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June, 2012:

Finnish companies to develop oil desulphurization plant

http://www.risiinfo.com/pulpandpaper/news/European-Union.html?source=rssfw

Finnish companies to develop oil desulphurization plant at the Port of HaminaKotka following the EU’s directive on marine fuel sulphur content

HELSINKI , June 19, 2012 (Press Release) – European Union has proposed that from 1st January 2015 all ships in the Baltic Sea, North Sea and English Channel must shift from using a bunker oil of 1.0-1.5 % of sulphur into a more emission reducing bunker oil of below 0.1 % of sulphur. The directive is to be approved by the European Parliament during the summer or autumn 2012

esb250 Runway Expansion proposal – additional information

Transparency and timing

Readers following the third-runway saga will be aware that the initial project profile of the Airport Authority, which sets out what is to be considered in its environmental impact assessment (EIA), was sent back to it with a request for more information. The authority announced yesterday that it had submitted further information.

“We welcome close monitoring of the EIA by all concerned stakeholders and members of the public,” Kevin Poole, the authority’s deputy director, projects, said in a statement. “We are firmly committed to carrying it out in a highly transparent and engaging manner.” A few eyebrows were raised at the announcement’s timing – just before a long weekend.

Here is the link for everyone – the ‘further information’ window dressing file esb250.pdf from the link is attached herewith: it fails to address major points many of us raised in the previous EIA consultation such as the Arup report warning on increased NOx and all the new incinerators being built a few kilometers away across the border in Shenzhen.

http://www.epd.gov.hk/eia/register/profile/latest/esb250/esb250.pdf

Download PDF : esb250

Now, injectable oxygen can avoid cardiac arrest, brain injury

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Now-injectable-oxygen-can-avoid-cardiac-arrest-brain-injury/articleshow/14480408.cms

NEW DELHI: Can’t breathe? No worries. Now, oxygen can now be injected.

In a major breakthrough, a team of doctors, chemical engineers and particle scientists from the Boston Children’s Hospital have designed tiny, gas-filled microparticles that can be injected directly into the bloodstream to quickly oxygenate the blood.

This will be a boon for patients unable to breathe because of acute lung failure or an obstructed airway needing another way to quickly get oxygen to their blood to avoidcardiac arrest and brain injury.

Scientists report that an infusion of these microparticles into rabbits with low blood oxygen levels restored blood oxygen saturation to near-normal levels within seconds.

When the trachea was completely blocked, the infusion kept the animals alive for 15 minutes without a single breath and reduced the incidence of cardiac arrest and organ injury.

The microparticles consist of a single layer of lipids (fatty molecules) that surround a tiny pocket of oxygen gas and are delivered in a liquid solution.

Announcing this in the journal of Science Translational Medicine, John Kheir of the Department of Cardiology said the microparticle solutions are portable and could stabilize patients in emergency situations, buying time for paramedics to more safely place a breathing tube or perform other life-saving therapies.

“This is a short-term oxygen substitute — a way to safely inject oxygen gas — to support patients during a critical few minutes. Eventually, this could be stored in syringes on every code cart in a hospital, ambulance or transport helicopter to help stabilize patients who are having difficulty breathing. The microparticles would likely only be administered for a short time, between 15 and 30 minutes, because they are carried in fluid that would overload the blood if used for longer periods,” Kheir said.

The particles are different from blood substitutes, which carry oxygen but are not useful when the lungs are unable to oxygenate them. Instead, the microparticles are designed for situations in which lungs are completely incapacitated.

Kheir began investigating the idea of injectable oxygen in 2006, after caring for a little girl who sustained a severe brain injury resulting from a severe pneumonia that caused bleeding into her lungs and severely low oxygen levels.

Despite the team’s best efforts, she died before they could place her on a heart-lung machine. Frustrated at his inability to save her, Kheir formed a team to search for another way to deliver oxygen.

He said, “We drew each other’s blood, mixed it in a test tube with the microparticles and watched blue blood turn immediately red, right before our eyes.” Over the years, Kheir and his team have tested various concentrations and sizes of the microparticles to optimize their effectiveness and to make them safe for injection.

The team used a device called a sonicator, which uses high-intensity sound waves to mix the oxygen and lipids together. The process traps oxygen gas inside particles averaging two to four micrometers in size (not visible without a microscope). The resulting solution, with oxygen gas making up 70% of the volume, mixed efficiently with human blood. “One of the keys to the success of the project was the ability to administer a concentrated amount of oxygen gas in a small amount of liquid. The suspension carries three to four times the oxygen content of our own red blood cells,” he added.

Intravenous administration of oxygen gas was tried in the early 1900s, but these attempts failed to oxygenate the blood and often caused dangerous gas embolisms. “We have engineered around this problem by packaging the gas into small, deformable particles,” he explained. “They dramatically increase the surface area for gas exchange and are able to squeeze through capillaries where free gas would get stuck,” he added.

Choking up

HK Standard – Friday, June 29, 2012

The city’s air and water quality have improved since the handover 15 years ago but the pace has been slow in recent years, green groups say.

Melonie Chau Yuet-cheung, senior environmental affairs officer of Friends of the Earth, said the SAR government needs to set out both short-term and long- term measures to further clamp down on air and water pollution in the territory.

“Pollution in Hong Kong has been improving, but at quite a slow pace lately,” she said.

Short-term measures mean policies to control pollution within the city, including replacing all old cars with new cars that emit much less pollution. Long- term measures should be co-operation with the neighboring mainland cities because air and water are borderless, Chau said.

Figures from the University of Science and Technology show that the annual average concentration of fine suspended particulates in Central in 1999 was 53 micrograms per cubic meter. The number dropped to 36 in 2009 but rose to 40 last year.

Another example is Causeway Bay, with the reading at 75 in 1999, dropping sharply to 53 in 2002. However, the reading remained at around 45 between 2010 and 2011.

The readings run in contrast to the World Health Organization’s air quality guidelines that say the annual concentration of fine suspended particulates should only be 10 micrograms per cubic meter.

Chau said that the improvement in air quality in Causeway Bay between 1999 and 2002 was largely due to then secretary for the environmen

t, transport and works Sarah Liao Sau-tung’s decision to encourage diesel vehicle drivers to switch to liquefied petroleum gas vehicles.

While the incumbent Secretary for the Environment Edward Yau Tang- wah introduced curbs on parked vehicles with running engines recently, Chau said the effectiveness of this measure to curb air pollution is not very apparent.

“While it is true that air pollution during Yau Tang-wah’s term as the secretary for the environment has not worsened, the impact of his measures like banning idling engines is not obvious,” Chau said.

She said that when then-chief executive Tung Chee-hwa was in office, he trusted Sarah Liao to carry out a series of measures.

But incumbent Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen was worried that pushing for green measures would harm the city’s development, Chau said.

For example, Edward Yau said it will take the government two more years to update the air quality objectives.

Chau sees that as the government being reluctant to push for better air quality in the city. This is because if the objectives are updated, it will mean more stringent standards for environmental assessment for future development projects.

As for water pollution in Hong Kong, Chau believes co-operation with the mainland authorities can be a long- term measure.

“Water pollution is a huge problem because the economic developments in the mainland have been thriving,” she said. And to stop sewage from flowing into Hong Kong, the government must work out a plan to co-ordinate efforts with the mainland, she added.

In fact, Hong Kong, Guangdong and Macau agreed on June 25 on a plan to reduce polluting emissions in the region by 2020.

This is the first regional plan jointly compiled by Hong Kong, Guangdong and Macau, which covers long-term co- operation in five major areas. They include the environment and ecology, low-carbon development, culture and social living, and spatial planning and green transportation systems.

For example, the plan suggests pushing vessels calling at ports in the delta to use cleaner fuel.

Clean Air Network campaign officer Jenny Wong said she welcomes the plan and hopes the SAR government will seize the opportunity to push for better air quality as soon as possible.

She believes that more can be done in addition to measures outlined in the plan. For example, the government can set up low emission zones for transportation, encourage the use of cleaner fuel and establish air quality targets for fine suspended particulates.

Meanwhile, the cross-harbor swim will be held in October for the second year after it was suspended for 33 years over pollution concerns.

Hong Kong Amateur Swimming Association assistant honorary secretary David Chiu Chin-hung said the association has been keeping an eye on the water quality in Hong Kong and thinks it is acceptable this year. Swimmers will be swimming all the way from Lei Yue Mun to Sai Wan Ho.

“The reason why we don’t choose to hold the race at Tsim Sha Tsui is that we need to wait for part two of the Harbour Area Treatment Scheme to finish in 2014, which is two more years to go.

“We will keep contact with the Environmental Protection Department,” Chiu said.

HK tycoon must stand trial over La Scala bribe

Joseph Lau is served papers in scandal involving jailed former public works chief Ao Man-long
Jennifer Ngo and Paggie Leung
Jun 29, 2012

Hong Kong property tycoon Joseph Lau Luen-hung has been ordered to trial in Macau in September over accusations he and another developer paid a HK$20 million bribe to secure prime land for luxury flats.

In a statement filed last night with the Hong Kong stock exchange, Lau’s publicly listed Chinese Estates (SEHK: 0127) confirmed that Macau’s Court of First Instance served him papers yesterday ordering him to appear for trial on September 17.

The statement said Lau had for now retained his role as executive director. It did not say whether he intended to go to Macau to face the charges for bribery and money laundering.

lau Teng-pio, a law professor from the University of Macau, said Lau could escape jail time if he stayed away from Macau because the city had no extradition treaties.

“The Macau government cannot demand that the Hong Kong police and government help with arrests,” Iausaid.

The trial comes as little surprise since allegations against Lau played a central role in the recently concluded corruption trial against former Macau public works chief Ao Man-long.

Ao was sentenced last month to 29 years in prison for taking the bribe, which prosecutors said Lau and fellow tycoon Steven Lo Kit-sing paid in 2005 to advance the La Scala project near Macau’s airport.

Investors may nonetheless see confirmation of the trial as damaging since Lau and his family retain control over Chinese Estates. The company could not be reached for comment.

Ricky Tam Siu-hing, a director at Champlus Asset Management, said the company’s share price would face pressure when the market opened today.

But Tam did not expect the stock to fall drastically because accusations about Lau’s involvement had already come out in Ao’s trial and the Lau family held 75 per cent of the shares.

“Not many institutional investors have its shares,” Tam said. “So I don’t think there will be a strong wave of panic selling.”

Chinese Estates shares were priced at HK$11 last month before it was revealed that he would face the charges, and have since hovered around HK$9. The company’s stock ticked up two cents to HK$8.98 at the close of trading before the announcement came out.

The company had sold 300 of the 4,000 flats planned for the La Scala project before cutting off sales and construction in recent weeks.

Chinese Estates has said it will take legal action to stop the Macau government from invalidating the land purchase, and that it was “determined” to pursue compensation claims if it happened.

Your 2012 dartboard with the bull target at centre left

Description: http://www.scmp.com/files/SCMP/SCM_News_1.1.Nws_Extra_1ART1_1.jpg

Is Tsang the best financial secretary HK can find?

A closer look at the senior official’s record in the job shows that his forecasts have been way off the mark and his budgets overly conservative on some scores
MONITOR
Tom Holland
Jun 29, 2012

Incoming chief executive C.Y. Leung announced his new government line-up yesterday, and John Tsang Chun-wah is to stay on as financial secretary.

“In the coming few years, the economy of our globalised world will be undoubtedly clouded by uncertainties and volatilities,” Tsang said. “We in Hong Kong will face unprecedented challenges.”

You have to wonder what he’s blathering about. Hong Kong’s economy has experienced nothing but uncertainty and volatility for the last 15 years.

Within a year of the handover both the stock and property markets had plunged 50 per cent. Then in rapid succession we had the dotcom boom and bust, Sars, and the financial crisis.

Still Hong Kong prospered. So there is nothing either unprecedented or unusually challenging about the near future.

Even so, doubtless C.Y. wants a steady pair of hands on the city’s financial tiller, and looking at Tsang’s record, he obviously thinks the bewhiskered one is the right man for the job.

That makes me wonder if C.Y. has really looked closely enough at Tsang’s performance.

As financial secretary Tsang likes to talk up his prudent management of the city’s public purse. Yet in his latest budget speech delivered in February he boasted that “for my five budgets, I have increased government expenditure by nearly 70 per cent. This exceeds GDP growth of 21 per cent for the same period”.

It’s that sort of budgetary prudence that got Europe where it is today.

In one sense, however, Tsang has been overly conservative. Every year since his appointment, Tsang has forecast a budget deficit. And, as the first chart shows, every single year, including the crisis year of 2008-09, the government actually turned in a surplus.

On average since he started the job, Tsang’s initial budget forecasts have been wide of the mark by an astonishing HK$64 billion. On that form, the HK$3.4 billion deficit he is forecasting for the current fiscal year will end up as a HK$61 billion surplus.

Conservatism in budget forecasts is all very well, but this is over-egging the tart on a grand scale. Tsang’s inability to make accurate forecasts and his repeated prediction of deficits when he actually generates fat surpluses hampers the administration’s ability to make long-term fiscal plans and ends up sucking money out of the economy in the form of excessive government reserves.

Of course, Tsang has given some of that money back to Hong Kong’s people. Declaring last year that “fighting inflation is our major task” he announced a set of one-off measures intended to alleviate the pressure of rising prices on ordinary households.

These included a rent holiday for public housing tenants, a rate waiver, and a subsidy for household electricity bills. The overall cost came to some HK$17 billion.

In fact, these measures were hardly original. They simply reinstated earlier anti-inflation efforts dating from Tsang’s debut budget in 2008. Most were rolled over again this year.

Now, at this point anyone with even the most rudimentary knowledge of economics will protest that you can’t fight inflation by throwing money at the problem.

And as the second chart shows, he or she will be absolutely right. The blue line shows Hong Kong’s official headline inflation rate ever since Tsang’s first budget took effect. The red line shows the underlying inflation rate after stripping out his relief measures.

The most obvious effect of Tsang’s inflation-fighting efforts is that they have merely made Hong Kong’s inflation rate more volatile.

But their impact on overall price rises has been doubtful at best. Looking back over the last three years, we find that the average inflation rate after Tsang’s anti-inflation measures has been 3.3 per cent. Without them, it would have been slightly lower at 3.1 per cent.

In other words, as financial secretary Tsang has been spending some HK$17 billion a year to no good effect whatever. Unfortunately, C.Y. appears to think that makes him ideally qualified for the job.

tom.holland@scmp.com

Description:

Idling engine law just a smokescreen

SCMP

Your editorial noted the absence of prosecutions for idling engines and perhaps there never will be any (“Idling engine law has all but stalled”, June 19).

Last week I took a photo of a minibus which was parked outside the K. Wah Centre in North Point. The picture showed the driver enjoying a well earned rest in air-conditioned comfort with the engine running and no one at the wheel.

I suppose it is fruitless to expect prosecutions since it is the long-established inalienable right of every indigenous male driver to sleep in his vehicle, this right having been established over countless generations and anyone trying to remove this right is obviously a troublemaker.

There is a saying that the law is an ass, but who is the real ass?

Is it the government that devised the law, or the legislators who enacted it?

Or perhaps it is those who believed that the government was doing something about air pollution, when, in fact, it was only blowing a smokescreen over its inertia.

Robert Wilson, Discovery Bay

Rules to scrutinise official lavish trips

Colleen Lee
4:21pm, Jun 28, 2012

New curbs on lavish spending by the chief executive will compel officials to explain why a lower-grade hotel suite was not chosen for the city’s leader on future duty trips, lawmakers were told on Thursday.

The outgoing director of the Chief Executive’s Office, Professor Gabriel Leung, told lawmakers that the proposed new guidelines would be given to the office of the incoming leader, Leung Chun-ying, before he takes office on Sunday, for him to put the measures into force.

The guidelines were drawn up following controversy over Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen’s lavish hotel expenses on official trips abroad. They come nearly a month after the Audit Commission found that Tsang had stayed in plush hotel rooms without good reason, and the Chief Executive’s Office had no internal rules to govern the choice of accommodation.

“In our guidelines, we will say very clearly: apart from fulfilling all these criteria [on spending] please also tell us why a [suite] one grade lower is not suitable and how much [its room rate] is,” Professor Leung said in a joint meeting of the panels on commerce, industry and economic development.

The audit earlier found that, of the 49 nights of accommodation paid for by the Hong Kong government – rather than hosts or sponsors – over the past five years, Tsang stayed in a superior suite on 41 of them.

The proposed new rules would require the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Offices to consider six criteria when deciding which suites to recommend to the Chief Executive’s Office. They include any sponsorship of accommodation by a host, organisation or country, and the nature of the facilities and design of the room.

“We will see if [the suite] can be used to hold meetings with the press, local officials and important persons in the political and economic sectors,” Leung said.

“In case of emergencies, say the outbreak of Sars in Hong Kong in 2003 and swine flu in 2009, and [if the chief executive] was on duty visit abroad – he would need an emergency control centre.”

Other considerations, Leung said, were security, diplomatic protocol to reflect Hong Kong’s status, auxiliary facilities required such as telecommunication services, and a complete quotation of prices from hotels.

Under the new plan, the Chief Executive’s Office should post on its website a record of its spending on duty visits every quarter; and such disclosures should be made within six months after each trip.

In future the office would explain in more detail to the public, after each trip, how it could benefit Hong Kong, Leung said.

As recommended by the audit, payments for the chief executive’s accommodation would need approval from the office’s permanent secretary instead of the leader’s private secretary, Leung said.

The leader’s office has asked the Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau to consider, again, whether the government should apply for a corporate credit card for spending on duty visits, Leung said.

The government reviewed the matter in 2006, he said, and found that using a corporate card might have more disadvantages than advantages, although he did not explain the disadvantages on Thursday.

Democrat Kam Nai-wai said the criteria for spending should include public sentiment.

Leung responded: “The public’s feelings are crucial … [As mentioned in the audit report,] such expenditure is sensitive in the eyes of the public. I totally agree with that, and I am fully confident that the next administration and relevant officials will give high consideration to it when [choosing accommodations].”

Tsang has faced calls to step down from office over his luxurious official trips and favours received from tycoon friends.

Prize-Winning Reporter Driven out of SCMP

http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4642&Itemid=173

Written by Paul Mooney
THURSDAY, 28 JUNE 2012

Protesters against SCMP policy

Description: Protesters against SCMP policy

Editor Wang Xiangwei says the East is Red

This is reprinted from the websitewww.isunaffairs.com) Asia Sentinel welcomes tales of similar experiences. Send them to the editor atjberthelsen@asisentinel.com. This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

On April 22, Wang Xiangwei, the new editor-in-chief of the South China Morning Post, informed me that my contract with the newspaper would not be renewed when it expired on May 21. I can’t say I was surprised.

Sitting in a hotel restaurant in Hong Kong on a hot April day, Wang stared down at the table as the conversation began, seemingly unwilling to make eye contact. After a few minutes of chit chat, I asked him directly about my contract. He fidgeted and said he would not be able to renew it due to budget problems.

To me it was clear that this was a political decision. For seven months, he had basically blocked me from writing any China stories for the newspaper. During that period, I only had two stories in the China pages of the newspaper–one on panda bears and one on compensation for AIDS victims. Some two dozen other story suggestions went unanswered by the China Desk–in one case a story was approved, but the editor told me Wang had overruled him. A half-dozen emails to Wang pleading to write more for the newspaper went unanswered.

It certainly was not about money. Following my departure, Wang hired a spate of new young reporters, many apparently from the mainland. And if there were budget problems, why was I chosen to be let go? Obviously, there were newer people at the newspaper than myself. I had been on contract for two years, and wrote my first article for the newspaper in 1990, some 22 years ago. And I’d won 10 awards for my reporting for the newspaper, more than any other staff reporter.

When I offered to freelance and said I didn’t care about the word rate, he hemmed and hawed. When I asked if the newspaper could at least allow me to keep my journalist accreditation with the South China Morning Post, so I could continue to contribute articles to the newspaper, he muttered something about having to think about it. Despite several emails asking about this, he never agreed to do this. And there was no cost in sponsoring me.

When the news came last year that Wang had been appointed the editor-in-chief, I was quite surprised. For one, despite talk of him being a veteran journalist, he had little actual practical experience doing real journalism–far less than a lot of his staff. Wang had worked for the China Daily, done a master’s degree in journalism and had gone off to London on a training program, where he worked briefly for the BBC. As far as I know, he never “pounded the sidewalks,” as we American journalists say of a reporter who has spent years roaming around doing interviews.

He’d shown weakness in news judgment on many occasions, but more important, he’d long had a reputation as being a censor of the news, which may be what endeared him to Mr. Robert Kuok, the Malaysian tycoon who owns the newspaper, and his son and daughter, who took turns running it.

Talk to anyone on the China reporting team at the South China Morning Post and they’ll tell you a story about how Wang has cut their stories, or asked them to do an uninteresting story that was favorable to China.

Last November, I traveled to the US on holiday and decided to take a train to meet Geng He, the wife of rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, who had snuck past Chinese security guarding their Beijing home with a young son and daughter, making it all the way to Thailand and eventually political asylum in the US.

During a three-hour interview in a highway Burger King, Ms. Geng gave me unreported details about the harrowing escape through Southeast Asian jungles, much of it in the middle of the night. She cried as she talked about her husband’s treatment by brutal security people, and she smiled when she recalled her husband’s dedication as a lawyer. Tears fell as she described the difficulties the family was facing in the US. Both children had been seriously affected by the treatment of their father here in China, which included serious torture and forced disappearances for lengthy periods.

An editor expressed interest in the story, but got back to me later in the day to tell me that Wang had spiked it. No reason was given.

When I was the second foreign reporter to see Gao during his brief respite from being disappeared, Editor-in-chief Reg Chua and Deputy Editor David Lague had a bitter argument with Wang, who was not keen to run the story. They wanted it on the front page, but Wang wanted it buried inside. They compromised by putting the story inside and cutting it slightly. Gao Zhisheng was obviously on Wang’s list of people not to be reported about.

When the government began its nasty crackdown against rights lawyers and other dissidents last year, one that saw people have black hoods thrown over their heads before being stuffed into cars, and then being taken to hidden locations, where most endured horrible torture, I saw an unprecedented pattern of intimidation and pain that clearly marked a new and frightening trend and so I suggested a story to the China Desk (David Lague, the deputy editor, was on holiday at the time). The story was immediately rejected by a China Desk editor, who said the newspaper had reported on tortured lawyers already. I wrote a short note saying this was a new and different trend, but I knew it would go unanswered.

When David Lague returned weeks later, I submitted the story to him and he immediately said to go ahead. I finished the story, but it sat on the China Desk for about three months, a practice I later learned was not uncommon when Wang wanted to let a story shrink in importance. When I wrote to David Lague, he pleaded he no longer had the authority he used to have. Silence of the Dissidents ran three months later, and I went on to win two awards for the story the China Desk tried to kill.

During their time at the newspaper, the two veteran journalists frequently battled fiercely with Mr. Wang over stories, with the daughter of Mr. Robert Kuok, the Malaysian owner of the newspaper, frequently siding with Wang. Insiders say the Kuoks long coddled Wang, believing he had influence in China.

Nor was I the only foreign reporter to be pushed out of the newspaper–I follow a long line of foreigners–each with long experience–who saw their contracts allowed to run out by Wang–this way he could plead innocence: You’ve not been fired, your contract ran out. There are now no foreign reporters working for the South China Morning Post in China–a first in a long while.

One good example is the case of former Guangzhou correspondent Leu Siew Ying, a native of Malaysia, who won the European Commission’s Lorenzo Natali Grand Prize in 2006 for her reporting on protests in the village of Taishi the previous year.

“She left the paper in 2007 after disputes with Mr. Wang about following up on Taishi and pressure from the Guangdong authorities,” Wall Street Journal Asia editor Hugo Restall wrote.

During Wang’s time with the newspaper, several foreign editors were offered the job of editor-in-chief, but most left after fighting a losing battle with the former China Daily reporter and member of the JinlinChinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. The Kuoks always made it clear where their loyalties lay.

But this is not just a case of foreign reporters being harassed. Talk to just about any one of the excellent Chinese or Hong Kong reporters writing about China for the newspaper, and, if they’re willing to talk, they’ll quietly tell about Wang spiking perfectly good stories or of being told to write more “positive” articles.

It’s interesting that the story that finally exposed Wang was one about the mysterious death of June 4 activist Li Wangyang, which barely got coverage in the newspaper.

After a sub on the desk questioned this gap in the newspaper’s reporting, about a story that other Hong Kong media had jumped on eagerly, Wang curtly told the sub off. “I don’t have to explain to you anything. I made the decision and I stand by it. If you don’t like it, you know what to do.”

When the news gained international attention, and his own reporters signed a letter asking for an explanation, a worried Wang responded with a statement to staff that he decided to run the story as a brief on the first day because he felt the newspaper didn’t have enough hard facts for a full story.

But what Wang failed to say was that the newspaper had in fact run a much longer story on Li’s death in its first edition and that Wang had chosen to yank it, shave it down to a brief for the next edition, and replace it with an article about former Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui and a conversation he had with a group of students–a story that had already run two days earlier.

What few have noticed, is that self-censorship is not the only problem. Possibly more worrying is the newspaper’s new-found proclivity under Wang to publish dubious stories that reflect Beijing’s views.

Earlier this year, deputy editor Tammy Tam gushed like a high school girl over a story about the Chinese Panchen Lama, asking only one serious question of a person who has never appeared in the Western media before. Eric X. Li, a well-known apologist for China, has been writing regular columns for the South China Morning Post. In one recent article he slapped Hong Kong citizens on the wrist for not welcoming mainland women to have their babies in the territory, and then wondering aloud if a people like this deserved the right to vote. Last week came a story by Professor Jiang Shigong, deputy director of Peking University’s Centre for Hong Kong and Macau Studies, that claimed “Hongkongers accept Beijing’s rule.”

In his own weekly commentary, Wang had egg on his face after predicting that disgraced Chongqing party secretary Bo Xilai had escaped any serious trouble. “Firstly, Bo’s political career looks safe for now and he has apparently managed to push back the pressure from his opponents within the party,” Wang wrote just before Bo fell hard.

Another article described Tibetans in Lhasa happily celebrating the Tibetan New Year, with quotes coming from one unidentified “middle-aged Tibetan man.” Meanwhile, more objective reports were reporting a dire situation in the Tibetan area. The article read like a China Daily story.

While the South China Morning Post continues to publish good critical reportage on China, the newspaper no longer has the status it had in the late 1990s, or more recently under three years direction under Chua and Lague, when the newspaper made great advances.

Under Wang’s stewardship, the newspaper has lost credibility with Hong Kong and international readers and is now often the butt of jokes in the local Chinese media there.

Sadly, the South China Morning Post, which has a history of more than 100 years of reporting on Asia, may be beyond the point of return. With credibility and morale at the newspaper sagging, and with controversies on the rise, competent journalists will now be reluctant to join the newspaper, and it can only sink deeper into mediocrity. The prospects for English-language journalism in Hong Kong is not good and this is sad.

(Reprinted from www.isunaffairs.com)