By now, every man and his dog knows about the rumble in the sky. Cathay Pacific flight attendants found themselves in the eye of a category-5 storm, caught disrespecting non-English speaking Mainland passengers.

It is getting more ludicrous by the day! The debt ceiling crisis looms over the US. But guess what? Its politicians are crying wolf, warning that this crisis is "playing into the hands of China". These days, in shambolic America, everything problematic has a China angle, including debt ceiling. They blame Chinese imports for their industrial decline. Soon, they will blame China for their constipation or erectile dysfunction. It's Sino-phobia gone mad!

Liz Truss squatted in No. 10 for exactly 49 days, long enough to damage, but not long enough to destroy the UK. Now loitering in the wilderness, she is itching for a comeback. Domestically, she is in no-man's land, ignored and irrelevant. But internationally, Trumpish madness is always beckoning. As a cheap trick, she chooses to invoke Taiwan as the "abracadabra" or magic word for attention-seeking.

In his famous essay on "Politics and the English language", George Orwell said sagely "political language is designed to make lies truthful and murder respectable"; it gives "an appearance of solidity to pure wind." The language is deliberately kept "vague or meaningless because it was intended to hide the truth rather than express it."

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol took office last May. In less than a year, his popularity ratings have plunged to a pathetic  28%.  His predecessor Moon Jae-in, in stark contrast, left office basking in stratospheric 78% support. These ratings are a true measure of competence and experience or lack thereof.

Quite suddenly, since Trump, China has earned the label of being a threat, a threatening "other" to America. Actually, China's behavior hasn't changed one iota. It is America that has changed, using "us" versus "them" to shape its relationships, domestic and foreign.

French President Macron's 3-day visit to China has shifted the axis of the earth. He came prepared. Not only did he bring along a 60-strong trade delegation, but on board his presidential jet was a surprise passenger: the red-hot Chinese movie star Gong Li, now married to a French citizen. He came not just to open Chinese wallets, but Chinese hearts too.

What a study in contrast. At exactly the time when Ma Ying-jeou, the former Taiwan leader, made a nostalgic trip to the mainland, returning to his roots for the first time and welcomed home like a long-lost son, Tsai Ing-wen, his successor, was offering herself as a pawn in America's geopolitical game, currying favor with China-bashing US politicians. Ma's visit to his ancestral tomb was shared on Mainland's social media. In a single day, it exploded with 120 million likes.

First of all, the name sucks. Utterly crass and cringe-worthy, it sounds stupid and is stupid. Worse, it represents an act of gratuitous cruelty to senior citizens. Without a doubt, it takes the cake for bureaucratic insanity. The opposite of what its name suggests, this joyless and callous card grew out of the need to discourage the abuse of the concessionary Octopus Card for citizens 65 or older. As card holders can purchase multiple cards, the spare ones often find their way into the hands of their relatives to cut their cost of city commute.

Marco Rubio, America's China-hawk senator fumed that capitalism has failed to "democratize" China, and that China's integration into the global economy has yielded no political benefits. He is wrong. Capitalism now comes with Chinese characteristics.

In France, citizens are fighting the government tooth and nail in the streets over its proposal to extend the retirement age to 64. Here in Hong Kong, a 94-year-old lady is hauled before the courts for unlawful street hawking, with her only means of livelihood, a chestnut push-cart, confiscated.  That is a 30-year gap that can never be bridged, culturally or politically.

Once the empire on which the sun never set, Britain is now a shadow of its former imperial glory. Whatever vestiges of influence there are have been wiped off by Brexit. While French and Irish ports are a beehive of activity, British ports are forlorn-looking places. Brexit has reshuffled the economic cards. Britain’s global footprint has shrunk sharply. Even the Commonwealth is becoming increasingly irrelevant.

Hong Kong has lost its innocence. Politics has killed it. Polarization has buried it. For proof, look no further than the row that has been rumbling over "To my 19-year-old self". There are political undercurrents to this film that looks at a Hong Kong turned upside down by a senseless fight over electoral reform.

Climate scientists warn that we are only 90 seconds away from midnight to Doomsday in our overheating planet. But another looming catastrophe poses a far greater existential threat to humanity--the inevitable collision of the US and China tectonic plates at the Pacific Rim.

A controversy is raging in Hong Kong. This time it has nothing to do with politics, sex or money. It has to do with a storm in a cup, over a documentary which chronicles the lives of six students from Ying Wa Girls School.