Hong Kongers celebrated a decade of Chinese rule yesterday with a colorful parade, a dazzling display by paratroopers and a mass street protest to call for progress on democratic reform.
Several thousand pro-democracy protesters streamed through the city as they marched to the government's downtown headquarters from Victoria Park, one of the few remaining vestiges of British colonialism since the Chinese took control on July 1, 1997.
Under the handover agreement negotiated by Britain and China in 1984, Hong Kongers are entitled to eventually elect their leader and legislature, although the document is vague on when that is supposed to happen.
Police put the number of protesters at about 20,000. Organizers said 68,000 people had turned out.
Many joined the march as it snaked through residential and business districts, waving banners calling for universal suffrage, cleaner skies and an improvement in social welfare.
"We can all see that there hasn't been any democratic progress in the past 10 years," said Anson Chan (
Chan, who has become a key figure in the pro-democracy movement, also called for changes to address Hong Kong's growing rich-poor divide and worsening air pollution.
Earlier in the day, Chinese and Hong Kong leaders praised the territory for bouncing back from a turbulent decade of financial, health and political crises, but warned that the next 10 years would pose equally tough challenges from Asian cities threatening to eclipse it as a global business capital.
"The competition ahead is fierce. We are not only competing with neighboring cities, but with cities around the world," said Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang (曾蔭權), who was sworn in yesterday for a second term.
An Emirates flight from Dubai arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport yesterday afternoon, the first service of the airline since the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran on Saturday. Flight EK366 took off from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at 3:51am yesterday and landed at 4:02pm before taxiing to the airport’s D6 gate at Terminal 2 at 4:08pm, data from the airport and FlightAware, a global flight tracking site, showed. Of the 501 passengers on the flight, 275 were Taiwanese, including 96 group tour travelers, the data showed. Tourism Administration Deputy Director-General Huang He-ting (黃荷婷) greeted Taiwanese passengers at the airport and
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One person was killed and another seven injured today when a tourist shuttle bus plunged 30m to 40m down a ravine in Nantou County, the Tourism Administration said. The bus is suspected to have suddenly accelerated out of control near the flower center of the Sun-Link-Sea Forest Recreation Area, a popular attraction during cherry blossom season. Of the eight onboard, a 66-year-old man was killed, four were seriously injured and three sustained minor injuries, including the driver. The Nantou County Police Department said it received a report of the incident at 12:15pm and dispatched seven teams to assist. All surviving passengers have been transferred
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