Pro-establishment lawmakers on Legco's House Committee have snubbed the decision of pan-democrats in a lower body to investigate the troubled Digital Broadcasting Corporation. The mainly pan-democratic panel on information technology and broadcasting had earlier passed a motion to set up a select committee that will check claims of Beijing's interference in DBC. The motion was voted down yesterday in the House Committee by 36 lawmakers, including the pro-government Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong. Only 25 lawmakers supported it.
The Hong Kong government's office in Beijing is looking into the arrest of a Hong Kong businesswoman for petitioning, at the urging of lawmaker "Long Hair" Leung Kwok-hung. Han Suhua, 59, tried to commit suicide after she was arrested last month for petitioning outside Zhongnanhai - the leadership compound in Beijing - against her former husband. She says he took all her savings when they divorced. After her arrest she was transferred to an illegal detention camp in Zhengzhou . Leung wrote to the Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau, urging it to secure Han's release.
A solicitor and the wife of a former executive director of Natural Dairy (NZ) Holdings, a mainland-based company, appeared in Eastern Court accused of laundering up to HK$68 million and HK$230.9 million in criminal proceeds. No plea was taken and Acting Principal Magistrate Bina Chainrai adjourned the case to November 23 in the District Court. Wu Wing-kit, 56, was on cash bail of HK$100,000, while Ye Fang, a 41-year-old housewife, was granted bail of HK$500,000 in cash and a surety of HK$500,000. The couple were ordered to live at their reported homes and not to leave the city without giving 24 hours' notice to the Independent Commission Against Corruption.