US President Donald Trump on Monday vowed to order a military crackdown on once-in-a-generation protests gripping the US, saying that he was sending thousands of troops onto the streets of the capital and threatening to deploy soldiers to states unable to regain control.
The dramatic escalation came a week after the death in Minneapolis of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who was killed when a white police officer knelt on his neck, leading to the worst civil unrest in decades in New York, Los Angeles and dozens of other US cities.
In Missouri, police early yesterday were trying to bring the city of St Louis under control after a night of looting and violence in which four officers were shot, St Louis Police Commissioner Colonel John Hayden said, adding that their injuries were not life-threatening.
Photo: AFP
“Mr Floyd was killed somewhere else and they’re tearing up cities all across the country,” a visibly emotional Hayden said.
Trump struck a martial tone in a nationwide address on Monday from the White House garden, as police fired tear gas on peaceful protesters outside the fence.
“I am dispatching thousands and thousands of heavily armed soldiers, military personnel and law enforcement officers to stop the rioting, looting, vandalism, assaults and the wanton destruction of property,” Trump said.
He slammed the previous night’s unrest in Washington as a “total disgrace” and called on governors to “dominate the streets.”
“If a city or state refuses to take the actions that are necessary to defend the life and property of their residents, then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them,” he said, denouncing “acts of domestic terror.”
Despite the president’s rhetoric, Monday’s protests appeared largely peaceful in major cities, although some looting was reported in New York and Los Angeles.
However, as he spoke, law enforcement, including military police, used tear gas to clear protesters outside the White House and in Lafayette Park so Trump could walk across the street to the two-centuries-old St John’s church, hit with graffiti and partially damaged by fire during unrest on Sunday.
“We have a great country,” Trump said as he stood before the church’s boarded-up windows, held up a Bible and posed for photographs.
The backlash was swift.
“He’s using the American military against the American people,” tweeted Democratic presidential hopeful and former US vice president Joe Biden.
“He tear-gassed peaceful protesters and fired rubber bullets. For a photo. For our children, for the very soul of our country, we must defeat him,” he said.
Washington’s Episcopalian bishop, Mariann Budde, said that she was “outraged” at the church visit, which she said Trump did not have permission for.
Meanwhile, Hennepin County’s medical examiner released an official autopsy on Floyd’s death, calling it a homicide caused by “neck compression,” although it also said he was intoxicated and pointed to heart disease.
The autopsy revived demands for the arrest of three other police officers who stood guard as Floyd lay dying.
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
Taiwan is still in the process of assessing the possibility of recruiting workers from Eswatini, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, adding that its goal is to help Eswatini upgrade its vocational training centers. If there are plans to recruit workers from Eswatini, safeguarding national security, protecting public health and ensuring the employment rights of Taiwanese would be prerequisites, Department of West Asian and African Affairs Director-General Yen Chia-liang (顏嘉良) told a news conference. Key considerations would also include filling labor shortages in specific industries, and fostering bilateral professional and technical exchanges, he said. Yen was asked about the progress of labor
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
A US uncrewed surface vessel (USV) encountered multiple Chinese warships during an autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait, US defense company Seasats said in a statement on Wednesday. Seasats announced that a Lightfish USV had completed the first autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait. Over five days, the USV traversed the entire length of the Strait while constantly monitoring surface vessel traffic, the company said. The Lightfish encountered multiple Chinese warships, one of which was a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Type 056 corvette, it said. The Chinese vessels were operating “well within Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone without transmitting their identity via the
RSS