Hong Kong news 8 November

We've finally got internet in our house, so as I excitedly sat down to concisely issue you some Southeast Asian news, I realised that I'd forgotten to buy the bloody South China Morning Post (SCMP).

So, to tittle your taste for current affairs, see content from today's The Standard and The China Daily.

CHINA AND INTERNATIONAL
Forbes has announced that Hu Jintao (President of China) as the world's most powerful person. Shame, poor Barack Obama just can't win at the moment, can he?

Wen Jiabao (pretty much China's second most important person) is to visit Macau soon. Macau is similar to Hong Kong in the way that it was a (Portuguese, instead of British like HK) colony which is now Chinese again, but also it's own country with its own economy. The Standard seems to think that this is a warning to Hong Kong to do better (it doesn't flesh it out, really) but I doubt it. Wen is going to a conference called the Ministerial Conference of the Forum for Economic and Trade Cooperation between China and Portuguese-Speaking Countries which, to me, sounds like it has bugger all to do with HK. Interestingly, both Angola and Mozambique will be represented there - indications that China's African investments remain in motion.

China has had to back down from proposals of making all public transport in Guangzhou free in the lead up to the Asia Games later this month. Instead, the government will give all home owners in the city 150 yuan (R154) for commuting purposes. Cool hey?

This seems to be a problem in many countries around the world. China is running out of hospital beds as its population gets older and older. In countries like South Africa, most old people just die because our public health system is such a shambles. In Hong Kong, the healthcare is so good that old people get even older and the amount of money that public health costs is becoming a burden to the state (which is complete shit as there is bucketloads of money here). In China, it is getting to the point where news hospitals will have to be built, it seems.

HONG KONG
There's big kak and heads will roll after an Asian (of the Southeast Asia variety, not Middle Eastern) man wearing a mask transiting through Hong Kong Airport managed to illegally board a flight to Vancouver where he intended to seek asylum. Big problem was that nobody knows how he managed to screw the system, and now everyone is convinced that the new route to international terrorism is going to be through Hong Kong. Worse kak will be for the perpetrator who wanted asylum from China and will probably be deposited back there.

SPORT
Liverpool beat Chelsea last night so I am boycotting all sports sections of all newspapers and websites until I have recovered.