Hong Kong on Fire

Carrie Lam speak to the media about the anti-mask law in effect at midnight

At lunchtime today there was a message on social media that the Hong Kong government would make an announcement at 3pm and that all government workers would be allowed to leave work early.

It was definitely happening -- Chief Executive Carrie Lam was going to announce the government will invoke the Emergency Regulations Ordinance to implement an anti-mask law in a bid to curb the protests that have escalated in violence.

People streamed out of offices in Central to protest

But just has she held her press conference, people streamed out of their offices in Central and began occupying Pedder, Des Voeux and Connaught Road Central streets. They were furious she was going to do this.

At midnight tonight, the law will be in force, which means anyone who wears a mask at legal rallies and marches as well as illegal gatherings could be sentenced to a year in jail and be fined HK$25,000. Exemptions for those to wear masks at protests would be for professional or paid work (supposedly the media), or for religious or medical reasons.

In addition, the law states that anyone who disobeys a police order to remove a mask could be sentenced to six months in jail and subjected to a HK$10,000 fine.  A "facial covering" not only includes masks, but also items like paint.

In Kennedy Town tonight roads were blocked

Even before this announcement critics and law experts said this not only infringes on people's right to assembly, but also this law is very difficult to enforce.

The ERO was introduced back in 1922 and hasn't been used since the 1967 riots. While the government admitted protesters may not obey this anti-mask law, the authorities believe it may deter others from participating in the protests.

However the immediate result was tens of thousands of people occupying streets. By 5pm they were in Central and Kowloon Tong, and already there were plans to visit all 18 districts in the evening.

Everyone left work early and rushed home, but before that, they made a stop at the neighbourhood supermarket, grocery store, and wet market, and snapped up whatever food supplies they might need and then went home. I also went to the wet market and was very surprised that my usual vegetable stall was out of several items and they had to fetch them elsewhere.

Protesters made their way up Smithfield in Kennedy Town

A number of shops shut down much earlier than usual. Then around 9pm I heard a large group of people shouting slogans down below and went down to see where they were. I couldn't find them at first but then managed to locate them by hearing their chants.

On Belcher's Street, the group in black had thrown minibus stop signs onto the roads, as well as temporary barricades onto the street, preventing buses and cars from going through. Then this group was shouting at each other to decide what to do next.

Nearby they saw a shop called Modern Denki, a home electronics shop that's from China and they tried to lift up one of the shop shutters and managed to do so, setting off the alarm. They cheered briefly and then turned left and went up Smithfield.

It was only later did I see they had trashed a Maxim's Cakes shop with graffiti, and also managed to pry open the shop shutter and throw some of the plastic bakery boxes onto the street.

A China Construction Bank in Causeway Bay was on fire

All these actions were completely unnecessary. In Causeway Bay a China Construction Bank was set ablaze. These violent actions are too much, and yet everyone is still onside against the government because they are frustrated that Lam and her administration continue to add fuel to the fire of anger.

Violence has spread all over the city and tonight a 14-year-old boy was shot in the thigh in Yuen Long with a live round. He is now in hospital undergoing surgery. A 14-year-old!

Lam repeatedly said this afternoon that teachers and parents should stop young people from going onto the streets. How can they stop them? And what if the protesters are also the parents and teachers?

Either Lam is naive or still doesn't understand the broad support these anti-government protests have. She is using this law as a way to impose further restrictions on people. Are curfews next? Again how can this be enforced when the city runs 24 hours a day? Or is the government willing to shut down Hong Kong economically?

A Maxim's Cakes shop was vandalized in Kennedy Town

She says Hong Kong is sliding into dangerous times and yet wants to reassure investors that the city is still open for business. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Politically something needs to be done, not invoking draconian laws that will be very difficult to enforce and the exemptions not clearly spelled out.

Regardless, this is the beginning of the end of Hong Kong. With this law now in force, the government can invoke further restrictions which will greatly impact the economy. Already a number of major events have been cancelled and the longer this continues, there may not even be Christmas and Chinese New Year to celebrate.

In the meantime more radical protesters will continue to wreck havoc on the city while an utterly pathetic government hardly even addresses the issues at hand. The result: more destruction, more violence and more bloodshed.

Hong Kong does not need this. Hong Kong needs a resolution to this crisis now and it begins with Carrie Lam. But she continues to hide behind the police without any brilliant ideas to extend an olive branch because of her elitist attitudes towards the city's residents, in particular its next generation.

So this stalemate will continue and we will all continue to burn together.
  

Review: Fahrenheit 11/9

Moore explains how Trump got into the White House

Ah Michael Moore is back, this time gunning for Donald J Trump in Fahrenheit 11/9, referring to November 9, 2016, when the previously thought underdog became the 45th President of the United States.

Showing footage from the day before and the bizarre turnaround of election results from TV clips, Moore asks, "How the f*** did we get here?"



He says it started when Trump was fired from The Apprentice and was annoyed to hear Gwen Stefani was making more money from appearances than he was. So the Don created a fake event that looked like a presidential rally to make him look popular (with paid supporters).

What happened in the 2016 election? Moore asks

Somehow that stuck and people were interested in him. Why? Because he was refreshing, he spoke in simple words for people to understand (whether they were true or not), and the media admittedly enjoyed high ratings as he methodically took down his fellow Republican candidates.

But were we prepared for what happened afterwards, him declaring war on the media, being accused of collusion and corruption, and undoing almost every policy Barack Obama had implemented?

Moore tries to find out how this happened, and one theory backed with statistics is that many Democrats gave up on voting in 2016 because they felt the party was not listening to them. And for the record, in West Virginia Bernie Sanders had support from all 55 counties, but at the Democratic National Convention, the delegation spokeswoman declared the state was supporting Hilary Clinton. The old guard had decided she would go head to head with Trump.

The 64-year-old Moore also blames the rise of the right to Obama's policies, where he deported the largest number of illegal immigrants of all previous administrations, and ordered a lot of air strikes that led to the casualties of a lot of innocent people in Syria.

What's interesting is that the United States really is a liberal country, and cites a slew of statistics about acceptance of gay marriage, supporting free education, social health care, pro marijuana, and so on. But Moore also reveals a lot of cracks in the system, and uses his hometown of Flint, Michigan as an example.

He gives Governor Snyder some polluted Flint water

Rick Snyder just recently stepped down as Michigan state governor because of term limits, but during his time he created an unprecedented disaster with the water supply to Flint in 2014. Originally water had been sourced from Lake Huron, but that was changed to the Detroit River which was polluted. Tens of thousands of children were poisoned from the lead in the water and people died, and yet Snyder was never criminally charged for knowingly doing this.

In addition, the residents were disappointed in Obama not doing enough to condemn the situation and fix it by calling a state of emergency. During his speech he asked for a glass of water and some observers claimed Obama pretended to drink it which made a farce of the issue.

Also the city was literally under attack by the US Army that used Flint to practice fighting against terrorists in an urban setting -- except the residents weren't even told about it ahead of time.

But there are people across the country who are not depending on the system and are fighting back.

He meets student survivors of the Douglas Parkland shooting

After the Douglas Parkland shooting on February 14, 2018, where 17 students and teachers were killed and 17 others injured, surviving students took on local politicians who underestimated the teenagers in the gun control debate. On camera they were caught flat-footed in what they were going to do about magazines and AR-15 semi-automatic rifles.

Moore is very pleased to see the next generation taking matters into their own hands and holding their own rally to bring attention the needless violence days later.

The filmmaker is also fired up by teachers who went on strike for more pay, and a former war vet in West Virginia who is willing to fight for change for his community, as he is tired of politicians pandering to corporate interests over the best interests of citizens. He also talks to Democrats Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, who are shaking up the Democratic Party.

And then there is the comparison of Trump to Adolf Hitler, with interviews with two historians who say patterns from World War II are repeating themselves. The warning from Fahrenheit 11/9 is that we need to be careful to preserve our democracy otherwise it will be taken from us before we realize it.

Moore back in the 1990s joking around with Trump on TV

I enjoy Moore's humour -- he admits that Steve Bannon's company distributed his movie, Bowling for Columbine, and that Jared Kushner held a launch party for his documentary Sicko on the state of healthcare in the US. He also remembers meeting Trump on Roseanne Barr's talk show and seems to regret not having a go at him on TV.

Moore tries to make a citizen's arrest of Snyder and fails, and retaliates by spraying polluted Flint water on the property where the governor's mansion sits (sadly too far for the water hose to reach).

The research he does for his documentaries are pretty solid and you can't help but cheer him on and be pleased that someone out there is fighting for us. But this time he is warning that we must take matters into our own hands too.

Fahrenheit 11/9 (2018)
Written, narrated, directed by Michael Moore
120 minutes

Hong Kong Shocked by Shooting

The 44-year-old suspect being led away by police in Quarry Bay

Hong Kong got a big shock this afternoon when a woman shot four seniors in Quarry Bay Park on the east side of Hong Kong Island.

One woman died after being shot in the head, one man is in a coma from a shot in the back of his head, and the other two sustained minor injuries after being shot in the shoulder and hand.

It turns out all five people were related -- the seniors, ranging in ages from 60 to 80, were aunts and uncles to the assailant, a 44-year-old security guard.

Police search for spent cartridges in the park

She arranged to meet them in the park to settle a dispute over her grandmother's inheritance, the oldest of the siblings, who had passed away.

However, when the meeting broke up with no agreement, the seniors were getting ready to leave and that's when the woman pulled out a semi-automatic Beretta 950 handgun and shot the four people at close range before calmly walking away.

Officers from the Counter Terrorism Response Unit were on patrol nearby and rushed over to the scene and arrested the woman, who was still carrying the gun and 40 rounds of ammunition.

It is believed she fired four shots.

According to the chief inspector, the suspect was calm when arrested and did not have mental issues, but he didn't say if she had a criminal record.

The handgun was found on the suspect when she was arrested

While police have stated this is not a "random shooting", it still has shocked people in Hong Kong. Shootings are very rare and if they occur they happen around robberies.

There will be questions in the coming days of this woman's access to a weapon and 40 rounds of ammunition which seems like a lot. Hopefully this is an isolated incident. Hong Kong is considered a very safe place and this shooting has jolted many of us into wondering what is going on.

This case will eventually wind its way through the justice system and we will find out why this tragic incident happened. We already have a good idea -- it's money-related...