Repatriation of over 1.4 million Chinese students stranded abroad by Covid-19 creates dilemma | South China Morning Post
#Covid-19#Chine#étudiantschinois#migrant#migration
▻https://www.scmp.com/video/coronavirus/3079373/repatriation-over-14-million-chinese-students-stranded-abroad-covid-19
Coronavirus : low antibody levels raise questions about reinfection risk | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3078840/coronavirus-low-antibody-levels-raise-questions-about
Researchers in Shanghai hope to determine whether some recovered coronavirus patients
have a higher risk of reinfection after finding surprisingly low levels of Covid-19 antibodies in a number of people discharged from hospital.
A team from Fudan University analysed blood samples from 175 patients discharged from the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Centre and found that nearly a third had unexpectedly low levels of antibodies.
In some cases, antibodies could not be detected at all.
“Whether these patients were at high risk of rebound or reinfection should be explored in further studies,” the team wrote in preliminary research released on Monday on Medrxiv.org, an online platform for preprint papers.
Although the study was preliminary and not peer-reviewed, it was the world’s first systematic examination of antibody levels in patients who had recovered from Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, the researchers said.
European mobile operators share location data for coronavirus fight in Italy, Germany and Austria | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/tech/policy/article/3075871/european-mobile-operators-share-location-data-coronavirus-fight-italy
Carriers will share anonymous, aggregated data with health authorities in three European countries to help monitor lockdown compliance There will be no individual tracking, which would be illegal in Europe Mobile carriers are sharing data with the health authorities in Italy, Germany and Austria, helping to fight coronavirus by monitoring whether people are complying with curbs on movement while at the same time respecting Europe’s privacy laws. The data, which are anonymous and aggregated, (...)
##santé
Coronavirus accelerates China’s big data collection but privacy concerns remain | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/tech/apps-social/article/3052232/coronavirus-accelerates-chinas-big-data-collection-privacy
China’s transformation into a digital economy was already well underway before the coronavirus outbreak, driven by its massive adoption of internet-based technologies, mobile apps and artificial intelligence applications. This digitisation of everyday life has created massive amounts of quantifiable data, from internet search and shopping habits to diet and health requirements. Now the deadly outbreak, which has killed more than 2,700 people globally, has accelerated the trend. Central and (...)
##santé
En France une certaine opinion qui court semble pouvoir être résumée ainsi : "un pouvoir autoritaire c’est quand même pas mal pour lutter contre le coronavirus”.
On relaie les "incroyables" constructions express d’hôpitaux, le génie consistant à appeler l’armée pour enfermer une ville, le magnifique emploi des données personnelles pour lutter contre le coronavirus, etc.
En pratique cependant, la dictature n’est pas plus efficace en matière de santé publique que dans les autres domaines — c’est même bien souvent l’inverse.
Cette communication de choc permet à la Chine de faire oublier qu’elle n’est quand même pas très haut dans les classements de l’OMS sur la capacité à assurer les soins de santé de base.
Alors évidemment dans l’urgence on espère que son gouvernement déconnera le moins possible et trouvera un peu d’efficacité, mais de là à encenser la méthode forte…
(Je n’oublie évidemment pas que d’autres gouvernements moins autoritaires ont eux aussi fait preuve d’inefficacité totale voire criminelle en matière de santé. Mais je préférerais qu’on parle d’efficacité plutôt que d’autoritarisme, et qu’on regarde les faits plutôt que la propagande.)
Si en France on pouvait changer de disque le plus vite possible ce serait pas mal, avant que ça ne donne des idées à Agnès Buzyn. Si la crise arrive ici, avec des hôpitaux en pleine tourmente sociale, ça sera pas bon. Et non, le LBD n’est pas la meilleure technique de prévention.
–—
Coronavirus Live Updates : Wuhan to Round Up the Infected for Mass Quarantine Camps - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/06/world/asia/coronavirus-china.html
Sun Chunlan, a vice premier tasked with leading the central government’s response to the outbreak, said (…)
“Set up a 24-hour duty system. During these wartime conditions, there must be no deserters”
(…) concerns are growing about whether the centers, which will house thousands of people in large spaces, will be able to provide even basic care to patients and protect against the risk of further infection.
A lockdown across the city and much of its surrounding province has exacerbated a shortage of medical supplies, testing kits and hospital beds. Many residents, unwell and desperate for care, have been forced to go from hospital to hospital on foot, only to be turned away without being tested for the virus, let alone treated. They have had to resort to quarantines at home, risking the spread of the virus within families and neighborhoods.
(…) Photographs taken inside the stadium showed narrow rows of simple beds separated only by desks and chairs typically used in classrooms. Some comments on Chinese social media compared the scenes to those from the Spanish flu in 1918.
According to a widely shared post on Weibo, a popular social media site, “conditions were very poor” at an exhibition center that had been converted into a quarantine facility. There were power failures and electric blankets could not be turned on, the user wrote, citing a relative who had been taken there, saying that people had to “shiver in their sleep.”
There was also a staff shortage, the post said, where “doctors and nurses were not seen to be taking note of symptoms and distributing medicine,” and oxygen devices were “seriously lacking.”
Chinese Doctor Who Tried to Warn of Outbreak Is Dead From Coronavirus - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/06/world/asia/Li-Wenliang-coronavirus.html
The New York Times wrote about the doctor on Feb. 1, documenting his efforts to alert colleagues about an alarming cluster of illnesses that resembled (…) SARS (…). The article also reported Dr. Li’s middle-of-the-night summons by unhappy health officials.
“If the officials had disclosed information about the epidemic earlier,” Dr. Li told The Times. “I think it would have been a lot better. There should be more openness and transparency.”
Vu sur WeChat:
"现在你我都知道了，杀死我们的并不是蝙蝠。“
("Now we all understand, it’s not the bats that are killing us.")
Commentaire de Dr Alexandra Phelan:
The mass round up occurring in Wuhan today is the extension of authoritarian containment measures that were never appropriately tailored, infringing on rights without protecting public health and undermined public trust. International praise emboldened this.
Coronavirus: flight bans are no guarantee of stopping the spread of the virus, epidemiologist warns | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/3049005/coronavirus-flight-bans-are-no-guarantee-stopping-spread-virus
‘Borders cannot stop infectious diseases,’ says David Heymann, who led the World Health Organisation’s response to Sars epidemic in 2003
More important to stopping the outbreak is the strength of a nation’s health care system, he said
« donne des idées », c’est assez clairement l’idée que nos dirigeants se font de l’« efficacité versus l’autoritarisme », puisqu’on a déjà considéré que pour restaurer une cathédrale « efficacement », il faut faire diriger les travaux par un général et déroger à la loi commune.
Sauf que un « pouvoir autoritaire » n’est pas exempt de devenir complètement déconnant (voir ici) : ▻https://seenthis.net/messages/824529
J’ai trouvé cette émission intéressante :
Arnaud Fontanet, médecin épidémiologiste, directeur du département de santé globale à l’institut Pasteur, invité d’Inter avec Na Na, médecin urgentiste, responsable de la consultation d’interface médicale sino-française de la Pitié-Salpêtrière à Paris.
▻https://www.franceinter.fr/emissions/l-invite-de-8h20-le-grand-entretien/l-invite-de-8h20-le-grand-entretien-06-fevrier-2020
(Na Na dit à un moment « c’est plutôt une bonne nouvelle pour les Français que la Chine soit un pays assez autoritaire, si ça se produisait dans notre pays [la France], je ne pense pas que [la ville] serait fermée, on continuerait à voir les gens voyager parce que les gens ne respectent pas les consignes du gouvernement »)
Oui, sur l’aspect « avantages de l’autoritarisme », il me semble que l’aspect principal, c’est l’idée de la quarantaine, pas de l’efficacité « thérapeutique » ou médicale.
Ce qui fait que, dans ce fantasme de l’efficacité autoritaire, un aspect primordial est le bon vieux racisme, avec ses réflexes automatiques. Non seulement dans la rue (les asiatiques subissant des brimades racistes « justifiées » par la peur de la contagion), mais directement dans les journaux :
▻https://www.courrierinternational.com/article/polemique-coronavirus-le-spiegel-accuse-de-racisme-par-lambas
https://www.courrierinternational.com/sites/ci_master/files/styles/image_original_1280/public/illustrations/thumbnails/spiegel_racisme_une_1.jpeg 
https://www.courrierinternational.com/sites/ci_master/files/styles/image_original_2048/public/assets/images/bojesen_2020-01-24-2197.jpg Tout ça pour revenir à cette histoire de quarantaine : on sait que, s’il y a bien une idée qui est globalement partagée par les « élites » occidentales, c’est qu’on aurait besoin de régimes « assez autoritaires » à l’extérieur de nos pays pour contrôler les migrations humaines. Virus ou pas virus.
Avec nos médias omnubilés par le besoin de contenir les « invasions » diverses et variées, ça n’est donc pas étonnant qu’on fasse la promotion de cette « plutôt bonne nouvelle » que la Chine serait capable de bloquer les déplacements de population. (Je veux dire, à nouveau : virus ou pas virus.)
’ leur faudrait une bonne épidémie, #scrogneugneu ,c’est quand même nettement plus moderne que ’ leur faudrait une bonne guerre.
Et puis, une occasion d’étendre le champ d’application de mesures restrictives par une administration est toujours bonne à prendre.
En l’espèce, les ARS (Agences régionales de santé) pourront décider de #maintien_à_domicile ou d’#éviction (pour 7 jours renouvelables, art. 6) et en appeler au préfet pour des mesures d’#isolement_contraint (art. 7, II).
Proposition de loi Amiel
▻http://www.senat.fr/petite-loi-ameli/2019-2020/279.html
China flight systems jammed by pig farm’s African swine fever defences | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3042991/china-flight-systems-jammed-pig-farms-african-swine-fever
Reports of criminal gangs using drones to spread infection led to installation of jamming device
Unauthorised equipment interfered with navigation systems of planes flying overhead
A Chinese pig farm’s attempt to ward off drones – said to be spreading African swine fever – jammed the navigation systems of a number of planes flying overhead.
The farm, in northeastern China, was ordered last month to turn in an unauthorised anti-drone device installed to prevent criminal gangs dropping items infected with the disease, according to online news portal Thepaper.cn.
The device came to light after a series of flights to and from Harbin airport complained about losing GPS signals while flying over Zhaozhou county in Heilongjiang in late October. In some cases, the ADS-B tracking technology – which determines an aircraft’s position via satellite navigation – failed.
C’est pas de la #sf
les chinois plus gros consommateurs de porcs
▻http://www.rfi.fr/asie-pacifique/20191223-chine-baisses-droits-douane-porc
In Chongqing, the world’s most surveilled city, residents are happy to trade privacy for security | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/tech/policy/article/3031390/chongqing-worlds-most-surveilled-city-these-residents-are-happy-trade
As of 2019 #Chongqing had about 2.58 million #surveillance cameras covering 15.35 million people, meaning about 168 cameras per 1,000 people and even higher than the number in Beijing, according to an analysis published in August by Comparitech, a website providing research on tech services.
Cette illustration de « SCMP » (dommage de ne pas connaitre le/la graphiste) est absolument géniale.
Hongkongers pay a price for their low taxes through the world’s most expensive homes and smallest living space. Here’s why | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/business/article/3029820/hongkongers-pay-price-their-low-taxes-through-worlds-most-expensive-homes
How Hong Kong’s housing problem, cited as one of the biggest motivations for protest rage, is linked to the city’s finances and low taxes.
23 Sep, 2019 - by Peggy Sito, Eugene Tang - In a new series delving beyond the social unrest in Hong Kong to survey the city’s deep-rooted problems, the Post is focusing on the role of housing in causing great disaffection in society.
In this first instalment, we examine how the issue of high land prices is linked to government financing and the low-tax environment.
For two hours a day in the past fortnight, Edward Chan hung around after work at the Prince Edward metro station in Kowloon.
Teenagers continued to gather at the station, and Chan, who works in logistics, found himself acting as their counsellor, dispensing advice to the youth.
Hong Kong “is rotten to the core, with many issues affecting our livelihood, even if the city has a great international image on the surface”, according to Chan, who lives in a 350 sq ft flat with his wife and their 13-year-old daughter.
Chan, 39, is among the tens of thousands of Hongkongers who have been expressing their collective grievances in street rallies in one of the world’s most prosperous urban centres.
What began on June 9 as a peaceful march by an estimated 1 million people has deteriorated into mayhem on the streets
, with police using tear gas and water cannons to disperse vandals and rioters in almost daily clashes with protesters.
The spark that ignited the city’s worst political crisis has shifted from a controversial extradition bill to general rage against the local authorities for their ineffectiveness in addressing some of the most pressing issues affecting life in Hong Kong: housing, job satisfaction, education and future prospects.
Unaffordable homes, and having to wait a decade to gain access to subsidised public housing, are just two of the myriad of problems confronting Hong Kong, Chan said. “There really is no opportunity for young people at the bottom of the social structure to climb up,” he said.
While he abhors the violence and vandalism that have made daily headlines for three months, Chan’s comments go some way to explain why two weeks after Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor caved in to public rage and withdrew
her unpopular bill, rallies continue to draw protesters by the thousands to the city’s streets.
Hong Kong’s economy has taken a beating, with declining property prices, shrinking visitor numbers and plunging retail sales all pointing to a technical recession
in the final three months of 2019.
The unprecedented protests, entering their 16th week, are the culmination of many decades of neglect by a laissez-faire government of the underclass, and housing affordability has become the most poignant manifestation of this dissatisfaction.
The root of the problem can be traced back to Hong Kong’s history, when British administrators created a low-tax system for the former colony, consistent with their strategy of running a worldwide empire. On the basis of low personal income and corporate taxes, with no value-added tax or import duties, Hong Kong quickly grew from a transshipment port and China’s front door into an international finance centre. That low-tax tradition continued after Hong Kong’s return to Chinese rule in 1997.
Low taxes come with a hefty bill, however, as the government must look for other sources of fiscal income to spend on infrastructure, education, health and public services.
For decades, the biggest revenue source was the sale of public land to developers for building homes, factories or shopping centres. Land premiums and stamp duties, considered non-stable tax revenue, are projected to make up 33 per cent, or more than HK$197 billion (US$25.2 billion), of the government’s income in the financial year that began on April 1, down from the last financial year’s 42 per cent.
“Without the big chunk of income from the property market, how can the government support its expenses?” asked Moses Cheng Mo-chi, chairman of the Insurance Authority and chairman of a 2000 task force set up to explore ways of broadening Hong Kong’s tax base. “If we do not have new sources of stable income, the high land price policy will not change. We cannot get out of this” vicious cycle of high land prices, lack of affordability and public grievance, he said in an interview.
Of course, the government has denied over the years that it has a high land-price policy. The cost of land makes up between 60 per cent and 70 per cent of the total cost
of a typical residential property project in Hong Kong, more than double the 20 per cent to 30 per cent range seen outside the city, said Far East Consortium International’s managing director, Chris Hoong Cheong Thard
.
The land sale process, where the highest bidder takes the prize, creates an upwards cost spiral, as the winning bid in one round becomes the prevailing market price, which must be topped in the next round. As land costs soar, small developers such as Far East – valued at one-36th of Sun Hung Kai Properties
(SHKP) – are priced out of the city to build overseas.
That further concentrates the property market, along with the wealth and influence that come along with it, in the hands of a handful of developers
.
About 45 per cent of all homes sold in Hong Kong are built by five developers – CK Assets of the Li family, SHKP of the Kwoks, Henderson Land of the Lee family, New World Development of the Chengs and Sino Land of the Ng family.
That has put them at the top of the wealth list. Eighteen, or 36 per cent, of the 50 richest people in Hong Kong in 2019 were property tycoons, according to Forbes.
“Capitalism creates a business environment where the winner takes all,” said Ronald Chan, founder of investment firm Chartwell Capital and a member of the Hong Kong stock exchange’s Listing Committee. “Several companies … dominate Hong Kong, consolidating control of sectors from supermarkets to pharmacies, jewellery stores to utilities and telecoms to transport networks.”
The fortunes of Hong Kong’s 93 wealthiest billionaires – estimated at US$315 billion in 2018 – made up about 86.6 per cent of the city’s gross domestic product, according to Wealth-X’s Billionaire Census.
The remainder of Hong Kong’s population has become poorer, with a record 1.37 million residents living below the poverty line in 2017
, eking out a living on as little as HK$4,000 (US$510) a month, according to government data.
The average Hong Kong household needs 20.9 years of income, without spending anything on food, education, travel or leisure, to afford a flat, according to the Demographia International Housing Affordability Study.
The average living space per person in Hong Kong is 161 sq ft
, roughly the footprint of a standard 20-foot shipping container. That is half of Singapore’s average space of 323 sq ft per person. The poorest of Hong Kong’s families must put up with 50 sq ft of living space.
To be sure, Hong Kong’s government has not been unaware of the problem. Former Financial Secretary Henry Tang Ying-yen and former Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Frederick Ma Si-han tried in 2003 to implement a goods and services tax based on the recommendations of Cheng’s task force to broaden the fiscal income base, but had to scrap the plan amid opposition by the city’s interest groups, who exert their influence through the functional and district constituencies in the local legislature.
Will the current political crisis and outpouring of rage provide an opportunity to break the policy gridlock and solve Hong Kong’s housing problem?
Commentaries published last week by the state-run Xinhua News Agency, People’s Daily and the stridently nationalist Global Times all singled out unaffordable housing as a cause
of Hong Kong’s street protests.
“For the sake of public interest, and for the sake of people’s livelihoods, it is time developers show their utmost sincerity instead of minding their own business, hoarding land for profit and earning the last penny,” People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party, said.
A day before the commentaries were published, Hong Kong’s biggest pro-Beijing political party pushed for the Lands Resumption Ordinance, and called on the local government to build public housing on land taken from private developers, who hold about 100 million sq ft of farmland between them, according to an estimate by Bank of America Merrill Lynch
.
Hong Kong’s government responded immediately by pushing ahead with a tax on developers who hoard completed flats
to create an artificial shortage of homes.
Public consultation on the proposal started on September 13 and the bill will be ready for legislators to vet in October, when they return from their summer break. Land and housing policies are expected to be the focus of Chief Executive Carrie Lam’s Policy Address, which will be announced next month.
Some developers are pushing back
. The Real Estate Developers’ Association (Reda), the powerful industry lobby, said on September 13 that the proposed vacancy tax would intensify a slowdown in the property market, hurt developers’ earnings and exacerbate the city’s economic slump.
“Can the government solve the city’s housing issue on its own, without the help of private developers?” said Reda chairman Stewart Leung Chi-kin. “If that were the case, the problem should have been solved years ago.”
Analysts said the low-interest rate environment in Hong Kong will continue and that could pressure Lam into cooling home prices.
On Thursday, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the city’s de facto central bank, matched a move by the US Federal Reserve and cut its base rate to 2.25 per cent. But homeowners will not feel their burden ease immediately because commercial banks will keep their prime rate, the rate offered to customers, unchanged. That raises the spectre that declining home prices will hamstring Lam’s reforms.
Hong Kong is not short of land, where 40 per cent of the city’s land mass is reserved as nature parks. But focusing on land supply was akin to addressing the symptoms of a disease, not finding a cure for the cause, said the Insurance Authority’s Cheng.
“We need government leaders, political parties, interest groups to realise the importance of harmony. They need to make sacrifices for the greater good, ” he said.
A short-term solution might be possible through the privatisation of subsidised public housing, which would allow many existing public flats to add to the supply and provide immediate relief, said Richard Wong Yue-chim, professor of economics and the Philip Wong Kennedy Wong Professor in Political Economy at Hong Kong University.
“Turning public flats into home ownership flats is by far the fastest way to address our housing crisis without increasing land supply”, because land reform was complicated by vested interests and bureaucratic delays, as well as restrictive planning and building codes, he said.
“Home ownership is a source of savings and wealth accumulation. There is wealth disparity between those who own a flat and those do not, so people feel the inequality,” Wong said. “When young people see no hope of moving forward with their lives, no hope to own a home, they take to the streets.”
Singapore, a city state where most residents live in high-rise buildings, may offer a solution for Hong Kong. The city state’s Central Provident Fund, as the mandatory pension is called, can be used for paying mortgages, insurance and even education, unlike Hong Kong’s Mandatory Provident Fund, which is usable only for retirement.
Hong Kong’s government could let the MPF subsidise low-interest rate mortgages for certain groups, such as young married couples, to help them get on the property ladder, said Chartwell’s Chan.
Would that help cool the rage that is fuelling Hong Kong’s protests?
“It’s so difficult to get onto the housing ladder,” said Chan at Price Edward station. “I’m probably unqualified for a flat because I don’t have a tertiary degree. I hope I can do it one day, but only if I start a business, not by working a regular job.”
Additional reporting by Liu Yujing
#Chine #Hongkong #immobilier #logement #crise
In my opinion, i come to live in HK in 1995 before the retro-cession. When HK go back to china, any chinese people spend 7 millions HKD in property get residential visa in HK, it’s the way for the chinese to escape communist, and too protect they’r money.
Second problem, Hk still allow 150 chinese mainland to live in HK every day, already more than 1 million chinese mainland living in HK ! the city of 6 millions Hongkongais grow to 7 millions with the chinese immigrants, but we cannot push the wall in HK, this is insane.
Scapegoats or scoundrels? Why ties between Beijing and Hong Kong’s property tycoons are unravelling amid protest crisis | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3030209/scapegoats-or-scoundrels-why-ties-between-beijing-and-hong
25 Sep, 2019 by Gary Cheung - In a new series delving beyond the social unrest in Hong Kong to survey the city’s deep-rooted problems, the Post is focusing on the role of housing in causing great disaffection in society
In this second instalment, we examine the close ties between the city’s property tycoons and Beijing, and how a recalibration might be due.
In January 1996, when Jiang Zemin crossed the vast expanse of a crowded room to shake Tung Chee-hwa’s hand, the Chinese president set off a storm of speculation that the shipping magnate would be Hong Kong’s first chief executive.
Exactly 11 months later, Tung was elected by a small committee to the top job. But the Post learned recently that well before the famous handshake, Jiang received a letter in late 1995 recommending Tung for the post when the city was returned to China in 1997 after 150 years of British colonial rule.
The letter was penned by the colony’s richest man, Li Ka-shing
, and Beijing princeling Larry Yung Chi-kin, head of Citic Pacific, one of the first mainland Chinese companies to set up shop in Hong Kong.
A source close to Beijing who told the Post about the letter said Jiang viewed its contents positively.
That Li could confidently offer his view to the Chinese leader revealed just how close Hong Kong’s tycoons and the Beijing elite were at the time. Yung’s father, Rong Yiren, was China’s vice-president and on good terms with the late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping.
Indeed, from as far back as the early 1980s, when talks with Britain on Hong Kong’s future began, the property tycoons were Beijing’s main political allies. As the handover neared, Beijing’s main preoccupation was to ensure Hong Kong’s continued stability, and that meant retaining the confidence of the business community.
Tycoon Li Ka-shing wielded considerable influence over Beijing’s elite. Photo: Felix WongBut two decades later, the relationship is coming under strain. If Beijing once looked to the property tycoons to help keep Hong Kong stable, it now appears to believe that they have failed to deliver.
There are signs that the partnership has become untenable amid skyrocketing property prices and a severe shortage of affordable public housing in Hong Kong.
Recent commentaries and editorials in China’s state media indicate Beijing is convinced Hong Kong’s housing crisis is to blame for the increasingly violent anti-government protests now in their fourth month.
Developers owning massive land banks have found themselves targeted by China’s state media, with tycoon Li himself coming under fire. The 91-year-old drew swift criticism earlier this month for urging those in power to “provide a way out”
for Hong Kong’s mostly young protesters, whom he described as “masters of our future”. He also said on political issues, justice might have to be tempered with mercy.
An article published on September 13 in an official WeChat account of Beijing’s political and legal affairs commission seized on his phrase “provide a way out” and equated showing leniency to lawbreakers as being “nothing more than condoning crime”.
As a major developer
, it said, Li should be the one instead to provide “a way out” for Hongkongers struggling over the lack of housing.
Unfazed, Li hit back
, saying it was regrettable his remarks had been misinterpreted, and that “tolerance does not mean connivance and disregarding any legal procedures”.
Commentaries also published on September 13 by the official Xinhua news agency and People’s Daily, and an editorial in the tabloid Global Times, singled out unaffordable housing as a “root cause” of the protests
.
The message seemed all but clear: the tycoons need to play ball and back the chief executive and the government’s policies or risk some unspecified consequences.
Soon enough, state media then endorsed a proposal by the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB), the city’s largest pro-Beijing party, for Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor
to invoke the Lands Resumption Ordinance and take back large swathes of unused rural land to tackle the housing problem.
The Xinhua commentary accused some groups with vested interests of obstructing the government’s bid to boost land supply, by either hoarding or raising prices.
Taking a tougher line, a bylined People’s Daily commentary said: “For the sake of the public interest, it is time developers show their utmost sincerity instead of minding their own business, hoarding land for profit and earning the last penny.” Ironically however, even as Beijing has been beating the drum on housing, the issue did not figure prominently among younger Hongkongers polled in a territory-wide random telephone survey conducted last month by the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute, headed by former University of Hong Kong pollster Robert Chung Ting-yiu.
Hong Kong is the world’s most expensive property market. Photo: Roy IssaOnly 58 per cent of respondents aged 14 to 29 said their discontent stemmed from housing problems, whereas 91 per cent cited distrust in Beijing, 84 per cent said they distrusted city leader Lam, and 84 per cent said they were moved by the “pursuit of democracy”.
A person familiar with the central government’s views on Hong Kong said Beijing was unwilling to make concessions to Hongkongers’ calls for democracy and thus preferred to step up efforts to alleviate social ills, focusing for now on the housing shortage
.
In this approach, a mainland Chinese expert familiar with Hong Kong said Beijing was not off the mark as there was a consensus among various sectors in the city itself that the government badly needed to tackle deep-rooted problems like unaffordable housing and the lack of social mobility for the young.
Asked if Beijing was demanding that Hong Kong developers do more to fix the housing problem, the expert, who declined to be named, said: “We are now talking about social responsibility. It is a matter of fact that developers are key players in Hong Kong, but protecting their legitimate rights and granting them unreasonable favours are entirely different things.”
So, will Beijing succeed in forcing the developers to recognise their “social responsibility” and how will the relationship be recalibrated?
A person close to property developers said Beijing’s liaison office in Hong Kong was behind the DAB’s call to invoke the Lands Resumption Ordinance to take back unused rural land.
“Many developers know that Beijing can’t offer any meaningful solutions on political issues in Hong Kong. So it is shifting the focus to deep-seated problems like housing,” the person said. “The developers feel helpless as they can’t do much given Beijing’s growing assertiveness.”
Lawmaker Abraham Razack, who represents the real estate sector in the Legislative Council, believed the government intends to invoke the Lands Resumption Ordinance more frequently to show it was “doing something” to arrest the decline in its popularity.
Another source close to developers, however, felt that the government was just making property developers the scapegoat of the protest crisis.
How powerful are Hong Kong developers?
There is little doubt that developers wield considerable influence in Hong Kong’s political system.
Former minister Cheung, a political scientist, said the post-handover political system was designed to protect the interests of the business sector.
The four-sector committee which selects the chief executive comprises the city’s business elite, professionals, unionists and politicians, and developers are represented strongly among them.
Research by the Post showed that the 1,194-strong Election Committee which selected the chief executive in 2017 included 96 members directly representing property developers and their business associates. This figure did not include those with indirect and less obvious connections with the property giants.
The ‘Big Four’ major developers, SHKP, Henderson Land, CK Asset Holdings and New World Development hold a total of 83 million sq ft in Hong Kong. Photo: Roy IssaForty-three of the 96 with direct links to developers were directors, employees or business associates of six major developers – Sun Hung Kai Properties (SHKP), CK Asset Holding, Henderson Land Development, New World Development, Wharf (Holdings) and Sino Land.
Developers and their associates were represented not only on the real estate and construction subsector of the Election Committee, but also in other subsector groups like those for transport, hotel, finance and wholesale, as well as retail.
This sprawling influence reflects their dominance of Hong Kong’s economy, with their conglomerates involved in everything from telecommunications to public utilities and supermarkets.
For example, three of Hong Kong’s four mobile phone network operators are connected to developers: Hutchison Telecommunications is a unit of CK Hutchison, chaired by Li’s son Victor Li; Hong Kong Telecommunications (HKT) is a unit of PCCW, chaired by his younger brother, Richard Li Tzar-kai; and SmarTone Mobile Communications is owned by SHKP.
Housing’s dreadful decade
How did developers rise to such a level of power and influence, and how did Hong Kong’s housing situation become so dire?
One of the first things Tung Chee-hwa did on becoming leader after the handover was to announce ambitious housing targets: 85,000 flats a year, comprising 50,000 public and 35,000 private units.
But the Asian financial crisis followed and hit the property market so hard that Tung was forced to declare in 2000 that his plan for 85,000 flats a year no longer existed.
By then, too, the government had introduced an “application list system” through which it published a list of available sites for sale each year. Interested developers could make private offers to the government, and a public auction was arranged if the offers met the undisclosed reserve price.
“This system allowed developers to take the initiative in controlling land supply,” said Stan Wong Hok-wui, a political scientist at Polytechnic University who has studied the political influence of the real estate elite.
The system was abolished in 2013.
Tung’s government also suspended indefinitely the Home Ownership Scheme, which provided subsidised flats for sale to lower-middle-income applicants.
“It was a tragedy for Tung to close down the public housing programme and allow developers to shrink the supply of private housing,” said Leo Goodstadt, head of the colonial government’s Central Policy Unit think tank from 1989 to 1997.
That move rescued private developers from the acute pressure of the market in the wake of the financial crisis, he said. But it also removed the element of government competition that came when subsidised public flats provided an alternative to those built by private developers.
Goodstadt said: “Tung is a businessman and shared what the property developers believed. It’s quite likely that when property developers raised the issue, he agreed with them.”
Former secretary for transport and housing, Anthony Cheung. Photo: Felix WongAnthony Cheung said Tung had no choice but to cut housing supply in the wake of the Asian financial crisis, which resulted in a substantial number of cases of negative equity.
“It would also threaten the banking system if the situation got worse. To be fair, anybody who was in that position had to do something to stabilise the property market.”
The government went on to tighten supply during the administration of Donald Tsang Yam-kuen, the city’s second chief executive. The annual housing supply of private, subsidised and public rental flats was more than halved from 59,800 units in 2006 to 25,700 by 2016.
A government source familiar with land matters said on hindsight, it was too late for Tsang to resume the Home Ownership Scheme in 2010, eight years after it was suspended. But it is clear that the impact of the further tightening under Tsang is still being felt to this day.
Another source closely involved in the land mechanism said the government’s hands were tied over land supply because it had scaled back land production more than 10 years ago. “We are now scrambling hard to catch up,” the person said.
Cheung said Leung Chun-ying, who succeeded Tsang as chief executive in 2012, spared no effort in boosting land supply. “Leung was also never hesitant to take on developers when it came to reining in the red-hot property market,” Cheung added.
Leung also revived the city’s long-term housing strategy, under which private and public housing targets are set and reviewed annually.
Leung set an ambitious pledge to provide a total of 480,000 public and private units by 2025, of which 200,000 will be public rental flats, 90,000 will be subsidised flats for sale and 190,000 will be private homes. He failed to meet the target for public housing and was out after one term.
The ensuing shortage caused home prices to soar over a decade right until the end of last year.
A massive private land bank
Today, there is little dispute that developers have the upper hand in land ownership.
The “Big Four” major developers, SHKP, Henderson Land, CK Asset Holdings and New World Development hold a total of 83 million sq ft in Hong Kong, according to their annual reports.
A recent report by Bank of America Merrill Lynch said they also held a total of 107.3 million sq ft of farmland – nearly 1,000 hectares – in the New Territories. That is nearly 25 times the size of the waterfront West Kowloon Cultural District.
Henderson Land is tops in terms of the farmland it owns, with 45.9 million sq ft, followed by SHKP with 31 million sq ft, New World Development with 17 million sq ft, and Li’s CK Assets with 13.4 million sq ft.
More than a million public flats could be built on the farmland held by the four developers, but the government has yet to identify land to build 67,000 public housing units to meet its 10-year housing supply target.
Currently, there are 256,100 applications for public rental flats alone, with a waiting period of 5.4 years.
Goodstadt said senior Beijing officials responsible for Hong Kong affairs must have been looking at what was wrong with the city in the wake of the anti-government protests.
“What could be causing people to protest like this, in such large numbers? One thing that is dreadful in Hong Kong is housing,” he said.
Does Beijing’s recent tirade against the Hong Kong developers signal that a 40-year honeymoon is coming to an end?
Ray Yep, a professor with City University’s department of public policy, does not believe so. “Beijing just wants to rally their support in putting an end to the violence in the city,” he said.
But others point out that Beijing began cooling its ties with developers well before the current protests, ever since Xi Jinping became president in 2012.
They note that Beijing leaders hold fewer meetings with Hong Kong tycoons when they visit the city these days compared to the past, to avoid criticism that they care only about the rich.
In the past Li Ka-shing’s close ties with Jiang were well-documented. Li played host to the former president during his visits to Hong Kong in 1997, 1998 and 2001. Jiang stayed at CK Assets’s Harbour Grand Hotel in Hung Hom and would have breakfast with Li and his sons.
Such private meetings came to an end when Xi took the helm.
In the ongoing social unrest, Beijing has made plain its dissatisfaction with property owners who appear to waver over where their loyalties lie.
Last month, Global Times editor Hu Xijin lashed out at the popular Harbour City shopping centre in Tsim Sha Tsui for “kowtowing” to protesters
by banning police from entering the premises unless a crime was committed.
Referring to the notices put up by mall owner Wharf Real Estate Investment, he asked in an article posted on Weibo: “Are you trying to turn Harbour City into a lawless land that is subject to the will of the rioters?”
The source close to Beijing noted that today, the central government was not at all worried about alienating or offending Hong Kong’s developers.
He pointed out that Beijing was in a much more powerful position now than in the 1980s when it needed the developers’ support in an uncertain period, and where its own international standing had yet to be firmly cemented.
Former Hong Kong minister Cheung said Beijing could see that the ongoing protests as largely a youth-led movement must have deeper underlying causes that needed fixing to prevent it festering into the future.
But Cheung suggested Beijing might not be doing a thorough enough assessment. “I hope Beijing will analyse Hong Kong’s deep-rooted conflicts in a comprehensive way, rather than reduce the root of the crisis to unaffordable housing,” he said.
Ellen Lau, a 24-year-old university employee who has participated actively in the protests since June, said she was more concerned about Carrie Lam’s poor governance and, more recently, allegations of police brutality.
“Unaffordable housing seldom comes to my mind when I take part in the protests,” she said. “My grievances and those of many friends of mine would not be eased even if the government tackles housing problem effectively.”
But Edmund Cheng Wai, a political scientist at Baptist University, felt housing woes did affect some protesters, particularly those born after 1990.
He noted that 48.4 per cent of more than 6,100 demonstrators interviewed by a research team from Chinese, Baptist and Lingnan universities since June were aged between 20 and 29, the so-called “post-90s generation”.
“Many suffer from lower social mobility and their career prospects can’t compare with that of the older generations,” he said.
Steve, a 24-year-old civil servant, said he had attended most of the protests since June to vent his anger at “property hegemony”, a catchphrase used to describe the tycoons’ stranglehold over Hong Kong. Young people like him cannot afford a home and feel left out of the system, he said.
“And the government is powerless in the face of the property hegemony,” Steve added.
“The present political system is tilted in favour of property developers. The government is unable to tackle housing issues because property developers wield tremendous influence in the Election Committee and functional constituencies in Legco.
“Many young people feel they don’t have a stake in society. Some even feel they have nothing to lose.”
#Chine #Hongkong #immobilier #logement #crise
Patients waiting more than three years for specialist care in Hong Kong, as doctors call for new department to manage public-private sector relationship | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/3009592/patients-waiting-more-three-years-specialist-care
Association of Private Medical Specialists wants government to create new medical aid department. Survey of 200 professionals finds poor working conditions and long hours causing doctors to quit Hospital Authority
Published: 8:30pm, 9 May, 2019, updated: 9:47am, 10 May, 2019
Private doctors want the government to create a new department to manage their cooperation with public hospitals and shorten waiting times for specialists services, which for some patients in Hong Kong is now more than three years.
A study conducted last month by the Association of Private Medical Specialists of Hong Kong also highlighted the frustration doctors faced in the public sector, citing an unsatisfactory work environment and lack of time as reasons for leaving the Hospital Authority.
According to Dr Samuel Kwok Po-yin, the association’s president, hospital congestion, long working hours and a lack of doctors all contributed to problems faced by the medical sector in the city.
“The biggest problem in the medical sector is the waiting time for stable new case bookings at specialist outpatient clinics,” Kwok said.
What Trump’s tale about the US trade war’s role in China’s economic decline got wrong | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3019471/what-trumps-tale-about-us-trade-wars-role-chinas-economic-decline
China’s second-quarter GDP slowdown has more to do with the government’s debt crackdown than the US president’s efforts
Given China’s huge contribution to global GDP growth, any decline will adversely affect all economies
US halts #F-35 fighter jet programme with Turkey over its plan to buy Russian #S-400 missile system | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/3004254/us-halts-f-35-fighter-jet-programme-turkey-over-plan-buy-russian
Avril 2019
... move comes just days after Turkey’s foreign minister said his country was committed to the deal to buy the S-400 Russian missile system US officials have voiced concern that Russia could obtain F-35 data to improve the accuracy of the missile against Western aircraft.
#Huawei ban: why Asian countries are shunning Trump’s blacklist despite concerns about China’s influence | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3012820/huawei-ban-why-asian-countries-are-shunning-trumps
“Some if not all regional countries may harbour concerns about the security ramifications of using Huawei, but there are real pragmatic considerations,” said Collin Koh Swee Lean, a research fellow at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. “Cost-wise in particular, Chinese offers for infrastructure development present more attractive propositions.”
Acting US Defence Secretary Patrick Shanahan sought to address funding worries in his speech, mentioning that the US roughly doubled a competing infrastructure fund to US$60 billion. He contrasted the American vision of a “ free and open ” region with one “where power determines place and debt determines destiny”.
For many Asian countries, however, US funding isn’t enough to meet their needs and generally comes with too many strings attached . Myanmar, for instance, found that China was the only country willing to finance a deep-sea port and industrial estate on its coastline near Bangladesh.
“In the end, the decision to accept or not to accept such financing rests with the recipient country and not with Beijing,” said Thaung Tun, Myanmar’s national security adviser, dismissing the notion that China would indebt the country for strategic gains.
China working on data privacy law but enforcement is a stumbling block | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3008844/china-working-data-privacy-law-enforcement-stumbling-block
En Chine des scientifiques s’inquiètent de la collection de données sans limites et des abus possibles par le gouvernment et des acteurs privés. Au niveau politique on essaye d’introduire des lois protégeant les données et la vie privée. D’après l’article les véritables problèmes se poseront lors de l’implémentation d’une nouvelle législation en la matière.
Echo Xie 5 May, 2019 - Biometric data in particular needs to be protected from abuse from the state and businesses, analysts say
Country is expected to have 626 million surveillance cameras fitted with facial recognition software by 2020
In what is seen as a major step to protect citizens’ personal information, especially their biometric data, from abuse, China’s legislators are drafting a new law to safeguard data privacy, according to industry observers – but enforcement remains a major concern.
“China’s private data protection law will be released and implemented soon, because of the fast development of technology, and the huge demand in society,” Zeng Liaoyuan, associate professor at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, said in an interview .
Technology is rapidly changing life in China but relevant regulations had yet to catch up, Zeng said.
Artificial intelligence and its many applications constitute a major component of China’s national plan. In 2017, the “Next Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan” called for the country to become the world leader in AI innovation by 2030.
Biometrics authentication is used in computer science as an identification or access control. It includes fingerprinting, face recognition, DNA, iris recognition, palm prints and other methods.
In particular, the use of biometric data has grown exponentially in key areas: scanning users’ fingerprints or face to pay bills, to apply for social security qualification and even to repay loans. But the lack of an overarching law lets companies gain access to vast quantities of an individual’s personal data, a practice that has raised privacy concerns.
During the “two sessions” last month, National People’s Congress spokesman Zhang Yesui said the authorities had hastened the drafting of a law to protect personal data, but did not say when it would be completed or enacted.
One important focus, analysts say, is ensuring that the state does not abuse its power when collecting and using private data, considering the mass surveillance systems installed in China.
“This is a big problem in China,” said Liu Deliang, a law professor at Beijing Normal University. “Because it’s about regulating the government’s abuse of power, so it’s not only a law issue but a constitutional issue.”
The Chinese government is a major collector and user of privacy data. According to IHS Markit, a London-based market research firm, China had 176 million surveillance cameras in operation in 2016 and the number was set to reach 626 million by 2020.
In any proposed law, the misuse of data should be clearly defined and even the government should bear legal responsibility for its misuse, Liu said.
“We can have legislation to prevent the government from misusing private data but the hard thing is how to enforce it.”
Especially crucial, legal experts say, is privacy protection for biometric data.
“Compared with other private data, biometrics has its uniqueness. It could post long-term risk and seriousness of consequence,” said Wu Shenkuo, an associate law professor at Beijing Normal University.
“Therefore, we need to pay more attention to the scope and limitations of collecting and using biometrics.”
Yi Tong, a lawmaker from Beijing, filed a proposal concerning biometrics legislation at the National People’s Congress session last month.
“Once private biometric data is leaked, it’s a lifetime leak and it will put the users’ private data security into greater uncertainty, which might lead to a series of risks,” the proposal said.
Yi suggested clarifying the boundary between state power and private rights, and strengthening the management of companies.
In terms of governance, Wu said China should specify the qualifications entities must have before they can collect, use and process private biometric data. He also said the law should identify which regulatory agencies would certify companies’ information.
There was a need to restrict government behaviour when collecting private data, he said, and suggested some form of compensation for those whose data was misused.
“Private data collection at the government level might involve the need for the public interest,” he said. “In this case, in addition to ensuring the legal procedure, the damage to personal interests should be compensated.”
Still, data leaks, or overcollecting, is common in China.
A survey released by the China Consumers Association in August showed that more than 85 per cent of respondents had suffered some sort of data leak, such as their cellphone numbers being sold to spammers or their bank accounts being stolen.
Another report by the association in November found that of the 100 apps it investigated, 91 had problems with overcollecting private data.
One of them, MeituPic, an image editing software program, was criticised for collecting too much biometric data.
The report also cited Ant Financial Services, the operator of the Alipay online payments service, for the way it collects private data, which it said was incompatible with the national standard. Ant Financial is an affiliate of Alibaba Group, which owns the South China Morning Post.
In January last year, Ant Financial had to apologise publicly for automatically signing up users for a social credit programme without obtaining their consent.
“When a company asks for a user’s private data, it’s unscrupulous, because we don’t have a law to limit their behaviour,” Zeng said.
“Also it’s about business competition. Every company wants to hold its customers, and one way is to collect their information as much as possible.”
Tencent and Alibaba, China’s two largest internet companies, did not respond to requests for comment about the pending legislation.
Why Hong Kong cannot copy Singapore’s approach to public housing | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/society/article/3008807/why-hong-kong-cannot-copy-singapores-approach-public-housing
The technocratic, highly autonomous and competent Singaporean state took on the role of providing affordable housing on a near universal basis, subsidising home ownership for the vast majority. The development of public housing was effectively land reform and wealth redistribution on a scale unimaginable today in neoliberal Hong Kong, despite the superficial similarities in this sphere between the two cities.
The state’s autonomy meant it was not subordinate to, or captured by, the interests of social groups, from big business and labour to landowners, property developers or finance. This is not to say the government rode roughshod over these groups, but it did mean it could plan and make decisions for the long-term good of the country, without having to cater too much to well-organised interests. Most citizens accepted this setup as they could see improvements all around, not least in their housing conditions.
But to tackle the problem comprehensively, the HDB took on responsibility for all aspects of housing, including planning, development, design, building and maintenance. The initial priority was to create properly planned population centres outside the city centre but within easy reach. Between 1960 and 1965, the HDB surpassed its target by building more than 50,000 flats. HDB estates were later also developed with other considerations in mind, such as state industrialisation objectives, the avoidance of ethnic enclaves, and asset inflation.
On the issue of land, ensuring there was enough for public housing meant repealing the 1920 Land Acquisition Ordinance and enacting the Land Acquisition Act (LAA) in 1966. This allowed the state to acquire land for any public purpose or work of public benefit, or for any residential, commercial, or industrial purpose. A subsequent amendment to the LAA in 1973 allowed officials to acquire private land in exchange for compensation below market value. The acquisitions were seldom challenged in the courts.
Such draconian rules greatly facilitated housing and industrialisation programmes. State ownership of land rose from 31 per cent in 1949 to 44 per cent in 1960, and 76 per cent by 1985. Land reclamation did play a part in this change, along with the transfer of British military space. But to ensure a perpetual supply, Lee’s government also passed legislation to ensure the leases on state-owned land would not exceed 99 years.
These methods are unthinkable in contemporary Hong Kong. While legally possible, the compulsory acquisition of private land for public housing is rare and generally eschewed. Although Hong Kong law allows the Land Development Corporation (LDC) to take space away from private owners at market prices, the efficacy of this law is limited. The LDC has to demonstrate there is no “undue detriment” to the interests of landowners, which is often difficult.
Land reform almost always requires landowners’ interests be subordinate to those of the state, and especially those of the landless. This is not the case in Hong Kong.
Lastly, to ensure the affordability of public housing, the Singapore government designed its policies to explicitly favour home ownership. The units set aside for this purpose were initially priced such that buying was a more attractive option than renting HDB homes.
In 1968 the Singapore government went further. It increased the amount of money Singaporeans had to contribute to the Central Provident Fund (CPF) so that citizens could then use these savings to finance home purchases. The CPF was established in 1955 as a pension plan, with employees putting in 5 per cent of their monthly salary.
The revamped CPF required monthly contributions of 6 per cent from the employee, and 6 per cent from employers. By 1990 the rates had risen to 16 per cent and 24 per cent, respectively. This demanded sacrifice on the part of citizens since it ate into their daily spending.
Such stringent mandatory savings plans would be unlikely to garner much support in Hong Kong. Many would perceive them as paternalistic and would not accept the lower take-home pay they entail.
In 2017, two decades after Hong Kong’s return to Chinese sovereignty, only about 36 per cent of households were in public housing and 49 per cent owned their homes.
Unlike Singapore, where financing is facilitated by affordable public housing prices and CPF savings, ownership of public flats in Hong Kong is not supported by government policy to the same degree. A successful applicant for a flat in Hong Kong under the Home Ownership Scheme does not own the property until he or she pays a land premium determined by the market value. On acquiring the flat, the applicant pays to the government only the cost of its construction.
Neither Singapore’s past experience nor its present circumstances suggest it should be a model for Hong Kong. While the public housing programme was hugely successful in its first 50 years, some Singaporeans now raise questions about the long-term viability of a policy based (implicitly at least) on perpetually rising flat values. Having put much of their CPF savings into securing a home, many Singaporeans today are worried about the prospect of declining values on their ageing HDB properties.
Given how unique and context-specific Singapore’s success in public housing was, it is questionable whether it can be grafted onto contemporary Hong Kong’s context – unless its society and politics were to mimic Singapore’s, and how likely or desirable is that for Hong Kong? ■
Lee Hsin is a PhD student at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. Donald Low is a senior lecturer and professor of practice in public policy at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and is director of its Leadership and Public Policy Programme
#Hong_Kong #Chine #Singapour #logement #immobilier #capitalisme
From Sri Lanka to Indonesia, more mothers are becoming suicide bombers – and killing their children too | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/society/article/3008808/sri-lanka-indonesia-more-mothers-are-becoming-suicide-bombers-and
5 May, 2019 Amy Chew - The deadly new phenomenon sees women radicalised by IS ideology taking their children’s lives and their own in pursuit of martyrdom
Experts say the rise in the radicalisation of married couples is endangering entire families
IAs night fell on blood-soaked Sri Lanka following the carnage of Easter Sunday last month, police knocked on a door in an upscale neighbourhood – the home of two of the suicide bombers.
They were greeted by Fatima Ibrahim, the pregnant wife of bomber Ilham Ibrahim
. On seeing the police, she ran inside and detonated an explosive device, killing herself, her unborn child and her three sons aged five, four and nine months. Three police officers also died in the blast.
In a similar case in March, anti-terror police arrested a suspected pro-Islamic State (IS)
bomb-maker, Abu Hamzah, in Indonesia
. When they went to his home to arrest his wife, Solimah, who had helped him make the bombs, she blew herself up, killing her two-year-old child.
From Sri Lanka to Indonesia, a deadly new phenomenon is emerging – women, radicalised by IS ideology, are killing themselves and their children in their pursuit of martyrdom.
Female suicide bombers have always featured in the annals of jihadism, going back to the Chechen Islamists in Russia known as Black Widows, but filicide by female radicals brings a dangerous new dimension to terrorism.
“We did not have this in al-Qaeda,” said Sofyan Tsauri, former member of al-Qaeda Southeast Asia. “In Islam, jihad for a woman is to take care of the household, nurturing and educating the children, not taking up arms.”
For these women, the maternal instinct to protect their children is supplanted by the quest for a “swift passage” into heaven, according to Nasir Abbas, a Malaysian former leader of the al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiah (JI) and once the most-wanted jihadist in Southeast Asia.
He later switched sides and is now involved in deradicalisation efforts and other initiatives to counter violent extremism in Indonesia.
“These [female suicide bombers] believe protecting their children means protecting them from turning into infidels when they are gone,” he told This Week in Asia .
“In their twisted belief, they are convinced their children will also enter into heaven if they die with them [or] carry out the same act [of suicide bombing].”
A significant development pointing to this new phenomenon took place when a family of six bombed three churches in Surabaya in May 2018. The perpetrators were a father, mother and four children aged between nine and 18, according to Nasir and the Indonesian police.
The father, a wealthy businessman named Dita Oepriarto, strapped bombs on his wife and two daughters, who detonated them at a church. He made his two sons ride a motorbike laden with bombs into another church, where they blew themselves up.
Dita then drove his car, filled with explosives, into a third church. In the space of 10 minutes, the entire family was dead. Dita’s younger son, 16-year-old Firman Halim, was seen crying inconsolably during dawn prayers at a mosque some two hours before the attack.
“It is believed that the night before the bombings, the father told the children to prepare to die,” said Rizka Nurul, a researcher with the Institute for International Peace Building (IIPB), Indonesia’s first private deradicalisation organisation.
The rise in the radicalisation of married couples is proving to be a danger to the lives of their children.
“Children are in grave danger if both their parents are convinced that they must wage jihad … to atone for their sins in this lifetime by carrying out terror attacks,” said Nasir, the former JI leader. “The parents believe in bringing their children with them to heaven.”
Women are capable of being more radical and militant than men, according to researchers in the field of countering violent extremism.
“[This is] because women use their hearts. They can be more dangerous as they are more willing to sacrifice, compared with men who tend to be more rational as they consider costs and benefits,” said the IIPB’s Rizka.
Such was the case with Solimah, who blew herself up in her home following the arrest of her husband, Abu Hamzah. During interrogation, he told investigators his wife was much more radical than him.
The couple are believed to have been radicalised online by reading the teachings of Indonesia’s foremost IS ideologue, Aman Abdurrahman, who is currently on death row for inciting others to commit terror attacks in Indonesia.
Many of these women are believed to be radicalised by their husbands and accede to their teachings as a mark of obedience to their spouse.
“I am not surprised by [the suicide of the woman in the Sri Lanka blast] as she lives in a terrorist group’s environment,” said Ani Rufaida, lecturer in social psychology at Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama Islamic University.
“In my prior research of wives of terrorists, most express obedience to their husbands. Only a small number of wives could reject the extreme ideology of their husbands, but they face consequences, for example, being separated from their husband,” she said. “Extremist groups require total obedience from the wife.”
In a chilling development, some radicalised Indonesian women are requesting a suicide vest as dowry from their husbands-to-be, according to former JI leader Nasir. “These women plan to carry out suicide bombings after they are married. Several of them have been arrested,” he said.
A counterterrorism official told This Week in Asia that a woman who requested such a vest was arrested in Klaten, Central Java, last March.
Countering this phenomenon requires both a soft and hard approach, according to Nasir. “The deviant teaching of terror networks needs to be [made] public. We need to have continuous deradicalisation and counter violent extremism programmes,” he said, adding that this would help dismantle terror networks
and detain their members before attacks were carried out.
Indonesia through its National Counter-Terrorism Agency (BNPT) has established a deradicalisation programme for inmates, which works to rehabilitate their ideas about Islam through counter-narratives by religious leaders and psychologists, and equips them with skills they can use when they are eventually reintegrated into society. BNPT also focus on countering violent extremism on university campuses.
Analysts say getting former militant leaders to work with universities and the police in deradicalisation makes these programmes more effective, as they have unparalleled insight into the minds of attackers.
Another ex-JI member, Ali Fauzi, the younger brother of two executed Bali bombers, started his own NGO called the Circle of Peace, which is deeply involved in countering violent extremism and deradicalisation.
Women must now be a specific focus of these programmes and other community efforts to prevent radicalisation, analysts say.
A recent Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) report called for more women to be recruited by Indonesia’s counterterrorism police squad, Detachment 88, given the increasing number of female militants.
“The percentage of women in the police generally remains woefully low, just over 8 per cent,” it said.
Better programmes are also needed for pro-IS female detainees. There are currently 15 such women in detention, some of whom were involved in violence. According to IPAC, understanding the backgrounds and motivations of these women is essential for a more targeted rehabilitation programme.
“IS may have reluctantly accepted women as combatants, but they are now encouraged to take part in operations,” the report said. “It is easy to dismiss the competence of Indonesian terrorists, but as long as they continue to subscribe to IS ideology, they remain a serious threat.”
#Sri_Lanka #Indonésie #terrorisme #religion #islam #asie #daech
Dozens of university dons concerned Singapore’s anti-fake news laws will stifle academic freedom
Over 80 academics from around the world have written to the Singapore government expressing concerns over how recently proposed laws against online falsehoods could threaten academic freedom in the city state.
The Protection From Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Bill, tabled in parliament on April 1, has raised eyebrows for the sweeping powers it would hand the government.
In their letter, sent to Singapore’s education minister on April 11 and made available to the media on April 13, the academics focused on how the proposed powers to police falsehoods could backfire on researchers. “The legislation may also set negative precedents, with knock-on effects on the global academy,” wrote the academics.
They noted that much of academic work focuses on disputing apparently established “facts”, which are confirmed or denied through research, and continuously reappraised as new data becomes available.
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3006013/dozens-university-dons-concerned-singapores-anti-fake-news
#université #censure #liberté_d'expression #liberté_académique #Singapour #anti-fake-news #loi
Facial recognition snares China’s air con queen Dong Mingzhu for jaywalking, but it’s not what it seems | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/tech/innovation/article/2174564/facial-recognition-catches-chinas-air-con-queen-dong-mingzhu
Since last year, many Chinese cities have cracked down on jaywalking by investing in facial recognition systems and AI-powered surveillance cameras
Jaywalkers are identified and shamed by displaying their photographs on large public screens
#reconnaissance_faciale #chine et #bugs
▻https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2156842/can-brics-form-wall-counter-damaging-effects#comments · think tank arabe · Disqus
▻https://disqus.com/home/channel/thinktankarabe/discussion/channel-thinktankarabe/httpswwwscmpcomcommentinsight_opinionunited_statesarticle2156842can_brics_fo
As new vaccine scandal grips China, parents say they’ve lost faith in the system | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2156357/new-vaccine-scandal-grips-china-parents-say-theyve-lost
▻https://cdn2.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/620x356/public/images/methode/2018/07/23/f168fd0c-8d88-11e8-8608-b7163509a377_image_hires_202619.jpg?itok=oYgqYO
[...] questions remain as to how inferior vaccines were able to pass through a system of checks. There has been no statement from the National Health Commission as to how the low-quality vaccine might affect children.
Meanwhile, the Shandong edition of Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily called on the government to take action to ease public concerns about the scandal in an editorial headlined, “Don’t let fear and anger spread”.
It said the latest case would “lead more people to be sceptical about domestically produced vaccines” given that public confidence had barely recovered from the scandal two years ago over expired vaccines that saw 200 people arrested.
That case in 2016 caused a public outcry when it was revealed that 570 million yuan of improperly stored or expired vaccines had been illegally sold across the country for years.
It came after state-run China Economic Times in 2010 revealed that hundreds of children in Shanxi province had died or suffered from severe side effects because of damaged vaccines over a period of three years. Shanxi officials denied there were problems with vaccines at the time and the newspaper’s editor was sacked after the report was published.
