morning news: wet markets part of HK heritage

I have to give credit where it’s due: The South China Morning Post put the issue of the impending death of the market on Peel Street in Soho, where it belongs: as the headline story on the front page of Sunday’s paper. They even backed it up with a companion piece on the failure of [...]

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morning news: asleep at the wheel

This morning I was saddened to read about a car crash resulting in the death of the young driver as well as his passengers – his wife and 3 month old son. According to the article, the car was speeding along Tuen Mun Highway, when it “lost control” and crashed.
I have come to the conclusion, [...]

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morning news: air pressure

Pressure is mounting in recent days, on the government to take action on the air quality. Merill Lynch was reported in the SCMP yesterday as advising its clients to “sell Hong Kong office landlords and buy Singapore office landlords” because of worsening air pollution.
Their view is that the government is powerless to reverse the [...]

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scmp: understanding world events through wikipedia

I was really not intending to write so much on the SCMP, but lately it’s hard to avoid. On Friday there was a story on the Doha round restarting. At the bottom of the article, there was an explanation of the Doha round contained in a sidebar. What I found interesting was that the source [...]

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tourists come back! we promise to be good

The Hong Kong Tourism Board announced, with great fanfare yesterday, the arrival of the first “Honest and Quality Tour” into Hong Kong. Yes, that’s right, tourists now can choose an “honest and quality” tour as opposed to…. I guess all the crap tours that have been offered before.
This new tour is HKTB response to the [...]

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scmp headline: you’re fired!

Donald Trump is not the only one gaining notoriety for firing people. Mark Clifford, the editor-in-chief at the SCMP axed two senior editors on Friday, according to the Apple Daily and Ming Pao.
Mark stirred up some controversy in journalism circles and the blogosphere seven months ago when he unceremoniously sacked two of his top editors [...]

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margaret chan: hong kong’s forrest gump?

Margaret Chan has had an unlikely career. Much like Forrest Gump, she seems to have an uncanny knack for being at the right place at the right time. And this week, her gumption has landed her the top job at the World Health Organisation.
For most people, screwing up big time at work would be a [...]

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morning news: SCMP standards slipping?

What’s going on at the SCMP? Lately, I have spotted more typos and errors than usual. But while those kind of mistakes are forgivable and usually forgettable, I can’t forgive the editors for the headlines I have been reading lately.
In Friday’s paper (Sept 29) the story on yet another senior official in Shanghai being implicated [...]

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morning news: star ferry

Now that the moving of the Star Ferry is a done deal, I swore I wouldn’t make any comments on it. But in the lead-up to the opening of the new Star Ferry, the press (at least in English) has been criticising the move and predicting the decline of one of Hong Kong’s most loved [...]

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morning news: the smoking debate

This morning on Backchat, the issue being discussed was whether smoking in public places like beaches and parks should be illegal. I’m a non-smoker, and I confess that I secretly support the ban of smoking in restaurants, but even I think this is ludicrous.
While the government appears to be doing nothing whatsoever about emission controls [...]

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