VIENNA, 1 August 2016 – At the end of the siege of police headquarters in Yerevan, OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatović today sought reassurance from the foreign minister of Armenia that journalists’ rights and safety during times of civil unrest would be protected.

Mijatović wrote to Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian indicating that the Government “should implement practical steps to ensure restraint on the part of law enforcement representatives toward members of the media and suggested steps should be taken by the authorities to guarantee that the press is not targeted by the police or thugs. The police should be protecting journalists and members of the media.”

According to reports, on 29 July media reporting on the forced dispersal of demonstrators in the Sari Tagh district and other events were attacked, beaten and had their equipment destroyed. In some cases the attackers were uniformed police; in others, civilians armed with metal rods.

Those attacked include:

• reporter Aghvan Asoyan and camera operator Albert Galstyan from Armenia TV;
• journalist Mariam Grigoryan and camera operator Davit Harutyunyan from Arajin Lratvakan;
• reporters Karlen Aslanyan and Hovhannes Movsisyan and camera operator Garik Harutyunyan of Azatutyun;
• reporter Robert Ananyan and camera operator Tigran Badalyan from A1+ TV;
• camera operator Marut Vanyan from the Lragir.am news website;
• journalists Sargis Kharazyan and Mkrtich Karapetyan from CivilNet;
• reporter Hovik Grigoryan of Panorama.am; and
• camera operator Tigran Gasparyan who works for Life.ru.

Mijatović also noted in the letter the statement published by the Armenian media NGOs of 21 July about the police attacks on journalists that took place in Yerevan days and weeks earlier. The victims included:

• Gevorg Tosunyan, a journalist from iravaban.net;
• Artak Hambardzumyan, a reporter from Azatutyun;
• Arthur Hayrapetyan, a reporter from 4news.am; and
• Tehmine Yenoqyan , a reporter from lragir.am.

The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media observes media developments in all 57 OSCE participating States. She provides early warning on violations of freedom of expression and media freedom and promotes full compliance with OSCE media freedom commitments. Learn more at www.osce.org/fom, Twitter: @OSCE_RFoM and on www.facebook.com/osce.rfom. 

Related Stories

• OSCE Representative welcomes revision of Law of War manual in USA improving protection for journalists
• Democratic governments must ensure media freedom and journalists’ safety, OSCE Representative urges Turkey
• OSCE Representative condemns murder of journalist Pavel Sheremet in Ukraine

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Hospital staff receiving bodies realised he was alive despite being shot five times

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said there are "no credible threats" to the District ahead of Tuesday's presidential election, despite several downtown businesses boarding up their buildings and the White House and other federal properties erecting climb-proof fencing along their perimeters.

A senior police officer warned Tuesday of calls for more rioting in Amsterdam, after dozens of people armed with sticks and firecrackers set a tram on fire Monday night as the city faces tensions following violence last week targeting fans of an Israeli soccer club.

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VIENNA, 1 August 2016 – At the end of the siege of police headquarters in Yerevan, OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatović today sought reassurance from the foreign minister of Armenia that journalists’ rights and safety during times of civil unrest would be protected.

Mijatović wrote to Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian indicating that the Government “should implement practical steps to ensure restraint on the part of law enforcement representatives toward members of the media and suggested steps should be taken by the authorities to guarantee that the press is not targeted by the police or thugs. The police should be protecting journalists and members of the media.”

According to reports, on 29 July media reporting on the forced dispersal of demonstrators in the Sari Tagh district and other events were attacked, beaten and had their equipment destroyed. In some cases the attackers were uniformed police; in others, civilians armed with metal rods.

Those attacked include:

• reporter Aghvan Asoyan and camera operator Albert Galstyan from Armenia TV;
• journalist Mariam Grigoryan and camera operator Davit Harutyunyan from Arajin Lratvakan;
• reporters Karlen Aslanyan and Hovhannes Movsisyan and camera operator Garik Harutyunyan of Azatutyun;
• reporter Robert Ananyan and camera operator Tigran Badalyan from A1+ TV;
• camera operator Marut Vanyan from the Lragir.am news website;
• journalists Sargis Kharazyan and Mkrtich Karapetyan from CivilNet;
• reporter Hovik Grigoryan of Panorama.am; and
• camera operator Tigran Gasparyan who works for Life.ru.

Mijatović also noted in the letter the statement published by the Armenian media NGOs of 21 July about the police attacks on journalists that took place in Yerevan days and weeks earlier. The victims included:

• Gevorg Tosunyan, a journalist from iravaban.net;
• Artak Hambardzumyan, a reporter from Azatutyun;
• Arthur Hayrapetyan, a reporter from 4news.am; and
• Tehmine Yenoqyan , a reporter from lragir.am.

The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media observes media developments in all 57 OSCE participating States. She provides early warning on violations of freedom of expression and media freedom and promotes full compliance with OSCE media freedom commitments. Learn more at www.osce.org/fom, Twitter: @OSCE_RFoM and on www.facebook.com/osce.rfom. 

Related Stories

• OSCE Representative welcomes revision of Law of War manual in USA improving protection for journalists
• Democratic governments must ensure media freedom and journalists’ safety, OSCE Representative urges Turkey
• OSCE Representative condemns murder of journalist Pavel Sheremet in Ukraine

Updated at 7 p.m. ET In a move that possibly placed his job in peril, Defense Secretary Mark Esper publicly disagreed Wednesday with President Trump's threatened use of the 1807 Insurrection Act to quell widespread unrest over the death of George Floyd, a black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his neck. "The option to use active-duty forces in a law enforcement role should only be used as a matter of last resort, and only in the most urgent and dire of situations. We are not in one of those situations now," Esper told reporters at a Pentagon briefing. "I do not support invoking the Insurrection Act." Esper added, "I've always believed and continue to believe that the National Guard is best suited for performing domestic support to civil authorities in these situations, in support of local law enforcement." The 1807 Insurrection Act authorizes a U.S. president to deploy the military in times of domestic emergencies. The law was updated in 2006 to include

Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit SCOTT SIMON, HOST: Police reform is the issue that made a lawyer named Lori Lightfoot a political presence in Chicago when she was head of the Chicago Police Board. Of course, she is now Mayor Lightfoot of Chicago and said this week that police misconduct and brutality, quote, "tarnish the badge." Mayor Lightfoot joins us now. Mayor Lightfoot, thanks for being with us. LORI LIGHTFOOT: It's my pleasure, Scott. SIMON: You've led investigations into brutality cases when you were head of the police board and the CPD's Office of Professional Standards. Must also be said that as an attorney in private practice, you represented some police officers. How difficult is police reform? LIGHTFOOT: Well, having seen this issue from a lot of different angles - I also prosecuted corrupt police officers when I was a federal prosecutor. So I've been around this issue for a long time, and really, it comes down to this. You can have all the policies that you want,

Amid calls for ongoing protests after violent clashes on Thursday, South Africa's High Commissioner to Mozambique Siphiwe Nyanda has declared "Maputo is almost under siege".

It was business as usual at the Lebombo border post between SA and Mozambique on Saturday morning, with vehicles moving freely between both countries after a shutdown earlier this week.

24 July 2020

Mozambique's Maputo port, a key chrome export hub, has stopped receiving cargo due to ongoing election unrest in the southeast African nation.

Escalation in protests across the globe in 2019 are forecast to persist into the new decade, according to Verisk Maplecroft report.

Their Future: TV PSA

Amsterdam police caution against further unrest after violence involving Israeli soccer fans. Authorities increase security measures in response.

In an unexpected twist, North Korean soldiers stationed along the Ukraine border, under Russian command, have been exposed to the unrestricted internet for the first time-a shocking shift for troops used to one of the world's most isolated digital environments. Their

The migrants unrest spread to the industrial belt of Hazira on Saturday after large number of labourers came out on the road and resorted to stone pelting at the police teams.

Hong Kong has been embroiled in increasingly violent social unrest since June, 2019. We examined the associated population mental health burden, risk factors, and health-care needs.

In ASPIC-style structured argumentation an argument can rebut another argument by attacking its conclusion. Two ways of formalizing rebuttal have been proposed: In restricted rebuttal, the attacked conclusion must have been arrived at with a defeasible rule, whereas in unrestricted rebuttal, it may have been arrived at with a strict rule, as long as at least one of the antecedents of this strict rule was already defeasible. One systematic way of choosing between various possible definitions of a framework for structured argumentation is to study what rationality postulates are satisfied by which definition, for example whether the closure postulate holds, i.e. whether the accepted conclusions are closed under strict rules. While having some benefits, the proposal to use unrestricted rebuttal faces the problem that the closure postulate only holds for the grounded semantics but fails when other argumentation semantics are applied, whereas with restricted rebuttal the closure postulate always holds. In this paper we propose that ASPIC-style argumentation can benefit from keeping track not only of the attack relation between arguments, but also the relation of deductive joint support that holds between a set of arguments and an argument that was constructed from that set using a strict rule. By taking this deductive joint support relation into account while determining the extensions, the closure postulate holds with unrestricted rebuttal under all admissibility-based semantics. We define the semantics of deductive joint support through the flattening method.

Wilcannia locals worry their weir won't ever be built, despite State and Federal Government pre-election promises.

We understand why unrest is bubbling among those who are unemployed and entrepreneurs who could lose their businesses. But the alternative to stay-at-home orders is allowing the highly contagious new coronavirus to rip through our communities.

Following the trend throughout the Middle East, the so-called Arab Spring appears to have spread to Syria. The government crackdown on anti-government demonstrators in Homs and other provincial cities began over a year ago and is thought to have claimed thousands of lives. Attempts at brokering ceasefires have predictably failed.

This page provides coverage of recent events via Inter Press Service’s news feed.

Read full article: Syria Unrest

4 November 2019

We are less than two weeks into the new year and already, geo-political concerns, large and alarming, dominate the news. Still, I believe the year ahead will mark a milestone for Asia. Asian economies, in terms of purchasing power parity, will become larger than the rest of the world combined for the first time since the 19th century. That represents a quantum leap from about one-third just two decades ago. Asia this year will also be home to half of the middle class of the world. That heralds enormous business opportunities for the world at large. Indeed, Asia, powered by Mainland China, has for some time been a global growth engine.

Hong Kong, with its strategic regional location, and its extensive, ever-deepening cultural and financial links with the Mainland, is China's international financial centre, contributing to the sustainable progress of the country, the region and the world.

In pursuing sustainable development, quality as well as quantity counts. Today's economies are exploring growth through innovation and technology, while seeking inclusiveness. They are, to be sure, hard-won goals given the unprecedented challenges we've faced over the past two years: the global economic slowdown, trade disputes among major economies, geopolitical uncertainties and local issues. But if we cannot direct the wind, we can surely adjust our sails, which has been what we are doing here in Hong Kong. Thanks to lessons learned and measures implemented, particularly since the Asian financial crisis, Hong Kong's financial system remains stable and remarkably successful.

Globally competitive

Our core competitiveness, and our status as one of the world's premier financial centres, continues to be internationally recognised. Last September, we again ranked third in the world in the Global Financial Centres Index, just behind New York and London. That's a compelling statement of confidence in our freely convertible currency, our world-class banking system and stock market and the professionals who power our financial sector. It's a telling reflection of our strategic geographic location and sophisticated connections to global financial markets. It's recognition, too, of the free flow of capital within, into and out of Hong Kong, as enshrined in Article 112 of the Basic Law. More than capital flows, information and people also move effortlessly in and out of Hong Kong.

People around the world are confident in our regimes. They take reassurance in our trusted and bilingual common law system, our sound financial regulatory framework, low taxes and deep connections with the Mainland and the rest of the world. It helps, too, that Hong Kong again topped the world in 2019 in funds raised through initial public offerings, taking in about US$40 billion in 2019. That marked the seventh time in the past 11 years in which Hong Kong has led the world in IPOs.

Hong Kong is also the first international financial centre to have laid down a clearly-defined and comprehensive regulatory regime for listed companies with weighted voting rights structures and additional corporate governance and disclosure requirements. It's clearly working. Hong Kong is now the second-largest fundraising venue in the world for biotech companies. And, of course, the Alibaba Group Holding's secondary listing on our stock market in late November was one of the world's biggest stock offerings of 2019. The decision by the e-commerce giant - one of the Mainland's largest e-commerce companies and Asia's most valuable listed companies - may well encourage other Mainland enterprises listed elsewhere, to expand their investor links into the Asian region, with Hong Kong as their base.

Then there's the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area development. With a population of 71 million and a combined GDP of US$1.6 trillion, the Greater Bay Area and its huge market potential present boundless promise for Hong Kong, particularly our financial services sector.

Innovation will drive development in the bay area. Measures will be rolled out to expand the flow of capital and people, opening up new markets and business opportunities thanks to enhanced connectivity. Among others, with the support of the Central Government, especially a Leading Group on the Greater Bay Area development chaired by the Vice Premier Han Zheng, a two-way wealth management connect scheme is being drawn up to meet the cross-boundary, wealth-management needs of residents in Hong Kong and the rest of the bay area.

Coupled with the Belt & Road Initiative, the bay area development will ensure long-term prospects for Hong Kong's economy. Through these two national policies, Hong Kong will enhance its role as the business bridge between the Mainland and the rest of the world. I'm talking here of our status as a leading fundraising centre, the world's largest offshore renminbi business hub and a premier asset and wealth management hub.

We are no less committed to Hong Kong's development as a green finance centre. In May 2019, we issued our inaugural green bond under the Government Green Bond Programme. And, with the introduction of a Green Bond Grant Scheme, which subsidises green bond issuers in obtaining certification under the Green Finance Certification Scheme, green bonds issued and arranged in Hong Kong in 2018 reached US$11 billion. A good start, I'd say, in creating financial programmes that also pay off in environmental benefits for our sustainable development.

We are hard at work as well on enabling development of our capital markets. Our open-ended fund company regime has been in operation since end-July 2018. And since last April, onshore and offshore privately offered funds can enjoy profits tax exemption under our tax law.

We're also building on our mutual recognition of funds arrangement. It now covers six economies: the Mainland, Switzerland, France, the United Kingdom, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Such connections will strengthen our role as the world's premier offshore renminbi hub and wealth management centre.

Our connectivity with the Mainland is also enhanced through such financial schemes as Hong Kong-Shanghai Stock Connect, Hong Kong-Shenzhen Stock Connect and Bond Connect. Since its inception, in late 2014, stock connect has realised cumulative net transactions of about US$150 billion in the Mainland and over US$130 billion in Hong Kong.

We continue to diversify our fund structures. Among other things, we are working on a new regime of limited partnership for the registration of private equity funds. We are also enhancing Hong Kong's status as an international insurance and risk-management hub. And, to broaden the range of risk-management offerings in Hong Kong, we plan to enable the issuance of insurance-linked securities, including catastrophe bonds. Moreover, we will expand the scope of insurable risks by captive insurers in Hong Kong to meet the risk-management needs of multinationals.

To exemplify our commitment to technology, last year, we issued eight virtual banking licences, as well as two virtual insurer licences. These can spur financial innovation, while boosting customer experience and building financial inclusion. And our Faster Payment System, launched in 2018 to enable instant payment, now handles about 168,000 transactions, totalling more than US$307 million, a day.

Bridging East and West

We've been busy making the most of Hong Kong's manifold advantages. In creating connections between businesses, investors and financial markets, East and West, we help you excel. That is also the great strength of the Asian Financial Forum (AFF), bringing East and West together for two intensive days of the latest information and intelligence, deliberation and debate, networking opportunities and business promise.

This year's AFF is, as always, packed with panel discussions and workshops on financial policy, asset and wealth management, insurance, sustainable finance and deal-making sessions. As fintech continues to shake up the financial world, the AFF continues to expand its focus on fintech. This year, we launch the FintechHK Startup Salon, showcasing promising business ideas from fintech startups. It builds on the success of last year's Fintech Showcase, which returns with more than 60 fintech startups. And there's even more on offer this year in areas, ranging from global trade finance to environmental, social and governance, profit with purpose and succession planning for family corporations.

It gives me great pleasure, as well, to tell you that your keynote luncheon speakers today and tomorrow, respectively, are Dr Janet Yellen, formerly the Chair of the US Federal Reserve System's Board of Governors, and Prof Abhijit Banerjee, the 2019 Economics Nobel laureate. I am honoured that they come to Hong Kong and offer us their insight and their inspiration.

The forum is part of International Financial Week in Hong Kong, which brings together some 16 events covering everything from private equity and fund-raising to alternative investment and advertising strategies for financial concerns. A trip to Shenzhen is also featured this year, with visits to leading financial services and technology companies. Shenzhen, of course, is our close partner in the bay area and a global pacesetter in technology.

The Asian Financial Forum symbolises Hong Kong's wide-ranging strengths and resilience as an economy and a community. These strengths and resilience, just like our financial systems, have not been undermined despite that we have experienced considerable social unrest and challenges in recent months. Through the concerted efforts of the Government, and the people of Hong Kong, I am confident that we will bridge our divide, that we will realise the common goal of a reunited community and a flourishing economy.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam gave these remarks at the 13th Asian Financial Forum on January 13.

4 November 2019

Escalation in protests across the globe in 2019 are forecast to persist into the new decade, according to Verisk Maplecroft report.

Country hit series of riots in the last two weeks resulting in over a dozen and a half deaths.

Their Future: TV PSA

The Lebanese government on Thursday approved a long-awaited plan to rescue the economy from its worst crisis in decades following a fresh wave of angry street protests this week. Nationwide protests broke out in October accusing the country's political class of corruption and mismanagement.

New Delhi: Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday called up Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and expressed concern over the gathering of a large number of people in Mumbai's Bandra area in defiance of the ongoing lockdown, officials said.

Shah stressed that such events weaken India's fight against coronavirus and the administration needs to stay vigilant to avoid such incidents. "The home minister spoke to the Maharashtra chief minister and expressed concern over the large gathering of people in Mumbai's Bandra area," a home ministry official said. Shah also offered his full support to the Maharashtra government in dealing with the situation, the official said.

About 1,000 migrant workers who earn daily wages gathered in Mumbai's Bandra area on Tuesday demanding transport arrangements for them to go back to their native places, hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the extension of the coronavirus-enforced lockdown till May 3.

A police official said the migrants were dispersed two hours later and have been assured that they will be provided accommodation and food till the lockdown lasts. In viral videos, police personnel was seen using mild cane-charge to disperse the migrants, who had gathered near the Bandra railway station in suburban Mumbai.

Daily wage workers have been rendered jobless ever since the lockdown was announced late last month to stem the spread of COVID-19, making their lives a constant struggle.

G20 agriculture ministers urge governments not to disrupt global supply chains

On Thursday night's episode of Reno Rumble, tensions continued to escalate when the Blue Team savaged the Reds at judging.

Analysts predict that as many as 75 nations will see violence and demonstrations break-out this year. Hong Kong, Chile and Lebanon are among 47 states that saw a rise in protests in 2019.

The tea industry, hit by rising costs, falling prices and political unrest in the North Bengal plantations, is especially vulnerable to the Covid-19 lockdown

Pringle, Tim, 1959-