NGOs and rights advocates say a new screening mechanism put in place nearly a year ago is not doing enough to help people seeking asylum in Hong Kong.
There are echoes in Hong Kong's 'umbrella movement' of the Euromaidan street protests in Ukraine against an unpopular leader, but also obvious differences, starting with what both achieved. Words and pictures by Joyce Man.
Joyce Man says Beijing's decision on democracy has dashed hopes in her hometown Hong Kong - and now many people, including her, will consider leaving the city they love.
Language courses allow visitors to soak up Germany's culture while honing a useful skill - and if it all becomes a bit too much, a beer garden is never far away. Joyce Man reports.
A girl of about five shocked passengers on the MTR on Tuesday night as she squatted and urinated on a train before alighting with her mother, who appeared to do little to stop her.
Investment in residential property in Germany rose 84 per cent to €11.25 billion (HK$108.5 billion) last year compared to a year earlier, according to a CBRE report. The first quarter of this year saw transaction volumes fall by 36 per cent to €1.66 billion compared to the previous quarter due to short supply, but that was still the highest quarterly result since the Lehman Brothers minibond crisis of 2008.
"If you analyse the last 10 years, the thinking in China has shifted more and more towards renewables. I see that renewables are getting to the markets quicker than expected and nuclear energy is getting to the markets slower than expected," said Karsten Sach, deputy director general for European and international environment policy at the German Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety.
Henry Tang Ying-yen pledged support for his wife yesterday as she appeared in court over alleged breaches of buildings regulations in relation to a basement in their Kowloon Tong home.
While the dockers' strike has shown the determination of some unionists, government's cosiness with bosses means scales are tipped against them. The public has rallied to the striking workers' cause, with donations of more than HK$5.3 million and shows of support in the form of protests and pledges to boycott ParknShop supermarkets which, like Hongkong International Terminals, is part of tycoon Li Ka-shing's empire.
A few hours after they set up tents outside the building's main entrance in Central, contractor Global Stevedoring Service said in a statement it "honestly cannot offer [the] 20 per cent rise" demanded by the strikers.
Tourism Australia has received nearly 11,000 applications from Hongkongers eager to nail one of six coveted jobs Down Under. The call for entries to the "Best Jobs in the World" competition ended on Wednesday.
A South African tourist who pulled a driver out of a taxi he had hired during the Rugby Sevens and drove off got a two-month suspended sentence yesterday after pleading guilty to drink-driving and other charges.
With more court cases being heard in Chinese, lawyers who know only English say the amount of work available for them has dropped, causing some to earn less, go into early retirement or move abroad.
A judge asked yesterday why he should accede to TVB's request to intervene in ongoing government deliberations on the issuance of new licences for free-television stations.
A judge yesterday rejected businessman Carson Yeung Ka-sing's legal challenge over the venue of his upcoming money-laundering trial as "frivolous" and an abuse of process. Yeung, the owner of English football club Birmingham City, is due to stand trial in the District Court on April 29 for alleged money laundering of more than HK$720 million.
The city has accepted its first torture claim since enhancing its screening system four years ago, a move that advocates of asylum seekers view as good news, yet far from sufficient.
A giant duck reminiscent of a childhood toy is paddling its way round the world, bringing a message of harmony without borders. It "knows no frontiers, doesn't discriminate against people and doesn't have a political connotation", said its creator, Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman.
An unemployed man appeared in court yesterday morning charged with murdering his parents, along with another unemployed man, in whose home the killings allegedly occurred. Henry Chau Hoi-leung, 29, and Tse Chun-kei, 35, entered no pleas at Kowloon City Court.
MHCS SCS has sought an injunction against international wine auctioneer Acker Merrall & Condit Asia to stop the wine auctioneer from infringing on its trademark for Krug champagne.
The principle of not sending a person to a place where he may be persecuted is "beyond doubt" customary international law, the UN refugee agency says. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees weighed in yesterday at the hearing of three African men who were making their last attempt to challenge the way the city vetted refugee claims.
The Buildings Department appears to have done little to improve its inspection system three years after the collapse of a To Kwa Wan tenement that killed four people, critics say.
Three African men have taken their challenge against Hong Kong's system for vetting refugee claims to the highest court, arguing that the government must assess the applications itself rather than passing the responsibility to the UNHCR.
The National Day ferry disaster inquiry is investigating when the wires were cut to two lights onboard the Lamma IV. Paul Shieh Wing-tai SC, the counsel for the commission of inquiry, yesterday said wires to a masthead and an anchor light had been found cut.
A witness in a champerty case against a local lawyer has been accused by the prosecution of lying in court under instigation. The defence witness, Chan Chi-cheung, 21, was yesterday testifying at barrister Louie Mui Kwok-keung's trial.
A 77-year-old repairman was yesterday found to have breached building regulations for work he did at a To Kwa Wan tenement which collapsed in January 2010, killing four people. Chu Wai-wing faced a summons under the Buildings Ordinance accusing him of carrying out work likely to cause injury to people and damage to property. He was found to be in breach at Kowloon City Court following a trial. He had pleaded not guilty.
Three years after a deadly building collapse, the victims of Ma Tau Wai Road are still picking up the pieces. On the afternoon of January 29, 2010, residents in Block J at 45 Ma Tau Wai Road thought an earthquake had struck. Moments later there was a deafening boom and the five-storey building crumbled in a plume of dust. Four people died - student Tong Qingtao, 20, optician Choy Tao-keung, 40, and sex workers Lo Kin-wa, 46, and Li Qunzhen, 37.
Sales of hotel rooms as residential flats will cut the city's supply of accommodation and harm tourism, the Tourism Board has warned. The comment came after property giant Cheung Kong started on Monday to sell rooms in its Apex Horizon suite hotel in Kwai Chung. Buyers do not pay stamp duty on commercial property.
The Real Estate Developers Association has accused the Town Planning Board of "micro-management" and failing to properly consider its views on four draft zoning plans. The association yesterday applied to the Court of First Instance for a judicial review of the draft plans.
A magistrate yesterday jailed for eight months a man who doused a dog in paint thinner and set it alight, saying it was the worst case of animal cruelty he had seen in 20 years on the bench. Computer technician Mok Chung-ting, 30, earlier pleaded guilty to one count of cruelty to an animal at Tuen Mun Court for setting fire to the six-year-old mongrel, named Siu Wong. The pet dog had to be put down.
The Caritas Medical Centre had been battling to rid its wards of VRE, or vancomycin-resistant enterococci. It had found more than 100 carriers of the superbug.
"The Wonders of Ancient Mesopotamia" - which explores the period from 3,500BC to 539BC of the area that today includes parts of Iraq, Syria and Turkey - showcases objects from the British Museum's Middle East Department. It is the first time Hong Kong has held an exhibition of Mesopotamian artefacts.
A 16-year-old girl was jailed for six years and seven months on Thursday, after pleading guilty to trafficking 590 grams of the drug ketamine disguised as packages of tea.
A businessman was found guilty on Wednesday of unleashing “highly reckless” cyberattacks on a stock exchange website last year.
More than 60 hillside fires were reported to government fire services on Tuesday, as grave-sweepers burned offerings at cemeteries across the city for the Chung Yeung festival.
Dozens of people gathered at Kwai Chung Public Mortuary by 10am on Tuesday morning, looking for relatives who went missing in the Lamma ferry disaster.
