The US House of Representatives formally condemned Donald Trump on Tuesday for xenophobic attacks on four minority Democratic lawmakers and hostile language targeting immigrants, as the president pushed back at accusations of racism.

Top Republican leaders rallied around Trump, but four members of the president’s party voted with the 235 Democrats to condemn him for “racist comments that have legitimized and increased fear and hatred of new Americans and people of colour.”

One independent lawmaker also supported the measure, which takes aim at Trump’s weekend tweets telling a group of progressive Democratic congresswomen of colour to “go back” to other countries.

The resolution also takes the president to task for “referring to immigrants and asylum seekers as ‘invaders.’

Trump has a long history of pandering to white suspicions about other ethnic groups, and the resolution criticizes him for “saying that Members of Congress who are immigrants (or those of our colleagues who are wrongly assumed to be immigrants) do not belong in Congress or in the United States of America.”

Democrats hold a majority in the 435-member House but are outnumbered by Republicans in the Senate, where the resolution is unlikely to be considered.

The four congresswomen – all but one of whom were born in the US – are of Hispanic, Arab, Somali and African-American descent.

Trump has stuck by the provocative comments.

“Our Country is Free, Beautiful and Very Successful. If you hate our country, or if you are not happy here, you can leave!” the president tweeted Tuesday.

Democratic leaders denounced Trump’s remarks and rallied around the lawmakers – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar and Ayanna Pressley.

Omar is the only one born outside the United States.

Slamming the “so-called vote” as a “Democrat con game,” Trump urged Republicans not to “show ‘weakness’ and fall into their trap.”

“Those Tweets were NOT Racist. I don’t have a Racist bone in my body!” Trump said.

“This should be a vote on the filthy language, statements and lies told by the Democrat Congresswomen, who I truly believe, based on their actions, hate our Country,” he wrote.

“Nancy Pelosi tried to push them away, but now they are forever wedded to the Democrat Party,” Trump added, in a jab at the House speaker who has had a tenuous relationship with the four left-leaning first-term congresswomen.

Speaking on the House floor prior to the vote, Pelosi said: “Every single member of this institution, Democratic and Republican, should join us in condemning the president’s racist tweets.”

“To do anything less would be a shocking rejection of our values and a shameful abdication of our oath of office to protect the American people.”

“I know racism when I see it. I know racism when I feel it. And at the highest level of government, there’s no room for racism,” Representative John Lewis, an American civil rights icon, said in remarks on the House floor.

Trump’s repeated attacks appear to be aimed at galvanizing his mostly white electoral base ahead of the 2020 presidential vote.

“See you in 2020!” said Trump, who before becoming president pushed the racist “birther” conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was not born in the United States.

Ocasio-Cortez dismissed Trump’s denial that he is a racist.

“You’re right, Mr. President – you don’t have a racist bone in your body,” she tweeted. “You have a racist mind in your head and a racist heart in your chest.”

She also took aim at Republican lawmakers who voted against the resolution, telling CBS News that “they could not bring themselves to have the basic human decency to vote against the statement that the president made.”

While some Republican members of Congress have condemned Trump’s remarks, House Republican leaders closed ranks behind the president.

“This is all about politics,” said House Republican minority leader Representative Kevin McCarthy of California.

Senator Mitch McConnell, the leader of the Republican majority in the Senate, said “the president is not a racist.”

Immediately after the House vote a Democratic congressman, Al Green of Texas, filed articles of impeachment against Trump.

Dozens of other Democratic members of the House have reportedly called for an impeachment inquiry to be opened against the president but Pelosi, the House speaker, has said she does not favour such a move at the moment.

The US House of Representatives formally condemned Donald Trump on Tuesday for xenophobic attacks on four minority Democratic lawmakers and hostile language targeting immigrants, as the president pushed back at accusations of racism.

Top Republican leaders rallied around Trump, but four members of the president’s party voted with the 235 Democrats to condemn him for “racist comments that have legitimized and increased fear and hatred of new Americans and people of colour.”

One independent lawmaker also supported the measure, which takes aim at Trump’s weekend tweets telling a group of progressive Democratic congresswomen of colour to “go back” to other countries.

The resolution also takes the president to task for “referring to immigrants and asylum seekers as ‘invaders.’

Trump has a long history of pandering to white suspicions about other ethnic groups, and the resolution criticizes him for “saying that Members of Congress who are immigrants (or those of our colleagues who are wrongly assumed to be immigrants) do not belong in Congress or in the United States of America.”

Democrats hold a majority in the 435-member House but are outnumbered by Republicans in the Senate, where the resolution is unlikely to be considered.

The four congresswomen – all but one of whom were born in the US – are of Hispanic, Arab, Somali and African-American descent.

Trump has stuck by the provocative comments.

“Our Country is Free, Beautiful and Very Successful. If you hate our country, or if you are not happy here, you can leave!” the president tweeted Tuesday.

Democratic leaders denounced Trump’s remarks and rallied around the lawmakers – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar and Ayanna Pressley.

Omar is the only one born outside the United States.

Slamming the “so-called vote” as a “Democrat con game,” Trump urged Republicans not to “show ‘weakness’ and fall into their trap.”

“Those Tweets were NOT Racist. I don’t have a Racist bone in my body!” Trump said.

“This should be a vote on the filthy language, statements and lies told by the Democrat Congresswomen, who I truly believe, based on their actions, hate our Country,” he wrote.

“Nancy Pelosi tried to push them away, but now they are forever wedded to the Democrat Party,” Trump added, in a jab at the House speaker who has had a tenuous relationship with the four left-leaning first-term congresswomen.

Speaking on the House floor prior to the vote, Pelosi said: “Every single member of this institution, Democratic and Republican, should join us in condemning the president’s racist tweets.”

“To do anything less would be a shocking rejection of our values and a shameful abdication of our oath of office to protect the American people.”

“I know racism when I see it. I know racism when I feel it. And at the highest level of government, there’s no room for racism,” Representative John Lewis, an American civil rights icon, said in remarks on the House floor.

Trump’s repeated attacks appear to be aimed at galvanizing his mostly white electoral base ahead of the 2020 presidential vote.

“See you in 2020!” said Trump, who before becoming president pushed the racist “birther” conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was not born in the United States.

Ocasio-Cortez dismissed Trump’s denial that he is a racist.

“You’re right, Mr. President – you don’t have a racist bone in your body,” she tweeted. “You have a racist mind in your head and a racist heart in your chest.”

She also took aim at Republican lawmakers who voted against the resolution, telling CBS News that “they could not bring themselves to have the basic human decency to vote against the statement that the president made.”

While some Republican members of Congress have condemned Trump’s remarks, House Republican leaders closed ranks behind the president.

“This is all about politics,” said House Republican minority leader Representative Kevin McCarthy of California.

Senator Mitch McConnell, the leader of the Republican majority in the Senate, said “the president is not a racist.”

Immediately after the House vote a Democratic congressman, Al Green of Texas, filed articles of impeachment against Trump.

Dozens of other Democratic members of the House have reportedly called for an impeachment inquiry to be opened against the president but Pelosi, the House speaker, has said she does not favour such a move at the moment.

A peculiar legacy of Hong Kong’s colonial past has emerged as a focal point of rage for anti-government protesters: a dwindling band of expat police officers now vilified for doing the bidding of the city’s pro-Beijing leaders.

Hong Kong’s 32,000-strong police force have found themselves fighting unprecedented running battles with protesters for the past five weeks following a huge backlash to a now-suspended plan to allow extraditions to the Chinese mainland.

The crisis — which has since morphed into a wider anti-government movement — has placed officers in the firing line of public anger as the city’s leaders appear unable, or unwilling, to offer any political solution.

But among those singled out for specific retribution include a small group of expatriates who were some of the commanding officers on the frontlines during clashes where tear gas and rubber bullets were fired.

Their personal details were published online after they appeared in the media and were also named by a British lawmaker in parliament.

Wanted posters made by protesters have sprung up across the city targeting two senior officers in particular, as well as their local deputies.

“They have been through an ordeal,” Chief Inspector Neil Taylor, chairman of the Overseas Inspectors’ Association, told AFP.

“But it’s not just them. Their kids have been targeted at school by bullies; a wife was approached in a supermarket and abused. That cannot be pleasant for anybody.”

“Both have said, ‘It’s tough, but we have a job to do’,” added another colleague, who asked not to be named.

“How much of that is bravado, how much they really believe it, I don’t know.”

Colonial legacy

In the run-up to the 1997 handover to China, there were some 900 mostly-British officers on the force.

Many were encouraged to stay on to help with the transition and were required to be proficient in Cantonese. There are now just some 60 officers left.

The last were recruited in 1994 when the force stopped hiring from overseas. They are expected to reach retirement age around 2028.

Steve Vickers, a former head of the colonial police’s Criminal Intelligence Bureau, left the force in 1993 ahead of the handover and has since set up a risk consultancy business.

He said expat officers remaining after the handover were useful because “continuity and confidence was maintained”.

“To that end, their presence was valuable, and indeed desirable,” he told AFP.

But he added that Hong Kong’s police force has since changed considerably, especially as Beijing asserts more authority over the city’s leaders.

“As the years have gone by, and China’s rise has been much more pronounced, the Hong Kong government became politicised in the years following the handover,” he said.

“This politicisation also affects the police.”

Many of the force’s bomb disposal experts are expat officers and won glowing local headlines last year for defusing a series of World War II-era bombs that were unearthed during construction works.

But some of their colleagues now find themselves facing a barrage of criticism.

Protesters and rights groups have accused police of excessive force while angry chants of “black cops” — a pun on a Cantonese phrase used to describe triads — have now become commonplace.

The outed expat officers are now increasingly portrayed as foot soldiers for an authoritarian China that wants to clamp down on Hong Kong’s unique freedoms.

During one protest earlier this month, democracy activist Joshua Wong spotted one and began berating him.

“You are British and you serve the interests of Beijing,” he cried.

Youth anger

Senior officers bristle at the way they have been portrayed — and reject the idea that they have used excessive force.

“Other western police forces have used far more force during crowd-control operations,” one officer told AFP.

“In Paris or New York we’d have seen way more injuries, fractured skulls and broken bones.”

Two other officers AFP spoke to mentioned recent rallies in France where anti-government “yellow vest” protesters say at least 23 people lost an eye, primarily from plastic bullets and baton rounds.

The senior officers said many had sympathies with those protesting peacefully, adding that police helped facilitate multiple mass rallies and had no say over policy.

“This whole situation has been created by the government through their mishandling of the extradition law,” one officer fumed.

“But I also recognise that there are many wider issues that haven’t been solved,” he said, citing inequality, spiralling property prices and youth disaffection.

“I think we also have to recognise there is also a small, hardcore element who just want to have a go at police and despise China.”

A peculiar legacy of Hong Kong’s colonial past has emerged as a focal point of rage for anti-government protesters: a dwindling band of expat police officers now vilified for doing the bidding of the city’s pro-Beijing leaders.

Hong Kong’s 32,000-strong police force have found themselves fighting unprecedented running battles with protesters for the past five weeks following a huge backlash to a now-suspended plan to allow extraditions to the Chinese mainland.

The crisis — which has since morphed into a wider anti-government movement — has placed officers in the firing line of public anger as the city’s leaders appear unable, or unwilling, to offer any political solution.

But among those singled out for specific retribution include a small group of expatriates who were some of the commanding officers on the frontlines during clashes where tear gas and rubber bullets were fired.

Their personal details were published online after they appeared in the media and were also named by a British lawmaker in parliament.

Wanted posters made by protesters have sprung up across the city targeting two senior officers in particular, as well as their local deputies.

“They have been through an ordeal,” Chief Inspector Neil Taylor, chairman of the Overseas Inspectors’ Association, told AFP.

“But it’s not just them. Their kids have been targeted at school by bullies; a wife was approached in a supermarket and abused. That cannot be pleasant for anybody.”

“Both have said, ‘It’s tough, but we have a job to do’,” added another colleague, who asked not to be named.

“How much of that is bravado, how much they really believe it, I don’t know.”

Colonial legacy

In the run-up to the 1997 handover to China, there were some 900 mostly-British officers on the force.

Many were encouraged to stay on to help with the transition and were required to be proficient in Cantonese. There are now just some 60 officers left.

The last were recruited in 1994 when the force stopped hiring from overseas. They are expected to reach retirement age around 2028.

Steve Vickers, a former head of the colonial police’s Criminal Intelligence Bureau, left the force in 1993 ahead of the handover and has since set up a risk consultancy business.

He said expat officers remaining after the handover were useful because “continuity and confidence was maintained”.

“To that end, their presence was valuable, and indeed desirable,” he told AFP.

But he added that Hong Kong’s police force has since changed considerably, especially as Beijing asserts more authority over the city’s leaders.

“As the years have gone by, and China’s rise has been much more pronounced, the Hong Kong government became politicised in the years following the handover,” he said.

“This politicisation also affects the police.”

Many of the force’s bomb disposal experts are expat officers and won glowing local headlines last year for defusing a series of World War II-era bombs that were unearthed during construction works.

But some of their colleagues now find themselves facing a barrage of criticism.

Protesters and rights groups have accused police of excessive force while angry chants of “black cops” — a pun on a Cantonese phrase used to describe triads — have now become commonplace.

The outed expat officers are now increasingly portrayed as foot soldiers for an authoritarian China that wants to clamp down on Hong Kong’s unique freedoms.

During one protest earlier this month, democracy activist Joshua Wong spotted one and began berating him.

“You are British and you serve the interests of Beijing,” he cried.

Youth anger

Senior officers bristle at the way they have been portrayed — and reject the idea that they have used excessive force.

“Other western police forces have used far more force during crowd-control operations,” one officer told AFP.

“In Paris or New York we’d have seen way more injuries, fractured skulls and broken bones.”

Two other officers AFP spoke to mentioned recent rallies in France where anti-government “yellow vest” protesters say at least 23 people lost an eye, primarily from plastic bullets and baton rounds.

The senior officers said many had sympathies with those protesting peacefully, adding that police helped facilitate multiple mass rallies and had no say over policy.

“This whole situation has been created by the government through their mishandling of the extradition law,” one officer fumed.

“But I also recognise that there are many wider issues that haven’t been solved,” he said, citing inequality, spiralling property prices and youth disaffection.

“I think we also have to recognise there is also a small, hardcore element who just want to have a go at police and despise China.”

The United States on Tuesday announced sanctions on the Myanmar military’s Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing and other military leaders it said were responsible for extrajudicial killings of Rohingya Muslims, barring them from entry to the United States.

The steps, which also covered Min Aung Hlaing’s deputy, Soe Win, and two other senior commanders and their families, are the strongest the United States has taken in response to massacres of minority Rohingyas in Myanmar, also known as Burma. It named the two others as Brigadier Generals Than Oo and Aung Aung.

“We remain concerned that the Burmese government has taken no actions to hold accountable those responsible for human rights violations and abuses, and there are continued reports of the Burmese military committing human rights violations and abuses throughout the country,” US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement.

Pompeo said a recent disclosure that Min Aung Hlaing ordered the release of soldiers convicted of extrajudicial killings at the village of Inn Din during the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya in 2017 was “one egregious example of the continued and severe lack of accountability for the military and its senior leadership.”

“The Commander-in-Chief released these criminals after only months in prison, while the journalists who told the world about the killings in Inn Din were jailed for more than 500 days,” Pompeo said.

The Inn Din massacre was uncovered by two Reuters reporters, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who spent more than 16 months behind bars on charges of obtaining state secrets. The two were released in an amnesty on May 6.

The US announcement came on the first day of an international ministerial conference on religious freedom hosted by Pompeo at the State Department that was attended by Rohingya representatives.

“With this announcement, the United States is the first government to publicly take action with respect to the most senior leadership of the Burmese military,” said Pompeo, who has been a strong advocate of religious freedom.

“GROSS VIOLATIONS”

“We designated these individuals based on credible information of these commanders’ involvement in gross violations of human rights.”

A 2017 military crackdown in Myanmar drove more than 730,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee to neighbouring Bangladesh. UN investigators have said that Myanmar’s operation included mass killings, gang rapes and widespread arson and was executed with “genocidal intent.”

The State Department has so far stopped short of calling the abuses genocide, referring instead to ethnic cleansing and a “well-planned and coordinated” campaign of mass killings, gang rapes and other atrocities.

“He (Pompeo) has not come to the point at which he has decided to make a further determination. Generally our policies are focused on changing behaviour, promoting accountability, and we have taken today’s actions with those goals in mind,” a senior State Department official told reporters, asking not to be named.

The military in Myanmar, where Buddhism is the main religion, has denied accusations of ethnic cleansing and says its actions were part of a fight against terrorism.

A declaration of genocide by the US government could require Washington to impose even stronger sanctions on Myanmar, a country with which it has competed for influence with regional rival China.

The senior State Department official said Washington hoped the latest steps would strengthen the hand of the civilian government in Myanmar in its effort to amend the constitution to reduce military influence in politics.

“Our hope is that these actions … will help to further delegitimize the current military leadership, and can help the civilian government gain control of the military,” he said.

The Trump administration had thus far imposed sanctions on four military and police commanders and two army units involved in the abuses against the Rohingya and had been under pressure from US Congress to take tougher steps.

A United Nations investigator said this month that Myanmar security forces and insurgents were committing human rights violations against civilians that may amount to fresh war crimes.

The United States on Tuesday announced sanctions on the Myanmar military’s Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing and other military leaders it said were responsible for extrajudicial killings of Rohingya Muslims, barring them from entry to the United States.

The steps, which also covered Min Aung Hlaing’s deputy, Soe Win, and two other senior commanders and their families, are the strongest the United States has taken in response to massacres of minority Rohingyas in Myanmar, also known as Burma. It named the two others as Brigadier Generals Than Oo and Aung Aung.

“We remain concerned that the Burmese government has taken no actions to hold accountable those responsible for human rights violations and abuses, and there are continued reports of the Burmese military committing human rights violations and abuses throughout the country,” US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement.

Pompeo said a recent disclosure that Min Aung Hlaing ordered the release of soldiers convicted of extrajudicial killings at the village of Inn Din during the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya in 2017 was “one egregious example of the continued and severe lack of accountability for the military and its senior leadership.”

“The Commander-in-Chief released these criminals after only months in prison, while the journalists who told the world about the killings in Inn Din were jailed for more than 500 days,” Pompeo said.

The Inn Din massacre was uncovered by two Reuters reporters, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who spent more than 16 months behind bars on charges of obtaining state secrets. The two were released in an amnesty on May 6.

The US announcement came on the first day of an international ministerial conference on religious freedom hosted by Pompeo at the State Department that was attended by Rohingya representatives.

“With this announcement, the United States is the first government to publicly take action with respect to the most senior leadership of the Burmese military,” said Pompeo, who has been a strong advocate of religious freedom.

“GROSS VIOLATIONS”

“We designated these individuals based on credible information of these commanders’ involvement in gross violations of human rights.”

A 2017 military crackdown in Myanmar drove more than 730,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee to neighbouring Bangladesh. UN investigators have said that Myanmar’s operation included mass killings, gang rapes and widespread arson and was executed with “genocidal intent.”

The State Department has so far stopped short of calling the abuses genocide, referring instead to ethnic cleansing and a “well-planned and coordinated” campaign of mass killings, gang rapes and other atrocities.

“He (Pompeo) has not come to the point at which he has decided to make a further determination. Generally our policies are focused on changing behaviour, promoting accountability, and we have taken today’s actions with those goals in mind,” a senior State Department official told reporters, asking not to be named.

The military in Myanmar, where Buddhism is the main religion, has denied accusations of ethnic cleansing and says its actions were part of a fight against terrorism.

A declaration of genocide by the US government could require Washington to impose even stronger sanctions on Myanmar, a country with which it has competed for influence with regional rival China.

The senior State Department official said Washington hoped the latest steps would strengthen the hand of the civilian government in Myanmar in its effort to amend the constitution to reduce military influence in politics.

“Our hope is that these actions … will help to further delegitimize the current military leadership, and can help the civilian government gain control of the military,” he said.

The Trump administration had thus far imposed sanctions on four military and police commanders and two army units involved in the abuses against the Rohingya and had been under pressure from US Congress to take tougher steps.

A United Nations investigator said this month that Myanmar security forces and insurgents were committing human rights violations against civilians that may amount to fresh war crimes.

Four people have been killed and at least 12 others are feared trapped under rubble after a building collapsed as heavy monsoon rains lashed India’s financial capital Mumbai.

Two teams from India’s National Disaster Response Force, as well as local volunteers, the fire department and police officials are scouring the rubble for survivors.

Earlier, the head of the United Nations (UN), Antonio Guterres, said the UN is ready to assist countries in South Asia, where incessant monsoon rains have killed more than 180 people and displaced millions.

Four people have been killed and at least 12 others are feared trapped under rubble after a building collapsed as heavy monsoon rains lashed India’s financial capital Mumbai.

Two teams from India’s National Disaster Response Force, as well as local volunteers, the fire department and police officials are scouring the rubble for survivors.

Earlier, the head of the United Nations (UN), Antonio Guterres, said the UN is ready to assist countries in South Asia, where incessant monsoon rains have killed more than 180 people and displaced millions.