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HKFP
23-05-2025
- HKFP
Hong Kong gov't demands MTRC report on 5-hour service disruption to Legislative Council
Hong Kong authorities have demanded that railway operator the MTR Corporation (MTRC) appear before the legislature on Monday to report on the five-hour service disruption during Thursday's rush hour. Train service on the Tseung Kwan O Line was completely halted for more than three hours starting around 5.14pm on Thursday following a 'power failure,' according to the MTRC on Thursday afternoon. Train service between Tiu Keng Leng and Yau Tong stations partially resumed at around 8.40pm, but the harbour-crossing section between North Point and Yau Tong stations remained suspended for nearly two more hours. Some passengers reported hearing a loud explosion on an MTR train travelling from Quarry Bay to Yau Tong shortly after 5pm on Thursday, according to Ming Pao. The service suspension caused passengers to be stranded at stations along the line, while road traffic was heavily disrupted. Train service was fully resumed at around 10.33pm, according to the MTRC. The company said in a statement, published shortly after 11pm, that the service failure was due to a 'power supply disruption' between North Point and Tiu Keng Leng stations. Secretary for Transport and Logistics Mable Chan said in a Facebook post at around 11pm that she was 'extremely concerned' about the 'multiple and consecutive incidents' happened with the MTR in recent months. Chan requested the MTRC to conduct a full inspection of its trains after service on Thursday and to ensure smooth operation on Friday morning. She also demanded that the MTRC attend a Legislative Council panel meeting on Monday to present a report on the incident. At a press conference shortly after service resumed, senior management members of the MTRC said the power supply disruption was caused by tripped circuit breakers in the electrical systems. 'Our preliminary investigation found that the relevant overhead cable had components showing signs of short circuits,' Lee Kim-hung, MTRC's chief of operations engineering maintenance, said in Cantonese. Lee said passengers had reported flashes, smoke, and noise outside the train as it was travelling between Quarry Bay and Yau Tong. He said that engineers at the MTRC believed these were also caused by the short circuits. Cheris Lee, chief of operating and metro segment of the MTRC, said the incident took place during rush hour and apologised for causing inconvenience to passengers. She added that around 130 staff were deployed to handle the incident. The service disruption on Thursday was the third incident this year to cause train delays. On February 5 and April 27, two separate incidents involving engineering trains caused service disruptions on the East Rail Line. The complete suspension on Thursday is expected to cost the MTRC tens of millions of dollars in penalties under a 'service performance rebate' mechanism, which was revamped in 2023. The mechanism states that the MTRC will have to pay HK$9.6 million for any delay of up to four hours during rush hour, and that any additional hour of delay will cost the company an extra HK$4.8 million. The money will be refunded to passengers through a fare promotion.
Express Tribune
20-05-2025
- Business
- Express Tribune
Xiaomi XRING 01: Chinese company unveils flagship chip, commits $6.9B investment in industry
Xiaomi has announced a major advancement in its semiconductor ambitions with the unveiling of its in-house XRING 01 system-on-chip (SoC), manufactured on a 3-nanometre (nm) process. This makes Xiaomi the first Chinese company to develop a smartphone chip using 3nm technology, according to Chinese media outlet Ming Pao. The announcement was made by Xiaomi Founder and CEO Lei Jun via Chinese social platform Weibo on Monday. The XRING 01 is reportedly manufactured by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), placing Xiaomi alongside Apple, Samsung and Huawei as the fourth smartphone brand globally to design its own mobile SoC using 3nm technology. In a parallel strategic move, Xiaomi also revealed plans to invest 50 billion yuan (approximately $6.94 billion) in chip development over the next decade. The long-term investment, which begins in 2025, underscores the company's commitment to reducing reliance on foreign semiconductor suppliers amid global supply chain shifts and geopolitical pressures. A Xiaomi spokesperson confirmed the investment figure to the Wall Street Journal, stating the funds will be directed towards advancing proprietary chip design and related R&D initiatives. According to The Daily Star, Xiaomi has already allocated 13.5 billion yuan to research and development for the XRING 01 chip, supported by a team of over 2,500 employees. The chip marks the company's latest attempt to enter the competitive semiconductor landscape, following the underwhelming performance of its first chip, the Surge S1, launched in 2017. As part of its broader product strategy, Xiaomi is set to unveil several new devices this week in conjunction with its 15th anniversary celebrations. According to GSMArena, the company will launch the Xiaomi 15S Pro smartphone, Xiaomi Pad 7 Ultra tablet and its first electric SUV, the YU7, on 22 May. The XRING 01 chip launch positions Xiaomi as a serious contender in the global semiconductor race, as Chinese tech firms intensify efforts to build self-sufficient supply chains amid mounting international scrutiny.
HKFP
19-05-2025
- Politics
- HKFP
Removing Ombudsman's archive discredits gov't watchdog, deals blow to Hong Kong public accountability
On May 16, Ming Pao newspaper reported that the Ombudsman, the Hong Kong government watchdog, had removed years of investigation reports, annual reports, mediation examples, and press releases from its website. In total, officials took down at least 230 investigation reports going back to 2013, which were still available as of mid-April, according to Ming Pao. Currently, only investigation reports from 2023-24 onwards remain accessible online. The cutoff date is arbitrary and unjustified. Removing the archive is a major blow to Hong Kong's system of public accountability and discredits the office of the Ombudsman. Officials established the Ombudsman in 1989, then called the Commissioner for Administrative Complaints, mostly to examine public complaints of maladministration against public organisations, including government departments. In 2001, authorities made the Ombudsman relatively independent of government. Removing the archive of Ombudsman reports impacts many stakeholders. First, the reports serve the government in its quest for efficient and effective policy delivery. For example, officials selected into new positions (e.g., administrative and executive officers) can quickly identify from the archive those long-standing issues of public concern and how officials have tried to manage them previously. Second, the archive serves the Legislative Council (LegCo) in its quest to hold the government to account. Third, journalists use Ombudsman-generated data to investigate issues that matter to the public. Fourth, academics use the archive to understand the behaviour of public officials and politicians: how they set agendas, address public problems, avoid blame, and so forth. Academics also use the archive to produce realistic teaching cases because the reports are thorough, reliable, relevant, and contain practical recommendations for improvement. Finally, the public, which expects transparent and accountable government, relies on the reports to understand the extent to which and how authorities handle their complaints. The reports affect the government's reputation. On the one hand, we see cases of shirking, exploiting loopholes, mismanaging unanticipated consequences, and the persistence of wicked problems. On the other hand, as the government accepts the recommendations, we see officials' efforts to improve public services and the authorities living up to their commitment to be open and transparent. Given so many stakeholders, we need easy and direct access to the complete corpus of Ombudsman reports, which should be accessible and provided on the Ombudsman's website. On this site, the reports have been easily searchable, which serves the public interest. I have used the archive to draft public administration teaching cases. The cases mainly focus on problems of cross-departmental policy coordination, lack of enforcement, and legislative loopholes. The issues involved may seem trivial: drying laundry in public places, obstructing roadside waste skips, haphazardly dumping construction, mismanaging market stalls, and ignoring illegal, potentially dangerous structures on village houses. However, the reports point out how departments have passed the buck, not taken responsibility, and how officials and citizens both exploit legislative loopholes. The issues not only annoy residents but also cause frustration, dissatisfaction, and disputes both among citizens and between citizens and government departments. From these reports, we can judge the extent to which government departments learn, improve, and become sensitive to problems previously ignored. Insofar as they do, these are good stories for Hong Kong. With only reports from 2023-24 onwards available, neither the public nor LegCo may be aware that some recent problems have long histories. Take tree management in Hong Kong. In a still available report, the Ombudsman reported that from 2018 to 2022, the government received 24,000 complaints about trees. This is an astonishing number. Of these complaints, 3 to 5 per cent involved disputes among government departments over which agency was responsible. No longer available are two reports completed in 2016 and another in 2019 on the same issue. These reports indicate that mismanaging trees has been a continuing public irritation. Remember, falling trees have killed pedestrians in Hong Kong. Yet to understand what is going on now, this background is essential. Surely LegCo members, journalists, and the public need easy and direct access to the older reports. As is now well known, officials in Hong Kong do not bind themselves by law to establishing and maintaining archives. Thus, whether to maintain archives at all is entirely discretionary. No other place in the world operates this way. Public accountability and efficient, effective administration require the clarity, certainty, continuity, and stability of archives managed by law. As late as 2018, the government declared that 'as far as possible' it sought to be publicly accountable, open and transparent. So, here is an easy win for the authorities. Restore easy access to the archive of Ombudsman's reports and eliminate yet another source of dissatisfaction. And then, draft and implement an archives law to bring this part of public governance in Hong Kong into the 21st century. HKFP is an impartial platform & does not necessarily share the views of opinion writers or advertisers. HKFP presents a diversity of views & regularly invites figures across the political spectrum to write for us. Press freedom is guaranteed under the Basic Law, security law, Bill of Rights and Chinese constitution. Opinion pieces aim to point out errors or defects in the government, law or policies, or aim to suggest ideas or alterations via legal means without an intention of hatred, discontent or hostility against the authorities or other communities.
HKFP
14-05-2025
- Politics
- HKFP
Hong Kong lawmakers, councillors, residents oppose NGO's plan to open homeless shelter in Cheung Sha Wan
Hong Kong lawmakers, district councillors, and residents have opposed an NGO's application to open a homeless shelter in Cheung Sha Wan, citing concerns such as 'hygiene' and 'security.' The opposition comes after ImpactHK, an NGO that helps and supports street sleepers in the city, applied to the Lands Department to lease government land to open and run a homeless shelter in Cheung Sha Wan. According to a consultation paper the Lands Department sent to district councillors and residents, the location proposed by ImpactHK is at the intersection of Sham Mong Road and Sham Shing Road, Ming Pao reported on Tuesday. There are four private residential estates a few minutes' walk from the proposed location: Liberté, Pacifica, Banyan Garden, and Aqua Marine – known as the 'four little dragons of Cheung Sha Wan.' Rebecca Chan, a pro-establishment lawmaker, said on Facebook that she opposed the NGO's application because the selected site was 'extremely not ideal.' 'The location is close to residential areas, schools and shopping malls. In this crowded area, it will easily raise residents' concerns over hygiene, noise, and security,' she wrote in Chinese. People left comments on Chan's Facebook post, supporting her and thanking her for 'speaking up for the residents in the district.' 'Property prices have decreased. With this [homeless shelter] close to private residential estates, fewer people will want to buy or rent units in those estates,' one wrote, adding that they will also 'have to worry about security issues.' Lawmaker Vincent Cheng of the city's largest pro-establishment party, the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB); pro-establishment lawmaker Scott Leung; and district councillors Chan Kwok-wai and Theresa Chum also joined in opposing the NGO's application. The three legislators – Chan, Cheng, and Leung – posted on Facebook that they met with Under Secretary for Labour and Welfare Ho Kai-ming and Under Secretary for Development David Lam to convey the residents' objections. HKFP has reached out to the Labour and Welfare Bureau for comment. 'Don't stigmatise street sleepers' Ng Wai-tung, a social worker at local NGO Society for Community Organisation (SoCO), told Ming Pao on Tuesday that members of the public should not stigmatise street sleepers. The goal of a homeless shelter is to provide transitional accommodation for street sleepers before they are allocated a public housing unit, he said. Moreover, homeless shelters usually impose strict rules, including no smoking, no drinking, and no gambling, he added. According to the Social Welfare Department, as of last October, there were 606 street sleepers registered with authorities. The real number of homeless people is likely to be higher, Ng told HKFP in February, because many street sleepers do not want to be registered. By SoCO's own estimates, there are around 1,500 homeless people in Hong Kong. However, the number of beds in homeless shelters subsidised by the government increased by only 26 over more than a decade, from 202 in 2011 to 228 in 2024, Ng told Ming Pao.
Yahoo
31-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Has Mark Carney lost his mind?
Mark Carney has only been Canada's prime minister since March 14. Yet in that short period of time, he has made an unusually high number of blunders. Carney is politically inexperienced. He acted arrogantly and was curt with several reporters. He is reported to have a 'volcanic' temper. He has often appeared distant and impersonal on the campaign trail. He's been involved in awkward photo-ops. He backed out of a French-language debate. We can now add something else. Carney has shown incredibly poor judgement by defending a candidate who appeared to support the collection of a financial bounty placed on the head of a political rival by a foreign power. Extraordinary, but true. Paul Chiang, a Liberal MP and parliamentary secretary to the minister of diversity and inclusion, suggested that Canadians collect the $183,000 (CDN) bounty the Hong Kong police have placed on Conservative candidate Joe Tay's head. (Chiang and Tay are running in different ridings.) This is reported to have happened during a January news conference with Chinese-language media that wasn't widely covered elsewhere. According to the Ming Pao newspaper, Chiang said it would be a 'great controversy' if Tay was elected with this foreign criminal charge looming over him. He then made this reprehensible statement: 'If you can take him to the Chinese Consulate General in Toronto, you can get the million-dollar reward.' The audience reportedly laughed. Was he really joking? To make matters worse, Chiang is a retired 28-year police veteran. If anyone should know better than to make this type of disgusting and dangerous remark, it's a former police officer. Chiang claimed he spoke with Tay on Monday to 'personally apologise'. He called it a 'terrible lapse of judgement' and said 'it will never happen again.' He also made a public apology on X, saying that the comments he made were 'deplorable'. But Tay was having none of this. Chiang had 'made an unsolicited attempt to contact me' the previous evening, he wrote on March 31, 'and has posted on social media that he offered me an apology.' Tay stated, 'I want to be clear: no apology is sufficient.' Moreover, he pointed out that 'suggesting that people collect a bounty from the Chinese Communist Party to deliver a political opponent to the Chinese consulate is disgusting and must never be condoned'. He said that Carney should 'fire' Chiang as a candidate. Carney will be doing nothing of the sort, it seems. Although the PM acknowledged he was 'deeply offended' by Chiang's comments, he suggested this episode could serve as a 'teachable moment'. He also said, 'He's made his apology. He's made it to the public, he's made it to the individual concerned, he's made it directly to me, and he's going to continue with his candidacy. He has my confidence.' Has Carney lost his mind? Does he crave political power to the point that he can't do the right thing and remove a candidate who has behaved reprehensibly? What could possibly justify keeping him as a Liberal candidate for the forthcoming election? There's nothing teachable here. It's unforgivable. Moreover, how will Carney stand up for Canada's safety, security and independence with US president Donald Trump when he can't even take on Communist China and fire a Liberal candidate who effectively supported a CCP-endorsed bounty? This controversy comes in the context of recent accusations that Carney secured a more than $250 million (CDN) loan for his former company, Brookfield Asset Management, from the Bank of China last November. 'How do we know he's not going to act against our interests in favour of his financial interest?,' Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre asked. Carney has rejected accusations that he is indebted to China. But the questions don't seem to be going away. Michael Taube, a columnist for the National Post, Troy Media and Loonie Politics, was a speechwriter for former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
