Hong Kong caretaker leader Donald Tsang (曾蔭權) yesterday defended the government's move to seek Beijing's intervention to settle an ongoing dispute over the tenure of the next chief executive.
"I admitted that there is no other way to resolve the problems locally. The matter is not for my own making. I am not trying to make an excuse for it ... there is no way out," Tsang told foreign media at a briefing.
"It's not a failure of policies, not a failure of arrangement ... the question is whether we've done it properly, I think I have. Whether [it's] absolutely necessary, I think I've proven that is the case," he said.
On Wednesday, the Hong Kong government requested that China's State Council step in after activists threatened to derail the selection process for a new leader, sparked by the mid-term resignation of former chief executive Tung Chee-hwa (董建華) last month.
The controversy was triggered by the government's decision that the next leader -- to be elected on July 10 by an 800-member committee of Beijing loyalists -- should serve only the two years remaining of Tung's term.
Opponents said the ruling was in breach of the city's Basic Law mini-constitution that came into force when the former British colony reverted to Chinese rule in 1997. Tsang admitted Hong Kong was still new to constitutional law but denied there was any conspiracy behind the decision.
"We have little experience in the territory in dealing with the constitutional law ... We have to develop our own legal system now. I don't believe there is any ulterior motives behind the decision," he said.
But the government's decision was unlikely to calm criticism from the opposition.
Pro-democracy group Civil Human Rights Front, which organized two huge protests that ultimately helped bring about Tung's early resignation, said it was planning another rally to coincide with the election of the next chief executive.
The group hopes to bring thousands of people onto the streets on July 1, the anniversary of anti-government marches in 2003 and last year and the date of the return to Chinese rule. Half a million people took to the streets in 2003 in protest against the unpopular security bill. Last year, another half million marched in protest at China's decision to rule out direct elections for chief executive by 2007.
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
Two Belgian teenagers on Tuesday were charged with wildlife piracy after they were found with thousands of ants packed in test tubes in what Kenyan authorities said was part of a trend in trafficking smaller and lesser-known species. Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, two 19-year-olds who were arrested on April 5 with 5,000 ants at a guest house, appeared distraught during their appearance before a magistrate in Nairobi and were comforted in the courtroom by relatives. They told the magistrate that they were collecting the ants for fun and did not know that it was illegal. In a separate criminal case, Kenyan Dennis
APPORTIONING BLAME: The US president said that there were ‘millions of people dead because of three people’ — Vladimir Putin, Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelenskiy US President Donald Trump on Monday resumed his attempts to blame Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for Russia’s invasion, falsely accusing him of responsibility for “millions” of deaths. Trump — who had a blazing public row in the Oval Office with Zelenskiy six weeks ago — said the Ukranian shared the blame with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who ordered the February 2022 invasion, and then-US president Joe Biden. Trump told reporters that there were “millions of people dead because of three people.” “Let’s say Putin No. 1, but let’s say Biden, who had no idea what the hell he was doing, No. 2, and
DEMONSTRATIONS: A protester said although she would normally sit back and wait for the next election, she cannot do it this time, adding that ‘we’ve lost too much already’ Thousands of protesters rallied on Saturday in New York, Washington and other cities across the US for a second major round of demonstrations against US President Donald Trump and his hard-line policies. In New York, people gathered outside the city’s main library carrying signs targeting the US president with slogans such as: “No Kings in America” and “Resist Tyranny.” Many took aim at Trump’s deportations of undocumented migrants, chanting: “No ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], no fear, immigrants are welcome here.” In Washington, protesters voiced concern that Trump was threatening long-respected constitutional norms, including the right to due process. The
RSS