Tag Archives: Rush Hour

Highway blockade reveals splits in Hong Kong protest movement

By Jessie Pang and Kate Lamb

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters partially unblocked a key highway on Friday and then blocked it again during the evening rush hour, exposing splits in a movement that has been largely leaderless in months of often violent unrest.

Activists closed the Tolo highway this week, clashing with police and throwing debris and petrol bombs on the road linking the largely rural New Territories with the Kowloon peninsula to the south.

They turned the Chinese University campus next door and several other universities into fortresses, stockpiled with petrol bombs and bows and arrows, amid some of the worst violence in the former British colony in decades.

But many protesters left the Chinese University after some allowed the partial reopening of the highway on Friday, taking others by surprise.

“I am disappointed about the decision to reopen the Tolo highway and it’s not our consensus,” one student who gave his name as Cheung, 18, told Reuters.

“I was asleep when they had closed-door meetings. I was worried and scared after I realized what had happened and most protesters had left. I was worried the police might storm in again because so few people are left. Some protesters from the outside have gone too far.”

Most protesters had left by late evening but the road remained closed.

The Cross-Harbour Tunnel, outside the barricaded Polytechnic University where protesters have practised firing bows and arrows and throwing petrol bombs in a half-empty swimming pool, remained shut.

Students and protesters have barricaded at least five campuses in the Chinese-ruled city. Police have kept their distance from the campuses for more than two days, saying both sides should cool off, but many observers are afraid of what will happen if and when they move in.

Activists also littered Nathan Road in the Kowloon district of Mong Kok, a frequent venue for protests, with bricks and set a street barricade on fire.

NO LONGER SAFE

The week has seen a marked intensification of the violence.

A 70-year-old street cleaner died on Thursday after being hit on the head by one of several bricks police said had been thrown by “masked rioters”. On Monday, police blamed a “rioter” for dousing a man in petrol and setting him on fire. The victim is in critical condition.

On the same day, police shot a protester in the abdomen. He was in stable condition.

“We can no longer can say Hong Kong is a safe city,” Chief Secretary for Administration Matthew Cheung told a briefing.

Protesters are angry at perceived Chinese meddling in the city since it returned to Beijing rule in 1997 under a “one country, two systems” formula guaranteeing its colonial-era freedoms. Their demands include full democracy and an independent investigation into perceived police brutality.

China denies interfering and has blamed Western countries for stirring up trouble. Police say they are acting with restraint in the face of potentially deadly attacks.

China and Hong Kong both condemned an attack in London on Thursday by a “violent mob” on Hong Kong’s justice secretary, the first direct altercation between demonstrators and a government minister.

Secretary for Justice Teresa Cheng, who was in London to promote Hong Kong as a “dispute resolution and deal-making hub”, was targeted by a group of protesters who shouted “murderer” and “shameful”.

The British police said a woman had been taken to hospital with an injury to her arm and that they were investigating but no arrests had been made.

Hong Kong sank into recession for the first time in a decade in the third quarter, government data confirmed on Friday, with its economy shrinking by 3.2% from the previous quarter on a seasonally adjusted basis.

Organizers of the annual Clockenflap music and arts festival, due to take place from Nov. 22-24, said it had been canceled because of the unrest.

Video footage obtained by Reuters of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army garrison headquarters near Hong Kong’s Central business district showed more than a dozen troops conducting what appeared to be anti-riot drills against people pretending to be protesters carrying black umbrellas.

The PLA has stayed in the barracks since 1997 but China has warned that any attempt at independence will be crushed.

(Reporting by Donny Kwok, Felix Tam, Twinnie Siu, Jessie Pang, Anne Marie Roantree and Marius Zaharia; Writing by Anne Marie Roantree and Nick Macfie; Editing by Robert Birsel and Philippa Fletcher)

Explosion rocks New York commuter hub, suspect in custody

New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo speaks during a news conference outside the New York Port Authority Bus Terminal following reports of an explosion, in New York City, U.S. December 11, 2017.

By Nick Zieminski and Daniel Trotta

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A man with a homemade bomb strapped to his body set off an explosion at a New York commuter hub during rush hour on Monday, injuring himself and three others in what New York Mayor Bill de Blasio called an attempted terrorist attack.

The suspect in the incident at the Port Authority Bus Terminal, a block from Times Square, was identified as Akayed Ullah, the New York Police Department commissioner said. The suspect had burns and lacerations while three other people, including a police officer, had minor injuries.

The weapon was based on a pipe bomb and fixed to the suspect with zip ties and velcro, police said. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, speaking at a news conference near the site, described the device as “amateur level.”

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio told the same news conference that the incident, which happened at the start of the city’s rush hour, was “an attempted terrorist attack.”

“As New Yorkers our lives revolve around the subways. When we hear of an attack in the subways it is incredibly unsettling,” de Blasio said.

New York City was a target, said John Miller, Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counterterrorism.

NYPD Crime Scene Investigation team are seen outside the New York Port Authority Bus Terminal, after reports of an explosion, in New York City, U.S., December 11, 2017.

NYPD Crime Scene Investigation team are seen outside the New York Port Authority Bus Terminal, after reports of an explosion, in New York City, U.S., December 11, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

Miller cited the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that killed more than 2,750 people in New York and nearly 3,000 people total; and the World Trade Center bombing of February 26, 1993, that killed six people.

“In the course of the post 9/11 world, as you are aware, there’s also been approximately 26 plots that we can talk about that have been prevented through intelligence, investigation and intervention.”

The incident was captured on security video, the police said. Video posted on NYPost.com showed smoke and a man lying in the tunnel that connects the Times Square subway station to the bus station. A photograph showed a man lying face down, with tattered clothes and burns on his torso.

“There was a stampede up the stairs to get out,” said Diego Fernandez, one of the commuters. “Everybody was scared and running and shouting.”

Alicja Wlodkowski, a Pennsylvania resident in New York for the day, was sitting in a restaurant in the bus terminal.

Police officers stand on a closed West 42nd Street near the New York Port Authority Bus Terminal after reports of an explosion in New York City, New York, U.S., December 11,

Police officers stand on a closed West 42nd Street near the New York Port Authority Bus Terminal after reports of an explosion in New York City, New York, U.S., December 11, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Segar

“Suddenly, I saw a group of people, like six people, running like nuts. A woman fell. No one even went to stop and help her because the panic was so scary.”

The bus terminal was temporarily shut down and a large swath of midtown Manhattan was closed to traffic. Subway train service was returning to normal after earlier disruptions.

WABC reported the suspect was in his 20s and that he has been in the United States for seven years and has an address in New York’s Brooklyn. The NYPD shut down the entire block and there was heavy police presence outside the home.

First reports of the incident began soon after 7 a.m. (1200 GMT). New York in December sees a surge of visitors who come to see elaborate store displays, the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree and Broadway shows.

The incident rippled through U.S. financial markets, briefly weakening equity markets as they were starting trading for the week and giving a modest lift to safe-haven assets such as U.S. Treasuries.

S&P 500 index emini futures dipped in the moments after the initial reports of an explosion, but major stock indexes later opened slightly higher.

The incident occurred less than two months after an Uzbek immigrant killed eight people by speeding a rental truck down a New York City bike path, in an attack for which Islamic State claimed responsibility.

In September 2016, a man injured 31 people when he set off a homemade bomb in New York’s Chelsea district.

(Reporting By Nick Zieminski, Dan Trotta and Simon Webb in New York, additional reporting by Bernie Woodall, Gina Cherelus, Makini Brice and Fred Katayama; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

New York police responding to explosion in Manhattan

Subway Map Header Manhattan, NY

NEW YORK (Reuters) – New York emergency authorities were responding to reports of an explosion at New York’s Port Authority, one of the city’s busiest commuter hubs, during Monday morning’s rush hour.

Local news channel WABC cited police sources as saying a possible pipe bomb detonated in a passageway below ground at Port Authority.

Media reported several people were injured, and WPIX television reported, citing sources, that a man with a “possible second device” has been detained in the subway tunnel.

The New York Police Department said in its official Twitter feed that there was an explosion of unknown origin and that some subway train lines were being evacuated.

(Reporting By Nick Zieminski in New York; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)