Hong Kong....time for a great leap forward => Democracy

Leung Chun-ying, a former property surveyor, pledged to address Hong Kong’s wealth gap and demands for universal suffrage as the city’s next chief executive after winning a poll in which only one in 5,900 people could vote. 

A 1,193-member panel of Hong Kong billionaires, academics and professionals chose Leung over two other candidates to lead the city for the next five years. Crowds outside the election venue protested the lack of democracy in the former British colony, with one waving the colonial-era flag and others holding signs opposing China’s ruling Communist Party. 

Leung, 57, will help shape the city’s economy and relationship with China through 2017, when Beijing has pledged to allow Hong Kong to elect its own leaders. He must also address anger over rising living costs spawned by an influx of money from mainland China and surging property prices that have made Hong Kong the world’s most expensive place to buy a home. 

“Rule of law, human rights, integrity, lack of corruption and press freedom are all part of our life,” Leung told reporters after his selection. “This election has helped build a foundation for universal suffrage in 2017.”

global annual death toll from filthy urban air at 1.3 million.

Failure to force aging buses and trucks off Hong Kong’s streets is a key cause of air pollution that results in more than 3,000 premature deaths a year, according to Civic Exchange, a think tank.
 
“People normally don’t realize that air pollution can cause cancer, heart and respiratory diseases,” said Carlos Dora, coordinator at the Geneva-based health agency’s Department of Public Health and Environment, who puts the global annual death toll from filthy urban air at 1.3 million. “Those are the diseases that really are the big, big plague.”

As Chief Executive Donald Tsang steps down after seven years in office, he leaves a city that boasts the world’s most valuable stock exchange, hosted three of the five biggest initial share sales in history, and is the best place on the globe for business, a new gauge by Bloomberg Rankings shows. Blotting the record is another superlative: Hong Kong, the most polluted international financial center. 

New York, London, Tokyo and Singapore all have cleaner air and more ambitious improvement targets, according to WHO data and the city governments’ websites. As China opens its economy, removing the capital controls that led investors to use Hong Kong as a proxy for Chinese growth, pollution risks undermining Tsang’s economic successes.

A golden egg of opportunity falls into your lap this month.

Chinese technology companies that raised $7.8 billion from Wall Street investors in initial public offerings during the past 12 years have at least one good reason to delist in New York and take their business to Hong Kong.


Valuations appear to be significantly higher in Hong Kong. Perfect World Co. (PWRD), China’s fourth-biggest online games operator, trades at 3.9 times its estimated earnings in New York, while smaller rival NetDragon Websoft Inc. (777) is valued at 13 times in Hong Kong. Such disparities may push some technology companies to consider moving back east, said Victoria Mio, a senior portfolio manager at Robeco Group in Hong Kong.

More strict oversight by New York regulators and allegations of fraud from short-seller Muddy Waters LLC have suppressed the USX China Index of 174 Chinese stocks trading on Wall Street by 21 percent this year. The gauge trades at 12 times earnings, compared with 20 times for Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Composite Information Technology Index. (HSCIIT)

“I am tired of the U.S.,” Yang Tianfu, chief executive officer of Harbin Electric Inc. (HRBN), said in a phone interview. “We just couldn’t communicate with the investors.”

The Harbin, China-based maker of electric motors delisted from the U.S. last month and can “easily” complete a listing in Hong Kong or Shanghai, Yang said.

Companies wanting to leave Wall Street may choose Hong Kong because listing in Shanghai or Shenzhen would require them to restructure into domestic Chinese firms, said Richard Lim, a Palo Alto, California-based partner at GSR Ventures, which invests in technology companies in China.

China Renaissance Partners, a Beijing-based investment bank that advised New York-listed E-Commerce China Dangdang Inc. (DANG) and NetQin Mobile Inc., is working on potential deals that may result in listings in Hong Kong, Chief Executive Officer Bao Fan said. Some involve U.S.-listed companies that may be taken private, he said without naming them.

“Hong Kong, over time, will overtake the U.S. as the preferred place of listing for Chinese technology companies,” Bao said. “In the long term, the core group of holders in these Chinese technology firms will have to be Chinese,” rather than overseas, investors, he said.

In October, Shanghai-based Internet companies Shanda Interactive Entertainment Ltd. (SNDA) and China Real Estate Information Corp. (CRIC) unveiled plans to delist from the U.S. after their shares underperformed Hong Kong-traded rivals. They join 16 other U.S.- listed Chinese companies that announced delisting plans since 2010, according to data from Roth Capital Partners LLC, a Newport Beach, California-based financial firm.

The buyouts of Chinese companies from stock-market investors in New York, and relisting them in markets offering higher valuations, may generate profit for private-equity investors.

“There is a real interest among private-equity funds in these companies,” said Mark Tobin, co-director of research at Roth Capital. Some U.S.-listed Chinese companies are trading at valuations “far below” those of private companies in China, he said.

Shanda Interactive Chairman Chen Tianqiao’s group, which plans to buy out the company, discussed financing with JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), the company said Oct. 17. PAG Asia Capital, a Hong Kong-based alternative investment manager, helped fund the management-led buyout of Funtalk.

The Securities and Exchange Commission sent letters seeking explanation of corporate structures at U.S.-listed Chinese companies, including Shanda Interactive and Kongzhong Corp., said Paul Boltz, a Hong Kong-based partner at Ropes & Gray.

The SEC in June cautioned investors about buying shares in companies formed by reverse mergers, a maneuver used by more than 400 Chinese businesses to gain stock-market listings in North America while avoiding the scrutiny of a public offering.

Viva La Revolucion!!! or The Day the People Woke UP to being $%@!! = Stike Back Forcefully

Dozens of people have been arrested in New York as thousands of anti-corporate greed protesters marched to the city's famous Times Square at the culmination of a day of global demonstrations inspired by the 'Occupy Wall Street" movement.


Police, some on horseback, packed 71 protesters in vans after they marched, while thousands of demonstrators mixed with tourists converged on the major commercial intersection, divided by police barriers.



The clashes took place at the corner of 46th Street and Seventh Avenue amid a heavy police presence after day-long marches that began in the Financial District.

Earlier, around 2,000 protesters marched through New York's financial district on Saturday afternoon, before moving on to Time Square.

The demonstrators in lower Manhattan banged drums and chanted "We got sold out, banks got bailed out," "All day, all week, occupy Wall Street," and "Hey hey, ho ho, corporate greed has got to go."

Protests were also held elsewhere in the United States and Canada, notably in Washington DC, the US capital.

Violence in Rome

Violence broke out in Rome as tens of thousands nicknamed "the indignant" marched in European cities in protest against capitalism and austerity measures.

Black smoke billowed into the air in the centre of the city as a small group of violent protesters broke away from the main demonstration. They smashed shop windows, set vehicles on fire and assaulted two news crews. Others burned Italian and EU flags.

"On October 15, people from all over the world will take to the streets and squares ... to initiate the global change we want," proclaimed the website United for #GlobalChange.

Assange addresses protesters

Meanwhile, in Berlin, around 4,000 people marched through the streets, with banners that urged the end of capitalism. Some marchers scuffled with police as they tried to get near the country's parliamentary buildings.

In Frankfurt, continental Europe's financial capital, about 5,000 people protested in front of the European Central Bank.

Outside London's iconic St Paul's cathedral, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange spoke to about 500 demonstrators.

"The banking system in London is the recipient of corrupt money," he said, adding that WikiLeaks would launch a campaign against financial institutions in the coming months.

Scuffles broke out in the UK capital between police and protesters, who raised banners saying "Strike  back!"; "No cuts!" and "Goldman Sachs is the work of the devil!"

In Paris, the French capital, about 1,000 protesters rallied in front of city hall, coinciding with a G-20 finance chief's meeting.

In the Bosnian city of Sarajevo, hundreds walked through the streets carrying pictures of Che Guevara and old communist flags that read "Death to capitalism, freedom to the people."

Another 500 people gathered to hear speakers denounce capitalism at a peaceful rally in downtown Stockholm, holding up red flags and banners that read "We are the 99 per cent" and "We refuse to pay for capitalism's crisis."

In Spain, where groups that have become known as the Indignant Movement have been holding "occupation" protest camps in cities and towns since May, marchers converged on Madrid's Puerta del Sol plaza on Saturday night.

Tens of thousands of Portuguese, angry at their government's handling of the economic crisis, also took to the streets of Lisbon. Other protests were staged in Geneva, Amsterdam, Athens, Brussels, Geneva and Zurich.

Authors sign online petition

A group of 100 prominent authors, including Salman Rushdie, Neil Gaiman and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelists Jennifer Egan and Michael Cunningham, signed an online petition declaring their support for "Occupy Wall Street and the Occupy Movement around the world."

Melbourne, Australia's second-largest city, saw the day's first demonstration, when at least 1,000 people gathered at City Square.

In Sydney, about 2,000 protesters including representatives of Aboriginal groups, communists and trade unionists, protested in the city's central business district.

Demonstrations of various sizes took place in Asia, namely in Japan's Tokyo, the Philippines' Manila, Taiwan's Taipei, South Korea's Seoul and China's Hong Kong.

Despite heavy rains in Seoul, the South Korean capital, members of more than 30 civic groups congregated in the city's financial district.

In Manila, about 100 members of Bayan, an alliance of various left-wing groups in the Philippines, marched to the US embassy, waving banners that read: "Down with US imperialism" and "Philippines not for sale", broadcaster APTN reported.

In Hong Kong, more than 200 people gathered at Exchange Square Podium in the city’s central shopping and business district.