Democracy advocates in Hong Kong clashed with a pro-Beijing group on Sunday at a public forum, renewing a personal curiosity of mine over whether that city has ever held a political public forum that hasn't devolved into a shouting match with histrionics only monkeys could enjoy.
But we digress. The above picture. That.
It's only five minutes and the acting is notional, but Verax is officially the first dramatization featuring NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. The film, made by Hong Kong-based videographer Edwin Lee and friends, isn't completely about Snowden -- it's as much a paean to Hong Kong -- but it's received ample media attention nonetheless.
Sometimes newspapers bend the truth, or cast a story in its own editorial light. For examples of this, follow James Fallows's sporadically updated series about why he reads more than one newspaper.
But then there's the above. Tens of thousands marched in protest yesterday of Hong Kong chief executive CY Leung and Beijing political influences, but if the only newspaper you read was the China Daily (a hypothetical that applies to no one), you'd be forgiven for thinking all those bodies around Victoria Park were celebrating the 16th anniversary of Hong Kong's handover.
The annual pro-democracy, complain-about-everything rally in Hong Kong drew tens of thousands of people starting at 2:30 pm yesterday in Victoria Park. This happened despite threats of a tropical storm and heavy rain throughout the day. Hong Wrong has basically all the pictures you'll need, including the above, so let's start there.
Next Media Group in Hong Kong, owned by the rabblerousing Jimmy Lai, says one of its distribution centers came under attack on June 30 as part of an assault that saw 26,000 papers get burned. A day earlier, Next Media's office was the target of a "drive-by knife-throwing," in which an unidentified man hurled a cleaver at the front gate. These and other actions, the company says, are part of a coordinated attack against Lai due to his support of the Occupy Central movement and outspoken criticism against China's Communist Party.
Today is National Protest Day in Hong Kong, so here's your reminder that people hate the city's chief executive, CY Leung. That's always good, when your leader, a puppet, is hated. Actually, that's not good at all.
Hong Wrong has the latest example:
This is decidedly not the sort of mainlander-in-Hong-Kong story we're used to. As relayed by SCMP, a mainland tourist, Fu Zhuli, found a bag of diamonds she estimates was worth HK$250 million on June 23 at the Hong Kong Jewellery and Gem Fair. As a good Christian, she went against the urging of some of her friends, who said to keep the bag.
July 1, 1997 marked the handover of Hong Kong from Great Britain to the People's Republic of China, and every July 1 since, hundreds to thousands of people have marched in this city. Since 2003, as this Wikipedia entry informs, the number has sometimes been hundreds of thousands (though, because Hong Kong is terrible with big-number estimates, we never have an exact figure.) This year? "A massive protest is expected," reports Wall Street Journal. On the docket: direct elections and the resignation of chief executive Leung Chun-ying.
And he's gone. Screams the latest SCMP headline (all-caps theirs):
SNOWDEN LEAVES HONG KONG ON COMMERCIAL FLIGHT TO MOSCOW
The report isn't confirmed, but SCMP notes that Snowden "would continue on to another country." The Hong Kong government issued a short statement today, in which it said the US's request for extradition "did not fully comply with the legal requirements under Hong Kong law."
"My name is Daniel Morgan Perry, born March 12, 1978."
On United Airlines Flight 116 from Hong Kong to Newark on Monday, Daniel Morgan Perry, born March 12, 1978, demanded the plane be diverted to Canada, according to passengers, claiming his life was in danger. Also, something about poison and the CIA.
