle the previous night in which the two sides exchanged tear gas and Molotov cocktails that left fires blazing in the street.
A large group of people arrived in the morning to try to clean up the road, but were warned away by protesters.
Riot police shot several volleys of tear gas at the protesters, who sheltered behind a wall of umbrellas and threw gasoline bombs into nearby bushes and trees.
Photo: AFP
The protesters held their ground for most of the day, as water cannon trucks drove over bricks and nails strewn by protesters to spray them at close range — some with water dyed blue to help police identify protesters afterward.
Protesters began retreating into the university’s campus near sunset, fearing they would be trapped as police fired tear gas volleys and approached from other directions.
The protesters have barricaded the entrances to the campus and set up narrow access control points — the holdouts from larger groups that occupied several major campuses for much of last week.
Another group threw bricks in the street to block Nathan Road in Mongkok District, as police fired tear gas to try to disperse them.
US PUBLICATION: The results indicated a change in attitude after a 2023 survey showed 55 percent supported full-scale war to achieve unification, the report said More than half of Chinese were against the use of force to unify with Taiwan under any circumstances, a survey conducted by the Atlanta, Georgia-based Carter Center and Emory University found. The survey results, which were released on Wednesday in a report titled “Sovereignty, Security, & US-China Relations: Chinese Public Opinion,” showed that 55.1 percent of respondents agreed or somewhat agreed that “the Taiwan problem should not be resolved using force under any circumstances,” while 24.5 percent “strongly” or “somewhat” disagreed with the statement. The results indicated a change in attitude after a survey published in “Assessing Public Support for (Non)Peaceful Unification
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
SHIFT: Taiwan’s better-than-expected first-quarter GDP and signs of weakness in the US have driven global capital back to emerging markets, the central bank head said The central bank yesterday blamed market speculation for the steep rise in the local currency, and urged exporters and financial institutions to stay calm and stop panic sell-offs to avoid hurting their own profitability. The nation’s top monetary policymaker said that it would step in, if necessary, to maintain order and stability in the foreign exchange market. The remarks came as the NT dollar yesterday closed up NT$0.919 to NT$30.145 against the US dollar in Taipei trading, after rising as high as NT$29.59 in intraday trading. The local currency has surged 5.85 percent against the greenback over the past two sessions, central
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
RSS