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 (afternoon) news 13 October

Today's interpretation of the news. Nothing made up or unsubstantiated of course.

CHINA AND INTERNATIONAL
In an open letter, a group of Chinese ex-politicians and leaders has lambasted China's attitude toward freedom of speech, even comparing it to the colonial era in Hong Kong and Macau (which was colonised by the Portuguese) where democratic rights were established. This is important, because it includes censorship of "Premier Wen Jiabao's repeated calls for political reform and deprive the people their right to learn about it". In fact, a speech which Jiabao made in Shenzen about this topic had parts deleted before it could be considered by the Chinese media. Lots of open letters like this are published in China which usually achieves nothing bar the signatories getting into hot water with the government, however, the high profile nature of the people who signed this doc means they will probably all be fine. Weirdly enough, two people who signed this letter previously worked for the CCP - the Central Propaganda Department. Go figure.

China, her neighbours (meaning the Yank's floozees, South Korea and Japan) and the USA are on the verge of having a squawk about China's actions on the South China Sea. China reckons aggrieved parties (meaning South Korea and Japan) should deal directly wth Beijing. Washington said that it is committed to coming up with a multilateral solution (meaning China should back the fuck up and let South Korea and Japan do what they want before they cock around with easy and cheap US-shipping routes, I'd imagine). Its going to boil down to China telling the States to go away, and the States saying no.

HONG KONG
The Hong Kong SAR government expressed disappointment that the President of the Philippines, Benigno Aquino, has officially announced that he will not prosecute all the officials who cocked up so badly during the hostage situation in Manila which left 8 Hong Kongers dead. Instead, because they are buddies of his, he is going to blame two journalists and aim some tiny charges at high ranking offials.

Cathay Pacific, Hong Kong's airline, over the last two years installed these fancy economy class seats so that passengers could recline without disturbing people sitting behind them. They have moved them off aircraft that serve long haul destinations because of the amount of people who claimed they are uncomfortable. Bully for you complainers... like economy class on all airlines isn't uncomfortable.

I have mentioned Lau Wong-fat before. He is the oke who owns 700-odd properties in Hong Kong and always seems to be in some sort of shit. Well, ithappened again. It was found out that he has leased one of his plots of land to an illegal paint-balling business. Being the owner, he is partly culpable. Oh and he's also a bigwig in government. Corruption is rife around the world, my pretties.

Donald Tsang, CEO of Legco will make some yearly address tomorrow. Listening to a politician speak is totally the most engrossing thing ever, innit?

SPORT
South Korea was given the green light by the FIA during its pre-Grand Prix inspection.

The only story in sport today relevant to Hong Kong is that Colin Montgomerie will be playing in the Hong Kong Open next month. Wank wank wank. He's won it before though.

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.