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Hong Kong’s iconic Star Ferry may launch its final journey after 142 years in service

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Hong Kong’s iconic Star Ferry may launch its final journey after 142 years in service

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After 142 years of service, Hong Kong 's iconic Star Ferry may sail its last trip between Kowloon and Hong Kong Island - unless it gets help from big-bucks business investment.

First launched in 1880 as the Kowloon Ferry Company, the Star Ferry Hong Kong has provided service for tourists, commuters and leisurely locals since before Hong Kong's transformation into a commercial and financial hub. The 40-minute to one-hour trip provides travelers with incredible views of Victoria Harbour and the Hong Kong skyline.
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Due to political unrest coupled with the COVID-19 pandemic, the ferry is struggling to keep up with its schedule and survive. The last three updates to the company's blog are either service suspension or adjustments, and the company is bleeding money as it tries to continue while crowds dwindle.

Hong Kong's history, blessing and curse

The Star Ferry is steeped in history, and its boats have been at the center of growth, political demonstration and historical events that defined the eras they sailed through.

At the time of the ferry's inauguration, Hong Kong was British-controlled, transforming into a hub for both commerce and corruption - drugs, piracy and smuggling were rampant and a police force was formed to keep control of crime in the harbors of Tsim Sha Tsui on Hong Kong Island and Kowloon.

In 1966, the government raised the ferry's fare price, which did not sit well with a public that had grown to depend on the ferry as part of the city's lifeblood. Days of protests and deadly demonstrations and riots erupted as a result, and officials eventually reformed their policies. These riots became a symbol of the power of protest in Hong Kong.

Modern transportation and the proliferation of public land-based transportation and individual car ownership threatened the ferry once before in 1972, after the city built a cross-harbor tunnel. Star Ferry pivoted to market more to tourists, offering a cheap tour of the glimmering city skyline filled with glass and neon.
Related: 8 things every teen should do in Hong Kong
As the city boomed and more tourists came to visit its bright lights and luxury shopping and hotels, the Star Ferry again became a symbol of a global hub with a rich history.

2019 and 2020: Gut punch for the ferry

In 2019 and 2020, the years of a fight for democracy and against COVID-19 were a one-two gut punch for the ferry. The 2019 demonstrations between pro-democracy protesters and riot police became global news. The world saw civilians in helmets and goggles carrying shields to protect themselves during clashes with officers, demanding political freedom from China. Daily, the streets were clouded with tear gas.

After those protests, the Star Ferry reported an incredible financial crisis, losing more money in the 30 months of protests and pandemic than it had brought in over the last three decades.
Related: Why despite political unrest, it's still a great time to visit Hong Kong
The COVID-19 pandemic brought even more financial devastation to the ferry's operations and bottom line. With small businesses nearly destroyed by continuing "zero-tolerance" lockdowns and restrictions, Hong Kong was cut off from the rest of the world while other countries tried to recover.

It was looking good in late 2021, and Hong Kong had declared victory over the virus. Then came the omicron variant. Hong Kong closed down once again; restaurants, bars, schools and gyms all shuttered until the wave passed. Tourism, once an essential economic driver, is still suspended until May 1.

What can keep the Star Ferry sailing

Suffering from almost $9 million in losses, heaps of debt and owing back pay to its workforce, the Star Ferry's future looks bleak.

A recent article in the South China Morning Post reports general manager David Chow indicated the company has gone into "negative equity" and doesn't expect to pay off its debts until after 2047.

What can help the floundering ferry service? Big investment in preserving Hong Kong's history.

Other areas of Hong Kong, including the State Theatre in North Point and the Peak Tram, a funicular that carries visitors up to the top of Victoria Peak, were both bought by major Hong Kong business families with the intention of renovation and increased profitability. This is what could save the ferry.
Related: How to visit Hong Kong with kids
Additionally, the pier locations along the Tsim Sha Tsui and Kowloon harbors are waterfront properties crying out for investment as dining and shopping destinations, but as of yet, no investors have taken that opportunity.

The desire from Hong Kong's residents is there, and so is the demand. Crowds on the pier to board the tri-tiered boats are returning to pre-pandemic levels, especially as the city prepares to reopen to tourists, but the company's value seems unsalvageable. It'll take a dedicated investor with a love for the city's history and plenty of funds to bail out the ferry service and keep the Star Ferry an iconic piece of Hong Kong for 150 more years.
Featured photo by Howard Kingsnorth/Getty Images.

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Hong Kong's iconic Star Ferry may launch its final journey after 142 years in service - The Points Guy

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After 142 years of service, Hong Kong 's iconic Star Ferry may sail its last trip between Kowloon and Hong Kong Island - unless it gets help from big-bucks business investment. First launched in 1880 as the Kowloon Ferry Company, the Star Ferry Hong Kong has provided service for tourists, commuters and leisurely locals since before Hong Kong's transformation into a commercial and financial hub.

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Education Bureau ‘open’ to letting international and older students study while other pupils in Hong Kong begin summer early

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Education Bureau ‘open’ to letting international and older students study while other pupils in Hong Kong begin summer early

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International and older students in Hong Kong may avoid next month's forced break

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Local and international school heads describe positive response from bureau officials after they expressed concerns about summer break being advanced to March and April to free up campuses for Covid-19 fight.

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Court rulings free Hong Kong police to probe older offences under security law

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Court rulings free Hong Kong police to probe older offences under security law

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(Removes repeated words from quote)

By Greg Torode

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Recent court judgements have freed Hong Kong authorities to use national security powers to deploy tough colonial-era laws in a crackdown against opposition groups, alarming activists and lawyers in the city.

Police have launched investigations into acts that took place before the national security law was imposed a year ago, despite assurances by Beijing and Hong Kong that the financial hub's legislation would not be retroactive.

The recent probes have unnerved pro-democracy campaigners across the city, leaving some to fear they face prosecution for acts they believed to be legal at the time.

"The past is the future," said Simon Young, a professor at the University of Hong Kong's law school. "We are starting to see a fuller evolution of the national security law, and the way it allows the authorities to look at older laws and past events through a new lens.

"We can see it gives them new powers and confidence to use laws that were perhaps overlooked, or seen as previously unenforceable."

Several groups, including veteran protest organiser Civil Human Rights Front, are under investigation for acts that pre-date the security law, according to statements by senior police and reports in pro-Beijing media.

Asked about statements from Police Commissioner Raymond Siu that the Front was being investigated over marches that predate the law, a force spokesman told Reuters last month that "police will continue to investigate if any organisation and person have violated the ... security law and other Hong Kong regulations".

Some legal scholars and lawyers say the situation reveals the full sweep of the law - including its ability to effectively reboot laws from the British colonial era that touch on national security.

Two paragraphs in recent court judgements appear to clear the path for security probes into past actions, they warn.

One February ruling in the Court of Final Appeal suggested that the national security law's reference to "acts endangering national security" included violations of older laws.

And a District Court ruling in April noted that under the security law, the older offence of sedition was now classified as a more serious crime, potentially removing its previous statute of limitations of six months.

"AUTHORITARIAN GOLDMINE"

Beijing imposed the national security law on Hong Kong last year, seeking to punish what it sees as subversion, secession, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces.

But fresh police investigations into acts that predate the law's imposition appear to be triggering sometimes overlooked legislation on crimes such as sedition, a law governing private groups and even legislation against espionage, criminal lawyers say.

Those powers include the right for national security police to conduct searches and electronic surveillance, such as phone tapping, without going to court or asking a judge for a warrant.

Asked about investigations into older offences and the impact of the court rulings, a police spokesperson said they would not comment on specific cases.

"In conducting any operation, the police will act on the basis of actual circumstances and according to the law," the spokesperson said.

When the law was passed, senior Chinese and Hong Kong officials repeatedly stressed it would not be retroactively applied.

Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam told the UN Human Rights Council in June 2020 that the law was urgently needed to tackle a "gaping hole" in national security but the presumption of innocence would be maintained and the law would have no retrospective effect.

Lam also told the UN it would only affect "an extremely small minority" of Hong Kong.

Zhang Xiaoming, deputy director of the State Council's Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, said on July 1 last year that "the law is not retroactive". Security provisions in the older laws would be used "to punish crimes that have already been committed which endanger national security", he said.

The intensifying crackdown is forcing some prominent groups to disband, including the Civil Human Rights Front. Others are urgently shredding files, and deleting photos and online material, saying they fear even once-innocuous details could be used against them under Hong Kong's evolving security regime.

"The recent past is an authoritarian goldmine," said one private investigator who has been assisting some groups to protect themselves. "Essential rights and protections will count for little as the national security police build their cases by going backwards as well as forwards."

(Reporting By Greg Torode. Editing by Gerry Doyle)

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Court rulings free Hong Kong police to probe older offences under security law

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Recent court judgements have freed Hong Kong authorities to use national security powers to deploy tough colonial-era laws in a crackdown against opposition groups, alarming activists and lawyers in the city. Police have launched investigations into acts that took place before the national security law was imposed a year ago, despite assurances by Beijing and Hong Kong that the financial hub's legislation would not be retroactive.

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MC Soho and Kidney share why Hong Kong’s music scene is ripe for change and how they use humour to ‘shake things up’

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MC Soho and Kidney share why Hong Kong’s music scene is ripe for change and how they use humour to ‘shake things up’

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MC Soho and Kidney on using Hong Kong humour to ‘shake things up’

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The duo describe how their lyrics play with Cantonese slang and comment on current events, from the exodus of Hongkongers to the fame of Canto-pop boy band Mirror.

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Hackers Targeted Apple Devices in Hong Kong for Widespread Attack

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Hackers Targeted Apple Devices in Hong Kong for Widespread Attack

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Hackers Targeted Apple Devices in Hong Kong for Widespread Attack

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Visitors to pro-democracy and media sites in the region were infected with malware that could download files, steal data, and more.

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I tried a TikToker's viral hack for getting a free burger at Five Guys and ended up with 2 meals for the price of one

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I tried a TikToker's viral hack for getting a free burger at Five Guys and ended up with 2 meals for the price of one

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A TikToker shared his hack for getting a free cheeseburger at Five Guys, and I tested it out myself.

He recommended ordering a double-patty burger with all the toppings on the side and an extra bun.

The hack technically works, but I found that getting two perfect burgers depended on a few factors.

The food bloggers behind the HellthyJunkFood TikTok account shared a hack for getting a free cheeseburger at Five Guys.

The regular burgers at Five Guys Burgers and Fries are made with two patties. If you want a single-patty sandwich, you'll have to order a "little."

Food bloggers JP Lambiase and Julia Goolia figured out a way to turn those double servings of meat into two separate sandwiches for no extra charge.

They posted a video walking viewers through their hack on the HellthyJunkFood TikTok account. The video had 8.4 million views at the time of writing.

So I headed to my neighborhood location to see if the hack works.

I usually order online for pickup when I'm testing out fast-food items to minimize time spent inside the restaurant. But for this trial, I thought it'd be best to do my ordering in person. I knew it would require a lot of personalization, which isn't always easy to do on an online order.

I followed their lead and ordered a cheeseburger with all of the toppings on the side, plus an extra bun.

The employee working the register had to check with the rest of her team when I asked if I could get all of my toppings on the side.

She said an extra bun isn't something they usually give, but that they'd let it slide this one time. It wasn't listed on my receipt at all.

A regular cheeseburger cost me $9.39 at my New York City location, while a little cheeseburger would have cost me $8.19. If you split the cost of the double-stacked sandwich after dividing it, you'd wind up with two burgers that each cost $4.70 - a huge deal at Five Guys.

In my bag, I had a tray with pickles, lettuce, tomato, and onions; a separately wrapped toasted bun; and a third tinfoil package with my cheeseburger. I also asked for my sauces on the side, so I had two plastic containers of hot sauce and barbecue sauce.

As I dug in and started to build my sandwiches, I realized that a major factor in whether this hack works is how the patties are stacked.

The Five Guys team member who built my cheeseburger stacked both slices of cheese in between the patties. This was the same way they were stacked in the TikTok video.

When I separated the two patties, one had way more cheese on it than the other. If I were using this hack to share lunch with someone, it would have resulted in an awkward conversation about who was OK with settling for less cheese.

After attempting this split myself, I think if the cheese and patties were stacked in an alternating pattern, it would make things more even in terms of cheese distribution.

I also realized that the toppings I was given were only enough to make one full Five Guys burger.

One thing I love about Five Guys is its consistency on fresh-tasting, generously portioned toppings. By ordering my toppings for one burger on the side, I ended up with less of each item per sandwich.

Each of my burgers got one slice of tomato instead of two, around five small bits of crispy lettuce, and two small pickles. I was given a large helping of grilled onions, though, so I was able to load those on each bun.

Overall, this hack works - as long as you get lucky with a team that's willing to gift you an extra bun on the side.

This trick comes down to whether you're able to procure an extra bun. If the people working at Five Guys decided to deny my request for spare bread, the entire experiment would have been a bust.

But if you can get your hands on the bun, and don't mind the inconsistency of the cheese or the possibility of having minimal toppings on your sandwiches, you can build yourself two cheeseburgers for the price of one.

Personally, I probably won't use this hack again. I think, for my own life, it's more effort than it's worth. But if I were a student again on a budget and trying to stretch meals as far as I could, then I'd probably work this into my monthly meal rotation.

Read the original article on Insider

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I tried a TikToker's viral hack for getting a free burger at Five Guys and ended up with 2 meals for the price of one

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A TikToker shared his hack for getting a free cheeseburger at Five Guys, and I tested it out myself. He recommended ordering a double-patty burger with all the toppings on the side and an extra bun. The hack technically works, but I found that getting two perfect burgers depended on a few factors.

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Half of young adults say it is "delusional” to think they can own a flat 

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Half of young adults say it is "delusional” to think they can own a flat 

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Half of young adults say it is "delusional" to think they can own a flat. File photo.

A survey found that 52 percent of adults aged under 45 find it delusional to think that they can own a flat in Hong Kong.

Concerning Youth Housing Rights Alliance and 90s Housing CG surveyed 923 people in Hong Kong aged between 18 and 45 on their expectations of marriage and housing from September 2 to September 25.

The groups asked if the respondents think they can afford buying a flat in Hong Kong with their current income. Fifty two percent find it "delusional," while another 21 percent said it would be a "fantasy".

The results showed 60 percent of the respondents intended to get married, with those aged between 20 to 29 showing the highest ratio. But 38 percent decided to postpone it due to the pressure of buying property.

The Standard Channel

Sixty percent thought that owning a flat is a prerequisite for marriage, while 71 percent agreed that it is a must before having children.

As for the biggest difficulty for flat purchase, 72 percent said they did not have enough money to pay the down payment. Seventy one percent said they could not afford the mortgage. Fifty five percent said that the flats in Hong Kong are too small.

The organizations urged the government to further increase the supply of subsidized housing and the quota under the White Form Secondary Market Scheme. The scheme allows owners of subsidized housing to resell their flats to eligible people without having to pay a premium.

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Half of young adults say it is "delusional” to think they can own a flat

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A survey found that 52 percent of adults aged under 45 find it delusional to think that they can own a flat in Hong Kong. Concerning Youth Housing Rights Alliance and 90s Housing CG surveyed 923 people in Hong Kong aged between 18 and 45 on their expectations of marriage and housing from September 2 to September 25.

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The words from Hymn No. 275 spin round one's head: "The prisoner leaps to lose his chains." You shall find out what they mean when you are in quarantine.

What sort of civilised society compels its citizens, innocent of any criminal offence, to serve a sentence of enforced isolation in conditions of durance vile for 21 days?

Someone diagnosed to be infected with a contagious or dangerously infectious disease needs to be isolated in appropriate hospital accommodation both in their own and the interests of others. But this?

On Day 1 you wake to a lowering realisation that your hotel room is the alpha and omega of your existence for the next three weeks.

Putting on the slippers you have presciently brought along, you avoid stepping barefoot onto a carpet that has launched a thousand verrucas on your way to the bathroom.

Ah, the bathroom, with its heavy green marble vanitory top and a plastic seat sitting drunkenly askew across the toilet bowl, is reminiscent of Guangzhou in the 1980s.

The wash-hand basin plug has liberated itself from the pull push mechanism so that you either take it out or have to wash in the same water for the next three weeks.

Your disconsolate face stares back at you from the partly oxidised mirror that belongs on Cruella de Ville's dressing table.

The search for a hot shower is time-sensitive, it is going to be a series of tests during night and day to discover when the water temperature rises beyond tepid.

Next is the attempt to dry yourself on a towel worn diaphanously thin from overuse and no towel rail on which to dry it afterwards.

And so to the first high point of the day, breakfast. Nobody seems to have told the F&B department that for the first meal of the day, you should eat like a king.

Delivered to a stool outside your room, allegedly at 8am, it can be as much as half an hour ahead. This is important because the polystyrene containers do not retain heat for that long, if at all.

Carrying your precious plastic bag to the 30" diameter mock marquetry dining table you open it discover a bun (containing nothing), a hard-boiled egg and three strips of empty cheung fun. A most sumptuous fare!

You are given no plates, cups with or without saucers, cutlery or glasses, just toddler-size plastic spoon and fork - and paper cups.

Obviously, it is the budget-airline-economy-class strategy that is being adopted here. Or is the management scared in case one of their guests feels like attacking the staff in desperation? On that they might be correct.

And so you open your laptop to log on to the hotel's wifi, except that the signal is so weak that the internet eludes you.

A bored receptionist on the telephone explains that this is because there are 300 guests in the hotel, all trying to get online and the router does not support this amount of traffic.

Remonstrating that this is contrary to what was advertised will avail you nothing more than promises to try to reset the router.

Eventually, offered a SIM card, you have to remove the SIM card from your phone, log on and then hotspot across to your iPad and thence to the laptop. This means that every time you need to make a call, you have to reverse the process.

The business of getting a sustainable internet connection exhausts both a number of hours of Day 1 and most of your patience. This is probably the most wearing of the in-activities.

You mark the passage of each day as you transition from one thrill to another, taking your temperature morning and evening and recording it in a ledger provided for the purpose.

Another milestone moment is removing all your garbage before 2.0 pm. As this will include no less than 63 polystyrene boxes and 63 plastic bags, it is as well not to ponder on the contribution you will make to the world's plastic waste.

On to the next high spot, lunch, delivered perilously close to breakfast and without any knock on the door or ring of the bell. This means frequently opening the door which invariably evokes a scream of "Shut that door". Not, as you might have thought from Larry Grayson but an ill-defined, PE clad virago that reminded me of the KGB concierge on the floors of Russian hotels.

But wait, is this the lunch for a prince? Only if it was intended for him before he was kissed by a princess.

A slithery grey mess occupies one compartment, accompanied by a few sparse strips of boiled cabbage over a pin-cushion of rice, the whole delicately decorated by three buttons of corn and a wedge of carrot, if you are so fortunate.

Idle curiosity prompts you to consult the menu, a foolish enterprise since whatever it is that is served bears no necessary relationship to the description.

As you sit down on the less uncomfortable of the two chairs to work at the desk and draw the chair close, your hand strikes an errant piece of metal which, on examination proved to be part of the seat falling out.

The windows are sealed against fresh air, of course, so you have to offer up a fervent prayer that none of your fellow guests is spreading Covid-19 in any of its variations by aerosol.

Then to the apogee of culinary delight, Oh frabjous joy! Dinner. It is your first sighting of the lesser flavoured processed sausage, allegedly composed of chicken but unrecognisable as any animal meat known to mankind. Spread drunkenly across the base of the polystyrene box, they mesmerise so that the by now inevitable boiled cabbage strips and single kernel of corn are barely noticed. Aha! You spot a pea.

Not only are these poly-packed offerings unappetising, they constitute a fast-track diet regime because consuming them would offend every sensory faculty.

Just to provide some temporary divertissement, a menu is provided which details each meal on each day for a week at a time. The entertainment is to see whether what comes could, by some stretch of the imagination, answer the description, more often than not, it doesn't.

Periodically, the Hazmat accoutred officials of a department of health outsourced company come to do a PCR test. Upon opening the door, most of the space is occupied by an enormous snaking 10cm diameter tube, its gaping maw only inches from your face. One wonders if it is intended to hoover you up? Does it suck or blow? Then follows the nose and throat invasion, after which the functionary peels off her rubber gloves and drops them in your rubbish bin.

As Dr Lai Wai Man, Chief Infection Control Officer of the Hospital Authority explained, symptoms of the Delta variant - which is the most feared - typically appear within four to five days of exposure. So how can 21 days of quarantine be justified for people who have received double vaccination, tested positive for antibodies, undergone PCR tests before being incarcerated and then every three days thereafter?

If the plan is to destroy Hong Kong as an international business centre, it is little less than brilliant. If not, it is dumb.

-- Contact us at [email protected]

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ejinsight a day in the life of quarantine hkej ejinsight.com

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A day in the life of quarantine EJINSIGHT - ejinsight.com

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The words from Hymn No. 275 spin round one's head: "The prisoner leaps to lose his chains." You shall find out what they mean when you are in quarantine. What sort of civilised society compels its citizens, innocent of any criminal offence, to serve a sentence of enforced isolation in conditions of durance vile for 21 days?

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Hong Kong prioritized opening to China over the rest of the world. Now it's stuck in Covid limbo

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Hong Kong prioritized opening to China over the rest of the world. Now it's stuck in Covid limbo

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hong kong prioritized opening to china over the rest of the world. now it's stuck in covid limbo - cnn

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Analysis: Hong Kong prioritized opening to China over the rest of the world. Now it's stuck in Covid limbo

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Almost two years into the Covid-19 pandemic, some of the world's major business hubs -- including New York, London and Paris -- are reopening as travel restrictions relax and daily life resumes.

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Hong Kong national security law: time is ‘ripe’ for Article 23 with focus on combating ‘state-level spying’, minister says

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Hong Kong national security law: time is ‘ripe’ for Article 23 with focus on combating ‘state-level spying’, minister says

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Time 'ripe' for Article 23 to combat 'state-level spying': Hong Kong minister

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Security secretary Chris Tang says authorities expect less of a backlash now than in 2003 to bring back shelved bill, given residents have witnessed 2019 social unrest.

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A lesson for Hong Kong, Singapore in mainland China’s crackdown on the tutoring industry?

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A lesson for Hong Kong, Singapore in mainland China’s crackdown on the tutoring industry?

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Lesson for Hong Kong, Singapore in mainland China's tutoring crackdown?

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Sceptics of Beijing's move say the real stress comes not from tutors but from a cultural emphasis on academic achievement and not wanting to get 'left behind'.

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US-China trade war did not bring American firms home, research finds

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US-China trade war did not bring American firms home, research finds

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US-China trade war did not bring American firms home, research finds

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Foreign investment into China hit a record US$144.4 billion in 2020, while firms exiting China did not leave because of tariffs, US researchers say.

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Singapore reminds children of stranger danger amid reports of clowns loitering outside schools

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Singapore reminds children of stranger danger amid reports of clowns loitering outside schools

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Singapore police investigates reports of clowns loitering outside schools

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The incidents are alleged to involve a speech academy whose publicity campaign went awry.

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Review: Stray Kids’ album Noeasy is noisy, fun and the crowning glory of their K-pop career to date 

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Review: Stray Kids’ album Noeasy is noisy, fun and the crowning glory of their K-pop career to date 

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Stray Kids' album Noeasy: a noisy, fun and creative K-pop listen

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The eight-member K-pop band's third LP, Noeasy, offers a lot of different styles to suit listeners and finds its strength in the band's creativity and storytelling.

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Ghost kitchens’ boom in Asia as pandemic sparks huge demand

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Ghost kitchens’ boom in Asia as pandemic sparks huge demand

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In an industrial unit on the outskirts of Taipei chefs are plating meals that will never be served in a restaurant: welcome to the world of "ghost kitchens".

Even before the pandemic sent an earthquake through the global restaurant trade, the "Amazonification" of commercial kitchens was well underway, but coronavirus lockdowns and restrictions have fuelled explosive growth in Asia.

Taiwan company Just Kitchen, a network of "ghost kitchens" that make delivery-only food, packing meals to be delivered at one of their locations in Taipei. Photo: Sam Yeh/AFP.

The recent boom in food delivery apps meant customers were already used to having restaurant quality meals quickly delivered to their homes.

To meet that demand a growing number of restaurants set up delivery only kitchens - also known as "cloud kitchens" - or rented space in ones.

Then the pandemic struck, ending dining out for billions.

"It really drove the whole industry into sort of hyper growth, so that really helped us," Jason Chen, the chief executive officer of Just Kitchen, told AFP.

Just Kitchen started operating Taiwan's first ghost kitchen early last year - now it runs 17 across the island, as well as one in Hong Kong and is aiming to expand into the Philippines and Singapore by the end of this year, he said.

Regional delivery giants like Singapore-based Grab and Indonesia's GoJek have also jumped on the trend. Grab opened 20 new cloud kitchens in Southeast Asia last year, up from 42 before the pandemic.

The global ghost kitchen industry is expected to grow more than 12 percent each year to be worth some US$139.37 billion by 2028, according to a report by Researchandmarkets.com.

Asia Pacific, home to 4.3 billion people, already accounts for some 60 percent of the international market.

For many in the region's densely populated cities, where living space is at a premium, eating daily from cheap restaurants or food stalls is more affordable and viable than cooking at home.

Culinary gold rush

Research group Euromonitor estimates there are some 7,500 cloud kitchens now operating in China and 3,500 in India - compared to 1,500 for the United States and 750 for Britain.

Third generation Thai restaurateur Natalie Phanphensophon had to pivot her family's 45-strong restaurant empire into takeaway-only for much of the last year because of the pandemic.

Her family own the popular Mango Tree and Coca chains, with many stores located in now empty shopping malls where rents are high.

Earlier this year they opened their first cloud kitchen on the outskirts of Bangkok, with plans for two more.

"Our goal is to ensure everyone on our boat can sail through this together," the 35-year-old explained.

Cloud kitchens, she said, are less lucrative than restaurants because people don't order as many dishes compared to dining out. But their operating costs are far lower.

iBerry Group, which operates restaurants and ice cream shops mostly in shopping malls in Thailand, also set up a delivery only hub.

"Having a cloud kitchen is basically an oxygen mask for us during Covid-19," said brand manager Thitanun Taveebhol.

While conglomerates and chains have moved into delivery only operations, mom-and-pop cloud kitchens are also opening.

After recently retiring from Air India, Nirjash Roy Chowdhury, sunk his savings into setting up a cloud kitchen in Mumbai.

His six employees were from the hotel trade which has been ravaged by the pandemic.

"They didn't have anything to eat. If I can give somebody bread and butter by doing this, then there's nothing like it," the 61-year-old added.

'Food speaks for itself'

Chowdhury estimates it will take six months to break even but is confident there is long-term potential.

"I think this cloud kitchen culture is here to stay," he predicted.

Experts say that's a safe bet.

Nailul Huda, an analyst at the Jakarta-based think-tank Institute for Development of Economics and Finance, says lower operating costs and the ordering habits of tech-savvy younger generations will ensure continued growth.

"People will keep ordering food even after the pandemic and I think that the ghost kitchen... has the potential to keep growing rapidly even after it's over," he said.

Just Kitchen's Chen says the pandemic has changed the way people order food direct to their door.

"Once you do it, you become so used to it, the convenience is hard to get away from... We are very positive of the outlook."

At a time when so much of the catering industry was devastated, ghost kitchens have kept chefs, delivery drivers and wholesalers in business.

But they have unavoidably added to the mountain of plastic already being produced.

One recent study in Bangkok found plastic waste has nearly doubled during the pandemic, some of it because of food delivery services.

Food writer Leslie Tay says while ghost kitchens have "taken away the personality or the soul of the food to a certain extent", there is space them to thrive alongside dine-in restaurant.

"At the end of the day, I think the food speaks for itself... if your food is good, people will start talking about it."

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'Ghost kitchens' boom in Asia as pandemic sparks huge demand

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In an industrial unit on the outskirts of Taipei chefs are plating meals that will never be served in a restaurant: welcome to the world of "ghost kitchens". Even before the pandemic sent an earthquake through the global restaurant trade, the "Amazonification" of commercial kitchens was well underway, but coronavirus lockdowns and restrictions have fuelled explosive growth in Asia.

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Recalling Hong Kong’s first 7-11, first shopping mall, and more  

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Recalling Hong Kong’s first 7-11, first shopping mall, and more  

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Recalling Hong Kong's first 7-11, first shopping mall, and more

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What better time to celebrate nostalgia than Mid-Autumn Festival? We look back at some of Hong Kong's turning points that shaped the city we know today.

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Hong Kong experiences ‘alarming’ population drop, but government says not all 90,000 leaving city because of national security law

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Hong Kong experiences ‘alarming’ population drop, but government says not all 90,000 leaving city because of national security law

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'Alarming' population drop as nearly 90,000 leave Hong Kong in 12 months

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Social administration expert Professor Paul Yip says officials should try and address the concerns of those going elsewhere, as number of people in city now estimated to be 7.39 million.

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Carrie Lam may have a vision for Hong Kong but where is the outreach?

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Carrie Lam may have a vision for Hong Kong but where is the outreach?

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Carrie Lam may have a vision for Hong Kong but where's the outreach?

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Convincing Hongkongers to get on board is an uphill task with district councils hollowed out. Vision doesn't translate into real impact unless you're on the ground sharing it with the people.

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The upside to Nicole Kidman’s Hong Kong quarantine exemption: it could bring in more film industry elites and boost the city’s economy

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The upside to Nicole Kidman’s Hong Kong quarantine exemption: it could bring in more film industry elites and boost the city’s economy

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There's an upside to Nicole Kidman's quarantine exemption

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Australian actress Nicole Kidman did not have to undergo hotel quarantine upon her arrival in Hong Kong, and many people are not happy about it - but let's play devil's advocate and consider the upside.

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"I find it very ironic that Billie, an artist clearly inspired by rap culture, can so easily criticize rap music for 'lying' when she herself brags about seducing other people's dads and killing her friends," says VOX ATL staff writer Zariah Taylor.
Collage by Zariah Taylor/VOX ATL

The Grammys are always full of surprises, but the biggest surprise of the 2020 Grammys for me was when Billie Eilish managed to sweep almost all of the major awards, including Song of The Year, Album of The Year and Record of the Year. I'm a fan of Billie Eilish. It's refreshing to see an artist around my age be so successful. What I didn't like about Billie Eilish's win at the Grammys was that she managed to thank everyone and everything for her success in her acceptance speech but black culture.

From her style to her accent, Billie has (hopefully) inadvertently taken much of her persona from black people. Billie's style, which is reminiscent of black style icons such as Aaliyah and Dapper Dan, features hoop earrings, chains, Jordans, oversized baggy designer clothes and gaudy acrylic nails. Although Billie has in a video for Calvin Klein that she wears baggy clothes to prevent fans from expressing their opinions on her body, I can't help but see her style and be reminded of the type of styles that were popularized and pioneered by black people in the '80s and '90s.

In addition to her clothing, one of the things that has helped Billie establish herself is her personality. Billie's mannerisms and slang can be seen as derived from black culture. Billie not only uses African American Vernacular English (AAVE), but she also has a very clear blaccent, something that her brother, who was raised in the same household, does not have.

I first started noticing these things about a year ago when I discovered Billie's music. I didn't want to villainize Billie because after all, she is only 18 and has a lot of time to grow as an artist and establish her own style. Plus, It would be irresponsible to not mention that Billie has credited her style to black artists such as . It wasn't until recently when Billie made very controversial comments about the state of Hip Hop in a new interview with Vogue.

"Just because the story isn't real doesn't mean it can't be important. There's a difference between lying in a song and writing a story. There are tons of songs where people are just lying," she said. "There's a lot of that in rap right now, from people that I know who rap. It's like, 'I got my AK-47, and I'm f*ckin' . . .' and I'm like, what? You don't have a gun. 'And all my b*tches ... .' I'm like, which bitches? That's posturing, and that's not what I'm doing."

I find it very ironic that Billie, an artist clearly inspired by rap culture, can so easily criticize rap music for "lying" when she herself brags about seducing other people's dads and killing her friends. When she, a white woman, does it it's called "writing a story," yet when rap, a predominantly black genre, does it, it's called "lying."

Billie isn't the first artist to take aspects from black culture only to disrespect it in the same breath. It's very clear that black culture sells. Rap is the No. 1 genre right now. AAVE is littered throughout social media. Cornrows and other protective styles are fashionable in Hollywood. Black style is seen all over the runway. Because the industry sees that black culture is so marketable, they often put it in a package that is easily digestible for white audiences; insert here a random white artist, ie. Post Malone or 2013 Miley Cyrus. Both are artists that take part of black culture (rapping, twerking, AAVE), but put it in a little bit less "ghetto" package that is easier for white people to digest.

Here is why this formula is problematic. For one, as a black person, it sucks to see someone like Post Malone be so successful when I know many less-famous black artists who have almost the same aesthetic yet aren't popping off, possibly because of the color of their skin. Would white people still sell out Post Malone concerts if it was a black man making the same music?

Two, it also sucks as a black person to see this aesthetic sell when a white person does it, yet in real life, these are the behaviors black people are persecuted for. When Billie Eilish wears baggy clothes, fashion publications everywhere hail her as a fashion icon. Yet, when black people wear them, they are targeted and considered "ghetto." When , they are Kim Kardashian wears braids, it's cool, but when black people wear them fired from their jobs or expelled from school. When Miley Cyrus uses AAVE, it's trendy and fun, but when I use it, it's unprofessional.

Three, white artists treat black culture simply as an aesthetic, not a generational tradition. For example, Miley Cyrus had a so-called, "black phase" in which she used AAVE and came out with rap songs. However, years later in an interview with , she wanted to distance herself from the genre because according to her, "It was too much 'Lamborghini, got my Rolex, got a girl on my cock' - I am so not that." Miley took from our culture to gain relevance, yet so easily threw it in the trash like it was disposable to her. Black people don't get the same privilege of being able to drop the culture that has been ingrained in them since childhood. Some black people don't know how to code-switch or don't have the resources to straighten their hair anytime they want, yet white people get to do the same?

And it's not just celebrities. Your average rich, suburban white kid uses AAVE, listens to rap music and says the n-word, but he gets defensive during conversations about race and locks his car door when black people walk by. I love the phrase, "They want our rhythm, but they don't want our blues." I love this phrase because it exemplifies generations of white people enjoying some parts of black culture but ignoring the parts they don't like. Where are these Post Malone fans during Black Lives Matter protests? Where are the Billie Eilish fans when black people are defending themselves from racism on social media? It's up to those in power (*cough cough, white people*) to help dismantle the racism black people face just for some of the same behaviors that white people indulge in. If you claim to be so appreciative of our culture, why aren't you supporting us when it really counts?

Almost all of our modern pop culture slang is influenced by black people. All you have to do is peruse on TikTok for 30 seconds to see that many non-black people easily cherry-pick parts of black culture to be funny while simultaneously using it in a wrong and offensive way. Take for example, a in which teens are wiping their nose and then sticking their thumbs down, emulating a gang sign popularized by rappers such as Young Thug. The trend is offensive as teens, many who are not black, are making light of gang signs and slang such as "slatt" and "slime" which many black people are getting killed overdue to the gang implications that come with the trend. It's very disrespectful that non-black people are using these slang words and mannerisms in the wrong context without doing any research.
Are you saying that I can't wear [insert something here] or say [blank] without being racist?
Speaking of slang, I could write an entire article on all of the words used by non-black people that are actually created by black people. Lame, bae, f*ckboy, twerk, yolo, turn up, thick, cool, my bad, hater, 24/7, back in the day, high-five, and rip off are that are part of AAVE. The problem with cultural appropriation doesn't just lie in using these words, it's about using these words in a way that is disrespectful to black people. If you're still confused about the problems of cultural appropriation, I'm concluding this article by answering a few frequently asked questions about the subject.
"Let people wear what they want...It's just hair, get over it."
I'm not. I'm saying that if you want to wear these styles, you should also recognize that black people are often persecuted for wearing these same styles. Be able to recognize this and talk about it, as well as be able to support black people in their times of need. Also, be able to give credit to the black people that have inspired your look.
Black people wear straight blonde hair. Isn't that cultural appropriation?
That's very easy to say when you're not a part of a culture in which you are punished for what you wear/say/do. Put yourself in a black person's shoes, and maybe you could see why we can't just "get over it."
How do I appreciate black culture without appropriation?
No. Black people are capable of growing naturally straight or blonde hair. Hair color and texture is a matter of genetics, not culture. Not only that, but black people were often forced to straighten their hair in order to assimilate into white society. So no, it's not cultural appropriation.

There are good examples of cultural appreciation. Brazilian sportswear label Osklen paid an indigenous tribe for their contributions to their spring 2016 collection. The tribe then was able to use the money to support their community. Obviously that example is on a larger scale compared to the everyday person. If you want to use parts of black culture, always give credit where credit is due and ask yourself, "Am I using this style to be cool, or have street cred?" "Am I using this culture while simultaneously not doing my research/being disrespectful?" "Am I taking space from the people who created this look?" If you answered yes to one or more of those questions, it's probably better to just not use that part of the culture.

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We Need To Talk About Billie Eilish and Cultural Appropriation [OPINION]

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"I find it very ironic that Billie, an artist clearly inspired by rap culture, can so easily criticize rap music for 'lying' when she herself brags about seducing other people's dads and killing her friends," says VOX ATL staff writer Zariah Taylor.

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New Australian surveillance laws give police powers to alter Facebook and Twitter posts

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New Australian surveillance laws give police powers to alter Facebook and Twitter posts

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New Australian surveillance laws give police powers to alter Facebook and Twitter posts

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A new law gives Australian police unprecedented powers for online surveillance, data interception and altering data. These powers, outlined in the Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Bill, raise concerns over potential misuse, privacy and security. The bill updates the Surveillance Devices Act 2004 and Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979.

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Should we be concerned about the messages that men and boys are exposed to?

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Should we be concerned about the messages that men and boys are exposed to?

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What I say here is based on nearly thirty years of working across a range of education, family, residential care home and Christian-based settings. I have been thinking of the contacts I have had over the years, and the scores and scores of cases I have been involved with in different ways.

I am unsettled by the rhetoric and statistics that seem to be accepted on many news and media platforms without any challenge. I am concerned about the impact this may have on some boys, young adults, and teenagers and what they think they are 'allowed' to say, think, and feel as a male.
Inconsistencies in the news and social media
In the last few months, I have heard several comments about men on the radio, that had they been about women, would not have been tolerated. The term 'misogyny' is used a lot, but none of the teenage boys and girls I work with have heard the term 'misandry', or know what that means.

The tendency of the BBC and other news channels is to focus on women as victims, whether in the context of domestic abuse, eating disorders, self-image issues, 'gaslighting', bullying etc. Rarely is a man the central focus as the victim in these stories, and rarely is the female 'written in' as the perpetrator in these articles.

"I have concerns as to how these inconsistencies and sweeping generalisations about men and boys go unchallenged."

I have concerns as to how these inconsistencies and sweeping generalisations about men and boys go unchallenged. From personal and professional experience, I have found that the terms 'men' and 'all men' or 'all boys' is used frequently as opposed to some men and some boys. Unfortunately, I still often hear the following types of comments within consultations I have with teachers, other professionals, and parents and family members. These comments are almost always from females, and almost never said in a supportive manner:

I am concerned about the impact of these messages may have on some boys, and on their development as they grow into men.

Communications from government and third sector organisations

There has been a huge effort in the past few years to coax more girls into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). This is to be encouraged and celebrated, and has had varying degrees of success. For example, many recent medical cohorts are now a 60:40 ratio of female to male graduates.

However, I have not seen any extensive evidence of a 'push' for boys to consider more 'caring and nurturing' professions. This type of career focus would need to start in early years, and appear in the media, books etc. Examples of the professions that could be promoted more for boys include:

If we are serious about a more balanced and equitable society, where men are really promoted as carers and nurturers, not just as fathers, but in the workplace too, then there needs to be a change from the ground up, when boys (and girls) are young. They need to hear overt and strong messages about how great it is to be a man and how that can be their future - with all the rights and responsibilities that may bring. This may be especially important for those boys who may be in situations where most of their influences are from women. These boys and girls too, also need overtly positive messages about men, from men and women.

There has been an improvement in the positive portrayal of men as fathers in children's books. However, there is still a predominance of the main carer being the mother and often if there is only one parent in the story, then it is the mother. Although this may reflect the case in some homes, if we want the perception and expectations of children to change, then it is vital that boys (and girls), regardless of their own childhood experiences, grow up in the expectation that men are good fathers. It might also be positive to see more children's story / picture books, TV programmes, where there the main carer is the dad.

Similarly, I would urge charities, the NHS (National Health Service) and other influential organisations to always make reference in their brochures that men can experience the following:

There should not be a solely female focus in the information shared; men should be recognised too, and not just as a few token statistics at the end of an article or leaflet, but in the full reality of every situation of concern.

"...it saddens me that there is a near complete absence of coverage of International Men's Day (November 19th) in the news and media"
Promotion of international days
It's good and right that there is a focus on International Women's Day in March each year. However, it saddens me that there is a near complete absence of coverage of International Men's Day (November 19th) in the news and media. This may partly be due to a fear from some quarters that highlighting men's issues means denigrating the importance of issues that some women face. I strongly believe thatit is not 'an either... or' situation, but a 'both....and' situation in regards to promoting support for both men and women.
Sex, sexuality and society
Some of the current messages about sex, sexuality and identity can certainly be empowering and affirming and some individuals have thrived and benefited from them. However, as highlighted by authors Ed Shaw and Sam Allberry, for some young people (boys and girls) it can be quite confusing and overwhelming.

In my professional and personal experience, I believe there needs to be a much more honest and consistent message from the beginning, as regards sex and sexuality, for our children and teenagers - and even adults. I believe this needs to happen if there is any chance of there being a reduction in the sexual violence and abuse that occurs for both men and women.

Today we tend to find our identity in whom or what we love - it is why sexuality has such a powerful effect on our identity. Today it can seem we have made sexuality the foundation of self understanding and as such, sexual behaviour has become a primary means of self-expression. Sex can be seen as a currency for love, and as such all sexual desires seen as helpful or constructive. Any suggestion to 'contain' sex or channel certain sexual feelings, is depicted as stopping someone from being 'who they are'.

"Some suggest that your ability to be happy is contingent on being able to lead a sexually and romantically fulfilled life. This is a huge pressure for anyone"

Some suggest that your ability to be happy is contingent on being able to lead a sexually and romantically fulfilled life. This is a huge pressure for anyone - particularly teenagers and young adults - and it raises the stakes dangerously high. Many personal histories of individuals show that making 'sex' the priority for fulfilment can lead to many hurts and disappointments.

It can be helpful to remember that there will be times we will have to say 'no' to some of the ways we desire to express love to someone. We need to know that this is actually for the sake of loving someone better. We also need to be honest to young people about the following: we know enough that love matters but we do not know enough to know what love fully is. Love seems vital for life but it can also be elusive.

There has been progress within schools in teaching the concept of respect, choice, and consent to our children and young people. However, it can be very challenging for some young people to understand aspects of respect and consent - especially when it is not something that has been shown or taught them in other aspects of their life. Waiting to teach about consent when a young person enters adolescence, as sex drive increases, can be leaving it too late. So the more honest input that can be taught, shown and explained prior to the time in life when sexual desire 'kicks in', the better.

There has continued to be progress in the teaching of relationships and sex education (RSE) in schools, which is great. It is essential that emotional literacy skills and 'executive functioning' skills continue to be emphasised within and in parallel to RSE. This can help develop an understanding of sex and sexuality within the broader sense of identity and who we are as individuals.

"For some this can be a volatile mix, expressing itself in intense anger and extreme mood swings and self-harm."
To end...
From my experience, particularly as a child psychologist, a notable number of the boys and male teenagers I have worked with have core needs as regards a sense of identity and low self-esteem, and can be struggling to make sense of their thoughts and feelings. For some this can be a volatile mix, expressing itself in intense anger and extreme mood swings and self-harm. Of course, this has been the case for many of the girls I work with too, but I believe that for some of the boys, their behaviours can be more masked and misinterpreted than that of some of the girls.

The lack of reference to the male experience can make it increasingly difficult for some young men and boys to tell their stories - it can generate a culture where the 'male story' is minimised or dismissed. It is essential that we move away from the current default mentality (in some contexts) that men are perpetrators and that they cannot be victims. This narrative is not helpful for boys to grow up with - especially for the boys and teenagers who have been hurt - physically as well as emotionally - by female peers, female family members or female professionals.

I believe personally and professionally that if the changes I suggest are implemented, this will give men and boys the permission to talk and feel more than they currently do. It will also validate the diversity and richness of being male and being human, and further help to promote a society where more people feel valued and safe.
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Should we be concerned about the messages that men and boys are exposed to? - The Centre for Male Psychology

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What I say here is based on nearly thirty years of working across a range of education, family, residential care home and Christian-based settings. I have been thinking of the contacts I have had over the years, and the scores and scores of cases I have been involved with in different ways.

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Clubbing in the age of Covid-19: false vaccine records the new fake IDs for Hong Kong’s revellers, while establishments let many enter without proper checks 

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Clubbing in the age of Covid-19: false vaccine records the new fake IDs for Hong Kong’s revellers, while establishments let many enter without proper checks 

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False vaccine records the new fake IDs for Hong Kong's Covid clubbers

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Only one out of 10 nightspots visited in the city by Post team confirmed vaccination status, while patrons admit using fake records to get past bouncers.

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Why are so few psychologists male? Insights from a psychology trainee

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Why are so few psychologists male? Insights from a psychology trainee

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This is the first of a two-part article. Part two will appear in the next issue of Male Psychology Magazine.

Around 80% of undergraduate psychology students are women. Men have less chance than women of getting onto clinical psychology training course (DClinPsy), and around 85% of clinical psychology trainees are women . Perhaps one of the reasons there are fewer men in psychology is that since the late 1980s boys have underperformed academically compared to girls across primary, secondary and higher education, especially white working-class boys. Young women today are now around 35% more likely to attend university than men, but vastly more likely to study psychology than men, suggesting that the low number of men studying psychology cannot be fully explained by general academic underperformance.

So why are men less likely to study psychology? I can't speak for all men of course, but I think that my experiences might resonate with other men who have chosen to study psychology.

"I felt a bit like an antelope amongst 145 lionesses"

On my BSc Psychology course, only 11 out of 156 (7%) students were men. On my MSc course, only two out 17 (12%) students were men. During this time, when asking questions or discussing something specific to males, I was often shot down. I felt a bit like an antelope amongst 145 lionesses, and if I shared anything that was deemed to be 'different' to the experiences of my female colleagues, it was invalidated. After a while it started to make me feel that my views were not good enough, due to being male. This even made me question my own struggles with male specific issues. I then started to develop self-doubt and considered whether I was lacking emotional intelligence. This, combined with my other minority status at university - being working class - left me feeling that my voice wasn't valid, and cancel culture became a real concern.

"If the situation was reversed, I would never dismiss the contributions from female colleagues purely because they were female and their experiences were different to my own."

During my studies, I started to mature and thankfully had supportive lecturers who would help with group dynamics which enabled me, and my male colleagues, to express ourselves, and started to increase our confidence when contributing to group discussions. Not all female colleagues appeared anti-male, but a small handful certainly gave that impression. If the situation was reversed, I would never dismiss the contributions from female colleagues purely because they were female and their experiences were different to my own. Listening to others, whatever their gender, provides insight and personal growth and understanding. To deny other voices fuels ignorance, shallowness and arrogance, and creates an environment where people only listen until they see an opportunity to reply, rather than listening to learn.

On my degree programme the female and feminist views were predominant, and this left me feeling uncomfortable as a man. A lot of ideas seem to come from a desire for backlash against patriarchy, and the feeling that women were oppressed by men through the traditional family unit. From this perspective, men were perceived as needing to take a step back to allow women the space and the respect that they were previously denied.

Despite not achieving high grades for my GCSE's and A-levels, I feel that since the start of university, I have been on par with my female peers, who are often very high achievers.

Regarding work and clinical experience, I have moved geographically in order to gain the experiences and education needed to position myself better to secure a place for clinical training. The biggest limiting factor over the past 10 years has been the low salary. Additionally, it took more than 87 applications before securing my first assistant psychologist position, which required me to develop resilience to keep striving for my career goals.

Throughout my early academic journey, into my PhD, and during each NHS clinical service position I have held, I have always been the only male or one of a very small handful of males (including senior management), which has been challenging. For example, both male and female patients were prepared to wait up to 11 weeks to access a male psychologist; on occasion I was the only male assistant psychologist able to assess and provide CBT. I completely understood the needs of these male patients; if for example I had a bad experience with a female psychologist or I just felt more comfortable with a man, I too would be prepared to wait for psychologist who was male. Being understood and receiving empathy from your psychologist is vital. If this connection is absent, there is no therapeutic alliance.

Thus far I have managed to gain voluntary positions from being on the radio, creating podcasts, publications and being able to secure a funded PhD (after my first application and was interviewed within 2 weeks), as well as having the opportunity to adapt and create CBT groups because my recovery rates within IAPT (Improving Access to Psychological Therapies) were the highest in the service.

These opportunities came from enquiring and saying yes to opportunities and tasks I hadn't done before, not as a result of 5 As at A-level, or achieving a first in my BSc and MSc, or due the fact that I am male. These opportunities came because of blood, sweat and tears.

"I was asked by the female clinical lead to train nine new female assistant psychologists regarding the secrets of how I was getting such high recovery rates from the CBT groups that I was conducting. Apart from two of the nine, the group just stared into space and one said "you aren't senior to me, don't know why I'm even here listening to you".

For example, I was asked by the female clinical lead to train nine new female assistant psychologists regarding the secrets of how I was getting such high recovery rates from the CBT groups that I was conducting. Apart from two of the nine, the group just stared into space and one said "you aren't senior to me, don't know why I'm even here listening to you". At the end, our female clinical lead walked in and the majority stowed away their phones and listened to every word she said. It wasn't a pleasant experience and again, if I contributed to any collective discussion, it was either dismissed or ignored.

Final thoughts
Although a male applicant to clinical psychology might have lower grades on his CV than the female applicant, he might catch up later in other ways. In my case, despite not having the best GCSE's and A-levels, I often had had more insight, experiences, impact and publications than my female peers, despite their higher grades. So although my female peers appear to sail through the DClinPsy process, being capable of expressing themselves clearly and confidently, they might later struggle with clinical assessments, conducting therapy, as well as the intensity of the research process.

The situation is complex and I do not believe that people with low grades should simply progress ahead of others based on their sex. However it seems reasonable that all of a person's experiences, strengths, education and background should be taken into account, not just their school grades from 10+ years ago. A candidate who can see a wide range of client groups - including having innate insight into the relatively hard-to-reach male demographic - and can be flexible, resilient, provide effective therapy, conduct innovative research and lead services, surely then demonstrates the wide range of skills and attributes that should be valued by employers and patients.

It is understandable that more women than men become clinical psychologists, because more women are applying. But why are so few men are applying? General educational underachievement surely plays a role, but it doesn't explain the vast gender gap between the number of male and female clinical psychologists. This question deserves equal priority to the lack of representation in psychology of ethnic groups and people with disabilities, especially as men are more likely than women to die by suicide but less likely than women to seek professional help.
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Disclaimer: This article is for information purposes only and is not a substitute for therapy, legal advice, or other professional opinion. Never disregard such advice because of this article or anything else you have read from the Centre for Male Psychology. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of, or are endorsed by, The Centre for Male Psychology, and we cannot be held responsible for these views. Read our full disclaimer here.

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The author has asked for his identity to be withheld.

This is the first of a two-part article. Part two will appear in the next issue of Male Psychology Magazine.

Around 80% of undergraduate psychology students are women. Men have less chance than women of getting onto clinical psychology training course (DClinPsy), and around 85% of clinical psychology trainees are women . Perhaps one of the reasons there are fewer men in psychology is that since the late 1980s boys have underperformed academically compared to girls across primary, secondary and higher education, especially white working-class boys. Young women today are now around 35% more likely to attend university than men, but vastly more likely to study psychology than men, suggesting that the low number of men studying psychology cannot be fully explained by general academic underperformance.

So why are men less likely to study psychology? I can't speak for all men of course, but I think that my experiences might resonate with other men who have chosen to study psychology.

"I felt a bit like an antelope amongst 145 lionesses"

On my BSc Psychology course, only 11 out of 156 (7%) students were men. On my MSc course, only two out 17 (12%) students were men. During this time, when asking questions or discussing something specific to males, I was often shot down. I felt a bit like an antelope amongst 145 lionesses, and if I shared anything that was deemed to be 'different' to the experiences of my female colleagues, it was invalidated. After a while it started to make me feel that my views were not good enough, due to being male. This even made me question my own struggles with male specific issues. I then started to develop self-doubt and considered whether I was lacking emotional intelligence. This, combined with my other minority status at university - being working class - left me feeling that my voice wasn't valid, and cancel culture became a real concern.

"If the situation was reversed, I would never dismiss the contributions from female colleagues purely because they were female and their experiences were different to my own."

During my studies, I started to mature and thankfully had supportive lecturers who would help with group dynamics which enabled me, and my male colleagues, to express ourselves, and started to increase our confidence when contributing to group discussions. Not all female colleagues appeared anti-male, but a small handful certainly gave that impression. If the situation was reversed, I would never dismiss the contributions from female colleagues purely because they were female and their experiences were different to my own. Listening to others, whatever their gender, provides insight and personal growth and understanding. To deny other voices fuels ignorance, shallowness and arrogance, and creates an environment where people only listen until they see an opportunity to reply, rather than listening to learn.

On my degree programme the female and feminist views were predominant, and this left me feeling uncomfortable as a man. A lot of ideas seem to come from a desire for backlash against patriarchy, and the feeling that women were oppressed by men through the traditional family unit. From this perspective, men were perceived as needing to take a step back to allow women the space and the respect that they were previously denied.

Despite not achieving high grades for my GCSE's and A-levels, I feel that since the start of university, I have been on par with my female peers, who are often very high achievers.

Regarding work and clinical experience, I have moved geographically in order to gain the experiences and education needed to position myself better to secure a place for clinical training. The biggest limiting factor over the past 10 years has been the low salary. Additionally, it took more than 87 applications before securing my first assistant psychologist position, which required me to develop resilience to keep striving for my career goals.

Throughout my early academic journey, into my PhD, and during each NHS clinical service position I have held, I have always been the only male or one of a very small handful of males (including senior management), which has been challenging. For example, both male and female patients were prepared to wait up to 11 weeks to access a male psychologist; on occasion I was the only male assistant psychologist able to assess and provide CBT. I completely understood the needs of these male patients; if for example I had a bad experience with a female psychologist or I just felt more comfortable with a man, I too would be prepared to wait for psychologist who was male. Being understood and receiving empathy from your psychologist is vital. If this connection is absent, there is no therapeutic alliance.

Thus far I have managed to gain voluntary positions from being on the radio, creating podcasts, publications and being able to secure a funded PhD (after my first application and was interviewed within 2 weeks), as well as having the opportunity to adapt and create CBT groups because my recovery rates within IAPT (Improving Access to Psychological Therapies) were the highest in the service.

These opportunities came from enquiring and saying yes to opportunities and tasks I hadn't done before, not as a result of 5 As at A-level, or achieving a first in my BSc and MSc, or due the fact that I am male. These opportunities came because of blood, sweat and tears.

"I was asked by the female clinical lead to train nine new female assistant psychologists regarding the secrets of how I was getting such high recovery rates from the CBT groups that I was conducting. Apart from two of the nine, the group just stared into space and one said "you aren't senior to me, don't know why I'm even here listening to you".

For example, I was asked by the female clinical lead to train nine new female assistant psychologists regarding the secrets of how I was getting such high recovery rates from the CBT groups that I was conducting. Apart from two of the nine, the group just stared into space and one said "you aren't senior to me, don't know why I'm even here listening to you". At the end, our female clinical lead walked in and the majority stowed away their phones and listened to every word she said. It wasn't a pleasant experience and again, if I contributed to any collective discussion, it was either dismissed or ignored.

Final thoughts
Although a male applicant to clinical psychology might have lower grades on his CV than the female applicant, he might catch up later in other ways. In my case, despite not having the best GCSE's and A-levels, I often had had more insight, experiences, impact and publications than my female peers, despite their higher grades. So although my female peers appear to sail through the DClinPsy process, being capable of expressing themselves clearly and confidently, they might later struggle with clinical assessments, conducting therapy, as well as the intensity of the research process.

The situation is complex and I do not believe that people with low grades should simply progress ahead of others based on their sex. However it seems reasonable that all of a person's experiences, strengths, education and background should be taken into account, not just their school grades from 10+ years ago. A candidate who can see a wide range of client groups - including having innate insight into the relatively hard-to-reach male demographic - and can be flexible, resilient, provide effective therapy, conduct innovative research and lead services, surely then demonstrates the wide range of skills and attributes that should be valued by employers and patients.

It is understandable that more women than men become clinical psychologists, because more women are applying. But why are so few men are applying? General educational underachievement surely plays a role, but it doesn't explain the vast gender gap between the number of male and female clinical psychologists. This question deserves equal priority to the lack of representation in psychology of ethnic groups and people with disabilities, especially as men are more likely than women to die by suicide but less likely than women to seek professional help.
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Disclaimer: This article is for information purposes only and is not a substitute for therapy, legal advice, or other professional opinion. Never disregard such advice because of this article or anything else you have read from the Centre for Male Psychology. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of, or are endorsed by, The Centre for Male Psychology, and we cannot be held responsible for these views. Read our full disclaimer here.

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Why are so few psychologists male? Insights from a psychology trainee - The Centre for Male Psychology

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This is the first of a two-part article. Part two will appear in the next issue of Male Psychology Magazine. Around 80% of undergraduate psychology students are women. Men have less chance than women of getting onto clinical psychology training course (DClinPsy), and around 85% of clinical psychology trainees are women .

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By Denise Winterman
BBC News Magazine

The dispute arose over a quiz answer involving Noel Edmonds

A row over a pub quiz question has resulted in a £17,500 legal fight. But why does answering trivia questions over a pint ignite such passion?
It started with Noel Edmonds and ended in Luton County Court.

A row over a pub quiz question has resulted in a quizmaster successfully suing a contestant for defamation after he accused him of "cheating" over a question about hosts of the National Lottery draw. He won £5,000 in damages and estimated costs of £12,500.

It may only be a quiz where people rarely win more than the cash to cover the cost of their pork scratchings and a taxi home, but the pub quiz can bring out the worst in normally sane people.

The transformation of contestants from when they walk into the pub to when they leave is marked. They usually enter civilised and good humoured and leave bitter, irrational and extremely hostile - sometimes even in the back of a police van.

I took two American friends to a quiz once and they thought it was some sort of registered insanity, they just didn't get it at all

"I once attended a pub quiz in Bristol where a dispute over an answer resulted in a wild west-style brawl and the police had to be called," says publishing executive Helen Lanwell.
"Arrests were made, including the quizmaster. The competition was so fierce the questions were taken to the police cells and the quiz continued behind bars. The lone member of my team who was arrested didn't manage to win the contest for us. They were all released without charge later."

So desperate is the need to win that some people will go to any lengths. One homeowner bribed a tenant with free board to be on his pub quiz team after spotting her penchant for trivia.

According to Marcus Berkmann, author of quiz culture book Brain Men, the pub quiz is mostly a British phenomenon and a relatively recent one. While some pubs have held quizzes for many years, the idea really caught on after the success in the mid-1980s of Trivial Pursuit.

He believes quizzing is good for the British, allowing the nation to drop its stiff upper lip, loosen up and behave like sulky eight-year-olds.

"If you're not a sporting person there are few places where a grown up can play and show off, a good pub quiz can be liberating and thrilling," he says.

Fact lovers

This thrill does not translate to non Brits. Berkmann says few countries outside the UK have such quizzes.

"I did come across a pub quiz night in Swaziland during my research but it was run by and full of ex-pats. I took two American friends to a quiz once and they thought it was some sort of registered insanity, they just didn't get it at all."

Times columnist Robert Crampton attends his local pub quiz every week, detailing his trials and tribulations in his column.

He says the obsession with pub quizzes could come down to our love of facts.

"The French say the British like facts and displaying information rather than theorising like themselves. Maybe there's some truth in that and it can explain the phenomenon of the pub quiz."

Add your comments on this story, using the form below.

We used to do a pub quiz a few years ago at our local until we noticed that the same team seemed to be winning each week. We found out from the bar staff that one team member would go to another pub earlier in the week where the quiz master would do the same quiz, and keep a copy of the answers... The prize was only a half bottle (between the whole team)
Alan, Glasgow, Scotland

I hope the quizmaster and contestant's legal people were limited to teams of four.
Mark Mitchell, Aberdeen

My local's pub quiz has become an essential part of the week-end for both my close friends and I. I do agree with everything the article has highlighted. Emotions surface very quickly during the pub quiz, superstition is employed and friendships of over 20 years are often on the line. At times there is genuine hatred for other teams we know are cheating, by using blue chip mobile phones or popping around to their houses to jump on the internet. Forgive me but I found myself avoiding a bloke in the supermarket last, whom I would usually chat to, because my mate found him on his mobile checking an answer, during a visit to the loo. Sorry for being so sad.
Peter Barrett, Birmingham, UK

Mobile phones have killed the pub quiz for me. It's now just a test of who can text their brainy mates the quickest.
Colin, London, UK

Pub Quizzes are also popular in Australia - at least in Sydney, and not just among ex-pats. On a Wednesday night there are at least three within a five minute walk, and it's one of the busiest nights in the week. It helps to know your rugby and cricket if you want to win though!
Richard Bradley, Paisley, UK

We had a very similar situation happen last night. The question was, Which part of the body has a crown and root. To which just about everybody in the pub answered, head. But no, the correct answer given by the quizmaster was teeth! Now call me picky but crowns aren't an original part of your anatomy so shouldn't be given as part of an answer. Much arguing ensued but to no avail the quizmaster wouldn't move. I feel it's all part of the fun.
Matt Wright, York

I went to a pub quiz with several friends each thursday at Uni, and this one week ther prize was £150. We were joint first with another team and just before the last round, the team marking our paper left the pub. We were therefore left to mark our own paper, and surprise surprise we got full marks. one of team, however, didn't see the brighter side of our cheating, and refused her share of the prize money. We haven't spoken to her since.
Ed, Crewe

The BBC may edit your comments and not all emails will be published. Your comments may be published on any BBC media worldwide.

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BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | Not just a trivia matter

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By Denise Winterman BBC News Magazine The dispute arose over a quiz answer involving Noel Edmonds A row over a pub quiz question has resulted in a £17,500 legal fight. But why does answering trivia questions over a pint ignite such passion? It started with Noel Edmonds and ended in Luton County Court.

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Second lockdown: Best games to play on Zoom, Houseparty and FaceTime video chats

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Second lockdown: Best games to play on Zoom, Houseparty and FaceTime video chats

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While the country is back in lockdown and we are practicing social distancing, regular communication with friends and family is key.

One of the most important reasons for video chatting with your loved ones is to keep them in the loop regarding how you're doing and vice versa.

However, using video chatting platforms such as Zoom, Houseparty and FaceTime can also help you let off some steam and take your mind off the goings-on of the world.

From taking part in pub quizzes to creating your own innovative version of charades, here are some of the best game ideas for you to try.

Pub Quiz

How does it work?

The pubs are closed, but you can still test your wits during a weekly pub quiz with all your friends. Sure, it isn't the same as huddling around a small table with your teammates as you try to win a free round of drinks, but the essence of it remains the same.

When you join video-conferencing platform Zoom for free, you can host up to 100 participants during a single call - the perfect recipe for a brilliantly competitive pub quiz.

Dani Ball, a 22-year-old from Nottingham who lives and works in London, came up with the idea of hosting a pub quiz after finding herself unexpectedly self-isolated for two weeks and craving social contact.

After setting up an event on Facebook, Dani ended up bringing together more than 30 teams on Zoom made up of flatmates, families and isolated individuals. "The day of the quiz I chose a few classic pub quiz rounds (sports, literature, current affairs) and scraped together my limited general knowledge to come up with some questions," she explains, having now made the pub quiz a weekly fixture.

Puja Kotecha, a digital PR specialist from Nottingham, also took part in a pub quiz with her cousins, with some participants joining in from as far as Texas in the US.

Her cousin Rina put together a list of pub quiz topics using learning app Kahoot!, which the whole family has downloaded on their phones. The categories include Disney, maths, the royal family and science.

"It is giving us a way to all be together in these crazy times even though we cannot see each other. As first cousins we are all so close and regularly make time for each other to hang out," Puja says.

How many players?

The more the merrier! But a group of about 20 or 30 may be a good place to start.

Chess

How does it work?

Chess is a game usually played across the table from your opponent, an intense atmosphere setting in as the seconds tick down on the clock.

Even though you are now separated from friends and family, you can still put your mental strength to the test.

As one 71-year-old man and his seven-year-old grandson recently demonstrated, chess over FaceTime can be just as fun.

If you and the person you are video chatting with both have a chess board, then you can play together by instructing them out loud where you are moving your chess piece when it is your turn.

In order to do this, you need to read the letter and corresponding number of the square you have moved your piece to.

Chris, the son of the 71-year-old grandfather who now plays weekly chess matches with his grandson Ruben, said this set-up was initially "tricky". However, the pair then "worked out a grid system, similar to battleships, and it worked".

How many players?

While chess is predominantly a two-person game, there's no reason why you can't play in teams so as to involve other members of your household in the game.

Charades

How does it work?

One of the most treasured dinner party games, charades will never fail to entertain, especially while the nation remains in lockdown.

You can play charades over video chat in a variety of ways, the most simple way being to come up with an idea in your head - whether it be a book, film, TV show, play, person or something from another category - and to act it out, informing your video chat companion how many syllables are in each word to help them along the way.

Another innovative way to play charades is to do it in several stages. The way to do this is by first writing a lengthy list of terms to guess on small, separate pieces of paper, which you then place in a bowl.

When it is your opponent's turn to guess the clues, you go through the pieces of paper one by one, describing what the written term is for them to guess. You do this while being timed, usually for about a minute or so.

They then take their turn, doing the same thing with their own bowl of written clues. When the timer is up, make a note of how many terms each person was able to correctly guess.

After doing the first round of describing each term, you then go again with the same bowl of clues, this time acting out the terms without saying anything out loud.

Once they have had their go and you have made a note of your scores, you then go for a third time. For the third round, you are only allowed to say a single word to describe each term. So, at this point it has become a memory game.

You can also play Heads Up on Houseparty for a simpler alternative. The game was created by Ellen DeGeneres and bears similarities to charades.

How many players?

Minimum of two, but charades is typically more fun in larger groups.

Karaoke

How does it work?

Who knows when we'll next be able to go to a karaoke bar to belt out classics such as Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" or Backstreet Boys's "I Want It That Way"?

In the meantime, you could creatively set up your own karaoke night at home, involving your closest friends on a group video chat on an app such as Zoom or Houseparty.

One way to make sure that you and your friends are exactly in sync when singing together is to register for free on another platform called Watch2Gether.

As the name implies, the platform allows users to watch videos at the exact same time. All you need to do is create a room, share the link for the room with your friends and voila - you can sing the night away with one another.

Just try to be considerate of your neighbours when singing "Livin' On A Prayer" at the top of your lungs.

How many players?

As many as would like to exercise their vocal cords.

Bingo

How does it work?

One imaginative way that you can play Bingo over video chat is to combine it with another activity - a movie night.

While the nation is in lockdown, people are understandably spending an increasing amount of their time watching films and TV shows on streaming platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney+.

Netflix offers users the opportunity to watch films and TV programmes in sync with their friends through a feature called Netflix Party, which is available for free on Chrome.

When using Netflix Party, not only can you watch films and TV programmes at the same time as your friends, but you can also converse with them throughout with a group chat.

Here's where Bingo comes in. Before you start your watch party, create Bingo cards with words or phrases likely to appear in the film or TV show you have decided to watch.

Then, while watching, mark your Bingo card as the words and phrases are said on screen until one person is named the eventual winner.

How many players?

Minimum of two but again, Bingo tends to be more fun with larger groups. The more people who are playing, the more competitive it is!

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Second lockdown: Best games to play on Zoom, Houseparty and FaceTime video chats

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
While the country is back in lockdown and we are practicing social distancing, regular communication with friends and family is key. One of the most important reasons for video chatting with your loved ones is to keep them in the loop regarding how you're doing and vice versa.

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Hong Kong newspaper Sing Tao forced to register US arm as a foreign agent

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Hong Kong newspaper Sing Tao forced to register US arm as a foreign agent

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Hong Kong newspaper Sing Tao forced to register US arm as foreign agent

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It is the first media outlet from the city forced to make the registration after the Department of Justice ruled its operations constituted political activity.

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Hong Kong residents will have to pay to throw out rubbish under bill lawmakers set to approve after years of delay 

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Hong Kong residents will have to pay to throw out rubbish under bill lawmakers set to approve after years of delay 

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Hong Kong set to introduce waste charging scheme after years of delay

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The government will produce the bags, which will cost HK$1.70 for one about the same size as what supermarkets offer for groceries.

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Around a month ago, the final episode of the Hong Kong remake of Ossan's Love was aired on local free-to-air channel ViuTV. I stayed home and tuned in live, ads and all, something I have not done in almost a decade (I know because I never connected the TV cable in any of my HK apartments).

Warning: This newsletter is not about food.

It's about Hong Kong's media and entertainment industry, which I have not been interested in since sometime around 2006 (see: TV connection above). (By the way, in case you think I'm one of those ABCs who has never cared about HK/Asian entertainment, I grew up on TVB VHS tapes from Box Hill (a very specific reference for Melbourne HKers - hello friends!), Leon Lai, Jacky Cheung, Cass Phang, Sammi Cheng, Denise Ho, Stephen Chow, the Young and Dangerous movies etc. but yes, I'm "ABC" enough to know their English names).

So what's changed? An inescapable boy band called Mirror.

About two months ago, I was on a shoot and chatting during a break. Somehow the subject turned to Keung To - I'd heard the name before, and that he had a McDonald's ad with his take on the Big Mac rap, but confessed that I wouldn't be able to recognise him. The person telling me about him was shocked and asked if I'd been living under a rock. I'll confess that it was pretty embarrassing, after all, I've been in media a long time and am growing a production house and agency - I felt like I was living in an expat bubble, which is probably one of my worst nightmares, so I did a 180 and dove in deep.

I'll spare you the introductions because, testament to their rising popularity, numerous English articles have been published about them, even in the NYT, but Keung To was the first breakout star in Mirror, the 12-piece boy band that was born out of ViuTV's talent competition show called King Maker. (Side note: One of my weird buttons/triggers is that English media always likens Mirror to BTS, as if K-pop invented the giant boy/girl band model - can we please acknowledge Morning Musume, the original giant J-pop girl group founded in 1998! This is why we need more diverse writers in English media! This is a hill I will die on!!!). What's interesting to me about this band isn't really their performances (at least half of them can't sing to save themselves), but the cultural phenomenon they've become. The group's songs - whether released as Mirror or individual members - have been consistently topping local charts, be it radio or streaming, and they've even received a few local music awards. The finale of Ossan's Love, the TV series featuring three Mirror members, hit a rating of 7.9 points (517,000 viewers), the highest in ViuTV's short history. (In the same time slot, the city's main channel TVB Jade hit a historic low of 14.2 points, or 930,000 - anything under a million for them is highly irregular). Their "fan economy" is doing wonders for everything from probiotics to real estate - Mirror fans are known to support their favourite members by buying everything they endorse, and also have helped boost their popularity by buying ad spaces themselves, from buses to billboards.

Digging a little further into advertising, this not-so-dirty dozen really have been the face of everything you can buy. The aforementioned Keung To, who did the McD's rap, has also collaborated with Cartier alongside fellow group member Anson Kong, and has been the face of almost every HSBC product. Anson Lo, arguably the member of the moment thanks to his lead role in ViuTV's boys' love/comedy series Ossan's Love, has been the face of everything from mattresses, to pet food (side note: his family's dog, Amber, is super cute), to Charlotte Tilbury's lipsticks. Frankie Chan, known for being a) unknown (well, the least known in the group) and b) the oldest, starred in a haemorrhoid cream commercial - no kidding.

In recent years, before the rise of Mirror, international brands had all but stopped using local pop stars for big campaigns, instead opting for big Korean, Mainland Chinese, Taiwanese and Japanese stars, since there were so few local stars that had enough clout. Right now, Jeremy Lee of Mirror is part of a huge VS Sassoon campaign that includes billboard ads and TVCs. Curious, I took a quick look at VS Sassoon 's Hong Kong YouTube page - previous "local" campaigns featured Korean G-Dragon, Taiwanese Gwei Lun-mei, and basically no Hong Kong celebs unless you count a tiny campaign with Jennifer Tse, but even that was three years ago.

Apart from getting the warm and fuzzies from seeing local faces on ads again, and giving me an ounce of hope that Hong Kong entertainment will again become powerhouse it once was in the 1990s (Stephen Chow, Anita Mui, Leslie Cheung, Sammi Cheng, Faye Wong, and Chow Yun-fat weren't just icons in Hong Kong - the Asian diaspora, Chinese-speaking or not, went crazy for them. And let's not forget Jacky Chan - I went to Kenya the year before last and when I said I was from Hong Kong, they responded with "Jacky Chan!"), this sudden interest in Mirror means there's a whole lot more work locally for creatives. From advertising to movies, concerts and theatre, local work has been picking up for videographers, directors, producers, lighting technicians, make-up artists, stylists - you get the idea.

According to this report, in the first half of 2021, local Instagram ad spend was at HK$13.7 billion - a 35% year-on-year growth - and 27 of the top 50 Instagram advertisers in Hong Kong worked with members of Mirror or Error (another product of King Maker, they're the jokey, "anti-idol" boy band).

A big question for marketers now is whether Mirror's members are overexposed; already among clients there's talk of purposely avoiding them (although I think it's just sour grapes of not being able to book them), but that's fine - what we're witnessing is a cultural shift that's much bigger than Mirror. A rising tide lifts all boats. Anecdotally at least, interest in local pop culture has risen. My own Spotify list now features the likes of Serrini, Gareth T., MC, AGA and Janice Vidal, names that I knew but didn't care about enough to listen to - it was, seriously, an interest in what Mirror's hype was all about that I started rooting around in the world of Cantopop/entertainment again. Other "niche" names, like actor, playwright and director Kearen Pang, who made her name on Hong Kong's tiny theatre scene (I cried for the first time in a theatre because of her show, 29+1 - her shows are a must if you speak Cantonese and enjoy theatre), have benefited from Mirror's rise too, becoming a mentor in King Maker II, and an acting teacher to Mirror members like Anson Lo. Local YouTubers like Asha and Trial and Error have gone mainstream (Asha starred in Ossan's Love, and Trial and Error is a new-ish YouTube channel made up of actors and writers who also started out on YouTube but have dabbled in offline entertainment - T&L probably deserves another newsletter if we're really digging deep into lihkg-forum-levels of local).

Unlike the 1990s, we now have social media (the Internet in general) and reality TV, which means pop stars' ability to shift cultural tides are bigger than ever. The feeling of "authenticity", whether real or designed, is now front and centre. In this article, an advertising exec is quoted as saying how "decidedly uncontroversial" Mirror are - that's simply because in the Internet age, everything can be found online. There's even a corner of Instagram that is dedicated to Mirror "archaeology" - digging up old clips, photos and screenshots from before they were famous. Anyone can go back into ViuTV's archives and stream the television debuts of all Mirror's members in just a few clicks. Their past lives and other typical local gossip rag fodder are more or less public knowledge - a few Mirror members have steady partners and aren't afraid to be seen with them, Anson Lo's "outing" by a local media outlet was heavily shat on by fans who knew he was gay anyway, and Mirror's other Jeremy, better known as Jer, still proudly has an IG highlight from his old busking days (and to my knowledge, most Mirror members run their own Instagram accounts and vlogs on YouTube).

Western media (also see NYT article linked above) likes to tie every piece of Hong Kong coverage to the city's political struggles, and has framed Mirror as a bit of a symbol for the city's democratic spirit, but the group is not likely to stand for anything either way, not just because of the National Security Law, but because it's owned by PCCW. A creation of ViuTV and signed to the record label Music Nation, they're every bit a part of billionaire Richard Li's telecoms and media empire. As much as Hongkongers like to check whether a business is "blue" (pro-establishment) or "yellow" (pro-democracy), when it comes to these twelve, we'll just have to leave that all aside and enjoy their dance moves and CP cuteness. (For some proper HK pro-democracy music, I would recommend Explicit Comment (人話) by Charmaine Fong.)

To bring this back to food (tangentially) - let it be known that I've invented a new HK pop culture-specific drinking game while we were enjoying all the eel, sake and special-edition umeshu (a perfect blend of liquors made from ripe and underripe plums) at Tatler Dining Kitchen's Uza pop-up. The game is simple: name all twelve members of Mirror without any clues (that includes looking at photos!). For every member you can't name, you down a shot. Chin-chin!

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Around a month ago, the final episode of the Hong Kong remake of Ossan's Love was aired on local free-to-air channel ViuTV. I stayed home and tuned in live, ads and all, something I have not done in almost a decade (I know because I never connected the TV cable in any of my HK apartments).

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Nicole Kidman Allowed to Skip Hong Kong's Strict Quarantine, Reports Say

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Nicole Kidman Allowed to Skip Hong Kong's Strict Quarantine, Reports Say

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(Bloomberg) -- Hollywood actor Nicole Kidman secured an exemption from strict Hong Kong quarantine rules that have faced criticism from the financial hub's business community, local media reported.

Kidman, 54, flew into the city in a private jet that took off from Sydney on Aug. 12, according to the Standard newspaper. The "Bombshell" star arrived to shoot the "Expats" television series for Amazon.com Inc. and was spotted with her bodyguards in many places, including at a boutique shop, the report said.

A spokesman for the government didn't immediately answer calls seeking comment.

Hong Kong mandates vaccinated residents and non-residents coming from "high-risk" countries to spend as long as 21 days in hotel quarantine upon arrival, besides a host of other requirements. For those from "low-risk" places such as Australia, that is cut short to seven days plus tests followed by self-monitoring. HSBC Holdings Plc Chairman Mark Tucker recently spent three weeks in isolation.

Business groups have expressed concern after the government tightened the curbs earlier this week, moving 15 nations to "high-risk" category effective Aug. 20. Australia has now been labeled as "medium-risk." The business community has struggled for the past 18 months with an economy that's been starved of big-spending tourists and business travelers. Hong Kong had about 99.9% fewer visitor arrivals in the first half this year than in the same period in 2019.

Kidman, who's also an executive producer of "Expats," will be staying at a mansion in an upscale neighborhood near Victoria Peak until October, paying a monthly rent of about HK$650,000 ($83,500), other local media reported.

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

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Nicole Kidman Allowed to Skip Hong Kong's Strict Quarantine, Reports Say - BNN Bloomberg

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(Bloomberg) -- Hollywood actor Nicole Kidman secured an exemption from strict Hong Kong quarantine rules that have faced criticism from the financial hub's business community, local media reported. Kidman, 54, flew into the city in a private jet that took off from Sydney on Aug. 12, according to the Standard newspaper.

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My Best Friend Scammed Me Out of $92,000, Forcing Me into Bankruptcy

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My Best Friend Scammed Me Out of $92,000, Forcing Me into Bankruptcy

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I fell hard for one of the oldest cons in the book. But this scheme wasn't cooked up by some fictional Nigerian prince soliciting me through a sketchy e-mail. I fell under the spell of an immensely lovable woman who inserted herself into my life and became my best friend. She was also an international con artist on the run.

She snared me in an age-old con called the Inheritance Scam, ultimately bilking me out of nearly $100,000. She simultaneously destroyed my sense of self and darkened my once joyful outlook. As she was ruining my life, she was also scamming dozens of others around the world by impersonating psychics, mortgage brokers, psychologists, lawyers, and travel agents and even pretending to be a cancer victim.

She was a true queen of the con, using disguises and plastic surgery to alter her appearance. I was a reality TV producer, working on shows such as American Ninja Warrior and Shark Tank, and I never saw through her masterful performances. She might have gotten away with cheating many more people if she hadn't turned me into a vigilante. I started my own investigation, uncovered other victims, and helped bring her to justice.

Today, she's in jail, probably wondering how on earth she became the victim of one of her own victims. Make sure you know about these phone call scams that could steal your money.

Allow me to explain.

She introduced herself to me as Mair Smyth in May 2013, when she joined a group of angry neighbors in my living room to discuss what to do about losing access to our building's swimming pool because of a legal spat with a neighboring building.

"I can help," she told us. "My boyfriend is a lawyer who can get the pool back!"

I liked her immediately. We all did. She was brash. Funny. Intelligent and outspoken. Ironically, for someone who turned out to be a liar and a con artist, she came across as a woman who would always "tell it like it is."

She also came across as extremely wealthy. She wore expensive Jimmy Choo shoes and once showed me her closet filled with more than 250 pairs. I later discovered they were all fake.

After our initial meeting in my apartment that night, Mair invited my husband, Pablito, and me to dinner. Over the next year, she frequently wined and dined us at fancy restaurants and always insisted on picking up the bill. "I have a lot of money-let me pay!" she'd plead convincingly.

We'd hang out almost every evening in our barbecue area, exchanging intimacies under the cool Los Angeles sky. Mair told us she was originally from Ireland. One night she pointed to a framed document hanging in her living room. "This is the Irish Constitution," she said.

"See that signature at the bottom? That's my great-uncle's." I had no idea that, like her shoes, that tale was fake.

Mair brought me Irish tea and pastries and regaled me with stories of how when she was a young girl, her grandmother, who was supposedly in the Irish Republican Army, would take her to the top of a bridge and teach her how to hurl Molotov cocktails down on British soldiers. I was captivated and horrified.

When I tearfully confided in her that part of my family had disowned me for being gay, she pounced. "My family disowned me, too!" she said as she fought back tears. "They're trying to get me disinherited."

Mair told me that an uncle, the patriarch of her family, had recently died, and her cousins were dividing up an estate worth 25 million euros (about $32 million). She said she was supposed to receive 5 million euros as her share of the inheritance and showed me angry text messages and e-mails from her cousins threatening that she wouldn't get a dime.

Mair told me she had taken a lot of family money with her when she left Ireland many years ago, so she never needed to work. But she claimed she enjoyed working, so she got hired at a travel agency where her family did a lot of business. Watch out for these sneaky "deals" that are actually money scams.

Fourteen months into our friendship, Mair and I were like sister and brother, even ending our phone calls with "I love you." She told me that her barristers (I had to look up the word to learn that it means "lawyers") were having trouble trying to secure her inheritance and that they had warned her about a clause in her uncle's will stating that if any family member were convicted of a felony, the person would forfeit his or her share.

"You'd better be careful!" I cautioned her. "One of your disgruntled cousins might try and set you up!" Many of her family members certainly appeared to hate her. Why wouldn't they set her up? I thought.

On July 8, 2014, my phone rang.

"You have a collect call from an inmate at the Century Regional Detention Facility. Press one to accept," the computerized voice instructed me.

It was Mair. I quickly pressed one.

"You were right!" she sobbed. "I was arrested today. My family set me up to make it look like I stole $200,000 from my job."

"I told you this would happen!" I yelled. I was distraught. I found a bail bondsman and paid him $4,200 to get her out of jail. That's when I first learned that her legal name was Marianne Smyth, not Mair Smyth. But she paid me back the next day, when she was released from jail. Or, rather, the married man she was dating at the time paid me back. Little did I (or he) know she was scamming him too.

As the months passed, Mair showed me e-mails from her lawyers assuring her that the case against her was falling apart. I had no idea those e-mails were from fake accounts she had created herself, just like the messages she claimed were from her cousins. These are the signs that an Amazon seller can't be trusted.

Then, almost three years into our friendship, she told me that the district attorney prosecuting her case had frozen her bank accounts. So I started lending her money. She had immediately paid back the $4,200 I used to bail her out of jail, so I felt confident she'd pay me back any other money I loaned her.

But that's the thing: The term con artist is short for confidence artist because these individuals are skilled at gaining your confidence and then using it to scam you out of your money.

Over the course of several months, I lent Mair nearly $15,000. You'd think I'd be worried about giving her that much money, but I wasn't. Not only was she my best friend, but she also claimed she was about to inherit millions of dollars. I never even considered that anything sinister could be taking place. Make sure you stop falling for these common Facebook scams.

One day, Mair called me and said the DA was demanding $50,000 to dismiss the case against her. I didn't have $50,000 in cash. But I did have an 840 credit score. So I let her charge the $50,000 on my credit cards to get the criminal case against her dropped.

A few months later, Mair was arrested again. She said the judge had charged her with money laundering, something to do with her using my credit cards, and punished her with 30 days in jail-a "slap on the wrist." She assured me, once again, that as soon as she got out and received her inheritance, she would pay me back.

Mair called me collect from jail every day. When I said I wanted to come visit her, she begged me not to. "I don't want you to see me like this," she said. But I insisted. So I logged on to the jail's website to schedule a visit. That's when the true devastation she had wrought on my life started to reveal itself.

The website showed that Mair was serving time for felony grand theft. This was no slap on the wrist.

I took the day off and rushed to a Los Angeles courthouse. With trembling hands, I reviewed every record I could find from Mair's case. I discovered she had lied to me about everything. I suddenly couldn't breathe.

I learned that the $50,000 I let her charge on my credit cards had gone to pay $40,000 as part of a plea agreement to a felony grand theft charge she faced for stealing more than $200,000 from the travel agency she worked for. Had she not been able to come up with that $40,000, she would have received a five-year jail sentence, not the measly 30 days she actually served.

Her bank accounts had never been frozen. There was no wealthy Irish family or inheritance. She's not even Irish! Those were all lies she used to entrap me.

I went home and collapsed in my husband's arms. "How could I let this happen to us?" I sobbed.

Eventually, my pain was replaced by breathtaking anger and the determination to do something. Here are the online scams you need to be aware of-and how to avoid them.

The day Mair was released from jail, I confronted her in the parking lot outside our apartment building. She denied everything. "That's not true, Johnathan! That's not true!" she protested as tears streamed down her face.

But I was done believing anything she had to say. I balled up my fists, clenched my jaw, and walked away. We never spoke again.

I went to the police days later, in March 2017, and filed a report. The officer interviewing me seemed skeptical that there was anything they could do. "Don't give strangers your money" were his parting words. So I started my own investigation.

I dug up Mair Smyth's high school yearbook and learned that she was born Marianne Andle in Maine and graduated from Bangor High in 1987. She later moved to Tennessee, where, according to estranged family members I spoke with, she claimed she had breast cancer and allegedly scammed friends and neighbors out of thousands for "treatments." They told me Mair was oddly obsessed with wanting to be Irish. In 2000, she went to Ireland on vacation. She ended up marrying a local and stayed for nine years.

In the same way that wooden stakes kill vampires and silver bullets kill werewolves, publicity kills con artists. I began turning my pain into a profound sense of purpose. I started a blog, johnathanwalton.com, detailing how Mair had scammed me. Soon, other victims of hers from all over the world started reaching out.

I heard from one who claimed Mair had scammed her out of $10,000 by impersonating a psychologist. She allegedly tricked our landlord out of $12,000 in rent by pretending to have cancer. Mair had iron-deficiency anemia and would purposely avoid iron-rich foods so she could get admitted into hospitals for iron infusions. While sitting in a hospital bed, she'd ask a nurse to take her picture and then e-mail that photo to her victims to better sell her cancer story. She used this particular scam a lot.

A police detective in Northern Ireland told me that authorities in Belfast had been looking for Marianne Smyth for years. The detective said she had worked as a mortgage broker in 2008 and had scammed many people and then vanished.

All in all, Mair Smyth used at least 23 different aliases and has been charged with fraud and grand theft in Florida and Tennessee.

I was determined to get justice and called the Los Angeles Police Department every day.

A year after I'd last seen her, Mair was arrested and charged with grand theft for scamming me. She was released on her own recognizance. I never went near her, but one month before trial, Mair filed for a restraining order against me, asserting that I was threatening her with violence. It cost me $1,500 to hire an attorney to fight her bogus claim. "If a judge grants the restraining order, you would be prevented from testifying against her at her criminal trial," my lawyer explained.

Could this be her checkmate move? I wondered. I was apoplectic.

Thankfully, the judge refused to grant the restraining order, and Mair's trial proceeded. The prosecution presented a mountain of irrefutable evidence. Though she was charged with scamming only me, the judge allowed testimony from three other victims to demonstrate a pattern.

Mair did not testify in her own defense. As witnesses described how she had scammed them, she just sat there with an emotionless look on her face. That was probably her biggest tell to the jury. She was a brilliant actress while she was conning people, but remarkably, she didn't know how to act innocent.

The only defense her attorney had was that I was making the whole story up. Supposedly I had persuaded all of the other witnesses-people I didn't even know before Mair scammed me-to lie under oath. He was terrifyingly convincing.

The prosecutor went over in extreme detail each dollar Mair had scammed from me. Reliving that experience in front of a roomful of strangers ignited fury and embarrassment and regret in a new, painful way.

I spent two years pursuing Marianne Smyth. I had to file for bankruptcy because of what she had done to me. And the 24 court appearances I made even before the trial-for continuances, pretrial motions, and hearings-meant I missed a lot of work and lost even more money. Not to mention the cost of hiring private investigators in multiple states and countries to ferret out all her scams.

But it was worth it.

On January 9, 2019, Marianne Smyth was found guilty of conning me out of $91,784-the money she had borrowed plus thousands of dollars of interest that had accrued on my credit cards. She was sentenced to five years behind bars.

Besides me, only two of Mair's other marks reported her to the police. That enabled her to continue scamming people for years. Most of her victims, like most victims of any con artist, were too ashamed to tell anyone what had happened to them.

I am now suspicious of everyone and everything. Making new friends is not something I'm good at anymore. And I'm ashamed too. But my desire to stop her from hurting other people is much stronger than my shame. Next, learn about the most common eBay scams you need to watch out for.

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My Best Friend Scammed Me Out of $92,000, Forcing Me into Bankruptcy

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I fell hard for one of the oldest cons in the book. But this scheme wasn't cooked up by some fictional Nigerian prince soliciting me through a sketchy e-mail. I fell under the spell of an immensely lovable woman who inserted herself into my life and became my best friend.

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This Boy Band Is the Joy That Hong Kong Needs Right Now

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This Boy Band Is the Joy That Hong Kong Needs Right Now

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The popularity of the group, called Mirror, has offered the city a rare burst of unity and pleasure after years of political upheaval.

Jer Lau, a member of Mirror, the Cantopop group, during a promotional event in Hong Kong last month. Credit... Anthony Kwan for The New York Times

HONG KONG - They swarm public squares, crowd shopping malls and form lines that stretch several city blocks. They lean over barricades that strain to hold them and ignore police officers who try to corral them.

The crowds filling Hong Kong in recent weeks aren't protesters fighting for democracy. They are devotees of the city's hottest boy band.

For more than two years, Hong Kong has badly needed a source of uplift. First there were the mass protests of 2019, then the coronavirus pandemic, then a sweeping national security law. The city has been politically polarized and economically battered.

Enter Mirror, a group of 12 singing and dancing young men who seemingly overnight have taken over the city - and, in doing so, infused it with a burst of joy.

As far as pop idols go, the band is familiar fare. Its lyrics hew to declarations of love and I-can-do-anything affirmations. K-pop's influence is apparent in its tightly choreographed music videos and highly stylized coifs. Think BTS singing in Cantonese.

Little about the group reflects the political upheaval in its hometown. But Mirror, perhaps precisely because it offers an escape with a catchy beat, has provided a musical balm to an anxious city at an uncertain time.

"In the past two years, Hong Kong's social environment has made many people, especially young people, feel very discouraged," said Lim Wong, a 30-something finance worker as she lined up to take photographs by a fan-sponsored pink truck with the face of Anson Lo, a band member.

"They work for their dreams, and that kind of energy really fits Hong Kong at this moment."

Though the group formed in 2018, through a reality show designed to manufacture a hit boy band, its popularity exploded this year. Fans cite a number of reasons: a strong showing at an awards show in January; the release of the group's first full-length album; the pandemic, which left many Hong Kongers starved for entertainment.

Mirror's ascent has also coincided with a new, more intense stage of the Chinese government's pressure on the city. For people of all political persuasions, the band has become a sort of ideological canvas.

Some have claimed the band's rousing beats for the battered pro-democracy movement. Gwyneth Ho, a 30-year-old opposition politician who was arrested after running in an informal primary election, has made her love for Mirror a motif in letters from jail. She said the first time she cried after her arrest was upon hearing "Warrior," an anthem about perseverance.

"The worst that could happen is death, and I won't avoid it," Ms. Ho quoted from the lyrics.

Some also see Mirror as an emblem of Hong Kong identity, at a time when many fear that identity will be erased by Beijing.

Cantopop - pop sung in Cantonese, the local Chinese language - was once a major cultural export. Unabashedly commercial but also distinctly local in character, it ranged from sappy power ballads to pulsing dance tunes, folding in covers of Western hits and nods to social issues.

But interest flagged over the past two decades as the entertainment industries in South Korea, Taiwan and mainland China boomed. Many Hong Kong stars shifted their attention to the mainland.

Now Mirror is driving a resurgence of enthusiasm for Cantopop - and, with it, a broader hometown pride.

"It's because of Anson Lo and Mirror that I've become totally newly acquainted with Hong Kong local songs and artists," said Henry Tong, a banker in his 20s visiting the pink truck. "It's not just songs - there are also Hong Kong television shows and other productions."

The band has also become entangled in attacks by government supporters. On social media, some mainland users have, without evidence, accused members of supporting Hong Kong independence. A pro-Beijing lawmaker recently suggested that a television drama starring two band members might run afoul of the national security law because it depicted homosexuality. (The group's representatives did not respond to requests for comment.)

Other performers have become political targets. This month, officials arrested Anthony Wong Yiu-ming, a Cantopop star, for singing at a rally for a pro-democracy legislative candidate.

Some fans have parsed the band's statements for signs of political leanings, pointing to an interview one member gave saying he was glad "Warrior" could cheer up Ms. Ho, the politician.

But Mirror has avoided explicit declarations. It has partnered with the Hong Kong government to promote the local economy.

Even those who invoked politics in explaining Mirror's popularity emphasized a fierce desire to insulate it from those forces.

Annie Yuen, who leads the fan club that organized the Anson Lo truck - as well as several billboards and the sale of thousands of "Little Anson" dolls - said Mirror was a rebuttal to those who had cast Hong Kong's protesting youth as rioters or malcontents.

"They were saying that Hong Kong youngsters have no contribution," Ms. Yuen, who is in her 30s, said. Mirror showed that "Hong Kong young people could bring success."

Still, Ms. Yuen emphasized that was not her main draw to Mirror.

"We want to just temporarily forget about the politics," she said, "and just enjoy what they bring to us."

Enjoy is an understatement. Spend five minutes talking to a Mirror fan, and the takeaway is not about Hong Kong's social situation. It's of pure, wholesome delight.

Mr. Lo, 26, is the heartthrob - but fans also moon over his work ethic and manners. Ian Chan, 28, is lovingly teased as a bookworm. Another member, Keung To, 22, won over many by discussing his experiences with childhood obesity and bullying.

The band has leaned into its hometown hero image, promoting a food drive and cheering on Hong Kong's Olympic athletes. In interviews, members exude family-friendly goofiness, talking over themselves and ruffling one another's hair.

Christy Siu said she was enthralled by their singing, dancing and acting. She was especially proud of their performance at the January awards show, when the band, in sleek suits draped with silver chains, slinked and popped across the stage.

Ms. Siu, who is in her 20s, said she spends around $250 each month on products advertised by band members. She recently bought dozens of Mirror-endorsed toothbrushes.

In a way, the band is allowing young people to reclaim an innocence, said Anthony Fung, a professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong who studies pop culture.

"Suddenly, they've realized that they could put down all these so-called big social things," he said. "There is something more joyful, playful, that draws them away from the political impasse of their youth."

The most striking effect of Mirror's takeover of Hong Kong has been its ability to unify a divided city. Many fans said they wanted the band to reach as many listeners as possible, regardless of gender, age or political background.

The band seems aware of those hopes. At the end of a sold-out concert series in May, the members lined up onstage to thank their parents and fans. A few offered advice.

"This world is really complicated," Mr. Chan said. "I hope that everyone here can remain simple and pure."

The crowd erupted.

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This Boy Band Is the Joy That Hong Kong Needs Right Now

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The popularity of the group, called Mirror, has offered the city a rare burst of unity and pleasure after years of political upheaval. HONG KONG - They swarm public squares, crowd shopping malls and form lines that stretch several city blocks. They lean over barricades that strain to hold them and ignore police officers who try to corral them.

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China’s Covid-Zero Strategy Risks Leaving It Isolated for Years

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China’s Covid-Zero Strategy Risks Leaving It Isolated for Years

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(Bloomberg) -- As most of the world learns to live with Covid-19, China is tethering itself to eliminating the virus over the long term -- an approach that risks leaving the world's second-biggest economy isolated for years to come.

China this month saw the contagious delta variant pop up in more than half of 31 provinces despite water-tight border controls, triggering yet another round of targeted lockdowns, travel curbs and mass testing across the country. While the outbreak is the most widespread in China since the initial flare-up in Wuhan last year, the World Health Organization said total cases last Friday were 141 -- around .01% of the new infections that day in the U.S.

The aggressive moves to tame a relatively small caseload in a country with one of the world's highest vaccination rates shows how politically invested the Communist Party has become in achieving zero Covid-19 infections. Chinese authorities are increasingly trumpeting their success in containing the virus as an ideological and moral victory over the U.S. and other nations now treating Covid-19 as endemic.

In the short term, Chinese leaders have an incentive to maintain strict controls at least through next year: They don't want any major outbreaks derailing the Winter Olympics or clouding a once-in-five-year Party Congress at which President Xi Jinping is expected to get a third term in office. The problem, however, is the rising economic and political costs in maintaining that policy indefinitely, particularly as the virus spawns new variants that can breach restrictions more easily.

"China will have to pivot from its containment strategy, sooner or later -- you can stay Covid Zero for a while, but you can't stay Covid Zero forever, because the virus swoops in before you know it," said Chen Zhengming, an epidemiology professor at the University of Oxford. "My worry is that they won't actively pursue a tactic change as Covid Zero has become an entrenched mentality. Especially when you hold officials accountable, no one dares to go easy on the outbreak."

Right now it's nearly taboo in China to even suggest a different approach. In a commentary published over the weekend by a health news app run by the official People's Daily newspaper, former health minister Gao Qiang called for stronger measures to keep the virus out of China while blasting the U.S., U.K. and other countries for easing too early.

"Their sole reliance on vaccination and pursuit of the so-called 'co-existence with the virus' have led to a resurgence of the virus," he wrote. "This is a misstep in Covid decision-making caused by the deficiencies in their political mechanism and the result of upholding individualism."

After Gao's piece was published, Chinese social media users began attacking Zhang Wenhong, director of infectious diseases at Shanghai Huashan Hospital, who had earlier called on Chinese authorities to find "the wisdom to co-exist with the virus long term."

China isn't the only country that's sought to snuff out the virus, with Singapore, Australia and New Zealand also pursuing the strategy dubbed Covid Zero. But as the rest of the world opens up and the prospect of global elimination recedes, others are starting to back away from a playbook that prevented deaths but left them cut off and fixated on case counts.

China's commitment to Covid Zero has implications for investors, many of whom are already been reeling from Xi's sweeping crackdown on technology firms that at one point erased $1.5 trillion from Chinese stocks. Economic risks are building in the second half of the year, with growth set to slow while inflation pressures are picking up. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Nomura Holdings Inc. downgraded growth forecasts for China this month over Beijing's measures to curb the virus.

While China's Covid policy would lead to a relatively safe domestic environment, "the cost is that China will stay isolated," Zhang Zhiwei, chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management, wrote in a note on Sunday.

"The zero tolerance policy is costly for economic growth," Zhang said. "Mr. Gao's article shows China is willing to pay the price."

With 1.4 billion consumers and a tightly controlled political system, China can afford to maintain stringent controls on immigration and internal movement much more than smaller economies like Singapore. The low death toll and massive consumer market allowed China to become the first major economy to recover from the pandemic-induced downturn and boosted the Communist Party's standing at home just as it plummeted overseas.

'Overkill'

Many people like Lilah Pang, a 30-year-old advertising executive in Shanghai, have no complaints whatsoever about the restrictions to contain the latest outbreak. "Everyone should discipline themselves, as it's beneficial to us all," she said in an interview.

Yet some Chinese people are increasingly questioning Beijing's absolutist approach, which sees constant disruption to their lives and no prospect of foreign travel for years. One woman who asked not to be identified described some recent virus control measures as "overkill." "The whole propaganda makes you feel like it's dangerous to go anywhere right now, even low-risk areas," she said.

Foreign businesses that rely on the exchange of people are also concerned, particularly as China's stringent border controls have seen some executives or their families shut out for months. Joerg Wuttke, head of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, warned that China could be left "on its island doing its thing" if it persists with a zero-tolerance approach as other countries open.

'Save the Stock Market'

One practical concern for China's leaders is the lower efficacy of China-made vaccines compared with mRNA vaccines developed in the West, particularly in a population with little natural immunity. While the government has discussed booster shots, no decisions have been announced.

"The DNA of the leadership is enforcing," Wuttke said. "As long as they don't have enough booster shots, I think it's pretty much going to be more draconian controls."

China has vilified economic arguments for opening up, with three research groups on Monday releasing a report that described the U.S. objective as "save the stock market, not to save lives." Authors of the document -- titled "America Ranked First?!: The Truth about America's fight against Covid-19" -- criticized Bloomberg News' monthly Covid Resilience Ranking. In July, the U.S was scored as a better place to be than China during the pandemic in part due to progress in opening up, though both are in the top ten among the 53 economies included.

"The freedom of movement and the 'normal functioning' of society advocated by Bloomberg's rankings are not about the safety of the American people," the report said. "They are only about the need for the free flow of capital, and the desire for excessive profits."

China's Covid Zero strategy stems in part from a tradition that people would rebel if leaders don't protect the people, according to Wei Nanzhi, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences affiliated with China's State Council. The Communist Party also repeatedly emphasizes a need to protect the masses over powerful interests, she added.

"If in the future every country will open the door, but only China will not open the door, can such kind of thing be sustainable? I think we will learn from other countries' experience," Wei said, citing Singapore as an example.

Still, China's strong public defense of its Covid Zero strategy makes any pivot away from it more difficult. After 18 months of focusing on single cases, it will take a substantial paradigm and propaganda shift for Communist Party leaders to get citizens to accept Covid cases -- and deaths -- as routine.

"There's definitely a huge political risk for the government," said Andy Chen, senior analyst with Beijing-based consultancy Trivium China. "Once it decides to change that approach, a lot of people who believe that the government's genuinely trying to protect them will have second thoughts. They will be very confused."

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com

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©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

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China's Covid-Zero Strategy Risks Leaving It Isolated for Years

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(Bloomberg) -- As most of the world learns to live with Covid-19, China is tethering itself to eliminating the virus over the long term -- an approach that risks leaving the world's second-biggest economy isolated for years to come.China this month saw the contagious delta variant pop up in more than half of 31 provinces despite water-tight border controls, triggering yet another round of targeted lockdowns, travel curbs and mass testing across the country.

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Racial privilege is well and alive in Hong Kong’s English teaching industry. Where’s the reckoning?

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Racial privilege is well and alive in Hong Kong’s English teaching industry. Where’s the reckoning?

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After graduating abroad from university with an English degree in 2017, I had little trouble finding an English-teaching job back in Hong Kong.

At the first tutorial center I worked at, I met Illiana. Her English was impeccable, and she spoke fluent Cantonese, Spanish, and her native tongues of Cebuano and Tagalog. I found Illiana's work ethic truly inspirational and she radiated such enthusiasm. Her students genuinely loved her.

By day, she was an English teacher. By night, she was a Masters of Education student. Her time in the university classroom proved to be more about self-improvement than adding another qualification to her already impressive name.

Illiana ticked all the boxes- just for my ex-boss to reassure skeptical Hong Kong parents that she was not a domestic helper working illegally. At times, prospective parents left unconvinced and turned to our neighboring competitors.

Our co-workers on the other hand, all white twenty-somethings from the US, UK, Australia, and New Zealand, were zealously accepted by local parents. Their qualifications and work experience were never once brought into question. And if you ask them how they landed their positions, some will say nonchalantly that they "fell into teaching."

Illiana's story is but one of the many examples of the racism that plagues Hong Kong's education industry - everyone plays a part, including employers, parents and the "teachers" for whom Hong Kong is just another stop on their Asia bucket list.

Conflating whiteness with competence

I speak from a place of privilege. I was born in Singapore, moved to Hong Kong soon after, and attended a through-train international school for Singaporeans. With an ethnic Chinese last name and an English degree from an Australian university, parents or employers rarely interrogate me about my qualifications and abilities.

In my five years as an English teacher, it's clear that Hong Kong is a very attractive place for foreigners looking to tutor English. Why earn a modest income in a developing country when you can live comfortably in Hong Kong, jet to Hanoi or Bangkok for a weekend and come back to a cushy teaching job that could pay upwards of $25,000 (US$3,205) as a monthly starting salary?

And because there is no shortage of English tutoring jobs in Hong Kong, even less-than-qualified teachers are welcome. Hundreds of branches of franchised tutorial centers, run more like businesses chasing a quick turnover, are happy to offer full visa sponsorship to a white face. Far too often, being native in a language is automatically assumed-incorrectly-to mean expertise in teaching it.

Last year, a photo circulated on Facebook appearing to list hiring requirements from a number of employers, presumably schools or tutorial centers. The list blatantly declared preferences for physical appearance such as "blond hair" and "must white," while one employer specified "No India/Africa."

Many were shocked at the photo, surprised that such unabashed racism could be endorsed in an industry educating the future generation. But for those of us who are teachers, we know this discrimination unsettlingly well.

I've witnessed my ex-boss at my previous tutorial center throw out resumes submitted by people with Filipino, South Asian or vaguely Muslim-sounding last names. Sure, like in any recruitment process, there were candidates who were sorely unfit for the job. But many had impressive achievements.

"Audrey, how do you pronounce 'O-U-S-M-A-N-E'? Meh dei fong lei ga (咩地方嚟㗎)," she once called out to me, just to chuck the résumé in the bin before I could respond.

The students also get the short end of the stick when they're taught by people who come and go as they please, who regard teaching as just another way to make money to fund the next stop.

"That's just the way the industry is," an English teacher once told me when I challenged his motives for teaching in Hong Kong. On social media, he is a self-described backpacker, travel writer and social media expert. Teaching, he said, "is just a casual thing."

I came to resent people like him. Hopping from one far-flung classroom to another, they do no favors to the children who would benefit much more from an educator who could build a relationship with them and tailor their lessons according to their progress over the years.

Psychologically, it is also harmful for young, impressionable children to grow attached to a mentor-only for them to leave months later.

Schools and learning centers in Hong Kong need to play a crucial role in de-colonizing the mindset that only white people can teach English well. Ethnic minorities who were born and raised in Hong Kong, and have the advantage of knowing Cantonese, are far better suited to teach struggling second-language learners than foreigners "finding themselves" in Asia.

It might not be good for business-after all, many parents want their children to learn from Caucasians over locals and ethnic minorities. But more thoughtful and stringent hiring practices would go a long way in ensuring that students are taught by more competent and passionate teachers who are focusing on their job at hand.
Subscribe to The Coconuts Podcast for top trending news and pop culture from Southeast Asia and Hong Kong every Friday!

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Racial privilege is well and alive in Hong Kong's English teaching industry. Where's the reckoning?

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After graduating abroad from university with an English degree in 2017, I had little trouble finding an English-teaching job back in Hong Kong. At the first tutorial center I worked at, I met Illiana. Her English was impeccable, and she spoke fluent Cantonese, Spanish, and her native tongues of Cebuano and Tagalog.

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The star is now the wealthiest female musician in the world, according to Forbes.

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Hong Kong anti-graft agency drops case against Canto-pop star Anthony Wong

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Hong Kong anti-graft agency drops case against Canto-pop star Anthony Wong

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Hong Kong anti-graft agency drops case against Canto-pop star Anthony Wong

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Wong, of the group Tat Ming Pair, and ex-lawmaker Au Nok-hin were charged with illegally inducing voters via a performance Wong gave at a 2018 election rally.

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Hong Kong media outlet, broadcaster and artist all quit city 

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Hong Kong media outlet, broadcaster and artist all quit city 

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Hong Kong media outlet, broadcaster and artist all quit city

FILE PHOTO: hHong Kong pro-democracy media tycoon and owner of the Apple Daily newspaper, Jimmy Lai, is led into a police van as he heads to court to be charged under Hong Kong's controversial new national security law. (AFP)

Hong Kong online news outlet Initium announced it was relocating to Singapore on Tuesday citing fading press freedoms, the first local media to quit the financial hub as authorities crack down on dissent.

Hong Kong online news outlet Initium announced it was relocating to Singapore on Tuesday citing fading press freedoms, the first local media to quit the financial hub as authorities crack down on dissent.

The announcement came the same day that veteran broadcaster Steve Vines and Kacey Wong, one of the city's best known political artists, also separately confirmed they had left Hong Kong because of declining freedoms.

"Over the past six years, the road to freedom has become tougher and more dangerous, the world is increasingly polarised and antagonistic," Initium's chief editor Susie Wu wrote in an article commemorating the outlet's sixth year anniversary.

She cited Hong Kong's steady slide down annual press freedom ranking lists and the rise of "little pinks" -- staunch nationalists -- in mainland China.

Initium is a comparatively small Chinese-language outlet with some 60,000 paying subscribers.

But its departure illustrates the concerns many media outlets have about their future in Hong Kong, a city which was once a bastion of free speech in China.

"We believe no matter where we are, as long as the freedom in our hearts is connected, we can create larger space for freedom," Wu wrote.

China is currently remoulding Hong Kong in its own authoritarian image after huge and often violent democracy protests two years ago.

A sweeping national security law imposed last year has criminalised much dissent and authorities have embarked on a campaign to root out those deemed unpatriotic.

Many of the city's most prominent pro-democracy activists have been arrested or jailed. Others have fled overseas.

On Tuesday, public broadcaster RTHK confirmed veteran host Vines had left for the UK, blaming what he said was "white terror sweeping through Hong Kong".

"The institutions that ensure the liberty of Hongkongers are being dismantled by people who care so little that they don't even flinch when it becomes abundantly clear that the very essence of the place is being destroyed," Vines wrote in an email to colleagues, RTHK reported.

In a separate interview with Hong Kong Free Press, political artist Wong said he had moved to Taiwan in search of "100 percent freedom" because of diminishing freedom in his home city.

Multiple international media companies, including AFP, have their regional headquarters in Hong Kong, attracted to the business-friendly regulations and free speech provisions written into the city's mini-constitution.

But many media outlets are questioning whether they have a future there.

The New York Times moved its Asia hub to South Korea after the law was enacted last year, and others have drawn up contingency plans.

Last month the Hong Kong Journalists Association said press freedoms were "in tatters".

The group cited the sudden closure of pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily in June after its assets were frozen under the national security law.

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Hong Kong media outlet, broadcaster and artist all quit city

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Hong Kong media outlet, broadcaster and artist all quit city FILE PHOTO: hHong Kong pro-democracy media tycoon and owner of the Apple Daily newspaper, Jimmy Lai, is led into a police van as he heads to court to be charged under Hong Kong's controversial new national security law.

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‘This is my home’: Hong Kong’s foreign residents say they have no plans to leave because of national security law 

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‘This is my home’: Hong Kong’s foreign residents say they have no plans to leave because of national security law 

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Hong Kong's foreign residents say 'this is home', have no plans to leave

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Foreigners understand why some Hongkongers have left, but some say new law helped restore order after chaos of 2019 protests.

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Nanjing: New virus outbreak worst since Wuhan, say Chinese state media

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Nanjing: New virus outbreak worst since Wuhan, say Chinese state media

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Nanjing: New China virus outbreak worst after Wuhan, says state media

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Almost 200 people have been infected since the virus was first detected at Nanjing airport on 20 July.

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Why do Hong Kong, China and Taiwan have separate teams at the Olympic Games? 

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Why do Hong Kong, China and Taiwan have separate teams at the Olympic Games? 

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Why do Hong Kong, China and Taiwan send separate teams to Olympics?

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Taiwan have marched under the name of 'Chinese Taipei' since the 1984 Olympic Games, while Hong Kong are allowed a separate team under 'one country, two systems'.

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Student and part-time employee at McDonald’s who lives in subdivided unit in Yuen Long scores 5** in 4 subjects in DSE Exam

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Student and part-time employee at McDonald’s who lives in subdivided unit in Yuen Long scores 5** in 4 subjects in DSE Exam

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Student and part-time employee at McDonald's who lives in subdivided unit in Yuen Long scores 5** in 4 subjects in DSE Exam - Dimsum Daily

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22nd July 2021 - (Hong Kong) The DSE Secondary School Diploma Examination results were released yesterday (21st). Compared with some prestigious schools in some areas, many students of the Yuen Long Catholic Secondary School classified as "Band3" are from the grassroots families. They may not be able to focus on their studies due to various ...

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Sample questions offer glimpse of how Hong Kong pupils will be tested in newly revamped liberal studies subject

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Sample questions offer glimpse of how Hong Kong pupils will be tested in newly revamped liberal studies subject

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Sample questions offer glimpse of newly revamped liberal studies exam

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One question asks students how they would dispel concerns over national security law, while another asks them to discuss advantages presented by Greater Bay Area.

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Man ‘stuck’ with 10,000 #FreeBrittany t-shirts after trying to make money from Britney Spears case 

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Man ‘stuck’ with 10,000 #FreeBrittany t-shirts after trying to make money from Britney Spears case 

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#FreeBrittany: Printing error leaves man 'stuck' with 10,000 t-shirts

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Though the error may seem amusing, it speaks to a larger problem with fast fashion and activism.

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Hong Kong’s rent control bill won’t please everyone but it’s a start

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Hong Kong’s rent control bill won’t please everyone but it’s a start

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Hong Kong's rent control bill won't please everyone but it's a start

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The tenancy control bill for subdivided flats does not alleviate the underlying issue of a shortage of affordable housing. But it would help people live more securely

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'I want to press charges against my father today': Britney's emotional appeal to Judge

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'I want to press charges against my father today': Britney's emotional appeal to Judge

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Britney Spears' ongoing legal battle regarding her conservatorship has continued in a Los Angeles court. After the resignation of Spears' court-appointed attorney Sam Ingham earlier this month, the 39-year-old singer petitioned the court to allow her to choose her own legal representation. The court has approved Spears' request to have lawyer and former federal prosecutor Mathew Rosengart represent her.

Spears appeared at the hearing via phone, making an emotional plea to have her father, Jamie Spears, investigated.

"I would like to charge my father with conservatorship abuse," a tearful Spears told the court, as reported by CNN.

"I want to press charges against my father today," Spears said. "I want an investigation into my dad."

Britney also reportedly told the court that she thought those charged with carrying out the conservatorship "were trying to kill me" and called the arrangement "f**king cruelty".

"If this is not abuse, I don't know what is," CNN reports her as saying.

Many close to Spears, including her mother, Lynne, have spoken in court on the singer's behalf in recent weeks, arguing that it is her right to choose her own lawyer. Last week court documents revealed that Lynne Spears had formally requested permission for the star to hire her own lawyer, asking the court to "listen to the wishes of her daughter".

In addition to family support, Spears has the weight of her fans behind her, with the #FreeBritney movement continuing to gain momentum. Spears took a moment to thank her fans in her statement to the court, attributing them with giving her much-needed strength.

"[They are] remarkably strong and talented ... it's because of them I am here today. It's because of them I have the f**king strength to speak up against my family who have silenced me and my fans for years," she said.

Spears has been suffering under the conditions of her bizarre conservatorship arrangement since 2008. The pop star's personal and financial decisions are in control of several parties, including her father, Jamie Spears. Jamie serves as co-conservator of her finances along with estate management firm the Bessemer Trust, and in 2019 relinquished his role as conservator over his daughter's life choices to a court-appointed professional.
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'I want to press charges against my father today': Britney's emotional appeal to Judge - NZ Herald

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Britney Spears' ongoing legal battle regarding her conservatorship has continued in a Los Angeles court. After the resignation of Spears' court-appointed attorney Sam Ingham earlier this month, the 39-year-old singer petitioned the court to allow her to choose her own legal representation.

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Inside Hong Kong’s drag scene: RuPaul’s Drag Race turned an underground LGBT subculture mainstream – but are Asian drag queens getting enough recognition? 

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Autistic Hong Kong teen on his love for trains, becoming an internet sensation, and dangers of doxxing

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Autistic Hong Kong teen on his love for trains, becoming an internet sensation, and dangers of doxxing

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Train enthusiast Jason Law Zit-sum arrived at 4.15am on June 27 at the Sung Wong Toi railway station to witness its opening that had been nine years in the making.

Not long after the sun had risen, he became an unexpected internet sensation in Hong Kong, as a video of his interview with a television news crew garnered more than 850,000 hits on YouTube.

The crew had asked the bespectacled 16-year-old, who was wearing a red T-shirt and backpack, about his excitement for the new station. But instead of talking about it, he sang his response in the tune of the English folk song Greensleeves : "The Tuen Ma Line has opened. I am so excited!"

The internet exploded. Netizens turned his image into memes. Someone created a one-hour version of his song by playing the nine Chinese words he had sung in a loop.

Content creators made covers of it using different instruments and music genres. Even Stanley Yau Sze-chun from the Canto-pop group Mirror posted his own short rendition of the tune on social media.

In an interview with , Jason talked about how his love for trains is connected to his autism. For many years, he has been trying to bring joy to others by producing videos of the public transport that just fades into the background of most people's daily lives.

"It only took me a few seconds to write up that line [the day before]," he said. "I never imagined becoming so famous. "

Jason said he used to take the city's MTR every day, and loved changing stations. He said his favourite station is the one in Choi Hung. The Chinese words means rainbow, and this station is famous for its rainbow-coloured walls, which he finds pretty.

When Jason was in Primary Four, he said he had been having problems getting along with his classmates. After further evaluation, doctors diagnosed him with autism. Jason added that he knows many other train enthusiasts who also have autism.

"We all have special interests, and many of us like public transport," he said. "We like things that others think are normal, but we think they are special."

In 2016, he started a YouTube channel under his name to talk about trains, video games and even magic tricks. He has accumulated about 2,500 subscribers.

This February, he partnered with another train enthusiast to open a YouTube channel called Lo Wu Station to focus on talking about trains. The channel so far has 90 subscribers.

"I used to share my videos on Facebook to bring happiness to friends. But later, I hoped to bring happiness to more people," he explained.

After his singing video went viral, the unexpected popularity came with a price. His phone number was shared online, and he has since received calls from strangers.

"I thank the netizens for their creativity, but I am against any forms of bullying, attacks or even doxxing," he said.

Although most comments on his video have been positive, some disapproved of his love for trains because of its association with the 2019 anti-government protests. This is because protesters have accused the MTR of colluding with city authorities to shut down stations and make it harder for protesters to leave.

After this caused people to post his personal information online, he got so worried that he deactivated his Facebook account.

"I was shocked," he said, adding that he hoped they would stop spreading hatred. "Different people have different views, and we should all respect each other."

Despite some of the negativity, there were also people, especially other train buffs, who were supportive of his song, even if he does not consider himself a "star".

And the love from his parents has also helped him soldier through.

"My parents believe that we should all have our personal interests," he said. "But they also said that I needed to manage my time well."

'Greensleeves' has an interesting history for Hongkongers

While his parents may want him to focus on his academics as well as on trains, the song he used actually has a history for many Hongkongers' studies.

Starting long before Jason adopted his own lyrics for Greensleeves , the song has been used for many years as the background music for Hong Kong's public listening exams to fill the silence after a recording exercise has ended.

Exuding a soothing yet melancholic vibe, the tune encapsulates the city's collective memory. Some have even called for Jason's updated tune to be played for future exams.

His TV interview has also been popularised by a retail store in the city. Staff at Don Don Donki, a popular Japanese chain in Hong Kong, made their own version of his song with lyrics to welcome their customers.

Still, Jason said he believes the hype will be over soon. "After the Tuen-Ma line has been open for a while, I think people will stop talking about this," he said.

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Autistic Hong Kong internet sensation on trains and doxxing

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On YouTube, the 16-year-old boy never thought his lyrics for the MTR's new Tuen Ma Line would go viral. The song, which follows the 'Greensleeves' tune, has since been covered by different musicians, including Stanley Yau Sze-chun from the Canto-pop group Mirror.

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Hong Kong cannot improve online learning with more money alone

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Hong Kong cannot improve online learning with more money alone

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More money alone won't help Hong Kong improve online learning

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Much government funding has been used to help schools acquire digital devices, leaving little for digital training of teachers, pedagogical research and curriculum development. However, teachers guiding students during online learning is essential for better outcomes.

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China extends probe into US-listed tech firms after Didi blow

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China extends probe into US-listed tech firms after Didi blow

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Many of the 130 Hong Kong students with perfect IB scores plan to study in the city

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Many of the 130 Hong Kong students with perfect IB scores plan to study in the city

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Gay Games could be a turning point in unifying Hong Kong

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Gay Games could be a turning point in unifying Hong Kong

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The announcement that Hong Kong was to be the first Asian city to host the Gay Games was made as long ago as October 2017. The bidding process was unprecedentedly intense as 17 cities expressed keen interest in hosting the games. In the end, 11 cities submitted a formal bid; nine eventually submitted letters of intent and were longlisted; and in the end, Hong Kong was shortlisted against two other cities. It was a highly competitive process and Hong Kong was not pitched against second-tier cities - Austin, San Francisco, Washington, DC, Dallas, and Guadalajara, Mexico, to name a few.

Since then, however, the buildup to the games has largely been quiet and unnoticed. Of course, the government and civil society of Hong Kong has had a busy couple of years, to say the least. However, many people in the city may not even have been aware that we had been successful in our bid to host the games next year.

"There is no such thing as bad publicity," so the old maxim goes. If this is the case, then the organizers of the 2022 Gay Games in Hong Kong must be pleased with the brouhaha that came out of the Legislative Council early this month. Apart from increasing the general awareness of the existence of the games - and their coming to Hong Kong - we have also seen much written on the potential benefits of the games to our city. Organizers estimate that they will bring 12,000 participants and over 75,000 spectators. These should generate 300,000 hotel room bookings. It is estimated that this could generate more than HK$1 billion ($129 million) in revenue for the beleaguered hospitality and retail sector.

The intangible benefit is enormous. Organizers estimate that around 3,000 volunteers will participate. Imagine each of these visitors and volunteers as potential "brand ambassadors" for Hong Kong. Think of the millions of photos on social media which will be generated. Of course, there will be the pictures of Victoria Harbour and the neon lights of Mong Kok as well as other aspects of the city's intangible cultural heritage such as Hong Kong milk tea or any number of local dai pai dong. There will also be a clear and welcome representation of Hong Kong as the more open and inclusive "Asia's World City" - which has been hidden from view in recent years. When one factor in the potential longer-term returns for our city being "put on display" to the world once more in a positive light, this could make the HK$1 billion direct boost seem paltry.

It is therefore no surprise that the chief executive and government organs such as Brand Hong Kong, Invest Hong Kong and the Tourism Board are on board as supporting organizations.

Not everything, however, is about the economy. The motto of the games is "Unity in diversity". The bigger question, then, is: To what extent can the games deliver and turn this motto into its stated aspiration of seeking to "create unity and positive attitudes that will last a lifetime"? Can the games be a means to start bringing people together - old and young, gay and straight, maybe even "yellow and blue"? This can only occur if the city as a whole stands affirmatively behind the games. The offering, organization and opportunities to the local population will only be a part of its potential success and impact.

The implication from the recent LegCo events was that the general population would have some problem with the games. This view does a disservice to both the games and the Hong Kong public. The games are meant for all people, regardless of sexual orientation or identity. The games are about pluralism, understanding and integration. This feature of the games aside, according to a University of Hong Kong survey in 2014, 78 percent of Hong Kong people agreed with the statement that "it does not matter to me whether my friends are gay/lesbian or straight"; and only 12 percent strongly felt that a person's sexual orientation would affect whether they would accept them. It is this rising societal acceptance of LGBTQ people that lays the foundation for the success of the games.

Last but not least, it is a simple fact that we are committed to hosting the Gay Games. There is no doubt that we can, as a city, make a roaring success of it. Indeed, the first objective of the Major Sports Events Committee (set up under the Sports Commission) is to "instil a sustainable sporting culture, foster a sense of pride and social cohesion, and to bring tangible economic benefits to our community". This is exactly what a successful games could deliver. To do this, we need an "all of society" backing, the first step in which requires proactively removing prejudice.

It is unclear whether Hong Kong is ready to start the process of healing our fractured society. However, the evidence is clear that the population is ready to support the Gay Games. With their support, and that of the government, NGOs and business, there is every possibility that the games can present to the world the very best that Hong Kong has to offer. Looking back on 2022 in the future, perhaps we might even see these games as a unifying first step toward bringing our diverse and fractured society back to unity.
The author is professor of social science and public policy at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
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gay games could be a turning point in unifying hong kong

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Gay Games could be a turning point in unifying Hong Kong

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The announcement that Hong Kong was to be the first Asian city to host the Gay Games was made as long ago as October 2017. The bidding process was unprecedentedly intense as 17 cities expressed keen interest in hosting the games.

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Coronavirus: ‘vaccine or jail’, Philippines’ Duterte threatens; Singapore widens testing after finding new clusters 

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Coronavirus: ‘vaccine or jail’, Philippines’ Duterte threatens; Singapore widens testing after finding new clusters 

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Covid-19 vaccine or jail, Duterte tells Filipinos: 'You choose'

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Duterte's remarks contradict those of his health officials who say vaccines are voluntary. Elsewhere, Singapore widened testing after finding two new clusters, and India administered 8.5 million vaccine doses in one day.

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'Drugged, bank account emptied': 'Devil's Breath' attacks in Hong Kong rising

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'Drugged, bank account emptied': 'Devil's Breath' attacks in Hong Kong rising

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This picture taken on June 9, 2021 shows a man crossing a road in the popular entertainment district Wanchai in Hong Kong. A spiked drink, a puff of dust, missing memories, and an empty bank account. Hong Kong's entertainment district Wanchai has been battered by a coronavirus driven collapse in tourism and as times get desperate several men have seen their night out turn into a nightmare. Anthony Wallace, Agence France-Presse

HONG KONG - A spiked drink, a puff of dust, missing memories, and an empty bank account.

Hong Kong's entertainment district Wanchai has been battered by a coronavirus driven collapse in tourism and as times get desperate, several men have seen their night out turn into a nightmare.

It took days for Stuart to recall a crucial memory. But after speaking with another victim, it suddenly came flooding back.

A woman trying to spark a conversation outside a bar, and then a man approaching with a determined look in his eye.

"I thought he was going to punch me but he just blew something in my face," he recalled. "I laughed. But that was it. No memories after that."

It was a breakthrough for Stuart who, like the other victims interviewed for this piece, asked to use a pseudonym.

He had been trying to figure out why post-match drinks with his cricket buddies in Wanchai, a popular hangout for white-collar foreign workers, had turned into one big blackout following his encounter outside the bar.

Hours were missing alongside HK$80,000 ($10,300) -- taken in six separate transactions from nearby ATMs.

"It was a joint account with my missus and we have a baby on the way," the 36-year-old Brit, who moved to Hong Kong 18 months ago, told AFP.

"Police said maybe I was just drunk, but why would I empty that account? It wouldn't be worth my life doing that."
OPPORTUNISTIC CRIME
WhatsApp groups used by Wanchai bar owners and regulars have lit up in recent months with similar stories.

Most targets have no memory and awake to find accounts emptied by scammers who have drugged their unwitting victims -- largely by tampering with their drinks -- to keep them pliable and obtain their pin numbers.

Victims have dubbed the scam "Devil's Breath" attacks -- technically the nickname for the powerful anti-nausea drug scopolamine but in this case used more as a catch-all descriptor.

Spiked drinks have previously posed a small risk in Hong Kong, a largely safe city, but the pandemic has exacerbated the issue.

"It's become a huge problem," one bar owner, who declined to be named, told AFP, saying multiple regulars had become victims.

"The police are up and down here all night, checking our licenses, making sure we abide by pandemic restrictions. But this seems to be something they just don't, or won't, tackle," he added.

The jump in cases tracks with a general rise in opportunistic crime as Hong Kong experiences its worst recession in decades.

Crime figures from last year showed a 26 percent increase in robberies, a 237 percent jump in blackmail and an 89 percent rise in deception.

The latter two categories include phone and online scams, which have filled local media in recent months. Cybercrime was up 55 percent last year.

In a series of pandemic themed reports the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime detailed how the coronavirus has transformed crime trends.

Widespread lockdowns and travel restrictions, for example, have made break-ins and international drug smuggling harder but the pandemic has been a boon for human trafficking, extortion, counterfeiting and cybercrime.

Police and bar owners in Hong Kong say the vast majority of robberies are carried out by teams of sex workers, an already vulnerable group, sometimes with the help of male accomplices.

"We've all struggled during the pandemic and that includes the girls," another Wanchai bar owner said. "That doesn't excuse the crime, but it helps explain why."
'PSYCHOLOGICAL DAMAGE'

Three people interviewed by AFP, including Stuart, reported the robberies but said it was a struggle to get officers to treat them as victims.

"When I reported it, the officer sighed and said he already had some 90 case files on his desk," recalled James, a 41-year-old British school teacher who had HK$64,000 lifted from his account. "I was like 'Well now you have 91 cases mate'."

All three said they struggled to get crucial data from their bank HSBC to give to police. HSBC did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Police said such crimes had risen during the pandemic and that the force had ramped up operations, including deploying intelligence teams and specialist anti-triad officers.

"I think you can rest assured that we are putting a lot of resources now to fight these kinds of crimes," Acting Assistant District Commander Glenn Ho Siu-tung told AFP.

He conceded there may be room for improvement on how police treat victims.

"I think we will have to spend some time educating uniformed officers," Ho said, adding drinkers need to remain vigilant and not leave out any details when reporting crimes.

Victims, meanwhile, say the trauma of what they experienced is worse than the lost money.

"It's the psychological damage it does to you," said Stuart. "You just can't fathom how you could be so compliant".
jta/ssy/gle © Agence France-Presse

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bank account emptied': 'devil's breath' attacks in hong kong rising | abs-cbn news

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'Drugged, bank account emptied': 'Devil's Breath' attacks in Hong Kong rising

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HONG KONG - A spiked drink, a puff of dust, missing memories, and an empty bank account. Hong Kong's entertainment district Wanchai has been battered by a coronavirus driven collapse in tourism and as times get desperate, several men have seen their night out turn into a nightmare.

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When multi-award-winning 19-year-old singer-songwriter Billie Eilish announced her upcoming second album release, many fans on social media were abuzz about a possible "hidden message" linking her various record titles: My Future [is] Everything I Wanted; [Therefore I Am] Happier Than Ever. This might be a selective shuffle from Eilish's catalogue, but the idea of a "secret note" to listeners expressing her happiness is also persuasive, particularly as her material has addressed mental health and personal vulnerability. Pop music is both universal and intensely subliminal; a catchy tune grabs our attention, but it is the coded elements (lyrically and visually) that really connect with us - and at their most powerful, they are positively transformative.

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US musician and author Ted Gioia argues in his excellent book Music: A Subversive History (2019): "At every stage in human history, music has been a catalyst for change, challenging conventions and conveying coded messages - or, not infrequently, delivering blunt, unambiguous ones. It has given voice to individuals and groups denied access to other platforms for expression." Pop music has often been dismissed as "lightweight" given its young audience, simple snappiness and mainstream status, but those elements are really where its strength is concealed. Pop songs don't originate themes of mental wellbeing, equality, liberty, activism - but they do transmit them to the broadest platforms possible.

Some fans of Billie Eilish claimed to have found a hidden code in the tracklist for her upcoming second album Happier Than Ever (Credit: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for iHeartMedia)

In the digital age, music megastars can make followers feel like confidants, with the likes of Taylor Swift dropping hints about new releases or song subtexts. Social posts might not have been a formative bonding experience for older generations of pop devotees (like myself), but at least we could read between the lines of a rich array of music magazines - including UK pop fortnightly Smash Hits, which ran from 1978 to 2006. Its former features editor, Alex Kadis, tells BBC Culture: "Growing up, listening to pop music helped me create a whole second world that I could fit into... At Smash Hits, the writing had to be incisive and humorous enough to keep the older readers engaged, but it also had to be emotional and direct enough for the younger crowd."

As with song lyrics, this immersion in pop music operated on more than one level at once - although the underlying message was a sense of camaraderie; pop is essentially a unifying force. Kadis insists that even the frothiest lyrics and poses can evoke a coded power - including early-'90s boy band, New Kids on the Block.

"NKOTB brought a kind of expansiveness that we hadn't had in British pop for a while," argues Kadis, who is now a music manager and industry consultant. "Their music was very formulaic, repetitive, kind of like a mantra. They had a swagger, and when you watched them perform, you imbibed something of that; the idea was: 'you could be part of this gang'. I saw it again, years later, working on the initial marketing for One Direction. Now, BTS also embody so much of that gang mentality, and the connection with their fans is so powerful. A lot of pop music is really important because it invites you to become part of a movement, no matter what that is. It's a bit like a support network."

As a child/teenager, I didn't grasp the concept of resistance or representation via news bulletins; I learned everything through pop. The 1980s Western mainstream felt both rampantly materialistic and weirdly puritanical; stylistic excess abounded, from fashion to music productions, yet a heavily judgemental tone also presided across conservative governments in the UK and US, as well as media coverage, particularly when it came to social and sexual expression. This tension proved a hotbed for coded pop, from the gender politics of Eurythmics and Culture Club, to Bruce Springsteen's punchy blue-collar protests (Born in the USA went over the heads of the Reagan administration, who attempted to spin it as a gung-ho anthem). Smash Hits would run features on slickly catchy pop band The Blow Monkeys, whose coolly smooth tunes conveyed allyship with LGBTQ communities (1986's Digging Your Scene) and opposition to Margaret Thatcher's right-wing UK government (in numerous sharp details, including their 1987 duet with Curtis Mayfield, (Celebrate) the Day After You).

Frankie Goes to Hollywood frontman Holly Johnson posing outside the White House with a full-size cut-out of Ronald Reagan in 1984 (Credit: Mike Maloney/Mirrorpix/Getty Images)

Meanwhile, Liverpool outfit Frankie Goes to Hollywood were brilliantly insouciant rebels, infamous for their "banned" 1984 smash hit Relax (in the liner notes for their debut album, band bassist Mark O'Toole admitted: "when it first came out we used to pretend it was about motivation, and really it was about shagging"), but also sneaking references to the Cold War, avant-garde art and philosophy onto their subsequent prime-time singles (Two Tribes was packed with visual and audio nods to Soviet and Western leaders, including Lenin, Reagan and Thatcher, as well as clips from nuclear war public information films; Welcome To The Pleasuredome treated impressionable pop fans to the influence of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's opium-laced 1797 poem Kubla Khan). FGTH frontman Holly Johnson retains a way with coded pop; his 2015 solo single Dancing with No Fear captures the instant exhilaration of the dancefloor, but also an underlying hope; that of living without the toxic constraints of homophobia and other prejudice.

Generations of musicians have employed innuendo and ambiguous lyrics to subversive effect. The 1990s yielded rave pop tunes that toyed with an establishment keen to clamp down on club culture and drugs references - take The Shamen's 1992 chart-topper Ebeneezer Goode (with its "Eezer Goode! Eezer Goode!" chant seizing the mainstream) or Madonna's intoxicating 1995 single Bedtime Story (co-written with Bjork). In the 21st Century, coded lyrics also still convey sexual identity and liberation, whether or not the mainstream immediately picks up the message. When Lil Nas X faced criticism for the "inappropriate" content of his gay serenade Montero (Call Me by Your Name) earlier this year, he called out conservative hypocrisy via his Twitter account, with a nod to his 2019 breakthrough hit, Old Town Road: "I literally sing about lean and adultery in old town road. u decided to let your child listen. blame yourself."

After a backlash against a controversial 2021 music video, Lil Nas X clarified that his 2019 hit Old Town Road wasn't exactly PG (Credit: Getty Images)

Some pop artists become increasingly fearless with mega-fame; others have demonstrated a forte for coded messages that linger beyond their final notes. David Bowie's glorious Blackstar album (2016) has continued to reveal its secrets ever since its release (on Bowie's 69th birthday, and a couple of days before his death); in addition to the record's references to mortality, there's a magical quality to its abstract artwork - with one fan discovering that when the monochrome sleeve was exposed to direct sunlight, a Starman's vast galaxy emerged. Meanwhile, Beyoncé's earlier solo shows would include archive visuals of inspiring leaders including Martin Luther King, but it has been thrilling to watch her progressively use her platform to embody themes of black power, African heritage and equality: paying homage to the Black Panthers via the choreography and accessories of her Super Bowl 50 performance (2016), before releasing her pop opus Lemonade, which offered masses of detail for hot debate (on the track Sorry, the much-discussed reference to "Becky with the good hair" was not merely Bey raging against her faithless lover - it arguably calls out the historic objectification and side-lining of black females). Coded this way, it's an intuitive progression to releasing her2020 film/soundtrack Black Is King, and celebrating "all of the beautiful Black kings and queens that continue to inspire me and inspire the whole world" in her 2021 Grammys speech.

Credit is also due to the emerging music talents who incorporate coded themes in their catchy works. Young London singer-songwriter Poppy Ajudha creates immediate, alluring melodies that communicate deeper themes and possibilities, from the mellow yet resilient spirit of 2020 single Black Joy. Black Peace. Black Justice to her version of Herbie Hancock's Watermelon Man (in the warm neighbourhood scenes of the accompanying video, we spot background details including protest placards - "END SYSTEMIC RACISM" - in Poppy's room).

Poppy Ajudha (performing in 2019) relishes the transformative power of pop music (Credit: Burak Cingi/Redferns/Getty Images)

"Music should speak of the times. My music does talk to what's happening now," Ajudha tells BBC Culture. "A contemporary artist should be writing about what's going on the world, because that's a marker of history; you can't erase a song that people love. So much of history is erased, but pop music is subversive; it does bring people together to create change.

"When I went to university, and I studied gender, anthropology and contemporary trends in society, being emboldened by the knowledge of incredible writers and thinkers made me realise what I wanted to write about and sing about: that was about feminism, social issues, my mixed-race heritage. It was about identity, because it plays such a big role in how we see ourselves and how society sees us. I think that just grew, the more I wrote songs, and I saw how people were reacting to them. It felt like it was making people feel less alone. I realised, 'this is why I wanna do this; this is what music is about' - we're supposed to be connecting, sharing experiences, and getting through shit together. I don't want my music to just comment on how difficult things are, I want them to feel empowered to do something, regardless of what the world tells them, to change the difficulties that they face."

In tracks such as Strong Woman, Ajudha also argues that there is a coded strength in expressing personal challenges: "Artists carry a lot of emotion; we allow people to be vulnerable through our vulnerability. It's kind of a blessing and a curse; it means that we're very dramatic, but it also means that we get to feel the fullness of life, which can be overwhelming at times, but also very beautiful."

As contemporary pop becomes increasingly globalised, its coded messages and connections feel more expansive than ever, beyond a Western worldview. Where English has traditionally been the lingua franca of mainstream pop culture, the meaning of pop has broader possibilities than ever for contemporary fans - whether they're learning new vocab and social perspectives while following their favourite K-pop, Afrobeats or Latin stars, or posting responses to Billie Eilish's "hidden message" in a multiplicity of scripts.

"Pop taps into the idealism of youth; it raises awareness of gender, race, emotion, with elements you can interpret as you want," says Kadis. "The fact that it translates across the world, across different languages and cultures - that's the power of pop music."

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When multi-award-winning 19-year-old singer-songwriter Billie Eilish announced her upcoming second album release, many fans on social media were abuzz about a possible "hidden message" linking her various record titles: My Future [is] Everything I Wanted; [Therefore I Am] Happier Than Ever.

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Cheating at School Is Easier Than Ever—and It’s Rampant 

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Cheating at School Is Easier Than Ever—and It’s Rampant 

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A year of remote learning has spurred an eruption of cheating among students, from grade school to college. With many students isolated at home over the past year-and with a mass of online services at their disposal-academic dishonesty has never been so easy.

Websites that allow students to submit questions for expert answers have gained millions of new users over the past year. A newer breed of site allows students to put up their own classwork for auction.

"Consider hiring me to do your assignment," reads a bid from one auction site. "I work fast, pay close attention to the instructions, and deliver a plagiarism-free paper."

Some educators fear the new generation of cheaters will be loath to stop even after the pandemic recedes. "Students have found a way to cheat and they know it works," said Thomas Lancaster, senior teaching fellow in computing at Imperial College in London, who has studied academic integrity issues for more than two decades. He said cheating sites number in the thousands, from individuals to large-scale operations.

Concerned about his North Carolina State University students cheating in a statistics class, Tyler Johnson launched a plan.

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Cheating at School Is Easier Than Ever-and It's Rampant

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With many students isolated at home over the past year-and with a mass of websites offering services to answer questions, write essays and even take part in virtual classes-schools have seen a surge in academic dishonesty. "Students have found a way to cheat and they know it works."

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Can you make yourself sound more attractive?

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Can you make yourself sound more attractive?

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The French call it " voix de chambre à coucher". It's a deep, sultry "bedroom voice" that gives some speakers their powers of seduction. It's perfectly explainable too. Some people have objectively more attractive voices than others, and the fact that these rules are nearly universal reveals an important part of our evolutionary history.

Accents are one way we make assessments of other people. Speakers with attractive voices are thought of as competent, kind and trustworthy. This in turn produces a "halo effect" - where we see good people as more attractive. So, what makes some accents attractive?

There is a vocal trait that seems to work for everyone, no matter where they are from. "Whatever the culture, any woman coming from Japan or from the United States or from France or from anywhere in the world - they tend to prefer men with deep voices," says Melissa Barkat-Defradas, a linguistics researcher at the University of Montpellier.

The sexual preference for men with deep voices has been recorded in indigenous peoples from the Amazon to Tanzania and countless other Western and non-Western examples. People associate deep voices with hunting abilities, career success and strength. We rate politicians with deeper voices as more serious and electable, regardless of sex. Male and female job candidates with lower-pitch voices are also more likely to be hired. If you want to get by as a competent speaker, it pays to go down an octave or two

What does this apparently universal preference say about how we judge character? And are there exceptions to the rule?

Subtle differences in people's voices that tell us about their health, social status and occupation in a fraction of a second (Credit: Michal Bialozej/BBC)

The pitch of both men and women's voices decrease through adolescence. But you can predict, with a high degree of accuracy, what pitch a man's voice will be throughout their lives based on what it was at the age of seven.

The British TV series, Seven Up!, which began in the 1960s and tracked a group of children every seven years throughout their lives, provided Katarzyna Pisanski, a bioacoustician at the University of Lyon, and her co-authors with a sample from which to measure changes to our voices over time. The children's pitch pre-puberty was a good predictor of their pitch in adulthood.
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We know that voice pitch is linked to testosterone levels, which might be more important to romantic choice, as from an evolutionary point of view stronger men would be more sexually desirable. In the case of the Tanzanian hunter-gatherers, a deep voice might be acting as a proxy for other skills that require more testosterone. The pitch of the voice itself means nothing, but it gives a clue as to how capable a hunter the speaker is, and therefore how well he will provide for his children and how good a chance those children will have to pass on their genes in the future.

Men's adult testosterone levels are determined by their exposure to their mothers' androgens (the group of hormones to which testosterone belongs) during weeks 8-24 of pregnancy. This suggests that something that could play an important role in our reproductive success is largely set from childhood and linked to our mothers' pre-natal hormone levels, says Pisanski.

Men's preferences for women are a little more complex. For a long time it was thought men prefer women with high-pitch voices (which, if voices deepen over time, might be acting as a proxy for youth and therefore the number of future years of fertility). When looked at purely in terms of reproductive success, it pays for a man to find a woman who can potentially have more children.

The fact that women, too, are seen as more competent if they have a deep voice provokes an interesting thought for both Pisanski and Barkat-Defradas: can we manipulate our pitch in the right setting to adapt to our needs?

Can your voice make you sexier?

When we have a good conversation with someone, we tend to adjust the pitch of our own voice towards theirs - something called prosodic entrainment. But when we find someone attractive, the opposite is true. For men, their pitch goes down, while for women, their pitch goes up - playing up to our gender stereotypes. The more attractive we find someone the greater the difference.

You might wonder how these two opposite behaviours unfold on a date - surely a good date, and the sign we are attracted to someone, comes from a good conversation? Over the course of a date prosodic entrainment comes and goes. At times of entertaining conversation we match our pitches, and at others, when we want to show our attraction we go in the opposite direction. Also, generally, women prioritise good conversation over attraction and vice versa, says Pisanski.

What is more, lowering or raising your pitch might be a sign of how attractive we find our date, but it also makes the other person more attracted to us. We can use our pitch to manipulate others.

The one exception to this rule is that sometimes women's voice pitch goes down when they find a man attractive - particularly if it's a man who is popular with other women. In a speed dating scenario, some women lowered their voice on their dates with the most popular men. Like our politicians, it might be that they were trying to appear more serious and less naive than their competitors, suggests Pisanski, who led the study.

The lower a man's voice is the higher levels of testosterone they have, so vocal height provides signals about a man's biological quality (Credit: Michal Bialozej/BBC)

This same speed dating experiment, conducted on a small sample of French adults, found that the men also preferred those women with deeper voices - something that Pisanski says might be indicative of changing tastes as men look for serious, ambitious, career-driven women.

"Perhaps women now try to sound like men - more competent or dominant. Women are starting to speak lower," says Pisanski. "And perhaps, at least in some cultures, men are wanting and are preferring women who exude maturity and competence, and not necessarily youth and fertility."

Barkat-Defradas agrees, though points out these trends have only been seen in French adults so far. "In France men tend to prefer females with lower voices than anywhere else in the world," she says. Maybe there is something to the "bedroom voice" after all. Perhaps, unlike the rest of the world, French men have a slightly different taste when it comes to accents.

Or is there just something about the French - and the way they speak? It often ranks highly on unscientific accent preference polls. Barkat-Defradas suggests that French speakers pout more to form words, which might be seen as attractive.

The difficulty when looking at languages rather than specific qualities of speech is that languages also communicate national stereotypes. The non-French might already associate francophones with French soft-power - their food and wine, Paris, the Côte d'Azur and all the romantic associations that come with them. For French natives, of course, these associations are much more accent-specific.

But could putting on an accent help you to appear younger or more masculine? Humans have a remarkable vocal range, but also a good ability to detect fakers and are not easily deceived, says Pisanski, referring to data from an as-yet-unpublished study. "If we could go around deceiving people all the time with our voices, then the entire communication system would collapse," she says.

A desire to give the impression of competence might be one reason behind the rise of "vocal fry" among young American women, says Pisanski. Vocal fry is where the pitch of our voice falls below a natural level, creating a sound that is rough.

"I think it may have been just a byproduct of women trying to speak in a lower, more dominant voice, but we have biological limits to how low we can go," says Pisanski. "And this is why vocal fry is more common in women's voices than men. Men can go much lower essentially."

"From what I know of the most recent work, it doesn't actually appear to make the woman sound more intelligent, at least from the few studies I've seen," she says. For example, if your voice goes too low, vocal fry might harm your job prospects, maybe because the trope of women speaking with rough voices is culturally associated with unseriousness, suggest the authors.

Studies have shown that women tend to lower their voice pitch when they are speaking to a man they find attractive (Credit: Michal Bialozej/BBC)

If you need another reason not to put on an accent, there is evidence it pays to be completely average. People with average looks and average voices are thought to have more heterozygous major histocompatibility complexes (MHCs). This is a sequence of DNA that codes for cell-surface proteins that help our immune systems detect which cells in our bodies belong to us and which are outsiders. Being able to do this means we can quickly identify pathogens and destroy them. Therefore, average individuals are better placed to pass on useful genes for a healthy immune system.

It could also be that average-voiced individuals are easier to understand, in part because we are exposed to the average more frequently than people at the extremes. "We really don't like what we don't know," adds Barkat-Defradas.

Much of this research, you might note, has been conducted on heterosexual people, in part because evolutionary biologists want to find explanations for modern human behaviours in the selective pressures our ancestors were exposed to. Our female ancestors would have looked for masculine qualities, the theory goes, as stronger men can take better care of their families, while men sought young women who have more child-bearing years ahead of them.

When I put this to Pisanski, she agreed that there was a bias towards studying men's voices. What research has been done on homosexual people has largely looked at male preferences - and found broadly that gay men have similar tastes to straight women. Meanwhile little research has been conducted on LGBT+ women.

These theories are based on purely biological explanations of desirability. But is that still relevant today? Only if your biggest motivation is to mate with someone who will give your children good genes.

For the rest of us, maybe we find satisfaction with a good conversationalist.
* William Park is a senior journalist for BBC Future and tweets at @williamhpark This article is part of Laws of Attraction, a series co-produced by BBC Future and BBC Reel that explores the roles our senses play in how much we like each other. The articles and films were written by William Park. The films were animated by -- Join one million Future fans by liking us on If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called "The Essential List". A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Culture, Worklife, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday. Facebook, or follow us on Twitter or Instagram. Michal Bialozej and produced by Dan John.

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Can you make yourself sound more attractive?

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The French call it " voix de chambre à coucher". It's a deep, sultry "bedroom voice" that gives some speakers their powers of seduction. It's perfectly explainable too. Some people have objectively more attractive voices than others, and the fact that these rules are nearly universal reveals an important part of our evolutionary history.

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A Caribbean Coast resident vented his frustration and anger at the government quarantining him for 21 days - even though he is fully vaccinated.

He condemned the arrangement as unhelpful in boosting the city's vaccination rates, as there is no difference between those who received the jab and those who did not.

This came after a domestic helper and a 10-month-old baby of her employer living in the Tung Chung estate tested positive for the more infectious mutant Covid-19 strain last week. A total of 1,027 residents from the same block were quarantined, starting last Friday.

The expat, who is a permanent Hong Kong resident and a pilot, told The Standard that he and his wife had taken the two doses of German-made BioNTech vaccines. More than 14 days have passed since the couple got the second jab.

The Standard Channel

However, the couple were still sent to the Penny's Bay quarantine center on April 30 with their two kids aged five and seven.

"Why are we here in the first place? We are negative with two tests and we did the right thing to get vaccinated," he said.

"If we fully vaccinated people with two negative tests are sent for 21 days quarantine, why would anyone who is unsure about getting the vaccination even bother getting it? This is a failure of the system!"

The pilot said the quarantine has disrupted the family's plan to leave Hong Kong. He has been on no-pay leave and hasn't received a salary since December.

"We were planning to leave Hong Kong due to the high cost of living here," he said. "We were departing in a few weeks but now I need to cancel the trip."

He added that the family's flat at the Caribbean Coast was put on sale last week, but now they could not have people view it for 21 days.

The quarantine arrangement at Penny's Bay was also chaotic, with staff forgetting he is staying with his wife and two kids and providing them with food for only two people.

"We were assured at first we would remain together, but after arriving, we were told we would be separated into two different rooms and there would be no contact allowed for 21 days," he said.

He said the family insisted on staying together because the kids would get anxious if the family separated, and they were put in a small room with two very small beds.

No extra mattress was provided and the family received meals for only two people on the first two days.

The whole family got only a bottle of water and no food when they first got there on April 30. There was no daily necessities in the room, such as towels, soap, and shampoo.

Although quarantined residents were given a WhatsApp number and a phone number to contact staff at the Penny's Bay center, they never got any response.

The pilot said the government should have locked down the building and demanded they stay inside.

"Instead, they put hundreds of us all together to get tested, side by side, and crammed hundreds of us into a bus. We were in the bus for hours, and now we are at a dirty quarantine center," he said.

In response, the Department of Health said medical experts have discussed whether vaccinated people should be quarantined on April 22 and decided that they could not be exempted from the quarantine order because there is not enough data about the new Covid-19 variant.

A department spokesman also said sending all residents living in the same building to the quarantine center was essential to stop the potential risk of virus spreading because the residents who have been tested negative might still be in the incubation period.

Infectious disease expert Leung Chi-chiu agreed with the government, saying the measure ensures the more infectious mutant Covid-19 strain won't spread in the community.

Vaccines do not ensure 100 percent protection, he said. "Being vaccinated means the risk of getting infected will be reduced, but it doesn't mean that the person who got the jabs will never be infected," Leung said. "Vaccination is not an excuse for exemption from quarantine. Not a single case can be let go."

He also dismissed the suggestion to let residents stay inside the block, saying the virus could spread via pipes.

By Sunday, 539,800 citizens had been vaccinated with both doses, with 320,100 opting for the Sinovac vaccine and 219,600 getting the BioNTech jab. A total of 952,100 people received the first jab - or about 13 percent of the population.

Previous studies showed the antibody level in those who received the BioNTech jab dropped 90 percent against the South African variant - that found in Tung Chung.

But health experts said the vaccine is still largely effective against the variant as it triggers many antibodies.

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A Caribbean Coast resident vented his frustration and anger at the government quarantining him for 21 days - even though he is fully vaccinated. He condemned the arrangement as unhelpful in boosting the city's vaccination rates, as there is no difference between those who received the jab and those who did not.

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Adrian Da Silva’s new outfit Still Minds won’t disappoint Audiotraffic aficionados 

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Adrian Da Silva’s new outfit Still Minds won’t disappoint Audiotraffic aficionados 

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Adrian Da Silva's Still Minds won't disappoint Audiotraffic fans

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Hong Kong talent Da Silva shows off his Brit rock chops with this debut release from his new quartet, Still Minds

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Neuroscientists put the dubious theory of ‘phrenology’ through rigorous testing for the first time 

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Neuroscientists put the dubious theory of ‘phrenology’ through rigorous testing for the first time 

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An 1883 phrenology chart. wikipedia

Nobody really believes that the shape of our heads are a window into our personalities anymore. This idea, known as "phrenology", was developed by the German physician Franz Joseph Gall in 1796 and was hugely popular in the 19th century. Today it is often remembered for its dark history - being misused in its later days to back racist and sexist stereoptypes, and its links with Nazi "eugenics".

But despite the fact that it has fallen into disrepute, phrenology as a science has never really been subjected to rigorous, neuroscientific testing. That is, until now.

Researchers at the University of Oxford have hacked their own brain scanning software to explore - for the first time - whether there truly is any correspondence between the bumps and contours of your head and aspects of your personality. The results have recently been published in an open science archive, but have also been submitted to the journal Cortex.

But why did phrenologists think that bumps on your head might be so informative? Their enigmatic claims were based around a few general principles. Phrenologists believed the brain was comprised of separate "organs" responsible for different aspects of the mind, such as for self-esteem, cautiousness and benevolence.

They also thought of the brain like a muscle - the more you used a particular organ the more it would grow in size (hypertrophy), and less used faculties would shrink. The skull would then mould to accommodate these peaks and troughs in the brain's surface - providing an indirect reflection of the brain, and thus, the dominant features of an person's character.

Despite its initial popularity, phrenology started losing support from scientists in the 20th century due to methodological criticisms and failure to replicate various findings. Gall was restricted in the cases he used to define the location of bump-trait correspondences - often he studied just a few people, such as his family and friends. Other times, he relied on dubious and somewhat offensive stereotypes. His method was also questionable: probing subjects' heads with his fingertips until he began to "detect patterns".

While there was some renewed interest in the theory in the 20th century due to the rise of disciplines like evolution, criminology and anthropology, it soon was almost completely abandoned.

Large sample

This year, however, in the spirit of scientific fun, my colleagues decided to put this old theory to the test. They did so by repurposing various pieces of sophisticated software, originally designed for MRI brain analysis. Where normally these tools carefully discard all bits of skull, allowing analysis of the brain alone, they engineered them to do the reverse: relegating all of the brain to the trash, instead keeping the bony bits for analysis.

From this surface structure, they could create a detailed map of the contours - bumps - of individual skulls. By taking advantage of the largest freely available brain imaging database in the UK, the scientists acquired a massive sample of data from almost 6,000 people. Alongside brain data, this database also contains a wealth of information from demographic and lifestyle questionnaires, as well as language and cognitive tests from its participants.

The scientists picked 23 measures from this data that best corresponded with the 27 personality factors from phrenology. Some map very closely, such as phrenology's "eventuality" (aptness to receive an education) and the modern version: "age completed full time education". Similarly, "tune" (sense for sounds, musical talent) in phrenology matched with "musical profession".

Before they started linking these personality traits with skull features, they looked at overlapping traits (so if you have one trait you also tend to have another) and found some rather amusing associations. For instance, they found a very strong positive association between the trait "amativeness" (the arousal of feelings of sexual desire) and "words". To break this down, it turns out that the more sexual partners a person has had, the higher their verbal fluency in a word naming task.

The verdict

What they didn't find, however, were any "statistically significant or meaningful effects" when it came to the skull. That means they were unable to find any correlation between the contours of the skull and the 23 personality traits, selected to mirror those championed by phrenology.

What's more, undermining a deeper fundamental premise, they demonstrated there was no correspondence between the curvature of the brain and the contours of the skull. That is, there is no way lumpy bits of brain are pushing the skull out to create surface bumps - the skull does not mirror the brain surface.

This is obviously unsurprising, given the shaky "science" upon which phrenology was based. That said, it was among one of the earlier disciplines to recognise that different parts of the brain have different functions. Sadly, the phrenologists didn't quite nail what the actual functions were: focusing largely on the brain as the seat of the mind (governing attitudes, predispositions etc) rather than the more fundamental functions we know it to control today: motor, language, cognition, perception and so forth. However, for better or worse, phrenology is largely considered as a scientific game-changer - with the roots of many modern scientific, but also psuedoscientific disciplines, following in its wake.

All in all, it appears - as the researchers themselves state - that the "digital" technology of the time (feeling the scalp with "digits" aka fingers) was no match for the digital MRI technology of the current day. An infamous historical discipline finally investigated, and a topnotch science pun: pretty successful day at the office for the Oxford team.

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Neuroscientists put the dubious theory of 'phrenology' through rigorous testing for the first time

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The Victorians believed that the shape and size of the skull could reveal details about a person's demeanour. Now it's been put to the test.

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Number of multi-millionaires soars despite pandemic 

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Number of multi-millionaires soars despite pandemic 

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Josephine Lee said during an online press conference that Hong Kong's number of multi-millionaires climbed to 515,000 in 2020.

The number of self-reported multi-millionaires in Hong Kong reached a record high of 515,000 in 2020 - up nearly a quarter from the year before, despite the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Citibank, which conducted the survey, defines a multi-millionaire as an individual with net assets of HK$10 million and liquid assets of HK$1 million. The multi-millionaire figure of 515,000 equates to about 1 in 12 of the city's adult population.

"Although Covid is here, most governments released liquidity and action to help the economy and the financial market," explained Josephine Lee, head of retail banking for Citibank Hong Kong.

"As such, the multi-millionaires gained some profits from the equity, the FX markets, or the fixed-income market," Lee said. "We can see a well-diversified portfolio is better to weather through the ups and downs."

"We found that the affluent diversified their investment into different assets, and also globally, into stocks, FX, renminbi, mutual funds and bonds, and even property, to address their personalised financial needs," she added.

Lee said there were slightly more male than female multi-millionaires, with an average age of 60 for male multi-millionaires and 61 for females. Eastern district on Hong Kong Island had the highest density of multimillionaires among the SAR's 18 districts.

Citibank's random telephone survey of 4,043 adults aged 21 to 79, was conducted between November 2020 and January 2021.

The survey found that the median net asset value of multi-millionaires in 2020 was HK$15.5 million - slightly lower than the HK$17 million in 2019.

Looking ahead, Lee said they foresee a better economic recovery in 2021, with manageable inflation and lower unemployment rates. She said they were also positive about mainland stocks and the Hong Kong market.

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Number of multi-millionaires soars despite pandemic - RTHK

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Josephine Lee said during an online press conference that Hong Kong's number of multi-millionaires climbed to 515,000 in 2020. The number of self-reported multi-millionaires in Hong Kong reached a record high of 515,000 in 2020 - up nearly a quarter from the year before, despite the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

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Blending both extrovert and introvert personality types can make you indispensable in the office - and finding that balance is a skill we can all master.

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Why cats won’t punish a stranger who harms you

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Why cats won’t punish a stranger who harms you

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Why cats won't punish a stranger who harms you

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There's an old stereotype about the difference between cats and dogs. Dogs are loving and fiercely loyal, they say, while cats are aloof and indifferent. Most cat people probably disagree - I certainly find it hard to believe, with my cat purring away in my lap, that she doesn't care about me.

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Why remote work has eroded trust among colleagues

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Why remote work has eroded trust among colleagues

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When the pandemic triggered mass workplace closures last spring, many companies were unprepared for what turned into an open-ended remote-work arrangement. For some, the extraordinary situation initially prompted a heightened sense of goodwill as workers juggled the demands of family and fine-tuned home-office setups. Yet as we now pass the one-year mark of virtual work, the shaky foundation of many company cultures is cracking to reveal a lack of trust among remote managers and employees.

Under better circumstances, trust begets trust; at the moment, experts are finding that the reverse is true. Without in-person interactions to bolster our professional relationships, there's more room to make negative - often unfounded - assumptions about our colleagues' behaviours. And, many supervisors haven't been trained to manage a team remotely, causing them to fall into the trap of over-monitoring employees, which tends to backfire. All these factors are creating a cycle of virtual workplace distrust that's exacerbated by pandemic fatigue and the struggle to sustain our mental health amid an extended period of uncertainty.

The dearth of trust isn't something that will be magically fixed once the pandemic subsides, especially as businesses are considering adopting new models, from hybrid systems to a different kind of work week. The consequences of a culture of distrust are significant - including diminished productivity, innovation and motivation. But there are steps we can take to effectively build and repair trust, even from afar.
Distance breeds distrust
Before the pandemic, the seeds of trust were often planted at work without us even realising it - a greeting in the elevator, post-meeting small talk, complimenting a colleague's haircut.

"Trust is built by spending time together, not necessarily around work-related tasks," says Scott Schieman, chair of the department of sociology at the University of Toronto's St George campus. "We form and sustain social bonds this way, expressing verbal and nonverbal communication in ways that convey understanding, empathy and shared concern. There's no way endless Zoom calls can replace the depth and quality of in-person human interaction."

Although those interactions in passing don't seem like much, they actually help to build trust among colleagues - and we're sorely missing them now (Credit: Alamy)

Not only is it harder to build strong connections through video and audio calls, email and instant messages, but misunderstandings are likelier to arise from these mediums due to their limitations. "You might see a supervisor's or team member's facial expression on a Zoom meeting and misinterpret or appraise it in a negative way," says Schieman. "You might be completely misreading it - maybe their kid was in the background doing something that annoyed them. In a physical shared space, you could better read those cues and clear them up."

When we don't have all the context about a colleague's behaviour, we're prone to credit their actions or words to their character, rather than a situation beyond their control - a well-established phenomenon in social psychology known as fundamental attribution error, which has taken on new weight in an era of virtual interactions.

"If you're late for a meeting while working from home, it's because your broadband wasn't working, but if anyone else misses a meeting, you attribute it to their character," says Heidi K Gardner, faculty chair of Harvard Law School's Accelerated Leadership Program and author of Smart Collaboration: How Professionals and Their Firms Succeed by Breaking Down Silos. Gardner, who has studied trust attitudes among knowledge workers, adds: "[You think it must be] because that co-worker is lazy, doesn't care about the work or isn't holding up their end of the bargain. When we're working separately, you can only see your own circumstances and excuse your behaviours but impugn others' character when something goes wrong for them."

When a manager makes a negative assumption about an employee's behaviour and decides to supervise them more closely as a result, it can cause psychological distress, which in turn can harm performance. "Monitoring is interpreted by employees as not being trusted to do their work, impinging on their sense of control over their work and their trust of their manager and organisation as a whole," says Caroline Knight, research fellow at Curtin University's Future of Work Institute in Perth, Australia, who is leading an ongoing study on the impact of Covid-19 on work, wellbeing and performance.

"When leaders start to monitor, employees are less motivated and feel less responsible for their work," adds Anita Keller, assistant professor of behavioural and social sciences at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, who is collaborating with Knight on the study. The increased autonomy that comes with working remotely can be a boon to productivity and morale, she explains, but only if supervisors trust their team to perform, "otherwise there are limited or no benefits for employees and organisations".
Building relationships remotely
In order to shore up trust, it's helpful to realise that trust building isn't a one-size-fits-all process.

Gardner explains that there are two main types of trust: competence trust, which relates to pure professional ability; and interpersonal trust, which is based on human connection and integrity. "If you deliver quality work on time but are a jerk, that undermines personal trust," says Gardner. "People need to send strong, clear, reliable signals of trustworthiness in both these dimensions."

There are also two different types of trust personalities: automatic trusters, who give the benefit of the doubt until trust is broken; and evidence-based trusters, who tend not to trust until they've been given adequate reason to do so. "If you don't know which type a co-worker is, the safer bet is to assume they're evidence-based," suggests Gardner. Providing more communication and information than necessary to a new colleague will cover your bases until trust is established.

If you don't know otherwise, assume your colleagues are 'evidence-based trusters', and go out of your way to give them a reason to trust you (Credit: Alamy)

While it helps to raise awareness of how trust works, companies must also play their part, says Bhushan Sethi, a principal and joint global leader in PwC's New York-based People & Organisation practice, where he works with employees across 150 countries to shape culture-led change. "To build real trust, firms will need to upskill in inclusive leadership, especially in a remote environment, where people are likely to feel more disconnected," says Sethi. "Leaders need to make people feel included, make sure their ideas are heard and empathise when they're stressed, anxious or burned out."

Likewise, Knight and Keller emphasise the importance of empathy in promoting trust. Their research showed that managers who show employees support and appreciation will foster more trust, and be better trusted in return. In service of its mission to enhance the experience and value of work, The Future of Work Institute has created free downloadable resources - from time management tips to concrete communication strategies - to support managers and workers in a flexible work world.

But Knight says companies should also create their own resources. "Organisations could invest in training that focuses on education around the benefits of remote working, how to devolve autonomy of workers and how to manage by results," she says. "This means not focusing on the number of working hours or whether they respond to messages instantly, but whether the broader goals of the job are being met."
'I trust you'
All of these tactics can help workers make strides to rebuild a culture of trust - but the reality is that it's inevitable that trust will still occasionally be broken. So, if you've missed a deadline or otherwise fallen short, don't gloss over it - you have to own up to it before you can rebuild trust. "It's essential to admit your mistakes, as that makes you vulnerable," says Gardner. "When you do that, you're implicitly saying, 'I trust you not to take advantage of me'."

When trust is breached from the top down, as when supervisors monitor employees' every move, workers can try stepping up communication to assuage anxiety. "Proactively inform your supervisor how things are going, what you have accomplished and where things are difficult," says Keller. "It's also worth negotiating what performance is expected and how that is assessed."

Still feeling stifled? Keller suggests explaining to your boss that although you're aware that some monitoring is important, doing so excessively is counterproductive to your morale and performance. As a last resort, consulting a third-party supervisor or HR representative may help. Regardless of the cause, any time trust is diminished, the goal is to reset the dynamic and cultivate good faith moving forward.

Although trust-building may seem like a soft skill in comparison to more technical or analytical ones, it's a vital piece of a healthy work culture - and one that's taken a big hit during the pandemic. Ultimately, our ability to prioritise and develop trust with colleagues will have a direct and immediate impact on the quality of our work - and the long-term outlook of our careers.

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Why remote work has eroded trust among colleagues

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When the pandemic triggered mass workplace closures last spring, many companies were unprepared for what turned into an open-ended remote-work arrangement. For some, the extraordinary situation initially prompted a heightened sense of goodwill as workers juggled the demands of family and fine-tuned home-office setups.

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'We found a baby on the subway - now he's our son'

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'We found a baby on the subway - now he's our son'

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Danny Stewart was rushing to meet his boyfriend for dinner when he ran past something lying on the floor of a New York subway station. Soon he would treasure it more than anything else in the world.

It was around eight o'clock on 28 August 2000, just past the frenzy of the New York rush hour when a subway train rattled down the track into 14th Street station, in the Chelsea district of Manhattan. Danny Stewart, 34, was late for dinner with his partner, Pete Mercurio, 32.

The couple had met three years earlier through a friend in Pete's softball team. Later Danny had moved in with Pete and his flatmate, but on this summer evening he had been back to his sublet apartment in Harlem to pick up the post.

As Danny was hurrying out of the station something caught his eye.

"I noticed on the floor tucked up against the wall, what I thought was a baby doll," he says.

He was puzzled - why would a child leave a doll on the ground? - but he continued up the stairs to the exit.

"I glanced back one more time, and that's when I noticed his legs moved."

He ran back down the stairs and realised that the doll was in fact a baby boy, wrapped in a dark sweatshirt, with his tiny legs sticking out.

"He didn't have any clothes on, he was just wrapped up in this sweatshirt. His umbilical cord was still partially intact, so I could tell he was a newborn. I was thinking maybe a day or so old," he says.

Danny could hardly believe what he was seeing. He couldn't understand how a baby had been left on the floor, or who could have left it.

The little boy was very quiet, and yet also alert, with big, wide eyes.

"He did look up and I stroked his head and then he whimpered a little bit. It seemed really unreal, the whole situation, and at that point I was trying to alert people to what was happening, but I couldn't get anybody's attention."

Danny yelled out, "Please, call the police," but almost everyone ignored him.

"I did get the attention of one woman, but she didn't speak English, so she didn't really understand what I was saying, even when I was trying to point to the baby," Danny says. "I think she probably thought I may have been a little deranged."

This was before the time when everyone had a mobile phone and Danny was afraid to pick up the baby in case he was hurt. So Danny ran up the stairs to the street to a payphone and called 911.

"I found a baby," he blurted out. Then he told the police where he was located and ran back to check the baby was still OK. He waited for what seemed like ages.

"I'm sure it was just a few minutes, but time was standing still as my heart was racing," he says. "I thought, well they probably think this is a prank call and they're probably not believing me, so somebody else needs to call, and that's when I thought of Pete."

Grabbing a quarter out of his pocket he ran back to the payphone to call him.

"Once again, I blurted out, 'I found a baby. I don't think the police believe me so call them please right now.'"

Pete, who had been pacing up and down, looking out of his apartment window waiting for Danny, says the hair on the back of his neck stood up.

"Because Danny doesn't joke, he wouldn't say something if it wasn't true," he says.

He bolted out of the apartment to the subway station, arriving as the police were carrying the baby away to be taken for a check-up at the hospital. After Danny had given his statement, the two of them left.

"I remember turning to Danny and saying to him on the sidewalk as the police car was driving away, 'You know, you're going to be connected to that baby in some way for the rest of your life,'" says Pete.

"Danny was like, 'What do you mean?' I said, 'Well, eventually, this child is going to learn of the night he was found and he may want to find the person who discovered him. Maybe there's a way that we can find out where he ends up and send a birthday gift every year on this date?'"

Find out more

The next day, news of the baby found on the subway was all over the headlines.

"Danny Stewart was the Good Samaritan that found the seven-pound baby," said one reporter, as Danny was interviewed for TV news.

"The baby is Hispanic with patches of brown hair on the top of his head," said another.

Danny wanted to find out how the baby was, and so went to the hospital where he had been taken, but was unable to get any news.

So Danny and Pete returned to their daily lives - Danny to his role as a social worker and Pete as a playwright and web designer.

But before too long Danny received an invitation from the Administration for Children's Services to attend a family court hearing, to testify how he had found the baby. When this took place, in December 2000, the judge asked Danny if he could stay for the entire hearing. He waited for the police to give their testimony, and then the judge addressed Danny again.

"She says, 'Mr Stewart, I want to let you know what's happening here, in instances where we have a baby that has been abandoned, we want to place them in pre-adoptive foster care as quickly as possible.'

"In my head, I'm thinking, 'Well that makes sense,'" says Danny. "And then the next thing out of her mouth was, 'Would you be interested in adopting this baby?'"

Danny looked around, all eyes were on him.

"I think most of the mouths dropped in the courtroom, including mine. I said, 'Yes, but I don't think it's that easy,' and the judge smiled and she said, 'Well, it can be.'"

Although the judge's question had come completely out of the blue, friends and acquaintances had already queried why Danny and Pete had not taken the baby boy home to take care of the night he was found. You didn't need to be a social worker, as Danny was, to realise that this wasn't how things worked.

The adoption process took six to nine months and involved background checks and parenting training.

"I had not had thoughts of adopting," says Danny, "but at the same time, I could not stop thinking that... I did feel connected, I felt like this was not even an opportunity, it was a gift, and how can you say no to this gift."

Outside the courtroom Danny telephoned Pete to tell him the news.

"My gut reaction was just to say, 'No - no, you're not, you're not interested. Go back right now into the courtroom and tell her, No, you made a mistake. Just tell her no,'" Pete says.

Over the next week they had what Danny says were tense conversations... Pete calls them heated arguments.

"I didn't want my life to change. I was happy the way we were and this was just going to change everything," Pete says.

"We had no money, we had no space, we still had a roommate... I was also a little angry with him, 'How could you say yes, without consulting me first?'"

The situation almost tore them apart.

"Danny had said at one point, 'I'm going ahead with this whether you're on board or not,' says Pete, and I just said, 'You're choosing a baby over our relationship?'

"He said, 'I would like us to all be a family, I'd like us to do this together, but if you're not ready, I understand and I'm going to do it with or without you.'"

Pete remembers saying some "awful things" to Danny such as, "Good luck being a single parent in New York."

Yet despite this, he says, there was a part of him that desperately wanted it to happen.

So Danny convinced Pete to come with him and visit the baby at his foster home.

When they arrived they said they noticed very quickly it was not an ideal place for him to be. He had painfully sore and infected nappy rash from his belly button all around his hips and thighs to his back.

The caseworker who was with them sat down with the foster mother and pushed the baby seat with the little boy in it towards Danny and Pete. The baby stared at them with wide eyes. Danny noticed he was not blinking and was very quiet.

Holding the baby in his arms for the first time, Danny gently said, "Remember me?"

When it was Pete's turn to hold the baby, an "instant wave of warmth" came over him, he says.

"The baby squeezed my finger with his entire hand so hard," says Pete. "He was just staring up at me and I was just looking at him, and it was almost like he found a pressure point in my finger that just opened up my heart to my head and showed me in that moment that I could be one of his parents, one of his dads."

After that, the adoption process began quickly. There were home visits, background checks and lots of questions to answer. Danny and Pete were told it would take months for the baby to be placed in their home, so they would have lots of time to prepare.

But they had to attend a court hearing on 20 December to state their intention to adopt the baby. The same judge was presiding, and she glanced down at the calendar on her desk.

"She looks back up at us and she says, 'How would you like him for the holiday?'" says Pete. "I think we both nodded, yes, but internally, I'm thinking, 'What holiday? I hope she's not meaning Christmas, because that's in a couple of days.'"

But that was what she meant and she started issuing orders to the caseworker and the attorneys to have the baby ready to pick up from the foster care agency in two days.

Back at home Pete called his family for help.

He'd already told them about their adoption plans, and got their full support.

"I said we're going to name him Kevin, and my mum just started bawling, because she had had a baby before me that died on birth, and they were naming that baby Kevin," says Pete.

"So this was just sort of a weird way of their baby Kevin coming back to them again as a grandchild from their gay son."

With only two days to prepare, everyone was in a frantic rush. Pete's family went to the shops to buy all the supplies the couple needed. Danny and Pete started speed reading baby books such as What to Expect When You're Expecting. Their apartment was turned into a nursery with boxes of nappies everywhere and a cot.

On Friday 22 December at nine o'clock in the morning, Danny and Pete collected Kevin from the foster care agency. They snuggled him up in his blanket and - appropriately - took the subway back to their apartment.

"It had started to snow," says Danny, "so it made it feel even more magical."

Alone that evening as a family, they had a chance to take in everything that had happened.

"I think we exhaled probably for the first time," says Danny. "I remember just kind of marvelling in the moment that this was actually a reality."

Kevin lay fast asleep on Pete's chest, drooling.

The judge's plan had been for Kevin to visit for the Christmas holidays and then return to his foster home. But Danny and Pete asked if there was any way he could stay with them, and on 27 December, the case worker called with good news, Kevin could remain while they completed the home study and certified their home.

The Manhattan Family Court was located near Ground Zero, where the 9/11 attacks took place in September 2001, so the adoption process was delayed, but it was finally completed on 17 December 2002.

Danny, Pete and Kevin soon settled into family life together. Danny remembers how Kevin loved books. Every night they would read bedtime stories or sing him to sleep while stroking his head.

Pete made a picture book with the story of Kevin's discovery, which he decorated with clip art, and when Kevin was three or four, he and Danny would read it to him every night before bedtime.

"It was his favourite," says Pete.

"Some nights, and days, we read it multiple times. We'd often catch Kevin flipping through the pages by himself and mouthing the words he had memorised. This was the sweetest thing in the world to witness."

Kevin didn't make the connection for almost a year that this was his story, Pete says. But when he did, he was so proud and excited that he took the book for a show and tell at his school.

Kevin was also curious about who his biological family might be.

"He would, every now and then, if we were out, look at people on the sidewalk that were passing us by, or if we were at a restaurant, he would point out, 'That woman over there has the same skin colour as me,'" says Pete. "But he never stressed about it and then it just sort of went away. He never really brought it up much."

When Kevin was 10, he was on his way to school when "papa Pete" turned to ask him what he thought about an idea he and "daddy Danny" had been discussing the night before.

It was 2011 and New York had become the sixth state in the US to legalise gay marriage. Although Danny says he and Pete already felt married "by default", this would just make it official.

Kevin was excited about the idea and turned to his papa to ask him, "Don't judges marry people?"

It was an inspired idea, so Pete sent an email to Manhattan Family Court to ask if the same judge - Judge Cooper - would officiate at their marriage. Within two hours they got a reply, she would be delighted.

At their first meeting, she explained that she had been involved in a short-lived pilot project placing babies who had been abandoned into pre-adoptive foster care, and that she'd had the authority to "expedite that process".

"She also said that all babies needed a connection to somebody. And so when Danny was testifying in the courtroom about finding the baby, in her mind his most serious connection in the world was to Danny, so why not just ask him?" Pete says. "It was almost as simple as that. She saw a connection that was already made, and had a hunch that it would be the right connection."

Her hunch had been correct, as she could see for herself when she met Kevin at the marriage ceremony.

Danny says it was an occasion that left him overcome with emotion, happiness and amazement.

"This woman, the very reason we're a family, is once again, the very reason we're getting married. It was like coming full circle," he says.

Kevin is now 20 years old, and at college studying mathematics and computer science. The tiny baby boy whom Danny discovered on the subway station is now over six feet tall, and taller than his dads.

He loves playing ultimate frisbee, has run numerous marathons and danced with the National Dance Institute from the age of nine to 14. Pete says when Kevin wants to learn something, he just goes out and does it, and has taught himself piano and guitar.

"Kevin's always been a respectful kid," says Pete. "He's empathic and kind. He keeps his emotions close to the vest. He's an observer, doesn't crave or seek attention. He's a private person, but also a quiet leader."

He can also be very funny, Pete says.

The family love visiting the national parks together, taking part in outdoor activities such as kayaking and supporting their favourite baseball team, the New York Mets.

"I can't imagine my life if it didn't turn out this way," says Danny, now aged 55. "My life has become much more enriched and full. It has changed my world view, my perspective, my whole lens."

Just as it was inconceivable 20 years ago to think about becoming parents, it is even more inconceivable says Pete, now 52, to think about not being parents.

"I did not know that this level of deep love existed in the world until my son came into my life."

Pete has written a children's book about their family's story called Our Subway Baby

Judge Cooper is a pseudonym Pete uses in his book as she does not want to be named

George is one of tens of thousands of children in the UK who've been taken into care because their parents are unable to look after them. Severely neglected, he struggled to express himself, so when there was something very important he wanted to ask his foster family, he chose an unusual way of doing it.

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'We found a baby on the subway - now he's our son'

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Danny Stewart was rushing to meet his boyfriend for dinner when he ran past something lying on the floor of a New York subway station. Soon he would treasure it more than anything else in the world.

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Coronavirus: Hongkongers aren’t rushing for vaccines, and that means herd immunity could be another 300 days away, experts say 

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Coronavirus: Hongkongers aren’t rushing for vaccines, and that means herd immunity could be another 300 days away, experts say 

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Why Hong Kong might need another 300 days to reach Covid-19 herd immunity

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Pre-pandemic normality could be restored when 70 per cent of the population - the expected threshold for herd immunity - was vaccinated.

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Businessmen undecided on which vaccine to take

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Businessmen undecided on which vaccine to take

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Tourism sector legislator Yiu Si-wing (left) and businessman Danny Lau spoke on an RTHK programme about vaccine passports. Photo: RTHK

The honorary chairman of the Hong Kong Small and Medium Enterprises Association, Danny Lau, said on Friday the business sector is unsure which Covid-19 vaccine to take as different countries currently recognise different jabs.

European officials have recently unveiled plans for a "vaccine passport" which would allow anyone vaccinated against Covid-19, or recently recovered from the virus to travel within the EU.

However, the vaccines must be approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA).

So far, the EMA has not approved the mainland-produced Sinovac and Sinopharm jabs, or Russia's Sputnik V.

Speaking on an RTHK programme, Lau said travel restrictions had severely affected cross-border business activities and he questioned whether those who need to travel to different countries need to receive shots from different manufacturers.

"So if we have to go to three places, do we need to get all three different vaccines? From a medical perspective, can our bodies accept all three vaccines?" he asked.

The businessman said the association's members plan to wait and see whether the World Health Organisation would offer guidelines on vaccine passports.

But tourism sector legislator Yiu Si-wing brushed aside Lau's concerns, saying he believes the problem will eventually be addressed as many countries are desperate to kickstart their economies.

He added that Hong Kong can start discussing vaccine passports with other countries, saying Singapore will likely be the first country the SAR can resume travel with since the two places had already set up a "travel bubble."

Special flights between Hong Kong and the Lion City were originally set to begin last November before a surge in coronavirus cases in the SAR forced its indefinite postponement.

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'Businessmen undecided on which vaccine to take' - RTHK

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Tourism sector legislator Yiu Si-wing (left) and businessman Danny Lau spoke on an RTHK programme about vaccine passports. Photo: RTHK The honorary chairman of the Hong Kong Small and Medium Enterprises Association, Danny Lau, said on Friday the business sector is unsure which Covid-19 vaccine to take as different countries currently recognise different jabs.

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Pilot impersonator writes random WhatsApp messages to HK woman who responds with Legislative Councillor Regina Ip’s photos

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Pilot impersonator writes random WhatsApp messages to HK woman who responds with Legislative Councillor Regina Ip’s photos

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17th March 2021 - (Hong Kong) Some netizens shared multiple screenshots of WhatsApp conversations in an online forum recently showing random messages from a foreign man claiming to be a pilot who is based in London. The man who claimed his name is "Frank Wisdom" then sent a number of pictures of a purported foreign pilot but the woman who received the photos noticed something was amiss and decided to teach him a lesson by sending pictures of someone else and the 'someone else' happened to be the 70-year-old Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee, a member of the Executive Council and Legislative Council of Hong Kong. Instead of stopping to respond, the man said, "Wow you look so beautiful". Many netizens were amused by his response as he was obviously attracted by Regina Ip's youthful looks.

When the man began his conversation, he said that he was trying to contact his friend in Hong Kong before he accidentally sent the message to the woman. The woman then claimed that she was 'divorced and had no children at the age of 40' and said "I hope you won't mind". The "pilot" couldn't help but exclaimed and replied "I love it".

Regina Ip likes to post her youthful pictures on her Facebook page.

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Pilot impersonator writes random WhatsApp messages to HK woman who responds with Legislative Councillor Regina Ip's photos - Dimsum Daily

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17th March 2021 - (Hong Kong) Some netizens shared multiple screenshots of WhatsApp conversations in an online forum recently showing random messages from a foreign man claiming to be a pilot who is based in London. The man who claimed his name is "Frank Wisdom" then sent a number of pictures of a purported foreign ...

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Pro-Democracy Film ‘Red Brick Wall’ Pulled From Hong Kong Release 

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Pro-Democracy Film ‘Red Brick Wall’ Pulled From Hong Kong Release 

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An award-winning Hong Kong protest documentary, " Inside the Red Brick Wall " has been pulled out from a local cinema before it could be shown to a ticket-buying public. Pro-Beijing forces in the city have alleged that the film may violate the June 2020 National Security Law.

Golden Scene Cinema announced on its Instagram Stories page on Monday that screenings of "Inside the Red Brick Wall" later that day and others scheduled for March 21 will be canceled. The cinema apologized for the inconvenience caused, asked for movie-goers' understanding and offered refunds.

Notification of the cancellations came the same day as the beginning of the four-day Hong Kong FilMart. The rights market is the largest of its kind in Asia and is a showcase for Hong Kong as hub for regional commerce in film and TV content. It is being held entirely online this year, due to COVID-19's impact on regional travel.

"Inside the Red Brick Wall" was part of a screening series of winners of the Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards staged at Golden Scene Cinema, a recently-opened outlet operated by homegrown film company Golden Scene. It was to have been the first time the film had a commercial screening.

The documentary feature, shot by a collective of anonymous filmmakers, chronicles the 13-day standoff between the police and protesters at the Polytechnic University in November 2019 that were part of city-wide protests sparked by a now-withdrawn extradition bill.

"Red Brick Wall" was named as best film by the Hong Kong Film Critics Society in January. There were overnight queues this weekend to buy tickets.

But the film also came under fire from pro-Beijing newspaper Wen Wei Po. It said that a public screening of the film would incite hatred of China's central government, the Hong Kong government and the police, which may violate the National Security Law.

Wen Wei Po also accused the film of violating the Film Censorship Ordinance and called for it to be banned. Previously, "Red Brick" had been classified as a Category III film, meaning that it could only be shown to those aged 18 or above, due to its coarse language and detailed depiction of violence.

"In response to the overwhelming attention on the screening [of "Red Brick"]," the cinema said that it has decided to pull the screenings "to avoid unnecessary misunderstanding."

Beijing injected the National Security Law into Hong Kong's mini-constitution, known as the Basic Law, in response to the city's political turmoil of 2019 and 2020. The law bans activities related to secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign influences to endanger national security.

Eight months after the law's introduction, more than 100 people have been arrested for "committing acts or engaging in activities that endangered national security." These include most pro-democracy legislators.

At last week's so-called Two Sessions of China's parliament, Beijing also announced strict new procedures for elections in the city, including patriotism as requirement for public office. While China said that it was "improving" the system in Hong Kong, several countries have condemned the move as an assault on democracy. "The U.K. now considers Beijing to be in a state of ongoing non-compliance with the Sino-British Joint Declaration," the British foreign ministry said in a statement over the weekend.

The Joint Declaration is an internationally registered treaty between the two countries that stipulated how the former British colony should be governed over a period of 50 years after the 1997 handover to China.

Variety has reached out to the cinema and the film's distributor for comment.

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Pro-Democracy Film 'Red Brick Wall' Pulled From Hong Kong Release

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An award-winning Hong Kong protest documentary, " Inside the Red Brick Wall " has been pulled out from a local cinema before it could be shown to a ticket-buying public. Pro-Beijing forces in the city have alleged that the film may violate the June 2020 National Security Law.

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Beijing Asks Alibaba to Shed Its Media Assets 

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Beijing Asks Alibaba to Shed Its Media Assets 

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China's government has asked Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. to dispose of its media assets, as officials grow more concerned about the technology giant's sway over public opinion in the country, according to people familiar with the matter.

Discussions over the matter have been held since early this year, after Chinese regulators reviewed a list of media assets owned by the Hangzhou-headquartered company, whose mainstay business is online retail. Officials were appalled at how expansive Alibaba's media interests have become and asked the company to come up with a plan to substantially curtail its media holdings, the people said.

Alibaba, founded by billionaire Jack Ma, has throughout the years assembled a formidable portfolio of media assets that span print, broadcast, digital, social media and advertising. Notable holdings include stakes in the Twitter -like Weibo platform and several popular Chinese digital and print news outlets, as well as the South China Morning Post, the premier English-language newspaper in Hong Kong. Several of these holdings are in U.S.-listed companies.

Such influence is seen as posing serious challenges to the Chinese Communist Party and its own powerful propaganda apparatus, the people said.

The party's propaganda department didn't reply to a faxed request seeking comment.

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WSJ News Exclusive | Beijing Asks Alibaba to Shed Its Media Assets

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China's government has asked Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. to dispose of its media assets, as officials grow more concerned about the technology giant's sway over public opinion in the country, according to people familiar with the matter.

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Coronavirus: China’s plans for ‘vaccine passport’ may be hampered by lack of data, diplomats say 

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Coronavirus: China’s plans for ‘vaccine passport’ may be hampered by lack of data, diplomats say 

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China's plans for 'vaccine passport' may be hampered by lack of data, diplomats say

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'To start the mutual recognition of vaccines, we need to really understand what the Chinese vaccine is,' Israel's ambassador to China says.

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Royal commentators hoaxed into critique of Meghan interview before seeing it

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Royal commentators hoaxed into critique of Meghan interview before seeing it

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Leading royal commentators have come under fire after they were filmed giving their views about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's performance in their eagerly awaited interview with Oprah Winfrey for an undisclosed fee, days before they had seen it.

Four commentators, including the Queen's former press secretary Dickie Arbiter and CNN's royal commentator Victoria Arbiter, gave interviews to a fake news company created by YouTuber pranksters Josh Pieters and Archie Manners on Friday, two days before the interview was aired. They had been told it would be shown immediately after the CBS programme was broadcast.

In the prank, the commentator and editor-in-chief of Majesty magazine, Ingrid Seward, said of the Duchess of Sussex, "to my mind this was an actress giving one of her great performances - from start to finish, Meghan was acting", despite not having seen the interview.

Royal commentators hoaxed into critique of Meghan interview before seeing it

Royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams said it was "not a balanced interview", accusing Oprah of giving the couple "an easy ride" and being "totally sympathetic", and saying that Meghan "used extremely strong language to describe her relations with members of the royal household".

The YouTubers also duped some of the experts into discussing false topics supposedly covered in the Oprah interview, including Meghan's support for the Balham donkey sanctuary and refusal to have the coronavirus vaccine.

The pair have become infamous for their high-profile pranks, tricking celebrities including Little Mix's Perrie Edwards into interviewing for a Borat film, influencers into promoting gravel, and nominating reality TV star Gemma Collins for a Nobel peace prize.

The pair told the Guardian they had "wondered whether people would say things that weren't necessarily true to purely jump on the buzz of this Harry and Meghan interview, and it turned out that they would".

"To me, it's like asking a football commentator to give me 90 minutes of voice-noting on [a match they haven't seen]. It's such a ludicrous premise," Manners said, insisting they deliberately duped commentators rather than news correspondents, and did not intend the video as an attack on the press. "These people charge news organisations for their views, and their views do shape public opinion."

The duo insisted that they weren't leading the commentators on or "feeding them lines", simply asking "broad stroke questions that you simply cannot answer if you have not seen the interview".

"We then decided that having done that we would push it a bit further and come up with the silliest things we could imagine, almost to give them a chance," Manners said. "We did say, 'in the interview Meghan says she wouldn't take the vaccine'. We would hope that a royal expert who would presumably know a lot about Meghan would at that point go, hang on, that seems somewhat unlikely.

"It also, I would argue, seems somewhat unlikely that Meghan Markle is going to discuss the Balham donkey sanctuary. We only ever brought up those facts when they were so far-flung that to comment on them would be ridiculous."

The duo also denied claims they had told the commentators only relevant comments would be used, and said the commentators had signed release forms which gave the YouTubers full rights to use the video how they wished. They also insisted the edit was "incredibly fair".

"I think it's quite a commentary on the modern world," said Pieters. "You need to really think about the information you take in, and try and verify it and do some research into what you hear and read ... I think this video does point to that in a way to say, sometimes things you see aren't always as they seem."

When asked about his role in the video, Fitzwilliams said he "obviously didn't know it was a sting" and that the comments had been "used out of context".

"The arrangement was that the comments would be broadcast depending on what was in the interview, so nothing inappropriate would have appeared from anyone contributing," he said. "We had by then seen two trailers. Together with the hype, it promised to be pretty toxic and define Harry and Meghan's relationship with the royal family for the foreseeable future."

"This sort of pre-record, filing material in advance, is frequently done for various news stories, obituaries etc so journalists have instant comment in the event of breaking news. There is nothing whatever dishonourable in it," he added.

Dickie Arbiter said that the approach from Beneath the Fold, the name of the false media company, "alleged to be a legitimate invitation for a fast turnaround, pre-recorded interview commissioned by a UK network, to be aired on Monday 8 March 2021.

"This was deliberately misleading and a 'scam'. I commented only on clips already in global circulation, but my interview was edited so as to imply I was speculating on the full-programme interview. I was not speculating. I do not speculate."

Representatives for the other commentators have been approached for comment. Archewell, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's organisation, declined to comment.

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Royal commentators hoaxed into critique of Meghan interview before seeing it

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YouTuber pranksters tricked experts into being filmed reviewing Oprah Winfrey special with the Sussexes

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U.K. Sanctuary Offer for Hong Kong Activists Is Great If You Can Afford It

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U.K. Sanctuary Offer for Hong Kong Activists Is Great If You Can Afford It

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The Number Ones: Kim Wilde’s “You Keep Me Hangin’ On”

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The Number Ones: Kim Wilde’s “You Keep Me Hangin’ On”

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In The Number Ones, I'm reviewing every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, starting with the chart's beginning, in 1958, and working my way up into the present.

When new versions of old songs start tearing up the charts again, that's generally a pretty good sign that pop music is in a rough place. If nostalgia starts to replace the rush of the new, then it usually means pop music needs some kind of shakeup. In 1975, for instance, the Hot 100 took a great leap backwards. Many of that year's #1 hits were pure '60s nostalgia: Elton John doing " Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds," the Carpenters doing " Please Mr. Postman," Linda Ronstadt doing " You're No Good." At the same time, early-'60s hitmakers like Neil Sedaka and Frankie Valli were staging comebacks, returning to #1 with their first hits in years. But in 1975, the shakeup was already happening. Disco was already ascending the charts. Within a few months, its takeover was complete.

In 1987, something similar happened. In a 12-month period, three different covers of past #1 singles became #1 hits themselves. Bananarama did it first, hitting #1 in September 1986 with their version of Shocking Blue's " Venus." Then Club Nouveau's take on Bill Withers' " Lean On Me" topped the charts in March of 1987. Three months later, the young British singer Kim Wilde sang a blippy club-pop version of the Supremes' " You Keep Me Hangin' On," a song that had hit #1 more than 20 years earlier, and she got her biggest-ever hit out of it.

Really, nostalgia was everywhere on the charts in 1986 and 1987. Resurgent '60s-vintage stars like Steve Winwood and Aretha Franklin topped the Hot 100. Grace Slick, once of the Jefferson Airplane, had led Starship to three #1 hits in a shockingly brief window of time. Billy Vera And The Beaters' " At This Moment," a throwback soul ballad even when it was first released in 1981, became a surprise #1 after showing up on Family Ties a couple of times. Maybe pop music needed another shakeup.

There were shakeups coming. In 1987, there wasn't one specific thing like disco looming on the horizon and waiting to take over. Instead, there were lots of smaller movements: Glam metal, Latin freestyle, house music, even U2's miasmic stadium-rock. There was also rap music, which wouldn't start topping the Hot 100 for another few years but which was already reaching artistic maturity. In fact, the three hit remakes that reached #1 actually Trojan-horsed new sounds onto the pop charts. Club Nouveau's version of "Lean On Me" might've been the first new jack swing song to hit #1. Kim Wilde's "You Keep Me Hangin' On," like Bananarama's "Venus" before it, was a rare chart breakthrough for hi-NRG, the post-disco sound that flourished in gay clubs through the mid-'80s.

Hi-NRG was essentially just disco, sped up and synthesized and stripped of all traces of funk. The genre took its name from "High Energy," an Evelyn Thomas single that peaked at #85 in 1984. The UK crew Stock Aitken Waterman, who produced Bananarama's version of "Venus," had taken inspiration from the sound, importing its bleeps and handclaps and drum-machine thumps. Kim Wilde and her producer brother Ricky essentially gave the same makeover to the Supremes classic "You Keep Me Hangin' On," drenching it in keyboard flutters and distorto-guitar growls and big-boom drums. "You Keep Me Hangin' On" could handle it.

When the Supremes first recorded "You Keep Me Hangin' On" in 1966, Holland-Dozier-Holland, their production and songwriting team, were trying to write a rock 'n' roll hit. With its needling guitar intro and its steady four-four thump and the desperate snap of Diana Ross' vocal, "You Keep Me Hangin' On" came out sounding more like a not-too-distant ancestor of disco. But before the '60s were over, "You Keep Me Hangin' On" did become a rock hit - just not for the Supremes. Proto-metal power trio Vanilla Fudge recorded a sludged-out psychedelic version of the song in 1968, and they took it to #6. (The Vanilla Fudge version is an 8.)

Really, "You Keep Me Hangin' On" never went away. Wilson Pickett's hoarse 1969 soul cover of the song peaked at #92, while a Jackie DeShannon medley of "You Keep Me Hangin' On" and Little Anthony And The Imperials' "Hurts So Bad" reached #96 in 1970. The Supremes reprised "You Keep Me Hangin' On" with the Temptations in 1968. Tom Jones, Jackie Wilson, the Box Tops, Rod Stewart, and Colourbox all covered the song. Since "You Keep Me Hangin' On" was basically already a proto-disco song, and since hi-NRG was essentially disco by another name, the song translated just fine to the new sound. With the Kim Wilde cover, "You Keep Me Hangin' On" became the first song ever to reach the top 10 three different times.

As for Kim Wilde, she already had experience heralding the arrival of a new sound. Years earlier, she'd helped introduce the world to new wave. In fact, she may have helped popularize the term. On her 1981 debut single "Kids In America," Wilde made an announcement: "New York to East California! There's a new wave comin', I'll warn ya!" That's one of pop history's great unintentionally goofy lyrics: East California? To hear Wilde tell it, the new wave apparently came crashing down somewhere around the Inland Empire. If you live along the coast, no new wave for you. You've got to love it when a song romanticizes the idea of America through lyrics that show a total lack of understanding of how America even works.

But geography aside, Wilde was right. There was a new wave coming, and "Kids In America" works as a warning and as a glorious example of the form. "Kids In America" stands as an absolute classic of the synthy, self-aware pop music that flourished in the wake of punk rock - a wistfully giddy banger about waiting around for better things to arrive. I love it. It's perfect.

Kim Wilde was not a kid in America. She grew up in London, a second-generation pop star. Wilde's mother was a choir singer, and her father was Marty Wilde, one of the UK's original rock 'n' roll teen idols. In the late '50s, Marty Wilde scored a string of UK hits, most of which were covers of American songs: Dion And The Belmonts' "A Teenager In Love," Ritchie Valens' "Donna," Phil Phillips' "Sea Of Love." In that pre-Beatles era, most of England's rockers, guys like Cliff Richard and Tommy Steele, sang in fake American accents, and Marty Wilde was no exception. America had no interest, though one Marty Wilde single, the fun little rockabilly original "Bad Boy," reached #45 in 1960.

By the time Kim was born in 1960, Marty Wilde's hitmaking career was mostly done. (On the day of Kim's birth, the kids in America had made the Four Seasons' " Big Girls Don't Cry " the #1 single.) As a kid, Kim sometimes sang backup for her father or for her younger brother Ricky Wilde, who had a mostly-unsuccessful run as a pre-teen pop heartthrob in the UK. Kim grew up out of the spotlight, and she studied at the art school St. Alban's College. Kim started recording her own music in 1981, and "Kids In America" was an immediate smash, going to #2 in the UK and making top-10 lists all around Europe. In America itself, "Kids In America" didn't hit quite as hard, but it still hit, peaking at #25.

Kim's father and brother co-wrote "Kids In America," and it's fun to imagine the song, and the "East California" lyric, as an extension of Marty Wilde's love of American music despite his near-complete lack of success in America. Ricky also produced "Kids In America." For Kim's first few albums, Marty and Ricky wrote all the songs together, and Ricky produced everything. Those records were pretty big in the UK, where Kim scored a couple more top-10 hits in the early '80s, and they were even bigger on the European mainland. In the US, Kim only charted once in the six years between "Kids In America" and "You Keep Me Hangin' On." (1984's " The Second Time," retitled "Go For It" in America, peaked at #65.)

It was Ricky Wilde's idea for Kim to cover "You Keep Me Hangin' On." Ricky had always loved the song, though neither he nor Kim realized it had ever been a big hit. Soon after her version reached #1, Kim told the UK pop newspaper Record Mirror, "It had been in the can for 12 months, so I can honestly say to you that it wasn't a cynical decision to try and get a hit single. Mind you, I don't expect anyone to believe me."

Even if Kim Wilde's version of "You Keep Me Hangin' On" was a cynical attempt at hitmaking, I can't hold that against it. I'm of the opinion that virtually every hit single is, at least on some level, a cynical attempt at a hit single. That's fine. No problem. The issue with Wilde's version of "You Keep Me Hangin' On" is that it has none of the electric force of the Supremes' original. Diana Ross sang that song with righteous, humiliated rage and desperation. She sold the idea that this asshole kept stringing her along, that it was tearing her apart. Kim Wilde, on the other hand, sings "You Keep Me Hangin' On" like it's a fun old song.

Of course, Kim Wilde is right. "You Keep Me Hangin' On" is a fun old song. I've always liked Wilde's voice. She's got the breathy deadpan of her new wave peers, but she doesn't have the arch distance. She sounds open-hearted and vulnerable. But when you hold Wilde up against Diana Ross - something that a cover like this practically forces you to do - Wilde is left wanting. She doesn't have the pipes or the presence of Ross. When she tries to hit a high note - "let me find somebody ellll-lllse" - things get dicey fast.

But Kim Wilde does ground her version of "You Keep Me Hangin' On" - a necessary thing, since the track is so cluttered. Ricky Wilde didn't come from the world of hi-NRG, but he adapts to the sound just fine. As producer, Wilde piles stuff all over the track: Strobing and dramatic Bulls-intro keyboards, percussive guitar scratches, slap-bass popping, orchestra-hit synth-bursts, wheedly guitar shredding. It's all a bit overwhelming, but almost everything serves the beat of the song. I'm sure it sounded good in the club.

Ultimately, the Kim Wilde version of "You Keep Me Hangin' On" sounds like a fluke hit. Its goals are much more modest than those of the Supremes' original. Wilde's not trying to extend a world-historic hitmaking streak. She's just making a fun, busy, uptempo dance track that everyone will recognize. On its own terms, her cover works OK. Considered in the grand lineage of #1 singles - a lineage that includes the Supremes' original - it suffers.

Kim Wilde later said that she'd never heard anything about her cover from Diana Ross, which can probably lead us to assume that Ross hated it. But Wilde did get a congratulatory telegram from Lamont Dozier, the song's co-writer. He must've been psyched; with the version, the Holland-Dozier-Holland songwriting team scored their 13th #1 hit, and their first in the 20 years since the Supremes' " The Happening." (Brian Holland had actually notched up another one in 1975. Before Holland-Dozier-Holland came together, he'd co-written the Marvelettes' " Please Mr. Postman," which means he got credit when the Carpenters' cover of the song got to #1. Lamont Dozier's work, amazingly enough, will appear in this column again.)

After "You Keep Me Hangin' On," Wilde landed a couple more minor hits in America. Her 1987 follow-up " Say You Really Want Me" peaked at #44, and the charmingly-titled " You Came" made it to #41 a year later. But Wilde was a much bigger deal in Europe. In the UK, Wilde never quite managed a #1 hit, but she did get eight singles into the top 10 over the course of the '80s. I lived in London for a year between 1988 and 1989, and Wilde was one of seven or eight pop stars who routinely got written up in kids' magazines. In Europe, Wilde opened Michael Jackson's Bad tour. She was a big enough deal to release a greatest-hits album in 1993.

Wilde's singles eventually stopped hitting in the UK, and she moved on to other things. She acted in a West End production of the Who's Tommy musical in the '90s, and she's since become an award-winning gardener, writing a couple of books about it. But Wilde's pop stardom remained intact on the continent, especially in Germany, for years. She's way bigger around the world than she ever became in America. Kim Wilde won't be in this column again, but we'll see plenty more nostalgic pop remakes before we're out of the '80s.

RATING: 5/10

BONUS BEATS: Producer Dame Grease sampled Kim Wilde's version of "You Keep Me Hangin' On" on incarcerated Harlem rapper Max B's 2011 mixtape track "Tattoos On Her Ass." Here it is:

(Max B doesn't have any Hot 100 hits as lead artist, but he's a guest on the 2017 French Montana/Weeknd collab "A Lie," which peaked at #75.)

BONUS BONUS BEATS: Here's the version of "You Keep Me Hangin' On" that Kim Wilde and the German pop star Nena recorded for Wilde's 2006 album Never Say Never:

(Nena's highest-charting US single, 1983's " 99 Luftballons," peaked at #2. It's a 9.)

BONUS BONUS BONUS BEATS: Here's the bit from a 2015 episode of Scream Queens where Emma Roberts struts out of jail while Kim Wilde's version of "You Keep Me Hangin' On" plays on the soundtrack:

THE 10S: Bon Jovi's beautifully preposterous cowboy lament "Wanted Dead Or Alive" peaked at #7 behind "You Keep Me Hangin' On." It walks these streets, a loaded six-string on its back. It plays for keeps 'cause it might not make it back. It's been everywhere. Still, it's standing tall. It's seen a million faces, and it's rocked them all. It's a 10.

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The Number Ones: Kim Wilde's "You Keep Me Hangin' On"

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In The Number Ones, I'm reviewing every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, starting with the chart's beginning, in 1958, and working my way up into the present. When new versions of old songs start tearing up the charts again, that's generally a pretty good sign that pop music is in a rough place.

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560 UK Churches Ready to Welcome Hong Kong Wave

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560 UK Churches Ready to Welcome Hong Kong Wave

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Last Sunday, a local Chinese church's multilingual service was broadcast live on BBC Radio 4, the United Kingdom's most popular radio station, for the first time in history-a gesture of welcome to the hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong residents expected to migrate to the country under a new visa provision.

"This feels like a watershed moment for the Church in the UK," wrote Mark Nam, an Anglican priest in Bristol. "I never dreamed I would be alive to hear Chinese songs and voices broadcast across the nation for Sunday Worship like this."

Nam is among hundreds of pastors, ministry leaders, and laypeople who are preparing local churches for what could be the largest planned migration to the country in over half a century.

As of January 31, nearly three million British overseas nationals in Hong Kong are said to be eligible for this new passport program, which will allow them and their families to live and work in the UK and to apply for British citizenship within six years. The UK government expects over 300,000 to register and estimates that at least 130,000 will arrive in 2021 alone.

Political tensions are high in Hong Kong, particularly for pro-democracy activists- including Christians-who have become the target of a crackdown from Chinese authorities in the region. While the government has committed to open the door for everyone who applies, Christian leaders believe the church should be waiting on the doorstep to welcome them.

"It's in our DNA; it's in our doctrine," said Krish Kandiah, a former pastor, missionary, and adoption reform advocate who has rallied local Christians around the Hong Kong Ready initiative. "The welcome is an important part of what the church is about, and we don't always get it right, but we're keen now."

Kandiah, recently appointed the chair of a government board on adoption, connected officials to Christian leaders who were eager to help with resettlement. A team from his ministry network and representatives from the Chinese church community have partnered together to lead the way forward.

More than 600 people signed up for the Hong Kong Ready virtual event in late January, and so far 560 churches and counting have joined the movement. Evangelical groups like Welcome Churches and the UK's Evangelical Alliance are among the many ministries partnering in their efforts.

Welcome Churches is helping to profile local congregations willing to receive newcomers from other nations and offering cross-cultural training on how to fully incorporate these new families into their church bodies.

Campaigns like the One People Commission and South Asian Forum share a similar goal, according to the Evangelical Alliance's church and mission coordinator Donna Jennings, by "actively promoting the truth that diversity can and does exist in unity, in and through God's people."

Working together across denominational and organizational lines, the network is linking church leaders and civic officials, empowering the Chinese Christian community, mapping and mobilizing a growing list of welcome-ready churches, and building a bank of multilingual orientation resources for newcomers.

"I believe God is doing something special," wrote Nam, who was recently ordained in the Church of England as one its first British-born Chinese priests. "Looking at the landscape ahead, my heart is filled with joy at the prospect of my children inhabiting a land where the stranger is welcomed and difference is celebrated."

Witness against racism

Many of the leaders involved, including Kandiah and Nam, are themselves the children of immigrants and know the practical struggles and prejudice foreigners face-much of which has resurged in recent years.

"COVID and Brexit have intensified a sense of nationalism in the UK that has emerged in acts and attitudes of racism," said Jennings. "In this context, the counter-cultural witness of the church is vital."

The Hong Kong program will be the largest and fastest planned migration to the UK from outside Europe since the Windrush migration between 1948 and 1971, when the British invited families from former colonies in the Caribbean. At the time, the UK church along with the rest of the country not only failed to offer a warm welcome to the Windrush generation-it treated them in unjust and outright racist ways.

Officials were urged to issue a public apology on behalf of the UK government in 2018, and the Church of England did the same last year, as leaders repented and promised to renew their pursuit of racial reform.

"I'm still haunted by some of the stories around Windrush," Kandiah said. "Fifty years later, we're still reaping the negative consequences of people being treated appallingly."

He recently spoke with a young woman on a Zoom call, listening as she shared a story about her own parents who migrated to the UK from the Caribbean. She said that when they showed up for Sunday service at a local Anglican church, the vicar turned them away and asked them to go somewhere else-saying the congregation would not feel comfortable worshiping God with them in the room.

But organizers are expecting even more resentment among locals about an immigration influx now, during unprecedented levels of unemployment. A COVID-19 Anti-Racism Group ( CARG) has formed to monitor the rising tides of racism toward people of Asian descent stemming from the pandemic.

A recent report published by the group found that over the past year, there's been a 300 percent increase in hate crimes or race-based violence against people with Chinese appearance in the UK, and a 900 percent increase in hate speech used toward or about them, both in person and online.

Nam joined CARG to help churches become aware of the growing threat of racism that immigrant families of Asian descent will face in the future. Many of those coming from Hong Kong already expect to encounter it here, he says, but they're more worried about what it will mean for their children. Nam sees this as a chance for pastors and youth leaders to integrate the next generation and proactively combat bullying.

Growing up, Nam was one of few children of Chinese immigrants in his neighborhood, and he still has vivid memories from primary school. At lunch, when the rest of his classmates had Tupperware with a sandwich, fruit, and chip combo, he had a thermos full of fragrant noodles. "I'd crack it open, and across the classroom, someone would go, 'Oh, what's that smell? Something just died!'" Often, he'd keep the lid on and go home hungry.

Nam, who turned 40 this month, is working to make the church in the UK a more welcoming place for people with BAME backgrounds (black, Asian, and minority ethnic). But there will always be a special place in his heart for Hong Kong, where his wife and two of their three children were born-and where he served as a full-time pastor, ministering at a diverse evangelical church for nearly a decade.

"This is why I'm so behind what Krish has launched with Hong Kong Ready churches," Nam said. "These Hong Kongers [are] going to be such a blessing."

Divides in the Chinese diaspora

The radio service Nam heard broadcast last week on the BBC was led by pastor Henry Lu, the director of Chinese Overseas Christian Mission, a global ministry based in the UK that works with Chinese Christian communities in the Chinese diaspora.

Lu said that one obstacle the Chinese community has to face in integrating Hong Kongers is politics, which he says fall into two basic categories, labeled by two different colors: blue and yellow. The blue camp is generally favorable to China and its political policies, while the yellow camp is critical of both.

When it comes to the current situation between China and Hong Kong, "it is a very complicated political dynamic," Lu says. "There's a very clear divide in people's opinion."

The older Chinese population in the UK, primarily those who come from mainland China, tend to lean more traditional in their loyalty out of love and pride for their home nation. The younger generation, especially those who hail from the islands, are more likely to agree with the ongoing political protests against China's actions in Hong Kong.

In response to the UK's new visa policy and immigration plan for Hong Kongers, the Chinese government has declared that it will no longer recognize the British National Overseas Passport (BNOP), warning that Hong Kongers who move to the UK will be treated as "second-class citizens."

Many experts believe these tensions are likely to get worse in the coming years. "China (actually, to be precise, the Chinese Communist Party-CCP) will tighten its control over Hong Kong for its international political security," said Fenggang Yang, a sociology professor at Purdue. "This may trigger a sense of urgency for those who have been considering emigration but hesitating."

In other words, many who make the life-changing decision to leave Hong Kong and move to the UK in coming years are doing so out of feelings of fear-for their freedoms, their families, and their future.

"These people are coming to a strange land. They're leaving their home. They're leaving their familiar places. They're sojourners. They come here, some by choice, some may be forced to come," Lu says. And because of this, Hong Kongers moving to the UK may also bring the baggage of emotional trauma, from anger to anxiety. "This is where my passion is in terms of the Chinese church-to say to them, 'Look, as Christians, we need to help them. I don't care if you're yellow or blue. We need to care for them.'"

Nam says Western believers have much to learn from their Eastern brothers and sisters, despite their political differences.

To him, Sunday mornings at any local Chinese church in the UK is a perfect reflection of what determined unity in diversity can look like-where the church meets each week for food and fellowship before three congregations head into three rooms for three services held in three languages: English, Mandarin, and Cantonese-and gather together once a month for a joint service.

But due to COVID-19, incoming Hong Kongers will face more social obstacles than they would under normal circumstances-as will the local church members who want to reach out and connect with their new neighbors.

"It's tough moving countries and continents in the best of times," Kandiah said. "But it's even harder moving in the middle of a pandemic, and especially when English is your second language."

Momentum for Hong Kong Ready

So far, around 7,000 have moved to the UK since last summer, and several congregations have already been stepping up to help resettle dozens of families into their communities. In the midst of extended lockdowns, pandemic protocols, and social distancing, the welcoming effort has been mostly digital.

Over email and video calls, volunteers help with paperwork, translate documentation, show how to register for health care services and set appointments, and explain public transportation. These initial points of contact provide families who are relocating a sense of reassurance in knowing what to expect when they arrive.

"In a season that has forced our church buildings to close and our church programmes to be cancelled, Hong Kong Ready helps the UK Church to take stock of who we are and what we have to offer to our local community and wider society in such challenging times," Jennings wrote. "Our divided culture is hungry to see a more beautiful way of being community, of functioning in society."

The movement is even gaining momentum among high-level church leaders like the Bishop of London and popular big-city congregations such as Holy Trinity Brompton (HTB), the UK's largest and most influential Anglican church. Founded by pastor Nicky Gumbel, the London-based church-planting network is the birthplace of Worship Central, Alpha, and The Marriage Course.

In the larger scope, the Hong Kong Ready team has facilitated citywide roundtable discussions, hosting virtual meetings with local leaders throughout London, Manchester, and Birmingham. These conversations are facilitating unprecedented cooperation between civic officials and church leaders around the country. "There's this real sense of partnership, which I'm really excited about," Kandiah said.

In the past, Christian activists have lamented some immigration policies set by the UK's Home Office, which they feel have created a hostile environment, rather than cultivating a welcoming posture toward foreign-born citizens. But now, many church and ministry leaders of the Hong Kong Ready initiative believe this could signal the beginning of a brand-new chapter in their history as a nation and as a church.

Emily Holden from Welcome Churches says she hopes that if local churches are able to welcome Hong Kongers well, "this will show to the UK government the desire from civil society to have more welcoming policies" towards refugees, asylum seekers, and other marginalized groups in the country.

Thus, receiving these Hong Kongers represents both "a challenge and an opportunity for the church to step into our identity as the people of God," Jennings said-which should "transcend national identities and politics" and "embody a radical, warm welcome to those who have come to live among us."

"In many ways," says Nam, they are leading an ecumenical movement that's blazing a trail for future generations of believers to follow. "And I say that humbly-as in, like, it's scary."

As Kandiah enlists more churches, ministries, and faith-based nonprofits to take the lead in "welcoming the strangers" coming to the UK from Hong Kong, he thinks of his mother, who emigrated there from India in the 1960s. Although she faced racial prejudice at every turn, she began what Kandiah refers to as "a one-woman resistance campaign" out of her own home-cooking plenty of rice and curry to share and inviting those who felt like they didn't fit in to come have a meal with their family.

"I believe that churches up and down our country will soon be seen offering the same radical resistance to racism through hospitality and friendship," Kandiah wrote in an op-ed last month. "I wish that she were alive today to see it."

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560 UK Churches Ready to Welcome Hong Kong Wave

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Last Sunday, a local Chinese church's multilingual service was broadcast live on BBC Radio 4, the United Kingdom's most popular radio station, for the first time in history-a gesture of welcome to the hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong residents expected to migrate to the country under a new visa provision.

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Seed-sized chameleon found in Madagascar may be world's tiniest reptile

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Seed-sized chameleon found in Madagascar may be world's tiniest reptile

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Scientists say they have discovered a sunflower-seed-sized subspecies of chameleon that may well be the smallest reptile on Earth.

Two of the miniature lizards, one male and one female, were discovered by a German-Madagascan expedition team in northern Madagascar.

The male Brookesia nana, or nano-chameleon, has a body that is only 13.5mm (0.53 inches) long, making it the smallest of all the roughly 11,500 known species of reptiles, the Bavarian State Collection of Zoology in Munich said. Its total length from nose to tail is just under 22mm (0.87 inch).

The female nano-chameleon is significantly larger, with an overall length of 29mm, the research institute said, adding that the scientists were unable to find further specimens of the new subspecies "despite great effort".

The species' closest relative is the slightly larger Brookesia micra, whose discovery was announced in 2012.

Scientists assume that the lizard's habitat is small, as is the case for similar subspecies.

"The nano-chameleon's habitat has unfortunately been subject to deforestation, but the area was placed under protection recently, so the species will survive," Oliver Hawlitschek, a scientist at the Center of Natural History in Hamburg, said in a statement.

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Seed-sized chameleon found in Madagascar may be world's tiniest reptile

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Scientists say they have discovered a sunflower-seed-sized subspecies of chameleon that may well be the smallest reptile on Earth. Two of the miniature lizards, one male and one female, were discovered by a German-Madagascan expedition team in northern Madagascar.

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Aung San Suu Kyi: Myanmar democracy icon who fell from grace

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Aung San Suu Kyi: Myanmar democracy icon who fell from grace

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She was once seen as a beacon for human rights - a principled activist who gave up her freedom to challenge the ruthless army generals who ruled Myanmar for decades.

In 1991, Aung San Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, while still under house arrest, and hailed as "an outstanding example of the power of the powerless".

In 2015, she led her National League for Democracy (NLD) to victory in Myanmar's first openly contested election in 25 years. But she was deposed by a coup in 2021 when the military took control and arrested her and the political leadership around her.

While her image had suffered internationally due to her response to the crisis that befell Myanmar's mostly Muslim Rohingya minority, she remains hugely popular with the country's Buddhist majority.

Ms Suu Kyi spent nearly 15 years in detention between 1989 and 2010. Her personal struggle to bring democracy to then military-ruled Myanmar (also known as Burma) - made her an international symbol of peaceful resistance in the face of oppression.

Despite her landslide victory in 2015, the Myanmar constitution forbade her from becoming president because she has children who are foreign nationals. But Ms Suu Kyi, now 75, was widely seen as de facto leader.

Her official title was state counsellor. The President until the 2021 coup, Win Myint, was a close aide.

In 2020, her NLD once again won a landslide majority, getting even more votes than in the 2015 vote.

The still powerful military disputed the results, claiming election fraud. On the day parliament was to a sit for the first time, the military arrested Ms Suu Kyi along with many other political leaders.

It then declared a state of emergency, handing power to the military for a full year.

Ms Suu Kyi was later charged with illegally importing communications equipment. Police said they found seven walkie-talkie radios in her home which she was not authorised to possess.

Ms Suu Kyi is the daughter of Myanmar's independence hero, General Aung San.

He was assassinated when she was only two years old, just before Myanmar gained independence from British colonial rule in 1948.

In 1960 she went to India with her mother Daw Khin Kyi, who had been appointed Myanmar's ambassador in Delhi.

Four years later she went to Oxford University in the UK, where she studied philosophy, politics and economics. There she met her future husband, academic Michael Aris.

After stints of living and working in Japan and Bhutan, she settled in the UK to raise their two children, Alexander and Kim, but Myanmar was never far from her thoughts.

When she arrived back in Yangon in 1988 - to look after her critically ill mother - Myanmar was in the midst of major political upheaval.

Thousands of students, office workers and monks took to the streets demanding democratic reform.

"I could not as my father's daughter remain indifferent to all that was going on," she said in a speech in Yangon on 26 August 1988. She went on to lead the revolt against the then-dictator, General Ne Win.

Inspired by the non-violent campaigns of US civil rights leader Martin Luther King and India's Mahatma Gandhi, she organised rallies and travelled around the country, calling for peaceful democratic reform and free elections.

But the demonstrations were brutally suppressed by the army, which seized power in a coup on 18 September 1988. Ms Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest the following year.

The military government called national elections in May 1990, which Ms Suu Kyi's NLD convincingly won - but the junta refused to hand over control.

Ms Suu Kyi remained under house arrest in Yangon for six years, until she was released in July 1995.

She was again put under house arrest in September 2000, when she tried to travel to the city of Mandalay in defiance of travel restrictions.

She was released unconditionally in May 2002, but just over a year later was imprisoned after a government-backed mob set upon her entourage in the north of the country. She escaped because of the swift action taken by her driver, but many of her supporters were savagely beaten and a number died.

She was later allowed to return home - but again under effective house arrest.

At times she was able to meet other NLD officials and selected diplomats, but during the early years she was often in solitary confinement. She was not allowed to see her two sons or her husband, who died of cancer in March 1999.

The military authorities had offered to allow her to travel to the UK to see him when he was gravely ill, but she felt compelled to refuse for fear she would not be allowed back into the country.

Ms Suu Kyi was side-lined from Myanmar's first elections in two decades on 7 November 2010 but released from house arrest six days later. Her son Kim was allowed to visit her for the first time in a decade.

As the new government embarked on a process of reform, Ms Suu Kyi and her party re-joined the political process.

They won 43 of the 45 seats contested in April 2012 by-elections, in an emphatic statement of support. Ms Suu Kyi was sworn in as an MP and leader of the opposition.

The following May, she left Myanmar for the first time in 24 years, in a sign of apparent confidence that its new leaders would allow her to return.

Since becoming Myanmar's state counsellor, her leadership has been partly defined by the treatment of the country's mostly Muslim Rohingya minority.

In 2017 hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fled to neighbouring Bangladesh due to an army crackdown sparked by deadly attacks on police stations in Rakhine state.

Myanmar now faces a lawsuit accusing it of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), while the International Criminal Court is investigating the country for crimes against humanity.

Ms Suu Kyi's former international supporters accused her of doing nothing to stop rape, murder and possible genocide by refusing to condemn the still powerful military or acknowledge accounts of atrocities.

A few initially argued that she was a pragmatic politician, trying to govern a multi-ethnic country with a complex history.

But her personal defence of the army's actions at the ICJ hearing in the Hague was seen as a new turning point for her international reputation.

At home, however, "the Lady", as Ms Suu Kyi is known, remains wildly popular among the Buddhist majority who hold little sympathy for the Rohingya.

During her time in power Ms Suu Kyi and the NLD government also faced criticism for prosecuting journalists and activists using colonial-era laws.

While there was progress in some areas, the military continued to hold a quarter of parliamentary seats and controlled key ministries including defence, home affairs and border affairs.

In August 2018, Ms Suu Kyi described the generals in her cabinet as "rather sweet" and Myanmar's democratic transition, analysts said, appeared to have stalled.

The 2021 military coup came as the country was facing one of South East Asia's worst Covid-19 outbreaks, putting new strains on an already impoverished healthcare system as lockdown measures devastate livelihoods.

The coup triggered widespread demonstrations and Myanmar's military has cracked down on pro-democracy protesters, activists and journalists.

In December 2021, Ms Suu Kyi was found guilty of inciting dissent and breaking Covid rules in the first of a series of verdicts that could see her jailed for life. UN Human Rights chief Michelle Bachelet called it a "sham trial" that would only "deepen rejection of the coup".

Ms Suu Kyi faces 11 charges in total and denies them all.

Yet Ms Suu Kyi remains popular. A 2020 survey by the People's Alliance for Credible Elections, a watchdog, found that 79% of people had trust in her - up from 70% the previous year.

Derek Mitchell, former US Ambassador to Myanmar told the BBC: "The story of Aung San Suu Kyi is as much about us as it is about her. She may not have changed. She may have been consistent and we just didn't know the full complexity of who she is.

"We have to be mindful that we shouldn't endow people with some iconic image beyond which is human."

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Aung San Suu Kyi: Myanmar democracy icon who fell from grace

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She was once seen as a beacon for human rights - a principled activist who gave up her freedom to challenge the ruthless army generals who ruled Myanmar for decades. In 1991, Aung San Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, while still under house arrest, and hailed as "an outstanding example of the power of the powerless".

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Despite Hong Kong’s bar closures, some drinking more than ever amid coronavirus pandemic, concern group warns 

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Despite Hong Kong’s bar closures, some drinking more than ever amid coronavirus pandemic, concern group warns 

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hong kong alliance for advocacy against alcohol

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Some Hongkongers drinking more than ever amid Covid-19, group warns

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While overall numbers have dipped, loneliness and boredom have played a role in boosting consumption for a minority of Hongkongers, study shows.

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Commentary: Let’s stop overstating the value of a university degree beyond your first job

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Commentary: Let’s stop overstating the value of a university degree beyond your first job

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The COVID-19 crisis has accentuated the importance of certain skills and traits for professional success, and shown that degrees aren't the sole means of acquiring them, says Jaime Lim of PeopleSearch.

(Updated: )
Share this content

SINGAPORE: It's no secret that degree holders generally start their careers on a better footing than most.

For one thing, graduate employment surveys in Singapore have consistently shown their starting salaries are higher than that of diploma holders.

In many parts of the world, which university one graduates from also often ends up playing a part in remuneration.

In the United States, since 2015, US Bureau of Economic Analysis figures show Ivy League graduates start their careers with much higher salaries than their non-Ivy League peers. In 2019, the median starting salary of Ivy League graduates was 55 per cent more than that of private university graduates.
RECOGNISING THE COMPLEXITIES
These factors serve to entrench the perception that university degrees are a powerful determinant of success, thus propelling students towards a relentless pursuit of academic qualifications, even while more employers are beginning to recognise other types of proof of domain knowledge and expertise.

The inherent complexities of the correlation between paper qualifications and an individual's employability and starting salary must also be acknowledged.

At any one time, certain types of qualifications will prove to be more equal than others.

The state of the economy, business requirements and the skills that employers deem valuable at the time determine which degrees and qualifications influence an individual's employability and starting salary.

Underemployment among degree holders is another reality that cannot be ignored during tough economic times or when certain industries experience a decline.

Let's also consider today's context where more and more of us are having to pivot to job roles and fields that have very little to do with the degrees we graduated with, especially if they were general degrees.

This should spur students, job seekers and employers alike to take a step back to re-evaluate the true meaning of a degree.

This is not to say there is no value in a degree.

The structured approach to learning that a degree offers is certainly beneficial especially pertaining to fields such as medicine or law which require individuals to have a large amount of domain knowledge and to have gone through rigorous testing and hands-on training.
SKILLS ACQUIRED THROUGH OTHER MEANS: EQUAL TO DEGREES
A university education also provides other advantages such as the opportunity to hobnob with academics and participate in debates with one's peers and professors. All of this can contribute to intellectual and creative growth.

However, generally speaking, can those without one excel in their fields and in fact surpass degree holders in terms of competence?

Employers in Singapore are certainly waking up to this.

A Ministry of Manpower report published last year showed that academic qualifications were not the main consideration for employers hiring PMETs in 2018. This applied to 52 per cent of PMET job vacancies and included occupations such as software, web and multimedia developers, systems analysts and commercial and marketing sales executives.

Instead, employers were looking for candidates with relevant skills, work experience, soft skills and the right attitudes.

Our recent straw poll of HR leaders has reinforced this.

There is also a greater openness now to candidates who acquire hard skills through massive open online courses designed by institutions such as MIT and giants such as Microsoft. Platforms such as Coursera have been offering these for the past 10 years.
AN AGE-OLD DEBATE
These certification courses are more affordable than degree programmes and offer students who require flexibility to complete them at their own pace. New methods of learning are certainly a game-changer.

The debate over the value of a degree is a long-standing one.

In 2017, then Minister for Education (Higher Education and Skills) Ong Ye Kung, urged Singaporeans not to be "overly fixated" on the university cohort participation rate, stressing that skills, rather than paper qualifications, are what carry a premium in the new economy.

He said there should be "diverse and multitudinous" paths for people to enhance their skills. These could be academic upgrades, apprenticeships, industry certifications, overseas experience, or simply gaining work experience and making a name for oneself in one's respective field.
VITAL SKILLS THAT DEGREES DON'T TEACH
In the past, having a degree indicated one had advanced training and superior ability. Today, it is possible to achieve this through other means.

The last decade has also shown us that whether or not one has a degree, continual learning is imperative.

In an age of ubiquitous disruption and massive unpredictability, both employers and job seekers we interact with concede that the knowledge and skills gained from a university degree can easily become obsolete.

In fact, as early as 1971, research by Harvard Business School suggested that academic achievement does not determine a person's managerial or business success.

Our conversations with HR practitioners also reveal a realisation that even a candidate's years of experience can be a poor predictor of job success since operating environments are volatile and past experience can become irrelevant in the blink of an eye.

A 2019 IBM study which included surveys with executives across 50 countries found that the biggest skills gaps are not digital but behavioural. These include complex problem solving, teamwork, leadership, communication, agility and adaptability.

The COVID-19 crisis has increased the demand for such skills.

Instead of being fixated on candidates' academic qualifications, employers should use tools that test an individual's ability to learn, reason, and think logically, and their willingness and ability to learn new skills.

These include psychometric tests and situation-based interview questions. 75 per cent of Fortune 500 companies reportedly use such tools.

The unprecedented pace of digital transformation we're seeing today is also making people realise the importance of developing other skills that machines are not likely to be able to replicate.

For instance, in the field of medicine, while AI and other disruptive technological tools can assist with diagnosis, helping people make informed decisions about treatment options requires contextual input and empathy that only a human healthcare professional can provide.

Technology development in itself is predicated on humans being able to observe society, identify problems that require technological solutions and design and build these solutions.
BREAKING OLD HABITS - JOB DESCRIPTIONS AND GRADUATE EMPLOYMENT SURVEYS
As the world grows more volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous, for higher education in general to be relevant, it needs to catch up with real-world needs and equip students with such skills.

What is troubling is that while employers realise that a degree is not necessarily an accurate indicator of a candidate's abilities, a quick scan of job portals still shows that the prerequisite for many roles is at least a Bachelor's degree.

As recruiters, we often present employers with candidates who possess the skills and experience necessary to get the job done, even if they don't have the degree stated in job descriptions.

We have found this approach to be generally successful. If the candidate has a proven track record, a portfolio of work and possesses traits such as adaptability and a willingness to learn, the absence of a degree hardly ever negatively influences hiring managers' decisions.

We have seen this happen for various job roles and fields including, but not limited to project management, software development, digital marketing and business strategy development.

For entry-level candidates, a lack of experience tends to cause hiring managers to focus on the degrees they graduated with and the schools they attended. But even this is changing today as more employers use alternative screening tools to assess the candidates.

These include behavioural and situational job interview questions, psychometric tests, and in some cases, proposals to solve a particular business challenge.

Why then is a degree stated as a prerequisite?

When asked this question, one hiring manager said that because of the value society has put on degrees, it is an easy manner of signalling to applicants the complexity and status of the position.

Unfortunately, this practice only serves to reinforce the mistaken perception that individuals without degrees are less employable.

As the education landscape evolves, employers should take a more considered approach.

Several global companies including IBM, Google and Apple no longer list a degree as a prerequisite in job descriptions for engineers, strategists, analysts and data scientists among other roles.

Doing so not only sends out the right signals- that not having a degree is not a barrier to entry if you have the requisite hard and soft skills - but is also more reflective of ground realities and better informs job seekers of what's expected of them.

As we reassess job descriptions, we should also reassess the merits of graduate employment surveys.

Considering that more employers are placing a greater emphasis on individuals' skillsets and key traits than they are on a piece of paper, surely such surveys are on their way to becoming an anachronism.
CHANGING THE NARRATIVE AS THE VALUE OF DEGREES DIMINISHES
In fact, they send out signals that lead to a vicious cycle of raising degree holders' expectations and employers having to meet those expectations whether or not the individual merits a higher starting salary than another candidate without a degree.

Going forward, those who believe that having a degree will increase their earning power should also recalibrate their expectations.

Social economists Phillip Brown, Hugh Lauder and David Ashton have sought to debunk this belief in their book, The Global Auction: The Broken Promises Of Education, Jobs And Incomes.

Their survey of businesses around the world uncovered a global auction for high-skill, low-wage work. Employers looking to maximise profits and minimise labour costs traditionally hire skilled workers who are willing to accept modest wages.

With the explosion of higher education across the world, there is a steady supply of such workers.

They also discuss a phenomenon known as Digital Taylorism. This involves deconstructing, standardising, codifying and computerising the work of white-collar workers to enable lower-skilled and cheaper workers to deliver components of it.

We have already seen examples of this in the legal profession when it comes to drawing up certain types of legal documents, in the medical profession when it comes to analysing X-rays and in accountancy when it comes to processing tax returns.

Considering these realities, we urgently need to rethink how we assess the value of educational pathways and individuals' competencies, and how they contribute to human endeavour going forward.

While degrees are certainly not bereft of value when it comes to knowledge and skills acquisition, let's also recognise that the skills of the future can be acquired through other equally, if not more credible means.
Jaime Lim is Group Business Leader of PeopleSearch, an executive search and outplacement services firm with a presence in six cities including Singapore. How much does PSLE grades impact life? Listen to three working adults share their experiences in a no-holds-barred conversation on CNA's Heart of the Matter podcast:

This means rewarding individuals for the value they bring to the job rather than the paper qualifications they walk in with.

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Commentary: Let's stop overstating the value of a university degree beyond your first job

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The COVID-19 crisis has accentuated the importance of certain skills and traits for professional success, and shown that degrees aren't the sole means of acquiring them, says Jaime Lim of PeopleSearch. (Updated: ) Share this content SINGAPORE: It's no secret that degree holders generally start their careers on a better footing than most.

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How young workers are changing the rules of 'business speak'

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How young workers are changing the rules of 'business speak'

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This feature uses a computer-generated synthetic voice. There may be some errors, for example in pronunciation, sentiment and tone.

If you've ever tried to explain a meme to your grandparent - or if you're the puzzled grandparent - you know how big the cultural divide among generations can be. And while all-caps 'yelling', misunderstood emojis and other crossed wires are harmless in a family group text, business communication is much more fraught. Send your boss the goat emoji, and instead of realising it's a compliment (she's the greatest of all time!) she might think you're calling her, well, a goat.

Workplace harmony, culture and productivity all depend on successful communication. And while language gaps between senior leadership and newer hires aren't unusual, they're usually bridged by a shared lexicon of ' business speak'. But now, the first generation of true digital natives is entering the workforce, and a pandemic has forced us into virtual offices. Workplace communication is undergoing a major shift, with some huge potential pitfalls.

"With the ways we communicate now, there are so many more chances for miscommunication," says Giselle Kovary, generational researcher and president of Toronto-based consulting firm n-gen People Performance, Inc. "There's lots of noise in a digital environment, and unless we're chatting live, things can be misinterpreted. To younger workers, the formal business communication of older generations can come off as very cold and a little harsh, while the criticism is that younger people are too casual."

With the transition to remote work that depends on digital fluency, younger workers now have a larger influence on workplace communication (Credit: Alamy)

Gen Z, born in the year 2000 and later, is the largest generation in human history. Over the next 10 years, 1.3 billion of its members will enter the global workforce. Traditionally, the onus has been on younger workers to assimilate into office culture. But with the culture itself changing as the office moves online, the eldest and youngest employees of organisations may find themselves having to meet in the middle.

Australia-based social researcher Mark McCrindle, co-author of Work Wellbeing: Leading Thriving Teams in Rapidly Changing Times, says every generation "has their own youth slang and pop-culture code" that they use in social situations. But although older generations, and even millennials, are likely to 'code switch', sticking to a more codified type of professional communication, Gen Z is keeping things much more casual. McCrindle says, "We're starting to really pull down those barriers between our work and personal or social life. We're working from home, or in a mobile work environment, and that's naturally creating a more relaxed workplace."

The digital workplace is where Gen Z is already comfortable, explains Jonah Stillman, the 21-year-old co-author of Gen Z @ Work: How the Next Generation is Transforming the Workplace. "Since we were born, nearly every physical element has a digital counterpart. So, whether I put something in my cart at the supermarket, or click 'add to cart' is one and the same. This is a generation that defines being together as either FaceTiming or being in the same room."

Stillman's consulting firm, GenGuru, found in a recent survey that 84% of Gen Z still prefers in-person communication over email or text. But, crucially, "Gen Z defines things like Zoom, Google Hangouts and Microsoft Teams as being face-to-face".

The move to remote work in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic means younger generations, who are digitally fluent, suddenly have far more influence over communication and culture. It goes beyond slang and internet-speak abbreviations. Gen Z, used to informal, near-constant contact, spurns the prim email in favour of a quick Slack message. But that can be a tough pill to swallow for older generations, who are accustomed to dictating the professional rules of communication.

Kovary points to a former client: a company who came to her for advice after a run-in with a young intern. "On the first day, she emailed the CEO because she couldn't find access to information she wanted. At the end of week one, she sent a company-wide email, to 8,000 people, with all her ideas. They called me and said, 'obviously, we let her go'."

New workplace platforms that encourage real-time communication and collaboration - and, yes, emojis - are helping break down some of the traditional formality (Credit: Alamy)

Kovary explains that while the company's leadership felt the intern "totally violated the unspoken rules of the communication chain", what really happened was a generation-gap issue. "Most companies don't want a new hire to email the CEO directly, even if that CEO has said, 'I'm always available!' They don't really mean it, but the new hires don't understand. I tell executives all the time, don't tell young people 'message me with your ideas', and then be surprised when you get them."

Stillman says Gen Z values authenticity above all else. It's why younger employees are less willing to do the same 'code-switching' that past generations have. Forced assimilation to a shared lexicon isn't sustainable anymore, says Nicky Thompson, a London-based business psychologist with a background in linguistics. Code-switching can be especially harmful for people of colour; research shows it can hinder performance and increase burnout. And Gen Z won't put up with it.

Thompson says, "Younger generations are coming into a world where diversity and inclusion is at the forefront. It's not an exercise of ticking a box anymore. It's taken seriously. Creating a more diverse and inclusive workspace is about language, tone, who I am as a person, and being able to actually express that in the workplace."

Often, especially for younger people, authentic expression involves more than words. "Slang's not a new thing, and that changes with the generations, of course," says Stillman. "But part of the Gen Z 'slang' is a totally non-verbal kind of communication: emojis. They're not a fun add-on to a sentence. It's a new language."

But the nuance and subtlety of a cartoon-symbol language isn't all that easy to translate to non-native speakers, and that can create friction between young emoji-users and their superiors. Whether that friction is resolved by keeping emojis out of corporate communication, or by making sure leadership understands remains to be seen, says Stillman. "Are we three years away from there being emoji policies in communication? Are we going to be having meetings explaining to our bosses what emojis mean?"

Although older leadership can encourage newer employees to maintain decorum (and maybe go easy on the emojis in client emails), mentorship is no longer a one-way street.

Workplace superiors may find Gen Z's casual approach to office communication frustrating - if not bewildering, too (Credit: Alamy)

"We have a generation entering the workforce that innately knows more about operating in the modern world than any other generation," says Stillman. "That ability is something boomers are starting to tap into, with communication and beyond. Gen Z will give you a plug-in that will save you 12 hours, tell you what you need to know about navigating our culture, what things to say and not say. This idea of two-way mentorship is about aligning older and younger generations on the same goal in different ways."

McCrindle adds another major way to bridge the generational gap at work is to establish common ground. "A workplace is a community. It's important for its members to have a shared culture. That means communicating what the brand's voice is, maybe distributing a written style guide. It's important for businesses to double down on their brand story, invest in a workplace culture, and create shared experiences that give people commonality even among differences."

After all, McCrindle says whether you're 22 or 82, on Zoom or in a cubicle, everyone wants to relate. "We're humans. It's a human value to communicate across the generations. People want that connection."

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How young workers are changing the rules of 'business speak'

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This feature uses a computer-generated synthetic voice. There may be some errors, for example in pronunciation, sentiment and tone. If you've ever tried to explain a meme to your grandparent - or if you're the puzzled grandparent - you know how big the cultural divide among generations can be.

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As Hiking Surges During the Pandemic, So Do Injuries

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As Hiking Surges During the Pandemic, So Do Injuries

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Novice hikers and climbers have flocked to the outdoors, but some are unprepared for the dangers on the trails.

Hikers used the chains along a portion of the Angels Landing trail in Zion National Park in Utah, where the number of visitors has surged. Credit... Nikki Boliaux for The New York Times

Outdoor activities have become a popular pastime during the coronavirus pandemic as adventure seekers and couch surfers alike take to hiking trails for a bit of a reprieve.

But while hiking might be a safe, socially distanced activity, the challenges of weather, nature and physical strain have led to a rash of injuries and some deaths on the trails.

In September, three hikers died in six days in the White Mountains in New Hampshire.A hiker in Mount Rainier National Park in Washington who encountered a whiteout was revived after his heart stopped for 45 minutes. And a woman who went missing for two days on Mount Whitney in California died from her injuries after being rescued in November.

"Every year there's at least one local who dies in mountains," said Megan Jennings of Jackson, Wyo., who lost a friend in an avalanche this spring in the nearby Grand Tetons. "Death is something that happens frequently."

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Zion's Angels Landing trail offers breathtaking views - and tricky terrain. Credit... Nikki Boliaux for The New York Times

People who hike often are aware of the associated risks. Jennings, 24, grew up in the shadow of the Grand Tetons, where visitors increased 88 percent in October compared with last October, the highest level for the month that the park has had. This summer, Jennings and Julia Olson, 23, set off before dawn on a clear Tuesday morning to run the Teton Crest Trail, the first time they had run the trails.

Within the first few miles, they encountered a bear and a mountain lion, escaping unscathed without needing to call for search and rescue. Jennings, who works in conservation, knew that they were as prepared as they could be. And lucky.

The increase in parkgoers - upward of 90 percent over the previous year in some parks - has added pressure to staff members and the authorities, who are already under financial and staffing constraints because of the pandemic.

"People need to be careful, especially now, as resources for search and rescue can be thin," said Lisa Herron, a spokeswoman for the United States Forest Service at Lake Tahoe Basin in California.

The agency has not yet compiled data on injuries and deaths for the year, but several park rangers and rescue agency representatives say anecdotally the incidents have increased with the surge in visitors.

The trails, backcountry and camping sites around Lake Tahoe have a variety of weather conditions, including avalanches, snowstorms and, during wildfire season, smoke and poor air quality.

Despite wildfires across most of the West Coast that kept the Tahoe Rim Trail inaccessible at the end of summer, the trail has had more campers, hikers and bike and horse riders than in previous years. Morgan Steel, the executive director of the Tahoe Rim Trail Association, said visitation was not slowing down as fast as usual.

"We usually see a significant change from fall to winter around here; with several feet of snow, you have more experienced people on the trails out there," she said. "Though we've had a pretty significant drop in use, there's been a big trend in use upward over all."

The chains were installed as a safety measure in 2018 after hikers fell to their deaths on the route. The park closed the top chained portion of Angels Landing at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, but has since reopened the full route. Credit... Nikki Boliaux for The New York Times

El Dorado County, one of the five counties surrounding Lake Tahoe, has backcountry and wilderness - including Desolation Wilderness, which is accessible only on foot or horseback - and has had an increase in calls this year for aid related to illness, injury and being lost, according to the sheriff's office.

Sgt. Eric Palmberg of the El Dorado County Sheriff's Office said many of the calls involved people "way out of their experience level and possibly taking more risks due to the pandemic and being cooped up at home."

At Zion National Park, there has been a 5 percent increase in visitors since it reopened in May compared to last year and a 30 percent rise in October compared to October 2019. Extreme heat has made rock climbing difficult, but bike rentals have boomed. More bikers and hikers have been calling for help with minor injuries and ailments - ankle sprains, heat exhaustion and cuts and scrapes from crashes - than in previous years.

As it gets colder and coronavirus case counts have surged to record highs across the country, many states have instituted curfews, mask mandates and stricter social distancing protocols.

Car headlights shine on buttes within Zion National Park. Credit... Nikki Boliaux for The New York Times

Though a necessity, rescuers wearing masks move slower, said David Walsh, the assistant chief of law enforcement for the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department. It has been difficult for responders to carry injured hikers down steep slopes, sometimes for over eight miles, in a mask.

"The increased strain can sometimes delay a six-hour rescue mission; sometimes it gets to be eight hours," he said.

At mountainous parks, changes in temperature and conditions, depending on elevation - a 60-degree swing, in some cases - often catch new visitors off guard.

Jonathan Milne, a former ranger who works in conservation in New Hampshire and Maine, said, "When you go up in altitude, it sets off a cascade of issues."

But nature lovers will continue coming despite the cold.

"In the winter, people are still coming for hiking and photos, as well as more enthused hikers looking for a challenge," said Susan McPartland, who oversees visitation at Zion National Park. "It's really hard to tell if we'll see increased visitation this winter, but we're still a little busier than usual this November. Someone needs to find the crystal ball."

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As Hiking Surges During the Pandemic, So Do Injuries

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Novice hikers and climbers have flocked to the outdoors, but some are unprepared for the dangers on the trails. Outdoor activities have become a popular pastime during the coronavirus pandemic as adventure seekers and couch surfers alike take to hiking trails for a bit of a reprieve.

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Anger Grows at Hong Kong’s Erratic Covid Rules as Cases Mount

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Anger Grows at Hong Kong’s Erratic Covid Rules as Cases Mount

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(Bloomberg) -- As Hong Kong battles a new wave of coronavirus infections with yet another round of social restrictions, a sense of fatigue with the confusing and inconsistent nature of the city's pandemic response is setting in among business-owners and residents.

Though the Asian financial center has thus far been relatively unscathed -- total Covid-19 cases amounting to just 81 cases per 100,000 people out of a densely packed 7 million population -- the city has encountered more waves than most other places and is entering its fourth round of stop-start restrictions.

"Hong Kong has undoubtedly been lucky with the pandemic so far. What has been missing is a clear, public road map as to how and when restrictions will be implemented and when the rules will be relaxed," said Nicholas Thomas, associate professor in health security at the City University of Hong Kong.

The coronavirus has been an unpredictable and volatile foe, warranting nimble and quick-changing reaction from governments. But as the pandemic approaches its first anniversary, Hong Kong's residents and business-owners are increasingly looking to the structured response systems in place in regional neighbors like New Zealand, South Korea and Singapore in envy.

The former British colony's comparatively erratic response is deepening the crisis in an economy already on its knees from months of restive street protests followed by the pandemic, they say.

The sharp rise in new local cases in the past week is linked to social dancing venues, yet officials have announced a closure of bars, karaoke rooms and massage parlors. Like in previous rounds, the restrictions are imposed for a week or two at a time, leaving business-owners in a state of suspended animation and unable to plan long term.

"At the moment, I'm waiting for Friday afternoon to see if they're closing more classrooms," said Stephanie Holding, a mother of three sons who runs her own business from home. She would rather see a system that lets people "know what's affected and when," she said.

Hong Kong says it takes a flexible "suppress and lift" approach to virus restrictions based on the advice of medical advisers. But other "high risk" businesses like gyms and restaurants don't know when they'll be asked to close, and only some are required to enforce a little-used health-code app before allowing patrons in. To add to the confusion, schooling and childcare services for younger kids were also shut down again earlier this month -- but because of an outbreak of the common cold and not Covid-19.

In other places with different phases or alert levels that determine what restrictions are activated at what stage of infection, "we know we've reached this level and this is what will take place next," said Allan Zeman, an economic adviser to Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam and Chairman of Lan Kwai Fong Group, a major landlord in the city's bar district. "You have a sense of 'this is what we need to do to get back to zero,' rather than just ad-hoc decision making week by week."

'Zero Scientific Basis'

The government defends its approach by saying that the public alert level systems employed elsewhere don't work in Hong Kong. Lam Ching Choi, a medical doctor and a member of the chief executive's advisory Executive Council, said that he did not believe that a "very structured approach" was right for what he touts as "the most free economy in the world."

Instead, Lam likened the Hong Kong approach to "precision medicine," and said that the focus was on maintaining normality as far as possible rather than turning to blanket lockdowns. "So when you walk in our city, you don't really feel like Covid-19 is going on, apart from wearing masks."

The risk is that this "precision" is seen as arbitrary by businesses: with no current virus clusters directly linked to the bar industry, the latest ruling for bars to shut down has "zero scientific basis," said David McEwan, the owner of Bobby's Rabble, a bar in the Central district.

Though bars and nightclubs are generally regarded as high-risk locations in every country, businesses say they lack understanding over the level at which they'll be singled out and what circumstances would allow them to re-open.

"This is one of the busiest times of the year and we have no idea if it's a week or will there be a extension every week like last time," said Ravi Beryar, managing director of Liquid Management Ltd, which operates two nightlife venues in Hong Kong's main bar districts.

Beryar and others say they would like a more methodical and transparent approach akin to that of other countries in the Asia Pacific region who have been among the most successful in the world in containing the spread of Covid-19. New Zealand, for example, introduced a four-tier alert system near the beginning of the pandemic, and has been widely lauded for its clarity in communicating the system to its citizens. Singapore in May announced a three-phase roadmap for the gradual resumption of normal life.

South Korea, which has been reporting its highest number of new cases in eight months, has also been continuously enforcing and relaxing social restrictions in response to case numbers. However, its strategy is dictated by a five-step system whereby certain measures are triggered when cases reach a certain threshold. Currently the country is in level 2 of restrictions, meaning restaurants can only operate limited hours and high-risk facilities are closed.

New Zealand tops Bloomberg's Covid Resilience Ranking, which assess countries' success in controlling the coronavirus with minimal disruptions to everyday life. South Korea ranks fourth, while Singapore comes in at 11th, one spot ahead of Hong Kong.

"While the real world is inevitably more messy than a lab, having a clear structure that is above politics help to foster trust in the response strategies," said CUHK's Thomas.

School Closures Round Three

Another group of people frustrated with Hong Kong's response are parents, who have endured up to three rounds of school closures this year. The latest, the shutting down of only nurseries and kindergartens -- followed by primary one to three -- was triggered by an outbreak of upper respiratory tract infections, for example, and not the novel coronavirus.

"In other countries, they are keeping schools open at all costs," said Rosheen Rodwell, a mother of three children who said that communications from the government has been lacking in terms of whether they are prioritizing schools. "People are prepared to get on board and make sacrifices if they understand why."

Lam, the government adviser, clarified that the overall strategy is now to keep schools open, having learned from epidemiological studies from around the world that it's "relatively safe" to do so. The recent closure of kindergartens, he said, was necessary as upper respiratory tract infections are indistinguishable from Covid-19 without testing, and the plan is to open them again as soon as possible.

David Heymann, an infectious diseases expert at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said that Hong Kong still has a far higher capacity for contact-tracing and cluster-busting than many other countries. "They're actually finding where transmission is occurring, they are shutting it down and then they are cautiously re-opening it again to see whether or not transmission increases."

As pandemic fatigue grows across the world, people need more information as the cycle repeats. "Transparency is the most important. If the governments are being transparent as to why they are closing down then yes, people will better understand," he said.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

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Anger Grows at Hong Kong's Erratic Covid Rules as Cases Mount - BNN Bloomberg

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(Bloomberg) -- As Hong Kong battles a new wave of coronavirus infections with yet another round of social restrictions, a sense of fatigue with the confusing and inconsistent nature of the city's pandemic response is setting in among business-owners and residents.

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Stephen Ellison: Diplomat who saved drowning woman given banner

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"This is the first banner I have ever received in my life, it is of great significance to me," Mr Ellison said, according to a post by the British Consulate General Chongqing on China's micro-blogging site Weibo last Friday.

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Stephen Ellison: Diplomat who saved drowning woman given banner

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"This is the first banner I have ever received in my life, it is of great significance to me," Mr Ellison said, according to a post by the British Consulate General Chongqing on China's micro-blogging site Weibo last Friday.

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UK might ban sales of fossil fuel cars as early as 2030

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UK might ban sales of fossil fuel cars as early as 2030

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An announcement could come as soon as next week. There is a chance that Johnson could announce a more accommodating 2032 cutoff, but he's believed to be "leaning" in favor of 2030.

Automakers might not be happy. Honda and Toyota have balked at earlier discussions of moving to an all-EV future. Honda argued that banning even hybrids would be too limiting, while Toyota warned it might rethink its investments in the UK if there's a hybrid ban. A slightly delayed hybrid ban might ease the transition, but companies wouldn't have much breathing room.

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UK might ban sales of fossil fuel cars as early as 2030

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An announcement could come as soon as next week. There is a chance that Johnson could announce a more accommodating 2032 cutoff, but he's believed to be "leaning" in favor of 2030. Automakers might not be happy. Honda and Toyota have balked at earlier discussions of moving to an all-EV future.

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Hong Kong's dying news stands tell a story of change

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Hong Kong's dying news stands tell a story of change

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For decades now, news stands have been a beloved fixture of Hong Kong street corners, and a reminder of its proudly free media.

From well-established newspapers such as the South China Morning Post (SCMP), to Chinese-language tabloids, as well as pulp books that offered embellished, racy, semi-fictionalised tales of the lives of Chinese leaders, these stalls have sold everything.

What has happened to them over the years is also the story of Hong Kong's changing media - especially now, when journalists are facing additional challenges in the wake of a severe national security law.

A marketing strategy

During the early days, newspapers were not sold in the open, but delivered to subscribers.

The city's first news stand opened in 1904, a marketing strategy of the newly-founded SCMP. It hoped to reach out to potential readers, including expatriates and tourists, according to Dr Chong Yuk Sik of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, who has written a book on the history of Hong Kong's news stands.

It was set up near the Peak Tram Station in the Mid-Levels, an affluent area where Chinese were banned from living during the early colonial period.

Interestingly, SCMP co-founder Tse Tsan-tai was a revolutionary who wanted to overthrow the Qing dynasty - which fell in 1911 - and the newspaper was established to support the cause.

A uniquely free media

Hong Kong's media became even more politically significant after 1949, when the Communist Party seized control of mainland China.

In contrast to other countries in the region, Hong Kong's colonial government was relatively relaxed about media freedoms, which meant that newspapers across the political spectrum were available.

Hong Kong became the freest place in the Chinese-speaking world, and its news stands represented that.

Two decades later, there was an explosion in Chinese-language media hitting news stands, thanks to the children of refugees who settled in Hong Kong after fleeing political turmoil following World War II.

They came of age in the 1970s, which coincided with the city's economic rise and the emergence of a distinctive Hong Kong identity, Dr Chong says.

"Their education level was higher than the older generation, and they cared more about their own city."

They are considered the first generation of Hong Kongers.

A dizzying rise

The 80s and 90s were the golden age for Hong Kong's newspaper business, when the focus of reporting shifted to local affairs from mainland politics. Hong Kongers were increasingly concerned about the future of the city, as China and the UK were in negotiations over the sovereignty of Hong Kong after 1997.

In the 1990s, there were about 2,500 news stands across the city. They sold around 18 Chinese-language newspapers and two English-language newspapers, with the busiest news-stands selling more than 1,000 newspapers every day, according to Lam Cheung Foo, the vice-chairperson of the Hong Kong Newspaper Hawker Association.

"Each newspaper had its own style. The market was huge, so big and small newspapers had their distinct advantages and could survive," Mr Lam says.

And it was not just newspapers. The stands also sold a variety of magazines, local comics and Japanese manga that were popular among women and young people.

And then came Apple Daily, founded by businessman Jimmy Lai in 1995.

"Apple Daily was run in an unorthodox way," Mr Lam says. "Its layout also was different from traditional newspapers back then as it was modelled on tabloids in other countries. The language used in their reports was also colourful. That's why readers found it refreshing."

It also gave the news stands a considerable boost - 220,000 copies were sold on the very first day and it was widely considered to have changed the newspaper industry.

But Apple Daily was often embroiled in controversies, criticised for its sensationalist coverage and extensive use of paparazzi.

When the tides turned

But then, the fortunes of the news stands began changing. Free newspapers were introduced in early 2000s and became very popular around 2010, affecting revenue.

As the decade wore on, the rise of digital media would further dent news stands' popularity.

By 2020, more than 70% of Hong Kongers were getting their news through apps on their smartphones, according to a study conducted by the Chinese University of Hong Kong this year.

As the old guard newspapers struggled to keep going, new voices like Stand News and Hong Kong Free Press chose to launch as online outlets only - forgoing print altogether.

But Chris Yeung, the chairman of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, believes the rise in independent online media is not just down to technology, but also a direct response to media self-censorship as the owners of most mainstream media have business interests in mainland China.

Yet it would also be censorship that would lead directly to the news stands' next great business idea.

A 'banned' business model

The family-run news stand of Cheung Tak-wing in the tourist area of Tsim Sha Tsui was among the first to sell scandalous books about corrupt officials, infighting within the Communist Party and even the private lives of Chinese leaders.

The buyers were almost exclusively tourists from mainland China, where such books were banned. But the side-line trade only really took off after 2003, when mainland Chinese were allowed to travel to Hong Kong individually, instead of in tour groups, for the first time.

"At the peak, I could sell 1,000 to 2,000 books a month," Mr Cheung says, adding that these were the most fast-selling when flamboyant Chinese politician Bo Xilai, whose wife was convicted of murdering a British businessman, fell from grace.

"Those who drove from mainland to Hong Kong bought a lot. We would pack 20 to 30 books into a paper box for them and deliver to hotels," he says. "We even sent these books to Shenzhen."

The flow of the books across the border did not go unnoticed, but it was not until five Causeway Bay Books staff members went missing without warning in late 2015 that Beijing's grip was truly felt.

One of them, Lam Wing Kee, later held a press conference where he confirmed that he had been held by Chinese authorities in solitary confinement under 24-hour surveillance.

The National Security Law, which took effect on June 30, was the final blow. "Political books were no longer published and publishers even took back the remaining copies from news stands," Mr Cheung says. "We won't think about selling again because one could be jailed."

Struggle to survive

By 2018, there were just 400 news stands left across Hong Kong.

A mini boom followed a raid on the Apple Daily office and the arrest of owner Jimmy Lai in August. In the early hours of the next day, people began lining up to get copies of the paper. Some even bought up copies to give them out for free.

But it did not continue, and has not been enough to slow the news stands' decline.

According to Mr Lam, cigarettes now make up for some 70% of business. Newspapers account for less than 10% of sales.

He has been petitioning the government to allow news stands to sell mobile phone cables, chargers and beverages for years. He believes they could even be equipped with small electronic displays and reinvent themselves as information kiosks for tourists.

"It will be a shame for news stands to disappear in Hong Kong," Dr Chong says.

"News stands are parts of Hong Kong's street landscapes. Some people think news stands are messy. But there is order among the seemingly disorderly, and this is what makes Hong Kong unique."

Illustrations by Davies Surya

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Hong Kong's dying news stands tell a story of change

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For decades now, news stands have been a beloved fixture of Hong Kong street corners, and a reminder of its proudly free media. From well-established newspapers such as the South China Morning Post (SCMP), to Chinese-language tabloids, as well as pulp books that offered embellished, racy, semi-fictionalised tales of the lives of Chinese leaders, these stalls have sold everything.

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Trump refuses to accept election results, says it’s ‘far from over’

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Trump refuses to accept election results, says it’s ‘far from over’

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President Donald Trump is refusing to concede the election after NBC News and other outlets projected that Democratic nominee Joe Biden has defeated him in the race for the White House.

"The simple fact is this election is far from over," Trump said in a statement released just minutes after NBC projected that Biden had become president-elect.

"Joe Biden has not been certified as the winner of any states, let alone any of the highly contested states headed for mandatory recounts, or states where our campaign has valid and legitimate legal challenges that could determine the ultimate victor," Trump claimed.

Trump vowed that as soon as Monday, his team will start "prosecuting our case in court to ensure election laws are fully upheld."

Biden earlier Saturday had led Trump in NBC's tally of projected Electoral College votes, 253 to 214. The former vice president was pushed over the top when NBC projected that Pennsylvania's 20 electoral votes would be awarded to him.

Trump had traveled to his private golf club in Sterling, Virginia, less than two hours before the race was called for his opponent.

Biden, in a statement released around noon Saturday, said he is "honored and humbled by the trust the American people have placed in me and in Vice President-elect [Kamala] Harris."

"In the face of unprecedented obstacles, a record number of Americans voted. Proving once again, that democracy beats deep in the heart of America," the president-elect said. "With the campaign over, it's time to put the anger and the harsh rhetoric behind us and come together as a nation."

But the Trump campaign disputes that the campaign has come to an end. The president and his surrogates have launched lawsuits in multiple key states, including Pennsylvania and Michigan, and have already signaled they plan to press for recounts in some close races.

Trump himself has spread unproven allegations of electoral fraud in key states, despite repeated pushback from election officials and judges in numerous court cases. As vote tallies in crucial states appeared to be favoring Biden in the days after Election Day, Trump even demanded that states stop counting ballots.

"Obviously he's not going to concede when at least 600,000 ballots are in question," Trump's attorney, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, said at a press conference in Philadelphia on Saturday, without providing evidence.

Meanwhile, world leaders came out of the woodwork to congratulate Biden and Harris on winning the race against Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in a tweet to Biden and Harris, "I'm really looking forward to working together and building on that with you both."

Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon tweeted, "Congratulations from to President-Elect Joe Biden and to history-making Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris."

United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson, long seen as one of Trump's closest allies on the world stage, also congratulated the projected president-elect.

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Trump refuses to accept election results, says it's 'far from over'

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President Donald Trump is refusing to concede the election after NBC News and other outlets projected that Democratic nominee Joe Biden has defeated him in the race for the White House. "The simple fact is this election is far from over," Trump said in a statement released just minutes after NBC projected that Biden had become president-elect.

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Friends get around Ireland's covid restrictions by buying €9.99 tickets and boozing at Dublin Airport without boarding the flight

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Friends get around Ireland's covid restrictions by buying €9.99 tickets and boozing at Dublin Airport without boarding the flight

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Only here for the beers! Friends get around Ireland's covid restrictions by buying €9.99 tickets and boozing at Dublin Airport without boarding the flight

A group of four friends circumvented Ireland's Covid lockdown rules for a pint

They bought a €9.99 flight from Dublin but settled in at the bar after security

Ireland has banned people meeting up in homes and pubs can only do takeaway

But airports are exempt from the rules, meaning bars and restaurants are open

A group of friends have avoided Ireland's harsh lockdown rules by buying a €9.99 flight from Dublin to meet up at the airport and enjoy a few pints together.

The four pals never boarded their flight but bypassed security and settled in at the airport bar.

Dublin Airport remains an essential service and is allowed to stay open despite the Level 5 lockdown restrictions in Ireland.

People have been banned from visiting each other's homes and gardens and pubs are only allowed to serve takeaway pints, until December 1.

But in Dublin Airport, all restaurants and cafes serving alcohol are allowed to stay open.

The €9 meal rule is still in place at the airport, meaning anyone who buys alcohol must also order a 'substantial' meal.

Earlier this week, the group of friends decided to take a trip to the airport to make the most of the loopholes.

They posted on Facebook: 'When the pubs are closed and the only place serving is the airport, so u book a €9.99 flight (that you have no intention of getting on) to go for beers with the lads, down there for dancing.'

But a Dublin Airport spokesperson said people booking cheap flights and meeting up in the airport to drink could be punished.

They said the move could be in breach of airport by-laws.

The spokesman told The Irish Sun: 'The Government has indicated that the operation of Irish airports is an "essential service" within the Level 5 guidelines.

'The provision of food and beverage facilities in the airside area - i.e. after security - to the very small number of people who are travelling at present is part of that service.

'If, as is claimed, four individuals went through security with no intention to travel, but rather to avail of that food and beverage service, that would appear to be a breach of airport by-laws which state that 'a person may not engage in any activity which jeopardises or interferes with the ... orderly operation of an airport.'

The spokesman warned that people who break these rules could face action that could end up with a court appearance.

They added that they have no evidence of this being a widespread problem other than one Facebook post.

The post online has had a mixed response from the public, with some blasting the desperation and recklessness of the friends, with others praising their ingenuity.

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Friends avoid lockdown by buying €9.99 flights to drink at airport

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A group of four friends circumvented Ireland's Covid lockdown rules for a pint They bought a €9.99 flight from Dublin but settled in at the bar after security Ireland has banned people meeting up in homes and pubs can only do takeaway But airports are exempt from the rules, meaning bars and restaurants are open A group of friends have avoided Ireland's harsh lockdown rules by buying a €9.99 flight from Dublin to meet up at the airport and enjoy a few pints together.

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Apple launches Mac mini, MacBook Air and Pro with iPhone-like chips 

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Apple launches Mac mini, MacBook Air and Pro with iPhone-like chips 

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Apple has announced the first in its series of ARM-powered Mac computers with the new MacBook Air, MacBook Pro and Mac mini, as it begins the transition from traditional Intel processors to those that run in the iPhone.

The new machines mark the first stage of Apple's huge effort to change the underlying technologies of its Mac computers, replicating the switch it made from PowerPC to Intel processors in 2006, but this time to chips of its own design as used to great effect in the firm's iPhones and iPads.

At the heart of the three new Macs is Apple's first desktop chip called the M1. It resembles the firm's A14 used in the latest iPhone 12 and iPad Air. The octa-core chip is the first desktop processor to be built on the 5nm scale and has four high-performance cores, which Apple said are the fastest in the industry, alongside four high efficiency cores for more mundane tasks.

Macbook Air

The first new Apple Silicon machine is the MacBook Air, which starts at the same figure of £999 in the UK or $999 in the US. The new laptop has a similar design to the previous version, except for the lack of a fan making it silent in operation. It has a better webcam, an improved 13in screen and can now wake instantly just like an iPhone.

The M1 in the MacBook Air gives it 3.5 times faster processor performance, five times faster graphics performance and significantly longer battery life of up to 15 hours of web browsing or 18 hours of video playback, which is six hours longer than before. Apple also said the MacBook Air will last twice as long while video conferencing.

13in MacBook Pro

Apple also launched an M1 version of its 13in MacBook Pro, which starts at £1,299 in the UK or $1,299 in the US. The new more powerful 13in laptop has a fan for longer sustained performance. It has up to 2.8 times the processor performance, five times faster graphics performance and longer battery life, lasting up to 17 hours while web browsing or 20 hours for watching video, which is twice as long as the previous version.

The MacBook Pro also has an improved webcam, better mics but only two Thunderbolt/USB 4 ports, as compared with four Thunderbolt 3/USB-C ports on the previous version. Apple did not update the larger 16in MacBook Pro.

Mac mini

Finally, Apple also announced a new M1 version of the Mac mini compact desktop computer. The Mac mini starts at £699 in the UK or $699 in the US, which is cheaper than the previous version. It too has a fan and produces three times the processor performance and up to six times the graphics performance of the previous version.

All three new Mac computers will be shipping on 17 November.

MacOS 11 Big Sur

Raw performance numbers aside, the new Macs will run macOS 11 Big Sur and with it the ability to run iPhone and iPad apps on the Mac for the first time. The new machines will support Apple's new Universal Apps format, which allows developers to ship one version of their programs that run on both the older Intel Macs and the new M1 Macs.

Apple said all its apps, including professional programs such as video-editing suite Final Cut Pro and music maker Logic Pro, are optimised for the new M1 chip. It also said that high-profile developers were already making Apple Silicon-optimised versions of their programs, including Adobe with Lightroom next month and Photoshop early next year.

Otherwise, Apple's Rosetta 2 technology will be able to run programs written for Intel Macs automatically, although doubts remain over their performance.

MacOS 11 Big Sur will be released as a free update for existing Intel Macs on Thursday.

Potential to change the industry

The switch from traditional x86 desktop processors to Apple Silicon is potentially game changing. Not only does it remove Apple's reliance on Intel for performance increases while opening up the ability to run iOS apps on a Mac, but it has the potential to change the whole of the computer market.

ARM-based chips, such as Apple's A-series processors in the iPhone or Qualcomm chips in most top Android devices, have long promised greater battery life, higher performance and smaller, thinner designs than their x86 competitors. But until now companies have struggled to bring them up to scratch using desktop software.

Microsoft is also pursuing an ARM-based future with its Surface Pro X line of Windows tablets, but they have been saddled with performance issues compared with traditional Intel-powered versions. Apple's wholesale switch to its own ARM chip designs will force the change through, bringing with it software and hardware improvements that will undoubtedly filter down to other manufacturers.

That will bring much greater competition in the PC market, which for years has been dominated by Intel, with rival AMD only recently gaining ground.

The move, which the company said would take two years to complete, is not without risk, said Wayne Lam from CCS Insight: "Apple's vertical integration should make this an easier undertaking but there could still be difficulties and early teething problems."

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Apple launches Mac mini, MacBook Air and Pro with iPhone-like chips

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Apple has announced the first in its series of ARM-powered Mac computers with the new MacBook Air, MacBook Pro and Mac mini, as it begins the transition from traditional Intel processors to those that run in the iPhone.

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 ‘Desperate times, desperate measures’: The Hong Kong protesters who want Trump to win a second term 

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 ‘Desperate times, desperate measures’: The Hong Kong protesters who want Trump to win a second term 

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Next month's US presidential election will be among the most closely watched in Hong Kong's history. While Donald Trump is currently trailing in opinion polls, some pro-democracy supporters believe that only his re-election will guarantee the city's continued existence as an entity distinct from mainland China.

At many protests last year Hongkongers were seen flying the Stars and Stripes, especially when Trump had expressed support for the demonstrators in one way or another, and the country's values have enduring appeal.

The debate around Trump has heated up in the lead-up to the elections, especially on social media where his presidency has been a polarising force. In one Twitter post, an American Hongkonger known as "Nikki" expressed her support for Trump by sharing photos of "Hongkongers for Trump" signs. She ignited a strong-worded debate.

Many who oppose Trump were offended that she would speak on behalf of the Hong Kong people, and said they did not want the pro-democracy movement associated with the president. Others came to her defence, saying Trump's efforts to stand up to China were deserving of support.

"Trump is our hope to defeat CCP (the Chinese Communist Party) so as to have our beloved HK restored," one person replied to Nikki's tweet.

Another Twitter-user shared that sentiment, arguing that "people who are upset that Nikki supports Trump needs to remember that Trump is Anti Communist. No, he is not perfect and he says crazy shit something. But he & his team gets shit done."

But not everyone was appreciative.

"Promoted #FreeHongKong and a #fascist, #sociopathic #IdiotinChief in the same signage. Come on, #HongKongProtesters should be better than this. [Trump] is not America," one person wrote.

'Beacon of hope'

Trump's tough stance on China and support for the pro-democracy movement has fuelled hope in some Hongkongers, faced with a sometimes indifferent international society. They say his administration is the only government that has truly opened its eyes to the threat that China poses to the free world.

In November last year, Trump signed into law the Human Rights and Democracy Act which mandates an annual review to ensure Hong Kong retains enough autonomy to justify its special status with the US. Half a year later, in response to Beijing's imposition of the national security law, Trump removed the city's special status, in an economic and diplomatic blow to China.

The president was also quick to refer to Covid-19 as the "China virus," to the great satisfaction of many Hongkongers who wanted to hold China responsible for its handling of the initial outbreak.

The latest example of Trump's hardline stance is his war against TikTok, the Chinese-owned social media platform.

"After the 2019 anti-extradition bill movement, I realized that the United States' traditional way of handling China has not stopped China from growing powerful," said Joshua Tang [not his real name], a translator in his late 20s. "Instead it enabled the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to become even stronger and more expansionist."

But the level of enthusiasm for Trump varies in Hong Kong. Some support him wholeheartedly, others consider him a last resort because the rest of the world's inaction has left Hong Kong vulnerable.

"Desperate times, desperate measures," said Daryl Sze To, a 25-year-old banker. "We don't have a choice. If Joe Biden becomes president, Hong Kong will suffer so badly, so we kind of don't have a choice."

"I am looking at this as a Hongkonger, and I believe in Trump," he said. "He is tough on China and he is willing to sacrifice some of the United States' interests to ensure Hong Kong's autonomy. I don't think he cares about democracy and freedom in Hong Kong, but helping Hong Kong aligns with his interests."

It is unclear just how popular Trump is with pan-democrats, but a poll that surveyed Hongkongers with all political affiliations for Newsweek magazine found in July that 36 per cent of Hongkongers rooted for Trump's re-election, and 33 per cent supported Joe Biden. The rest were don't knows.

Trump has won over some prominent pro-democracy figures. In an interview with HKFP, Apple Daily owner Jimmy Lai said he would support him in the upcoming election.

I think Trump knows how to deal with China. He plays hardball and he is a man of his word, and he is really powerful in the way he deals with dictators. He [makes] deals, by instinct, he knows how to deal with it," Lai said.

"People here know that if Trump gets elected, we will have greater support. That's the impression, whether it's going to be true or not. I share the same impression."

Apple Daily, the newspaper Lai owns and runs, is widely seen as a pillar of press freedom in the city, yet President Trump has repeatedly delegitimized the White House press corps by dismissing its reporting as "fake news," and Trump's anti-media rhetoric has c o ntributed to a widespread erosion of trust in journalism in the United States.

Trump has a history of celebrating violence against journalists, and has been accused of inciting it, too. In 2018, he dubbed the media the "true enemy of the people" on the same day that a bomb was sent to CNN's Atlanta offices.

To this, Lai's right-hand man Mark Simon - emphasising that Trump was by no means his first choice for President - referred to the conditions for journalists elsewhere in the world, such as in the Philippines, Russia or Myanmar, where they often face death threats and persecution.

According to Simon, despite Trump's openly anti-media stance, the overall state of press freedom in America remains largely unaffected, especially from a legislative standpoint, he said. "Has Trump done anything other than run his mouth about the media? What's he gonna do? What could he possibly do?" Simon asked.

Simon told HKFP that his primary concern was not Trump's policies domestically, but how they affected Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement.

But critics have pointed out that press freedom is just one out of many conflicts of interest between the pro-democracy movement and the Trump administration.

Biden 2020?

Not everyone agrees. Eric Fok, a freelance journalist who supports the pro-democracy movement, says Trump represents the opposite of what Hongkongers have fought for.

"How can the movement justify itself when it condemns the Hong Kong police's physical attacks on the free press while supporting a US president that called a reporter being hit by anti-riot munitions ' a beautiful sight,'" Fok told HKFP.

According to Rosemary Foot, Professor of International Relations at Oxford University, the policies that the pro-democracy movement supports align more naturally with the Biden campaign. There is also not necessarily any reason to believe that Biden's election would make much difference for Hongkongers, she said.

"I don't know the current sentiments of the pro-democracy movement with regard to the two US presidential candidates, but they should align with Joe Biden," she said. "Trump himself is no friend of those concerned about the protection of democracy and human rights."

In her view, China will remain a major issue of concern to a potential Biden administration. There is strong bipartisan consensus in Congress on the need to respond to the negative aspects of a resurgent Chinese republic, she said.

"Biden will not be weak on China," she told HKFP. "China will continue to be seen as a serious rival and a competitor. The main difference will be a search for areas of potential cooperation with China on 'shared fate' issues such as climate change."

Fok said the support for Trump among some pro-democracy Hongkongers made him question the political integrity of that segment of opinion.

"It begs the question, are you supporting Trump's stance on China or are you just supporting Trump? If it's just the policy, then should one not actively look for alternatives? If it's Trumpian politics, then why is it okay to abandon the ideals that this movement was based upon?" he said.

Guardian of freedom?

Even though the American election is still set to proceed, Trump and other officials from the Republican party have worked hard to ensure that certain groups of voters will not get their say in the election. In fact, parts of the Trump campaign's election strategy comes down to voter suppression, largely because the Republican party has historically benefited from low voter turnout - something Trump himself has openly admitted.

"I think it's common sense among intellectuals globally that Trump is not a guardian of freedom of speech, democracy or freedom generally. He definitely does not care about principles, and that obviously projects a very different image from what we believe in the Hong Kong protests," the exiled Chinese political cartoonist and human rights activist, Badiucao, told HKFP.

Badiucao has been outspoken in his dissatisfaction with Trump's recent rise in support among Hongkongers.

He sees the support mainly as a symptom of desperation - "Desperate people will grasp at a straw, even if it turns out to be a snake, and soon they'll be blind" - but said ignorance of overseas affairs also played a role.

Tang, however, pointed out that Trump operates in a democratic system and was elected through democratic processes - he has every right to challenge the election and to criticize the press - whereas Hong Kong's government operates in an authoritarian setting.

"There are no conflicts with the pro-democracy movement," said Tang. "He is universally elected as president under the US constitution. I don't think the media silenced themselves after he vocally attacked them and, under the First Amendment, they can still say whatever they want. I don't think you can do that under the national security law."

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'Desperate times, desperate measures': The Hong Kong protesters who want Trump to win a second term | Hong Kong Free Press HKFP

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By Sebastian Skov Andersen and Joyce Leung Next month's US presidential election will be among the most closely watched in Hong Kong's history. While Donald Trump is currently trailing in opinion polls, some pro-democracy supporters believe that only his re-election will guarantee the city's continued existence as an entity distinct from mainland China.

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Why Hong Kong residents can’t easily be educated into loving China

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Why Hong Kong residents can’t easily be educated into loving China

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Why Hongkongers can't be easily educated into loving China

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Beijing's man in Hong Kong has called for patriotic education for students and civil servants. But given Hongkongers' wide access to information and the many who fled to the city from the mainland, inculcating love of country will take more than textbooks.

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As Hong Kong libraries reopen, readers return to pick up a book, find respite from pandemic 

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As Hong Kong libraries reopen, readers return to pick up a book, find respite from pandemic 

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Libraries reopen, offering readers respite from pandemic blues

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Cleaning, disinfection increased, fewer seats provided, and all library users must wear masks.

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Planning a wedding during a pandemic is riddled with uncertainties, but for 30-year-old Lindsey Evans, there's one thing she's clear about. "The closer we get to the wedding, the more positive I am that I want to take his last name," says the Californian, who runs a lifestyle-media company with her partner and is due to tie the knot in July 2021.

In the US, most women adopt their husband's family name when they get married - around 70%, according to one of the largest data analyses in recent years. For British women, the figure is almost 90%, according to a 2016 survey, with around 85% of those aged between 18 and 30 saying they still follow the practice. Although these figures are lower than they were a generation ago, it's clear it remains a strong cultural norm in large parts of the western world, despite today's more individualistic and gender aware era. While definitions of feminism vary, 68% of women under 30 describe themselves as feminists in the US and around 60% in the UK.

"It is quite surprising... [so many women adopt the man's name] since it comes from patriarchal history, from the idea that a woman, on marriage, became one of the man's possessions," says Simon Duncan, a professor in family life at the University of Bradford, UK, who has been researching the practice of male name-taking. He describes the tradition as "entrenched" in most English-speaking countries, even though the concept of "owning" wives was scrapped more than a century ago in Britain, and there is currently no legal requirement to take a man's name.

Much of western Europe also follows the same pattern (notable exceptions include Spain and Iceland, where women tend to keep their birth names when they marry, and Greece, which has made it a legal requirement for wives to retain their names for life since 1983). Even in Norway, which is regularly ranked one of the top countries for gender equality and has a less overtly patriarchal history, the majority of married women still take their husband's name. There, however, around half of name-takers keep their maiden name as a middle name, which functions as a secondary surname.

"The question remains... is this just a harmless tradition, or is there some sort of meaning leaking from those times to now?" asks Duncan, who recently teamed up with academics at the University of Oslo and the University of the West of England to delve into the reasons for its persistence.

There are, of course, numerous personal reasons a woman might want to lose her maiden name, from disliking how it sounds, to wanting to disassociate herself from absent or abusive family members. But through an in-depth analysis of existing research, and detailed interviews with newly married and engaged couples in the UK and Norway, Duncan's team identified two core motivators driving the tradition. The first was the persistence of patriarchal power (whether that was obvious to the couples or not). The second was the ideal of the 'good family' - the sense that having the same name as your partner symbolises commitment, and this ties you and any potential children together as a unit.

Some couples uncritically accepted the practice because it was conventional, while others actively embraced the idea of passing on male names. "Some men still insisted on it - the reproduction of that sort of patriarchal assumption from the past," says Duncan. "Some women go along with that or internalise that. So, we found people who say they are really looking forward to being a 'Mrs' and changing their identity to that of their husband."

His team's research paper suggests that women changing their names is, unsurprisingly, connected to the survival of other patriarchal traditions, such as fathers giving away brides and men being more likely to propose. Duncan says that these elements have come to form part of the optimum "marriage package" for many couples.

"It's part of the romance," agrees Corinna Hirsch, a German marketer living in Stockholm, who took her husband's last name when they married last year. "We slept in separate rooms the evening before the wedding. I had something old, blue, borrowed and new. My dad and husband gave a speech, but I didn't." She believes these traditions helped her and her partner develop a deeper bond, even after more than eight years together. "We didn't expect that we would feel any closer after the wedding, but I think having this big wedding and having one last name did the trick."

The second core trend observed by Duncan's team is more about public perceptions. They concluded that taking on a partner's name remains seen as a way to display your commitment and unity to the outside world.

"I feel like it gives us an identity as a family and not just individuals," agrees Lindsey Evans in California. "We have our own first and middle names, which make us our own people, but having a joint last name makes us more of a unit."

Duncan's research found this 'good family' narrative was especially strong among women who'd had children. Even some of those who initially declined to adopt their male partner's family name upon marriage switched their approach after giving birth.

"I wanted to do it to have a better connection with my kid, not just in a loving relationship type of way, but on paper," reflects Jamie Berg, a US-born dancer and gymnast living in Oslo. After keeping her own name for several years, largely because it was important for her professional identity, she added her husband's name to her passport and other formal documents when her son was born, "so all three of us would have the same last name". This, she hoped, would also avoid administrative hassle, for example when travelling abroad with her child.

Duncan's study highlighted another common feeling among many parents, that children might end up confused or unhappy as a result of parents having different names. But he argues that while nonconformity can create adult discomfort, sociological research suggests a limited impact on children, with most not confused about who's in their family, regardless of their surname.

Academics are split on how the name-changing norm plays against a backdrop of efforts to achieve gender equality.

Duncan describes it as "quite dangerous" - whether the couples doing it are actively embracing the tradition, or simply observing it by default. "It perpetuates the idea that the husband's in authority... reproducing the tradition that the man is the head of the household," he says.

That argument is strongly supported by women like Nikki Hesford, a business owner from northern England. She is now divorced, but refused to take her former husband's name when they got married, and says she's shocked how few wives do the same.

"Women complain that they end up being the primary caregiver, the one who has to leave work when a child is sick, the one who had to go to hospital appointments, the one whose career suffers... but they've set that precedent at the start by saying: 'You're more important than me, you're the primary and I'm the secondary,'" she argues. "Some people say: 'You're overthinking it, it's just nice tradition and it doesn't really mean anything', and I disagree."

However, Hilda Burke, an Irish couples counsellor and psychotherapist based in London, believes that women who reject name-taking shouldn't be too quick to judge others. She notes that "old-fashioned romance" concepts, long reinforced by film, literature and magazines, have become amplified in an age of social media. This means women continue to be influenced by these kinds of messages, despite more gender-positive, feminist perspectives being given a greater platform. "For so many influencers, it's very much part of their message or their profile, this whole narrative around a boyfriend and then the huge engagement, the honeymoon," argues Burke. "Even if those women are kind of identifying as a feminist, that kind of lifestyle that they're portraying is very much a sort of romantic ideal."

She says that for many, switching to their husband's family name is also a pragmatic choice - for example, to appease older relatives or avoid having to explain themselves at the school playground - and doesn't mean that these women aren't pushing for gender equality. "This is an example of the dissonance of having maybe a principle, having a feminist ideal, but then getting down to the nitty gritty of daily life," she says. "They'd say: 'You know what? I'm still working. I'm still getting promoted. I haven't given up. So, you know what? On the bigger scale, I'm still feminist'."

Another argument is that feminism is ultimately about giving women free choice. This means as long as they can decide what name they'd like (rather than it being forced on them by their partner or society), it shouldn't matter whether that is in keeping with, or going against, patriarchal norms.

"He never told me: 'I need you to take my last name', but instead I was the one who brought it to the table," says Evans in California. "As a feminist, I am able to make the decision that is best for me without worrying about gender roles."

How prevalent the male name-taking tradition will remain in the future is hotly debated by researchers. There is little predictive academic research, although there are signs that - despite the slow progress to date - both women and men are becoming increasingly open to alternatives.

In the UK, a 2016 YouGov poll of more than 1,500 people showed that 59% of women would still like to take their spouse's surname upon marriage - and 61% of men still want them to do so. Although these figures are high, they're around 30% lower than the proportion of Britons who currently go through with the tradition. A separate survey showed that 11% of 18-to-34-year-olds in the UK are now double-barrelling their surnames when they get married. This practice was traditionally the preserve of upper-class British families, but gender equality is emerging as a motivator within couples with more diverse backgrounds.

"We talked about it beforehand and decided that because we shared everything else in our lives it made sense to share names too," explains Nick Nilsson-Bean, a British communications manager living in Malmö, in southern Sweden, who has the same double-barrelled surname as his wife. "It felt a bit archaic and old fashioned to just take my name."

In the US, growing numbers of women are also opting for unhyphenated double surnames due to the need to remain searchable online for professional reasons. Meanwhile, some couples blend their names or come up with new ones to share, and some men adopt their wives' names, although both phenomena remain unusual.

"I wasn't hung up on all the masculinity and patriarchal [rubbish], and I knew how important my wife's identity was to her," says Ciaran McQuaid, a 39-year-old British engineer who is one of the rare few to switch to his wife's name. "I work within the construction industry and I have to deal with quite macho attitudes, but I'm not the type of person who gets bothered by it."

With women tending to marry later - the average age is now 35 or older in European countries including the UK, Italy and Spain, and around 28 in the US - this may also have an impact on future name choices. Research from Norway and the US suggests that older, more educated and economically independent women are more likely to keep their birth names, while the practice is less popular with younger, lower-paid women and within the African-American community.

"I already owned my house. I had a degree, my car, all different things. So, if I had to change my name, then subsequently I'd have to change my name on all those titles and licenses," explains America Nazar, a dentist based north of Oslo, who didn't switch her name when she got married last year. "It just makes it a bit more complicated and it's not very necessary, in my opinion."

Other researchers point to the influence of the LGBTQIA community, where there already tends to be more flexibility around name changing. Dr Heath Schechinger, a psychologist and therapist with a clinical post at the University of California, Berkley, predicts that heterosexual couples may be encouraged to keep their own names as "the concept of 'family' expands" to include more LGBTQIA and even "two-plus partner unions", making it more common to break traditional norms. "While it is unlikely partners will ever have complete autonomy about their name choices without fear of societal or familial repercussions, an increasing number of people are, and will continue, to make the choice to deviate from the norm," he argues.

"It's time for this to become an open-ended discussion within partnerships, and not something that is assumed or pre-determined," agrees marketing manager Verity Sessions, from Brighton, England, who kept her own name when she married her wife Alice Maplesden. "Some of my male friends have decided to take their wife's family name and I love them for that," she says. However, she says she understands that other couples "do just love a tradition" or might opt for naming conventions that simply "make a family tree a bit easier to work out".

In London, psychotherapist Burke also believes that more diverse naming conventions will start to bleed into society. But as women continue to battle for equal pay, and are more likely to be facing job insecurity and performing more childcare as a result of Covid-19, she argues that many "people feel like there are other battles that are more important right now". "It is going to come in time, when other things are made more equal."

Fans of the male name tradition like Corinna Hirsch, however, hope it won't die out. "It would be nice if [it] continues, but only if it's not forced," she says. "You like traditions because they make you feel all warm and fuzzy? Go for it."

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Taking a husband's name emerged from patriarchal history. So why do so many young western couples still follow this tradition?

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Ellen DeGeneres addresses allegations of misconduct in candid statement on The Ellen Show: ‘I take responsibility’

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Ellen DeGeneres addresses allegations of misconduct in candid statement on The Ellen Show: ‘I take responsibility’

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Ellen DeGeneres has addressed allegations of misconduct behind-the-scenes of The Ellen Show as the programme made its anxious return.

The 62-year-old made a candid statement during the opening monologue of today's programme, which was uploaded to The Ellen Show YouTube channel ahead of the televised episode.

'As you may have heard, this summer there were allegations of a toxic work environment at our show and then there was an investigation,' she said.

'I learned that things happened here that never should have happened.

'I take that very seriously and I want to say I am so sorry to the people who were affected.

'I know that I'm in a position of privilege and power and I realised that with that comes responsibility, and I take responsibility for what happens at my show.'

Numerous anonymous employees on The Ellen Show came forward in a damning report on Buzzfeed claiming to be working in an environment of racism, fear and intimidation. Some accused executive producers of rampant sexual assault and harassment.

Warner Media confirmed in August it was launching an investigation into the conduct of The Ellen Show.

Today's episode marks the first time The Ellen Show was filmed in its studio since the US went into lockdown. However, there was still no audience.

'This is The Ellen DeGeneres Show. I am Ellen DeGeneres. My name is there, my name is there, my name is on underwear,' DeGeneres went on. 'We have had a lot of conversations over the last few weeks about the show, our workplace, and what we want for the future. We have made the necessary changes and today we are starting a new chapter.

'There were also articles in the press and on social media that said that I am not who I appeared to be on TV, because I became known as the "be kind" lady. And here's how that happened: I started saying, "be kind to one another" after a young man named Tyler Clementi took his own life after being bullied for being gay.

'I thought the world needed more kindness and it was a reminder that we all needed that, and I think we need it more than ever right now. Being known as the "be kind" lady is a tricky position to be in. So let me give you some advice out there if anybody's thinking of changing their title or giving yourself a nickname, do not go with the "be kind" lady. Don't do it. The truth is I am that person that you see on TV.

'I am also a lot of other things. Sometimes I get sad, I get mad, I get anxious, I get frustrated, I get impatient. And I am working on all of that. I am a work in progress, and I'm especially working on the impatience thing because, and it's not going well, because it's not happening fast enough I will tell you that.

'Listen, you know, I don't know, I am a talk show host and you know that, but maybe some of you know that, you know, I was an actress. I've played a straight woman in movies so I'm a pretty good actress. But I don't think that I'm that good that I could come out here every day for 17 years and fool you.

'This is me and my intention is to always be the best person I can be. And if I've ever let someone down, if I've ever hurt their feelings, I am so sorry for that. If that's ever the case, I have let myself down and I've hurt myself as well because I always try to grow as a person. I look at everything that comes into my life as an opportunity to learn. I got into this business to make people laugh and feel good - that's my favourite thing to do. That and Jenga, I love that game.

'And now I am a boss of 270 people, 270 people who helped make this show what it is, 270 people who I am so grateful for. All I want is for every single one of them to be happy and to be proud to work here.

'This has been a horrible summer for people all around the world. People are losing their jobs, people are losing loved ones to a pandemic, people are losing their homes and lives in raging fires that are going on. There's blatant racial injustice all around us. I watch the news and I feel like, Where do we even begin? So my hope is that we can still be a place of happiness and joy.

'I still want to be the one hour a day that people can go to escape and laugh. I want to continue to help all the people that we help every day. And I'm committed to making this the best season that we have ever had.'
The Ellen Show airs on NBC in the US and ITV2 in the UK. Got a story?
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Video: Ellen DeGeneres addresses allegations of misconduct in candid statement

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Ellen DeGeneres has addressed allegations of misconduct behind-the-scenes of The Ellen Show as the programme made its anxious return. The 62-year-old made a candid statement during the opening monologue of today's programme, which was uploaded to The Ellen Show YouTube channel ahead of the televised episode.

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This article originally appeared on The Conversation, and is republished under a Creative Commons licence.
Do you pick up any old notebook and pen when you need them, or do you have a thing for Moleskines or Montblancs?

Whether or not you're picky, know that tools for the hands are tools for the brain. Handwritten notes are a powerful tool for encrypting embodied cognition and in turn supporting the brain's capacity for retrieval of information. And secondly, when you take notes by hand, your hands create a robust external memory storage: your notebook.
The processing advantage
Taking notes by hand is a win-win, and belongs in every student's cognitive tool kit. Learning how to take notes by hand effectively, and how to ingrain note-taking as a key learning and study tool, can begin as early as grades 3 or 4, but it's never too late to begin.

We live in a digital age where daily functioning involves digital communication. Automaticity in keyboarding is an important skill too, and the tools and applications for digital communication will continue to evolve and have their place. But keyboarding does not provide the tactile feedback to the brain that contact between pencil or pen and paper does - the key to creating the neurocircuitry in the hand-brain complex.

While your laptop might seem faster and more efficient, there are good reasons for having a paper-bound notebook and pen - any kind you prefer - at the ready.

Researchers have found that note-taking associated with keyboarding involves taking notes verbatim in a way that does not involve processing information, and so have called this "non-generative" note-taking. By contrast, taking notes by hand involves cognitive engagement in summarising, paraphrasing, organising, concept and vocabulary mapping - in short, manipulating and transforming information that leads to deeper understanding.

Note-taking becomes note-making: an active involvement in making sense and meaning for later reflection, study or sharing of notes to compare understanding with lab partners or classmates. This becomes a potent study strategy, as one's own processing can be further consolidated through talk.

Experts say taking notes by hand engages your brain in different ways, makes you interact with the material in different ways, and overall, deepens understanding (Credit: Alamy)

There are templates and formats that teach more effective ways of taking hand-written notes. A popular one is the Cornell style developed by education professor Walter Pauk. You can also explore other ways that can be adapted for different study needs, such as compare/contrast charts or webs.
Cognitive demands of note-taking
Taking good notes depends on fluency of hand, which means legibility and speed combined. This is best achieved with a clean, uncluttered and connected script, meaning cursive writing, that young learners can begin to learn in Grade 2. Fluency of hand comes from instruction and practice in the early years of school, and sustained opportunities for authentic, purposeful literacy engagements in turn allocating working memory space to the cognitive demands of note-taking.

The move from grades 3 to 4 is a big leap for young learners. Content curriculum in science, social studies, English language arts and mathematics makes accelerated demands on children to shift into academic modes of literacy.

Each year of educational advancement makes increasing demands in reading and writing, understanding and making sense of vast amounts of information in multi-modal formats.
Sketching and drawing belong, too
Leonardo da Vinci wrote: "...the more minutely you describe, the more you will confuse the mind of the reader and the more you will remove him from knowledge of the thing described. Therefore it is necessary to make a drawing ... as well as to describe ... "

The artist's notebooks reveal a creative, inquiring, inventive mind and man of science and art unparalleled, centuries ahead of his time. Fergus Craik and Robert Lockhart, pioneers in cognitive neuroscience research, noted three levels of information processing: their theory lays bare the neuroscience behind da Vinci's insights centuries ago. When people visually represent knowledge, they can deepen their comprehension of concepts such as cycles and relationships: as a result, some cognitive researchers advocate teaching different ways of representing knowledge from an early age.

Florence Nightingale is remembered for her contributions in reforming medicine through her detailed, meticulous observations, documentation, note-taking and writing. She is credited with creating the pie chart to represent this information.

Note-taking by hand also allows you to be more detailed, original and observational in how you document information, experts say (Credit: Alamy)

I assign my own students, preparing to become teachers, the task of sketching the layout of the class where they are working in a field placement. They also take observational hand-written notes recorded in a Cornell template. This assignment is about interpreting what's going on in the classroom. This process of documenting provides a good scaffold for later review or reflection and theorizing the work of classroom teachers.

If writing is a requirement of your profession whether in journalism, teaching, architecture, engineering, fashion and more, you already know the benefits and importance of note-taking and sketching.
Analogue, digital and legacy formats
When deep understanding and remembering, making personal connection and sparking creative thought are important, hand-written notes matter and endure over time.

Interestingly, the art of keeping a paper diary, journal or planner has generated scores of online communities. Many find pleasure in keeping calendars, daily organizers, cards and notes and lists of all kinds, and writing family stories for the next generation all by hand - and then sharing them digitally.

For serious students, note-taking is an indispensable cognitive tool and study technique. Creating neurocircuitry for memory and meaning through the hand-brain complex is the key to understanding the value of hand-written notes. Think twice before relying solely on your laptop this fall!
Hetty Roessingh is a professor of education at the University of Calgary.

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This article originally appeared on The Conversation, and is republished under a Creative Commons licence. Do you pick up any old notebook and pen when you need them, or do you have a thing for Moleskines or Montblancs? Whether or not you're picky, know that tools for the hands are tools for the brain.

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‘Cuties’ Sparks a Firestorm, Again, After Its Netflix Release

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‘Cuties’ Sparks a Firestorm, Again, After Its Netflix Release

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Several members of Congress have weighed in on the award-winning film, including to call for its removal from Netflix or a Justice Department investigation.

"Cuties" tells the story of Amy (Fathia Youssouf), a young daughter of Senegalese immigrants struggling to find her place growing up on the outskirts of Paris. Credit... Netflix

Netflix is facing renewed backlash from subscribers and members of Congress after it released the award-winning French film "Cuties" on its platform this week.

Some senators are even calling for an investigation into the movie, which has been criticized for sexualizing young girls.

Here's what we know about the movie.

The film, which was released as "Mignonnes" in France and won a directing award from the Sundance Institute in February, follows an 11-year-old girl named Amy (Fathia Youssouf) as she tries to find her place growing up in a poor suburb of Paris. At home, Amy has to please her family, who are observant Muslims from Senegal, but she eventually falls in with a group of friends who have their own dance troupe in defiance of her family's strict rules.

Maïmouna Doucouré, the film's director, said in an interview with Netflix that the movie incorporated elements of her own childhood in its portrayal of Amy's struggles between two distinct modes of femininity: one dictated by the traditional values of her Senegalese and Muslim upbringing, the other by Western society.

"I recreated the little girl who I was at that age," she said. "Growing up in two cultures is what gave me the strength and the values I have today."

"As a child, that question of how to become a woman was my obsession," she added.

Ms. Doucouré has said that the idea for the film came to her after she attended a neighborhood gathering in Paris where she saw a group of 11-year-olds performing a "very sexual, very sensual" dance. She said she spent a year and a half doing research and meeting with hundreds of preteens to prepare for the film.

"I needed to know how they felt about their own femininity in today's society and how they dealt with their self-image at a time when social media is so important," she told Netflix.

The more sexualized a woman appears on social media, the more girls will perceive her as successful, Ms. Doucouré said.

"Children just imitate what they see to achieve the same result without understanding the meaning," she said. "And yeah, it's dangerous."

In France, where the film was released in theaters on Aug. 19, "Cuties" did not stir much controversy.

But in the United States, the hashtag #CancelNetflix has trended on Twitter, with parents, politicians and conspiracy theorists calling to remove the film or even get the Department of Justice involved. Last month, Netflix apologized for the artwork it created to market "Cuties" to streaming audiences after many criticized it for inappropriately sexualizing the film's young stars.

An IMDb parents' guide rates the film's sex and nudity as "severe." Several scenes show young girls dancing suggestively in short outfits.

Calls to remove the film have been amplified by supporters of a conspiracy theory that top Democrats and celebrities are behind a global child trafficking ring.

Reviewers at the Sundance Film Festival didn't find the film exploitive. "The sight of twerking preteen bodies is explicitly designed to shock mature audiences into a contemplation of today's destruction of innocence," the film critic Fionnuala Halligan wrote in Screen Daily.

A spokeswoman for Netflix said in a statement that the film was "a social commentary against the sexualization of young children."

"It's an award-winning film and a powerful story about the pressure young girls face on social media and from society more generally growing up - and we'd encourage anyone who cares about these important issues to watch the movie."

Several members of Congress have called for the film to be removed from Netflix or for a formal investigation.

Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, sent a letter to Attorney General William P. Barr on Friday asking the Justice Department to investigate whether Netflix, the company's executives or the filmmakers violated federal laws "against the production and distribution of child pornography."

Similarly, Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, called on the Justice Department to "take swift action."

"Like any parent, I find ⁦@netflix⁩ decision to peddle child pornography disgusting," Mr. Cotton said on Twitter on Saturday. "And it's criminal."

But like many of the film's detractors, Mr. Cruz has not seen "Cuties," according to a spokeswoman.

"Of course he has not watched a movie that sexualizes and fetishes young girls," she said in a statement on Saturday. "The content has been widely reported and is not in dispute. There should be absolutely no place for the filming and distribution of these scenes - regardless of the purported objective of the filmmaker."

Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, a former Democratic presidential candidate, said on Twitter on Friday that the film "will certainly whet the appetite of pedophiles & help fuel the child sex trafficking trade."

"Netflix, you are now complicit," Ms. Gabbard wrote.

Representatives for Mr. Cotton and Ms. Gabbard did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Saturday, and it was not clear whether either had seen the film.

Alex Marshall contributed reporting.

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'Cuties' Sparks a Firestorm, Again, After Its Netflix Release

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Several members of Congress have weighed in on the award-winning film, including to call for its removal from Netflix or a Justice Department investigation. Netflix is facing renewed backlash from subscribers and members of Congress after it released the award-winning French film "Cuties" on its platform this week.

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Cooking oils are a kitchen staple. But there's a lot of conflicting information regarding how healthy each of them are. With so many on the shelves - from coconut to olive, vegetable to canola, avocado to rapeseed oil - how do we know which ones to use, and if we should be avoiding any altogether?

Oils used for cooking tend to get their name from the nut, seeds, fruits, plants or cereals they're extracted from, either by methods of crushing, pressing, or processing. They're characterised by their high fat content, including saturated fat, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids.

In recent years, coconut oil, which is around 90% saturated fat, has become the latest trendy "superfood". It's been hailed as a superfood (including that it's less likely to be stored in the body as fat and more likely to be expended as energy) - but one Harvard University epidemiologist calls it "pure poison".
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Consuming too much saturated fat - more than 20g for women and 30g for men per day, according to UK guidelines - makes the body produce cholesterol in our bodies that increases the risk of heart disease.

All fat molecules are made of chains of fatty acids, which are either held together with single bonds (saturated) or double bonds (unsaturated). There are three types of fatty acids: short, medium and long chain. Short and medium chain fatty acids are absorbed directly into the bloodstream and used for energy, but long chain fatty acids are transported to the liver, which raises blood cholesterol levels.

"Coconut oil enjoyed popularity three or four years ago, when there were claims it had a special effect," says Alice Lichtenstein, Gershoff professor of nutrition science and policy at Tufts University in Massachusetts, US.

But Taylor Wallace, an adjunct professor in the Department of Nutrition and Food Studies at George Mason University in Virginia, argues lauric acid is not as healthy as some claims suggest. It is categorised as a C12 fatty acid, meaning it has 12 carbon atoms, and that puts it at the limit of the definition of a medium chain fatty acid.

"C12s are like long chain fatty acids that got categorised into medium chain," says Wallace. "About 70% of C12s act as long chain fatty acids, which are transported to the liver." Longer chain fatty acids are more likely to be stored in the liver as fat and could, over time, cause health issues such as nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.

Instead, experts advise opting for an oil lower in saturated fat, and higher in other types of fats that are healthier in moderation. Polyunsaturated fat, including omega 3 and omega 6, and monounsaturated fat have been found to lower cholesterol levels and provide essential fatty acids and vitamins. They're found in many different types of vegetable oils, although the exact amount depends both on the plant and the technology process used during their production.

"Most studies indicate that foods higher in monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats are associated with lower risk of cardiovascular disease," says Lichtenstein. "It's recommended we replace sources of unsaturated fat with polyunsaturated fat, primarily plant-based oils, and nuts and seeds," she says.

One observational study associated replacing saturated fat with olive oil, for example, with a lower risk of heart disease. Substituting butter, margarine, mayonnaise or dairy fat with olive oil reduced the risk by 5 to 7%.

Marta Guasch-Ferre, author of the study and a research scientist Harvard University's TH Chan School of Public Health's nutrition department in Boston, analysed the health and diets of more than 100,000 people over 24 years, and found that those with higher intake of all types of olive oil had a 15% lower risk of heart disease.

Olive oil's health benefits can partly be attributed to its monounsaturated fatty acids, which contain vitamins and minerals, and polyphenols, micronutrients derived from plants.

"But it's not just that you're adding olive oil into the diet, but that olive oil is substituting other unhealthier fats," says Guasch-Ferre.

Olive oil, which is made by crushing olives and separating the oil from their pulp, is renowned for being the healthiest of plant oils. One review of research found olive oil has beneficial effects on gut microbiota and heart disease, and that extra virgin olive oil can be beneficial in preventing cancer and type 2 diabetes.

"The monounsaturated fatty acids and compounds found in olive oil help prevent noncommunicable diseases, not through any special mechanisms, but because our body needs them," says Francisco Barba, professor at the University of Valencia's preventive medicine and public health department in Spain.

Olive oil is synonymous with the Mediterranean diet, which is high in fruit, vegetables and legumes, and low in saturated fat, and is associated with a reduced risk of heart disease, despite the high fat content.

"What makes the Mediterranean diet different from other types of healthy diets is olive oil," Guasch-Ferre says. "Most other components - nuts, fruit and vegetables - are parts of numerous diets, including plant-based."

However, some research suggests these health benefits could be partly driven by other components in the diet, rather than olive oil. One review of evidence found that the only benefit of olive oil independent of the Mediterranean diet was its ability to raise levels of beneficial cholesterol HDL.

Researchers reviewed 30 studies where participants' diets were altered to test the effects of olive oil, and found that the Mediterranean diet led to lower glucose levels and higher LDL compared to the Western diet. Intervening that diet with olive oil, where it had a high polyphenol content, further increased HDL.

However, consuming olive oil by following the Mediterranean diet was associated with improved glucose levels, which is associated with a greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes if it is too high. It also reduced the level of triglycerides, a type of fat in the blood, and LDL cholesterol levels.

These studies tested numerous types of olive oil, but some research has found that extra virgin olive oil is associated with the most health benefits, including a possible lower risk of heart disease.

Extra virgin olive oil is rich in antioxidants and vitamin E, and researchers have found that it's better at protecting against LDL cholesterol than other types of olive oil. Other types of olive oil are processed after the oil is extracted, which causes them to lose some nutritional qualities.

Extra virgin olive oil, however, has a lower smoke point, which means it starts to smoke at a lower temperature, and in recent years there have been concerns that this could release harmful compounds, and that some of its benefits are lost through the heating process.

"Extra virgin olive oil is especially beneficial when it's not cooked, but even under cooking it has a very high percentage of monosaturated fatty acids," says Barba.

Recent studies have shown that extra virgin olive oil is safe to use for cooking. Researchers carried out a number of experiments monitoring extra virgin olive oil as it cooked at 120C (248F) and (338F) on a pan for different lengths of time. They found that temperature, but not time, had some effect on the polyphenol content in the oil.

In 2011, the European Food Safety Authority concluded that makers of olive oil can say it reduces oxidative stress - an imbalance of free radicals and antioxidants in the body - and protects cells and LDL cholesterol from oxidative damage, which can age cells. The researchers carrying out the experiments found that extra virgin olive oil used for cooking still falls within the guidelines for the health claim.

Lichtenstein argues that olive oil doesn't have any unique properties aside from what you'd normally expect from an oil high in monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. But what is clear is that the evidence supports using this and other vegetable oils instead of saturated fats, but to limit our intake of oil in general.

"The message isn't to add lots of oil because we think it's good for us, because that's just adding lots of calories," she says.

"Once we shift the balance of saturated fat to unsaturated fatty acids, we should then be able to choose the oil we prefer."

--
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Cooking oils are a kitchen staple. But there's a lot of conflicting information regarding how healthy each of them are. With so many on the shelves - from coconut to olive, vegetable to canola, avocado to rapeseed oil - how do we know which ones to use, and if we should be avoiding any altogether?

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New York Sports Clubs Owner Plans to File for Bankruptcy

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New York Sports Clubs Owner Plans to File for Bankruptcy

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(Bloomberg) -- The owner of New York Sports Clubs is planning to file for bankruptcy as soon as Friday after talks for financing that would have helped the chain weather the Covid-19 pandemic fell through.

Town Sports International Inc. was negotiating a potential $80 million capital injection from Kennedy Lewis Investment Management, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The investment firm backed away after Town Sports realized it would need more money and asked for $200 million, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing a private matter.

Representatives for New York-based Town Sports and Kennedy Lewis declined to comment.

The gym owner has been in talks with lenders as it seeks to refinance a loan coming due in November. Negotiations are ongoing but lenders have been reluctant to put in new money or extend the debt, the people said. Kennedy Lewis bought a large chunk of the company's borrowings when they were trading at a steep discount, the people said.

Town Sports is in discussions with other third parties who could support the company through its restructuring process, the people added. Chapter 11 bankruptcy allows a company to cut its debt load and close underperforming locations while it seeks to turn around its business. The firm's restructuring plans remain fluid and could change depending on market conditions and virus-related gym closings, the people said.

Pandemic Closures

The fitness industry is reeling from forced closures due to the pandemic. Gold's Gym International Inc. sought court protection from its creditors in May. 24 Hour Fitness Worldwide Inc. filed for bankruptcy in June, unable to keep up with its debt payments with gyms shut nationwide. New York state allowed fitness centers to re-open in September at limited capacity.

Even before the virus nearly ground the global economy to a halt, a number of gym chains were struggling with onerous debt loads. Town Sports, which operates the New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Washington Sports Clubs, was previously looking for a financial reprieve through a deal to buy the indoor cycling studio business of Flywheel Sports, which was owned by Kennedy Lewis.

Town Sports, which has around 600,000 members, wanted to use part of the financing from Flywheel's owners to replace its loan due in November. But the earlier plans fell apart, and the loan has been trading for less than 16 cents on the dollar, according to Bloomberg data.

New York Sports Clubs began operations as a cluster of squash clubs in the 1970s before introducing exercise classes and expanding up and down the U.S. East Coast. The company operates about 200 fitness studios, with a majority in the New York metro area.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

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New York Sports Clubs Owner Plans to File for Bankruptcy

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(Bloomberg) -- The owner of New York Sports Clubs is planning to file for bankruptcy as soon as Friday after talks for financing that would have helped the chain weather the Covid-19 pandemic fell through.Town Sports International Inc. was negotiating a potential $80 million capital injection from Kennedy

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Can anything good come from obsessing over a South Korean bodybuilder on social media?

Credit... Brian Rea

It took two hours and three buses to reach his gym. I was working a split shift at an English language academy in Seoul, leaving me a gap of five hours for taking a nap or traveling to his gym, where, given the long commute, I would barely have enough time to break a sweat.

I did it anyway.

I had discovered Tae Ho on Instagram during my first year of teaching in South Korea; I guess I liked too many pictures of Korean bodybuilders, and the social media universe was giving me a nudge. I never liked any of Tae Ho's photos though, fearful that I would be blocked for my blatant thirstiness. I just scrolled, sifting for clues about his life, where he ate, who he was dating.

It didn't take long for me to discover that he wasn't dating anyone, wasn't single and wasn't gay either; he was married to a woman. I felt a twinge of disappointment upon learning this, but I had no realistic notions about him anyway - or really about any relationship while overseas. Being a tattooed, gay, Black American in Korea didn't afford many romantic opportunities.

Squinting at one picture of Tae Ho, I was able to make out the name of the gym he frequented in a town on the outskirts of Seoul on the T-shirt of an unsuspecting patron.

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Back then I was teaching in a seaside town many hours away, content in my routines and anonymity. I didn't feel lonely, but I was beginning to feel anxious about my life there, where I was both highly visible and highly isolated.

I needed a change before I became one of the grizzled expats who stayed beyond his expiration date, whining about how he couldn't get anyone to have sex with him. With my current contract coming to an end, I applied for the first job I found that was closer to Tae Ho's gym (but still two hours away).

There are some odd consequences of being Black in Korea. At the gym, the staff would practice slang expressions on me that they'd heard in rap songs, and I would smile and respond using proper grammar like the professional teacher I was. These pernicious stereotypes, provided by a hefty diet of American media, trailed me in my daily life.

One lovely day as I was bantering with a few trainers, Tae Ho sauntered by, joining our discussion on how the abs of one of the other trainers were really coming through. Tae Ho lifted his shirt, showcasing cobblestones of skin and muscle, and I passed on the opportunity to touch them, afraid of a fainting spell.

My default aloofness didn't translate well in Korea, so I created a new persona, one who would ask random people if they needed an English tutor. To my surprise, Tae Ho took the bait.

KakaoTalk (a messaging platform similar to WhatsApp) became our new means of communicating. In terms of intimacy, it was a step up from DM-ing on Instagram. We were to begin our first lesson in a few days, meeting at his gym, but the night before he sent me a message that his father had died, so he would have to cancel.

My own father had died the year before. I knew the messy sadness of a son losing his father, and I offered my condolences, yet inside I was shaking. What if this was the end? What if, in his grief, he would find English lessons ridiculous?

Three weeks later, though, he messaged me: "Sir, I am ready for my lesson. Can we meet this Saturday?"

I was overjoyed but took my time in responding. "Sure! I will see you at 12 p.m."

Two transfers and two hours later, I found him at the gym and asked what he wanted from these lessons, interspersing my English with Korean so he could respond accurately. As he talked, I glanced at his arms, his hands, amazed that this was happening. The gym had televisions showing Tae Ho's recent win at a muscle competition, him beaming with his shiny biceps and teardrop quads.

At the next class, Tae Ho introduced me to his wife, who was lovely and dressed appropriately, not teetering on high heels and short skirts in the dead of winter as so many did. That made me admire Tae Ho even more. He had a discerning eye.

They were going on vacation to the Philippines and wanted to practice travel expression, so I prepared a packet of common sayings with their pronunciations and Korean equivalents. Perhaps my showiness could result in an invite to his home, the highest honor bestowed upon a foreigner.

My one-sided romance with Tae Ho, neither reciprocated nor noticed, matched my relationship with South Korea. I started out enthralled with the country, even when living in the workaday city of Pohang. When I learned how to read Hangul, the Korean alphabet, and could understand signs and ingredients, my heart sang. When I had my first taste of sogogi bibimbap (a popular beef dish) and japchae (thin noodles), I nearly wept with pleasure.

Yet with knowledge comes clarity. Rose-colored glasses never left my face for the first year, but bit by bit, glare by glare, I was made to remember who I was. On the subway, seats next to me would remain empty. In normally cramped cafes, I would have an entire table to myself. And when applying for jobs, recruiters would inform me that parents didn't want their child to have a Black teacher.

Cracks also began to appear in my dealings with Tae Ho. He was often tired and didn't seem as dedicated to his English education. He was opening his own gym and perhaps had concluded that English wasn't necessary. He canceled more frequently with real reasons but little notice. My texts would go unanswered until, after I swore I would focus on other clients, he would send an emoji letting me know he was thinking of me.

Can it be emotional abuse when only one person is emotionally invested?

Things began to stabilize in the spring and Tae Ho and I, along with his wife, started hanging out more, getting food or a coffee at Starbucks. I normally hate being a third wheel, but observing their interactions made me want to do better.

Our time together began to resemble my old life in New York, where I could complain with the full support of my friends. My new life in Korea was wearing thin, and I was becoming more critical of the gender, sexual and racial disparities. Tae Ho and his wife nodded their heads and offered their own views on the messy side of Korean life, not touched on by K-pop or K-dramas or K-beauty.

We met every week for a few hours, the English lessons dissolving into chatter about marriage and societal expectations. I felt bad for breaking into Korean; he was paying me good money for English conversation. Yet the melding of languages created a new sense of intimacy, and he shared with me how much he loved his wife. His YouTube videos, to which I had begun adding English subtitles (for free, of course), broadcast to the world the Tae Ho that I actually knew. He was happy. And I was becoming something close to happy.

"It's hard being Black in Korea," I said to him. "And I don't even drink. And I don't like people."

"I know. Korea is tough, hyeong," he said, using the Korean term for brother (as male friends would refer to each other). "But you have a good job and friends. You help people."

It was his use of "hyeong" that constricted my throat and dampened my eyes. This word, thrown around harmlessly millions of times a day, felt like a first kiss. No, not a kiss, because it didn't feel romantic. It felt legitimizing.

My early physical attraction to Tae Ho, based on nothing more than social media posts, had waned, replaced by a platonic intimacy that was real and compelling.

My dream of having a physically perfect specimen fall in love with me seems silly and adolescent now. I was in my mid-30s then and should have known better. I often railed to anyone who would listen about the dangers of trusting social media constructs.

Tae Ho never fell in love with me. Korea never fell in love with me. But from the seeds of my shallow stalking grew a real friendship, along with an education that should have come years earlier.

Although I am no longer in Korea, I still follow Tae Ho on Instagram. On occasion, he and I banter using KakaoTalk emoticons, which seem to provide every feeling known to man. I have not found one, however, that captures the special appreciation I feel for him.

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Can anything good come from obsessing over a South Korean bodybuilder on social media? It took two hours and three buses to reach his gym. I was working a split shift at an English language academy in Seoul, leaving me a gap of five hours for taking a nap or traveling to his gym, where, given the long commute, I would barely have enough time to break a sweat.

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Covid-19: How to travel safely on the bus, train and subway

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Covid-19: How to travel safely on the bus, train and subway

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On the London Underground, the smartest commuters know hidden tricks to get from A to B. In the walking tunnels between station platforms, for example, non-signposted routes can offer shortcuts. And if you pick certain carriages, they'll deposit you exactly by the platform exit at your destination so you can zip ahead of the crowds.

Navigating public transport during the pandemic, however, is something that even the most experienced commuter has never faced before. Getting around quickly now feels much less important than getting around safely.

During the pandemic, public transport usage has plummeted. In London, buses in late August were running with just over half the number of travellers typical for this time of year, and the Tube carried only a third. But as lockdowns lift and offices reopen for many nations, many commuters are tentatively returning to trains, buses and subways.

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So, how might a savvy passenger reduce their risk? There are of course essential things you should do - wear a mask, avoid rush hours if you can, and follow physical distancing guidance in stations and onboard. Following local public health advice is the most important thing, and will reduce your risk significantly. ( Read more about how a face mask can help control Covid-19.)

But there are also less obvious measures that are worth knowing. Insights from transport research and passenger psychology can provide clues - as well as pointing to changes in how we will get around in the months ahead.
Ventilation and airflow matters
With a respiratory disease like Covid-19, the more people breathing, coughing and talking into the same air as you in a confined space, the more chance there is of being infected by the virus.

If you can cycle, walk or ride a scooter outside to get to work, that's your best option as there is more space to keep your distance from others.

Cars are obviously personally safer too, provided you stick to travelling with those in your own household. But if everyone drives it will lead to a "tragedy of the commons" effect of more traffic, and greater environmental cost, so it's difficult to recommend as a socially responsible choice. "Cars are very inefficient in using the urban infrastructure. If we all move in a car, nobody moves," says Carlo Ratti, director of the Senseable City Lab at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The more ventilation there is in your chosen form of transport, the better (Credit: Reuters)

If travelling by train, bus and subway, one factor to consider when plotting your route is how well your method of transport is ventilated, according to Nick Tyler, a transport researcher at University College London, who has modelled the way that the virus propagates through buses. "Outside, in the open air, droplets are dissipated in the air and the wind," he explains. "Once we're inside, you get much less movement."

Designs differ, but the more windows the better. For this reason, a deep subway is more difficult to ventilate than a train or bus at the surface. According to a 2018 study by Lara Gosce at University College London, people who used the London underground regularly were more likely to suffer flu-like symptoms than those that didn't.

Generally, public transport ventilation systems are less effective than those on aeroplanes. The air in planes is recirculated through sophisticated HEPA (High Efficiency Particulate Air) filters every few minutes, which should screen out most viral particles. "Aircraft ventilation gets a very bad press in many ways. It's actually one of the best systems you can find," says Tyler. And unlike many trains and buses, the air flow travels directly from the ceiling to the floor. This means that droplets will be pushed to the ground, away from hands and faces, more rapidly.

A New York subway car, by contrast, pushes air horizontally, and uses filters with a lower performance than planes, rated seven out of a scale of 20 in terms of screening efficiency. (You can dive deeper into the technical specs of filters in this interactive guide to the ventilation system on the NYC subway, which also shows the path of viral particles through the carriage.)
Silence is golden
When assessing your chosen form of transport, it is worth considering how much talking goes on inside - and how loudly.

Noisy environments, where people must lean in and shout to be heard, are higher risk than quieter spaces. It's thought to be one of the reasons why nightclubs, bars or meat-packing plants have experienced high levels of contagion.

So, a cacophonous train carriage with singing sports fans would therefore pose more risk than a bus of silent commuters reading their phones.

This diagram, recently published by researchers in the BMJ, captures these relative risks:

The risk of viral transmission varies depending on setting, occupation times, venting, and conversation levels (Credit: BMJ/Nicholas Jones et al/doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m3223)

Where to choose a seat
It's an often-quoted piece of New Yorker wisdom: "never get on an empty subway car". The implication is that you don't want to find why everyone has shunned that carriage - at best, a bad smell; at worst, you might get assaulted.

That advice will still hold for many - if you are a woman travelling at night, for example - but in the pandemic, avoiding crowds of fellow travellers is prudent if you can.

In addition to encouraging masks, many transport authorities have introduced signs and stickers that remind people to physically distance with their seat choice, but are there any other things to know about which seats to choose or avoid?

A recent Chinese study looked at how seating proximity affected transmission risk on trains. By tracing the journeys and seating of more than 2,000 people carrying the virus on China's high-speed train network between December 2019 and March 2020, they were able to see how the virus had moved between people.

Sitting in the same row, especially adjacent, carried the highest risk in this particular setting. It seems that the backrests between rows on the train type they looked at - a high-speed Chinese intercity train - may have provided something of a barrier. People sitting on the same row on an intercity journey may also have needed to pass each other at close quarters to visit the toilet or refreshments. (Importantly, though, the researchers couldn't rule out that transmission on rows was higher because people sitting adjacent are more likely to be family and friends, already in close contact.)

Longer journeys, perhaps unsurprisingly, increased the risk, even for those sitting a couple of rows away. After two hours, a distance of less than 2.5m, without a mask, was insufficient to prevent transmission, the researchers found. Somewhat reassuringly though, using the same seat previously held by a coronavirus carrier did not significantly increase risk of catching the virus.
Where to stand
A study on subway passenger behaviour in NYC suggests that people standing are more likely to hold on to vertical poles than other handholds, such as straps and ball-and-spring devices. Perhaps worth knowing if you want to avoid touching the most handled surfaces. Although the virus is thought to mainly be transmitted through the fine spray of aerosols and droplets we produce when we talk, breathe and cough, it can also be spread when we touch surfaces that have become contaminated with the virus and then put our fingers near our mouth or nose.

The researchers behind the subway study also found that New Yorkers deciding to stand were more likely to linger closer to the doors than elsewhere in the carriage, because of proximity to the exit, partitions to lean against, and the opportunity to avoid eye contact with seated passengers. So, lingering by the doors may have mixed benefits - it may be the among the best ventilated spaces, but also the busiest.

According to one study, men are more likely to stand than women (Credit: Getty Images)

Intriguingly, men were more likely to stand than women as carriages get busier. Perhaps it's old-fashioned social courtesy, or perhaps men simply prefer being on their feet. Yet if you consider the studies showing that men wash their hands less often than women, you may conclude it's better not to share a pole with a man who is more likely to have dirty palms. ( Read more about the relative risks of catching the coronavirus from touching surfaces.)
Unknowns ahead
While travelling regularly on public transport will involve a change in risk for individuals, at the moment it's not clear exactly how much. There is some cause for optimism as Christina Goldbaum recently reported for the New York Times: contract-tracing in Japan, France and Austria found no links between outbreaks and public transport networks.

Some mathematical models also suggest that well-ventilated public transport with common mask use is less risky than some other indoor environments such as a busy, stuffy bar. It's possible that short transit times, ventilation and the lack of talking among individual commuters (meaning fewer droplets) all help. But more evidence is needed.

What's clear is that returning to pre-pandemic ways simply won't work, at least for the foreseeable future. Buses in London, for example, have been capped at 30% carrying capacity, so if every bus rider returned to their office now, you'd need 2-3 times more buses running in rush hour to maintain social distancing, or people would face delays. And even when they arrived, a skyscraper worker might have to wait in a long line for the socially-distanced elevator, says Tyler.

Perhaps we should see this as an opportunity to rethink travel. "During times of change it is important to allow for experimentation in cities," says Ratti. "That ability to test something, see if it works and transform the city is something that we should preserve in the post-Covid-19 world."

So, while there are short-term ways to reduce your risk on public transport, a bigger question to ask ourselves is whether it's time to reassess how and when we get from A to B. What will city commuting look like after a year or two of focusing on safety, not capacity or speed? It's unknown, but for now, all we can do as travellers as hang on to something firm, and hope we arrive at a better destination.

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Covid-19: How to travel safely on the bus, train and subway

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On the London Underground, the smartest commuters know hidden tricks to get from A to B. In the walking tunnels between station platforms, for example, non-signposted routes can offer shortcuts. And if you pick certain carriages, they'll deposit you exactly by the platform exit at your destination so you can zip ahead of the crowds.

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Nano flats soared owing to loosening of open kitchen requirements in 2012

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Nano flats soared owing to loosening of open kitchen requirements in 2012

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How Shenzhen became China’s Silicon Valley

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How Shenzhen became China’s Silicon Valley

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By , , ,

It took the once sleepy fishing village of Shenzhen just four decades to turn itself into a thriving technology hub, arguably eclipsing its neighbour, Hong Kong, in the process. Here's how the two cities compare:

Explosive growth

Between 1979 and 2019 Shenzhen's gross domestic output grew to 2.69 trillion yuan, or roughly US$390 billion. That's an annual rate of 21.6 per cent. In 2018 the city's GDP was US$370 billion while Hong Kong's came to US$360 billion based on that year's official exchange rate, meaning Shenzhen's economy surpassed Hong Kong's for the first time. In comparison Hong Kong had a GDP of US$28.9 billion in 1980 and the second-largest stock exchange in Asia, behind only Tokyo.

Gross domestic product (US$ billion)

Foreign direct investment

FDI drove Shenzhen's early economic development with much of that funding coming from Hong Kong. In 2019 Hong Kong received US$53 billion in FDI, falling nearly 50 per cent compared with a year earlier due to the recent social unrest which has been compounded by the pandemic.

Foreign trade

In recent years Shenzhen's imports and exports have been powered by the city's booming hi-tech enterprises. In 2018, foreign trade volume of the southern Chinese metropolis increased by 7 per cent to 3 trillion yuan (US$442 billion) catapulting 12 private companies into the top 100 foreign trade enterprises in China.

Hong Kong however, has been recording trade deficits since the late 1990s, as imports grew more than exports. Until recently, the city has been reluctant to invest in innovative technology or other emerging industries and continues to rely on its core industries of finance, shipping, tourism and professional services despite diminishing returns.

Wholesale and retail sales

Shenzhen's consumer market is big. Very big. In 2018, total retail sales of consumer goods amounted to 616.9 billion yuan (US$90.3 billion), up 7.6 per cent from the previous year, compared to Hong Kong's HK$485.2 billion (US$62.61 billion).

Percentage contribution to GDP by wholesale and retail sales

Initial public offering

China is trying to adapt legislation to make it easier for tech start-ups to go public. ChiNext, a Nasdaq-like board launched a decade ago in Shenzhen, is home to 807 companies, with a total market capitalisation of 6.78 trillion yuan (US$958 billion). It recently debuted new rules to allow companies to participate in an IPO registration system much like public listings in the US.

Hong Kong remains the king of IPOs but has also been tweaking its IPO legislation after missing out on Alibaba in 2013 which was forced to list in the US instead.

Hi-tech

Shenzhen's hi-tech industrial development zone was set up in September 1996, originally occupying 11.5 sq km of land. Last year the government announced plans to expand the zone to 159.5 sq km to house an additional 2,000 hi-tech enterprises. The hi-tech industrial estates contributed 34 per cent of Shenzhen's GDP in 2018.

Key industries in Shenzhen

Why Shenzhen?

Being a special administrative region brings with it tax incentives and special policies and regulations; The Special Economic Zone policy allows foreign capital access to the Chinese market, offers benefits to the overseas investor, including a reduced level of taxes and exclusive regulations for foreign direct investments. It also helps those companies that have not been able to obtain profits through tax exemption, when the company becomes profitable, it can pay reduced taxes in the next five years.

Shenzhen is widely regarded as China's Silicon Valley. Tencent, which owns WeChat and social networking platform QQ was founded in Shenzhen. Other hi-tech companies headquartered there include BGI (China's largest genome company), BYD (electric cars and buses), Shunfeng (electronic commerce) as well as ZTE and Huawei (telecommunications).

Shenzhen has held the country's No 1 spot for registering the most patents over the past decade. In 2017, Shenzhen companies filed almost 20,000 applications, about half of all the patents in China outperforming Hong Kong companies, which only filed 13,299 applications that year.

To help entrepreneurs identify successful businesses and trial products before starting mass manufacturing, the Shenzhen government offers workshops incentives to prototype, test and validate new products in the dynamic local market.

Thanks to the city's creative and innovative environment there are an estimated 10,000 local start-ups. The city's workforce is well-educated, well-trained and with an average age of 33, it is native to digital technology.

The map below is based on an official government document of Shenzhen's hi-tech industrial estates from 2009-2015.

An upwards skyline

Shenzhen is home to the most high-rise buildings in China. Across the border, as Shenzhen continues to grow upwards, Hong Kong is building fewer and fewer skyscrapers. The government classifies about 40 per cent of Hong Kong as country parks which cannot be developed for property.

Real estate

China's overall economy has been badly hit by the coronavirus pandemic but investment in real estate continues apace, particularly in Shenzhen where prices increased by 17 per cent. It is now one of the five most expensive housing markets in the country.

Shenzhen's special economic status allows a more open domestic immigration policy meaning technology companies can attract top talent with young families from around China. Even Hong Kong's real estate market seems relatively stable compared to other sectors. There has recently been a flood of mainland money investing in the commercial property market after the national security law came into effect.

Percentage contribution to GDP by real estate

Speed of change

Fifty-six buildings over 145 metres tall were completed in Shenzhen in 2019, only three fewer than the previous year. It is estimated that a total of 51 buildings will be completed by the end of 2020.

Four decades ago, China's reformist leader, Deng Xiaoping, granted special economic zone status to strips of agricultural land in Shenzhen which made for less restrictive building and business regulations, as well as tax incentives for local and foreign companies. The city's rapid evolution into a manufacturing city, and then into the nation's hi-tech capital, has put a premium on land and ensured the city grows upwards as it adds ever more skyscrapers to the skyline.

The number of buildings over 300 metres tall in Hong Kong and Shenzhen

A total of 34 buildings over 300 metres tall were completed worldwide between 2018 and 2020. More than half of them are in China

However, real estate market analysts warn that in China the supply of offices continues to exceed demand. In Shanghai for example, the world's second-tallest building, the 128-storey, 632-metre Shanghai Tower completed in 2014, remains half empty.

Shenzhen is a little different from other Chinese cities in this regard because it is hemmed in to the north by a mountain range and to the south by the border with Hong Kong. The growing population between the city centre (which is concentrated along a narrow strip 6km wide) and Hong Kong is increasingly dense, with 7,400 people packed in per square metre.

Shenzhen continues to attract investment and human capital. In 2018 alone, the city of more than 16 million saw its population increase by almost 500,000 people. As integration in the Greater Bay Area continues to improve, Shenzhen has enhanced connectivity with Guangzhou, which has a population of 14 million, Foshan (7.1 million), Dongguan (8.2 million) and Hong Kong (7.5 million).

Number of high-rise buildings above 100 metres tall built in Shenzhen and Hong Kong over the last 40 years

Creative Director Darren Long

Sources: Shenzhen Bureau Of Statistics, Shenzhen Science and Technology Innovation Commission and Shenzhen Economic Daily, Forbes, skycrapercenter.com, skycraperpage.com, World Intellectual Property Organization, Australian Trade and Investment Commission, Abrazpe.org, Hong Kong Government, bayarea.gov.hk, China Briefing, MIT Technology Review, Hong Kong Trade Development Council

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Shenzhen: from fishing village to Silicon Valley of China in 40 years

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By , , , It took the once sleepy fishing village of Shenzhen just four decades to turn itself into a thriving technology hub, arguably eclipsing its neighbour, Hong Kong, in the process. Here's how the two cities compare: Between 1979 and 2019 Shenzhen's gross domestic output grew to 2.69 trillion yuan, or roughly US$390 billion.