Burisma gave more than $450,000 to the Atlantic Council, a prominent Washington think tank.
Tue, 12 Nov 2019 20:51:32 -0500

A traffic police officer in Hong Kong shot an unarmed 21-year-old pro-democracy protester at point-blank range on Monday. Hours later, a man was set on fire after defending Beijing in an argument. Both individuals were listed in critical condition.Over the weekend, wide-scale disturbances scarred the territory, a semi-autonomous region of the Peoples Republic of China. There is essentially a rebellion in Hong Kong. Riot police in green uniforms are doing battle with youthful demonstrators dressed in black.How Hong Kong Protesters Show Which Businesses Are Friend or FoeProtests began in April after Chief Executive Carrie Lam, Hong Kongs top official, proposed legislation authorizing the extradition of fugitives to various jurisdictions, including Mainland China. Starting June 9, when an estimated one million Hong Kongers marched in the streets, demonstrations have been almost continuous. Lam has since permanently withdrawn the extradition bill from consideration, but the protests have not abated.Especially this week. Hong Kong braced for a weekend of disturbances after Chow Tsz-lok, a 22-year-old student at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, died on Friday after falling from a car park the preceding Sunday while running away from police tear gas. Many have accused the police of delaying medical assistance to the mortally injured Chow.Chow has been called the first fatality linked to police action during a protest, but many believe the police have killed others. Demonstrators believe three of their number were beaten to death on August 31 in the Prince Edward Mass Transit Railway station in Mong Kok. Since then, the above-ground entrance to the station has become a shrine, protestors have repeatedly rallied in front of the adjacent Mong Kok police station, and youth have continually trashed MTR trains and stations because they believe management of the rail system has withheld surveillance-camera footage.Even a single death creates a cycle of revenge and retaliation that is almost impossible to control. Chows passing sparked a weekend of rage.Moreover, Chief Executive Lam added to the tensions. In her most recent press conference, held Monday after the shooting and burning incidents, she called protesters the enemy of the people. Her provocative Cultural Revolution-speak comment came on the heels of her November 4 meeting with Chinese ruler Xi Jinping. China is apparently controlling events, and either out of obliviousness or maliciousness, it is making the situation worse.Beijing has been doing that by forcing Lam to take a hard line. Apart from the withdrawal of the extradition billdoomed because the normally pro-Beijing business community came out against it early onshe has been intransigent.That intransigence was evident from her Monday remarks. She said she would not yield to violence, but she had previously left Hong Kong people no choice. She had, with her stubbornness, earlier foreclosed the possibility of peaceful change.Hong Kong people may not be able to change her mind, but she cannot change theirs either. The army in blackas well as many other people in the territoryhave continued to protest.Analysts say Beijing will eventually lose patience and use force. This kind of extreme, violent, and destructive activity would not be tolerated or accepted in any country or society in the world nowadays, said Chinese Vice-Premier Han Zheng as he met with Lam early this month in Beijing.Hans words were taken as a threat to formally deploy units of the Peoples Liberation Army or the Peoples Armed Police to the streets of Hong Kong to crush the protests and reestablish order.Beijing could move in troops, but the move is unlikely to work. Hong Kong, after all, is ideal territory for defenders, like guerilla fighters supported by an overwhelming portion of the public. Every apartment building there is a fort where hostiles can rain down explosives or petrol bombs on Chinese troops and then disappear into their homes or back alleys. Xi Jinping surely does not want his first war to take tens of thousands of soldiers, last years if not decades, and end in a loss for China.In the meantime, there is credible evidence suggesting Mainland Chinese personneltroops or policeare now operating on Hong Kong streets in police uniforms. This sly tactic is not working, however.Why not? The Hong Kong police department, once considered the most professional force of its kind in Asia, has lost discipline, something evident from the shooting of the protester Monday and countless other incidents. The breakdown in discipline roughly coincides with early evidence that Chinese forces were mixed in with the Hong Kong police, and the resulting rough tactics have resulted in a loss of support of ordinary residents tired of being tear gassed, clubbed, and manhandled.All this raises the question whether Beijing has given the green light to police officers to act as brutally as they want. Yet whether China did so or not, harsh action by the police is sustaining support for the protesters.Demonstrators this past weekend were chanting Revenge. Hong Kong is now at war with itself. There is no end in sight to the fighting.LeBron James Bends the Knee to China, Fails His First Big Test as the NBAs ConscienceRead more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
Tue, 12 Nov 2019 05:21:30 -0500

Pirates attacked an Italy-flagged offshore supply vessel in the southern Gulf of Mexico, injuring two crew members, the Mexican Navy said on Tuesday, in the latest outbreak of robbery and piracy to hit oil platforms and infrastructure in the area. Owned by Italian offshore contractor Micoperi, the boat is a supply vessel for Mexico's oil industry. Micoperi and the Italian embassy in Mexico did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Tue, 12 Nov 2019 18:45:16 -0500

More than 50 people, mostly children, were injured by a man who broke into a kindergarten in southwest China and sprayed them with corrosive liquid, local authorities said Tuesday. The suspect, a 23-year-old surnamed Kong, entered the kindergarten by climbing a wall before spraying victims with sodium hydroxide, said local authorities in Kaiyuan city, Yunnan province. The attack took place on Monday at 3:35 pm (0735 GMT), authorities said on their Twitter-like Weibo account.
Tue, 12 Nov 2019 02:54:33 -0500

Tulsi Gabbard's lawyers want Hillary Clinton to make her retraction at a press conference and on social media.
Tue, 12 Nov 2019 19:19:03 -0500

The widow of a passenger who died in a fiery dive boat disaster that killed 34 people in the waters off California sued the vessel's owners Monday. Christine Dignam, whose husband, Justin Dignam, died when the Conception caught fire Sept. 2 off the Santa Barbara coast, claimed that the boat was unsafe. The vessel didn't have adequate smoke detectors or firefighting equipment, it lacked enough emergency exits, and a required night watch was not on duty when the flames broke out in the middle of the night, according to the wrongful-death lawsuit filed in federal court in Los Angeles.
Mon, 11 Nov 2019 19:41:04 -0500

Bay Area Rapid Transit police said Steve Foster, of Concord, California, violated state law by eating a sandwich on a BART station's platform.
Mon, 11 Nov 2019 17:06:55 -0500

Though Germany eventually lost World War II and France again ended up on the victorious side, the leadership traits demonstrated before and during the battle in 1940 are textbook examples of what makes for great leadershipand what kind of leadership leads to defeat.
Mon, 11 Nov 2019 21:30:00 -0500

A Ugandan court charged 67 people with causing a nuisance on Tuesday after they were arrested in a gay-friendly bar, in a move condemned by activists as the latest "homophobic" attack. The 67 - who were among 127 arrested at Ram Bar, in the capital, Kampala, on Sunday - could face up to one year in jail if found guilty, said Patricia Kimera, a lawyer for the group. "This is just a homophobic attack," LGBT+ activist Raymond Karuhanga told the Thomson Reuters Foundation outside the court.
Tue, 12 Nov 2019 14:03:07 -0500

Former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice said Monday that reports detailing the involvement of President Trumps personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani in the White Houses Ukraine policy were deeply troubling.What I see right now troubles me. I see a state of conflict between the foreign policy professionals and someone who says hes acting on behalf of the president but frankly I dont know if that is the case, Rice said at a conference in Abu Dhabi. This is just not a good thing. The world shouldnt get confusing messages from the United States of America.Multiple witnesses have alleged in house testimony that Giuliani conducted his own investigative work without regard for the administrations formal policy.William Taylor, the former top American diplomat in Ukraine, whose testimony was released last week, assertedthat Giuliani was actively undermining U.S. foreign policy.The irregular channel seemed to focus on specific issues, specific cases, rather than the regular channels focus on institution building, Taylor said, according to the transcript. So the irregular channel, I think under the influence of Mr. Giuliani, wanted to focus on one or two specific cases, irrespective of whether it helped solve the corruption problem, fight the corruption problem.Earlier Monday, news broke that Lev Parnas, an associate of Giuliani, will tell investigators that Giuliani attempted to leverage an official visit from Vice President Mike Pence to coax Ukraine into announcing an investigation into Joe Biden's son Hunter's business connections to Burisma.Rice also said she thought Trumps mention of former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter, who served on the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma, during the call was out of bounds.The call is murky, it is really murky. I dont like for the president of the United States to mention an American citizen for investigation to a foreign leader, Rice said.
Mon, 11 Nov 2019 16:23:50 -0500