The Boston Globe - 07.08.2019

A4 The Boston Globe WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 7, 2019

TheWorld

LONDON — A youth

court in Londonordereda

teenager held on an attempted

murder charge Tuesday for al-

legedly throwinga 6-year-old

boy froma viewingarea at the

top of the British capital’s Tate

Modernmuseum.

The Frenchboy was only a

short distancefromhis par-

ents Sunday whenhe was

picked up and thrownover

the railing of the museum’s

10th-floorobservation deck,

an action ‘‘carriedout ex-

tremely swiftly and in one

movement,’’ prosecutor Sian

Morgan said.

Witnesseshave described

hearing the boy’s mother

screaming, and London’s Met-

ropolitan Police service said

othermuseumvisitors

stoppeda 17-year-oldBritish

citizenfromleaving untiloffi-

cers arrived.

The olderand younger boy

had no previousconnection,

the police departmentsaid.

Detective Chief Superin-

tendent John Massey said in-

vestigators weretreating the

‘‘trulyshockingincident’’ as

an isolated event ‘‘with no dis-

tinct or apparentmotive.’’

The 6-year-oldremains

hospitalized in criticalbut sta-

bleconditionwithasustained

brain bleedand fracturesto

his spine,legs, and arms,

prosecutorssaid.

The publicviewingarea en-

circles the top level of a 2016

additionto the Tate Modern

that is 211 feet in height. Po-

lice and paramedicsfoundthe

victim on a roof five stories be-

low.

Duringa Tuesday hearing

at Bromley Youth Court in

south London,the suspect

spoke only to confirm his

name, address, date of birth,

and nationality. He cannot be

identifiedpublicly becauseof

his age.

The teen is scheduled to

appearat London’s Central

Criminal Court on Thursday.

Tate Modern,Britain’s lead-

ing gallery of modern art, is

on the south bank of the River

Thames.It was visitedby al-

most 6 millionpeoplelast

year.

ASSOCIATEDPRESS

Te encharged in UKmuseumattack

CARACAS — Venezuelans
werebracing for morehard-
ship Tuesday after President
Trump announced plans to
imposea Cuba-style embargo
against what he called the ‘‘il-
legitimate’’ governmentof
President Nicolás Maduro.
‘‘No dictator has beenoust-
ed due to an embargo,’’ said
Neyda London, a 54-year-old
store manager who was filling
her car at a gas station in the
capital Tuesday. ‘‘I do appreci-

ate, though, that the interna-

tional pressure continues.’’

Trump’s executive order

late Monday imposes a full

embargo on Maduro’s govern-

ment, putting the nation on a

footing similar to Cuba, Iran,

North Korea, and Syria. The

measure followsmonths of

stiffeningsanctions.

The oil-rich country is al-

ready struggling under hyper-

inflation and power outages.

WASHINGTON POST

Ve nezuelansbemoanstiffer sanctions

BRUSSELS— The Euro-

pean Union said its door re-

mained open should British

Prime Minister Boris Johnson

want to discuss his country’s

departure from the bloc but it

insisted that the Brexit di-

vorce agreement cannot be re-

negotiated.

EU Commission spokes-

womanAnnika Breidthardt

said Tuesday the Brexit agree-

ment ‘‘is the best possible

deal’’ that Britain is going to

get.

Johnson said he will take

Britain out of the trade bloc

on Oct. 31 with or without a

deal, raising fears of a damag-

ing no-deal exit.

He said the backstop ar-

rangement to keep goods

flowingsmoothly between EU

member Ireland and North-

ern Ireland in the UK would

bind his country to European

trade rules and must be

dropped from the Brexit

agreement.

Breidthardt said Brussels is

available should Britain ‘‘wish

to hold talks and clarify its po-

sition in more detail.’’

ASSOCIATED PRESS

EUopento Brexit talks but nochanges

TOKYO — Defense Secre-
tary Mark Esper said Tuesday
the United States does not
‘‘have any ambition to aban-
don’’ Kurdish units in Syria
that face possible military in-
cursion fromTurkey, but he
stopped short of pledging to
defend them.
‘‘Clearly, we believe that
any unilateral action by
them would be unaccept-
able,’’ Esper said of Turkey,
speakingto reporters on a
flight from New Zealand to
Japan.‘‘So, what we’re trying

to do now is work out an ar-

rangement to address their

concerns.’’

Turkey has massed tens of

thousands of troops on its

border with Syria. Turkey has

said it wants a safe zone that

extends 20 miles south from

its border, placing the United

States in between a long-

standing member of NATO

and a US partner that main-

tains detention centers hold-

ing thousands of captured Is-

lamic State fighters.

WASHINGTON POST

USseeks Tu rkishpledge onKurds

LEONARDOFERNANDEZ/ASSOCIATEDPRESS

A Spanishmural in Caracasreads:“Trumpunblock
Venezuela.”

CAIRO — The Saudi-led co-
alition’s closure of the airport
in Yemen’s capital, Sana, has
prevented thousands of sick ci-
vilians from traveling abroad
for urgent medical treatment,
two international aid groups
said in a joint statement.
According to the Norwegian
Refugee Council and CARE, the
Sana airport’s three-year clo-
sure has amounted to a ‘‘death

sentence’’ for many sick Ye-

menis.

The two groups appealed

late Monday to Yemen’s war-

ring parties to cometo an

agreement to reopen the air-

port for commercial flights to

‘‘alleviate humanitarian suffer-

ing caused by the closure.’’

The Saudi-led coalition,

backing Yemen’s international-

ly recognized government, has

been at war with the rebels,

known as Houthis, since 2015

and has imposed a blockadeon

ports that supply Houthi-con-

trolled areas.

‘‘As if bullets, bombs, and

cholera did not kill enough

people, the airport closure is

condemning thousands more

to a premature death,’’ said Mo-

hammed Abdi, the Norwegian

Refugee Council’s director in

Yemen.

‘‘There is no justification for

preventing very sick civilians

from leaving the country to get

life-saving medical treatment,’’

he added.

The Iran-backed Houthis

overran Sana in 2014, prompt-

ing the coalition to intervene

the following year to try to re-

store the government to power.

ASSOCIATEDPRESS

Closed airport a ‘death sentence’ to thousandsof Ye menis, groupscontend

Daily Briefing

ARIFALI/AFP/GETTYIMAGES

SAJJAD HUSSAIN/AFP/GETTYIMAGES

Kashmirfreedom

revokedbyIndia

Protesters took to the streets after

New Delhiannounced it wouldstrip
the Kashmirregion of its autonomy

in an attemptto quelldissentin the
majority Muslim territory. Above,

civil society activists shouted slogans
against India. Right, a security

officer stood guardduringa curfew
in Srinagar, the largest city in

Kashmir. India’s attemptto bringthe
regionbackunderits controlwill

likely be challenged in court.A6.

ByAustin Ramzy

and Tiffany May

NEWYORK TIMES

HONGKONG — An official

in Beijing on Tuesday issued

China’s sternest denunciation

yet of the demonstrationsin

Hong Kong, saying they had “ex-

ceededthe scope of free assem-

bly” and warningthat the semi-

autonomous city would not be

allowed to descendinto chaos.

“I want to warn all the crimi-

nals to not wrongly judge the

situation and take restraint for

weakness,” said Yang Guang, a

spokesmanfor the Chinese gov-

ernment’s Hong Kong and Ma-

cao AffairsOffice. He warned

against underestimating Chi-

na’s “firm resolve and strength

to safeguardthe prosperity and

stability of Hong Kong.”

But Yang offered little in the

way of concrete measuresto re-

solve the political crisis, calling

for morepatriotic education

and encouraging residents to

confront protesters.

“We needto stand up to pro-

tect our wonderful homeland,”

he said.

The commentscamea day

after protesters in Hong Kong

carried out their most wide-

spreadcivil disobedience in

weeks of demonstrations,

blockingtrains and roads,and

urgingworkers to strike. Air

travel was also snarled, with

more than200 flights canceled

after 2,300 civil aviation work-

ers stayed home, according to

an estimate by union officials.

Yang denounced the tactics of

protesters who have surrounded

policestations,throwingbricks

and lightingfires, as “extreme vi-

olence that is shocking to see.”

He said, “The central govern-

mentwill never allowany vio-

lent attemptto pushHong Kong

into a dangeroussituation.”

Protesters gathered at more

than a half dozen sites across

Hong Kong on Monday, and po-

lice arrested 148 peopleand

fired 800 canisters of tear gas.

The tear gas usedon Mon-

day alonecameclose to the

1,000 rounds that police had

usedoverthe previouseight

weeks.

Joshua Wong, a leader of the

2014 Umbrella movement and

a prominentpro-democracy ac-

tivist in Hong Kong, said Yang’s

commentswerean attemptto

scare the people of the city into

silence.

“Beijing doesnot rule Hong

Kong by law, they just rule by

tear gas,” he said.

The protests this summer be-

gan over a proposalthat would

have allowedextraditions to

mainland China. The govern-

mentsuspended that legislation

in mid-June, but the protests

have continued, demandingthat

the government fully withdraw

the bill. The protesters are also

angry aboutother issues, includ-

ing allegations of police brutality

and the stalled expansion of di-

rect electionsin Hong Kong.

Protesters who have clashed

with the policehave arguedthat

more confrontational methods

became necessary after the gov-

ernmentrejected demands

madein earlier, peaceful march-

es, one of whichwas joined by

as many as 2 millionpeople.

Yang also warned protesters

to not challenge China’s sover-

eignty, denouncing those who

defaced the Chinese govern-

ment’s representative office in

Hong Kong in July and threw

Chinese flagsinto VictoriaHar-

bor in recentdays. He criticized

protesters’ use of a slogan from

an imprisonedactivist who

onceadvocated Hong Kong’s

independence: “Liberate Hong

Kong; revolution of our times.”

Last week, the Hong Kong

and Macao AffairsOffice ex-

pressed its support for Carrie

Lam, the Hong Kong chief exec-

utive, and the police, but they

offered little new to resolve the

political crisis. It was rare for

the office to hold a news confer-

ence, and even rarer for it to

holdanotherjust a weeklater,

an indication of the Chinese

leadership’s struggle to respond

to the increasingly fraughtcon-

flict in Hong Kong.

Yang reiterated Tuesday that

China backed Lam and the po-

lice, and he said there should be

no leniency in prosecuting vio-

lent crimes.

“These rioters are extremely

rampant and deranged,” he

said. “A blowfrom the sword of

law is waiting for themin the

future.” Hong Kong, a former

British colony, was returned to

China in 1997,and it operates

undera modelcalled“one

country, two systems,” which al-

lows the city to maintain its

ownpolitical and legalsystems

and gives residents a far greater

degreeof civil liberties thanis

seen in mainland China.

The central government is

responsible for Hong Kong’s na-

tional defense and foreign rela-

tions.But many in Hong Kong

fear Beijing is wielding greater

influence over the city, slowly

eroding its freedoms.

A spokesmanfor China’s

Ministry of NationalDefense

hinted in July that the People’s

Liberation Army could be called

on to maintainorderin Hong

Kong.

The military has a garrison

of 6,000 to 10,000 soldiers in

Hong Kong, but localofficials

have repeatedly denied rumors

that they have beenpreparing

to help quelldemonstrations.

Last week, the Hong Kong

garrison released a video show-

ing its troopstrainingto con-

front protesters. And images

have beenreleasedof large

groups of mainland police offi-

cers holding drills in preparation

for the Oct. 1 celebrations of the

70th anniversary of the founding

of the People’s Republic of China.

Beijing official

to Hong Kong:

Be careful

Warnsof China’s

‘firmresolve’

‘Beijingdoesnot

ruleHongKong

bylaw,theyjust

rulebyteargas.’

JOSHUA WONGprominent

pro-democracy activistin Hong

Kong

VINCENTTHIAN/ASSOCIATEDPRESS

Policemenin riotgeararrivedto dispersetheresidentsand

protestersat ShamShuiPodistrict in HongKongTuesday.