Hong Kongers sing protest anthem one year after major clashes

AFP / Anthony WALLACERiot police declared gatherings of pro-democracy Hong Kongers who sang a popular protest anthem unlawful assemblies, and made multiple arrests throughout the evening

Thousands of Hong Kongers sang a popular protest anthem and chanted slogans across the city Friday as they marked the first anniversary of major clashes between police and pro-democracy demonstrators.

Riot police declared the gatherings unlawful assemblies and a breach of anti-coronavirus bans on public meetings of large groups, sending snatch squads to make multiple arrests throughout the evening.

The financial hub's protest movement kicked off on June 9 last year with a huge march against an unpopular bill that would have allowed extraditions to the Chinese mainland.

But it was three days later that the first sustained clashes broke out between protesters and riot police firing tear gas outside the city's legislature.

AFP / DALE DE LA REYA protester holds a flag reading 'Free Hong Kong -- Revolution Now' in a shopping mall -- thousands took part in protests, defying a ban on public gatherings due to the coronavirus outbreak

Such scenes became a weekly, and at times daily, occurrence over the next seven months as Hong Kong was upended by unprecedented unrest fuelled by fears Beijing was eroding the semi-autonomous city's limited freedoms.

Hong Kong enjoys liberties unseen on the mainland as part of the "one country, two systems" deal made when colonial power Britain handed it back to China in 1997.

On Friday night, thousands answered online calls to gather at 8:00 pm (1200 GMT) in local malls and neighbourhoods to chant pro-democracy slogans and sing "Glory to Hong Kong" -- a protest anthem that became hugely popular during the turmoil.

Live television showed rallies taking place in half a dozen districts, defying the ban on public gatherings put in place because of the coronavirus outbreak.

AFP / ISAAC LAWRENCEHong Kong protesters light up their mobile phones while chanting slogans and singing songs to mark the first anniversary of major clashes between police and pro-democracy demonstrators

"I came here because our goals have not been achieved, so I have to continue coming out," a 28-year-old social worker, who gave his surname So, told AFP in Causeway Bay, a popular shopping district where hundreds had gathered.

"We have to tell the government that we won't give up, no matter how many of us are left," he added.

Police said a total of 35 people were arrested.

In the district of Kwun Tong, live broadcasts showed a man with a knife being subdued by protesters and then police. Police said the man had stabbed another person and was arrested.

- 'Panic-mongering' -

Demonstrators are pushing for an inquiry into police brutality, an amnesty for the roughly 9,000 people arrested over the protests and universal suffrage.

AFP / ISAAC LAWRENCEHong Kong police start a clearing operation as protesters gathered in Mong Kok district

China has refused and portrayed the protests as a foreign plot to destabilise the mainland.

Last month it unveiled plans to impose a new national security law on Hong Kong targeting subversion, succession, terrorism and foreign interference.

Beijing says the law will restore order.

AFP / Anthony WALLACEA Hong Kong pro-democracy demonstrator wears a mock bloodied bandage over one eye in honor of a female protester who lost her eye last year, allegedly struck by crowd control projectile fired by police

But critics, including many Western governments, fear it will bring mainland-style political oppression to a city supposedly guaranteed freedoms and autonomy for 50 years after its handover.

China has described Britain's concerns that the security law might undermine Hong Kong's autonomy as "groundless panic-mongering".

The comments came a day after Britain renewed its call for an independent inquiry to "rebuild trust" and heal divisions.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying dismissed British concerns as "unwarranted foreign interference in Hong Kong's affairs" that "will only make China more determined in advancing the national security legislation for Hong Kong," state-run Xinhua news agency reported late Friday.

AFP / Anthony WALLACEPro-democracy protesters rally in a shopping mall in Hong Kong

In an earlier rally Friday, more than 100 students formed a human chain outside a school where a teacher was reportedly fired because she allowed a candidate to play "Glory to Hong Kong" in a music exam.

The rallies since Beijing announced its national security law plans have been smaller and less violent than last year.

On Tuesday, flash mob rallies were held to mark the one-year anniversary of the start of protests.

A week ago, tens of thousands defied the public gathering ban to peacefully mark the anniversary of Beijing's June 4, 1989 deadly crackdown on students in Tiananmen Square.

At least 13 prominent activists have since received court summons for inciting unlawful assemblies.

AFP / Anthony WALLACEHong Kong police detained protesters in the city's Causeway Bay district on the one-year anniversary of major clashes between police and pro-democracy demonstrators

Amnesty International called the charges "the latest assault on freedom of expression and peaceful assembly in the city" in a statement on Friday.

"With China's Orwellian national security law coming, the Hong Kong authorities appear emboldened to ramp up repression of critical voices," said Man-Kei Tam, the rights group's Hong Kong director.

Protests show 'progress' on diversity, says 'Star Trek' icon Takei

GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File / Christopher PolkDrawing on his childhood in US wartime internment camps, and decades trapped in the closet due to Hollywood homophobia, George Takei urged youth to stand firm on minority rights

George Takei, the pioneering Asian American "Star Trek" actor and LGBTQ icon, said massive anti-racism protests this month show the US is "making progress" on diversity, but warned the pandemic is renewing deep-rooted prejudices.

Speaking to AFP ahead of his address at the University of California Los Angeles' virtual commencement Friday, Takei said the tens of thousands marching over George Floyd's death in police custody inspired confidence in the next generation.

But -- drawing on his childhood in US wartime internment camps, and decades trapped in the closet due to Hollywood homophobia -- he urged youth to stand firm on minority rights.

"We are making progress, but that involves active participation," he said.

"As a society, we are moving, inching forward."

The star best known for playing Sulu in the original "Star Trek" has spent decades campaigning for social justice.

At 83, he is not marching this time, but the protests remind him of the 1960s, when he met Martin Luther King, Jr. after performing in civil rights musical "Fly Blackbird."

"He said, thank you very much, and especially you, as an Asian man -- I was the sole Asian in that cast, I usually was back then," said Takei. "There weren't other Asians involved in the civil rights movement."

Now, with young people of all backgrounds marching against racism, Takei praised the next crop of activists.

"You, the infinitely diverse hi-tech class have the whole of human history, the glorious and the ugly, as your launching pad," he said later in his UCLA address.

"Stretch as far as you can," he added. "Boldly go where no one has gone before."

- 'Categorized as aliens' -

But, speaking to AFP, Takei warned the coronavirus pandemic is exposing racism beyond prejudice against the black community -- such as against Asian Americas, fueled by President Donald Trump's references to the "Chinese virus."

"In the New York subway, an Asian American woman was spat at... in Texas, an Asian American family was stabbed by this person, because they 'brought the virus to this country'" he said.

It serves as a painful reminder of the years Takei's Japanese-origin family spent in World War II internment camps in the US.

"My history is being repeated again, in this day and age, because of this pandemic," he said.

"I was born right here in Los Angeles, California... we're Americans," he said. "And yet, we were categorized as aliens simply because we look like the people that bombed Pearl Harbor."

Soldiers with bayonets on their rifles forced Takei's family from their home and into "barbed wire prison camps."

"I don't mean to compare my background with the graduating generation, but they have uncertainty in their lives," he said.

- 'Torturous' -

The coronavirus has also meant Pride parades set for this weekend commemorating the "Stonewall riots" have largely been scrapped.

The June 1969 riots sparked by repeated police raids on the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in New York's Greenwich Village, proved a turning point in the gay rights struggle.

Takei expressed regret at remaining "silent" on LGBT rights until he was spurred to come out by then-California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's veto of same-sex marriage in 2005.

He had feared losing acting jobs -- "Star Trek" was canceled in 1969, the same year as Stonewall, leaving him in need of work.

"I was closeted most of my adult life... that was torturous. I wanted to speak out," Takei added.

Ironically, the cult actor said coming out has increased his job offers, including multiple cameos as himself in sitcoms such as "The Big Bang Theory."

But issues of racism, police brutality, and a row involving Harry Potter author JK Rowling this week in which she was accused of transphobia, serve as poignant reminders of the progress still needed, said Takei.

"The root of this kind of bias is all the same, whether it's race, or race combined with war in our case, or by gender identification, it's the same," he said.

"It's hate -- irrational hate."

America's original sin: Floyd death prompts historical soul-searching

AFP/File / Joseph PreziosoA decapitated statue of Christopher Columbus in Boston, Massachusetts

Confederate monuments are coming down and statues of Christopher Columbus are being toppled as Americans grapple with the ghosts of the country's racial history in the wake of George Floyd's death.

"It seems like maybe we've hit a tipping point in the retelling of the narrative of who we are as an American people," said David Farber, a history professor at the University of Kansas.

"We're seeing tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions, of Americans wrestling with fundamental questions of what do we do with the unsavory -- and, let's be frank, even immoral -- aspects of our past."

The May 25 killing of Floyd, an African American, by a white police officer in Minneapolis has ignited mass protests for racial justice and police reform across the United States.

But the death of the 46-year-old has also triggered a national soul-searching of the country's checkered past.

Demonstrators in several US cities have targeted monuments to generals and politicians of the pro-slavery Civil War South, pulling down a statue in Richmond, for example, of Jefferson Davis, the Confederate president during the 1861-1865 conflict.

"The symbols of the Confederacy are, I think, the most polarizing of these memorials. But it extends all over the United States," Farber said.

"In New York it's statues to Columbus. In New Mexico, there's a statue of a conquistador who's a genocidal figure in the eyes of the Pueblo Indian people.

"There's high schools all over the United States named for John Calhoun," a former vice president who was an avowed proponent of slavery.

- 'Public outcry' -

AFP/File / Ryan M. KellyA statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee has become a target of racial justice protesters following the death of George Floyd

Farber noted that the debate over Confederate memorials has been going on for years and civil rights marchers of the 1950s and 1960s decried the fact that they were "walking down streets named after avowed racists and white supremacists."

The efforts to remove Confederate monuments gathered momentum after a white supremacist shot dead nine African Americans at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015.

"The pace of it is now increasing because of public demand and public outcry," said Andra Gillespie, an associate professor of political science at Emory University.

"What I think we're seeing is a reexamination of lots of our assumptions and a challenging of various forms of history as it affects African Americans," Gillespie said.

"This is a moment where the focus is on anti-black racism but it is not excluding other forms of racial oppression," she said.

Laura Edwards, a Duke University history professor, said "it's sinking in to people that these symbols have political meaning and are problematic in ways they had not fully appreciated.

"It's less easy to call this heritage, for instance," Edwards said in a reference to arguments often used by opponents of removing Confederate symbols who claim it is erasing a proud Southern history.

Edwards said she was "blown away" when the NASCAR race car franchise banned the display of the Confederate flag at its events.

"Amongst all the sports it was the one that embraced what they imagined to be white Southern heritage," she said.

"Symbols associated with white supremacy and the Confederacy had been part of their brand."

- 'Broader reckoning' -

AFP/File / Parker Michels-BoyceA statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis lies in the street after protesters pulled it down in Richmond, Virginia

The toppling of Confederate statues and those of Columbus are "very much related," Edwards said, in that both embody the "violent colonization of the United States."

"The first part was Europeans coming and making claims to a place that belonged to indigenous people and then engaging in genocide to wipe them away."

That was followed by the importation of slaves from Africa -- what Alan Kraut, a history professor at American University, called "the original sin that we've never been able to get beyond."

"What we're seeing now is a revision of history in response to a political moment," Kraut said, although "this reassessment has been going on for a while."

"Statues were already being discussed and removed," he added. "George Floyd's death served as a catalyst to do it dramatically and to do it quickly."

Steven White, an assistant professor of political science at Syracuse University, said people are "rethinking racism in American history more broadly."

"You're kind of seeing this broader reckoning," White said.

"I think for a growing number of white Americans you are seeing more attention paid to the longer-term reasons that racial inequality persists in America," he said.

"I guess the question is whether these changes in public opinion will last," White said. "Is this the beginning of a really substantial shift?"

Fight the Power: the soundtrack of US anti-racism protests

GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File / Rich FuryRapper YG -- shown here at a Los Angeles protest on June 7, 2020 -- released a new song "FTP" that has become an anthem of Black Lives Matter demonstrations

Anti-racism protesters have rolled out a creative batch of chants to soundtrack the ongoing US demonstrations, but both fresh music and timeless classics are also front and center.

Rapper YG's recently released "FTP" has become a de-facto anthem for the thousands of people pouring into the streets, whose demands include sweeping reforms of law enforcement after the latest death in custody of an unarmed black man, George Floyd.

Spotify's "Black Lives Matter" playlist -- a 66-track song list that includes justice-minded hits from James Brown, Killer Mike, Nina Simone, NWA, Childish Gambino, Beyonce and Kendrick Lamar -- has won over nearly one million subscribers.

And the streaming platform's daily "Viral 50" list has seen classics like Gil Scott Heron's "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" -- a spoken-word song from 1970 whose title came from a slogan used by US Black Power movements -- break into the top 10.

Public Enemy's "Fight the Power" has also seen a resurgence.

GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File / Anna WebberThe late musician Gil Scott-Heron, shown here at Coachella in 2010, has had a comeback on Spotify, where his protest music is in the spotlight

The Prince estate meanwhile released a new video centered on police brutality for the late artist's song "Baltimore," which he originally wrote and released in 2015 following the death in police custody of Freddie Gray, who was black.

Singer Trey Songz released the gospel-tinged song "2020 Riots: How Many Times," in response to the recent wave of protests, while folk and soul singer Leon Bridges released "Sweeter," a meditation on racism.

"The death of George Floyd was the straw that broke the camel's back for me," Bridges, who was born in Texas, posted.

"I have been numb for too long, calloused when it came to the issues of police brutality," he said.

"It was the first time I wept for a man I never met. I am George Floyd, my brothers are George Floyd, and my sisters are George Floyd. I cannot and will not be silent any longer."

- 'Sound of America' -

GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File / Ethan MillerLeon Bridges, shown here in 2019, is among the artists to release protest-minded music in the wake of mass protests

For Fredara Hadley, an ethnomusicology professor at the Juilliard School, the black experience has long been the primary driver behind protest music in the US, from abolitionists latching on to spirituals to the 1960s Civil Rights movement powered by jazz, rock, soul and R&B.

"Black music and black ambitions were allowed to occupy spaces that... the general black population could not," she said. "It served as an ambassador and avatar of blackness in complicated kinds of ways."

"You had those musicians writing music that directly responded to and was engaged with whatever was happening in the movement."

Kendrick Scott, a New York-based jazz drummer, recently composed an instrumental piece that he mixed with audio of George Floyd's dying words and protesters chanting his name.

He said that while writing, he imagined himself on the front lines of the protest, playing his drums in front of the police "with everybody behind me saying his name."

Using Floyd's own words was painful, Scott said, but "I wanted people to have that visceral reaction of really feeling that, not just imagining it."

"I just wanted to use my instrument, and my voice -- which I think is what I do best -- in working for change," he added.

Hadley said the internet age gives artists and listeners "this direct way of being in dialogue with the moment."

GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File / RICK DIAMONDDrummer Kendrick Scott, shown here at the 2013 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Music Festival, composed a new song set to protest chants

"You have this ongoing dialogue which says there is no distance between black musicians and black communities," she explained.

"They can be our amplifiers, our chroniclers -- help us memorialize what we've lost."

Scott agreed, saying black music is one of the United States' most vibrant exports.

"I travel around the world, and I hear black American music everywhere in every corner," he said.

"Black American music is the sound of America."

New Zealand removes statue of controversial colonist

AFP / MICHAEL BRADLEYA crane hoists the sculpture of Captain John Fane Charles Hamilton from the city square after requests from Maori and threats from anti-racism protesters to topple it

The New Zealand city of Hamilton on Friday tore down a statue of the colonial military commander after whom it was named, joining a growing list of places worldwide that are reckoning with their past.

A crane hoisted the bronze sculpture of Captain John Fane Charles Hamilton from the town square after requests from local Maori and threats from anti-racism protesters to topple it.

A small group of cheering spectators looked on.

Hamilton City Council acknowledged the statue's extraction was part of a push to remove memorials "which are seen to represent cultural disharmony and oppression" sparked by global anti-racism protests.

"I know many people -– in fact, a growing number of people –- find the statue personally and culturally offensive," mayor Paula Southgate said.

"We can't ignore what is happening all over the world and nor should we. At a time when we are trying to build tolerance and understanding... I don't think the statue helps us to bridge those gaps."

Hamilton was a naval commander who fought indigenous Maori defending their land against British colonial expansion in the 19th century.

He died at the Battle of Pukehinahina, or Gate Pa, in 1864, when -- in an early example of trench warfare -- a group of Maori in a fortified encampment successfully fended off British troops and artillery, despite being outnumbered.

The statue was donated to the council in 2013 and the council said its removal came after a formal request from the regional iwi, or tribe, Waikato-Tainui.

- 'He's a monster' -

Anti-racism protesters had vowed to tear it down at a demonstration this weekend, with activist Taitimu Maipi labelling Hamilton a murderer.

"How can we accept that he's a hero when he's a monster who led battles," Maipi told the Waikato Times.

Waikato-Tainui praised the statue's removal, saying it was discussing other problematic colonial names and symbols with Hamilton council, including the prospect of restoring the city's original Maori name Kirikiriroa.

"This was a devastating time for our people and these injustices of the past should not be a continual reminder as we look to grow and develop our beautiful city into the future," iwi chairman Rukumoana Schaafhausen said.

Hamilton council said the fate of the British commander's statue and what, if anything, should replace it were still under discussion.

Statues and place names honouring figures such as slavers and colonial military figures are being reassessed worldwide in response to anti-racism protests sparked by the police killing of African American man George Floyd.

Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters said removing depictions of historic figures was part of "a wave of idiocy" that would prevent future generations learning from past mistakes.

"Why do some woke New Zealanders feel the need to mimic mindless actions imported from overseas?" said Peters, who leads the populist New Zealand First Party, a coalition partner in Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's government.

"A self-confident country would never succumb to obliterating symbols of their history, whether it be good or bad or simply gone out of fashion."

Ardern has not yet weighed in on the statue debate but last year ordered that study of the conflict between Maori and British colonialists, known as the New Zealand wars, become compulsory in all schools.

#CASINOCAPITALISM 

Bankrupt Hertz gets approval to sell up to $1 billion in stock — but experts expect equity to be wiped out

‘This is not investing. It is gambling,’ says one CIO, while CreditSights says it’s a ‘head scratcher’

Published: June 13, 2020 By Claudia Assis and  Joy Wiltermuth

A Hertz shuttle bus picks up customers at the Los Angeles airport in August. BLOOMBERG NEWS/LANDOV

The market dislocation wrought by the coronavirus pandemic has a poster child in Hertz Global Holdings Inc.

A bankruptcy court late Friday approved Hertz’s HTZ, +37.37% request to sell up to $1 billion in stock. The car-rental company appears to be seizing on a wave of intense, speculative interest in its shares since it declared bankruptcy late last month, drowning in debt and hit hard by the global restrictions on travel designed to slow to spread of the coronavirus.


Hertz stock topped a popularity chart among Robinhood app users on Friday.



The selling of new shares would be “a head scratcher,” analysts at Credisights said in a note before the court decision. Hertz got a delisting notice this week and an even more compelling negative is “being in chapter 11 with unsecured bonds at a very steep discount,” the analysts said.


“Unless a genie or a lamp showed up the collateral pool, we expect the eventual equity value will be zero,” the CreditSights analysts said.

Investors eyeing Hertz might be some of the same who have been buying “deep value ‘penny-like’ stocks” on Robinhood, said Nancy Tengler, chief investment officer at Laffer Tengler Investments, also ahead of the decision.


“This is not investing. It is gambling,” she said.

“This is for the quick buck crowd, not long-term investors,” Tengler went on. Before Friday’s decision, there was no similar precedent, she said.

Even so, the proposed stock sale still needs to spell out that “any money put into this company could be a total loss,” said Amy Lynch, a former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission staffer and founder of FrontLine Compliance, which advises institutional money managers on compliance issues.

“The disclosures would have to be air tight in order to avoid lawsuits in the future,” Lynch told MarketWatch.


Hertz stock has nearly tripled in June, and gained 10% this week, the Wednesday delisting notice from the New York Stock Exchange notwithstanding. The stock fell around 3% in the extended session on Friday after the court decision’s news, but ended the regular trading day up 37%.

The shares hit an all-time closing low of 56 cents on May 26, a few days after the company’s May 22 bankruptcy filing and a far cry from their Aug. 2014 record closing high of at $110.61. The next day, they logged their largest one-day increase ever, jumping 136%.

Recent average volume has been more than 16 times the volumes before the filing. Notably, Carl Icahn took the first opportunity after the filing to sell all of his stake at a steep loss.

Hertz’s motion to the bankruptcy court characterized the potential equity sale as an opportunity for the debtors to raise capital on better terms. The company did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Hertz is No. 1 at a popularity list at Robintrack, a site that tracks activity on the Robinhood app.

“From our vantage point, the 30-handle unsecured bond prices should create some reconsideration of equity upside for a company in chapter 11. We are old fashioned that way,” the CreditSights analysts said.

Hertz’s most widely traded October 2022 corporate bonds were changing hands at an average price of about 40.50 cents on the dollar Friday, a plunge from nearly 100 cents on the dollar at the start of March, according to bond trading and pricing platform MarketAxess. Bonds often are considered distressed once they trade below 70 cents on the dollar.

“We think this deal would be more robbing from the misinformed to give to the senior secured," they said.

Hertz allowed to sell $1 bn in shares despite bankruptcy

AFP/File / SAUL LOEBHertz has been given permission to sell $1 billion in shares even after it filed for bankruptcy in the US and Canada

Coronavirus-hit car rental company Hertz was granted permission Friday to sell $1 billion in shares, an extraordinary move after it declared bankruptcy in the United States and Canada.

The unusual green light was given by a bankruptcy court in the US state of Delaware, which "held a hearing and approved the Motion," according to documents filed by Hertz with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The company says it will sell the shares at its discretion in terms of timing and volume.

Hertz is trying to capitalize on a surge in its volatile stock price since it filed for bankruptcy on May 23.

Trading at less than a dollar at the end of last week, shares are now worth three times as much, even peaking at $5.53 at the beginning of the week.

On Friday the stock climbed 37.38 percent during the day, but fell 10.5 percent to $2.53 at 2130 GMT in after-market trading.

Traditionally, shares of bankrupt companies lose value with debt repayment taking precedence.

Experts say in Hertz's case, however, the price has been affected by the abundance of cheap money flooding the economy after the US Federal Reserve turned on the tap to combat the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

Traders after a good deal are also playing a role.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Hertz -- which filed for bankruptcy after lockdowns imposed to stop the spread of COVID-19 devastated the car rental industry -- is buried under $19 billion in debt.

Virus mine closures stir unease in Poland's rust belt

AFP / Wojtek RADWANSKIA spike in reported coronavirus cases at coal mines such as the Ruch Zofiowka plant has put the country on edge but locals worried about jobs are playing down the health crisis

A spike in reported coronavirus cases in Poland's coal mines has put the country on edge but residents worried about jobs are playing down the health crisis.

The issue is particularly sensitive ahead of a hard-fought presidential election on June 28 in Poland, where miners are still a powerful voting bloc.

Dominik Kolorz, head of the Solidarity trade union for the Silesian coal basin, told AFP he was concerned the increase in virus cases could serve as a pretext for the definitive closure of some mines.

"We hope the government will go on to restore the mining sector," Kolorz told AFP, speaking in Katowice in southern Poland, the regional capital of Silesia.

Miners and their families accounted for a high proportion of recent cases of coronavirus diagnosed in Poland, prompting the government to suspend work at 12 mines until the end of June.

AFP / Wojtek RADWANSKIThe virus can spread quickly in mines' cramped conditions, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has warned -- but one mining spokesman said cases detected at his company have mostly been mild or asymptomatic

All of them belong to the JSW mining group and the PGG conglomerate -- Europe's two biggest coal companies -- and employ thousands of people.

Poland depends on coal for 80 percent of its power needs but the closures are not expected to affect energy production as it has ample stockpiles.

Its reliance on the dirty fossil fuel is a thorny issue within the European Union, with Warsaw refusing to implement the bloc's target of going carbon neutral by 2050.

It has demanded more time to switch to green energy -- perhaps up to 2070 according to some sources.

- Virus 'attacking the mines' -

At JSW's Knurow-Szczyglowice mine, workers arriving for their shifts just before the suspension could be seen undergoing temperature checks and using hand sanitiser.

A large orange emergency tent stood nearby and signs instructed employees to wear masks at all times in a region that has become the epicentre of the coronavirus crisis in Poland.

The virus is "attacking in the mines" where cramped working conditions mean it can spread quickly, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Tuesday.

But Slawomir Starzynski, a spokesman for the JSW mining group, emphasised that the cases detected at his company have mostly been mild or asymptomatic.

AFP / Wojtek RADWANSKIIn the Silesia, the prevailing concern among miners is the future of their jobs

"Of the 3,000-some employees from our mines who tested positive for coronavirus, only three or four had to be hospitalised," he said.

Poland introduced anti-virus lockdown measures relatively early in March, which could account for its lower death toll from the disease than those of some western European countries.

It recorded 28,577 confirmed coronavirus cases, including 1,222 deaths as of Friday.

The government began easing restrictions last month, reopening restaurants, upping the public gathering limit to 150 people and scrapping the face mask requirement for those abiding by social distancing rules.

Campaigning ahead of the rescheduled presidential election is also in full swing.

The ballot was originally scheduled for May 10 but was postponed at the last minute because of the pandemic.

AFP / Wojtek RADWANSKIA security worker checks the temperature of a van driver arriving at the Ruch Zofiowka coal mineat Jastrzebie Zdroj, southern Poland

But Health Minister Lukasz Szumowski has warned that the sharp rise in cases could mean restrictions being re-introduced nationwide to stop the spread.

But in Silesia, the prevailing concern among miners was the future of their jobs.

As he arrived for his shift at the Knurow mine, Krzysztof, 40, said: "I don't know what to think.

"The mine is working fine. I don't know why they're closing it.