The Wall Street Journal - USA (2020-12-03)

A18| Thursday, December 3, 2020 **** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

WORLD WATCH

HONG KONG

Leading Activist

Given Prison Term

Joshua Wong, who emerged
from a 79-day street occupation
in 2014 as the leading face of a
new generation of young activ-
ists who infuriated China’s lead-
ers, was jailed for more than a
year on Wednesday for inciting
and organizing protesters who
besieged Hong Kong police
headquarters last year.
Magistrate Wong Sze-lai said
a deterrent sentence was neces-
sary to safeguard the public in-
terest as she imprisoned Mr.
Wong for 13½ months. The 24-
year-old Mr. Wong and two fel-
low activists earlier all pleaded
guilty to charges including incit-
ing the rally that ramped up ten-
sions between protesters and
police early in last year’s mass
uprising. Agnes Chow, who turns
24 on Thursday, wept after be-
ing sentenced to 10 months.
Ivan Lam, who is 26, received a
seven-month term.
The demonstration outside

the police force’s headquarters

on June 21, 2019, marked an es-

calation in the protests that

gripped Hong Kong through

2019. The sentence comes amid
      Beijing’s hardening crackdown on
      the city’s pro-democracy move-
      ment.
      —Natasha Khan

EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK

Official Defends Calls

To Banks, Investors

The European Central Bank’s

chief economist plans to place

private calls to banks and inves-

tors after the ECB’s policy meet-

ing next week, he said Wednes-

day, continuing an unusual

communications practice that has

raised eyebrows among financiers

and central-bank officials.

Since March, Philip Lane, the

chief economist, has spoken with

some institutions after the bank’s

policy decisions, in an effort to

clarify its public pronouncements,

according to people with whom

he spoke and a review of his

schedule. The calls, reported on

Tuesday by The Wall Street Jour-

nal, break with the bank’s prac-

tice of delivering information to

all participants at the same time.

They were made to big investors

such as BlackRock Inc. and banks

such as Goldman Sachs Group

Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co.

“Our standing approach right

now is to continue those calls,”

Mr. Lane said in an interview

with Reuters published Wednes-

day on the ECB’s website.

—Tom Fairless

FRANCE

Giscard d’Estaing,

Ex-President, Dies

Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, the

president of France from 1974 to

1981 who became a champion of

European integration, died on

Wednesday. He was 94.

Mr. Giscard d’Estaing’s office

said he died in his family home

in the Loir-et-Cher region, in cen-

tral France, after contracting

Covid-19.

Born in Germany in the wake

of World War I, Mr. Giscard d’Es-

taing helped liberate Paris from

the Nazis in the next world war

and later laid the groundwork for

the shared euro currency and

helped integrate Britain into what

became the EU in the 1970s.

When he took office in 1974,

Mr. Giscard d’Estaing began as

the model of a modern French

president, a conservative with

liberal views on social issues.

Abortion and divorce by mu-

tual consent were legalized un-

der his term and he reduced the

age of majority from 21 to 18.

He lost his re-election bid in

1981 to François Mitterrand.

At age 83, Mr. Giscard d’Esta-

ing published a romance novel

called “The Princess and the Pres-

ident,” which he said was based

on Princess Diana. Asked about

the nature of their relationship, he

said only: “Let us not exaggerate.

I knew her a bit in a climate of a

confidential relationship. She

needed to communicate.”

—Associated Press

SNOW MILANESE: A man jogs in Italy’s business capital, hit by a surge in Covid cases in November.

MATTEO CORNER/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK

national sanctions aimed at

undermining Mr. Maduro’s

grip on power.

“We’re concerned about

what we see...It’s not just oil

shipments, it’s arms shipments

as well,” he said. “We saw an

uptick in that this year. We are

watching the rate of change

very carefully.”

Adm. Faller didn’t specify the

arms that the U.S. says are be-

ing provided. In September, the

State Department sanctioned an

Iranian defense unit it said had

ties to the Maduro regime, in

what U.S. officials said was an

strumental in providing sup-

port to “keep key elements of

Maduro’s military just ready

enough,” he added.

Adm. Faller’s comments on

Iran come amid rising tensions

between Washington and Teh-

ran and represent a rare in-

stance in which a senior U.S.

military official has publicly

accused Iran of shipping arms

to Venezuela.

The U.S., he said, has ex-

pended considerable effort

trying to distinguish between

humanitarian cargo and ship-

ments that run afoul of inter-

WORLD NEWS

selves against armed criminals.

The recent bank heists have

followed a pattern, security

experts said. Gunmen with

semiautomatic assault rifles

typically try to cordon off a

city in the dead of night by

holding police forces at bay.

After taking residents hostage,

they shower nearby buildings

with bullets to generate wide-

spread panic as they move in

on the local branch of a bank.

Such operations are a mod-

ern reinvention of thecan-

TEL AVIV—Israeli Prime

Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s

coalition partners withdrew

their support for the govern-

ment, raising the possibility

that it could collapse and send

the country to a fourth elec-

tion in less than two years.

A preliminary reading of a

bill introduced by the opposi-

tion to dissolve parliament

passed 61-54 Wednesday, with

Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition part-

ners, the centrist Blue and

White party, voting for it. It

will need to pass three more

votes to become law, a process

that likely will stretch into next

week or longer. The parties

could still reach a compromise

that could avert the collapse.

The dissolution of the Knes-

set, Israel’s parliament, would

trigger a fresh election, likely

in March. The prospect of that

underscores the continuous

pressure Mr. Netanyahu faces

amid what may be his tough-

est political challenges to date:

managing the pandemic and

its economic fallout, while

standing trial for corruption.

After three elections in the

span of a year, Mr. Netanyahu

failed to cobble together

enough support and in May

joined a unity government

with Blue and White leader

Benny Gantz.

Ahead of Wednesday’s vote,

Mr. Gantz said his party would

support the measure intro-

duced by Yesh Atid leader Yair

Lapid, who split from Mr.

Gantz’s party when the latter

joined Mr. Netanyahu’s gov-

ernment.

BYFELICIASCHWARTZ

ANDDOVLIEBER

Netanyahu

Rivals

Push for

Another

Election

gaço, a type of banditry that

took place in northern Brazil

in the late 19th and early 20th

centuries, experts said.

Public-safety experts are di-

vided over the reason for the

resurgence. Rafael Alcadipani,

a researcher at Brazil’s Getulio

Vargas Foundation, said the

Covid-19 pandemic has created

more difficulties for the coun-

try’s criminal organizations

and drug gangs. “There are

fewer people in the streets to

rob, for a start,” he said.

Mr. Alcadipani said the at-

tacks were also a symptom of

failings in the investigative ca-

pacity of the country’s police

forces.

Mr. Bolsonaro has milita-

rized the country’s security

forces, bringing fellow military

men into his administration,

he said, while not investing

enough in intelligence work.

and terror and demand a de-

tailed investigation,” Marina

Silva, a leftist former presiden-

tial candidate, wrote on Twit-

ter on Wednesday. She said the

country shouldn’t be forced to

“surrender to the barbarity” of

the criminal gangs.

“Your government spoke so

much about security...but I’m

not seeing anything being done

to stop this,” a voter tweeted.

Mr. Bolsonaro hasn’t com-

mented. The president’s son,

Congressman Eduardo Bolson-

aro, lashed out at critics, blam-

ing the opposition leftist Work-

ers’ Party for passing legislation

in 2003 that made it more diffi-

cult to obtain legal weapons.

Since taking office, Mr. Bol-

sonaro has worked to reverse

that legislation, passing decrees

to relax gun ownership laws,

calling it the only way for the

“good guys” to protect them-

Paulo state and the neighbor-

ing state of Minas Gerais.

Opposition politicians took

to social media Wednesday,

criticizing Mr. Bolsonaro’s ad-

ministration for the heists and

calling on the conservative ex-

army captain to take action.

Mr. Bolsonaro, who served

under Brazil’s military dicta-

torship, won the 2018 presi-

dential election on the prom-

ise of bringing law and order

to a country gripped by en-

demic violence and corruption.

The number of murders in

Brazil dropped in 2018 and

2019, then rose to 26,000 in the

first six months of this year,

about a 7% increase compared

with the year-earlier period,

according to the Brazilian Fo-

rum on Public Safety, a nongov-

ernmental research group.

“The crimes in Criciúma

and Cametá have created panic

SÃO PAULO—Gunmen
armed with explosives sowed
terror overnight in a small city
in northern Brazil, the latest in
a spate of violent bank heists
that have challenged President
Jair Bolsonaro’s promise to re-
store law and order.
More than a dozen men
brandishing military-style as-
sault rifles stormed into Cam-
etá, a sleepy riverside city of
134,000 people in the Amazon
on Tuesday night, and used
residents as human shields as
they robbed a bank. One per-
son was killed and another in-
jured in the 2½-hour attack.
The robbers came away
empty-handed because they
blew open the wrong safe, ac-
cording to the state governor.
The onslaught came a day
after a gang of 30 men armed
with military-grade weapons
invaded the southern city of
Criciúma in a similar bank
heist, leaving more than
$100,000 in bank notes scat-
tered on the city’s deserted
streets as they fled.
Police said they are investi-
gating whether the crimes
were connected. While it is un-
likely the same men carried out
both attacks, which took place
more than 2,000 miles apart,
security experts said they
come amid a rise in bank heists
in the country’s smaller cities.
In July, about 40 men used
explosives to break into three
different banks in Botucatu, a
small city in the state of São
Paulo, following a similar at-
tack in May on Ourinhos, a
two-hour drive away. Local
press have reported other cine-
matic bank heists over the past
two years in other parts of São

BYSAMANTHAPEARSON
ANDLUCIANAMAGALHAES

Bank Heists Test Brazil’s Hard Line

Bolsonaro’s pledge to

curb crime faces

setback with second

big robbery in two days

The aftermath of the robbery in Cametá on Wednesday. One person was killed and another was injured in the 2½-hour attack.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

The country

shouldn’t be forced

to ‘surrender to the

barbarity’ of gangs.

attempt to deter sales of con-

ventional weapons, including

military jets, boats and tanks.

Iran and Venezuela have

long shared diplomatic ties,

but the Trump administration’s

economic sanctions against the

two countries encouraged them

to strengthen relations. Bat-

tered by the Americans’ “maxi-

mum pressure” campaign, Iran

has been desperate to sell its

petroleum products. U.S. and

international sanctions against

Venezuela have made that

country an eager buyer.

Tehran has been swapping

its fuel for Venezuela oil,

which it has sold through the

black market, U.S. and West-

ern officials say. Iran has also

been paid in gold from Vene-

zuela’s vast deposits, provid-

ing Tehran with a commodity

that is difficult for sanctions

monitors to track, they said.

The U.S. has disrupted

some of those fuel shipments,

but Venezuela analysts say de-

liveries continue. The flotillas

are often accompanied by Ira-

nian naval vessels, including

an intelligence ship that U.S.

officials say has been used to

transport missiles to Iranian

proxies in the Middle East, ac-

cording to U.S. officials.

WASHINGTON—Iran has
sent arms and dispatched para-
military operatives to help Ven-
ezuelan President Nicolás Ma-
duro maintain his hold on
power, the top U.S. military
commander for Central and
South America said Wednesday.
“We see a growing Iranian
influence in there,” Adm. Craig
Faller, the head of the U.S.
Southern Command, told re-
porters, citing the “alarming
and concerning” presence of
military personnel from the
elite Quds Force of Iran’s Is-
lamic Revolutionary Guard
Corps. Tehran has used the
force to support Syrian Presi-
dent Bashar al-Assad and other
foreign allies and proxies.
Iran’s and Venezuela’s mis-
sions to the United Nations
didn’t respond to requests for
comment.
Iran is just one U.S. adver-
sary backing the embattled
Venezuela leader. Thousands
of Cubans have been “basically
owning” the country’s intelli-
gence service and guard force
that protects Mr. Maduro,
Adm. Faller said. Hundreds of
Russians have also been in-

BYMICHAELR.GORDON
ANDIANTALLEY

Iran Arms Bolster Maduro, U.S. Says

ministry spokeswoman Hua

Chunying said during a press

briefing Wednesday.

The blanket ban on the com-

pany’s products could have a

significant impact on U.S. com-

panies that rely on Chinese-

made apparel and other prod-

ucts.

Xinjiang produced 5 million

metric tons of cotton in 2019,

or about 85% of the total pro-

duction of China, one of the top

cotton-producing nations, ac-

cording to the National Bureau

of Statistics of China.

Four trade associations—the

American Apparel & Footwear

Association, National Retail

Federation, U.S. Fashion Indus-

try Association and Retail In-

dustry Leaders Association—

said the order supplemented

their own enforcement efforts.

The ban, implemented

through a “withhold release or-

der,” applies to “all cotton and

cotton products produced by

the XPCC and its subordinate

and affiliated entities as well as

any products that are made in

whole or in part with or de-

rived from that cotton, such as

apparel, garments, and tex-

tiles,” DHS said.

WASHINGTON—The Trump

administration banned imports

of cotton products from China’s

Xinjiang region, saying evi-

dence suggests the products

are made with the forced labor

of Uighurs.

The Department of Home-

land Security said Wednesday

that U.S. Customs and Border

Protection officials would start

detaining shipments containing

cotton and cotton products

originating from the Xinjiang

Production and Construction

Corps, a state-owned paramili-

tary organization known as

XPCC.

U.S. and other Western gov-

ernments have criticized Bei-

jing for human-rights abuses of

the Uighurs, who are mostly

Muslims.

The Chinese Embassy in

Washington didn’t respond to a

request for comment.

Beijing has denied allega-

tions of the abuse of the Ui-

ghurs. “So-called ‘human rights

abuses’ in Xinjiang or ‘persecu-

tion of ethnic minorities’ are

centenary lies made by extrem-

ist anti-China forces,” foreign

BYYUKAHAYASHI

Cotton Products From

Chinese Firm Banned

Iran’s foreign minister met with Nicolás Maduro, right, last month.

MIRAFLORES PALACE/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK