I have no internet at home and am relying on that provided by the coffee shop down the street. The speed of the internet here is about as fast as a blood clot and I don't have the paper on me, so we are going to be relying on the China Daily (a government controlled Chinese newspaper) and The Standard which is the Hong Kong equivalent of The Metro (in London).
CHINA AND INTERNATIONAL
The lead story in today's China Daily is the beginning of the census which is intended to work out how many people live in each house in China (which previous censuses? censi? have not done). How'sthe scale of things in China though? 6.5 million census takers are to process 400 million households and this whole speel will cost 700 million yuan (729 million ronts). The last census done in 2000 showed that the country contained 1.29 billion people.
Wen Jiabao proclaimed the New York Expo in Shanghai (I dunno - go figure) was a great event and blah blah which it obviously was, as I am told by Mike who attended it in June (while the rest of us were football befok). What we do know is that anything that the pro-democracy Jiabao says goes through loads of editing and the censorship department so I take what he is quoted on with a pinch of salt. Always.
The Prime Minister of Japan really knows how to piss China off. The two countries are already at loggerheads over disputed territories and now the PM has gone to visit Taiwan. Taiwan is an interesting place (nutshell version) as it was formed by a bunch of angry folks who left China after the commies won the civil war in 1949. Weirdly enough, Taiwan calls itself the Republic of China (the people who ran China before having their arses handed to them by thecommunists) and still sees itself as China's legitimate government. Imperialism (this knack of just renaming things) means we think they are two different countries with different names, but there has never been an official split between China and Taiwan. Oh, my point is that there is a bit of argy bargy between Taiwan and China, so the Japanese PM visiting there is bad PR.
HONG KONG
Cafe de Coral is Hong Kong's largest food outlet chain and has finally decided to raise its workers' wages, but at the expense of a paid lunch break, which, according to The Standard is equivalent to a pay cut. This is the most capitalistic society in which I have ever found myself so I can't say I'm surprised. The people who feel the strongest about it have started a facebook group and an online petition about it which I expect to achieve absolutely fuckall.
Hong Kong is set to increase its investments in nuclear power with the intent to have 50% of its energy requirements taken care of by nuclear by 2020 (currently it is 24%) so the greenies had a protest about it yesterday. 50 protestors lay around Mong Kok and they gathered 900 signatures on a petition. In a city of 7 million people, most of whom don't give a flying wank about environmental issues, I would imagine that their achievements will compare neatly with the attempts of the people mentioned in the previous news item.
SPORT
The Bledisloe Cup match between the rugby teams from Australia and New Zealand wasn't well supported by the Hong Kong public and the HK rugby board has given a whole load of ridiculous reasons for why only 26 000 people attended the game (stadium capacity was 40 000). None of them seem to be able to comprehend that tickets prices starting at HK$880 (R800) is bloody barmy. I love rugby and would have gone, but I refuse to pay that much. Hong Kong's next scheduled international fixture...? In 2013.
Hosting the 2023 Asia Games here in Hong Kong is still a hot topic in the news, with the drawback being the HK$40 billion it will cost in preparation. That's R36 billion. Nearly enough for a brand new arms deal.
Showing posts with label rugby. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rugby. Show all posts
Monday, 1 November 2010
Monday, 11 October 2010
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.
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.
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