RUSSIA INSTIGATING VIOLENCE IN UKRAINE: US
VIENNA: US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Thursday accused Russia of instigating unrest in eastern Ukraine, where violations against an agreed ceasefire have increased in recent weeks. Tillerson’s comments came during a speech on the first day of a Ministerial Council of the Organization for the Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in the Austrian capital, Efe news reported. “We should be clear about the source of this violence,” said the top US diplomat. “Russia is arming, leading, training and fighting alongside antigovernment forces in Ukraine.”
West Bengal State Health & Family Welfare Samiti Swasthya Bhawan, Wing- ‘B’3rd Floor GN-29, Sector-v, Bidhannagar Kolkata — 700 091 Brief Recruitment notice HONG KONG: A judge put off sentencing Thursday for young Hong Kong democracy leader Joshua Wong in a contempt case stemming from 2014 protests in the semiautonomous Chinese city.
The 21-year-old Wong, who was out on bail while he appeals a prison sentence in a separate case, was among 16 activists set to learn their punishments following their convictions for criminal contempt of court.
But a High Court judge adjourned the case to an unspecified date to await further submissions from defense lawyers.
Hong Kong law sets no maximum penalty for co ntempt, with sentences usually ranging by case law and legal precedents.
Wong and some others had pleaded guilty months earlier for failing to comply with a court order to clear out of a protest camp on a main road during the 79-day “Umbrella Movement” protests against Beijing’s restrictions on elections for Hong Kong’s top leader. Wong rose to global fame, including a starring role in a Netflix documentary, for leading antichina protests in the city while still a teen.
In a separate case, he and two other activists were given prison sentences in August ranging from six to eight months for their roles in an unlawful assembly that sparked the 2014 protests.
They originally got community service or suspended sentences but those were upgraded after the justice secretary asked for a sentencing review, a move that raised fears the city’s independent judiciary was being undermined.
Wong was bailed when he received permission to appeal, which will be heard in January. WASHINGTON: Donald Trump Jr was grilled behind closed doors in Congress Wednesday about his contacts with Russia as pressure builds on his father over alleged collusion with Moscow in last year’s election. His June 2016 meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya at the height of the presidential campaign has made him a key figure in investigations into the Trump campaign’s possible ties to the Kremlin. A separate 2016 meeting with Alexander Torshin, a senior Russian politician and central banker close to President Vladimir Putin, has added to the scrutiny of President Trump’s eldest son.
He entered and exited the House Intelligence Committee hearing from a back door, avoiding the media, and nothing was immediately released about the discussions.
But according to CNN, the Veselnitskaya meeting, and how the White House tried to explain it away as a discussion about US adoption of Russian orphans, was one focus of the questioning.
NBC News reported Tuesday that, in recent written testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee, Veselnitskaya said Trump Jr had asked her in the June 2016 meeting for evidence of illegal donations to the foundation of former president Bill Clinton, the husband of Trump’s Democratic election rival Hillary Clinton.
But Veselnitskaya said she hadn’t offered anything like that and had only met to discuss the US Magnitsky Act used to place sanctions on high-level Russians.
“On Thursday, I understand why it took place to begin with and why it ended so quickly with a feeling of mutual disappointment and time wasted,” Veselnitskaya wrote of the meeting, according to NBC.
She also said that when he found that she did not have any dirt on the Clinton, Trump Jr appeared to lose interest.
In May last year Trump Jr also met Torshin at a US National Rifle Association event. Trump Jr’s lawyer Alan Futerfas said last month that there was only “small talk” between them. But emails have shown Torshin trying to arrange a meeting with thencandidate Trump, an overture that was turned down by Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law.
Those contacts and others not previously reported publicly by the Trump campaign are important to the investigation by special prosecutor Robert Mueller, who is looking at allegations of collusion and also possible obstruction of justice by President Trump and people around HIM.AGENCIES