1. law, govt and politics
2. law enforcement
3. police

hengqin builds infrastructure
to last a century
food
festival
sees biggest
tourist
turnover
yet
Although the surface of Hengqin Island
may still look largely undeveloped
underground infrastructure projects are
being built to last a century
P2 MDT REPORT
P4
hk-shanghai stock link
makes lopsided debut Investors plowed money into
Shanghai’s stock market in the debut
of a landmark trading link between HK
and mainland China’s main market
P8 BUSINESS
TUE. 18
Nov 2014
T. 17º/ 23º C
H. 45/ 75%
N.º 2193
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Founder & Publisher Kowie Geldenhuys
Editor-in-Chief Paulo Coutinho
“ THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN’ ”
WORLD BRIEFS
CHINA A fire in a carrotpackaging plant has killed
18 people in eastern China,
police said yesterday. An
additional 13 people were
injured in the fire Sunday
night at the Longyuan Food
Co. facility in the Shandong
province city of Shouguang,
the city’s police department
said on its official microblog.
Two of the injured were in
serious condition, the police
said.
Taxi horror story
P3
AUSTRALIA China and
Australia sign a preliminary
free-trade deal that would
give Australia’s service
industry unsurpassed
access to the Chinese
market and Australian
agriculture advantages
over competitors from the
United States, Canada
and the European Union.
Chinese President Xi
Jinping witnessed the
signing by Australian
and Chinese officials of
a declaration of intent
which officially concluded
negotiations that began in
2005. More on p11
N KOREA A special envoy
of North Korean leader Kim
Jong Un leaves for Russia
to discuss ways to improve
trade and political ties. Choe
Ryong Hae, a senior official
in the ruling Workers’ Party
and one of Kim’s close
associates, is scheduled to
stay in Russia until Nov. 24.
THAILAND An elephant
tramples its handler to death
and runs off with two Russian
tourists — a mother and her
9-year-old daughter — on its
back in southern Thailand,
police say. Rescue teams
tracked down the elephant
about 3 kilometers away
and tranquilized it to rescue
the tourists.
JAPAN’s economy
unexpectedly slips back
into recession as housing
and business investment
drops following a sales tax
hike, hobbling its ability
to help drive the global
recovery. The world’s
third-largest economy
contracted at a 1.6
percent annual pace in the
July-September quarter,
the government said,
confounding expectations
that it would rebound after
a big drop the quarter
before. More on p12
More on backpage
Official statistics indicate average
house prices drop 10 pct in Q3
P5
MACAU
2
18.11.2014 tue
th Anniversary
澳聞
Hengqin builds infrastructure
to last a century
João Pedro Lau, Zhuhai
T
he surface of Hengqin
Island may still look largely undeveloped. But little do
people know that a large-scale
concrete channel, which houses various types of pipelines
and cables, has already been
constructed beneath the special district adjacent to Macau.
The Times visited the Zhuhai
Hengqin New Area Integrated Pipeline Channel, which
is 33.4 kilometers long. The
structure is located underneath the northern and central
part of Hengqin Island. The
average depth of the pipeline
is six meters, with some sections buried as deep as 13 meters. It contains both drinking
and reclaimed water pipes,
telecommunications and electricity cables, condensation
pipes (for heating) and the pipeline of a vacuum waste collection system.
The construction of the channel began in March 2010 and
commenced partial operations
last June. It is the longest pipeline channel in the country,
the largest in scale and coverage, and involves the highest
amount of one-off investment,
reaching RMB1.98 billion.
Yan Lisheng, an engineer
from the channel’s managing
company, Zhuhai Da Hengqin
Urban Public Resources Operating Management Co., said
that Hengqin’s geology has
caused the channel’s budget
to increase substantially, and
the cost is significantly higher
than constructing it inland.
However, he believes that the
project is worth the investment and pointed out several
benefits of the various types
of pipeline channels. He also
claimed that it augments Hengqin’s development over the
next century.
Yan said that the channel
would reduce the pressure
on roads through minimizing
roadworks caused by the installing and repair of underground pipes and cables, as
well as the number of garbage
trucks on the road. The underground channel also eliminates overhead power lines and
cables.
Mr Yan said that by moving
all electricity cables underground, the island could be
rid of transmission towers by
next June. The channel has
saved an estimated 40 hectares of land on Hengqin.
Moreover, although Yan
Lisheng suggested that the
condensation pipe would be
in operation soon, it will only
provide heating to public bui-
No timetable to connect LRT to Hengqin
T
he Hengqin extension of the Guangzhou-Zhuhai Intercity Railway is scheduled to commence operations in the second half of 2018. The planned intercity
railway will connect to Macau’s Light Rapid
Transit (LRT) at the Hengqin Port. Nevertheless, the Secretary for Transport and Public Works, Lau Si Io, said on the sidelines
of Thursday’s Legislative Assembly meeting
that there is still no timetable for the construction of the LRT Hengqin extension.
He added that Macau and the mainland
authorities are discussing the design of the
project in detail and will only launch the
bidding process once the route is confirmed. The Secretary also indicated that the
construction of the extension is complicated because it will be built underground.
ldings. However, he said that
the authorities could consider
extending the heating pipeline
to residential buildings in the
future.
Regarding vacuum waste
collection, there is only one
pipe in the channel, meaning
that residents do not need to
sort their waste before disposal. Yan Lisheng said that
since there is still no guarantee that residents are capable of following the guidelines
regarding waste sorting, all
garbage disposed through the
pipeline will be manually sorted after it is collected. But he
did not indicate whether the
channel must be modified in
future, should the government
decide to impose household
waste sorting.
According to a press release from the Zhuhai Da Hengqin Urban Public Resources
Operating Management Co.,
the managing company of
the pipeline faces difficulties
in convincing different parties to move their pipelines
and cables into the channel,
instead of merely burying
them underground or using
overhead cables. It claimed
that many government units
are used to enjoying free benefits or having their expenses covered by the authorities. Therefore, it is difficult
for them to accept the idea
that they have to move their
pipes and cables into the integrated channel and pay a
maintenance fee.
The company also suggested that it is difficult to establish the fees for the integrated channel. Since there is
no clear national standard on
charging fees, the managing
company faces serious financial strain. The company indicated its need to come up with
a charging standard based
on scientific calculation and
consultation with users of the
channel, in order to support
structural maintenance.
Cost of artificial island for Delta Bridge due to increase
I
ncluded as part
of the Hong KongZhuhai-Macau
bridge
(also known as the Delta
Bridge), the budget for
the development of an
artificial island is due to
rise to HKD35 billion,
as reported by the Sou-
th China Morning Post.
The HKSAR’s Transport
and Housing Bureau has
filed a request for a further HKD5 billion, which will be put to a vote by
lawmakers.
The 50-kilometer bridge, which will link Hong
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Kong, Zhuhai and Macau, is due to open in
2016. Higher wages for
construction
workers
and increased prices for
machinery and materials
were to blame for the
rise. Reclamation work
and construction of faci-
lities related to the bridge will make the project
four times more expensive.
The Hong Kong section of the bridge will
cost about one-tenth of
the HKD87 billion total.
In Hong Kong, autho-
rities stressed that the
increased figure is an
estimate. An exact figure
will be available before
lawmakers vote on the
request.
According to a South China Morning Post
editorial, lawmakers are
Director and Editor-in-Chief_Paulo Coutinho [email protected]
Managing Editor_Paulo Barbosa [email protected]
Contributing Editors_Eric Sautedé, Leanda Lee, Severo Portela
China & foreign editor_Vanessa Moore [email protected]
Design Editor_João Jorge Magalhães [email protected] | Newsroom and Contributors_Albano
Martins, António Espadinha Soares, Brook Yang, Catarina Pinto, Cyril Law, Emilie Tran, Grace Yu, Irene Sam, Jacky I.F. Cheong, Jenny
Philips, João Pedro Lau, Joseph Cheung, Juliet Risdon, Keith Ip, Renato Marques (photographer), Richard Whitfield, Robert Carroll
(Hong Kong correspondent), Rodrigo de Matos (cartoonist), Ruan Du Toit Bester, Sandra Norte (designer), Sum Choi, Viviana Seguí
| Associate Contributors_JML Property, MacauHR, MdME Lawyers, PokerStars | News agencies_ Associated Press,
Bloomberg, Lusa News Agency, MacauHub, MacauNews, Xinhua | Secretary_Yang Dongxiao [email protected]
expected to back the request, since another high-profile project, the
high-speed railway line
to Shenzhen, will require
at least HKD5.1 billion
more than the previously approved HKD66
billion budget.
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Kowie Geldenhuys [email protected]
Secretary Juliana Cheang [email protected]
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ISSN 2305-4271
tue 18.11.2014
th Anniversary
澳聞
Catarina Pinto
A
Macau resident claims
that she was “aggressively harassed and
chased” by a taxi driver yesterday as she attempted
to catch a cab with a group of
friends and her seven-year-old
son. Rute Isabel de Azevedo
told the Times that she has filed
complaints to the Judiciary Police (PJ), accusing the taxi driver
of assault, harassment, threatening behavior and extortion.
According to a press release issued by the Macau Taxi Passengers Association, which operates
the Macau Taxi Driver Shame
Facebook group, Ms Azevedo, a
member of MTPA, said she had
been attending the Macau Food
Festival at the Macau Tower,
and that she was ready to leave
at around 11.30 p.m.
With a group of female friends
and her seven-year-old son, she
was finding it hard to get a bus,
and said taxis in the area were
practicing so-called “fishing,”
trying to look for particular clients who are willing to pay more.
After trying unsuccessfully to
get a taxi for around one and a
half hours, the group decided
to walk from the Macau Tower
to the Casino Lisboa area. The
victim said that while walking,
they saw a free taxi, and tried to
hail it. “He kept asking where we
wanted to go, and we asked him
back: Are you free or not?”
Tensions soon escalated to the
point that the taxi driver allegedly drove into Ms Azevedo while
she attempted to cross the road
at the pedestrian crossing. “I
was not hurt, but the taxi did hit
MACAU
3
Resident aggressively harassed
and chased by taxi driver
my leg. Of course, I yelled and
my friend started taking pictures [of the taxi],” she told us.
The driver continued to use his
taxi as a weapon, threatening
the group, and inching the car
towards her. Ms Azevedo said
she also hit the taxi, but without
sufficient force to cause any major damage. The driver then left
the car and walked toward the
group, swearing at them and
attempting to take pictures of
them, too.
She recalled that he kept
saying they owed him money for
damage to the vehicle, but Ms
Azevedo claims that there was
no damage at all. “He even had
a small dent in the back of the
car, but I was not the one responsible for that. I had not even
been near the back of his car,”
she said.
The Macau resident claimed
that the taxi driver also dropped
his mobile phone on the floor
and wanted them to pay for it.
He physically confronted them to
prevent the group from leaving.
Ms Azevedo said her sevenyear-old son was “really scared”
and that two of her friends managed to take him to a safe place
to meet her husband. “We didn’t
want to walk home, because
otherwise the taxi driver would
know where I live,” she said.
She added that her son is
“traumatized” by the experience
and was afraid to go to school
the next morning.
After her friends left with her
son, she called the police, while
still being chased by the taxi driver all the way from the Macau
Tower to the New Yaohan department store area.
She explained that a police officer from the Traffic Department
of the Macau Security Police
(PSP) arrived at the scene, and
the taxi driver was forced to pay
a fine. The driver was held at the
police station so that the victim
could safely return home.
Ms Azevedo does not know how
much he paid as a fine. She also
went to the PJ offices to press
charges. “I have had many issues
with taxi drivers in Macau. Once,
a taxi driver chased me with a
spanner. I did not press charges
back then. But enough is enough.
They cannot get away with these
actions,” she said.
The victim is willing to take
the case “to its last consequences.” The case is likely to reach
a courtroom, and Ms Azevedo
said she would be filing another complaint accusing him of
“perjury.” “I asked PJ officers if
I could also accuse him of perjury, as he denied the whole story
and said that I had damaged his
car, which is not true. Authorities said he has the right to tell
his version of the story and only
when the case reaches court, I
can accuse him of perjury,” she
explained.
The president of the Macau
Taxi Passengers Association,
Andrew W Scott, said that “while many of our members have
complained about lack of police
action in taxi enforcement, on
this occasion we applaud the
Macau police in taking action
against this rogue and aggressive driver harassing a group of
women and a 7-year-old child in
the early hours of the morning.”
“It must be terrifying for women to face these aggressive taxi
drivers late at night,” Mr Scott
added. He went even further to
suggest that it’s not melodramatic “to say it might only be a matter of time before someone is killed in an incident with a Macau
taxi driver.”
He concluded by saying that
“one of the reasons we have taxis is so that people have a viable alternative to drink driving.”
However, he recalled how “people are standing in the street
in the path of oncoming taxis
to force them to stop. People
are hitting and kicking taxis as
they drive past.” He said that as
much as he discourages it, “it’s
not hard to see this escalating
to the point where we get a very
serious assault, or an accidental
death by a taxi running over a
passenger.”
The PSP did not reply to the
Times’ queries regarding the incident, but the PJ said they did
not have a record of the mentioned case.
editorial
Paulo Coutinho
Taxi driver
“I do not think it is melodramatic to
say it might only be a matter of time
before someone is killed in an incident with a Macau taxi driver.”
Andrew W. Scott
M
acau used to be a taxi paradise not so long ago: taxis were
cheap, reliable, mostly pleasant and
available. Even if one didn’t speak
the language, or didn’t have the right tones, taxi drivers would in most
cases make an effort to get us to the
place we wanted to go, safe and sound. A friend of mine used to say every
time a taxi driver would question his
Chinese accent while spelling out an
address in Cantonese: “Right. Here’s
another language purist!” And this
would be the biggest problem for a
non-Chinese speaker.
Those were very candid times in terms of traffic and public transportation.
The exponential growth of the last
10 years or so had too much of an
impact for a city as small as Macau
to handle. Now, the traffic situation
has deteriorated to its lowest levels
where passengers fear for their physical integrity when taking a taxi, or
even when trying to do it – as seen
in the outrageous case of Ms Azevedo and friends yesterday (reported
above).
I myself have my own very recent
taxi driver hatred story to tell, which
may be important because it adds up
to profile the bad examples in the cab
industry.
About two weeks ago, I was trying
to get a cab at the taxi stand near
BCM Building in downtown Macau –
probably the worst crossing when it
comes to traffic. Just upon my arrival
a group of 4 tourists was trying to get
the taxi which had just arrived at the
standing line with its duty light on.
After a short argument, the tourists
gave up, the driver switched off the
“free” sign and stood there: parked
right at the front of the line. As I was
next in the queue, I approached the
taxi man and I told him in English,
pointing up to the sign: “If you are
not on duty you cannot park here.”
He replied very annoyed: “No English.” No English? Okay I’m going to
call the police, said I while starting
to take pictures of the taxi from the
back to catch the license plate number (see picture).
Suddenly the driver started the engine, heavily hitting both the gas and
the brake pedals at the same time,
thus producing a disgusting black
cloud of smoke directed right at me.
He then moved away quickly from the
taxi stand. I was appalled, but had no
choice but to stand there for another
20 minutes till I got my ride.
From my office window I clearly see
that waiting line every day. As I write
these words, it’s around 8pm. I see a
queue the length of the sidewalk, stretching about 30 meters. Black taxis
approach the would-be-passengers in
a slow march causing the cars behind
them to honk and jam while they
“fish” for an off-the-book ride. For a
good 10 minutes, no taxi stopped at
that taxi stand - none. They just don’t
care.
So I don’t think Andrew Scott – quoted in the epigraph – is out of line
when he says something tragic may
happen if this situation prevails. Because what we are seeing here is our
own version of the Scorsese/De Niro
cult-movie. Only in this case instead
of a psychopath we have a gang of organized “sociopaths” that, to say the
least, have no sense whatsoever of
their duty as providers of a service to
the community, which is moreover, a
public service.
4
MACAU
18.11.2014 tue
th Anniversary
澳聞
Food Festival sees double-digit growth
Brook Yang
T
he annual Macau Food
Festival, held by the Sai Van
Lake, has seen double-digit
growth in visitors and business
turnover this year, according to
its organizer, the United Association of Food and Beverage
Merchants of Macau. Last Saturday, the Festival recorded
the largest number of tourists
since its opening on November
7. The association’s vice chairman, Mr Lo Kam Kuan, told the
Times that the 17-day event is
anticipated to achieve “at least
a 10 to 15 percent increase” in
total business volume from last
year.
“This year has seen the biggest turnover of tourists; and
for local residents, normally
they have no [leisure] places to
go in the evening,” he said. He
explained that the popular use
of instant-messaging has also
facilitated the larger turnout,
as people tend to invite their
friends to come to the Festival
via WeChat.
Besides the growth in visitors, the Festival’s food court
has been expanded in order to
accommodate more vendors.
“The participating merchants
ad
gave us the feedback that the
Food Festival is very helpful
to increasing their business
and their booths at the Festival are flourishing this year,”
said Mr Lo.
This year, the organizer received about 150 entries from
local merchants, with 108 of
them accepting to join the
event, from which 38 percent
are new participants. In addition, 25 merchants from Ja-
pan’s Kansai region were invited to create a “Japanese Village” in the food court.
“Our aim is to promote local food brands. During these
days, local merchants expect to
make a name for themselves,
so they input a lot of personnel
and recourses into the booths,
such as managers and chefs,”
said Mr Lo.
The organizer acknowledged
that, since the venue has been
used to its limit, the Festival
won’t add more booths. “For
previous participants who presented a poor business volume,
poor hygienic conditions or
poor decoration of their booths,
we cancelled their qualification
of participation. It’s a fair selection,” he explained.
“Macau’s [Food Festival] is
the best, because each booth
is subsidized by the government; in other places, participants need to pay the rent of a
booth and they set the food at
higher prices. It’s a different
purpose,” the vice-chairman
added.
As for residents’ complaints
that the Food Festival doesn’t
offer appealing food prices, Mr
Lo responded that it has been a
question posed every year. “The
costs for merchants to operate
the booths are high. Most of
them are not making much of a
profit,” he stressed.
According to Mr Lo, it took a
restaurant operator more than
MOP 200,000 to set up and
decorate its booth, whereas for
a small-business vendor, the
booth setup normally costs 300
to 500 patacas.
The vice-chairman also acknowledged that he’s noticed
some young people mobilizing
residents to boycott the Food
Festival on the Internet, as they
are resentful of lawmaker Chan
Chak Mo, who serves as the association’s president.
“I’m absolutely opposed to
such mobilization; they are
attacking an individual, not
considering the Festival itself.
I believe they have their own
purpose. There are only two
or three booths presented by
the Future Bright Holdings Ltd
[owned by Chan Chak Mo],”
responded the vice-chairman.
environmental concerns at the festival
With the event in its fourteenth year, for the first time the organizer
has requested that booths replace plastic utensils with environmentallyfriendly dinnerware. To support this initiative, the Environmental Protection Bureau (DSPA) has provided a subsidy of over MOP 400,000 to
the merchants. The DSPA has organized a class for 40 students as part of
the festival , to teach them about the importance of reducing waste.
tue 18.11.2014
MACAU
th Anniversary
澳聞
Victim’s wife and Indonesian
concern group demand
‘truth’ behind shop fire
Catarina Pinto
L
eader of the Peduli Indonesian Migrant
Concern Group, Cindry
Purnasari, has called on
Macau authorities to help find
out the truth about a fire that
broke out in a small boutique,
killing four Southeast Asian migrant workers.
According to Purnasari’s sources, six people were living in
the small attic above the shop,
although the owner told police
authorities that only their domestic helper was allowed to
live there. These accounts have
been confirmed by the wife of
the Filipino victim, who was
also living in the shop’s attic.
Ms Purnasari has been helping family members liaise
with the Indonesian consulate and Macau authorities. The
wife of an Indonesian man who
died in the fire is now in Macau
to deal with the relevant procedures; while the parents of an
Indonesian woman, also killed,
remain in Indonesia with her
nine-year-old son.
“They are hoping to get the bodies transferred to their home
country as soon as possible.
They also want to know exactly
what is going on and what happened, why the shop caught
fire, and why they died. They
really want to know more,” she
stated.
Procedures to officially identi-
All migrant
workers living
above the shop
were paying
rents
fy the victims are taking longer,
as bodies were severely burnt
and DNA tests are now required.
Angie Thomas, widow of the
Filipino migrant revealed yesterday that she was also living
above the shop. She told TDM
that she had worked the night
shift that day and went home
at around 7.30 a.m. to find the
house already burned.
“I’m still waiting for my husband and aunt’s bodies (…) I
want justice for them; I really
want the truth, [so people
know] what happened,” she
stressed, confirming that there
were six people in total living
above the shop. “Me, my husband, my auntie, two Indonesian girls, and one Indonesian
boy.”
Ms Purnasari’s sources told
her that all the migrant workers
living above the shop were
paying rent between MOP1,000
and MOP1,500. Angie Thomas confirmed that they were
paying MOP1,800 to one of the
Indonesian girls, and that she
would then give the money col-
lected to the shop owner.
Angie and her husband had
arrived in Macau a few months
before and had been living above the store for a month. “The
Philippines Consulate is willing
to help me now, and some people are also helping me because I didn’t have any clothes or
place to sleep. Some people are
helping me and I am so thankful,” she said.
The shop owner told authorities that only their domestic helper was living above the
boutique. “The truth is there
were six people staying there
and they were paying rent. The
employer knew it was being
rented,” Ms Purnasari stressed,
adding that a close friend who
lives nearby said the owner also
lived in the neighborhood.
“We need to tell the truth. We
need to tell that there were more
people living there, that Melinda
[as one of the Indonesian victims was known] was there, and
helped employers run the business. We are hoping that authorities find out and tell the truth,”
she stated.
Ms Purnasari said that the attic did not provide proper living
conditions. “You can imagine
that nobody could live in such a
place, it’s a small shop. [Upstairs]
it was a small room with only one
staircase. Downstairs, it was a
small shop with a lot of clothes.
It’s a big road, a lot of buses passing by, everyone could see how
the place was,” she said.
She had been at the shop once
to buy summer clothes and Ms
Purnasari said she couldn’t
imagine how six people were living there. “With the smoke, it’s
impossible to run. I really cannot imagine how someone could have survived a fire there.”
The leader of the Peduli Indonesian Migrant Concern Group
has urged the administration to
pay more attention to the living
conditions of migrant workers.
She concluded by saying that
they “want the government to
be more concerned about our
living conditions. Is [an accommodation allowance of]
MOP500 enough? We just want
a safe and healthy living environment.”
The fire broke out at the small
boutique in the early hours of
Wednesday last week, leaving
four trapped inside. The Judiciary Police has confirmed that
they all died of smoke inhalation. The four victims are two
Indonesian (one male, one female) and two Filipino nationals. The Indonesian woman
was a widow and leaves behind
a nine-year-old son.
Official statistics indicate average
house price drops 10 pct in Q3
bloomberg
I
n the third quarter of
this year the average
price of residential units decreased by 10 percent quarter-to-quarter,
to MOP100,024 per square meter of usable space.
According to the Statistics and Census Service
(DSEC) the drop is attributable to a 22 pct decline in the average price of
pre-sale residential units
(MOP144,086).
Official statistics indicate that purchase and sale
of homes totaled 1,769,
at MOP11.42 billion,
down by 28 pct and 35
pct respectively quarterto-quarter; total value
of pre-sale residential
units (253) and existing
residential units (1,516)
amounted to MOP2.72
billion and MOP8.70
billion respectively.
A total of 3,070 building
units and parking spaces
The shop where the accident took place
were purchased and sold
at MOP18.39 billion in
the third quarter of 2014,
per the Stamp Duty record, down by 26 pct and
37 pct respectively quarter-to-quarter.
DSEC also indicates that
residential units increased by 5 pct quarter-toquarter to MOP91,251 per
square meter, while the
average price of those in
Coloane soared by 23 pct
to MOP83,692 per square
meter.
Analyzed by year of
completion, there were
884 residential units
built more than 20 years
ago (117 in Areia Preta
& Iao Hon, 100 in Barra) and the average price was MOP72,567 per
square meter, up by 8 pct
quarter-to-quarter. For
the 413 residential units
completed between 11 to
20 years ago the average price increased by 12
pct quarter-to-quarter, at
MOP90,772 per square
meter. The average price of the 123 residential
units completed within 5
years or less decreased by
5
4 pct, at MOP135,298 per
square meter.
The average price of office units and industrial
units was MOP132,380
and MOP60,407 per
square meter, up by 11
pct and 3 pct respectively
quarter-to-quarter.
As regards construction
in the private sector, gross
floor area of construction of new buildings in
the third quarter totaled
502,034 square meters,
providing 91 units upon
completion. Meanwhile,
gross floor area of buildings completed totaled
7,508 square meters, altogether providing 40 units.
residential mortgage loans drop
by 9.8 pct
New approvals of
residential mortgage loans
(RMLs) dropped by 9.8
percent month-on-month
in September, reaching
MOP4.6 billion. According to data released by the
Monetary Authority of
Macau, new commercial
real estate loans (CRELs)
declined 56.2 percent
month-on-month, reaching
MOP4.8 billion.
In terms of value, new
RMLs to residents and nonresidents decreased by 5.9
percent and 57.4 percent
respectively. New CRELs
to residents declined 59.7
percent in value, while nonresidents increased 104.8
percent.
6
ADVERTISEMENT
18.11.2014 tue
th Anniversary
廣告
tue 18.11.2014
th Anniversary
分析
7
Hong Kong-Shanghai stock
link makes lopsided debut Kelvin Chan
Business Writer, Hong Kong
ap photo
I
nternational
investors plowed money into
Shanghai’s stock market,
maxing out their daily limit, in the debut yesterday of a
landmark trading link that gives
outsiders wider access to mainland China’s main stock market
through brokers in Hong Kong.
In contrast, the flow of money
in the opposite direction was just
a trickle on the first day of trading
on the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect, which lets investors
buy and sell shares through each
other’s exchanges.
“Today we are going to witness
history,” C.K. Chow, chairman of
stock exchange operator Hong
Kong Exchanges and Clearing,
said at an opening ceremony. “It
is a breakthrough in the opening
up of China’s financial markets
and an important milestone in
the development of Hong Kong
as a unique gateway between the
mainland and international investors.”
Chow and Hong Kong leader
Leung Chun-ying banged a gong
at the Hong Kong stock exchange to mark the start of trading. In
Shanghai, city Communist Party
Secretary Han Zheng and China Securities Regulatory Commission Chairman Xiao Gang hit
their own gong at the same time.
The stock connect gives all
sorts of investors outside mainland China access to the stock
market in the world’s No. 2 economy for the first time. Until
now, access has been closely managed, mainly through a quota
program for select fund managers representing a fraction of
the overall market.
In a sign of the huge demand
from global investors, Hong
Kong’s daily 13 billion yuan
(USD2.1 billion) quota for mainland China shares in so-called
“northbound” trading in the stock connect was used up by mid
-afternoon.
The trading link also gives
wealthy Chinese investors access
to a market outside of the mainland for the first time. But Chinese investors only used up 17
BUSINESS
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd. Chairman Chow Chung-kong, left, and Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying pose before beating a gong during the launch
ceremony of the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect in Hong Kong
percent of their daily 10.5 billion
yuan ($1.7 billion) limit for Hong
Kong stocks by the end of the
day, according to data posted on
the Shanghai Stock Exchange
website.
Trading is subject to overall
limits of $49 billion for Shan-
of 568 mainly blue-chip companies on the Shanghai exchange
and about half that number in
Hong Kong.
Hong Kong has officially been
part of China since Beijing took
control of the former British colony in 1997 but the Asian finan-
In a sign of the huge
demand from global investors,
Hong Kong’s daily quota for
mainland China shares was used
up by mid-afternoon
ghai shares and $40 billion for
Hong Kong shares. Officials say
the trading limits are in place so
the stock exchanges can regulate
the pace of turnover. Investors
are also restricted to buying and
selling selected stocks, consisting
cial hub retains its own separate
legal and financial system and
currency.
The stock link is also expected
to expand Hong Kong’s role as
a trading hub for China’s tightly
controlled currency, the yuan,
which Beijing is eager to promote abroad. Last week Hong
Kong dropped a daily cap on how
much yuan residents are allowed
to buy.
“It’s really the beginning of a
new era,” said Hong Kong Exchanges CEO Charles Li. When
asked by reporters about lackluster gains for Hong Kong shares
on the first day, he said the link
was “a massive bridge, this is a
massive road, and it is going to be
here not for days, not for weeks,
not even for months, it is going to
be here for years and decades.”
“At this point, safety, smooth
travel is much more important
than how many cars that actually
cross the bridge,” he added.
There’s minimal interest from
mainland Chinese in buying
Hong Kong shares because
small-time investors are effectively shut out by a requirement
that participants have at least
half a million yuan in their ac-
counts, said Huang Cendong, an
analyst at Sinolink Securities in
Shanghai.
That leaves only the bigger,
wealthier clients, who probably already had other channels
to invest in Hong Kong, Huang
said. Mainlanders who wanted
to open a brokerage account in
Hong Kong were already able
to do so by flying to the former
British colony and using their
Chinese passports as identification, according to Danny Lam,
an account executive at Kingston
Securities in Hong Kong. He said
most of the interest in the stock
link was coming from global rather than local investors.
Huang added that Chinese investors also need more time to
study Hong Kong shares, which
perform differently than Shanghai shares. He said uncertainty
hanging over Hong Kong because of ongoing democracy protests
was also damping sentiment. AP
ad
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organization to assist the processing of personal data,
does it have to sign a confidentiality agreement with
this organization?
A: Paragraph 3 of Article 15 of the PDPA provides
that “the carrying out of processing by way of a
processor must be governed by a contract or legal act
binding the processor to the controller and stipulating
in particular that the processor shall act only on
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1 of this Article shall also be incumbent on the processor.” Therefore, the
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8
BUSINESS
th Anniversary
分析
France, a tax haven? Yes, for
Microsoft to China’s Huawei
Marie Mawad and Helene Fouquet
bloomberg
C
ompanies from Microsoft Corp. to China’s
Huawei Technologies
Co. scouring Europe
for fiscally attractive shores are
turning to an unlikely country:
France.
As a base for research and development teams, that is.
Tax breaks for R&D, 5.6
billion euros (USD7 billion)
this year alone, combined
with world-class scientists are
making France a honey pot
for technology companies. As
the French parliament debates how to shrink the country’s budget deficit this month
some lawmakers are demanding reining in the R&D credits, saying some companies are
abusing them. President Francois Hollande has pledged it’s a
budget line he won’t touch.
“The research tax breaks are
decisive - they make France
economically more attractive,”
said Olivier Piou, who heads
Gemalto, an Amsterdam-based developer of security products for bank cards, mobile
phones and passports. The fiscal breaks offset a significant
part of Gemalto’s R&D budget, making it more compelling to keep 30 percent of its
2,000 researchers worldwide
in France, Piou said.
Ireland’s corporate tax rate
of 12.5 percent, less than half
France’s 33.3 percent, ensures companies from Google
Inc. to Apple Inc. keep their
European headquarters in the
Celtic nation. Still, for R&D,
global companies are increasingly beefing up their teams in
France, transforming the country into a European technology
hub, mirroring the U.K.’s dominance in the financial industry
and Germany’s manufacturing
prowess.
Hollande boasted about the
“edge” the measure gives France during his nationally televised interview on Nov. 6. “Often
we have our handicaps, but here
18.11.2014 tue
French President Francois Hollande
Huawei plans
to invest $1.9
billion on R&D
facilities in
France over the
next three years
we have an advantage,” he said.
The jobs being created and
the technological ecosystem
the tax breaks are spawning is
just what Hollande needs as he
struggles to rekindle growth
and reverse record-high jobles-
sness. The measure, introduced
in the 1980s, was expanded
by former President Nicolas
Sarkozy. It is among the few of
his predecessor’s policies retained by Hollande.
“The drivers of our economy
aren’t the same as they were
in the 1950s,” Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron said
yesterday during a technology
conference in Paris. “I can tell
you tech is key for our future
growth.”
More than 17,000 companies,
ranging from biotechnology
and energy to software and gaming, are cashing in on the tax
advantages and subsidies for
innovation this year in France,
with an average break of about
323,500 euros. The R&D tax
break is France’s second-biggest behind a payroll credit, a
measure to spur competitiveness, according to the Budget
Ministry.
The move, meant to keep the
brightest minds and high-value
jobs at home, is also prompting
foreign companies to set-up laboratories or hire French algorithm whizzes.
Redmond, Washington-based
Microsoft runs a joint unit with
state-backed research institute
Inria, where some 100 scientists work on fundamental re-
search. The lab, created about
eight years ago, expanded from
software security to linking
computers and sciences like
health, and protecting growing
loads of data.
Phone
network-equipment
maker Huawei plans to recruit
200 researchers by 2017 in the
southern town of Sophia Antipolis.
Hiring by such companies is
among the few bright spots in
an otherwise grim picture in
France with unemployment
rising and an economy in its
third year without tangible
growth. Companies from carmaker Peugeot SA to mobile
-phone service provider Bouygues Telecom are firing staff
as jobs go to low-cost countries or competition forces expenditure cuts.
Against that backdrop, Prime
Minister Manuel Valls in September met with Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei to go over
the Chinese company’s plans to
invest $1.9 billion on R&D facilities in France over the next
three years.
Ren told Valls that France’s
strengths in the fields of mathematics and engineering and fiscal advantages had convinced
him to bolster the company’s
presence in France, according
to a company spokeswoman in
Paris.
“The fiscal context isn’t our
first motivation, but of course
it’s an advantage France has
over other countries,” said Isabelle Leung, a spokeswoman for
Huawei in France. “In order of
importance, we’re here for the
competency of the candidates,
the ecosystem, as well as the
research tax breaks.” Bloomberg
corporate bits
dozens of awards to date for sands china in 2014
Since January 2014, a total of
over 80 awards and accolades
have been given to Sands China Ltd.’s integrated resorts, and
to hotels, restaurants and spas
at its properties. That averages
one recognition every four days
over the last 10 months.
“Sands China aims to create
unforgettable experiences for
business, leisure and family
travellers at our integrated resorts,” said Gunther Hatt, Executive Vice President of Operations, Sands China Ltd. “The
honors we’ve received to date
in 2014 – from guests, government agencies, industry-leading
publications and others – are
a welcome confirmation of the
success of that effort. Recognition has ranged from praise
for our luxury, value and sheer
popularity to our efforts toward
innovation, leadership and sustainability. In all these areas,
our achievements are a direct
result of the dedication of our
incredible team of over 28,000
employees. They are the ones
who have understood and internalized our company’s core
values, and are translating them
into action day after day. Beyond
delighting our guests, their determination has distinguished
Sands China properties as
among the best in the business –
all while helping establish Macau as a world center of tourism
and leisure.”
clash in cotai ii live feed for pacquiao vs. algieri
Following his return
to the ring at the Cotai
Arena last November,
Congressman and Fighter of the Decade Manny
“Pacman” Pacquiao will
lace up his gloves Nov.
23 to face undefeated
WBO junior welterweight
champion Chris Algieri
for their World Boxing
Organization
(WBO)
welterweight title match
at The Venetian Macao’s
Cotai Arena as part of
the Clash in Cotai II.
The bout is being produced and distributed
live by HBO Pay-PerView, and is promoted
by Top Rank and Sands
China Ltd., in association with MP Promo-
tions, Joe DeGuardia’s
Star Boxing, Banner
Promotions,
Foreman
Boys Promotions and
Tecate.
Boxing fans will be able
to enjoy the main event
and undercard fights via
a live closed-circuit feed
at two venues in The
Venetian Macao – the
Milan Ballroom and the
Bellini Lounge. Doors
will open at 7:30 a.m.
at Milan Ballroom and 6
a.m. at Bellini Lounge,
Sunday, Nov. 23. With
the first bell scheduled
for 8 a.m., ticket holders
will be able to watch all
the fights in real time
via a live feed on large
screens.
tue 18.11.2014
th Anniversary
published in partnership with macauhub.com.mo
Angola wants to
build national
railway network
T
he government of
Angola plans to build a railway line to link
the country’s three current railways, thus establishing a national railway network, Angola’s
Transport Minister said
in Lubango.
Minister Augusto Tomás, speaking at the opening of a seminar on rail
transport in Angola, said
that the project includes
construction of logistics
platforms in various locations along the route of
the line.
“The government has set
as a priority the doubling
of the Luanda railway between the stations of Baía
and Bungo (near Uige)
and construction of a
branch line between Baía
and the new international airport in the capital,
which includes four level
crossings,” the minister
said, cited by daily newspaper Jornal de Angola.
Tomás also mentioned
construction of the nor-
thern railway, between
Luanda, Uige and Mbanza Congo, with a subsequent link to the port of
Soyo and the connection
between the the Benguela
railway starting near the
municipality of Luacano,
in Moxico, and the eastern border with Zambia.
This extension provides a
connection to Zambia and
transportation of ore from
the region of the copper
mines to international
markets via the ore terminal at the port of Lobito.
Tomás also announced
preparation of a feasibility study “for the construction of the missing
link at the end of the CFB
railway, near Lobito.”
Augusto Tomás called for a study to define
models of financing and
construction, including
an analysis of the involvement of the private sector
in the construction and
management of infrastructure and transport
services. MDT/Macauhub
中葡論壇
FORUM
9
Portugal
Gov’t announces sale of
66 pct of state airline TAP
T
he Portuguese government will sell 66
percent of flagship airline
TAP-Air Portugal, with 34
percent remaining in the
hands of the state for at
least two years, according
to the decision approved
Thursday by the Council
of Ministers.
The Secretary of State for Transport, Sérgio
Monteiro, said after the
meeting that as well as
the airline all the group’s
assets would be sold, including, for example, the
maintenance business it
owns in Brazil (the former VEM), which had
been bought in partnership with Macau businessman Stanley Ho.
The State, he said would, “reserve an option to
sell the 34 percent, which it may exercise within
two years,” in the sales
contract and provided
that the requirements in
the specifications – which
have yet to be approved
by the Council of Ministers – are met,” said Sérgio Monteiro.
According to Portuguese daily newspaper Público interested parties
include Spanish company
Globalia, a consortium
that includes Portugue-
se entrepreneur Miguel
Pais do Amaral, the former owner and president
of Continental Airlines,
Frank Lorenzo and Portuguese transport group
Barraqueiro.
There were also expressions of interest from Brazilian company Azul, and
German Efromovich, who
presented the only bid for
the airline when the government first attempted
to sell TAP-Air Portugal.
The TAP-Air Portugal group currently has
liabilities of approximately 1 billion euros.
MDT/Macauhub
ad
10
CHINA
18.11.2014 tue
th Anniversary
中國
Hong Kong
Gov’t to start clearing
city-center demonstrators
bloomberg
tions, the largest since China
resumed its sovereignty over
Hong Kong in 1997, were
sparked by the mainland
government’s decision to
screen candidates through a
committee for the city’s leadership election in 2017.
The protesters are losing
public support. About 67.4
percent of people surveyed
said the activists should give
up their street occupation
immediately, the poll conducted by the Chinese University of Hong Kong from
Nov. 5 to Nov. 11 showed.
Those against the movement
rose to 43.5 percent from
35.5 percent in October.
Younger people and those
who are more highly educated are “more likely” to
support the movement, the
university said. The university surveyed 1,030 Cantonese-speaking residents aged
15 or above, it said.
Protesters’
options
are
shrinking after crowds dwindled, attempts to negotiate
failed and Hong Kong’s High
Court issued injunctions for
the removal of barricades.
“Protesters surely have the
right to express their discontent against Beijing’s ruling,”
Hong Kong Financial Secretary John Tsang wrote in
his blog late Sunday. “But to
deny a proposal that enables
several million Hong Kong
residents to vote for the next
chief executive also contradicts the meaning of democracy. Have the protesters
thought about the rights of
other people?”
High Court Chief Judge Andrew Cheung Kui-nung ruled
last week that bailiffs can
remove obstructions at two
protest sites in Mong Kok
on the north side of Victoria
Harbor. The court on Nov. 15
dismissed an appeal against
the injunction. Bloomberg
four more student protesters barred
from beijing
A protester secures a rolled up sleeping mat as she stands next to rows of tents outside the Central Government Offices in the
Admiralty district of Hong Kong
Vinicy Chan and Natasha Khan
H
ong Kong’s government may clear pro-democracy protesters today
from part of the city-center
area that they occupy, as public support for the studentled movement ebbs after almost two months of demonstrations.
Police will help court bailiffs to enforce a civil injunction
against protesters blocking
entrance into the Citic Tower
in the Admiralty district, according to a press release
posted on the government’s
website yesterday. The court
order doesn’t cover the main
tent city the protesters have
set up.
Attempts to impede the bailiffs may render protesters liable to charges of criminal contempt of court and police will
take “resolute action” against
violence, the government said.
The statement makes no mention of plans to clear protesters in the Mong Kok district
across the harbor.
Protesters’
options
are
shrinking after crowds dwindled, attempts to negotiate
failed and Hong Kong’s High
Court issued injunctions for
the removal of barricades at
some sites. The demonstra-
At least four other student
protesters have been barred from
travelling to the mainland since
the Occupy Central demonstrations began, the South China
Morning Post reported yesterday.
The failed trips came to light after
three representatives from the
Federation of Students - one of the
groups leading Occupy - on Saturday were barred from boarding
just hours before they were to fly
to Beijing, where they planned to
press their demands for genuine
universal suffrage. According to
the paper, the three were seeking to meet central government
officials in the Chinese capital to
discuss Hong Kong’s election reform. Nathan Law Kwun-chung,
one of the three, said yesterday
morning on a HK talk show that
at least four to five other students
had been denied entry to mainland
China since the Occupy protests
kicked off on September 28, the
SCMP stated. The federation’s
secretary-general, Alex Chow
Yong-kang, also said that some
other students had applied for a
home visit return permit, a visa
for Hongkongers heading to the
mainland, but their applications
were rejected.
A
t 83, Wang Guihe is
about to embark on a
long journey.
Wang and his wife, who
live in Qiqihar in northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province, will take
a three-hour ride on a
rumbling train to the provincial capital of Harbin
before flying south to the
tropical city of Sanya in
Hainan, where the two
can leave behind the winter cold and bask in warm
sunshine.
This marks the fourth
consecutive year for the
couple to hit the road as
temperatures drop. Five
luggage carriers, a camera and a haversack will
accompany them for the
xinhua
‘Migratory seniors’ flock south as winter bites
Senior people play mahjong at a high-class community service
center for the elderly
five months of their “migratory life.”
“I hate the freezing winter here,” Wang said of
the frosty Heilongjiang
weather.
Soon, more senior citizens from China’s northeast, an area known
for bitter cold and pro-
longed winter days, will
join them in the yearly
migration to escape a life
largely restricted to the
indoors due to chilly weather.
Rising demand by Chinese seniors for a better
quality of life during the
cold season has prompted a growing number to
flock southward.
“I was a bit concerned
when my daughter suggested I spend the winter
in Sanya, because I barely knew the place and
people there,” said Yu
Shuying, an 80-year-old
from Harbin.
Only when she arrived
there did she realize that
the coastal city is abu-
zz with familiar sounds
and culture. “There are
so many people from the
northeast that I literally
bumped into one in the
same neighborhood [in
Sanya],” Yu said.
With its expanding scale, the niche business is
translating into big bucks
for companies catering to
the senior market.
The Heilongjiang subsidiary of China Southern
Airlines, for example,
offers winter ticket discounts for travelers over
60 years old, and extra
services, such as wheelchairs and glasses, are
provided for those older
than 65 who board planes
alone.
Li Bingchuan, a staff
member of the subsidiary, said a spike in senior passengers has fueled a surge in flights in
recent winters.
In summer, these people
return to Heilongjiang,
where the province’s cool
weather also lures seniors
from the south. This reverse trend has further
contributed to airline business, Li added.
The Heilongjiang government has moved
to tap the sector by
holding a series of promotional seminars last
month, hoping to bring
capital into the province to help build nursing
homes there. Xinhua
tue 18.11.2014
th Anniversary
中國
11
‘Big guy’ Beijing seeks closer
Australia security ties, Xi says
Jason Scott
bloomberg
P
resident Xi Jinping
called for enhanced security ties with Australia after reaching a freetrade agreement and said the
nation shouldn’t be concerned
by China’s rise in the Asia-Pacific.
Non-Chinese “may naturally
wonder how the big guy will
move and act and be concerned that the big guy may push
them around, stand in their
way, or even take up their
place,” Xi said in a speech
to Australia’s Parliament in
Canberra yesterday. “Neither
turbulence nor war serves the
fundamental interests of the
Chinese people.”
Xi is seeking to enhance
economic ties with Australia
while reassuring the trading
partner it has nothing to fear
from his nation’s increasing
role in regional affairs. China
is restructuring its military,
boosting the capacity of its air
force and bolstering its naval
presence in the South China
Sea.
“Our two countries should
enhance cooperation in humanitarian disaster relief, counter terrorism and maritime
safety to jointly meet various
security challenges in our region,” Xi said in the speech.
The two nations agreed to
upgrade their relationship to
a “comprehensive strategic
partnership,” Xi said.
Australian Prime Minister
Tony Abbott said the trade
agreement, to be signed in
2015, marked a “historic day”
and welcomed “the friendship
between our two countries.”
Hundreds of protesters and
dozens of supporters gathered outside as Xi, who attended the Group of 20 summit
in Brisbane at the weekend,
became the second Chinese
leader to address Australia’s
parliament.
Pro-Beijing supporters wea-
CHINA
Tony Abbott, Australia’s prime minister, left, walks with Xi Jinping, China’s president, after standing for a family photograph at the Group of 20 (G-20) summit in Brisbane
ring red and waving China flags were on the lawn in front of
Parliament House, separated
by barricades from protesters
chanting “Xi Jinping not welcome” and “Down with China.”
Ethnic groups protesting
against alleged human rights
abuses against minority Uighurs and Tibetans joined the
throng; a banner read “Australia’s Real and Biggest Threat:
China’s Expansionism.”
Dressed as a Chinese soldier
wielding a plastic baton and
with pockets stuffed with fake
yuan notes symbolizing government corruption, Charlie Ni
said he’d traveled from Sydney to protest Xi’s visit and the
persecution of the Falun Gong
spiritual movement.
“Xi can hear our voice, we are
sending a message,” said Ni,
51, who has lived in Sydney for
15 years. “We all want to end
the persecutions by China. We
want a free China.”
On the other side of the barricades, Canberra-based university student Chang Liu held
a Chinese flag and said he was
proud Xi was in Australia.
“Our life is much better in
China now,” the 29-year-old
said. “The government is not
perfect but the protesters
aren’t being constructive.”
Yesterday’s speech is the first
by a Chinese leader to the legislature since then-President
Hu Jintao addressed parliament in 2003. The two nations haven’t always seen eyeto-eye - the previous Labor government cited national inte-
rest concerns for its refusal to
let Huawei Technologies Co.,
China’s largest maker of phone-network equipment, work
on Australia’s broadband infrastructure project.
As opposition leader during
a July 2012 visit to China,
Abbott said investment from
the country was “complicated” by the prevalence of state-owned enterprises, while a
year ago his government publicly rebuked China for its
introduction of an air-defense
identification zone over parts
of the East China Sea.
Australia, which hosts as
many as 2,500 Marines in its
northern port of Darwin as
part of the U.S. pivot into the
Asia-Pacific, held human rights talks with China in Bei-
jing in February. During the
talks it raised issues including
“freedom of expression, freedom of religion, treatment of
political prisoners and ethnic
minorities, Tibet, torture” and
the death penalty, according
to the Department of Foreign
Affairs and Trade.
“Australia recognizes that
China has made progress over
the past 30 years and that the
Chinese people enjoy a greater
degree of personal freedom
than before, but our views
on human rights still differ,”
DFAT says on its website.
Xi’s visit to Australia will
include a trip to Tasmania
state, where he is expected to
consider funding initiatives
for the island’s agricultural
industry. Bloomberg
Kimberley Hefling, Education
Writer, Washington
T
he number of foreign exchange students studying at U.S.
colleges and universities
is at a record high, with
nearly one-third coming
from China.
A report by the Institute of International
Education, in partnership with the State Department’s Bureau of
Educational and Cultural Affairs, said nearly
900,000 international
students were studying
in the U.S. during the
2013-14 school year, up
bloomberg
Number of mainland students in US hits record high 8 percent from a year
earlier.
During the same period, there was a nearly
17 percent increase in
the number of Chinese
students.
The other top countries
of origin were India,
South Korea, Saudi Ara-
bia and Canada.
The United States hosts more of the world’s
4.5 million globally mobile higher education
students than any other
country, but just a little
more than 4 percent of
all undergraduate and
graduate students are
international students.
A burgeoning middle
class combined with a
view that America has
quality colleges and universities are factors cited
to be pushing the demand
from China. Kuwait, Brazil and Saudi Arabia were
also among the countries
that have seen double-
digit gains in the percentage of students coming
to the United States to
study, and governmentfunded scholarships have
likely contributed to the
growth.
In addition to contributing billions to the U.S.
economy, study-abroad
programs
strengthen
ties “necessary to solve
global challenges,” Evan
Ryan, a State Department official, told reporters.
A record number of
Americans are studying
abroad, although their
stints overseas tend to
be shorter and there are
far fewer American students who participate
in such study programs
than foreign students
who come to the U.S.
About 289,400 U.S.
students studied abroad
for academic credit in
2012-13, the most recent
year data was available. There was 2 percent
growth from a year earlier. Overall, less than
10 percent of American
students study abroad
during their college
years.
The United Kingdom,
Italy, Spain, France
and China were the leading destinations. AP
12
ASIA-PACIFIC
18.11.2014 tue
th Anniversary
亞太版
Japan
Economy slides into recession
as tax hike takes toll
ap photo
Elaine Kurtenbach,
Business Writer, Tokyo
J
apan’s economy unexpectedly slid into recession as housing and business investment declined following a sales tax hike,
further clouding the outlook for
the global economy.
The world’s third-largest
economy contracted at a 1.6
percent pace in the July-September quarter, the government said yesterday, contrary
to predictions it would grow
after a big drop the previous
quarter. An economy is generally considered to be in recession when it fails to grow for
two consecutive quarters.
This is not just bad news
for Japan. It deepens global
uncertainty as growth slows
in China and remains nearly
flat in the 18-country eurozone. Japan’s weakness could be
a drag on growth elsewhere if
its companies cut investment
and buy fewer imports such
as machinery, electronics, raw
materials and food.
The gross domestic product
figures showed across-the
-board weakness in demand
among consumers and manufacturers. Many individuals
and companies stepped up
purchases before the sales tax
was hiked in April to 8 percent
from 5 percent, and spending
has languished since then.
“The impact of the sales
tax was much more severe
than expected,” said Junko
Nishioka, an economist at
People walk on a pedestrian crossing in Tokyo
RBS Japan Securities.
Housing investment plunged 24 percent from the same
quarter a year ago, while corporate capital investment
sank 0.9 percent. Consumer
spending, which accounts for
about two-thirds of the economy, edged up just 0.4 percent.
Given the contraction, Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe is expected to announce today that
he will delay a second sales
tax hike, planned for next October. That would relieve pressure on the economy, but slow
progress on efforts to rein in
Japan’s government debt, the
largest among industrialized
nations.
Abe is also likely to use the
decision to delay the tax hike
as a reason to call a snap election in mid-December to secure a public mandate for this
course of action. Given the
drop in GDP, that choice may
be puzzling, but the ruling Liberal Democrats have a solid
majority and hope to consolidate their power further at a
time when opposition parties
are viewed as weak and in disarray.
Japan emerged from its last
recession just as Abe took
office in December 2012,
vowing to restore the nations’
economic vigor after two de-
cades of stagnation with a
program, dubbed “Abenomics,” centered on lax monetary
policy, strong fiscal spending
and structural economic reforms.
But the country is struggling
to regain momentum as its
population declines and ages.
Apart from its automakers,
many Japanese manufacturers have lost their leading
edge in innovation while shifting production to cheaper locations offshore.
Household
incomes,
meanwhile, peaked more than
a decade ago, and a growing
share of workers are having
difficulty making ends meet
with part-time, contract work.
Wage increases — mostly limited to a small share of workers
in big-name companies —
have lagged behind inflation.
Most economists had forecast that Japan would expand
at about a 2 percent pace after a sharp 7.1 percent annual
pace drop in April-June immediately following the tax
hike. Compared to the previous quarter, GDP declined
0.4 percent.
Delaying the next tax hike
could undermine confidence in Japan’s ability to repair
its battered finances, but the
risk to Japan’s recovery is a
greater threat, said economist
Koichi Hamada, who likened
April’s tax increase to excess
payload on the “rocket of Abenomics.”
Hamada, an Abe adviser,
had publicly urged the prime
minister to raise the sales tax
in stages rather than by 3 percentage points at one time.
“Tax rate increases are not
meaningful if they don’t increase tax revenues,” Hamada
said yesterday.
Critics say Abe has failed to
deliver on promises for drastic reforms of labor regulations, the tax system and the
health industry, among other
areas. Meanwhile, companies
have failed to pass windfall
gains from higher share prices
and surging profits on to their
workers in the form of higher
wages. AP
1.6%
The world’s thirdlargest economy
contracted at a 1.6%
pace July-September
Thailand
Thanyarat Doksone,
Bangkok
ap photo
American questioned for shipping baby body parts
A
parcel delivery company in Bangkok
put three packages bound for the United States
through a routine X-ray
and made a startling discovery — inside were a
variety of preserved human parts, including an
infant’s head, a baby’s
foot and an adult heart.
The company, DHL,
alerted police who tracked down the sender,
a 31-year-old American
tourist who said he found the items at a Bangkok night market, poli-
Thai police officers show pictures of a tattooed human skin during a
press conference at Bangpongpang police station in Bangkok
ce Col. Chumpol Poompuang said.
“He said he thought the
body parts were bizar-
re and wanted to send
them to his friends in
the U.S.,” Chumpol said,
adding that the man was
questioned for several
hours and released without charges.
The three packages,
which contained five
body pieces, were labeled as toys, police said.
They were being sent to
Las Vegas, including one
parcel that the man had
addressed to himself.
Chumpol had earlier
said a baby’s heart and
intestines were among
the body parts. But police at a news conference
later in the day said the
heart, which had been
stabbed, was from an
adult and there were no
preserved intestines.
Police Lt. Gen. Ruangsak Jarit-ake told reporters that all the parts
were preserved separately in formaldehyde inside
sealed acrylic or plastic
boxes. He displayed graphic pictures of all five
body parts, which also
included two pieces of tattooed skin from an adult
— one with a jumping tiger and the other bearing
an ancient Asian script.
A close-up picture of the
baby’s foot showed that
it had been sliced into
three sections.
The method of preservation and the manner
in which the parts were
cut appeared to be professional and authorities
were investigating if the
parts were stolen from
medical institutes.
In some Thai cults, preserved fetuses or spiritual tattoos are believed
to give the owners good
fortune or protection
from evil. They can also
be used to practice black
magic.
In 2012, a British citizen was arrested with six
roasted fetuses covered
in gold leaf after a tip-off
that infant bodies were
being sold through a website offering black magic service.
tue 18.11.2014
th Anniversary
分析
WORLD
13
Islamic State
Diaa Hadid, Beirut
T
he Islamic State group has beheaded
Peter Kassig, releasing a video Sunday
showing a masked militant
standing over the severed
head of a man it said was the
former U.S. Army Rangerturned-aid worker, who was
seized while delivering relief
supplies in Syria last year.
President Barack Obama
confirmed Kassig’s slaying after a U.S. review of the video,
which also showed the mass
beheadings of a dozen Syrian
soldiers.
The 26-year-old Kassig, who
founded an aid group to help
Syrians caught in their country’s brutal civil war, “was
taken from us in an act of pure
evil by a terrorist group that
the world rightly associates
with inhumanity,” Obama said
in a statement.
He denounced the extremist
group, which he said “revels in
the slaughter of innocents, including Muslims, and is bent
only on sowing death and destruction.”
The slain hostage’s parents, Ed
and Paula Kassig, said they were
“heartbroken” by their son’s
killing, but “incredibly proud” of
his humanitarian work.
Kassig “lost his life as a result
of his love for the Syrian people and his desire to ease their
suffering,” the parents said in
a statement from Indianapolis, where a vigil was held Sunday for the slain American.
His parents attended the vigil.
With Kassig’s death, the Islamic State group has killed five
Westerners it was holding.
American journalists James
Foley and Steven Sotloff were
beheaded, as were British aid
workers David Haines and
Alan Henning.
Unlike previous videos of
slain Western hostages, the
footage released Sunday did
not show the decapitation of
Kassig or the moments leading up to his death.
“This is Peter Edward Kassig,
a U.S. citizen ... who fought
against the Muslims in Iraq,”
said the black-clad militant,
who spoke with a British accent that was distorted in the
video, apparently to disguise
his identity. Previous videos
featured a militant with a British accent that the FBI says it
has identified, though it hasn’t
named him publicly.
The footage released Sunday identifies the militants’
location as Dabiq, a town in
northern Syria that the Islamic State group uses as the title of its English-language propaganda magazine and where
ap photo
Obama calls beheadings ‘pure evil’
Peter Kassig, is shown with a truck loaded with supplies
they believe an apocalyptic
battle between Muslims and
their enemies will occur.
The high-definition video
also showed the beheadings
of about a dozen men identified as Syrian military officers
[Kassig] was
taken from
us in an act
of pure evil
by a terrorist
group that the
world rightly
associates with
inhumanity
Barrack Obama
and pilots, all dressed in blue
jumpsuits. The black-clad militant warns that U.S. soldiers
will meet a similar fate.
“We say to you, Obama:
You claim to have withdrawn
from Iraq four years ago,”
the militant said. “Here you
are: You have not withdrawn.
Rather, you hid some of your
forces behind your proxies.”
A U.S.-led coalition is targeting the Islamic State group
in airstrikes, supporting Western-backed Syrian rebels,
Kurdish fighters and the Iraqi
military.
Kassig, who served in the
U.S. Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment, a special operations
unit, deployed to Iraq in 2007.
After being medically discharged, he returned to the Middle
This still image taken from an undated video published on the Internet by the Islamic State group
purports to show extremists marching Syrian soldiers before beheading them
East in 2012 and formed a relief group, Special Emergency
Response and Assistance, to
aid Syrian refugees.
A certified EMT, Kassig had
delivered food and medical
supplies and provided trauma
care to wounded Syrians before being captured in eastern
Syria on Oct. 1, 2013. Friends
say he converted to Islam in
captivity and took the first
name Abdul-Rahman.
In a statement issued as he
flew back to Washington from
the Asia-Pacific region, Obama
said Kassig “was a humanitarian who worked to save the
lives of Syrians injured and
dispossessed” by war. The president offered prayers and condolences to Kassig’s family.
“We cannot begin to imagine
their anguish at this painful
time,” he said.
Burhan Agha, a Syrian who
worked with Kassig in Lebanon, wept when recounting his
friend’s humanitarian work.
“If I could apologize to each
American, one by one, I would, because Peter died in Syria,
while he was helping the
Syrian people,” Agha told The
Associated Press by telephone
from Switzerland, where he is
seeking asylum. “Those who
killed him claimed to have
done it in the name of Islam.
I am a Muslim and am from
Syria. ... (His killers) are not
Muslims.”
British Prime Minister David
Cameron said he was “horrified by the cold-blooded
murder,” saying that the Islamic State group had “again
shown their depravity.”
In previous videos showing
the beheadings of the two
American journalists and two
British aid workers, the hos-
tages were shown kneeling in
orange jumpsuits as they were
forced to make speeches before their killer lifted a knife to
their throats.
The latest video did not show
Kassig being beheaded. And
unlike previous videos, it did
not show other Western captives or directly threaten to
behead anyone else. It also
had lingering close-ups on
some militants’ exposed faces,
a few of whom appeared to be
foreigners.
The video appeared on websites used in the past by the Islamic State group, which now
controls a third of Syria and
Iraq.
The terror group still holds
other captives, including British photojournalist John
Cantlie, who has appeared
in several videos delivering
statements for the IS, likely
under duress, and a 26-year
-old American woman captured last year in Syria while
working for aid groups. U.S.
officials have asked that the
woman not be identified out
of fears for her safety.
The video appeared to be part
of continuous efforts to strike
at the U.S., which is leading
an aerial campaign against the
group that began in August in
Iraq and spread to Syria the
following month.
The video came two days after a recording by the group’s
leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi,
was uploaded to the Internet.
The militant leader warned
that the U.S.-led coalition’s
campaign had failed and it
would eventually have to send
ground troops into battle.
The group has declared a self-styled Islamic caliphate in
areas under its control, which
it governs according to its violent interpretation of Shariah
law, including massacring rebellious tribes and selling women and children of religious
minorities into slavery.
The group’s militants have
also beheaded and shot dead
hundreds of captives, mostly
Syrian and Iraqi soldiers,
during its sweep across the
two countries, and has celebrated its mass killings in extremely graphic videos. AP
frenchman believed among killers
in is beheadings
France’s top security official says a Frenchman suspected
of joining fighters for the Islamic State group is believed to
be among the killers in a video
that showed a beheaded American
aid worker and a dozen Syrian
soldiers. Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said yesterday
that there is a “strong presumption” that Frenchman Maxime
Hauchard is among the group of
Islamic extremist fighters in the
video released over the weekend.
Cazeneuve said authorities are
analyzing the video and have been
investigating Hauchard, who is
about 22 years old and from west
of Paris. French citizens make up
the largest contingent of European
jihadi fighters who have joined
extremists in Syria and Iraq. According to the Paris prosecutor’s
office, about 1,100 people have
been placed under surveillance,
and 95 people face charges.
14
WORLD
18.11.2014 tue
th Anniversary
分析
Bird flu British, Dutch slaughter
poultry in new outbreak
hickens were being slaughtered in the Netherlands
and Britain was preparing to kill
ducks after two cases of bird flu
were discovered in Europe — but
officials insisted yesterday that
the risk to public health was very
low.
British officials said they were
investigating a case of the H5 bird
flu virus in northern England, but
noted it’s not the more dangerous
H5N1 strain. They said all 6,000
ducks at a breeding farm in the
Driffield area of East Yorkshire
will be killed and a restriction
zone was being set up to prevent
further spread of the infection.
Tests were also being carried out
at nearby farms.
The UK government food agency said there is no risk to the
food chain and British Chief Veterinary Officer Nigel Gibbens
told BBC the risk of the disease
spreading is probably quite low.
It was the first bird flu outbreak
in Britain in six years, officials
said. A government spokeswoman said Britain has a “strong
track record of controlling and
ad
Ducks on a farm in Nafferton, England, where measures to prevent the spread of bird flu
are underway
eliminating previous outbreaks
of avian flu in the UK.”
The Dutch government, meanwhile, banned the transport of
poultry and eggs throughout the
Netherlands after finding the
H5N8 strain of bird flu at a chicken farm. All 150,000 chickens
at the farm in Hekendorp, 65 kilometers south of Amsterdam,
were being slaughtered and 16
other nearby farms were being
checked. It was not clear how the
General kidnapped
by FARC rebels
Joshua Goodman, Bogota
A
ap photo
C
Colombia
farm became infected.
“There is a small risk that it can
be transmitted from animal to
humans but there has to be intensive contact. Those at risk are
really only the farmer, his family
and the workers slaughtering the
animals. They are being monitored by health authorities,” said
Harald Wychgel, a spokesman
for the Dutch National Institute
for Public Health and the Environment. AP
uthorities in Colombia have mounted
a massive search and rescue operation for an
army general who was apparently taken captive by
leftist FARC rebels.
Gen. Ruben Dario Alzate and two civilians were intercepted Sunday afternoon while traveling by motorboat
along a remote river in western Colombia to survey an
energy project. A fourth soldier managed to flee and reported that the captors were members of the 34th front
of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
If confirmed, it would be the first time in a half-century of conflict that the rebels have taken captive an
army general, Colombian media is reporting. It also
comes as frustration with two-year-old peace talks between the rebels and the government is building due
to an apparent refusal by the guerrillas to wind down
attacks in areas where they remain dominant.
President Juan Manuel Santos immediately ordered
the top military commander and his defense minister
to travel to the western capital of Quibdo to oversee
the rescue operation. He also is demanding to know
why one of Colombia’s most-distinguished soldiers
apparently violated military protocol and set off the
on the river journey dressed as a civilian.
“Let it be clear to the entire country: when a kidnapping occurs the only ones responsible are the kidnappers, in this case the FARC terrorists,” Defense
Minister Juan Carlos Pinzon said late Sunday night.
He added that the government had also contacted the
International Red Cross to facilitate an eventual release of the captives. AP
tue 18.11.2014
th Anniversary
廣告
ADVERTISEMENT
15
16
INFOTAINMENT
what’s ON
...
18.11.2014 tue
th Anniversary
資訊／娛樂
TV canal macau
AFA Autumn Salon 2014
Time: 10am-7pm (Closed on Mondays)
Date: November 8-30, 2014)
Admission: free
Enquiries: (853) 2836 6064
13:00
TDM News (Repeated)
13:30
News (RTPi) Delayed Broadcast
14:30
RTPi Live
17:30
Brazil Avenue (Repeated)
18:25
TDM Sports (Repeated)
Calendar Illustrations by Guan Huinong
Time: 10am-7pm
19:30
Soap Opera
20:30
Main News, Financial & Weather Report
21:00
TDM Interview
21:45
Happy Endings S1
22:10
Brazil Avenue
23:00
TDM News
23:30
Miscellaneous
00:30
Main News, Financial & Weather Report (Repeated)
(Closed on Mondays, no admission after 6:30 pm)
Until: December 28, 2014
Venue: Macau Museum of Art,
Av. Xian Xing Hai, s/n, NAPE
Admission: MOP5
(Free on Sundays and public holidays)
Enquiries: (853) 8791 9814
Western Views on China:
Prints of the 19th Century about China
Time: 10am-7pm
(Closed on Mondays, no admission after 6:30 pm)
Until: December 31, 2014
Venue: Macau Museum of Art,
Av. Xian Xing Hai, s/n, NAPE
Admission: MOP5
(Free on Sundays and public holidays)
Enquiries: (853) 8791 9814
Artistic Perspectives
Time: 10:3 am-6:30pm (Closed on Mondays)
Until: November 23, 2014
Venue: 10 Fantasia Creative Industries Incubator,
Calçada da Igreja de S.Lázaro, 10
Admission: Free
Enquiries: (853) 2835 4582
14th Macau Food Festival
Time: 5pm-11pm (Mondays to Thursdays)
cinema
cineteatro
13 Nov -19 Nov
interstellar_
room 1
2.30, 6.00, 9.00 pm
Director: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway,
Jessica Chastain
Language: English (Chinese)
Duration: 169min
don’t go breaking my heart 2_
room 2
2.30, 4.30, 7.30, 9.30 pm
Director: Johnnie To
Starring: Louis Koo, Miriam Yeung, Gao Yuanyuan
Language: Cantonese (English and Chinese)
Duration: 115min
3pm-midnight (Fridays to Sundays)
Until: November 23, 2014
Venue: Sai Van Lake Square
Admission: Free
Enquires: (853) 2857 5756
Time & Routes of free shuttle bus
(3 routes): 5pm-11:30pm (Mondays to
Thursdays)
3pm-12:30 midnight (Fridays to
Sundays)
Return service to Sai Van Lake Square
and Macau Luso Bank (Av. Dr. Mario Soares), OCBC
Weng Hang Bank (32, Est. Marginal do Hipodromo),
opposite Altira Macau Hotel in Taipa
Macau Science Centre
Address: Avenida Dr. Sun Yat-Sen
Admission: Exhibition Centre: MOP25
Planetarium (Dome/Sky Shows): MOP50
Planetarium (3D Dome/3D Sky Shows): MOP65
Enquiries: (853) 2888 0822
Offbeat
Pronounced dead, 91-yearold Polish woman awakens
A Polish doctor says she has been in “deep shock” since
learning that a 91-year-old woman she pronounced dead
woke up in a morgue several hours later.
The doctor — identified in the media as Wieslawa C. — said
on TVN24 television Friday that she was sure the patient was
dead after finding “no basic life functions” during a morning
house call on Nov. 6.
She said she checked for a pulse on a forearm and neck
arteries, listened for a heartbeat and the sound of breathing,
and checked the pupils for reaction to light, but found none.
“If I had had doubts, I would have called the ambulance, done
an electrocardiogram, but I was sure that the patient is dead,”
the doctor said.
The doctor examined the elderly woman, identified by the
media as Janina Kolkiewicz, in the eastern town of Ostrow
Lubelski after relatives noticed she was not breathing.
Some two hours after she was pronounced dead the woman
was taken to the morgue. Shortly before midnight, an undertaker who brought in another body noticed that Kolkiewicz
was moving inside a bag she had been placed in. Once it was
opened, she complained of being cold and asked for hot tea,
the media said. She was then taken home.
this day in history
before i go to sleep_
room 3
2.15, 4.00, 5.45, 9.30 pm
Director: Rowan Joffe
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Colin Firth, Mark Strong
Language: English (Chinese)
Duration: 92min
gangster pay day_
room 3
7.30 pm
Director: Lee Po Cheung
Starring: Anthony Wong, Charlene Choi, Wong Yau
Nam
Language: Cantonese (English and Chinese)
Duration: 134min
macau tower
1989 Protesters demand
reform in Bulgaria
More than 50,000 people have taken to the streets
of Sofia in Bulgaria demanding political reform.
In the biggest demonstration in the country’s post-war history, protesters held up banners and chanted: “We want democracy now.”
Other demands included free elections, a new constitution and the dismissal of the remaining hard-line
members of the Politburo.
The gathering, in the city’s Aleksandr Nevsky Square, comes just eight days after the country’s Communist leader, Todor Zhivkov, 78, was ousted from
power following a 35-year regime.
He was replaced by the more moderate former foreign minister Petar Mladenov, 53, who has promised
reform.
Most of Zhivkov’s loyal supporters have already
been dismissed and the newly-formed Parliament
moved quickly to repeal a repressive law against
freedom of speech which had previously led to the
imprisonment of thousands.
Today’s protest, organised by dissident political
groups, included many of the country’s academics
and literary personalities who had been banished under the Zhivkov regime.
Radoi Ralin, a once-imprisoned poet, said: “We
want democracy and pluralism.
“We want freedom of people’s opinion, freedom of
people’s speech, freedom of people’s will.
But he also signalled a note of caution warning that
the new leader may not be as good as his word: “For
years we have been promised radical changes in our
society, but it always turned out to be a carnival in
which masks were changed but policy remained the
same.
“That is why we should not be too enthusiastic
about the latest changes. We have to see what the
new leaders have to offer us soon.”
Numerous similar demonstrations have taken place
across Eastern Europe since the collapse of Communism in the Soviet Union.
Bulgaria has been one of the countries most resistant to change. Just two weeks ago Mr Zhivkov
issued a statement stressing that the Bulgarian Communist Party was still in total control.
But as the ideals of “perestroika” and glasnost”
swept through countries including Poland, Eastern
Germany and Hungary, Mr Zhivkov’s grip on power
became increasingly weakened.
Courtesy BBC News
6 Nov - 26 Nov
interstellar_
2.30, 5.30, 8.30 pm
Director: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway,
Jessica Chastain
Language: English (Chinese)
Duration: 169min
In context
Zhivkov was subsequently expelled from the Bulgarian Communist Party in December and was placed under arrest in
January 1990.
He was convicted of embezzlement in 1992 and sentenced to
seven years’ imprisonment.
He was allowed to serve his sentence under house arrest on
account of his failing health, and in 1998 he was reinstated as
a member of the Communist Party’s successor organisation,
the Socialist Party.
Bulgaria’s transition from Communism was wracked by political instability and strikes. The former Communists remained a
powerful influence.
Although the end of the 90s was more stable, there was little
tangible progress with economic reform.
But Bulgaria is on track to become a member of the EU in
2007 if it continues with its programme of key reforms.
tue 18.11.2014
th Anniversary
資訊／娛樂
Taurus
Mar. 21-Apr. 19
April 20-May 20
You may find yourself frustrated
with all the details of some new
deal or relationship, but it’s just a
temporary glut. You are sure to cut
past them all in short order once
you see what’s really important.
You feel an upswell of affection
for a friend or loved one who has
been drifting lately — so bring
them closer and see if you can
rebuild that bridge. Things should
be much better between you soon.
Gemini
Cancer
May 21-Jun. 21
Jun. 22-Jul. 22
An unexpected bill comes your way
— but you should be able to handle
it with a little flexible budgeting.
Try not to get too worried about
the long-term consequences, as
there shouldn’t be any.
On a day like today, your left
brain is more valuable than your
right brain. That doesn’t mean
you can totally neglect intuition,
but you should definitely keep it
in check as much as you can.
Leo
Virgo
Jul. 23-Aug. 22
Aug. 23-Sept. 22
This isn’t a great time for dates or
job interviews — unless you are
trying to show off your shy, sensitive
side. That force is dominant today,
and while it can be quite appealing,
it’s not the whole story.
You need to clean something up
— but it’s not a chore! If anything,
it’s more fun than the initial messmaking was, and you should find a
renewed sense of purpose once it’s
all behind you.
Libra
Sep.23-Oct. 22
Oct. 23 - Nov. 21
A scrap of information comes your
way early in the day that changes
your plans in a big way. In fact, you
may start off on an entirely new
course of action — so get ready for
something really big!
Capricorn
Nov. 22-Dec. 21
Dec. 22-Jan. 19
Other people may drive you
completely insane today — but
that doesn’t mean that you can just
ignore them! Try to marshal all your
resources and take care of the most
important business before you snap.
Someone needs a word from you —
and it’s likely someone you haven’t
seen in quite a while. Try to dig
through your contacts — or your
memory — until you hit on the
right name.
Aquarius
SUDOKU
Weather
Easy
Medium
Hard
Feb.19-Mar. 20
Somehow, you’ve got to figure out
what your peers are looking for
without asking directly. Most of
them might not even know! The
good news is that you should all be
back in alignment soon enough.
Your critical thinking skills are vital
today — and they may just make
the difference between success
and failure. Things may not seem
easy to understand at first, but they
should make sense pretty soon.
Down: 1- Gyro meat; 2- Inter ___; 3- Henry VIII’s sixth; 4- Official proof of a will;
5- Slender; 6- Murders; 7- Pen filler; 8Christmas; 9- Coddle; 10- Heavy napped
Yesterday’s solution
woolen fabric; 11- Longfellow’s bell town;
12- Chow ___; 13- Glitch; 21- Some Art
Deco works; 23- In conflict with, with “of”;
25- Polite agreement; 27- Layers; 28- Flat
shelf; 29- Birdlike; 31- Collar fastener;
32- Rate; 33- Atlas feature; 34- Thicket;
36- Public disturbance; 40- Hackneyed;
41- Grenoble’s river; 44- Candidate; 47Dishonest; 49- Half the diameter; 50Coercion; 53- Great grade; 54- Narrow
inlets; 55- Mother of the Valkyries;
56- Travel on water; 57- Soaks (up); 59Biblical twin; 60- Treehouse used by birds;
61- Driving aids; 64- Actress Scala
Crossword puzzles provided by BestCrosswords.com
Crosswords
Across: 1- Reindeer herder; 5- Pelt; 9- Packs tightly; 14- Chemical used on trees;
15- Chianti, e.g.; 16- Like Cheerios; 17- Picasso contemporary; 18- Actress Sommer;
19- Narrow groove; 20- Weightlifting bar; 22- Enduring; 24- Bohemian; 26- Service
charge; 27- Missouri feeder; 30- Recondite; 35- Embankment; 36- Queue after Q;
37- Second start?; 38- Despot Amin; 39- Incentives; 42- Recipe abbr.; 43- Richard
of “A Summer Place”; 45- Highway; 46- Berlin’s “Blue ___”; 48- Spanish Miss; 50Indicate; 51- Floor covering where the cat sat!; 52- Tierney of “ER”; 54- Dwells;
58- Keep from occurring; 62- Teheran native; 63- Give the eye; 65- Got it; 66- Old
French expression meaning “goodbye”; 67- Name of 12 popes; 68- Freelancer’s
encl.; 69- Shops want to achieve high ones!; 70- Back talk; 71- Humble homes;
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12
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17
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16
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23
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7
9
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10
drizzle
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14
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world
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Jan. 20-Feb. 18
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China
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Scorpio
Now is a good time to mix with new
people socially. Head out to that
networking event, try your hand at
sped dating or just say hello to that
mysterious stranger on the subway.
Anything is possible!
Sagittarius
17
The Born Loser by Chip Sansom
YOUR STARS
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NFL
J
onas Gray rushed
for 199 yards and a
franchise-record four
touchdowns in his
fourth career game, leading
the New England Patriots to a
42-20 victory over the Indianapolis Colts yesterday.
Tom Brady threw two TD
passes as the AFC-best Patriots (8-2) earned their sixth consecutive victory, and
finished with 19 of 30 for 257
yards with two interceptions.
Colts quarterback Andrew
Luck was 23 of 39 for 303
yards with two scores. He extended his franchise record of
consecutive 300-yard games
to eight and moved within
one of Drew Brees’ NFL record.
But the unheralded Gray
was the surprise star. His
first two scoring runs gave
New England a 14-10 halftime lead. His other two helped put the game away in
the second half. Brady sealed
it with a late TD pass to Rob
Gronkowski.
The St. Louis Rams defense
made life miserable for Peyton Manning in a 22-7 victory
over the AFC West-leading
Denver Broncos, and Shaun
Hill was effective in his first
start since regaining the quarterback job.
ap photo
Gray runs wild as Patriots
blow out Colts 42-20
Jonas Gray
Rookie Tre Mason had 29
carries for 113 yards, the most
allowed by the Broncos’ top
-ranked run defense.
Kenny Britt had four catches
for 128 yards with a 63-yard
score and Greg Zuerlein was
a career-best 5 for 5 on field
goals for the Rams (4-6).
Manning was 34 for 54 for
389 yards with two interceptions, but was held to a
42-yard touchdown pass to
Emmanuel Sanders, ending
a streak of 15 consecutive games with at least two touchdown passes.
At Glendale, Drew Stanton
threw touchdown passes to
Michael Floyd on Arizona’s
first two possessions and the
Cardinals held Detroit without a touchdown, beating
the Lions 14-6 in a matchup
of teams with two of the best
records in the NFC.
Arizona won its sixth in a
row to improve to an NFL
-best 9-1. The Cardinals, with
their best record through
10 games since 1948, have a
three-game lead over Seattle
and San Francisco in the NFC
West.
The Kansas City Chiefs won
a fifth straight game, stopping
Seattle on fourth down three
times late in the fourth quarter and holding on for a tense
24-20 victory in a matchup of
playoff contenders.
At Cleveland, J.J. Watt caught a 2-yard touchdown pass
from Ryan Mallett, dominated on defense and Houston
climbed back to .500 with
a win a 23-7 win over the
Browns. Along with his TD,
Watt recorded a strip sack,
made five tackles — three for
a loss — recovered a fumble
and hurried Browns quarterback Brian Hoyer.
The Packers had a 53-20
win over the Eagles, who were
held to 11 points below their
NFC-leading scoring average
by a defense rejuvenated since Clay Matthews moved to
inside linebacker.
In other games, the 49ers
beat the Giants 16-10 to send
New York to its fifth straight
loss, the Bengals beat the
Saints 27-10, the Bears won
for just the second time in seven games — overcoming two
of the worst blowout losses in
the club’s history — with a 2113 victory over the Vikings.
Atlanta moved into a share
of first place in the NFC South with a 19-17 win over the
Panthers, the Charges beat
the Raiders 13-6, extending
Oakland’s losing streak to 16,
and Mike Evans led the Buccaneers to a 27-7 win over
Washington.
Evans caught seven passes for 209 yards and scored
two touchdowns, becoming
the first rookie to post three
consecutive 100-yard games
with at least one touchdown
in each since Randy Moss in
1998. AP
Nascar
Jenna Fryer
Auto Racing Writer, Homestead
ap photo
Harvick wins Homestead to claim 1st championship
K
evin Harvick charged through
the field, picking off car after car,
passing two other title contenders on
a series of restarts. As he aggressively
chased the victory and his first Sprint
Cup title, it was clear that winning did
indeed matter most in NASCAR’s new
championship formula.
Harvick won Sunday night’s season
finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway
with a desperate drive from 12th to first
over the final 15 laps. He didn’t have to
win the race, he only had to finish higher
than the other three title contenders in
this revamped Chase for the Sprint Cup
championship.
But nothing short of a win was going
to get it done on a night in which Harvick, Denny Hamlin, Ryan Newman and
Joey Logano all showed up determined
to claim their first career championship.
“You had all the championship guys
show up at the front of the pack,” Harvick said. “I was just going to hold the
pedal down and hope for the best.”
The four drivers all found themselves
racing each other at the front of the field
after the sun went down on the 400mile race. It was Hamlin, the Charlotte
Bobcats season-ticket holder who had
Michael Jordan cheering from his pits,
who seemed to have the race in control
until a caution with 20 laps to go.
All four teams were forced to make
tough strategy decisions that ultimately
decided their fate.
Joe Gibbs Racing decided not to pit
Hamlin, which moved him to second
on the restart. Richard Childress Racing
gave Ryan Newman four tires, while
Harvick crew chief Rodney Childers also
made the risky call for four tires.
Team Penske had also planned to give
Joey Logano four tires, but a problem
with the jack destroyed Logano’s chances and he plummeted from sixth to
21st, ending his championship bid.
Harvick restarted 12th with 15 laps to
go. As Hamlin passed leader Jeff Gordon on the restart, Harvick shot past
four cars to move to seventh.
Then came another caution, and
Hamlin, on old tires, knew he was in
trouble. Harvick, on four new tires, rocketed through the middle on the restart, dicing his way through traffic to
pick up another four spots and move
into second.
“I loved our chances, but they weren’t
there at the end,” said Hamlin. “Strategy
is part of winning, and the strategy for
us didn’t work out with the cautions.”
Harvick got by Hamlin, then Newman
passed Hamlin for second and the
championship became a battle of drivers who had essentially swapped seats
this year. There was one more caution,
forcing Harvick to nail one final restart
with three laps remaining, and he eased
his way ahead of Newman and never
looked back.
The victory capped a magical first
season at Stewart-Haas Racing, where
Harvick moved this year after 13 seasons with Richard Childress that failed
to produce a championship.
Harvick, who had to win last week at
Phoenix just to advance into Sunday’s
final four, wrapped up his third victory
of this Chase and fifth of the season.
SPORTS
19
opinion
Extra Time
Nesha Starcevic, AP Sports Writer
Germany struggles after
World Cup title
From one red carpet to the other, Germany is still celebrating the World Cup title.
On the field, however, Germany is looking
far from being the best team in the world.
As year-end honors pour in and Joachim
Loew’s team gets feted across the country,
the World Cup champions have struggled
to keep up their reputation and so far have
had a lackluster European Championship
qualifying campaign.
“Somehow, we’ve landed hard on the surface of reality,” Loew said last week.
No wonder Loew is looking ahead to 2015.
“Football has developed further and we
have to develop further, too,” the Germany
coach said. “I am going to think things over
during the winter break and we will be
making changes.”
Since its 7-1 destruction of Brazil in the
semifinals and the 1-0 victory over Argentina in the World Cup final, Germany has
labored.
Its first match after the World Cup was a
4-2 loss to Argentina in a friendly repeat of
the final.
Before Friday’s unimpressive 4-0 win over
Gibraltar, a British territory of only 30,000
which had previously conceded 17 goals in
its three previous Euro 2016 qualifiers, Germany was beaten 2-0 by Poland and held
to a 1-1 draw by Ireland. Its only victory in
Group D had been a hard-fought 2-1 home
win over Scotland.
Loew had promised a “performance worthy of a World Cup winner” against Gibraltar. Instead, the fans expecting a doubledigit victory saw another lukewarm display
that earned even a few boos and jeers.
“I can’t be satisfied,” Loew said. “For a
world champion, four goals is too few.”
The distractions have been many.
The team received the country’s highest
honor for sports last week when President
Joachim Gauck, joined by Chancellor Angela Merkel, presented the players with the
Silver Laurel Leaf in a ceremony at the head
of state’s Bellevue Palace.
Then they were given the Hollywood treatment and more accolades at the premiere
of “Die Mannschaft” (The Team), a film celebrating their victory in Brazil.
There was no shortage of other events as
sponsors took their piece of the glory.
On the sporting side, Loew had to deal
with retirements of captain Philipp Lahm,
fellow defender Per Mertesacker and striker
Miroslav Klose.
Add in the injuries to key players such as
Bastian Schweinsteiger, Mats Hummels,
Mesut Ozil, Ilkay Gundogan and Marco
Reus and it becomes clearer why Germany
has been struggling.
Loew has to wonder if Schweinsteiger
will ever return to his combative best. The
Bayern Munich midfielder, who was named
Germany captain following Lahm’s retirement, hasn’t played a competitive game
since his inspirational World Cup final
appearance. He wasn’t fully fit during the
tournament but played to great effect through the pain.
The 30-year-old midfielder has returned to
training with Bayern Munich after a nagging
left-knee injury.
Germany is still looking for a left back and
a fulltime goal scorer.
If it were not for Thomas Mueller, who
appears never to fall out of form, Germany’s
results might have been even worse.
Mueller scored both against Scotland and
chipped in another two against Gibraltar.
Even Mueller is looking for a break.
“It’s good that Christmas is approaching,”
the Bayern Munich forward said. “Two or
three weeks of a break won’t hurt.” AP
9 face IRA charges in both
BUZZ parts of Ireland
THE
Brook Yang
Transport Madness
When the Public Security Police’s whistles
shrieked at the flustered streams of pedestrians in San Ma Lo, the dreadful story of four
migrants’ deaths seemed to have been submerged in the anxious air. Unsurprisingly, the
city remained its usual hustling and bustling
self, especially on a weekend with the Grand
Prix, Food Festival and City Fringe Festival
all taking place.
For most residents and commuters, especially
those relying on public bus services and walking
paths for their daily journeys, the annual Grand
Prix week equals a week of traffic chaos and
the disappearance of many daily buses.
At the Praça de Ferreira do Amaral bus hub,
one could hardly avoid a taste of desperation
when seeing one fully packed bus after another pass by without opening its doors. Like
canned sardines, the waiting crowds surging
in waves, the Square seemed to turn into an
isle of expectation.
“The Grand Prix needs residents’ understanding and cooperation,” authorities stated.
But year after year, the transport chaos that
regularly occurs during special events and
holidays hasn’t shown any improvement,
whereas the massive influx of visitors flooding through the central district and city border gates has only increased.
When the chaos ended at the dawn of a new
week, residents could take solace in the hope
that the city’s transportation system would
return from the transport madness, and the
government would go back to its calm and
composed pace of public infrastructure construction.
Yet the transport madness didn’t vanish.
Instead it’s merely been diluted into every
part of our day-to-day lives, resulting in a
cyclical mindset veering between eagerly
looking forward to a mass transport system
and waiting in numbness for its completion.
According to the opinions delivered to the
Chief Executive’s Office, the public has sent a
pressing message that the top priority for the
government’s administration should be fixing
the city’s broken transport.
An engineer working on the construction of
the Light Railway Transit once complained to
the media that the large delay to the projects
was mainly due to a lack of experience of the
regulatory authorities who “didn’t know, yet didn’t listen.” “We’ve built up the big casino resorts, but just can’t move forward on the LRT,”
he concluded, frustration showing in his voice.
Meanwhile, a low budget execution rate
continues to recur each year, where one cannot judge if the government’s “well-known”
low efficiency is derived from intractable difficulties, poor communication, weak artifice,
inertia of procrastination, or simply an indifference to the people who live and work here.
In fact, the entire city has become an isle of
suspense, waiting to see if anything labeled
as a public service can and will go wrong.
From television broadcasting to a telecommunications monopoly, poor design of public
housing units, bankruptcy of bus and taxi
operators... One by one, each has added its
own bizarre story to this queer magnetic field.
While those in power are reveling in amazing
tourist volumes, focusing on how new casino
resorts can attract endless visitors; residents
are complaining about the nuisance caused
by migrant workers who rush into the buses
heading towards construction sites.
Is the madness curable? Can the new administrative team make a difference? As far as we’ve
learnt, resources won’t be a problem, whereas
incapability, omission, or lack of respect for the
people could be. On the contrary, only with daring, resolution and some wisdom will the government earn back our hope and trust.
Minister Miguel Macedo
announcing his resignation
charges of corruption and
money laundering.
A statement from the Attorney General’s Office on
Friday confirmed that a
total of eleven people had
been arrested and face
charges in relation to the
issuing of “golden visas”
with Maria Antónia Anes,
Secretary General of the
Ministry of Justice, also
included in that number.
The authorities spent
Thursday making a total of sixty raids reaching
80-110
Moderate
source: dsmg
High
Density
70-100
Residental Moderate
Area
Ambient
Portugal Minister steps
down as friends caught
in corruption net
he Portuguese minister of internal affairs,
Miguel Macedo, has announced he is to resign in
the wake of a scandal involving so-called “golden
visas” saying his “authority was diminished”, even
though he had no hand in
the process.
“I have no intervention
in the administrative process of attributing visas
and personally, nothing to
do with the investigations,
as the Attorney General
said in a communiqué”,
Macedo stated in a declaration read at his ministry
yesterday (Macau time).
Several people close to
Miguel Macedo, such as
the president of the institute of registries and notaries, António Figueiredo,
and the national director
of the border authorities,
Manuel Palos, are being
investigated as part of
‘Operation labyrinth’ which is focusing on alleged
corruption in attributing
‘golden visas.’
Meanwhile, some of the
most senior figures in the
Portuguese bureaucracy,
including Manuel Jarmela
Palos and António Figueiredo, spent the weekend
being interrogated on
Roadside
10-100
Moderate
WORLD BRIEFS
‘Golden visa’ scandal
T
Air quality
across much of the Portuguese state bureaucracy
with focal points featuring
the Ministries of Internal
Affairs, Justice and the
Environment,
Planning
and Energy.
“These raids related to
the collection of information related to those departments, services and
employees of those ministries and did not target
any member of the government,” the Attorney General’s statement read.
The eleven are expected
to face a number of charges ranging from fraud
and dereliction of duty
through to corruption and
money laundering.
The “golden visa” program was launched in
2013 and fast tracks the
visa process for citizens living outside of the Schengen space that invest a
certain amount in Portugal for a period of no less
than five years.
Thus far, the two years of
the program have seen a total of 1,649 visas awarded,
the majority to Chinese citizens, and attracting in excess of €1 billion (USD1.25
billion) in investment, primarily going into the property market. Lusa
The
decisive moment
Kim Jong Un inspects the combined foodstuff-processing factory under the Korean People’s Army (KPA)
Unit 534. According to the Korean Central News Agency, the DPRK leader “went around the essential
foodstuff shop, maize-processing shop, rice-polishing shop, vegetable-processing shop and instant rice
shop to learn details about their modernization.”
BURKINA FASO’s former
ambassador to the United
Nations is slated to be
in charge of a civilian
transitional government
after the military briefly
seized control of the
country last month.
Michel Kafando, 72 , was
named early Monday as
transitional president to
lead Burkina Faso until
elections a year from now.
ROMANIA An ethnic
German mayor who
defeated the prime minister
in a runoff to become
president of Romania
said yesterday his victory
signals stronger relations
with the West and greater
stability for Eastern
Europe. Thousands of
Romanians celebrated the
surprise victory of Klaus
Iohannis over Victor Ponta,
which the mayor of Sibiu
said would lead to “deep
change” in Romania.
ap photo
Our Desk
ve testified that evidence includes audio recordings
of the men’s private discussions produced covertly
by the British spy agency MI5. Six were charged
with planning terrorist acts and conspiring to procure weapons. Five were charged with directing
terrorism, a charge normally levied against suspected commanders. Also yesterday, Dublin police charged two men with IRA activities following
weekend swoops that netted several handguns, a
sawn-off shotgun, a Kalashnikov assault rifle and
bomb-making equipment.
lusa
opinion
Seven Irishmen have been charged with membership in an Irish Republican Army faction after
Northern Ireland police raided a suspected meeting of the outlawed Continuity IRA. A judge ordered all seven held without bail during yesterday’s
court arraignment in Newry, a predominantly
Irish nationalist town near the province’s border
with the Republic of Ireland.
The men aged 30 to 75 — three from Northern
Ireland, four from the Irish Republic — were arrested in the same Newry house on Nov. 10. A detecti-
Station
USA A surgeon who
contracted Ebola
while working in his
native Sierra Leone
died yesterday while
being treated in a
biocontainment unit at a
Nebraska hospital, the
facility said. Nebraska
Medical Center said in
a news release that Dr.
Martin Salia died as a
result of the disease.
Hospital spokesman
Taylor Wilson said Salia
died shortly after 4 a.m.
yesterday.
USA The number of
children experiencing
homelessness in the
U.S. has surged to an
all-time high of nearly 2.5
million — one of every 30
children — according to a
comprehensive state-bystate report that blames
high poverty rates, the lack
of affordable housing and
the impact of pervasive
domestic violence. The
problem is notably severe
in California, which has
one-eighth of the U.S.
population but accounts
for more than one-fifth of
the homeless children.
UK Britain’s Prime Minister
David Cameron has offered
a bleak assessment of
global economic prospects,
comparing potential
troubles to red warning
lights on a car’s dashboard.
Writing in an op-ed piece
in the Guardian newspaper
after returning from the
G-20 summit in Australia,
Cameron said yesterday
that a lack of growth in
Europe and conflicts in the
Middle East and Ukraine
add to the backdrop of
instability.