Posts
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Saturday, October 22, 2011
A CITY OF UNHAPPINESS- Hong Kong.
Despite its growing wealth, Hong Kong is a city of increasing discontent, writes Anthony B.L. Cheung, a member of its appointed Executive Council (cabinet) and president of the Hong Kong Institute of Education. The income gap is becoming acute, with both lower-income and middle class residents growing alienated by the government’s inability to tackle social and political problems effectively. Hong Kong needs more visionary leadership, he concludes.
By Anthony B.L. Cheung
HONG KONG’S FINANCIAL CENTER IN A REGIONAL AND GLOBAL CONTEXT
By Louis W. Pauly
The city’s financial sector has become a world leader thanks mainly to the economic boom in next-door China, according to Louis W. Pauly of the University of Toronto, though in many areas Hong Kong cannot match Singapore as a regional center. Looking ahead, he believes its government cannot continue to rely on its traditional laissez-faire attitude and low tax regime to remain competitive; it must become more energetic and innovative if the city is to have the qualities needed by a prosperous global financial center.
UNITY PROBLEMS IN HONG KONG’S PRO-DEMOCRACY MOVEMENT
By Chan Kin Man
Though most of Hong Kong’s political activists agree on the need to introduce a long-promised universal suffrage for local elections, tactical and personality disputes have split the pro-democracy camp, writes Chan Kin Man, Director of the Centre for Civil Society Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and a leading member of the group that negotiated a political reform plan with Beijing officials. He worries that continued division will slow adoption of a more democratic voting system, perhaps serving China’s interests but not those of the Hong Kong people.
ELECTORAL REFORM IN HONG KONG: FROM SCHEDULE TO SUBSTANCE
By Lorenz Langer
There has been too much foot-dragging in the process of moving Hong Kong toward a universal suffrage voting system, according to Lorenz Langer, a law professor at the Institute of International Law of the University of Zurich. The governments of both China and Hong Kong have cited concerns about preserving stability as they repeatedly delay implementation of local democracy. But Professor Langer argues that only real threat to social stability is a continued refusal to move faster toward a goal that most people want.
THE LONG HISTORY OF THE UNITED FRONT IN HONG KONG
By Cindy Yik-yi Chu
Ever since 1937, the Chinese Communist Party, with Zhou Enlai playing a key role, has pursued a common front policy with Hong Kong businessmen to advance its shifting goals—from fighting Japanese invaders to replacing British rulers, writes Cindy Yik-yi Chu, professor of history at the Hong Kong Baptist University. It found big business leaders particularly amenable and formed several front groups to jointly promote Beijing’s political aims. According to Professor Chu, these common front tactics continue to the present day and help China project a positive image within Hong Kong.
RESILIENT REFUGEES: HONG KONGERS COME HOME
By Nan M. Sussman
More than 800,000 Hong Kong residents left what was then a British colony after London and Beijing decided in 1984 to return it to Chinese sovereignty—but an estimated 500,000 have since returned, according to Nan M. Sussman, professor of psychology at the City University of New York. Their years abroad changed them in many ways, yet most have acclimated successfully into local society though with cultural and professional differences; a preference for “both steak and dim sum,” she writes.
COMMENTARY: NO PROGRESS ON LEADING ISSUES PRODUCES A MID-YEAR MALAISE
By Robert Keatley
Behind Hong Kong’s glitzy but deceptive exterior, social frictions grew worse as little was done to resolve festering economic and political problems, writes Robert Keatley, editor of the Hong Kong Journal. The government’s main financial move was to plan refunding a budget surplus to individual residents rather than devise a longer term welfare, public health or education policy. Soaring home prices, high inflation and a sense of decreased social mobility, among other things, fed public discontent which culminated in massive July 1 protest march.
Read More > http://www.hkjournal.org/
Guatemala, Morocco, Pakistan and Togo elected to Security Council
October 2011 – Guatemala, Morocco, Pakistan and Togo will serve as non-permanent members of the 15-member Security Council in 2012-13 after winning their seats during elections held earlier today at United Nations Headquarters in New York.
But a fifth vacant seat, which is allocated to an Eastern European country, remains unfilled after no country passed the necessary threshold during nine rounds of voting.
UN Member States voted in the General Assembly by secret ballot for five non-permanent seats divided by geographical grouping – three from Africa and the Asia-Pacific region, one from Eastern Europe, and one from Latin America and the Caribbean.
To win election, a country must receive a two-thirds majority of those countries present and voting, regardless of whether or not they are the only candidate in their region. Voting continues until the threshold is reached for the required number of seats.
Guatemala received 191 votes and was duly elected to the Latin America and Caribbean seat, Assembly President Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser announced after the conclusion of the first round of voting this morning.
Morocco received 151 votes and Pakistan received 129 votes in the first round, which means they were elected to two of the three seats allocated to Africa and the Asia-Pacific. Morocco has served twice previously on the Council – in 1963-64 and again in 1992-93. Pakistan has served on six previous occasions, most recently in 2003-04.
Togo (119 votes), Mauritania (98), Kyrgyzstan (55) and Fiji (one) did not receive enough votes in the first round, and during a second, restricted round of voting Togo again received 119 votes while Mauritania obtained 72.
But in a third round of voting, Togo obtained 131 votes, above the two-thirds threshold, and was therefore elected. Mauritania received 61 votes. It will be the second time in its history that Togo has served on the Security Council, with the first stint taking place in 1982-83.
In the Eastern European category, after nine rounds of voting, no country had met the two-thirds majority threshold. Voting will resume on Monday. In the ninth round of balloting, Azerbaijan obtained 113 votes and Slovenia received 77 votes.
Today’s elections were held to replace the departing members of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Gabon, Lebanon and Nigeria.
The new members will join Colombia, Germany, India, Portugal and South Africa, whose terms end on 31 December 2012, and the five permanent Council members, which each wield the power of veto – China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
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