No need to merge Hong Kong's RTHK with government press department: minister
Hong Kong's commerce minister has rejected a lawmaker's suggestion to merge public broadcaster RTHK with the government's press department, saying there were no overlaps in job responsibilities.
Advertisement
RTHK also came under fire on Wednesday over its staffing levels, with lawmaker Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee calling for in-depth reforms at the broadcaster and better use of artificial intelligence to improve efficiency.
Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Algernon Yau Ying-wah was responding to lawmaker Junius Ho Kwan-yiu's question on the possibility of merging RTHK with the Information Services Department to cut down on government spending.
The government is set to record a HK$87.2 billion (US$11.2 billion) deficit for the past financial year, and the finance chief has vowed to cut government spending by 7 per cent over the coming three years.
'The two organs have different requirements in the nature of work, skills and experience. Merging them may not be the most effective way to streamline and save resources,' Yau told lawmakers at the Legislative Council meeting.
Advertisement
'On the contrary, the merger may confuse the public about RTHK's role as a public broadcaster and the Information Services Department's role in promoting government public relations, which could have a counterproductive effect on the government's overall public relations efforts.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Asia Times
42 minutes ago
- Asia Times
Ukraine's Operation Spider Web redefined the front lines of war
A series of blasts at airbases deep inside Russia on June 1, 2025, came as a rude awakening to Moscow's military strategists. The Ukrainian strike at the heart Russia's strategic bombing capability could also upend the traditional rules of war: It provides smaller military a blueprint for countering a larger nation's ability to launch airstrikes from deep behind the front lines. Ukraine's Operation Spider Web involved 117 remote-controlled drones that were smuggled into Russia over an 18-month period and launched toward parked aircraft by operators miles away. The raid destroyed or degraded more than 40 Tu-95, Tu-160 and Tu-22 M3 strategic bombers, as well as an A-50 airborne-early-warning jet, according to officials in Kyiv. That would represent roughly one-third of Russia's long-range strike fleet and about US$7 billion in hardware. Even if satellite imagery ultimately pares back those numbers, the scale of the damage is hard to miss. The logic behind the strike is even harder to ignore. Traditional modern military campaigns revolve around depth. Warring nations try to build combat power in relatively safe 'rear areas' — logistics hubs that are often hundreds, if not thousands, of miles from the front line. These are the places where new military units form and long-range bombers, like those destroyed in Ukraine's June 1 operation, reside. Since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Kremlin has leaned heavily on its deep-rear bomber bases — some over 2,000 miles from the front in Ukraine. It has paired this tactic with launching waves of Iranian-designed Shahed attack drones to keep Ukrainian cities under nightly threat. The Russian theory of victory is brutally simple: coercive airpower. If missiles and one-way drones fall on Kyiv often enough, civilian morale in Ukraine will crack, even as the advance of Russian ground forces gets bogged down on the front line. For Kyiv's military planners, destroying launch platforms undercuts that theory far more cheaply than the only other alternative: intercepting every cruise missile in flight, which to date has achieved an 80% success rate but relies heavily on Western-donated equipment coming increasingly in short supply. Airfields have always been critical targets in modern warfare, the logic being that grounded bombers and fighters are more vulnerable and easier to hit. In the North African desert during World War II, the United Kingdom's Special Air Service used jeep raids and delayed-action explosives to knock out an estimated 367 enemy aircraft spread across North Africa — firepower the Luftwaffe never regenerated. That same year, German paratroopers seized the airstrips on Crete, denying the British Royal Air Force a forward base and tipping an entire island campaign. A generation later in Vietnam, Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army assault teams armed with satchel charges and mortars repeatedly penetrated US perimeters at Phan Rang, Da Nang and Bien Hoa, burning fighters on the ramp and forcing the diversion of thousands of American soldiers to base security. The underlying playbook of hitting aircraft on the ground remains effective because it imposes cascading costs. Every runway cratered and every bomber torched obliges the military hit to pour money into ways to frustrate such attacks, be it hardened shelters or the dispersal of squadrons across multiple bases. Such air attacks also divert fighters from the front lines to serve as guards. US soldiers look at wreckage of an Air Force B-57 Canberra bomber after Viet Cong mortars destroyed 21 planes at Bien Hoa airbase in 1964. AP Photo via The Conversation In Operation Spider Web, Ukraine has sought to repeat that strategy while also leveraging surprise to achieve psychological shock and dislocation. But the Ukraine operation taps into a uniquely 21st-century aspect of warfare. The advent of unmanned drone warfare has increasingly seen military practitioners talk of 'air littorals' — military speak for the slice of atmosphere that sits above ground forces yet below the altitude where high-performance fighters and bombers traditionally roam. Drones thrive in this region, where they bypass most infantry weapons and fly too low for traditional radar-guided defenses to track reliably, despite being able to incapacitate targets like fuel trucks or strategic bombers. By smuggling small launch teams of drones within a few miles of each runway, Kyiv created pop-up launchpads deep into Russia and were able to catch the enemy off guard and unprepared. The economic benefits of Ukraine's approach are stark. Whereas a drone, a lithium-battery and a warhead cost well under $3,000, a Russian Tu-160 bomber costs in the region of $250 million. Ukraine's Operation Spider Web will have immediate and costly consequences for Russia, even if the strikes end up being less destructive than Kyiv currently claims. Surviving bombers will need to be relocated. Protecting bases from repeat attacks will mean erecting earthen revetments, installing radar-guided 30 mm cannons and electronic-warfare jammers to cover possible attack vectors. This all costs money. Even more importantly, the operation will divert trained soldiers and technicians who might otherwise rotate to the front line in support of the coming summer offensive. Russian MiG-31bm fighter jets, a Tu-160 strategic bomber and an Il-78 aerial refueling tanker fly over Moscow during a rehearsal for the WWII Victory Parade on May 4, 2022. Photo: Kirill Kudryavtsev / AFP via Getty Images The raid also punches a hole in Russia's nuclear weapons capabilities. Losing as many as a dozen Tu-95 and Tu-160 aircraft, which double as nuclear-capable bombers, would be strategically embarrassing and may prod the Kremlin to rethink the frequency of long-range air patrols. Beyond the physical and financial damage to Russia's fleet, Ukraine's operation also comes with a potent psychological effect. It signals that Ukraine, more than three years into a war aimed at grinding down morale, is able to launch sophisticated operations deep into Russian territory. Ukraine's security service operation unfolded in patient, granular steps: 18 months of smuggling disassembled drones and batteries across borders inside innocuous cargo, weeks of quietly reassembling kits, and meticulous scouting of camera angles to ensure that launch trucks would be indistinguishable from normal warehouse traffic on commercial satellite imagery. Operators drove those trucks to presurveyed firing points and then deployed the drones at treetop height. Because each of the drones was a one-way weapon, a dozen pilots could work in parallel either close to the launch site or remotely, steering live-video feeds toward parked bombers. Videos of the strike suggest multiple near-simultaneous impacts across wide swaths of runway — enough to swamp any ad hoc small-arms response from perimeter guards. For Ukraine, the episode demonstrates a repeatable method for striking deep, well-defended assets. The same playbook can, in principle, be adapted to missile storage depots and, more importantly, factories across Russia mass-producing Shahed attack drones. Kyiv has needed to find a way to counter the waves of drones and ballistic missile strikes that in recent months have produced more damage than Russian cruise missiles. The Center for Strategic and International Studies' Firepower Strike Tracker has shown that Shaheds are now the most frequent and most cost-effective air weapon in Russia's campaign. But the implications of Operation Spider Web go far beyond the Russia-Ukraine conflict by undermining the old idea that rear areas are safe. Comparatively inexpensive drones, launched from inside Russia's own territory, wiped out aircraft that cost billions and underpin Moscow's long-range strike and nuclear signaling. That's a strategy than can be easily replicated by other attackers against other countries. Anyone who can smuggle, hide and pilot small drones can sabotage an adversary's ability to generate air attacks. Air forces that rely on large, fixed bases must either harden, disperse or accept that their runway is a new front line. Benjamin Jensen is professor of strategic studies at the Marine Corps University School of Advanced Warfighting and scholar-in-residence, American University School of International Service This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
RTHK
2 hours ago
- RTHK
Exchanges should be without boundaries or tariffs: CE
Exchanges should be without boundaries or tariffs: CE Chief Executive John Lee underscored Hong Kong's commitment to remain a tariff- and barrier-free market as it pushes for more advances in innovation and technology. Photo: RTHK Chief Executive John Lee on Saturday told a high-powered international forum that free and open international exchanges – without boundaries or tariffs – are key to innovation and growth. Speaking at a science, technology and innovation forum under the Boao Forum for Asia, the CE said the SAR is committed to free and open collaboration with different governments and organisations. "For innovation to thrive, it must be rooted in international cooperation. The exchange of knowledge, talent and ideas should be open and free, without borders, without boundaries, without tariffs," Lee said. "[As] a long-standing champion of multilateralism and a rules-based global economy, Hong Kong is deeply committed to building collaboration among governments, businesses and academic institutions everywhere." He said with the nation's unwavering support, Hong Kong has made progress in innovation and technology, and a continuing drive to further research and development will help the city advance in frontier industries. "We stand at the consequential crossroads in human history, a moment where artificial intelligence and health technology converge not just as tools, but the architects of our evolution into the new era of development," Lee said. "Hong Kong is committed to the development of these frontier industries." Lee added that the Hong Kong part of the Hetao cooperation zone with Shenzhen is expected to be operational within this year.
RTHK
3 hours ago
- RTHK
'Progress made' in Japan-US tariff talks
'Progress made' in Japan-US tariff talks Ryosei Akazawa says some progress has been made in tariff talks ahead of the G7 summit later this month. File photo: Reuters Japan has made some progress in a fifth round of trade talks with US officials aimed at ending tariffs that are hurting Japan's economy, according to Tokyo's chief tariff negotiator. "Tariffs have already been imposed on autos, auto parts, steel and aluminum, and some of them have doubled to 50 percent along with 10 percent general tariff. These are causing daily losses to Japan's economy," Ryosei Akazawa, said in Washington on Friday after talks with officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Akazawa declined to say what progress they had made. The latest round of talks may be the last in-person meeting between senior Japanese and US officials before the Group of Seven (G7) leaders summit that starts on June 15, where US President Donald Trump is expected to meet Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba. Japan also faces a 24 percent tariff rate starting in July unless it can negotiate a deal with Washington. "We want an agreement as soon as possible. The G7 summit is on our radar, and if our leaders meet, we want to show what progress has been made," Akazawa said. "Still we must balance urgency with a need to guard our national interests," he added. Last month Japan's trade negotiator said US defence equipment purchases, shipbuilding technology collaboration, a revision of automobile import standards and an increase in agricultural imports could be bargaining chips in tariff talks. In a bid to reach an agreement with the US, Japan is also proposing a mechanism to reduce the auto tariff rate based on how much countries contribute to the US auto industry, the Asahi newspaper reported on Friday. Akazawa said Japan's position has not changed and that the tariffs are not acceptable. (Reuters)
