More HK47 pre-sentencing mitigation, including endorsements from former government officials Anthony Cheung and Law Chi-kwong. Both had once been members of the Democratic Party. Hard to believe in these all-patriots/jailed opposition days that Beijing once allowed the local administration to dabble in co-opting pan-dems.
SCMP headline for the story: ‘Ex-Democratic Party chair seeks leniency over plan to topple Hong Kong government’.
HKFP op-ed on the HK Education Bureau’s obsession with the volume when kids – including in special needs schools – sing the national anthem…
…complaints about the volume of the singing seem ill-advised. Different halls have different acoustics. Primary school kids are not opera singers and a common reaction to uncertainty about the tune or the words is to drop the volume. As we cannot switch to an easier song we will probably have to put up with this.
Anyway students will survive a few extra singing lessons. Whether the March of the Volunteers can stand this sort of treatment is another matter. Somewhere around the 30th repetition it will cease to embody the “courage and indomitable fighting spirit of the Chinese nation” and come to embody only the Education Bureau’s enthusiasm for repetitive and boring patriotic performances… by other people. Do you think school inspectors start the week by singing the national anthem together?
For graphics/demographics fans, a vivid chart showing Hong Kong’s population divided into one-year age groups, showing the fall in fertility rates and increase in emigration among younger people. In terms simply of visual effect, it looks like around half the population aged under 20 are missing. Median age in the city is 47.
Nice photo of the UK’s first China-born Member of Parliament at her new workplace.
Re fertility – plan is to boost rates via images of two lusty pandas rooting away at Ocean Park and incentivising local folk to get down to the business.
But as female pandas are only fertile for two or three days a year, they could have picked a species that is more into getting its rocks off – goats or a few large rabbits perhaps?
They would also make up for the paucity of sex education provided in both our homes and schools. Win Win
@Mary
On the contrary, Pandas are the perfect choice. Two or three days a year is about all you can expect from local girls, if that…depending on bank balance, that is. Best not to build up unrealistic expectations by benchmarking with goats or rabbits.
We don’t need more or better sex education – we just need more money to attract the opposite sex..
Hong Kong becomes the latest victim to the CCP’s panda diplomacy….. Let’s cover all the horrors of the past 5 years with 2 cuddly pandas and no one will remember says the CCP. The world is not fooled by 2 pandas …the CCP’s abysmal human rights record goes on and on and MUST be stopped.
@SleepingTiger888
I remember when the ‘marriage’ tableau consisting of a human-size Hello Kitty and Dear Daniel nearly caused a tsunami of selfie-gasms in Hong Kong MTR station a few years back. Never underestimate the appeal of cuteness as a way of bringing bread and circuses to the masses.