SCMP: It’s been a long way down

If you’re running an umbrella business, you’re praying for rain. If you own a bus company, you’re hoping for a train strike. And if you’re in the newspaper business, nothing sells like a scandal.

SCMP‘s new owners Alibaba couldn’t have wished for a better start when the scandal of the decade fell into their lap on the day they formally took control.

They tore down the site’s longstanding paywall and fearlessly promised readers the most “comprehensive and credible” news site in Greater China. Despite this laudable aspiration to become more trusted than People’s Daily, the new bosses completely buried the story of history’s biggest data leak, one in which Hong Kong plays a central role.  Continue reading →

Prominent lawyers pay tribute to John Rhind

Prominent senior counsel Martin Lee and Ronny Tong have paid tribute to former High Court judge and South Lantau resident John Rhind.

Rhind, 80, went missing while on a regular walk from his home in Pui O last Monday. His body was found at Tong Fuk beach on Thursday.

Martin Lee, a senior barrister and founder of the Democratic Party, described Rhind as “gentleman,” Apple Daily reported. “A very fine person, a very fine temperament, I am stunned at his disappearance.”

Ronny Tong, former Legco and Civic Party member, described Rhind as “very approachable … a relatively commonsense and generous judge.” Continue reading →

Loss of mainland tourists shrinks Ngong Ping numbers

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Source: Random Wire (https://randomwire.com), Creative Commons

Visitor traffic to Ngong Ping 360, one of Lantau’s biggest tourist draws, fell 11% last year, while the number of mainland tourists to Lantau posted an even sharper decline.

Just 1.62m people took the cable car or visited Ngong Ping in west Lantau, down from 1.83m in 2014 and 1.67m in 2013. However, because the number of operating days was also down due to weather conditions and maintenance, the decline in visitors per day was just 3.6%, Ngong Ping 360 said in a statement.

Just 469,800 mainland and Macau visitors took the cable car last year, 17% below the 2014 level and accounting for three-fifths of last year’s decline in overall numbers. Continue reading →

Another bridge problem: 7 piles replaced

Yet another problem has emerged on the troubled Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge project, with the Highways Department confirming seven piles have been replaced.

The Apple Daily reported Sunday that a contractor had replaced seven large-diameter piles, each tens of meters long, at its own cost.

The name of the contractor, the reasons for the replacement work and the exact location were not clear, although one of the replaced piles is for the artificial island that will host the boundary crossing facility next to Chek Lap Kok. The 3m diameter pile had been buried to a depth of 60 or 70 meters. Continue reading →

Let’s build in Lantau country parks, say rural committees

Lantau rural committee leaders have complained the government’s development plans don’t go far enough, with three calling for development in country parks.

Speaking at last week’s Islands District Council meeting, South Lantao Rural Committee representative Cheung Fu said that with several hundred thousand people on the public housing waiting list, new homes should be built on “low ecological value country park land.”

Fan Chi-ping, the Tung Chung Rural Committee representative, said the government should care more about the “feelings of rural people,” Local Press reported. Despite Hong Kong’s rank as the world’s most unaffordable housing market, Fan said there were too many “conservation sites,” which was forcing down the market value of land. Continue reading →

Another 7 migrants detained off Fan Lau

Police have arrested another group of suspected illegal migrants attempting to enter Hong Hong via Lantau.

Marine Police intercepted a sampan near Fan Lau in southwest Lantau at 5am today and detained seven non-Chinese males, aged between 26 and 34. Separately, they also arrested a 45 year-old Chinese man suspected of collaborating with the group. Continue reading →

Expert casts doubt on case for new hub off Lantau coast

A real estate expert has called into question the economic and environmental feasibility off the government’s East Lantau Metropolis plan.

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Kau Yi Chau: the intended hub of the hub

The government has pitched the scheme for a commercial and residential hub of up to 700,000 people on an artificial island off Lantau’s east coast as a means of providing housing and economic activity.

But Leo Cheung, head of business valuation at property services company Icon City, said in a letter to Hong Kong Economic Journal it was difficult to see any “geographic operational synergies” for the hub in any sector other from logistics.

The government’s economic projections “belong to the unknown,” he says. Continue reading →

Another dolphin threat: wind farm planned for Pearl River

A mainland power company has won approval to build a large-scale wind farm in the Pearl River mouth southwest of Lantau.

But the 4.2 billion yuan (HK$4.98b) scheme by a China Southern Power Grid subsidiary has prompted fears  that it will pose yet another threat to the endangered Chinese White Dolphin.

The 120MW wind farm is to be built on Sanjiao Mountain Island in the centre of the Pearl River, about 8 km southwest of Fan Lau. Continue reading →

So the bridge isn’t going to help Lantau tourism

It seems even the boosters of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge don’t think it will help the local tourism industry.

The SCMP has run two slightly panicked pieces on the pending opening of Shanghai Disneyland and just how badly that might hurt our own temple to the Mouse.

A long feature on Saturday asked if the two cities can “share the spoils?”  Yet in the hefty list of compelling features at the local Disney site – we’re talking Iron Man Experience and Fairy Tale Forest here – no one has thought to mention the bridge.

Continue reading →

Another 13 Sth Asian migrants arrested after Lantau landing

Another 13 South Asian men have been arrested in the past nine days after illegally arriving on Lantau by boat.

Six Indian and Bangladeshi nationals arrived at Fan Lau in south-west Lantau early Saturday morning. After being arrested they said they would apply for asylum under the UN Convention Against Torture (UNCAT), the Oriental Daily News said.

Police received a report at 10am and went to the scene, where they intercepted the six, who had arrived by boat earlier that day. They were aged between 20 and 59. As with earlier illegal arrivals,  they had flown legally to Guangzhou, where a snakehead had arranged to transport them to Shenzhen and then to Fan Lau by boat. Continue reading →