And the gold medal for taking credit goes to …
Politicians are notorious for taking credit for achievements they had little to do with but we wonder how Leung Chun-ying justified listing the efforts of Hong Kong athletes among his personal achievements.
Politicians are notorious for taking credit for achievements they had little to do with but we wonder how Leung Chun-ying justified listing the efforts of Hong Kong athletes among his personal achievements. There they were in the chief executive's annual report demonstrating his "diligence" and "progress made by government" - along with an exhibition of royal attire and another about dinosaurs. "Hong Kong athletes took part in a number of major events in 2013, including the Asian Youth Games in Nanjing , the National Games in Shenyang and the East Asian Games in Tianjin . They achieved outstanding results, winning a total of 83 medals: 13 gold, 24 silver and 46 bronze medals for these three events alone," the report noted. Also rating a mention were major exhibitions such as a costume show jointly organised by Beijing's Palace Museum and "Legends of the Giant Dinosaurs", which attracted a record-breaking 770,000 visitors. There was, however, no mention of one of the year's banner (or at least mostly highly publicised) events: the long-delayed expansion of the free-to-air television market. Perhaps the controversy over the exclusion of Ricky Wong Wai-Kay's Hong Kong Television Network in favour of established players iCable and PCCW was still too sore a point.
Chinese microblogging site Weibo - which has hundreds of millions of registered voters - is known for its censorship; it is almost impossible for politically incorrect threads to break the firewall. Outspoken singers Anthony Wong Yiu-ming and Wyman Wong Wai-man had their accounts blocked last week due to their support for Occupy Central's unofficial vote on electoral reform. Yesterday, pan-democratic lawmaker Cyd Ho Sau-lan was also blocked - by US-based Facebook. "I uploaded comments on the democracy march last week and the ongoing referendum. I didn't even mention the July 1 pro-democracy rally," she said. But Ho does not believe the official censors were behind it. "I guess some netizens reported my account to Facebook. Perhaps I have too many enemies," she said. "But they should not do this just because they disagree with my stance."
Hunger strikers can often count on the encouragement of friends and supporters in their efforts to bring their pet issues to public attention. But pro-government activist Leticia Lee See-yin - who passed out and was taken to hospital last night after a three-day fast outside government headquarters - may well be wondering: "With friends like these, who needs enemies?" Those encouraging Lee, who was protesting against a lack of action to stop Occupy Central and its unofficial referendum, included a group of teenagers, who brought soft drinks and potato chips and gathered near her tent on Monday to "support" Lee - in case hunger pangs overcame her resolve. Internet users also flocked around the area in Admiralty yesterday morning to join a "campaign in support of a balanced diet", organised by a Facebook group. The biggest blow to her morale, however, may have come when Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying clarified on Tuesday that the people who voted in Occupy Central's so-called referendum would face no criminal liability, despite Beijing mouthpiece the newspaper describing the unofficial vote as "illegal".
