Hong Kong establishes a ‘multi-department taskforce’ to make a big performance of monitoring waste-water disposal off Japan. A graphic showing the number of becquerels of tritium pumped out by that Japanese nuclear power station versus that of Chinese ones. (OK: it’s an isotope of hydrogen with – to a Carbon 14 fan – a rather lame half life of 12 years; a ‘relatively weak source of beta radiation, which itself is too weak to penetrate the skin’. Can increase the risk of cancer if consumed in extremely large quantities. For becquerel, see above.)
The government gets leave to appeal over the rejected Glory to Hong Kong injunction case. The Washington Post has an editorial…
That the tune is already banned under the city’s draconian national security law, apparently, isn’t enough. And a ruling by the judiciary that an injunction would be overkill isn’t to be endured.
…Authorities have already charged one person with sedition, arresting a harmonica player who performed the tune outside the British Consulate in the mourning period after Queen Elizabeth II’s death. They’ve imprisoned a man for three months for splicing the tune onto a YouTube video of a Hong Kong fencer earning an Olympic gold medal. But the aim in bringing this suit was more ambitious: The government wants to ensure “Glory to Hong Kong” is scrubbed from the entire internet: to force Meta, X, Spotify and especially Google, which refused to remove the song from its platforms without a court order, to censor it.
Similarly, the government’s aim in continuing its quest for compliance, even after its initial failure, is to pummel the courts into line…
In case you need more (decent) analysis of China’s economy – George Magnus, in particular on the real-estate bubble…
…as we also found out in 2008, when the music stops all participants behave like a herd as they rush for the exit. And this is what China faces now, but with the addition of terrible demographics.
The Standard offers a little joke in an editorial on the government’s recent Big Thing about making Hong Kong a night-life hub-zone…
“…the government’s aim in continuing its quest for compliance, even after its initial failure, is to pummel the courts into line…”
Exactly right.
I sometimes have the impression that the Washington Post is written by AI, just like the decisions of the Hong Kong Government. In the case of the Post you just enter “China”, “Hong Kong” “human rights” “AP news feed” into the tag fields and press execute. The nightlife hub zone initiative push to revitalise Hong Kong thingy is similarly a machine production surely? Enter “Tourism” “Economy” “Shopping” “Attractive” ” 24 hours” and hey presto.
They won’t let the song thing rest. It will go straight up to the Peking rubber stamp reinterpretation goons. Asking Communists to accept court decisions is like asking the Rolling Stones to retire, stop being embarrassing and look after their wrinkles. Pointless.
Hey. Al Semen, why do I have to pay $ 120- for a shot of mediocre wodka in one of your mediocre, past-their-prime outlets, that comes with a helping of crappy service?
By the way, whatever happened to that Derek Curie?
@Joe Blow
He just published his memoirs!
https://www.blacksmithbooks.com/books/when-jesus-came-to-hong-kong-the-remarkable-story-of-the-first-european-football-star-in-asia/
Why even bother with threatening the evil Western meddler IT companies?? Just be done with it all, install the Great Firewall in Hongkers and force everyone onto Baidu.
While at it, shut down any company that can be paid by meddling outsiders to assist in due diligence investigations unless it’s owned by the spawn of a connected CCP shoe polish head.
He’s alive and kicking (though probably not a football) and recently spotted in Pattaya, Thailand.
Sino – A similar offer will be available at the Tsim Sha Tsui Centre and the Empire Centre from September 28 to October 8, when customers who spend over HK$300 at restaurants can receive a HK$50 drink voucher for a free beer or cocktail.
The group will also distribute free drink vouchers at the Kowloon high-speed rail station and bus stations to invite tourists to its Alfresco Lane near the two malls to have a meal.
This is Ghost Town TST East with hundreds of empty units where even the hookers have given up hanging around in the square in front of the Regal.
During the Dragon Boat fest there was only a handful of punters seated on “Alfresco Lane”, and that was in the middle of the afternoon.
The Government needs an excuse to establish the “Great Firewall” in Hong Kong as well.
Banning the song is the perfect excuse to do so.
Go long VPN’s……/s
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/25/fukushima-daiichi-nuclear-power-plant-china-wastewater-release
Paul and Thailand correspondent,
Thanks for the info on scintillating Glaswegian winger, Derek Currie.
Alas, Joe Blow was clearly enquiring after Derek Curie, little-known descendant of the fabled Franco-Polish scientists.
Now they’d have recognised a becquerel of tritium when they saw one.
Oh yes!