China’s Xi talks tough on Hong Kong as thousands protest for democracy

Chinese President Xi Jinping has sworn in Hong Kong’s new leader with a stark warning that Beijing won’t tolerate any challenge to its authority in the divided city as it marked the 20th anniversary of its return from Britain to China.

Police blocked roads, preventing pro-democracy protesters from getting to the harbour-front venue close to where the last colonial governor, Chris Patten, tearfully handed back Hong Kong to China in the pouring rain in 1997.

“Any attempt to endanger China’s sovereignty and security, challenge the power of the central government … or use Hong Kong to carry out infiltration and sabotage activities against the mainland is an act that crosses the red line and is absolutely impermissible,” Xi said…

Source: China’s Xi talks tough on Hong Kong as thousands protest for democracy | SBS News

A Photo of James Comey Takes the Internet by Storm

 

Doug Mills, the New York Times photographer who captured yesterday’s viral image of James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, seated before the Senate Intelligence Committee, is no stranger to the political spotlight. Since joining The Times in 2002, Mr. Mills has photographed presidential administrations — and the spectacles surrounding them — in Washington, aboard Air Force One, and in Afghanistan, among countless other locales. What follows is a lightly edited Q. and A. about his coverage Thursday from Capitol Hill.

Your photograph of Mr. Comey took the internet by storm — especially on Reddit, where it earned more than 60,000 “upvotes.” How did it come together?

I knew it wouldn’t be a contentious or heated hearing — or at least I didn’t expect it to be. Mr. Comey had handed out his testimony the day before, so some of the air was already out of the balloon. And for me, what that meant was: A tight shot showing one of Mr. Comey’s facial expressions wasn’t likely to be the most intriguing picture. (When hearings become heated and contentious, many times the witnesses become angry and their faces show a lot more emotion.)

Russia avalanche engulfs Cheget Mountain, kills six

This is the horrifying moment a giant avalanche engulfed a Russian mountain, killing a newly-married couple and four other snowboarders.

Yana Shanina, 25, her husband Vladimir Shanin, 29, were killed on Friday after an avalanche swept through northern hill slope of the Cheget Mountain in the republic of Kabardino-Balkaria.

Nina Sobol, 27, Alexander Ivanov, 34, and sportswoman Oksana Sannikova, 30, from Nizhny Novgorod, also died in the tragedy.

The two other boarders, two men, have not been named.

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The law enforcement in the Caucasus Mountains said today the snow sport enthusiasts ignored warning signs preventing them from snowboarding in that particular area, which was restricted.

They added the boarders ‘paid the ultimate price’.

Horrifying CCTV footage, posted on YouTube, shows the avalanche crashing down the mountain, with a shocked man heard desperately making a mobile call to his friend pleading: ‘We need to call Koshak.

Source: Russia avalanche engulfs Cheget Mountain, kills six | Daily Mail Online