🌊 Free Tide: Democratic Party members set to boycott LegCo election
🌊 Free Tide: Democratic Party members set to boycott LegCo election
Democratic Party members set to boycott election, lukewarm response to COVID-19 walk-in vaccinations, property specialists advocate for town-planning reforms and more...
Good morning
Pretty slow news day today…what we have lined up for you includes:
LegCo elections news
COVID walk-in vaccination updates
ReThink Hong Kong event details
and potential property reforms
~ Sze Yu
Democratic Party members set to boycott election
According to SCMP, the majority of Democratic Party members support boycotting Hong Kong’s upcoming legislative council elections. Recent political changes to Hong Kong’s electoral system now ensure only “patriots“ can take public office, a regulation which many pro-democracy lawmakers believe is explicitly designed to reduce their influence.
The 2021 Hong Kong Legislative Council Election is scheduled for December 19th.
COVID news
Coronavirus in Hong Kong
New cases: 7 (6 imported, 1 unknown source)
Total cases: 12,168 cases so far (67 active cases, 210 total deaths, 11,572 total recovered)
Lukewarm public response to COVID-19 walk-in vaccinations
Few members of the public showed up for the government’s newly launched walk-in vaccination service. SCMP’s sources say that at about noon, the facility at Sun Yat Sen Memorial Park Sports Centre was close to empty.
The new walk-in service is the latest among a series of measures introduced by the government to boost Hong Kong’s vaccination rate. Currently, 59.7% of the Hong Kong population is fully vaccinated, and 65.7% have received their first dose.
Events / Exhibitions etc
Our events are handpicked from public exhibitions, partnerships/collaborations and also just stuff we find cool. We want to make sure that what we advertise is interesting for our readers, so if you go to an event that you saw here, let us know by taking a selfie and tagging us on Twitter or Instagram ( both @harbourtimes ).
We’ll throw in a free month of Paid High Tide for yourself or a friend!
ReThink Hong Kong
ReThink HK—Hong Kong’s best attended and most ambitious business event for sustainable development—will be returning for a second time. The two-day expo and conference aims to answer how businesses can accelerate change towards a more sustainable future for Hong Kong.
ReThink HK will be held on Tuesday Oct 5th and Wednesday Oct 6th. For more information about the event, read Harbour Times’ article on ReThink HK or visit ReThink HK’s website!
Property specialists call on government to reform town-planning process
Property specialists are urging the Hong Kong government to implement sweeping reforms to boost housing supply. Shih Wing-ching, founder of Centaline Group, suggested the Town Planning Board give rezoning priority to projects offering a greater number of flats.
Shih also highlighted the important role property developers played in solving the city’s housing issues, reasoning that it was therefore unlikely that Beijing would crackdown on Hong Kong developers.
Other updates
Student Politicism spokeswoman Wong Yuen-lam has surrendered to authorities (paywalled) after allegations of ‘conspiracy to incite subversion of state power‘. Wong’s fellow group members convenor Wong Yat-chin, former secretary Chan Chi-sum and ex-spokeswoman Chu Wai-ying were arrested by national security police on Monday.
Chief Executive Carrie Lam hailed Sunday’s controversial polls, saying that any “patriot” who is critical of the Hong Kong government will not be barred from standing in elections. Out of the 364 candidates elected (by 0.06% of the Hong Kong population), only one was considered opposition-leaning.
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