EJ Insight

BUSINESS

What’s the thinking behind HK’s new housing policy?

Ko Tin-yau - Oct 18, 2019 12:55pm

In her third annual policy address (delivered remotely via video telecast, which is a first in the history of the city) on Wednesday, Hong Kong’s leader Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor focused on solving the housing crisis...
Fitbit in healthcare partnership to take on Apple Watch

Oct 18, 2019 12:30pm

Fitbit Inc. is developing a method to detect irregular heart rhythm in time through a partnership with Bristol-Myers Squibb-Pfizer Alliance, as the wearable device maker looks to match a feature available on rival Apple Watch, Reuters...
A flat owner’s story

Ben Kwok - Oct 18, 2019 12:19pm

Not too many landlords were smiling over the past four months in view of the political unrest that has dealt a telling blow to the property business as a whole. Take the case of a certain flat...
China GDP grows at slowest pace in nearly 30 years

Oct 18, 2019 11:36am

China’s third-quarter economic growth slowed more than expected and to its weakest pace in almost three decades as the bruising US trade war hit factory production, Reuters reports. Gross domestic product (GDP) rose just 6.0 percent...
US startup aims to eliminate smartphone buttons

Oct 18, 2019 11:10am

Sentons, a startup led by chip industry veterans, has begun marketing technology that aims to do away with gadget buttons and said it is working with two smartphone makers in addition to an existing contract with...
Goldman wants traders to be more like dealmakers and coders

Oct 18, 2019 10:42am

Over the past decade or so, Goldman Sachs Group has watched its annual trading profits fall 84 percent, as post-financial crisis regulations upended Wall Street. Now, bank executives are hoping they have figured out the key...
Aramco delays planned IPO until after earnings update: report

Oct 18, 2019 9:57am

Saudi Aramco has delayed the planned launch of its initial public offering in hopes that pending third-quarter results will bolster investor confidence in the state oil giant, Reuters reports, citing sources familiar with the matter. Aramco...
Facebook chief criticizes TikTok for censoring protesters

Oct 18, 2019 9:49am

Facebook Inc. chief executive Mark Zuckerberg attacked the rapidly growing Chinese short-video app TikTok, saying it censored political protest, including in the United States, Reuters reports. While delivering an address on free speech at Georgetown University...
Zuckerberg defends approach to free speech, draws line on China

Oct 18, 2019 9:37am

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday defended the social media company’s light regulation of speech and lack of fact checking on political advertising, while citing China’s censorship as a roadblock to operating in the country, Reuters...
GM strike will continue while union members vote on new contract

Oct 18, 2019 8:02am

The United Auto Workers (UAW) union said workers at General Motors Co. will stay off the job while they vote on a proposed contract that delivers higher pay for full-time workers and better terms for temporary...

More >

WORLD

El Chapo son freed after cartel gunmen overpower security forces

Oct 18, 2019 12:49pm

Heavily armed cartel fighters surrounded security forces and made them free one of drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman’s sons, whose brief apprehension triggered intense gunbattles across the Mexican city of Culiacan, Reuters reports. Security Minister...
NBA says furor over HK tweet costing league substantial losses

Oct 18, 2019 12:05pm

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said the fallout following a tweet from a Houston Rockets official who backed the Hong Kong democracy protests has already cost the league substantial financial losses in China, Reuters reports. The National...
Turkey and the Kurds: What goes around comes around

James M. Dorsey - Oct 18, 2019 10:31am

Turkey, like much of the Middle East, is discovering that what goes around comes around. Not only because President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appears to have miscalculated the fallout of what may prove to be a foolhardy...
Turkey agrees to pause Syria assault while Kurds withdraw

Oct 18, 2019 9:22am

Turkey agreed to pause its offensive in Syria for five days to let Kurdish forces withdraw from a “safe zone” Ankara had sought to capture, Reuters reports. The truce was announced by US Vice President Mike...
Alicia Alonso, Cuba’s ballet legend, dies at 98

Oct 18, 2019 8:26am

Legendary Cuban ballerina Alicia Alonso, who achieved global acclaim in the 1940s and went on to run the internationally renowned National Ballet of Cuba for decades, died on Thursday at age 98, state-run media said. “Alicia...

More >

Hong Kong

Time to ban single-use plastics

An environmental group, together with researchers from a local university, revealed recently that the average concentration of microplastics in Hong Kong waters has increased a whopping 11-fold over the past three years, posing a...
Can Carrie Lam sink even lower?

Every time you think that the Chief Executive in Name Only (CENO) and her motley crew of waxworks can sink no lower, she triumphantly proves that the absolute depths have yet to be tested....
Lam greeted with deluge of ‘Angry’ emoticons at FB Live event

Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor won’t be too happy with the public’s response to her Facebook Live event on Thursday, when she sought to elaborate on the proposals outlined in her 2019 Policy...
Over a thousand register to run in DC elections

More than 1,000 people have joined the District Council elections scheduled for Nov. 24. The two-week nomination period started on Oct. 4 and ended at 5 p.m. on Thursday. A total of 1,104 nomination...
Why Lam’s policy address was a damp squib

For the very first time in Hong Kong’s history, the city’s top leader was unable to deliver an annual Policy Address in person at the legislature. Confronted with intense heckling and noisy protests by...