Results tagged “hongkong”

Edison Chen is putting his infamous sex scandal behind him and starring in movies again, to the chagrin of all of us who willfully believed he would in fact quit showbiz. The 28-year-old star will feature in an English-language comedy "Almost Perfect" alongside Chinese-American actress Kelly Hu (of Sammo Hung's Martial Law fame).

• DPRK tells Wen it open to nuke talks [China Daily] "Premier of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) Kim Yong-il told his visiting Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao Sunday that the country was open to bilateral and multilateral talks on its nuclear programmes, China Central Television (CCTV) reported. "DPRK has never abandoned the goal (of denuclearising the Korean peninsula). We are willing to seek to realize this goal through bilateral and multilateral dialogue," Kim was quoted as saying by the CCTV."
• China Hopes to Create Its Own Media Empires [NYTimes] ""China plans to spend billions of dollars in the next few years to develop media and entertainment companies that it hopes can compete with global giants like the News Corporation and Time Warner, and will in the process loosen some of its tight control of these industries. An ambitious plan, set forth in guidelines last week by China’s State Council, envisions the creation of entertainment, news and culture companies with a market orientation and with less government backing. China, in short, would like to consolidate its industry into companies resembling Bloomberg, Time Warner and Viacom, analysts say."
• Obama's Meeting With the Dalai Lama Is Delayed [Washington Post] "In an attempt to gain favor with China, the United States pressured Tibetan representatives to postpone a meeting between the Dalai Lama and President Obama until after Obama's summit with his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, scheduled for next month, according to diplomats, government officials and other sources familiar with the talks."

This week Shanghai Cinemas are pleasing us with a new movie from the man called "Hong Kong's King of Comics", Wong Yuk-Long, also known as Tom Wong. Therefore, we'll use this week's Cinematheque as an excuse to go through some 漫画 (manhua) history.

Gosh, we really have missed the antics of Sarah Palin ever since she stepped down from her post as Governor earlier this year. But we're holding out against all odds for a 2012 presidential run: can you imagine all the sound bytes? In any case, Sarah was in Hong Kong yesterday for her first commercial speaking engagement, a keynote address at the CLSA Investors' Forum. And to say the least, it was key-noteworthy.

Three Uighur have been sentenced in the wake of the recent mysterious syringe attacks in Xinjiang, but their jail terms have not eased the tension between the Uighur minority and the Han Chinese majority or addressed the controversy surrounding the case in the first place.

• Black is White, White is Black [Asia Sentinel] "“Even now I still cannot calm down. Only rage, rage and rage. Only extreme (expletive) rage! I can never imagine how a government, a great nation, which has more or less squeezed itself in on the international stage, and which has earned a bit of status in the international community, can be so shameless, knavish, lawless, unable to tell right from wrong, black from white, turning a victim into an accused, twisting facts and twisting truths - how can such a nation and motherland be so thick-skinned as to tell Hong Kong people to be patriotic?"
• China unveils high-speed railways [BBC] "China has announced plans to build 42 new high-speed railway lines over the next three years. In a breakthrough, China has developed trains that can run on both high-speed and normal lines, said railway official Zhang Shuguang. A 500km/h train will be tested by the end of next year, Mr Zhang said. China will have added 13,000km of high-speed lines by 2012, shortening journey times considerably for the expected seven billion annual passengers."
• Thomas Friedman Demands Communist Revolution [Gawker] "Flat-earther Times columnist Thomas Friedman thinks we should probably "outsource" our form of government to China, where they have streamlined the whole process by eliminating the bit where idiots "vote." No, seriously, he is outright saying that the autocratic one-party Chinese government is superior to our own. There is no equivocation in this line: "There is only one thing worse than one-party autocracy, and that is one-party democracy, which is what we have in America today." And why are things better in China? Because the current "reasonably enlightened group of people" in charge of China, at the moment, can just impose "politically difficult but critically important policies" like raising gas prices to encourage clean power investment and so on."
• China tip-off 'sparked' fighting [Al Jazeera] "A senior Myanmar official has said that last month's clashes in the northeast of the country were sparked after a Beijing tipped them off about the location of an illegal arms factory. Up to 30,000 people fled across the border from Kokang into northern China during the fighting which followed the raid on the arms factory in the mainly ethnic Chinese region."

The test prep industry in China is cutthroat, to put it nicely. The South China Morning Post published an article on the intense competition amongst private tutors in Hong Kong, which sounds so fierce and backstabbing that it's just begging for a reality television show (if one's not in the works already). Popular tutors can make as much as one million HKD a month, provided that they have the hype and publicity to keep the students flowing in.

Now that the Qingdao Beer Festival is over, we've been looking for other places to go to satisfy our wanderlust. We'd love to visit some tourist sites, maybe a beach or two, but what we're really looking for is a scenic, historic city filled with culture, nightlife, and of course, beautiful women. Lucky for us, ChinaHush has a translated list from Netease of the top 10 cities in China for beautiful women.

And that's news because every thing she does is news, or something. The ex-Alaskan Gov., ex-VP hopeful will be heading to The H.K. for her first commercial speaking engagement, a keynote address at the CLSA Investors' Forum on September 23. She joins the ranks of "notable luminaries who often address topics that go beyond traditional finance such as geopolitics," according to CLSA. We'd make a Palin-related joke, but this news came out last night and we're pretty sure everything you could poke fun at about this woman - "I can see Taiwan from my house," "Drill, Beijing, Drill," "Only lead fish go with the flow," "The names of my children are ridiculous (oh wait, that's not a joke)" - has probably been done already. So yeah, she'll be in Hong Kong. What are you gonna do about it? Source: Huffington Post

Holy crap, in case you doubted for a second that Hong Kong triads were still scary as heck - a senior triad boss was knocked down yesterday and hacked to death right outside the 5-star Shangri-La hotel in Kowloon on Tuesday. The victim, Lee Tai-lung, was hit by the car when he stepped out of his Mercedes, according to reports. Three knifemen then got out and slashed at him, inflicting "serious chop wounds to his arms." They fled the scene immediately and two burnt-out cars, believed to be linked to the attack, were discovered a few hours later. The Hong Kong police's anti-triad unit is now investigating. Source: AFP

• China announces first panda from frozen sperm [ KOLD News 13] "For the first time, a giant panda cub has been born in China after being conceived using frozen sperm, officials announced Friday — an innovation scientists hope will help the endangered species avoid extinction. The new cub's birth Thursday means breeders will no longer be forced to rely on semen from China's few virile males, and may even be able to bring in sperm from zoos in San Diego, Mexico City or elsewhere."
• 'You're just a pawn' [The Standard] "Hong Kong must give way to Shanghai in the nation's financial development, according to a top Beijing official, who sees the SAR role as being reduced to that of a "pawn." Xia Bin, head of the Financial Research Institute, which comes under the State Council's Development Research Center, also said there may be a change in the role of the Hong Kong dollar by 2020. "Shanghai's financial market must eventually surpass that of Hong Kong's," Xia told the China Economic Times."
• Meet John Doe. No, Really! [NYTimes] "First he turned “Jang” into “John.” Then, he talked his family into adding an “e” to their last name. He was concerned, he said, about razzing and wanted to make sure it would be pronounced like the “do” in “tae kwon do” and not the “do” in “hairdo.” He has been John Doe ever since. Airport security grills him every time he flies. “I have to sit in the office,” he said. “Every time.” Landlords and election inspectors view him quizzically, and prospective dates need more than a little assurance that he’s not hiding a dark past. “I say my name is John Doe and they say, ‘No, what’s your real name?’ and I pull out my ID,” he said."

• E-waste 'recycling' in Guiyu, China [Alex Hofford] "So today I decided to upload more photos from a recent trip to Guiyu, the 'e-waste processing capital of China', that I made as part of a field project for my MJ course at the University of Hong Kong's JMSC. I have put these photos at the back of the album, behind the photos from Guangxi Province and Hong Kong that I took in 2007 and 2008."
• 9,000 officials guilty of graft: SPP [China Daily] "The Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP) revealed yesterday that more than 9,000 officials were found guilty of corruption in the first six months of the year and said it had investigated 6,277 industrial bribery cases. Qiu Xueqiang, SPP deputy procurator general, told a conference of procuratorate chiefs that the industrial bribery cases involved 6,842 people."
• China snubs World Games opening [BBC] "China has boycotted the opening ceremony of the World Games in Taiwan, an official with the games has said. A spokesman for the games, Hermann Kewitz, said China had not given an explanation but said that Chinese athletes would compete in the events. Beijing's decision came after organisers allowed Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou to open the games."

• Shishou official speaks out about riot [China Elections] "A blog entry posted by an official in Shishou has shed more light on the recent events in Shishou city, Hubei province. The blog is maintained by an official named Liu Guolin and details his perspective on the government's containment efforts in Shishou and lessons that can be learned from the handling of the incident. The blog entry marks a surprising break from usual government silence concerning such incidents and tight control usually asserted over official reports."
• China's smart grid ambitions could open door to US-China cooperation [needigest.com] "China’s largest electric transmission company has announced an ambitious plan to develop a national smart grid by 2020 that would help utilities and their customers transport and use energy more efficiently. The sheer size of the project raises some intriguing questions. First, about whether China has the capital and technology for such an extensive upgrade. And second, whether the project could provide an opening for U.S.-China cooperation on technological improvements that could benefit both."
• China launches first direct flight linking Beijing, Lhasa [People's Daily Online] "Air China, the nation's biggest carrier, said Wednesday it will launch the nation's first direct flight between Beijing and Lhasa, the capital city of southwestern Tibet Autonomous Region, beginning July 10 to promote tourism. The three-hour-fifty-minute flight will be operated by the Airbus A330. Previously, travelers had to transfer through Chengdu, the capital city of Sichuan Province neighboring Tibet. The transfer added two hours to the flight."

Today marks the 12 year anniversary of Hong Kong's return to China and to commemorate it, they're holding their annual protest rally led by the Civil Human Rights Front (a tradition that has gone on since 1997).

Ever since the State Council revealed plans to transform Shanghai into a global financial and shipping center by 2020, rumors have been swirling of a competition for supremacy between it and Greater China's current economic center, Hong Kong. Not that the official stance should surprise anyone, but Shanghai's most senior Communist Party member has now come out to say any "rivalry" is completely imagined. Yu Zhengsheng told Hong Kong media that the two cities would "always be complementary to each other and the growth of the two cities brings them mutual benefits." This marks the first time the government has said anything... which almost makes you wonder. If they felt the need to assure people of its nonexistance, maybe there's some truth to the rivalry after all? Source: SCMP

Hong Kong's Chief Executive Donald Tsang announced today that beginning tomorrow all kindergartens, primary schools, and care centers in the city will be closed for 14 days. It was decided after it had been determined that the recent H1N1 flu cases had been transmitted within the local community. From Bloomberg.com: "The government is well prepared and will monitor developments closely," Tsang said. "There's no need to panic."

• West miscasts Tiananmen protesters [Financial Times] "To say the demonstrations were to “demand democracy” is an oversimplification. The truth is that the students in the square had only the haziest understanding of western-style democracy."

Edison Chen has REALLY broken his silence this time around to appear on CNN's Talk Asia to chat about the sex scandal that ruined his life (though, perhaps, not for as long as the more schadenfraude-prone of us would like) and the lives of countless female starlets in Hong Kong.

• Secret Meeting Between U.S. and China Broke New Ground on Climate Change [NYT] "Loy said the group was able to delve into the positions of both countries and gain better understandings about the political realities both countries face. Yet as to reaching a global deal in Copenhagen, Loy said, little progress was made."There were things that we learned, but it wasn't a totally radical or surprising conversation. We knew a great deal about China's views before," he said. The discussions were "more informal and occasionally more substantive and frank, but Mr. Xie is a cautious person"."
• Students protest in lead-up to June 4 Tiananmen anniversary [The Australian] "Thousands of students are reported to have protested in the streets of Nanjing, in central eastern China - one of the centres of protests in 1989 - following an incident on Monday night in which government security guards enforcing restrictions on peddlers allegedly attacked classmates who had set up footpath stalls."
• China's top legislator meets with Italian premier [Xinhua] "The Italian leaders expressed the willingness to expand cooperation with China in various fields, saying China's economic growth will hopefully provide new energy for the recovery and rally of world economy. Both sides agreed that the two countries should coordinate their stance on reform of the international financial system and work for an early recovery of global economy from the financial crisis."

Every few months, someone in Hong Kong seems to be filmed having a breakdown. Last time it was Airport Auntie. This time, it's a new "Subway Uncle" who, in the era of swine flu, explodes into a rage when a little boy coughs without covering his face.

The swine flu count stands at China:3, Hong Kong:3 after each region confirmed its third case of H1N1 over the weekend. In China, the afflicted is an 18-year-old student in Beijing who was admitted to the hospital a few days after returning from the U.S. For her troubles, she got a visit from Grandpa Wen, who warned her and other overseas students to learn more about protecting themselves. Meanwhile, the Hong Kong case was a 23-year-old male who returned from New York. He was picked up by an infrared temp screener and immediately sent to the hospital. Even though he had worn a mask on the flight, his fellow passengers may still need to be quarantined. Source: SCMP (behind paywall)

• China cracks down on foreign journalists [FT.com Video] "Foreign journalists trying to conduct interviews in the Sichuan earthquake zone in western China are being attacked and detained as Beijing ratchets up security in preparation for the first anniversary of the devastating quake on May 12. Jamil Anderlini, FT Beijing correspondent, traveled to Sichuan and was the target of such attacks. He reports on how officials used violence and threats to suppress his coverage."
• From gold farmers to kings: online gaming in china [US China Today] "Apparently the virtual world has not been hit by the financial crisis. In early April, Changyou, the online gaming division of the popular Chinese portal site Sohu.com, had its initial public offering on the Nasdaq exchange. The stock jumped 25% by the day’s end, raising over US$128 million in company proceeds."
• Love, lust and time to party as hotel 'captives' scent freedom [SCMP] "Dozens of people partied in the lobby of the quarantined Metropark Hotel in Wan Chai last night to celebrate their impending release today, as guests told tales of love, lust and laughter from the week-long internment. Sheets that had covered the windows of the locked-down hotel for days were ripped down amid the festivities, revealing smiling guests raising glasses of wine, beer and other liquor and kissing one another."

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Despite their draconian health measures at the airport, swine flu managed to enter Hong Kong anyway. On Friday, a 25-year-old Mexican national who had come to Hong Kong via a flight from Shanghai (sigh) was found to have Asia's first confirmed case of H1N1. So Hong Kong authorities decided to extend their draconian health measures to the rest of the island and have now quarantined tourists and employees at the hotel where he was staying.

The computer worker who allegedly distributed the 1300 sex photos of Hong Kong film star Edison Chen has now been declared guilty! Sze Ho-Chun is expected to be sentenced in two weeks at Hong Kong's Kowloon City Court. He was convicted on three charges of obtaining access to a computer in order to make dishonest gain. Sze gained access to Edison Chen's photo collection when the actor brought in his Macbook for repairs. The pictures, which surfaced on the internet in Feb 2008, caused Edison to quit showbiz (at least for a while) and many actresses to do teary shame-faced interviews. Source: BBC

The next big epidemic is here and this time around it didn't come out of China! Swine flu, a respiratory disease in pigs, has somehow spread to humans - infecting a total of 20 people in the U.S. so far and allegedly killing more than 103 in Mexico!

Kung fu movie-star Jackie Chan stirred up international outrage and accusations of racism Saturday with his comment that the Chinese people can't handle too much freedom.

As the world reflects on how to stay afloat during this worldwide economic recession, three billionaire brothers in Hong Kong have come up with a solution: build a giant Ark.

Another day, another woman losing it at the Hong Kong International Airport. No rolling on the floor or wailing this time around, just a China-style scream-out at the airport staff. Near the end of the video the sound goes out, but we think we heard Southern China Airlines (中国南方航空). Could this be another viral, like the Sharks Fin Soup Auntie?

Yes, we do! The rumors are true. Shanghai will finally have its first, real Gay Pride day on June13, 2009. While Hong Kong held their inaugural pride parade last year, this summer marks the first time mainland China will have a large-scale Pride event.