in Hong Kong the chief executive of the city, Carrie Lam,

has formally withdrawn a piece of legislation,

a very controversial extradition bill,

that would have allowed criminal suspects here in Hong Kong

to be extradited up across the border into mainland China

to face Communist party controlled courts.

The government will formally withdraw the bill in order

to fully allay public concerns.

People here, organisers of the protests and demonstrators

themselves, are all saying that this is far too little too

late.

She's only met one of the five demands

that they've been making.

The other demands are for full universal suffrage

in Hong Kong, for a rescinding the label of rioting

for some of the demonstrations that we've

seen, amnesty for people who have been arrested so far,

and a fully independent inquiry into alleged police brutality.

As one of the organisers said publicly,

if you have a small fire a small bowl of water

may be sufficient to extinguish that fire.

However, once the fire reaches the proportions of the Amazon

fires that we're seeing at the moment that same bowl of water

is completely useless.

Lingering violence is damaging the very foundations

of our society, especially the rule of law.

The other concern people have is that

by acting now after weeks of increasingly violent protests,

Carrie Lam appears to be rewarding that violence rather

than acting when the peaceful protests of millions of people

were calling for these exact same things.

Every indication is that we will see further street protests

in the coming weeks and months.

And as these protests continue, the chances

that Beijing will intervene directly are rising over time.