每日點新聞 點解香港事

The Hong Kong Police imposed new media rules on Tuesday and now only recognize media representatives registered with the Information Services Department (ISD) and those from "internationally recognized and well-known" non-local news agencies, newspapers, magazines, radio and TV stations. This means police events and some protest scenes may now be off-limits to unregistered, online news outlets, student journalists, freelancers and individuals.

After a 15-year-old youth was sentenced on May 26 to 18 months' probation for the offenses of arson and possession of materials with intent to destroy or damage property, the secretary for justice, Teresa Cheng Yeuk-wah, invited the Court of Appeal to review the sentence, arguing that it was manifestly inadequate (CAAR 1/2020).

Whenever mechanisms designed to promote the public good are abused, everybody loses out, and the travel advisory system is no exception. Travel alerts are official statements issued by governments, and they contain information about the safety of particular places.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin accused the US of disguising the identities of its warplanes as civilian aircraft to spy on China at least 100 times this year in a briefing this week, describing it as a "serious security threat". The US disguising warplanes as civilian aircraft is not only a violation of the Convention on International Civil Aviation, but also the China-US code of safe conduct on naval and air force encounters, signed in 2014.

Human rights lawyer Ren Quanniu who is seeking to represent 29-year-old Wong Wai-yin, one of the 12 Hongkongers detained in the mainland after trying to flee to Taiwan, has lodged his grievance with the Yantian People’s Procuratorate in Shenzhen last Friday and called on Chinese prosecutors to investigate local security officers for allegedly making false claims and depriving his client of his right to a legal defense.

"Be careful what you wish for, lest it comes true!" The origin of this saying is Aesop's Fables which is one of the world's best-known collection of morality tales. One of the 5 wishes, or demands, causing Hong Kong for over one year of social unrest which started with the Extradition Bill. If the bill is approved, it will allow Hong Kong to detain and transfer people wanted in countries, or territories, without formal extradition agreements, including Taiwan and mainland China.

In Rage, the second book about Trump's presidency by American journalist, Bob Woodward said US health officials began monitoring the virus outbreak from late December 2019 and the Chinese President Xi Jinping asked his US counterpart Donald Trump not to spark panic over COVID-19, and rejected several offers by Trump to send medical experts to China to help investigate and contain the virus.

The detainment of a dozen of Hong Kong residents in mainland China that were arrested when China Coast Guard intercepted their speedboat in Chinese waters on August 23 as they tried to flee to Taiwan has sparked a new Sino-US diplomatic row, as the families of the 12 made their first public appeal to the local government to bring the group back to the city for trial.

To break the COVID-19 contagious chain, more than 1.7 million Hong Kong people have taken part in the voluntary Universal Community Testing Programme, which was launched on Sept. 1.

On August 23, the China Coast Guard intercepted a speedboat in Shenzhen waters. It was found to contain 12 criminal suspects from Hong Kong, apparently hoping to escape justice in Taiwan. The fugitives included at least one person who was under investigation for breaches of Hong Kong's National Security Law, as well as people who had already been charged before the courts with protest-related crimes, including making or possessing explosives, arson, riot and conspiracy to wound with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

We are less than 3 weeks away from the last quarter of 2020, and people start to make a joke by saying it is already a win if we can live through to the end of the year. It sounds sarcastic, but indeed, lives have been taken, families have been broken down, businesses had been closed. The cost we are paying is hard to quantify into any values as it has already deep down into our society and minds. Unemployment is one of the biggest issues in any economy.

In recent times, there have been criticisms, sometimes justified, of the courts for imposing unduly lenient sentences on defendants convicted of protest-related crime. Some people, moreover, have complained of inconsistent sentences, and called for a Sentencing Council to be created, to direct the courts and ensure better sentencing. This, however, is alien to our jurisprudence, and also unnecessary.

The word of COVID-19 brainwashed the world for 10 months, bringing stress and anxiety to everyone. I believe none of us would like this virus among us any longer. Some countries put a lot of effort to get it under control, and at the same time, some countries have applied different policies they think will be a benefit to the most. As China was one of the earliest countries encountering the virus, some policies applied were also first to the world, that simply demonstrated the possible ways to overcome the pandemic.

Accompanied by headlines in Western media, seven special rapporteurs of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) have sent a letter to the Chinese. They allege that Hong Kong's new National Security Law "infringes on certain fundamental rights" and urged China to comply with its human rights obligations.

The Universal Community Testing Programme (UCTP) commenced on September 1, 2020. HKSAR has announced the 7 days booking is almost full as of August 31, 2020, with over 650,000 citizens registered.