Hong Kong news 15 October

Apologies for the lack of news yesterday, but my one-eyed reporting was compromised by my need to go out for dinner. Never fear: I have covered two days' worth of news today.

Please note the change in the title. My mornings are getting quite busy (due to the extra sleep I am getting) so I'll post the news whenever I feel like it. This is from the South China Morning Post (SCMP), a pro-Beijing English daily. Actually, it's the top selling English newspaper in Hong Kong and is about as objective as The Citizen/Daily Mail.

The Singapore skyline. Image hakked from finmath.uchicago.edu. Thanks folks.

CHINA AND INTERNATIONAL
Singapore's economy laughed off the recession as it grew 18.1% in the first half of this year which is the greatest increase since records began in 1975. How weird that these British colonies are better at British things than the British are...? Banking and economics in this case.

Beijing will spend 4 trillion yuang (which is about 4.1 trillion ronts) over five years across key industries: energy, materials, IT, biology and new medicine, aerospace, marine, manufacturing and hi-tech services. How cool would it be if China joined the space race?

The dollar weakend to its lowest level in recent times yesterday, including dropping to 81 Japanese yen. The Hong Kong Dollar is pegged to the US Dollar so the debate as to whether it should be unpegged is raging again, although HK CEO, Donald Tsang says that it is a lifeline (or some such shitty analogy) and that the currencies will remain pegged.

HONG KONG
Chief Executive, Donald Tsang Yam Kuen (basically the president of Hong Kong) gave his penultimate policy address on Thursday. Hong Kong's biggest social problem is housing. Poor people cannot afford to live here because the huge demand for houses, and the trickling supply of them forces the prices sky high. Tsang proposed two initiatives to help people with housing. The first being a rent-to-buy where purchasers rent a property for a fixed term and then decide to buy it - the rent they've paid counts as money spent towards buying the house. The second initiative is to make 20 000 property units available every year to keep the property prices at an acceptable level. Critics believe that neither of these initiatives will work, and as this is the "We love the Chinese Government" English mouthpiece, the SCMP has quoted every critic it can find. At length.

A cab driver was arrested for taking advantage of drunk people who wound up in his taxi in the early hours of the morning. A stiff sentence - 32 months in prison - for stealing from 10 different passengers (wallets and phones and things) while they lay passed out in his car is reflective of the fact that I am not going to flout the law here.

Property magnate and government employee, Lau Wong-fat, the Hong Kong government's Peter Mandelson, a man who's crookedness seems to be reported on every day, has received the backing of Donald Tsang, the HK CEO. Lau Wong-fat probablty owns Tsang's house.

Donald Tsang has promised to table a bill regulating working hours. In yesterday's paper, a woman didn't qualify for a public transport discount because she worked less than 72 hours per week... so there are people that work more than that. Seriaas. It pays to be on the correct side of colonialism, doesn't it?

50%-60% of Hong Kong's waste is recycled. I find this very hard to believe. But the greenies don't even think that's high enough as South Korea allegedly recycles 90% of its waste.

An anonymous threat grounded 14 Cathay Pacific flights (13 passenger, 1 cargo) yesterday. It was later found to be a hoax. I hope they catch this anonymous caller and castrate him (or de-tit her). There is nothing more infuriating. Well, an actual bomb I suppose...

SPORT
China will be sending over 1500 participants to the Asian Games in Guangzhou next month. Insanity.

There is absolutely no sport news regarding Hong Kong. It's all Liverpool, baseball, Chinese basketball... so you'll have to wait I'm afraid. I think the Hong Kong Sixes cricket squads have been announced though, so let me see what I can dig up. Keep an eye on twitter.

Hong Kong morning news - 11 October

Please read for a completely unbiased ad objective interpretation of the news emanating from this morning's South China Morning Post:

Unsurprisingly, the big news out here at the moment is the Chinese chap, Liu Xiaobo, who won the Nobel Prize for Peace but rots in a prison cell (you know how dangerous advocating democracy can be, right?). The new controversey, though, is what has happened to his wife, Liu Xia. Some sources say she ran, some say she is being detained at her apartment in Beijing, and some say she's been detained elsewhere. The SCMP quotes Freedom Now, a Washington-based human rights organisation as saying that Liu Xia hasn't been charged with a crime, but she is under house arrest and barred from speaking with friends or to the media.

Every city has its thing that bugs it the most: in Joburg it's crime, in London it's immigration, in Cape Town it's poor people... in Hong Kong it's very much property. 7 million people live in this city that's pretty tiny space-wise. So property, as you can imagine, is hecka expensive, and property dealers are the super rich folks here. But like seriously expensive and kak rich, respectively. So it's always pretty cool when a launch from a rich-ass property company fails somewhat because people won't pay HK$5.7 million (about R5.2 million) for a 401 square foot (37.2square metres) flat - that's R140 000 per square metre. Only two fo the 96 flats were sold. Yee ha!

If you want an example of a property tycoon in this part of the world, a chap called Lau Wong-fat is in kak for failing to disclose all his assets as he now has some involvement with Legco, Hong Kong's kind of parliamentry government board. Well, he accidentally forgot 390 plots of land, bringing his total of land plots and property up to 724, in this city where accommodation is so hard to come by...

137 couples were married yesterday because they wanted the 10-10-10 notable date for some or other reason. (To put that into perspective, though, there were over 10 000 weddings in Shanghai yesterday.) Also, in yesterday's newsaper, McDonalds (at selected branches) will be offering McWeddings. People can rock up, pay cheap, get everyone fed, sort out the nuptuals, and then go home. It's yet another indication that people in Hong Kong seem to take weddings really seriously.

In sport, Hong Kong are looking forward to the Rugby Sevens at the Asian Games in Guangzhou next month, even though they've been drawn in the same group as Japan, the only Asian team to beat them in the last two years. Due to the structure of the tournament, though, the two teams could still meet in the final of the competition.

Hong Kong morning news - 8 October

Courtesy of the South China Morning Post (SCMP) and The Standard.

First up, as if you needed any more sticks with which to poke the SCMP in the eye, this insert came with the paper today. What excellent use of juxtaposition and irony putting this word next to this picture.



Remember that hostage bus situation in the Phillipines a few weeks ago? Well, 8 of the victims who died were Hong Kongers, so it's quite the emotional situation here from what the papers have to say this morning, as both carry front page news about it today. The basic premise is this: The Filipino government botched the whole rescue operation and ordered an inquiry afterwards after what The Standard called an "international outcry". The results of the inquiry were released and blamed a few members of government who happen to be buddy buddy with the President Aquino, so El Presidente has decided to blame two journalists who interviewed the killer. This is pissing Hong Kongers off as they want justice for the murdered victims of their city/country/special administrative area.

Derick Chan Po-fui, head of ICBC, China's biggest commercial bank lender by market capitalisation, has been busted for accepting HK$3.3million (about R3.6milion) of bribes to extenda client's loan repayment window. Although Chan is a Hong Konger, ICBC is a Chinese partly state-owned bank so he's in massive shit. Two others, Zhang Enzhao and Liu Jinbao, have been caught accepting bribes at state-owned banks, and were dished out 15 years in prison and a suspended death penalty sentence respectively. Corruption is a big deal here - one should not ever fuck with the Chinese government.

The USA has cancelled the visit of one of its aircraft carriers to Hong Kong. Washington swears it has nothing to do with diplomatic objections from Beijing and is because of "operational reasons". And my bum is a brinjal.

These two headlines are on the same page of the SCMP today: "Dumped baby may have lived briefly" and "Helper admits killing baby after birth in toilet". A pretty strong newsday for infanticide, wouldn't you say? Terrible, terrible. The baby in the first story was found in a plastic bag on a hillside. The "helper" who killed the baby in the second story threw the child out of a window. Stunning.

A passenger oin a Qantas flight from Melbourne to Hong Kong had to be restrained and hand cuffed to his seat because he threatened to open the aeroplane door while they were in mid flight. I can advise you from personal experience that this is NOT the case on Qatar Airways where staff initially thought I was joking, then didn't actually know what to do when they realised that the girl on drugs behind me really had plans to do so. Not my best flight.

Graham McDowell, Ryder Cup hero, will join Rory McIlroy in November's Hong Kong Open golf tournament. Golf is popular in Asia, and the Open here is sanctioned by the European Tour so it's great news all round for HK golf fans.

Roger Federer backed Hong Kong to be the host of the 2023 Asian Games while on a stopover en route to Shanghai. "I won't ever play in the Asian Games but sport is always good for a city". He also went on to mention that his double gold in the Olympics in Beijing was one of the finest moments of his career. A man endorses a tournament he can't play in and then tells a story about a different city... pretty pointless endorsement all round then, eh?