Tag Archives: Sept. 11

Hong Kong protesters pause to mark Sept. 11

By Jessie Pang

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Hong Kong activists called off protests on Wednesday in remembrance of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States and denounced a Chinese state newspaper report that they were planning “massive terror” in the Chinese-ruled city.

Hong Kong has been rocked by months of sometimes violent unrest, prompted by anger over planned legislation to allow extraditions to China, but broadening into calls for democracy and for Communist rulers in Beijing to leave the city alone.

“Anti-government fanatics are planning massive terror attacks, including blowing up gas pipes, in Hong Kong on September 11,” the Hong Kong edition of the China Daily said on its Facebook page, alongside a picture of the hijacked airliner attacks on the twin towers in New York.

“The 9/11 terror plot also encourages indiscriminate attacks on non-native speakers of Cantonese and starting mountain fires.”

The post said “leaked information was part of the strategy being schemed by radical protesters in their online chat rooms”.

The former British colony of Hong Kong returned to China in 1997 under a “one country, two systems” formula that guarantees freedoms not enjoyed on the mainland, including an independent legal system, triggering the anger over the extradition bill.

Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam has said she will withdraw the bill but many Hong Kong residents fear Beijing is steadily eroding the autonomy of the Asian financial hub.

China denies meddling and has accused the United States, Britain and others of fomenting the unrest.

“We don’t even need to do a fact check to know that this is fake news,” said one protester, Michael, 24, referring to the China Daily post. “The state media doesn’t care about its credibility. Whenever something they claimed to have heard on WhatsApp or friends’ friends, they will spread it right away.”

The protesters called off action on Wednesday.

“In solidarity against terrorism, all forms of protest in Hong Kong will be suspended on Sept. 11, apart from potential singing and chanting,” they said in a statement.

The China Daily report was worrying, said another protester, Karen, 23. “When they try to frame the whole protest with those words, it alarms me,” she said. “They are predicting rather than reporting. I think people calling it off today is a nice move.”

FAMILY FRICTIONS

The chairwoman of the Hong Kong Federation of Women, Pansy Ho, a prominent businesswoman and daughter of Macau casino operator Stanley Ho, said she was worried about violent extremism.

“Children of all ages are indoctrinated with police hatred and anti-establishment beliefs at school and online mobilized to conduct massive school strikes,” she told the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva.

Lam said in a speech on Wednesday that Hong Kong was grappling with significant challenges.

“My fervent hope is that we can bridge our divide by upholding the one country, two systems principle, and the Basic Law, and through the concerted efforts of the government and the people of Hong Kong,” she told business leaders.

The Basic Law is Hong Kong’s mini-constitution.

Hong Kong airline Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd has become the biggest corporate casualty of the unrest after China demanded it suspend staff involved in, or who support, the protests.

Cathay Pacific said on Wednesday inbound traffic to Hong Kong in August fell 38% and outbound traffic 12% compared with a year earlier, and that it did not anticipate September to be any less difficult.

Joshua Wong, one of the prominent leaders of the 2014 “Umbrella” pro-democracy movement which brought key streets in Hong Kong to a standstill for 79 days, said in Berlin that the fight for democracy was an uphill battle.

“I hope one day not only Hong Kong people, but also people in mainland China, can enjoy freedom and democracy,” he said.

The protests spread to the sports field on Tuesday, as many football fans defied Chinese law to boo the national anthem ahead of a soccer World Cup qualifier against Iran.

Several peaceful protests are planned for the next few days, combining with celebrations marking the Mid-Autumn Festival.

(Reporting by Jessie Pang, Farah Master, Jamie Freed, Cecile Mantovani in Geneva and Michelle Martin in Berlin; Writing by Nick Macfie; Editing by Mark Heinrich & Simon Cameron-Moore)

Trump signs measure to permanently extend compensation for Sept. 11 responders

U.S. President Donald Trump pumps his fist during a signing ceremony for the "Permanent Authorization of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund Act" in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, U.S., July 29, 2019. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

By Jeff Mason and Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Calling emergency first responders “heroes,” U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday signed into law a measure authorizing permanent benefits for police, firefighters and others suffering from illnesses connected to their work reacting to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

The legislation, known as the “Never Forget the Heroes Act,” approves federal funding through 2092 for an estimated 18,100 people who are likely to qualify for benefits, according to government estimates.

First responders who rushed to the site of the World Trade Center’s twin towers in New York following their destruction in the Sept. 11 hijacked plane attacks, and others who worked for months cleaning up, were exposed to toxic chemicals despite early government statements that the site was safe.

The fund compensates those people, or their relatives if they have since died, for economic and other losses. Trump hailed the men and women who rushed to the site in hopes of rescuing survivors and finding remains of victims.

“Today we come together as one nation to support our September 11 heroes, to care for their families, and to renew our eternal vow: never, ever forget,” Trump told a crowd at a ceremony in the White House Rose Garden, which he said included more than 60 of the first responders.

Without the legislation, passed in the U.S. Senate last Tuesday, victims would have seen reduced benefits because of a lack of funding.

The attacks on the United States using four hijacked planes killed more than 2,900 people and injured over 6,000. Of those, more than 2,600 people were killed in New York.

Former New York businessman Trump said he visited the World Trade Center site in the aftermath.

“I was down there also, but I’m not considering myself a first responder, but I was down there,” Trump said.

The remark drew the ire of some Twitter users who recounted Trump’s comments at the time on the towers’ destruction, including one on WWOR-TV about a 72-story building he said he owned in lower Manhattan – “and now it’s the tallest.”

Lawmakers attended the ceremony along with former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was in office at the time of the attacks and was praised for his leadership then. Giuliani is now an attorney for Trump.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason and Richard Cowan; editing by Grant McCool)

Sept. 11 victims advocates say they secured Senate commitment to extend compensation fund

A girl walks through a memorial for the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the 15th anniversary, in Malibu, California, September 11, 2016. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Advocates of a compensation fund for emergency personnel and others who responded at the sites of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States said on Tuesday that they had secured a commitment from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for prompt passage of legislation extending the program.

John Feal, who heads a group lobbying Congress to authorize the fund through 2090, emerged from the meeting in McConnell’s office telling reporters that the Republican senator agreed to win Senate passage of a bill by August, when lawmakers typically leave Washington for a long summer recess.

“We came in here praying for the best, prepared for the worst. We were ready to shake hands or we were ready to get into a street fight,” Feal said.

“Today was a good meeting,” Feal added.

McConnell aides would not confirm the timetable for passing a bill or that it would be a 70-year extension of the fund instead of a five-year authorization as in past years.

Before Wednesday’s meeting, McConnell told reporters, “As I’ve said repeatedly, we’re certainly going to address this issue.”

As a result of working around hazardous materials at three sites in the aftermath of the hijacked plane attacks nearly 18 years ago, emergency personnel and others have contracted lung ailments, cancers and other diseases.

On June 12 the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives Judiciary Committee approved a 70-year extension of the fund.

It is designed to help provide medical care for more than 95,000 firemen, police officers and other first responders and laborers who worked at the site of the destroyed World Trade Center twin towers in New York, the damaged Pentagon just outside Washington and a field in western Pennsylvania where one of the planes crashed after passengers fought with hijackers.

In the past, some members of Congress have complained about the high cost of helping victims of Sept. 11 at a time of severe U.S. budget deficits.

Feal said that during Tuesday’s meeting with McConnell, he and fellow advocates “revisited” the battles in Congress in 2010 and 2015 for renewing the compensation fund and “we let him (McConnell) know that he wasn’t on board” back then.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan; editing by Grant McCool)

‘American Taliban’ Lindh released from U.S. prison -Washington Post

FILE PHOTO: U.S.-born John Walker Lindh (L) is led away by a Northern Alliance soldier after he was captured among al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners following an uprising at the Fort Qali-i-Janghi prison near Mazar-i-Sharif December 1, 2001 REUTERS/STR/File Photo

(Reuters) – John Walker Lindh, the American captured in Afghanistan in 2001 fighting for the Taliban, was released early from federal prison on Thursday, the Washington Post reported, citing Lindh’s lawyer.

Lindh, who was 20 years old when he was captured, left prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, on probation after serving 17 years of a 20-year sentence, the newspaper said.

Now 38, Lindh is among dozens of prisoners to be released over the next few years after being captured in Iraq and Afghanistan and convicted of terrorism-related crimes following the attacks on the United States by al Qaeda on Sept. 11, 2001.

FILE PHOTO: A picture of John Walker Lindh is shown on the attendance register of the madrassa (Islamic school) Arabia Hassani Kalan Surani Bannu, in Bannu in Pakistan, January 26, 2002. REUTERS/Haider Shah/File Photo

FILE PHOTO: A picture of John Walker Lindh is shown on the attendance register of the madrassa (Islamic school) Arabia Hassani Kalan Surani Bannu, in Bannu in Pakistan, January 26, 2002. REUTERS/Haider Shah/File Photo

His release brought objections from elected officials who asked why Lindh was being freed early and what training parole officers had to spot radicalization and recidivism among former jihadists.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called Lindh’s release “unexplainable and unconscionable.”

“There’s something deeply troubling and wrong about it,” he said on Fox News on Thursday morning.

Leaked U.S. government documents published by Foreign Policy magazine show the federal government as recently as 2016 described Lindh as holding “extremist views.”

“What is the current interagency policy, strategy, and process for ensuring that terrorist/extremist offenders successfully reintegrate into society?” asked U.S. Senators Richard Shelby and Margaret Hassan in a letter to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Lindh’s parents, Marilyn Walker and Frank Lindh, did not respond to requests for comment and Lindh’s lawyer, Bill Cummings, declined to comment.

Melissa Kimberley, a spokeswoman for the prison in Terre Haute, could not immediately be reached for confirmation of the Post’s report.

U.S.-born Lindh converted from Catholicism to Islam as a teenager. At his 2002 sentencing, he said he traveled to Yemen to learn Arabic and then to Pakistan to study Islam.

FILE PHOTO: Undated handout image of American Taliban John Walker Lindh, distributed February 5, 2002. American Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh, described by a prosecutor as a "committed terrorist" who abandoned his country, is to be released early from a federal prison while some U.S. lawmakers worry he still poses a security risk.. REUTERS/Handout/File Photo

FILE PHOTO: Undated handout image of American Taliban John Walker Lindh, distributed February 5, 2002. American Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh, described by a prosecutor as a “committed terrorist” who abandoned his country, is to be released early from a federal prison while some U.S. lawmakers worry he still poses a security risk.. REUTERS/Handout/File Photo

He said he volunteered as a soldier with the Taliban, the radical Sunni Muslim group that ruled most of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, to help fellow Muslims in their struggle or “jihad.” He said he had no intention “to fight against America” and never understood jihad to mean anti-Americanism.

Lindh told the court he condemned “terrorism on every level” and attacks by al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden were “completely against Islam.”

But a January 2017 report by the U.S. government’s National Counterterrorism Center, published by Foreign Policy, said that, as of May 2016, Lindh “continued to advocate for global jihad and to write and translate violent extremist texts.”

NBC News reported that Lindh wrote a letter to its Los Angeles station KNBC in 2015 expressing support for Islamic State, saying the Islamic militant group was fulfilling “a religious obligation to establish a caliphate through armed struggle.”

(Reporting by Andrew Hay in Taos, New Mexico; Additional reporting by Jonathan Allen; Editing by Bill Trott)