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rodgersray24 · 2 months

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4 Unesco World Heritage Sites Great For You . Visit A Person Have Travel To Vietnam

You are usually able to travel to Hue by air, railway, tour bus or even rent obtaining. They found the academic techniques of painting very binding back to their art. It covers a length of no less than 6350 kilometers. Without the feeling of the Hong Kong authorities, Harry picks some locks and shoots some bad adult males. His ex-wife gets shot in a cross blaze. His daughter is eventually located. She'd been kidnapped by chinese people triads. When he found her, she was taped up and inside the trunk of some car. Harry and Maddie head to your airport. She now will live with Bosch in Los Angeles. View More: topthuathienhueaz.com - Top Thua Thien Hue AZ Reviewed by Team Leader in Top Thua Thien Hue AZ: Võ Tá Thành Minh - Vo Ta Thanh Minh For all those people who love pay out their holidays near to nature, the Heavenly Lake is a great choice for one. This lake is situated as east of Tianshan Mountain range. The forest is flanked the snow covered mountains that lead it to one of the beautiful lakes of turmoil. This lake has the normal depth of 60 meters and you may witness ice bergs, ice mushrooms and ice water fountains. If you are lucky enough you can to rent holiday home accommodation in this field. Five long days later my motorbike was ready: Harry had restored it in created style of any Royal Enfield, with a chromed tank, red paint and golden lines, a classical gorgeousness. When I first saw her, she took my breath away. I began to feel scared, really scared. Wouldn't I have the ability to handle these 170 kilograms of light weight aluminum? "You have to give her a name, you appreciate. For a man a bike is female. We always speak of her, like speaking of a girl. But you are a woman, so I not really know how this works along with you." said Harry. Honestly, I had no clue. I maintained on referring to my bullet in my thoughts as "the bike". But a name or company name? Luckily I had no problem with the regardless. Clearly, this red and chrome beauty was female.

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They got on their horses, and left the city, the Miraculous Host wrapped carefully in a sack. They went from dark night to the imperial associated with Malines, along with the convent of St. Francis. What company possesses this precious learn? It is not even announced. However, during all last century the leadership in world production of diamonds belonged to giant De Beers who supervised about 65 % of all diamond market till now. In further research into ancient Chinese earrings, scholars have discovered that many ancient women liked to wear a single earring instead of a set of. Single earrings in order to found inside a third with the Han Dynasty tombs throughout China. What all details points toward is the undeniable incontrovertible fact earrings a fashion culture of China (as well as through the rest of Asia) are a living legacy which has not yet subsided is not process associated with. Women will always felt "naked" without bracelets. It was exact same holds true in in the marketplace as still is as soon as possible. So. savor period you spend choosing your earrings and have them for one lifetime. You might be their early woman to so! Without the of the Hong Kong authorities, Harry picks some locks and shoots some bad other guys. His ex-wife gets shot in a cross hearth. His daughter is eventually located. She'd been kidnapped by the chinese triads. As he found her, she was taped up and in the trunk with the car. Tin tổng hợp Top Thua Thien Hue AZ Harry and Maddie head to your airport. She now will live with Bosch in Los Angeles. The Forbidden City: The Imperial residence was in order to awe, of course you can still entirely. The artwork alone is astonishing, just one of the few examples of this highly ornate and symbolic decorative style surviving complete. This is where the Manchu Qing Dynasty rose and fell, and where modern China looks back on associated with years of turmoil. View More: topthuathienhueaz.com - Top Thua Thien Hue AZ Reviewed by Team Leader in Top Thua Thien Hue AZ: Võ Tá Thành Minh - Vo Ta Thanh Minh Written By Author in topthuathienhueaz.com: Tôn Thất Nhật Bình - Ton That Nhat Binh Written By Author in topthuathienhueaz.com: Nguyễn Thị Lan Anh - Nguyen Thi Lan Anh

#Top Thua Thien Hue AZ #Hue Viet Nam

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hongkongartman-mlee · 6 months

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Waning Interest In Nightlife—Our Past Glory And What Are The Challenges Of The Night-time Economy In Hong Kong?

Some said, “I am all about nightlife. I live during the night.” Some said, “In nightlife, you can become a star. While in the daytime, you can be a nobody.” Some said, “I don’t like going out. I hate clubs. I hate being around too many people.”

A clothes vendor in the well-known Temple Street Night Market in Hong Kong told South China Morning Post, “The Street seemed lifeless and quiet, with many other stallholders gone for the day. I have been running this stall for more than 40 years and business had never been this bad.” The newspaper reported that in better times, Temple Street presented a mix of old and new. It drew visitors who swarmed its numerous stalls selling clothes, souvenirs, jade, antiques and watches. Traditional fortune-tellers beckoned and Cantonese opera singers performed late into the night, while dai pai dong (‘hawkers’) food stalls dished out everything from chili crab to steamed fish. The subdued state of the street market reflects the situation across the city, alongside the trend of Hongkongers heading to mainland Chinese cities such as Shenzhen to enjoy weekends.

Last night, I went to Tsim Sha Tsui, the touristy area, to look for a restaurant at 9:30p.m. Some were closed. Many were preparing for closing. It was a deeply depressing scene.

Many in Hong Kong, since 1970s, had wandered around in the streets at night until they found no place to stay or nobody else to hang with at midnight.

Hong Kong used to be energetic, boisterous and loud after 8 p.m. The urban noise was constant. Neon lights were colourful, bright and reliable. Such signs took a rest only at AM hours. Shopping, dining, night-time snacking, singing, massage, clubbing and socializing were everywhere.

Some attributed the night-life decline to the lack of tourists who can afford. Some suggest that the lifestyle of people here have changed: they feel happier on emotional front at home. They would rather enjoy online shopping, watching Netflix, cooking, meeting cyber-friends and gym exercising—avoiding being overstimulated by others. Some put the blame on the poor economy of Hong Kong because people want to spend less. Some venue operators complain that there is a serious shortage of 20% manpower in Hong Kong and they cannot hire enough workers who are interested in night-shift work. Some lament that more than 200,000 people have emigrated from this city. Others explain the social phenomenon by the outflux of more than 300,000 local people on Saturday and Sunday for ‘weekend getaways’ to the Greater Bay Area cities in Guangdong. Some feel that the government’s controls on hawkers and street busking are too tight. Some comment that the local handicrafts sold are not attractive or creative.

A vibrant and mixed ‘night-time economy’ is important as it can encourage tourism, boost the local spending power and contribute to shaping trendy places where people want to live. This is why some youngsters like to live near Soho, Central. The night-time economy also makes a significant contribution to the employment situation. To the dismay of the government, people in Hong Kong tend to spend less and less. We are an aging population and more and more citizens survive on savings. Thus, saving money produces a sense of security, especially when people are older. Night activities which eat away at one’s bank balance is considered quite unnecessary. Economically, we are facing a recession. Consumptions inevitably slow down especially for expensive nightlife entertainments inclusive of pubs, bars, nightclubs and shows.

From a family’s point of view, it is not a good idea to suggest staying out late at night. Being out late at night can expose teenagers or girls to various safety hazards such as encountering bad people, getting involved in altercations, or becoming victims of crimes. Staying awake through the night takes a toll on physical health. Fatigue and low energy levels in the daytime may worsen work performance. Parents should return home early and spend more time with children. Children will feel that their parents value them. In the old days, a lot of parents in Hong Kong went back home after 10p.m. and the poor parent-child interactions would harm a child’s development. People should be attracted by the happy moments of a family, instead of the desire and seduction typically associated with night activities outside.

For myself, I want the services sector such as doctors, hairstylists, physiotherapists and herbal treatment centres to close later, ideally till 10p.m. Many people are like me—always in a rush during the day and it will be excellent if we could spend few hours after work on personal grooming and healing. Is this night-time economy?

London, New York, Paris and Amsterdam are the great cities, when it comes to ‘night-time cultural economy’. Cinemas, musicals, light shows, plays, stand-up comedies, opera, ballet, dance and concerts, are abundant and liven up the night. These cultural places make the whole area full of vitality. Look at the number of pizza restaurants in New York for a midnight snack! Hong Kong may follow and use evening cultural activities to captivate the younger tourists who are more educated.

In mainland China, some hospitals have extended their operating hours. The official said, “Any attempt to get people to spend more money at night is a good idea.” The thing to watch out is that the late-night operating hours may not necessarily bring the same ratio of income compared with day-time operating hours.

Ernest Hemingway told us, “Night is always darker before the dawn and life is the same.” Extending business hours will not help our economy much. Recalibrating the tourism fundamentals of Hong Kong towards cultural attractions is the more appropriate direction.

Maurice Lee

Chinese Version 中文版: https://www.patreon.com/posts/xiang-gang-60zhi-93391105?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link

Hong Kong Wanchai Night Market https://youtu.be/OkRU0NKumz4?si=LfP0uMbzK8wQcXCG Acknowledgement - hokoonho

Hong Kong Temple Street https://youtu.be/zucAog03Ucc?si=b6kLiRf5J3NjEiw7 Acknowledgement – 看見香港

Hong Kong at Night https://youtu.be/01G05Z8rC1Y?si=ulmwG6iVMnyJNaz1 Acknowledgement-Island Hopper TV Travel Highlights

Sheung Wan Gala Point https://youtu.be/y8dtrv0tJ1M?si=KzxOj20uBAi4f04A Acknowledgement-Mike Ling

Song 《兩相依》 https://youtu.be/Kvo9uOt405A?si=xjYR9-MwZXMefbTh Acknowledgement – charmer0966

#Temple Street Night Market #Dai Pai Dong #Cantonese Opera

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libramc · 3 years

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❤️ How to predict WHERE you're going to meet your future spouse through Astrology ❤️

hi guys! in today's post I'm going to show you how to find out where you'll meet your future spouse through your birth chart. this technique was discovered by the astrologer Kapiel Raaj, and it's based on vedic astrology. hence, you're going to need your sidereal birth chart to calculate this. if you already know how to do that, you can skip this part.

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first of all, go to astro.com > horoscope and then click on extended chart selection.

add your birth data by clicking on the 'add a new person' button. it's necessary to have your accurate birth time for this, as it's based on your ascendant.

then scroll down and click on options for zodiac and houses. choose the whole signs house system and then click on sidereal. after that, choose 'hindu/lahiri' on the ayanamsha button.

after you've calculated your chart, it will be something like this (this is angelina jolie's sidereal birth chart):

to calculate where you're going to meet your spouse, we need to first of all take a look at the 7th house lord, which is the planet that rules your 7th house. in this chart it is saturn, as she has capricorn in her 7th house. now that you know what is your 7th house lord, look at where it's placed in your chart. also, keep in mind that since this is a sidereal technique, we're only going to take in consideration traditional rulers, therefore aquarius is ruled by uranus, pisces by jupiter and scorpio by mars. angelina has her saturn in gemini in the 12th house. the opposite sign indicates the circumstances or directly the place where you're going to meet your spouse. in this chart, it is sagittarius. keep reading for an explanation of each sign!!

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♈️ aries opposite 7th house lord ♈️

you're going to meet your spouse when doing some sort of physical activity. you may meet them at the gym, or maybe at a sport event like a football match. you could even meet them just by taking a casual walk, and it could be love at first sight. you two may also meet in a place where there's lots of noise and action, maybe even danger, probably not in a quiet place. places that are ruled by aries are palestine, england, hong kong, germany, poland, syria, israel, lithuania, senegal, sierra leone and zimbabwe. as for cities, we have birmingham, cape town, leicester, florence, krakow, naples, utrecht, marseilles and georgia.

♉️ taurus opposite 7th house lord ♉️

taurus loves the finer things in life, so if you have this sign opposite your 7th house lord you may meet your spouse during your chill time. for instance, you may meet them at a spa, at the mall, at the beach... anything that symbolizes relax for you. in addition, taurus also rules finances, therefore you could meet them in a bank or in any place or circumstance where you have to deal with finances, even in a shop for example. also, since taurus rules over the throat and the voice, you may meet at a place where there's singing for instance, or at least there's music playing in the background. last but not least, being an earth sign, taurus opposing your 7th house lord may also indicate that you're going to meet your future spouse in a place where there's lots of green, maybe at the park or in a forest. places that are ruled by taurus are cyprus, tasmania, ireland, capri, rhodes, the greek iIslands, cuba, east timor, serbia, tanzania, south africa and yemen. as for cities, we have lucerne, eastbound, eastbourne, hastings, palermo, leipzig, st. louis and dublin.

♊️ gemini opposite 7th house lord ♊️

with gemini opposing your 7th house lord, you may meet your future spouse through socializing. you could meet them through your friends or through your siblings, maybe they're a sibling of a friend of yours. you could also meet them during short-distance trips, so maybe in a city near you or even on a train, on a bus, etc. communication is going to be involved, and hence you could even meet them at an event where there's the need to talk and / or write. possibly, you may as well meet him online or in school. places that are ruled by gemini include iceland, sardinia, morocco, belgium, wales, eritrea, guyana, kuwait, norway, montenegro, sweden and tonga. as for cities, we have nuremberg, tripoli, san francisco, london, melbourne, plymouth and cardiff.

♋️ cancer opposite 7th house lord ♋️

if cancer is opposing your 7th house lord, then you could have possibly known your future spouse since your childhood. you could have met a school, or to talk in a more general way you may be from the same city. possibly, you could as well meet in a place where there are children, or where there's food. in addition, since cancer is ruled by the moon, you could meet in a place where there's moon symbolism. maybe during a full or new moon. perhaps, you're going to meet near water as well, as cancer is a water sign. places that are ruled by cancer include usa, paraguay, scotland, holland, the bahamas bahrain belize, burundi, cape verde, columbia, comoros, democratic republic of the congo croatia djibouti, kiribati laos, liberia, madagascar, malawi mozambique, rwanda, slovenia solomon islands, algeria, somalia, and south korea. as for cities, we have manchester, new york, stockholm, tokyo, venice, york, amsterdam and milan.

♌️ leo opposite 7th house lord ♌️

with the sign of leo opposing your 7th house lord, you’re likely to meet your future spouse in a place where there’s fun. it could be at a party, during a vacation, at a bar, a restaurant... certainly not at work, that’s for sure. you’ll meet your spouse in a situation of relax, not of stress. since leo also rules celebrities, you may even meet them in a place where there are famous people, like a concert for instance. countries ruled by leo are afghanistan, india, italy, macedonia, romania, sicily, ecuador, zanzibar, bhutan, bolivia, central african republic chad, the ivory coast, gabon, indonesia, north korea, south korea, kyrgyzstan, malaysia, maldives, nicaragua, pakistan, mongolia, seychelles, singapore, ukraine and madagascar. as for cities, we have bristol, bombay, chicago, madrid, los angeles, philadelphia, rome and bath.

♍️ virgo opposite 7th house lord ♍️

virgo rules over health, and hence you may meet your future spouse in a health-related place. it could be at the doctor’s, at the dentist’s, in a hospital, etc. virgo is also routine, so you may meet your future spouse in a typical day of yours. it could be at the supermarket, at work, while you’re walking your dog, at the gym, and so on. basically, it could be that your future spouse is going to casually approach you in the streets. countries ruled by virgo include crete, brazil, greece, switzerland, turkey, uruguay, west indies, armenia, azerbaijan, belarus, brazil, costa rica, el salvador estonia guatemala, honduras, mali, moldova, qatar and tajikistan. as for cities we have athens, paris, toulouse, corinth, lyons, boston and mexico city.

♎️ libra opposite 7th house lord ♎️

if you have libra opposing your 7th house lord, you may get to meet your spouse in a place that has to do with beauty, so maybe in a clothes shop or at a salon. you may also meet them in a place where there are many people, or even at some sort of event like a marriage. libra also rules over politics and justice, so maybe you could meet them at the courthouse or during election time. countries that are ruled by libra include france, tibet, argentina, austria, burma, canada, china, japan, siberia, botswana, equatorial guinea, fiji, iraq, israel, lesotho, nigeria, palau, saint lucia, saudi arabia, tuvalu and uganda. as for cities that are ruled by libra we have lisbon, frankfurt, copenhagen, johannesburg, nottingham and antwerp.

♏️ scorpio opposite 7th house lord ♐️

scorpio is the sign of darkness, hence if you have it opposing your 7th house lord you may get to meet your spouse during nighttime. scorpio is also about sex, so this relationship could start off as a one night stand, or maybe you may meet in a place where sex is involved. you could also meet them in a place that has to do with death or where there's death symbolism, such as a graveyard (I hope not tho lol💀). you two may also be transforming yourselves when you meet, you could be starting a new chapter of your life to leave toxicity behind your shoulders. you could also meet at a place where you need to be naked, such as a beach or at the spa, or again in a place related to finances and money. countries that are ruled by scorpio include angola, morocco, queensland, korea, syria, norway, the transvaal, bavaria, antigua, barbuda, cambodia, dominica, latvia, lebanon, micronesia, panama, turkey, turkmenistan and zambia. cities that are ruled by scorpio include cincinnati, liverpool, newcastle, washington, vienna, baltimore and new orleans.

♐️ sagittarius opposite 7th house lord ♐️

sagittarius rules over foreign lands, so if you have it opposite your 7th house lord you're most likely going to meet your future spouse abroad. or perhaps, they are foreign and they travel to your country. you may also meet them in a place related to foreign culture, so maybe in a place filled with tourists, or perhaps in an exotic restaurant, perhaps at a sushi bar if you're not japanese for example. it may also be time for you for new experiences, perhaps you're doing something for the first time, such as trying a new sport or taking a plane. you may also meet your future spouse in college or in university, or in general in a place where there's teaching of any kind. last but not least, sagittarius is also a very spiritual sign, so you could meet them in a church, or maybe at an event related to religion such as a marriage, a baptism, etc. countries that are ruled by sagittarius include spain, australia, chile, hungary, saudi arabia, bangladesh, barbados, cameroon, kazakhstan, kenya, libya and mauritania. cities that are ruled by sagittarius include budapest, johannesburg, naples, nottingham, sheffield, sunderland, stuttgart and toronto.

♑️ capricorn opposite 7th house lord ♑️

capricorn is ruled by saturn, the planet of responsibilities, therefore if you have this sign opposing your 7th house lord you'll most likely meet your spouse on your workplace. perhaps they're your boss or a co-worker of yours, or maybe they may even be a customer of yours. you'll surely meet them later in life, when you're at least 27/28 years old, or perhaps when you manage to accomplish something really big in your life, not necessarily career-related. countries that are ruled by capricorn include india, bulgaria, mexico, great britain, albania, afghanistan, lithuania, bosnia, brunei, czech republic, haiti, nauru, slovakia and sudan. as for cities that are ruled by capricorn we have brandenburg, brussel, delhi, mexico city, port said, oxford and ghent.

♒️ aquarius opposite 7th house lord ♒️

you may meet your spouse in any place that has to do with electricity, for instance at a movie theater, at a theme park, at an apparel store, and so on. perhaps even on a public transport, such as a train, a taxi or a plane. also, since we're talking about electricity we can also count on internet, therefore if you have aquarius opposing your 7th house lord you have high chances of meeting your future spouse on social media, such as twitter, instagram, etc. or even through dating apps, such as tinder. last but not least, you may also be introduced to your spouse by your friends, or perhaps they could be a part of your group of friends. you may be both best friends and lovers, you would have a very playful and youthful relationship. countries that are ruled by aquarius include iran, finland, new zealand, russia, sweden, syria, ethiopia, the holy vatican city and sri lanka. cities that are ruled by aquarius include brighton, hamburg, helsinki, moscow, salzburg, st. petersburg and bremen.

♓️ pisces opposite 7th house lord ♓️

if you have pisces opposite your 7th house lord, you may first of all meet your future spouse near water. therefore you could meet them at the beach, at an aquarium, at the lake, at the pool, etc. perhaps even at a restaurant that serves seafood and fish, such as a sushi bar. pisces is also about alcohol, therefore you may also meet them in a bar or at a party where there's alcohol. pisces also rules over art and images, therefore you could meet them in a place where there are lots of pictures and paintings, such as a museum, or perhaps even at the movie theater, at a concert, etc. the club would be an option too, as it combines both alcohol and dancing, two pisces related things. also, it could be very late at night, when you're supposed to be sleeping, or perhaps, you're just sleepy or even drunk. last but not least, this placement usually indicates a soulmate or twinflame connection, therefore you may even meet your spouse first in the 5D than in the 3D, perhaps you feel spiritually connected to them even if you haven't met them yet. you could very likely dream of them as well. lastly, pisces is also about healing, so your future spouse may either work in the medicine field or maybe they're some sort of spiritual healer. you could possibly also meet them at the church or in a temple. countries that are ruled by pisces include normandy, north africa, portugal, samoa, egypt, Scandinavia, mauritius, morocco, namibia and tunisia. cities that are ruled by pisces include warsaw, alexandria, grimsby, jerusalem, bournemouth, seville and cowes.

and this is it! let me know in the comments where you're going to meet your spouse, and if you've already met them feel free to say if this post resonated with your experience!

follow me for more,

libramc xx

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beardedmrbean · 2 years

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BEIJING (AP) — Anti-virus controls that have shut down some of China’s biggest cities and fueled public irritation are spreading as infections rise, hurting a weak economy and prompting warnings of possible global shockwaves.

Shanghai is easing rules that confined most of its 25 million people to their homes after complaints they had trouble getting food. But most of its businesses still are closed. Access to Guangzhou, an industrial center of 19 million people near Hong Kong, was suspended this week. Other cities are cutting off access or closing factories and schools.

Spring planting by Chinese farmers who feed 1.4 billion people might be disrupted, Nomura economists warned Thursday. That could boost demand for imported wheat and other food, pushing up already high global prices.

The closures are an embarrassment to the ruling Communist Party and a setback for official efforts to shore up slumping growth in the world’s second-largest economy. They come during a sensitive year when President Xi Jinping is expected to try to break with tradition and award himself a third five-year term as leader.

Beijing has promised to reduce the human and economic cost of its “zero-COVID” strategy, but Xi on Wednesday ruled out joining the United States and other governments that are dropping restrictions and trying to live with the virus.

“Prevention and control work cannot be relaxed,” Xi said, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. “Persistence is victory.”

The risk that China might tumble into recession is increasing, Ting Lu, Jing Wang and Harrison Zhang of Nomura warned in a report.

“The logistics crunch is worsening,” they said. “The markets should also be concerned about the delayed spring planting of grain in China.”

The government reported 29,411 new cases Thursday, all but 3,020 with no symptoms. Shanghai accounted for 95% of that total, or 27,719 cases. All but 2,573 had no symptoms.

A health official warned Wednesday that Shanghai didn’t have the virus under control despite its easing restrictions.

Some 6.6 million people were allowed to leave their homes in areas that had no new cases for at least a week. But at least 15 million others still are barred from going outdoors.

Most people have obeyed despite grumbling about shortages of food, medicine and access to elderly relatives who need help. But videos on the popular Sina Weibo social media service show some trading punches with police.

Grape Chen, a data analyst in Shanghai, said she was panicking about getting medicines for her father, who is recovering from a stroke. She called police after getting no response from an official hotline but was told quarantine rules bar officers from helping.

“We are willing to cooperate with the country,” Chen said. “But we also hope that our lives can be respected.”

The city government of Suzhou, a center for smartphone manufacturing and other high-tech industry west of Shanghai, told its 18 million people to stay home when possible.

Taiyuan, a blue-collar city of 4 million in central China, suspended inter-city bus service, according to the official China News Service. Ningde in the southeast barred residents from leaving.

A restaurant cook in Taiyuan said his family has been confined to their apartment compound since April 3 after cases were found in neighboring compounds.

“Our lives will be seriously affected if the restrictions last long,” said the cook, who would give only his surname, Chen.

“My wife and I are earning nothing,” Chen said. “We have three children to support.”

All but 13 of China’s 100 biggest cities by economic output are under some form of restrictions, according to Gavekal Dragonomics, a research firm.

“The intensity is increasing,” Gavekal said in a report this week.

The volume of cargo handled by the Shanghai port, the world’s busiest, has fallen 40%, according to an estimate by the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China. Automakers have suspended production due to disruption in deliveries of supplies.

Restrictions on areas that produce the world's smartphones, consumer electronics and other goods are prompting forecasters to cut expectations for this year's economic growth to as low as 5%, down sharply from last year's 8.1% expansion.

The ruling party’s target is 5.5%. Growth slid to 4% over a year earlier in the final quarter of 2021 after tighter official controls on debt triggered a collapse in home sales and construction, industries that support millions of jobs.

Even before the latest shutdowns, the ruling party was promising tax refunds and other help for entrepreneurs who generate wealth and jobs.

Premier Li Keqiang, the No. 2 leader and top economic official, called this week for “quicker rollout” of aid for businesses that face a “key juncture for survival,” China News Service reported.

Under a strategy dubbed “dynamic clearing,” authorities are trying to use more targeted measures to isolate neighborhoods instead of whole cities with populations bigger than some countries. But some local leaders are imposing more sweeping controls.

Shanghai leaders were criticized for trying to minimize economic damage by ordering testing but no shutdown once cases were found last month. A citywide shutdown was ordered with only a few hours' warning after case numbers soared.

That was in contrast to Shenzhen, a tech and finance center of 17.5 million people near Hong Kong that closed the city March 13 after an outbreak and ordered mass testing. It reopened a week later and business returned to normal.

Guangzhou has imitated Shenzhen. Most access to the city of 19 million was suspended Monday and mass testing ordered after 27 infections were found.

Li Guanyu, a 31-year-old woman in Guangzhou, said residents can leave her apartment compound only once every other day to buy food but stores are well-stocked.

“This happened a bit suddenly," said Li. “Maybe the Shanghai situation is so bad that Guangzhou started mass testing and lockdowns as soon as cases were discovered.”

#nunyas news

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newstfionline · 3 years

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Monday, September 20, 2021

Biden’s Entire Presidential Agenda Rests on Expansive Spending Bill (NYT) Biden’s entire presidential agenda is riding on the reconciliation bill being crafted in Congress right now. No president has ever packed as much of his agenda, domestic and foreign, into a single piece of legislation as President Biden has with the $3.5 trillion spending plan that Democrats are trying to wrangle through Congress over the next six weeks,” Tankersley writes. “It is almost as if President Franklin D. Roosevelt had stuffed his entire New Deal into one piece of legislation, or if President Lyndon B. Johnson had done the same with his Great Society, instead of pushing through individual components over several years. If he succeeds, Biden’s far-reaching attempt could result in a presidency-defining victory that delivers on a decades-long campaign by Democrats to expand the federal government to combat social problems and spread the gains of a growing economy to workers. If he fails, he could end up with nothing. As Democrats are increasingly seeing, the sheer weight of Mr. Biden’s progressive push could cause it to collapse, leaving the party empty-handed, with the president’s top priorities going unfulfilled. … If Mr. Biden’s party cannot find consensus on those issues and the bill dies, the president will have little immediate recourse to advance almost any of those priorities.

Child care in the US is a ‘broken market,’ Treasury report finds (Yahoo Money) A Treasury Department report this week characterized the U.S. child care system as “unworkable” as Democrats push reform that experts say is an “overdue and critical investment.” The average American family with at least one child under age 5 uses 13% of their income to pay for child care, according to the report, nearly double the 7% that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services considers affordable. Additionally, less than 20% of the children eligible for the Child Care and Development Fund—a federal assistance program for low-income families—are getting that funding. “Child care is a textbook example of a broken market, and one reason is that when you pay for it, the price does not account for all the positive things it confers on our society,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement on Wednesday. “When we underinvest in child care, we forgo that; we give up a happier, healthier, more prosperous labor force in the future.”

Inspiration4 Astronauts Beam After Return From 3-Day Journey to Orbit (NYT) After three days in orbit, a physician assistant, a community college professor, a data engineer and the billionaire who financed their trip arrived back on Earth, heralding a new era of space travel with a dramatic and successful Saturday evening landing in the Atlantic Ocean. The mission, which is known as Inspiration4, splashed down off the Florida coast at 7:06 p.m. on Saturday. Each step of the return unfolded on schedule, without problems. Within an hour, all four crew members walked out of the spacecraft, one at a time, each beaming with excitement as recovery crews assisted them.

Haitians on Texas border undeterred by US plan to expel them (AP) Haitian migrants seeking to escape poverty, hunger and a feeling of hopelessness in their home country said they will not be deterred by U.S. plans to speedily send them back, as thousands of people remained encamped on the Texas border Saturday after crossing from Mexico. Scores of people waded back and forth across the Rio Grande on Saturday afternoon, re-entering Mexico to purchase water, food and diapers in Ciudad Acuña before returning to the Texas encampment under and near a bridge in the border city of Del Rio. Junior Jean, a 32-year-old man from Haiti, watched as people cautiously carried cases of water or bags of food through the knee-high river water. Jean said he lived on the streets in Chile the past four years, resigned to searching for food in garbage cans. “We are all looking for a better life,” he said.

Three Weeks After Hurricane Ida, Parts of Southeast Louisiana Are Still Dark (NYT) For Tiffany Brown, the drive home from New Orleans begins as usual: She can see the lights on in the city’s central business district and people gathering in bars and restaurants. But as she drives west along Interstate 10, signs of Hurricane Ida’s destruction emerge. Trees with missing limbs fill the swamp on either side of the highway. With each passing mile, more blue tarps appear on rooftops, and more electric poles lay fallen by the road, some snapped in half. By the time Ms. Brown gets to her exit in Destrehan 30 minutes later, the lights illuminating the highway have disappeared, and another night of total darkness has fallen on her suburban subdivision. For Ms. Brown, who works as an office manager at a pediatric clinic, life at work can feel nearly normal. But at home, with no electricity, it is anything but. “I keep hoping every day that I’m going to go home and it’ll be on,” she said. Three weeks have passed since Hurricane Ida knocked down electric wires, poles and transmission towers serving more than one million people in southeast Louisiana. In New Orleans, power was almost entirely restored by Sept. 10, and businesses and schools have reopened. But outside the city, more than 100,000 customers were without lights through Sept. 13. As of Friday evening there were still about 38,000 customers without power, and many people remained displaced from damaged homes.

Favela centennial shows Brazil communities’ endurance (AP) Dozens of children lined up at a community center in Sao Paulo for a slice of creamy, blue cake. None was celebrating a birthday; their poor neighborhood, the favela of Paraisopolis, was commemorating 100 years of existence. “People started coming (to the city) for construction jobs and settled in,” community leader Gilson Rodrigues said. “There was no planning, not even streets. People started growing crops. It was all disorganized. Authorities didn’t do much, so we learned to organize ourselves.” The favela’s centennial, which was marked on Thursday, underscores the permanence of its roots and of other communities like it, even as Brazilians in wealthier parts of town often view them as temporary and precarious. Favelas struggle to shed that stigma as they defy simple definition, not least because they evolved over decades. Paraisopolis is Sao Paulo’s second-biggest favela, home to 43,000 people, according to the most-recent census, in 2010. Recent, unofficial counts put its population around 100,000.

The barbecue king: British royals praise Philip’s deft touch (AP) When Prince Philip died nearly six months ago at 99, the tributes poured in from far and wide, praising him for his supportive role at the side of Queen Elizabeth II over her near 70-year reign. Now, it has emerged that Philip had another crucial role within the royal family. He was the family’s barbecue king—perhaps testament to his Greek heritage. “He adored barbecuing and he turned that into an interesting art form,” his oldest son Prince Charles said in a BBC tribute program that will be broadcast on Wednesday. “And if I ever tried to do it he ... I could never get the fire to light or something ghastly, so (he’d say): ‘Go away!’” In excerpts of ‘Prince Philip: The Royal Family Remembers’ released late Saturday, members of the royal family spoke admiringly of the late Duke of Edinburgh’s barbecuing skills. “Every barbecue that I’ve ever been on, the Duke of Edinburgh has been there cooking,” said Prince William, Philip’s oldest grandson. “He’s definitely a dab hand at the barbecue ... I can safely say there’s never been a case of food poisoning in the family that’s attributed to the Duke of Edinburgh.” The program, which was filmed before and after Philip’s death on April 9, was originally conceived to mark his 100th birthday in June.

Relations between France and the U.S. have sunk to their lowest level in decades. (NYT) The U.S. and Australia went to extraordinary lengths to keep Paris in the dark as they secretly negotiated a plan to build nuclear submarines, scuttling a defense contract worth at least $60 billion. President Emmanuel Macron of France was so enraged that he recalled the country’s ambassadors to both nations. Australia approached the new administration soon after President Biden’s inauguration. The conventionally powered French subs, the Australians feared, would be obsolete by the time they were delivered. The Biden administration, bent on containing China, saw the deal as a way to cement ties with a Pacific ally. But the unlikely winner is Britain, who played an early role in brokering the alliance. For its prime minister, Boris Johnson, who will meet this coming week with Biden at the White House and speak at the U.N., it is his first tangible victory in a campaign to make post-Brexit Britain a player on the global stage.

Hong Kong’s first ‘patriots-only’ election kicks off (Reuters) Fewer than 5,000 Hong Kong people from mostly pro-establishment circles began voting on Sunday for candidates to an election committee, vetted as loyal to Beijing, who will pick the city’s next China-backed leader and some of its legislature. Pro-democracy candidates are nearly absent from Hong Kong’s first election since Beijing overhauled the city’s electoral system to ensure that “only patriots” rule China’s freest city. The election committee will select 40 seats in the revamped Legislative Council in December, and choose a chief executive in March. Changes to the political system are the latest in a string of moves—including a national security law that punishes anything Beijing deems as subversion, secession, terrorism or collusion with foreign forces—that have placed the international financial hub on an authoritarian path. Most prominent democratic activists and politicians are now in jail or have fled abroad.

The Remote-Control Killing Machine (Politico/NYT) For 14 years, Israel wanted to kill Iran’s top nuclear scientist. Then they came up with a way to do it while using a trained sniper who was more than 1,000 miles away—and fired remotely. It was also the debut test of a high-tech, computerized sharpshooter kitted out with artificial intelligence and multiple-camera eyes, operated via satellite and capable of firing 600 rounds a minute. The souped-up, remote-controlled machine gun now joins the combat drone in the arsenal of high-tech weapons for remote targeted killing. But unlike a drone, the robotic machine gun draws no attention in the sky, where a drone could be shot down, and can be situated anywhere, qualities likely to reshape the worlds of security and espionage.

Israeli army arrests last 2 of 6 Palestinian prison escapees (AP) Israeli forces on Sunday arrested the last two of six Palestinian prisoners who escaped a maximum-security Israeli prison two weeks ago, closing an intense, embarrassing episode that exposed deep security flaws in Israel and turned the fugitives into Palestinian heroes. The Israeli military said the two men surrendered in Jenin, their hometown in the occupied West Bank, after they were surrounded at a hideout that had been located with the help of “accurate intelligence.” The prisoners all managed to tunnel out of a maximum-security prison in northern Israel on Sept. 6. The bold escape dominated newscasts for days and sparked heavy criticism of Israel’s prison service. According to various reports, the men dug a hole in the floor of their shared cell undetected over several months and managed to slip past a sleeping prison guard after emerging through a hole outside the facility. Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have celebrated the escape and held demonstrations in support of the prisoners. Taking part in attacks against the Israeli military or even civilians is a source of pride for many Palestinians, who view it as legitimate resistance to military occupation.

Jaw-dropping moments in WSJ's bombshell Facebook investigation (CNN Business) This week the Wall Street Journal released a series of scathing articles about Facebook, citing leaked internal documents that detail in remarkably frank terms how the company is not only well aware of its platforms’ negative effects on users but also how it has repeatedly failed to address them. Here are some of the more jaw-dropping moments from the Journal’s series. In the Journal’s report on Instagram’s impact on teens, it cites Facebook’s own researchers’ slide deck, stating the app harms mental health. “We make body image issues worse for one in three teen girls,” said one slide from 2019, according to the WSJ. Another reads: “Teens blame Instagram for increases in the rate of anxiety and depression ... This reaction was unprompted and consistent across all groups.” In 2018, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said a change in Facebook’s algorithm was intended to improve interactions among friends and family and reduce the amount of professionally produced content in their feeds. But according to the documents published by the Journal, staffers warned the change was having the opposite effect: Facebook was becoming an angrier place. A team of data scientists put it bluntly: “Misinformation, toxicity and violent content are inordinately prevalent among reshares,” they said, according to the Journal’s report.

#headlines #news

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eggnoggear5 · 3 years

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Nightclub Transforms Wuhan From Epicenter To Party Central

Zhangjiajie also has its particular evening markets waiting for you. Most travellers would choose to buy some particular local merchandise or style native speciality at Xibu Ancient Street, the preferred business street in Wulingyuan Central Area. Here you could find Miao people’s silver ornament, Tujia particular handbag and colorful scarf, stunning brocade, delicate sand painting, traditional Chinese blueprint fabric, carved bull's bone, etc. After visiting these places at day time, most of you could wish to know the way to spend the long boring night. For many people, they wish to enjoy some popular night time reveals, style native specialties at night time markets, and take photos of gorgeous nightscape. Here China Discovery offers you a listing of the highest issues you are in a place to do at evening in Zhangjiajie concerning your pursuits and budgets. This non-public day highlight tour will present you the UNESCO website in Beijing, one of many seven wonders in the world Mutianyu Great Wall. We managed a return trip on the Maglev prepare which was a marvellous way to deliver our China tour to an finish. When night time time makes up 50% of your complete holiday, don’t be caught squandering precious time on your Suzhou Tour! Whether you lengthy for the fun of Suzhou nightlife or you’re eager to place your toes up in one of the many tea houses to mingle with the locals. This travelers guide will guarantee you haven't got any wasted hours abroad. As with most nations, the most thrilling areas are often deep in the heart of urbanity—Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong and Macau do little to dispute this concept. Though 律師費用 has numerous bars and clubs for guests , it is among the few places within the nation the place enjoyable comes at a worth. Sure, it's not like Tokyo or London, however compared to the relaxation of China it may possibly surprisingly costly. Nightlife in Hong Kong reflects the area's past as a former trade submit - most of the bars are British or Irish themed, with corresponding live music and bar meals. There can also be a large number of dance clubs here, spinning every thing from reggae to accommodate to Chinese pop. Nightlife in Hong Kong is unfold evenly throughout three areas in Kowloon —you'll discover the top nightclubs and costly cocktail bars in Tsim Sha Tsui, most of the pubs on Ashley Road, and the remaining on Prat and Chatham Roads. Culture And Souvenir Shopping How Do Chinese Language Cultural Values Play A Job In Outbound Chinese Vacationers' Souvenir Shopping? That is the highlight specific to West Lake silk umbrellas, which other umbrellas can't evaluate with. Particularly notable are the Jincheng Babao Melon-skin Carvings, the Pebble Carvings, and the Tao Inkstones. The metropolis is nice for its historical memorabilia, and replicas of Silk Road paintings and murals, in addition to lovely copies of the Maiji Grottoes Buddha heads, abound. CloisonnéCloisonné is internationally thought-about a conventional Chinese artwork form. It is a splendid handiwork making copper and porcelain elegantly integrated collectively, and is viewed as the essence of Oriental artwork. The making of cloisonné can date back to the Ming Dynasty and have become prosperous within the Qing Dynasty. You can purchase it from cloisonné manufacturing facility in Huairou county, near Mutianyu Great Wall. The true problem lies in narrowing down your listing to ensure that you have enough area in your baggage to convey each precious item home. Whether purchased for your self or for family members, your Chinese souvenirs are positive to spark pleasure. If you purchase such gadgets, it's a good suggestion to remove the labels prior to taking them residence because this reduces the possibility of being hassled by customs. In the major cities, a few of them can make a fantastic job of Western-style clothes. Shirts, pants and fits may be measured, fitted, assembled and delivered within three days in many cases. Some tailors have their own fabric selections whereas others require clients to buy it prematurely from cloth markets. Major sellers also can prepare worldwide shipment generally. Zhongshan has an enormous furnishings market; the city manufactures many replicas, largely for the Hong Kong and Macau markets. Xinjiang Bazaar means market and commerce place in Uygur language, which is the shopping space in Xinjiang. There are a lot of bazaars spreading over the province, gathering many ethnic teams and subgroups in distinctive costume. There are plenty of samples of this elegant craftwork to be discovered in the retailers of Nanjing Road or in Yuyuan Bazaar. The traditional Chinese characters are brush painted on material or paper in ink and these make a handsome wall hanging. Western Museum Manufacturers In China The Sanxingdui Museum would not get as many visitors because the others as a outcome of it is off the crushed vacationer path. But it makes the top ten for the distinctiveness and importance of the traditional 3,four hundred 12 months old artifacts of a sophisticated civilization that was only just lately found. [newline]This museum could have probably the most historic vintage treasure of any museum on the Mainland. However, the first focus of the museum is to specific art on a global scale. Chinese sensitivities about history and politics can be hard to evaluate. Exhibitions concerning the Cultural Revolution, for example, usually have a tendency to be permitted in private museums than public ones, and much from Beijing somewhat than in the capital; there's one in Chengdu and a smaller one in Shantou, each within the south. Mr Tek had hoped to place Mr Cattelan’s seminal “Olive Tree”, a living tree planted in a dice of earth, in the entrance to his new museum, but discovered himself stumped by China’s phyto-sanitary inspectors when he tried to import it from Spain. THE RED BRICK CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM can be found beyond Beijing’s fifth ring highway, in an area so recently urbanised it is still called Hegezhuang Village. Opposite, two canine lie panting outside the Orchard restaurant the place workmen have put down their trowels and are sipping tea in the noon heat. Despite the unpromising setting, the museum appears as if it had been lowered into place that very morning. Inside the air-conditioning hums throughout the seven exhibition spaces and all of the lights are on. Yet, except for a handful of works in one small corner close to the doorway, the museum has completely nothing on display. The Blackhawk Museum provides guided tours for groups of 10 or extra by appointment only. Yangtze River Sights, Yangtze River Cruise Shore Excursions Kicking off in Beijing, you'll experience one of the best sites of the country's exhilarating capital earlier than making your way to Hong Kong by the use of a airplane, bullet train, and luxurious cruise with key stops along the greatest way. Led by English-speaking private guides, this a fantastic steadiness of historical past, breathtaking landscapes, and insight into Chinese culture. Once you resolve in your locations, we may help you're employed out a realistic period. To see China's Royal past, nothing compares to the mysterious Forbidden City. Start your adventures in famed Tiananmen Square, the largest public sq. on the earth. During the tour, you will walk the ramparts along restored sections and achieve a deeper understanding of Chinese tradition as you chat with villagers and sample local cuisine—you may even camp near the wall if climate permits. This thrilling 12-day itinerary contains a few of China's finest cultural and pure wonders. Kick off the journey in cosmopolitan Shanghai the place you will discover its trendy waterfront, peaceable gardens, and artsy neighborhoods. Next is Zhangjiajie for a dose of dramatic mountain vistas earlier than you continue to Xi'an to see the Terra Cotta Warriors. China's High 6 Lovely Gardens, China's Most Beautiful Gardens This comparatively young park was open to the public in 2001, however what it aims to exhibit is under no circumstances young. The park was constructed as an outside museum that includes the Imperial City’s Dong’an Gate. The former imperial garden of Xiangshan known as Fragrant Hills is on the foot of the Western Hills within the Haidian District of northwestern Beijing. The area is known for its fall foliage when it appears half of the town arrives to view the putting pink maples amid a sea of pine and cypress bushes. Densely packed and infested with rats, many parts of the warrenlike slum never noticed the sunshine of day, making rooftops the place the place kids performed and grownups socialized. Following a special Sino-British agreement and years of prolonged negotiations over new housing for the Walled City's 30,000 residents, the enclave was demolished in 1994. In addition to an imperial residence, you will find Buddhist temples, pagodas, pavilions and the studio of the quiet coronary heart "Xin Jian" . The "Garden of concord and pleasure" is a backyard on the grounds of the "Summer palace". The backyard was built in 1754 and is a reproduction of a garden of Wuxi, close to Suzhou. The garden radiates an incredible peace, especially when the willow trees swinging gently in the wind. These gardens had been based mostly on the philosophical canons of concord and beauty . Hong Shan Park Take any bus from Xiada and get off just past the prepare tracks. On top of the Jade Flowery Islet, the White Dagoba was in-built 1651 on the former website of the Palace in the Moon the place Kublai Khan acquired Marco Polo. The White Dagoba was destroyed in an earthquake and reconstructed twice. Now, resting on a huge stone base, it stands a hundred and twenty toes excessive and is capped by two bronze umbrella-like canopies, with 14 bronze bells hanging around them. The Last Word Information To Shanghai's Markets Sign up right now and sustain with essential enterprise information from China that you just won’t discover elsewhere. So, China’s fairness markets are nonetheless less than half the scale of the U.S. markets, but they’ve gotten there in about 85% much less time. Created by America’s MSCI, the index offers a complete have a glance at the general efficiency of all publicly traded Chinese companies around the globe, which other regional stock indices can't cowl. Once the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was recognized as the most likely source of this outbreak in December, the authorities promptly closed it, although it was not clear what happened to the animals that had been for sale there. Officials introduced solely on Wednesday that that they had banned the sale of untamed animals throughout the province. Two other provinces, Henan and Inner Mongolia, also imposed suspensions on the commerce this previous week. U.S.-listed shares of China-based tech-related companies gained ground as cut price hunters took benefit of current sell-offs resulting from Beijing’s ongoing regulatory crackdown, which has wiped half a trillion dollars from Chinese markets this week. More than $560 billion in market worth has been wiped off Hong Kong and mainland China exchanges in every week as funds capitulate out of once-favored stocks, unsure which sectors regulators will target subsequent. The conflation of “wet markets” and “wildlife markets” has caused confusion in the course of the coronavirus pandemic, with some U.S. leaders making public calls for the closure of wet markets and lambasting China for continuing to permit them. Wild animal meat—bushmeat—is sold at native markets in many settings, including throughout India, Latin America, and Africa. The market offered fresh produce and seafood, as properly as wild animals that had been slaughtered for meat. A restoration in Chinese stocks following a meltdown initially of last week underscored how traders in rising markets have few options which are as huge and liquid. China’s inventory markets didn’t begin to make a comeback till November 26, 1990, when the Shanghai Stock Exchange was reconstituted by the reform-minded leaders of the day who sought to advertise financial innovation and engagement with the global economy. China’s first stock markets began to emerge as early because the 1860s, when international businesspeople and firms operated in China’s port cities corresponding to Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong. Created by the Bank of New York, the index offers insights on the efficiency of Chinese firms traded in the united states These firms embrace tech giants similar to Alibaba and Baidu, cutting edge companies like passenger drone startup EHang and most cancers remedy pioneer Beigene, in addition to state-owned behemoths like oil firm CNOOC. Alibaba is essentially the most undervalued (by 12.7%), followed by Tencent (by 8%), however Didi and JD.com are close to being fairly valued (undervalued by three.65% and 2.07%). Digging deeper, there could be substantial draw back if the government becomes openly and actively adversarial, with Didi dropping to changing into almost worthless, if that occurs. On the upside, if any of those corporations finds a means into the government's good graces, the benefits that move from it could increase the upside at each of those firms, however most at Didi. Didi is clearly extra exposed to government actions than the opposite three, suggesting a broader principle at play, which is that young companies are more affected by means of both upside and downside, by government actions and rules, than older corporations. We preview more issues traders should know heading into August in next week’s Weekly Market Commentary. For now, we advocate that buyers recognize that whereas China may bounce, alpha alternatives may lie elsewhere in 2021. Associations Of Outdoor Exercise And Display Screen Time With Adiposity Sandwiched between mountain ranges and a natural backyard of hanging trees and vines the view is at occasions more thrilling the experience. See the Chinese imperial palace used from the Ming dynasty to the tip of the Qing dynasty up shut on this private, 4-hour tour of the Forbidden City, together with special skip-the-line entry. Along the way, you’ll additionally get to see Tiananmen Square and Jinshan Park. Please be aware that this tour doesn’t embody transportation to and from the attractions, but your personal guide might help you get a taxi or different form of transport . Visit the Great Wall on this tour from Beijing with a private driver. Moreover, cautions must be made when attempting to generalize findings from this research to a special group of adolescents. Lack of out of doors activity and extreme display time have been relevant to adiposity amongst rural Chinese adolescents even when the weight problems prevalence was low. Efforts to promote lively life could assist stop rural adolescents from dropping their benefit in the era of the worldwide obesity epidemic. Whether and to what extent out of doors exercise and screen time are relevant to adiposity among rural adolescents remain largely unknown as most of related proof was generated from high-income international locations and concrete areas. This research aimed to research associations of outdoor activity and display screen time with adiposity amongst early adolescents living in rural southwest China. The finest approach to see the culture of a country is to expertise it for yourself. The Silk Road has multiple routes that a traveler can select to visit ; every route of the Silk Road is dotted with magnificent scenery together with snow-capped mountaintops, surreal lakes and mysterious stretches of desert. The unbelievable effort that went into sharing priceless commodities and groundbreaking inventions symbolizes humanity’s connection all through history. Hiking is the easiest way to broaden youngsters' horizons and train their willpower. You can choose an acceptable mountaineering route based on the child's physical power and interests. Popular Culture Group Cantonese pop music is formulaic, intensely emotional, strangely addictive and quintessentially Hong Kong. The mainland chill on Korean content that follows Seoul’s decision to deploy a missile protection system is driving Chinese fans to get their “K-culture” fixes on peer-to-peer platforms as an alternative of mainstream sites. Despite excessive levels of nationalism and rising earnings in China, people there nonetheless turn to the United States, Europe, South Korea, and even erstwhile wartime enemy Japan for leisure. For so long as I can bear in mind, the more a Chinese individual travels overseas, the extra socially attractive he or she turns into. Unlike onerous energy, which is the flexibility to get what one needs by way of coercion or cost, soft energy often comes in the type of seduction — by way of tradition, political values, or international insurance policies that have ethical authority. Among the various sub-categories of China’s distinguished pop-culture market, sneaker shoes, as elective mid-to-high-end consumer goods, command distinctive cultural attributes and assortment values, slowly turning into a type of “social currency” for Gen Zers. But the modifications the authorities want to pursue is in all probability not straightforward in today’s China, the place decades-long economic opening and societal transformation have upended traditional norms and rewritten elements of the unstated social contract between the rulers and the ruled. Vicki Zhao, an actress and brand ambassador, appeared to have been deplatformed in China’s current crackdown on celebrities. Most VitalSource eBooks are available in a reflowable EPUB format which permits you to resize textual content to suit you and permits different accessibility options. Where the content of the eBook requires a particular structure, or incorporates maths or different special characters, the eBook shall be obtainable in PDF format, which cannot be reflowed. Get lesson suggestions suited in your stage, observe your progress and retailer your favourite classes and series all in one handy place. Our group of Chinese language specialists have been releasing new audio and video lessons weekly. All lessons are free for the primary 2 weeks before going into our Basic and Premium Archive. 安養中心 are FREE for the primary three weeks before going into our Basic and Premium Archive. A good good friend of mine lately moved from Shen Zhen to America and has advised me that some of this music is outdated. Don't get me wrong, the lessons are great, but I'd like to get a more present thought of Chinese tradition since this was recorded in 2009 and it's now 2017. Chinese have lengthy romanticized the label, tending to view all intellectual heavyweights — not simply the influential Xu Zhiyuan varieties, however professors, journalists, and writers — as aesthetes, somewhat than people with households and jobs. The Tang Dynasty’s designs had been the premise of Japanese architectural aesthetics, and components of Confucian teachings turned core tenets of the Korean social order. [newline]China anticipated tributary payments from other international locations, a lot so that officials misinterpreted the items that England’s King George III fatefully presented to open up trade as homages to the Yellow Emperor. More than these, the museum-style occasion additionally introduced together respected sneaker collectors and customizers for exclusive sale of new launches and co-branded merchandises. Whats Onsen Ryokan This beautiful hotel contains a scorching spring tub that is excellent for winding down after a long day of sightseeing. Plan a stay at this exceptional lodge during the fall or winter months to benefit from the attractive views of autumn leaves and gently falling snow while bathing within the hot spring. The spring water comes from rain and melting snow, which seeps via cracks within the sedimentary rocks where it mingles with gasses coming from cooling volcanic rocks. The mineralized spring waters then rise to the floor alongside a bigger crack or fissure. As the baths are shared, it is courteous to clean off before you get in. At Japanese bath homes, there's usually a line of showers with small stools to sit on where you'll be able to have a great scrub earlier than a soothing bathtub. Among the resort's most popular baths are the massive riverside rotemburo of Takaragawa Onsen and the traditonal, wooden indoor baths of secluded Hoshi Onsen. Being a conventional bath, there was no way to control the water’s temperature. It was scalding and I had my first true experience as human soup. Most hotels present bathing amenities and concentrate on trout cuisines. Trout is a freshwater fish that is know to be very specific about its “living arrangements”, requiring exceptionally clear water with a really particular temperature range. The river water right here meets these conditions, so the world has turn out to be known for its fresh and tender trout cuisines. The 10 Finest China Occasions Since then each June 25, National Land Day shall be celebrated aimed at defending the land sources. Each year a theme is chosen to advertise the safety of the land in China. Available farmland in China decreases every year as extra land is taken for development. China is the most important watermelon producers, 40% of the whole watermelon manufacturing on the earth. Daxing, a district in the southern Beijing is well known for its watermelon development and manufacturing. Each year, the native Daxing goverment will maintain a watermelon festival to advertise watermelon financial system and tradition. Many domestic and oversea visitors will attend the special festival. Remember that in Mainland China, Chinese holidays are virtually unaffected by weekends. If the precise date of a given vacation falls on a Saturday or Sunday, the federal government lengthen the holiday into the next week. The park will launch quite lots of Christmas activities in early December. The large-scale "Christmas light show" is artistic and splendid, just like coming into a Christmas dream. All in all, everybody can have a very fascinating Christmas right here. Shanghai - There are plenty of activities that might be held throughout Christmas in Shanghai. Shopping malls offer massive reductions throughout these instances and are adorned with a festive atmosphere. The finest place to enjoy the environment of Christmas must be Shanghai Disneyland, the place the cartoon characters are wearing costumes for the event and there are also varied good performances. Buddhist Shrines Hidden In Chinatowns Outlets We came to love these vibrant entrances that you simply discover scattered everywhere in the metropolis at even the smallest shrines. And no matter you do or do not do whenever you go to a shrine or a temple, be positive to take advantage of your go to to Japan by visiting as lots of them as your time there permits. Each and each one is imbued with the deepest components of Japan's historical past and is steeped in the very essence of the Japanese folks. And no matter what your spiritual persuasion happens to be, a go to to a Shinto shrine or a Buddhist temple is at all times a balm for the soul. Kasuga Shrine - One of Japan's most famous Shinto shrines, positioned on a hilltop within the historic metropolis of Nara, simply exterior Kyoto. Tame deer meander alongside the wooded path leading as a lot as the shrine, which is lined with 10,000 stone lanterns. The two “oldest” San Francisco temples, the Kong Chow temple on Stockton Street or the Tin How temple on Waverly Place, do not possess objects that show their age. In addition, the temple culture also left a long-lasting impression on the lives of Chinese individuals as it is being continually used as a topic on sculptures, paintings, and structure. Much much less splendid in look, the item is a small flag rack from the left end of the long altar in front of the three major shrines of the temple. Our finest guess is that it was the Hip Sings', earlier than transferring to Main Street. The affiliation moved once more after that and is now positioned on eighth Avenue close to the nook of King Street. Bob Fisher of the Wing Luke Museum tells us that a variety of years ago the shrine space of the Hip Sing constructing was burned and a few surviving fragments donated to the Museum. We don't but know is any of those fragments resemble the altar furnishings within the 1902 drawing. Bearing a cast-on inscription dedicating it to a Suijing Bo Temple in 1888, the bell reveals that such a temple did exist in or close to Portland in the nineteenth century. What will catch your eyes on the first sight is the gorgeous Gold Roof. From the rooftop, you'll have the ability to take an excellent view of the Barkhor Street and Potala Palace. My advice is don’t attempt to do all of it and to combine a few well-liked temples with quieter, less well-known ones you could enjoy without the crowds. Former Changhua county official Chen Wen-pin informed RFA that Biyun Temple's growth, the place the communist shrine is located, was an illegal growth at a statutory monument. "He principally took over Biyun Temple," a monk, who gave only his non secular name Bi-Tse, informed RFA. The 10 Greatest Cafés And Low Retailers In Shanghai Many towns and cities have their own brewery and label, although a remarkable feat of socialist standardisation ensures a hanging similarity in flavour and energy. You can drink bath tubs of the stuff and still navigate a straight line. That, mixed with the lovable cats that doze on the snug furniture, makes this an inviting place to spend a lazy afternoon. The courtyard outside is tastefully furnished with wood tables and cane chairs – perfect for flicking via some a tome whereas sipping on a contemporary brew. It’s slightly difficult to search out – look for the inconspicuous black door. Most cities have a avenue market or a night market (夜市; yèshì), a great place for good-value snacks and meals; you'll have the ability to both take it away or park your self on a wobbly stool and seize a beer. Smokers can gentle up during the meal, unless they're in the nonsmoking area of a restaurant. Depending on the restaurant, smokers might smoke via the complete meal. If you are a smoker, ensure you hand around your cigarettes to others, which is commonplace procedure. It’s best to wait till someone announces a toast earlier than drinking your beer; if you would like to get a quick shot in, suggest a toast to the host. The Chinese do in fact toast one another rather more than within the West – usually every time they drink. Your glass shall be quickly refilled to the highest after you drain it, in preparation for the subsequent toast . It is sweet kind to fill your neighbours’ tea cups or beer glasses when they are empty. To serve your self tea or some other drink with out serving others first is unhealthy type; appreciation to the pourer is indicated by gently tapping the middle finger on the table. Take A Virtual Trip To China From Home Visit your child’s orphanage, meet caregivers and foster households, return to discovering sites and re-connect with other individuals and places important to your loved ones. Every time I return to China, I am amazed by what a cut price Chinese luxurious motels are. In New York, $250 will get me a room at the Residence Inn in Jersey City. Here are some fun issues for you to assume about including in your family journey to China. Take your kids to China, a nation of ancient historical past and fashionable wonders. Your household will be immersed in Chinese tradition and go to the nation's most famous sights, including the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, and the Terracotta Warriors. This tour additionally includes family-friendly activities for families to learn and experience China's treasures. But you must pay a great importance to make sure all meals are clean and nourishing. Your will get gratifying holiday right here as a outcome of people are respectful, streets are clear, facilities are trendy. The best time to visit Beijing is in April, May, September and October when the weather is neither too hot nor too chilly. Traveling in Dember is a bit difficult because the weather is chilly at the moment with an average temperature of -2°C/28°F. We maintain the time spent on driving to a minimum for leisure family holidays. Generally, the longest land switch shall be around 1.5 hours to 2 hours in our itineraries. Children underneath 12 years old can take pleasure in preferential charges on land service and discount airfare.

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architectnews · 3 years

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LWK + PARTNERS Architects, Hong Kong

LWK + PARTNERS Architects, Building, HK Design Studio Images, Architecture Office China

LWK + PARTNERS Hong Kong Architects

Contemporary HK Architect Practice – Chinese Design Studio Info + News

post updated 24 September 2021

LWK + PARTNERS Architects News

24 Sep 2021 Two LWK + PARTNERS projects earn esteemed recognitions at The Global RLI Awards 2021

LWK + PARTNERS is pleased to announce that two of the firm’s design projects in China won distinguished acclaims at world-renowned The Global RLI Awards 2021. The awards were announced in a hybrid presentation ceremony held in London on 23 September.

Zijing Paradise Walk, Hangzhou, China • RLI Most Innovative Retail & Entertainment Project (Highly Commended)

Designed with culture and wellness themes, this shopping mall freshens up the local retail scene with playful references to village life, Hui-style architecture and traditional Chinese gardens. Not only is the building aesthetically pleasing, but it also provides cool shades for passers-by with shifting and cantilevered forms.

image courtesy of architects Zijing Paradise Walk, Hangzhou

MixC Dongguan Songshan Lake District Mixed Use Development, Dongguan, China • RLI Future Project (Highly Commended)

The project is conceived as a catalyst of urban transformation turning a sub-urban industrial landscape to a robust lifestyle and cultural hub. Featuring diverse energising public spaces and multifarious greenery, the project also benefits the community with premium apartments and commercial facilities.

Ferdinand Cheung, Director of LWK + PARTNERS, joined the ceremony online and noted: “I would like to thank RLI and the jury for the recognition. Credits to the team for their continuous efforts through the challenges in both projects. We also look forward to the completion of the MixC project in Dongguan.”

The Global RLI Awards celebrates the most visionary and innovative retail and leisure concepts from across the globe. Since its inception 16 years ago, it has been regarded as one of the world’s most representative award programmes in the sector.

8 Sep 2021 LWK + PARTNERS Zero energy buildings design image courtesy of LWK + PARTNERS LWK + PARTNERS Zero energy buildings design Building construction and operations make up 38% of the world’s energy-related CO2 emissions, according to the 2020 Global Status Report for Buildings and Construction published by UN Environment Programme. To significantly decarbonise our buildings, one of the key innovations being actively explored by architects is the idea of a ‘zero energy building’, which has attracted much discussion across the building industry and academia and is now increasingly seen as critical for the future sustainable smart cities.

8 July 2021 Green Shore Residence Phase II, tip of Luoxi Island in Panyu, Guangzhou, south eastern China image courtesy of architects office Green Shore Residence, Luoxi Island Cities, as they develop, are known to leave their mark on the skylines. Green Shore Residence Phase II, a top-end luxury residence in Guangzhou, China designed by LWK + PARTNERS, is an architectural response to the relationship between the island and city where it resides.

31 May 2021 Asia Pacific Property Awards 2021-2022 News

Five projects by LWK + PARTNERS have attained honourable titles, including three 5-Star and two Winner, at Asia Pacific Property Awards 2021-2022. One of the projects, Tsuen Wan Sports Centre, Hong Kong, China is also Nominee of Best Leisure Architecture Asia Pacific, competing with other top projects for the region’s best. The virtual ceremony was held on 28 May 2021.

Tsuen Wan Sports Centre, Hong Kong, China: image courtesy of architects

LWK + PARTNERS Asia Pacific Property Awards 2021

29 Oct 2020 Radisson Collection Resort, Nanjing, China Design: LWK + PARTNERS image courtesy of architects Radisson Collection Resort Nanjing The low-rise resort complex consists of 151 deluxe guest rooms and suites, accompanied by comprehensive amenities like a lobby bar, all-day dining restaurant, Chinese restaurant, executive lounge, function rooms, meeting rooms, a fitness centre, swimming pool and spa.

20 October 2020 Streets as the impetus of community life image courtesy of LWK + PARTNERS Streets as the impetus of community life LWK + PARTNERS Director HC Chan sees immense opportunities in excavating the power of street life to preserve cultural diversity and walkability. Fostering a liveable city requires the engagement of various stakeholders. Policy makes up one side of the story, but the participation of residents in placemaking is equally important for achieving urban spaces truly fulfilling for the local people.

4 August 2020 LWK + PARTNERS Lighting Design image courtesy of LWK + PARTNERS LWK + PARTNERS Lighting Design

6 July 2020 LWK + PARTNERS Saudi Arabia Office The new LWK + PARTNERS Riyadh studio will be led by Kerem Cengiz, Managing Director – MENA (right), and Usama Aziz, a new Director. LWK + PARTNERS Saudi Arabia Office

1 June 2020 Shijiazhuang Zhao Hua Hospital, Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, North China image courtesy of architects Shijiazhuang Zhao Hua Hospital in China Our planet’s population is now going through the biggest shared experience in decades due to COVID-19, and the way people think about life and illness today is incomparable with any time in history.

Sai Kung Outdoor Recreation Centre Temporary Quarantine Facilities photo : Paul Y. – iMax Sai Kung Outdoor Recreation Centre Facilities

OCT Caoqiao Cultural Commercial Street, Hunan Province, China image courtesy of architects Hunan OCT Caoqiao Cultural Commercial Street

27 Apr 2020 Zhongshan OCT Harbour Development, Shenzhen area – west coast of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, China image courtesy of architects office Zhongshan OCT Harbour Development

31 Mar 2020 Hebei Grand Hotel, Anyue, Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, North China image courtesy of architects office Hebei Grand Hotel, Anyue in Shijiazhuang, China When it comes to aesthetics and simple living, the past can be a rich source of inspiration. LWK + PARTNERS recently completed Hebei Grand Hotel, Anyue in a new Central Business District of Shijiazhuang; part of the fast-growing Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei metropolitan region.

23 Feb 2020 Xichen Paradise Walk, Chengdu, China image courtesy of architects practice Xichen Paradise Walk Retail Complex in Chengdu, China Retail spaces are evolving into lifestyle complexes that are inspiring, diversified and immersive to surround visitors with a curated experience to fulfil various lifestyle and social needs. Xichen Paradise Walk encourages social interaction and community life with high transparency and accessibility to bring together people, their neighbourhoods and nature.

25 Nov 2019 Kei Cuisine, Hong Kong, China photography : iMAGE28 Kei Cuisine Restaurant Hong Kong Successfully marriage of Japanese and Chinese cultures to create an elegant ambience for Kei Cuisine, a luxury Cantonese restaurant located in one of Hong Kong’s core retail areas. Out of client’s passion for Japanese culture, the team took inspiration from the Yoshida Fire Festival.

12 Nov 2019 TIANFU ONE Exhibition Gallery, Chengdu, China photograph : Guanhong Chen Tianfu One Exhibition Gallery Chengdu Building Comfortably perched at the eastern end of a green corridor in Chengdu’s Tianfu New District, TIANFU ONE Exhibition Gallery enjoys panoramic views of the Luxihe wetland park just across the road. The architecture firm leveraged its proximity to both urban life and natural greenery to craft an observation deck culminating at the end of the city’s main artery.

20 Oct 2019 The LOOP, Chongqing City, southwest China photo : WOHO The LOOP in Chongqing The LOOP is the sales gallery for Shun Shan Fu, a low-density residential development composed of various luxurious villas and houses.

16 Oct 2019 Vanke Forest Park Sales Gallery, Chongqing City, southwest China photo : Guanhong Chen Chongqing Vanke Forest Park Sales Gallery Scenery is beauty; nature is grandeur. Abandon screams and self-expression, and embrace silence and tranquillity… ‘Retreat’ is a design attitude.

13 Oct 2019 Spiritual Bay Pavilion, Qingdao, China photography : Xuesong Zhang & Guanhong Chenn Spiritual Bay Pavilion in Qingdao Spiritual Bay Pavilion in Qingdao recently opened. Just 120 metres off the Yellow Sea coast, the project is endowed with perks of nature at Guzhenkou’s Lingxi Bay near the intersection of Yingshanhong Road and Haijun Road, enjoying distant views of the Dazhushan Scenic Area.

14 Oct 2019 Legend Gallery, Chongqing City, southwest China photography : Guanhong CHEN, Lian HE Chongqing Jiangshan Yun Chu As a lifestyle gallery, Chongqing Jiangshan Yun Chu – Legend Gallery is a trial for and response to localised architecture. It explores the spatial interaction between nature and urban space on a site close to Chongqing’s Jialing River bank, where the waterscape forms a rare natural setting for the urban area.

26 Sep 2019

LWK + PARTNERS Architects – Key Projects

LWK + PARTNERS Recognised with Four Cityscape Awards for Emerging Markets 2019

26th September 2019 – Four projects by LWK + PARTNERS have been recognised in the Cityscape Awards for Emerging Markets 2019, at a presentation ceremony that took place in Dubai yesterday, an event attended by e-architect founder and co-Editor Adrian Welch.

Landmarks Riverside Park – Phase II Danzishi Old Street, Chongqing, China, by LWK + PARTNERS: images courtesy of architects office

Shijiazhuang’s Zhengding Li Mixed-use Development is Winner of the Retail Project Award (Future), Chongqing’s Landmark Riverside Park – Phase II: Danzishi Old Street was made Winner of the Retail Project Award (Built), while Hangzhou’s Gallium Valley Science Park and The Pavilia Bay in Hong Kong are Highly Commended respectively for the Commercial Project Award (Future) and Residential – Medium to High Rise Project Award (Built).

Gallium Valley Science Park, Hangzhou, China, by LWK + PARTNERS Hong Kong: image courtesy of architects

Zhengding Li Mixed-use Development is located in the new central business district adjacent to the historical city of Zhengding in Shijiazhuang of China’s Hebei province. This retail-led development comprises SOHO offices, serviced apartments as well as a resort hotel, all linked up by pedestrian-friendly retail streets. Such a model of mixed-use development will promote a sustainable and zero-carbon community which is a main theme for future living.

LWK + PARTNERS Architects, Hong Kong:

Landmarks Riverside Park – Phase II: Danzishi Old Street in Chongqing, China, sits on a rejuvenated riverside heritage site. A retail complex by nature, Danzishi Old Street now offers a comprehensive cultural commercial experience that bridges the old and new, the oriental and the western. While many traditional spots were preserved and historical buildings refurbished, new structures were built with a modern Chinese architectural style so the old and new assimilate impressively well.

Zhengding Li Mixed-use Development, Shijiazhuang, China:

Gallium Valley Science Park is at the heart of the Cloud Valley technology cluster in Hangzhou, China, aimed to promote the development of e-commerce and the artificial-intelligence sector. It is located to the south of the new Xihu University and adjacent to a river, encouraging synergy with the tertiary institution while enjoying scenic surroundings. The project advocates a new office-park typology that blends greenery and communal spaces in the work environment, encouraging work-life balance in a professional industry.

The Pavilia Bay, Hong Kong, China:

The Pavilia Bay is a seafront residential development in Hong Kong, China, facing the serene Rambler Channel and surrounded by dense greenery of a nearby park. Its architecture invokes the beautiful image of a yacht embarking its journey towards the waters, with this theme carried all the way from macro building form, elevation right through to the interiors.

The Pavilia Bay, Hong Kong, China:

To take full advantage of the site, residential towers are oriented to maximize sea views for each residential unit. Residents have access to a host of clubhouse amenities such as an infinite pool, gym, and children’s play area.

Landmarks Riverside Park Chongqing:

As Hong Kong-based architectural practice LWK + PARTNERS continues to expand in China, Asia and MENA, the Cityscape Awards for Emerging Markets are the latest testament of international recognition towards its diverse design expertise. In addition to the awards, LWK + PARTNERS takes part in the exhibition and conferences of Cityscape Global, which is an annual real estate investment and development event, to shed light on the latest developments of the industry. LWK + PARTNERS Directors Ivan Fu, Ferdinand Cheung and Corina Leung gave insightful presentations offering perspectives and knowledge illustrated by powerful built-environment solutions.

Gallium Valley Science Park buildings in Hangzhou, China: image courtesy of architects

The Cityscape Awards for Emerging Markets recognises and celebrates excellence across real estate developments and architecture. Covering a range of categories, the awards offer international architects and leading real estate developers a prestigious platform to collaborate and share their vision for the future, from culturally integrated city skylines to sustainable urban communities.

Zhengding Li Development, Shijiazhuang, China:

More projects by LWK + PARTNERS online soon

Address: LWK + PARTNERS (HK) Ltd, 6-8/F & 15/F, North Tower, World Finance Centre, Harbour City, Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong

Phone: +852 2574 1633

Architects Practice Information

LWK + PARTNERS are a HK-based architectural design studio

Hong Kong Architects Offices – Architecture Firm Listings

LWK + PARTNERS is a leading design architecture practice rooted in Hong Kong. They are a platform with design specialists who deliver world-class solutions to the built environment.

Their 1,000+ creative minds collaborate across a network of 11 offices around the globe providing services including architecture, planning & urban design, interiors, heritage conservation, landscape, building information modelling (BIM), lifestyle and lighting design.

LWK + PARTNERS creates infinite possibilities.

Hong Kong Architects

Website: https://www.lwkp.com

Hong Kong Architecture

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Comments / photos for the LWK + PARTNERS Architects – Chinese Architecture Practice page welcome

The post LWK + PARTNERS Architects, Hong Kong appeared first on e-architect.

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english-courses-hong-kong · 5 years

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Why Learn English in Hong Kong?

Is it necessary to learn English in Hong Kong? Well, it depends who you talk to and who you are talking about.

If you’re talking to a local Hong Kong person they’d probably tell you that it’s very important if not vital for them to learn English.

If you’re suggesting to a foreigner that it is necessary to learn English in Hong Kong and that it is a great alternative location to further their English studies, they might raise a skeptical eyebrow.

It just depends where in the world they are from and their knowledge of this great world city.

Should Locals Learn English In Hong Kong?

Firstly, English is one of Hong Kong's official languages, so for a local to not be able to speak English is at times frowned upon.

Secondly, from a very young age Hong Kong children are strongly encouraged to work hard at their English studies with a view, for those who can afford it, to eventually studying at a Western university.

Thirdly, the level at which you are able to communicate in English can have a significant impact on your job prospects.

" Not Everyone In Hong Kong Speaks English"

It would be inaccurate to say that everyone in Hong Kong can speak English well. On the contrary, many do not - or at best, have very limited English communication skills.

However, a lot do, and the vast majority strive to various degrees to improve their level of English throughout their lives, with good reason:

" Learning English in Hong Kong is a great career move!"

If you are a Hong Kong local and plan on having a future in any type of business, particularly if you want to do business which extends beyond Hong Kong and China, it is advisable to learn English and master it to a level where you can communicate your thoughts and ideas with ease.

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Likewise, if you aspire to a future within either the Government, or legal and medical professions - as many do - you'll find that the English language is as widely used in those circles as it in the business world.

Similarly, the Hong Kong tourism industry expects you to have a good command of English.

Indeed, in 2010 Hong Kong received a record high of 36 million visitors from around the world. Perhaps you can imagine how many of those visitors were English speakers who rightly expect Hong Kong (which boasts of being a major world city) citizens to be able to communicate adequately in English?

It's safe to say that learning English in Hong Kong is a good career move! You may also want to study English in Hong Kong if you, like numerous Hong Kongers, wish to study abroad in one of many renowned universities in either the UK, the USA, Canada or Australia.

There is a lot of competition for university places these days and applicants are required to have a high standard of English as well as good grades in their chosen subjects.

Foreign Students Study English in Hong Kong

If you have ever had the inkling to study English elsewhere in the world, some place new and exciting where you can explore a radically different culture, then perhaps you should consider Hong Kong.

If you hail from the Asia Pacific region, studying English in Hong Kong can be a great alternative to more obvious countries in which to study English such the UK, US, Australia or Canada.

Basing yourself in Hong Kong will make it easier and cheaper to visit home on a more regular basis, which can be good not only for you but for your family. A short break home can do wonders for the soul and those homesick blues so often experienced by students studying abroad; and let's face it, wherever in the world you are from your parents will always miss you and worry about you.

Flights to anywhere in the Asia Pacific region from Hong Kong are relatively short as well as inexpensive making short breaks home to keep you and your folks in touch is easy.

On the other hand, if you are not from the Asia Pacific region, why on earth would you want to travel all the way to Hong Kong to study or to learn English, apart from the fact that you will be immersed into a completely new culture?

Excellent Hong Kong Language Schools

Well, first of all, you can be sure that you will find some very reputable international English schools.

Similarly, there are many excellent Hong Kong Language Schools, which, by and large, employ well qualified, native-speaker teaching staff.

English is one of the official languages of Hong Kong and, perhaps due to its colonial past, this great city has strong historic ties to the UK.

This could have something to do with the popularity of educational establishments at which you can further your studies or even start to learn English.

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Hong Kong Is Safe

What's more, unlike various other renowned places in the world, Hong Kong happens to be one of the safest cities on Earth, even at night, when people generally walk alone with confidence.

Furthermore, it is very rare that Hong Kong visitors are scammed or harmed in any way by locals.

October 11th, 2019 update:

IS HONG KONG SAFE TO VISIT RIGHT NOW, AMIDST PROTESTS?

Protests and violence have caused much of the Central area of the city to shutter, including MTR, Starbucks and other common areas. Most protest violence is in Wan Chai and Causeway Bay and is expected to continue through the weekend.

Protestors are targeting any and all Chinese businesses and have set fire to metro stations. Be advised that leisure travel to Hong Kong in the near term is likely not a great idea, as unrest has spread to a tipping point where restaurants, bars and other tourist friendly businesses are closed.

Hong Kong is in the midst of change, as China seeks to gain a stronger political grip on the special administrative region, which puts the SAR in Hong Kong’s official title. Recent government proposals to extend Beijing’s power to Hong Kong have caused outrage amongst locals and outrage has lead to large scale protests around government buildings and an expanding range of the city, including the airport.

Naturally, all of the above has people wondering if it’s safe to visit Hong Kong right now.The short answer: mostly yes, but the situation is worsening and with new emergency powers in place, things could get worse as tensions rise.

If you’re coming for tourism or relaxation purposes, you may now want to reconsider travel if it involves the Central district. Many businesses are closed and all metro stations have also shuttered as violence and destruction are now more widespread.

So Is It Really Safe To Visit Hong Kong?

Hong Kong is one of the safer cities in the world, with low crime rates and excellent standards of medicine and healthcare, even with current unrest. With that said, this situation doesn’t seem as if it will come to a close anytime soon.

Unless you’re planning to join the protests, Hong Kong should still be safe for visitors, although clearly much less enjoyable than usual. A Level 2 warning from the United States State Department means they equivocate all the action in Hong Kong to be of a similar level of caution as daily life in London, or Rome.

Basically, be on alert, but no one is saying not to go. That’s up to you.

Source: https://www.godsavethepoints.com/is-it-safe-to-visit-hong-kong/

Cheap Accommodation in Hong Kong Is Possible

When it comes to the living arrangements, chances are that you will find some very reasonably priced accommodation that will leave you with more than enough money to go out and explore the marvels that Hong Kong has to offer when you are not studying English. The same cannot be said of many other cities around the world.

Most hotels are located close to the harbour in Central, Wan Chai, Causeway Bay and North Point on Hong Kong Island and in Tsim Sha Tsui (TST), Tsim Sha Tsui East and Hung Hom in Kowloon, as well as the bustling areas of Yau Ma Tei and Mong Kok.

" If you find the right Hong Kong language school they will have a student accommodation service where they will find you clean, safe and affordable accommodation whilst you are studying in Hong Kong.

If you find the right Hong Kong language school they will have a student accommodation service where they will find you clean, safe and affordable accommodation whilst you are studying in Hong Kong. (Some also offer a student visa service which you will likely need if you intend to stay there for any length of time. My understanding is that you need to study at least 15 hours a week to be able to apply for a Hong Kong study visa.)

" Hong Kong Island is relatively small, so students are never too far from shopping areas and major attractions. What's more, getting around is simple, with cheap public transport easily accessible wherever you stay."

Hong Kong Attractions & Public Transport

Hong Kong Island is relatively small, so students are never too far from shopping areas and major attractions. What's more, getting around is simple, with cheap public transport easily accessible wherever you stay. There are trams, taxis and buses everywhere and very modern rail networks (known as the MTR and the KCR). Arriving at Hong Kong's international airport is also a delight. It's modern, very spacious and very efficient. Some Hong Kong language schools will even meet you at the airport.

#english course Hong Kong #Hong Kong #learn English Hong Kong #language study Hong Kong #is Hong Kong Safe

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krinsbez · 4 years

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GI Joe: Remixed, Grootslang

Grootslang (named after a monstrous serpent from South African folklore) is Cobra Commander’s elite personal goon squad. While technically members of the Crimson Guard, in reality. they answer only to CC and Croc Master (whom we have made CC’s chief of security, and one day I hope to do a post about him)

It comprises (note, everything that follows was created by Night_stalker, I am just porting it to tumblr)...

Name: Alexander Popov Codename: Apep DOB: August 12, 1987 Former Affiliation: Russian Spetsnaz, 45th Guards Independent Reconnaissance Battalion Specialty: Long Range Threat Neutralization Orientation: Hetero. Bio: Originally studying to be an art student, he joined the Army after times got rather tough, financially. Discovering a talent for sniping, he was slotted into Spetsnaz soon after joining. However, Popov was discharged after an op in Ukraine went South, involving considerable amounts of property damage and civilian casualties. More worrying for the Russians was the fact that apparently, some news crews caught the incident on TV, which is what really caused the tea cups to rattle in Moscow. As the highest ranked survivor of the incident, he was given a inquest, blamed, shown the door, and told to not come back. Intel suggests that the verdict was contested, heavily so, behind closed doors. Dissatisifed with the world, and lacking any family or friends, he wandered the globe, utilizing his sharpshooting skills to pay the bar tabs he racked up along the way. While passing through Eastern Europe, he was hired on for security at a party where The Baroness was attending. Apparently, she stormed off to one of the art galleries to distract herself, and they got to chatting about art. She offered him a spot in Cobra, and his skills, combined with her endorsement earned him a spot in the best of the best. Hobbies: Sharpshooting, Art collection/appreciation, Painting (Models and oil paintings).

Name: Carol Spencer Codename: Crotalus DOB: December 2, 1987 Former Affiliation: Central Intelligence Agency Special Activities Center, Special Operations Group Specialty: Counterintelligence Orientation: Bisexual Bio: Born as a Army brat bouncing around internationally, Carol picked up quite a few things. A knack for languages, a inability to take shit from anyone, friends all over the place, and most of all, a searing hatred for her abusive father. So naturally, on her 18th birthday, her idea of celebrating was a punch to his nose and a quick trip over to the Marine recruiter's office. Couple tours of duty later, Carol was all but ready to retire from being a jarhead, or at least ready to take some leave. Alas, a spook from the State Department disagreed, and naturally, pressed the matter. Shockingly, she fit right in there, a fact which shocked both her and her superiors. After awhile though, she started having ethical qualms about what they were doing. Too much red in her ledger, she felt. She wanted out, and was willing to go to the press over the matter. Alas, hindsight says you probably should sweep your house for bugs before making appointments with a reporter. She walked into that cafe a decorated hero, a scion of a long military family. She ran out of there a wanted criminal, with her former co-workers in hot pursuit. Shockingly, when you burn someone, they tend to want revenge. In this case, it meant Cobra. She'd only heard whispers about them, but that was reason enough for her to seek them out. Trading some of her evidence for a job, she parlayed her honed talents into a rapid ascension up the ranks. Hobbies: Learning new languages, Ham radio, Photography, Geocaching, and Acting.

Name: Eline Luiten Codename: Echinda DOB: January 14, 1983 Former Affiliation: Penose Specialty: Demolitions Orientation: Lesbian. Bio: Born into a family of criminals, Eline grew up not wishing to follow in her parents footsteps. Instead, she was interested in becoming a chemical engineer, and going straight. However, after she got her degree, the Recession happened, and being a recent hire, was let go. Desperate to pay off student loans, she went right back to her family, and was welcomed in with open arms. Turning her talents to more lucractive lines of work, she soon fell back into her old ways, manufacturing drugs and on occasion more exotic materials. Soon, her talents shifted from making ectasy and heroin into making RDX and other substances. This tied in nicely with her changing politics, leading her into more radical steps. This was a rather bad idea, as the Dutch police were closing in on her, and the family wasn't going to stick their necks out for a radical. So she was forced to flee, literally barely making it out the window of her workspace before a team of BSB operatives kicked down her front door. Now on the run with little to lose and a burning hatred of the government, she drifted, until Cobra gave her a chance at revenge. Hobbies: Political commentary, Urban Exploration, Parkour, and Debating.

Name: Lily Shen Codename: Lamia DOB: Redacted Former Affiliation: Section G, Division 4, Hong Kong Police Department Specialty: Close Protection Orientation: Hetero. Bio: Born to British ExPats in Hong Kong, Lily grew up in a orderly household. So naturally, she joined the police force as soon as she got old enough. There, she developed a hobby for martial arts, which suited her fiery temperament just fine, and helped earn her a transfer into the VIP Protection unit. People were whispering that she was on the fast track to being a captain, if not higher. However, those plans were derailed. A corruption scandal occurred, and some of her political opponents used it to force her out of the department. The fact that her attitude was rather fiery at best didn't help matters anyway. Left without a job, and feeling betrayed by the organization she'd worked at for years, she remembered a old contact she'd made over in Japan, and gave him a call. Storm Shadow was rather surprised to get a contact from Shen, but agreed to put her in contact with a recruiter, seeing the value in having a former police officer on the payroll. From there, she was rapidly promoted to the Crimson Guard, where she fit right on in. Hobbies: Meditation, Martial arts, Blackjack (Chinese and conventional), and Parkour.

Name: Filip Tadych Codename: Perun DOB: June 19th, 1983 Former Affiliation: JW GROM Specialty: General Combat Orientation: Het Bio: Filip was born back in the final days of the Polish People's Republic, which caused considerable gaps in his records to emerge. The first concrete records that Cobra has access to suggests he joined the Polish Army at the age of 18, and after a couple of years, was transferred into GROM where he excelled in the high stress environment. However, he soon wound up being shown the door, when some rather unsettling political ties were uncovered, mostly through friends and some distant family members. While he himself didn't actually express any of them, he was still asked to leave the army. Furious, he became a solider of fortune, wherein he made a few contacts, the most important of which was one Apep, who he wound up in a bar brawl with in Tunisa. Once the local police arrived though, they promptly joined up and proceeded to smack down the cops and flee. The resulting 9 hour drive to the border did actually make them fairly solid friends. Hobbies: Tennis, Baking, dart throwing, and rock stacking.

Name: Karena LesProux Codename: Orleans DOB: February 18th, 1979 Former Affiliation: 11th Parachute Brigade, French Army Specialty: Tactics Orientation: Formerly Het (Married, 2 children), currently Bi, dating Nina of Crimson Guard Bio: Karena had it all, a loving husband, a solid army career, and two wonderful children. However, that was all a sham, as her husband was an artist as he called himself, while Karena called him a drunken slob, as well as other, more insulting terms. This was usually about the time he attacked her, so as one can imagine, their relationship was not very solid. Karena endured it for two solid reasons. The first being that, as her drunken asshat of a husband was the son of a prominent politician, she would be subjected to quite a bit of harassment from him and his ilk. The second reason was her children, who she loved very much. So she endured the fists and occasional rolling pin thrown her way, bottling up her rage deep inside. One night, that all changed. Instead of going after her, he made a move towards the kids room, while still holding a rolling pin. According to her, she saw red, and next thing she knew, her husband was lying on the ground, dead, with a steak knife sticking out of his throat. While her first instinct was to call the police, something stopped her. Namely, that she was likely going to be convicted of murder, and sent away to prison, as well as separated from her beloved children. So instead, she made a call to a former coworker she had run into while serving in the French Army. Meanwhile, in a Terror-Dome near the Med, Turul's ringtone went off, as luck would have it, in the middle of a rather boring meeting. One rapid conversation later, he was booking a flight out to his homeland, and she was packing up the kids to go visit "Uncle Francois" in Nice for a few days. Surprisingly, she fit right in with Cobra, while her kids were off in a nice high quality daycare, she was in a environment she loved dearly. In fact, if anything, she loved it more, knowing she wasn't going to have to hold herself back in the field any more. Hobbies: Wine tasting, Clay Sculpting, The Werewolves of Millers Hollow, and Knitting.

(These were the first sets of OCs Night_stalker created for us, though the last two were edited in later, which is why they don’t quite fit and mention other OCs)

#GI Joe #GI Joe: Remixed #GI Joe Fanfic

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bountyofbeads · 5 years

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Hong Kong Updates: More Than 1,000 Detained at a University, and a Warning From Beijing https://nyti.ms/2OkEpS8

Hong Kong Updates: More Than 1,000 Detained at a University, and a Warning From Beijing

After a three-day standoff with the police only about a dozen protesters remained on the campus of the besieged university.

By Elaine Yu, Steven Lee Myers and Russell Goldman | Published Nov. 18, 2019 Updated Nov. 19, 2019, 7:54 AM ET | New York Times | Posted November 19, 2019 |

About a dozen protesters remained holed up inside a Hong Kong university on Tuesday evening, after a three-day standoff between the students and the police turned a prestigious institution into a battlefield and ended with hundreds of young people behind bars.

More than 1,000 protesters who had spent the previous day clashing with the police were detained after heavily armed officers surrounded the school on Sunday and gave the protesters few options but to surrender and face arrest.

Nevertheless, a number of students managed a daring escape, rappelling from a nearby bridge to be whisked away by waiting motorbike drivers. Others failed in an attempt to flee through a sewage pipe.

As much of the territory remained gripped by the drama at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, the central government in Beijing on Tuesday condemned a decision by a Hong Kong court that overturned a ban on face masks worn by the protesters.

The Hong Kong protests began in June over legislation, since scrapped, that would have allowed extraditions to mainland China, and have expanded to include a broad range of demands for police accountability and greater democracy.

Here’s the latest:

A dozen protesters remain as standoff fizzles.

Pinned in from all sides by the police, most of the campus occupiers had surrendered or fled the PolyU campus by Tuesday morning.

By then, on the third day of a standoff, only 100 protesters remained inside. Several hours later, the remaining holdouts numbered fewer than 20.

The protesters, many of them high school and university students and armed with only bows and arrows and homemade weapons, held the police at bay for three days in the most violent confrontation yet in six months of protests.

The battle at PolyU, in which the police fired more than 1,000 cans of tear gas and rubber bullets, represented the police force’s most direct intervention yet onto one of the city’s university campuses.

Ted Hui, a pro-democracy lawmaker who stayed on campus during the clashes, escorted several dozen students out of the university on Tuesday evening.

“This is not a surrender and we are not turning ourselves in,” Mr. Hui said. “We are simply leaving.”

Nevertheless the leaving protesters were searched by the police and those older than 18 were put in a police van to be booked.

Mr. Hui, a member of city’s Legislative Council, was not arrested. That decision, he said, “shows there is political selection in who they arrest and that there are arbitrary arrests.”

The final dozen occupiers said they would not resist or fight the police, but would not leave until officers entered the campus to arrest them.

At least 200 of the protesters who occupied and left the campus were minors, Carrie Lam, the city’s chief executive, said in a news conference on Tuesday.

Those under 18 were questioned by the police but were not arrested on the spot. The juveniles may still face arrest pending further investigation, she said.

Mrs. Lam said the “special arrangements” that had been made for minors were intended to achieve “a peaceful and reconciliatory resolution.”

Videos take from inside the university showed an eerily deserted campus covered in trash and debris, a ransacked convenience store, boxes of unused petrol bombs, and the words “Liberty or death” emblazoned on a building.

Outside that campus, a group of parents awaited news about their children. The parents held signs that read: “Son, come out safely!” and “Save the kids, don’t kill our children.”

Elsewhere, hundreds of office workers poured into the streets of the Central business district during their lunch breaks in solidarity with the university holdouts.

What Happened at Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Most arrests on a single day.

About 1,100 people were detained near the PolyU campus between Monday and Tuesday, said Kwok Ka-chuen, a police spokesman. That figure would represent the largest roundup of protesters on a single day, making up almost a fifth of the total number of arrests since the protests began in June.

Those arrested on Monday and Tuesday were charged with offenses that included rioting and possession of offensive weapons. Rioting carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, and many of the PolyU protesters were reluctant to surrender in order to avoid the charge.

Mr. Kwok also said 1,458 rounds of tear gas and 1,391 rubber bullets were fired on Monday, putting a figure to the dizzying display of smoke and gunfire witnessed on the second day of the siege.

At the Chinese University of Hong Kong, which was the site of clashes with the police last week, more than 3,900 Molotov cocktails were seized on Monday, representing the most found in a single location, he said.

He called the prestigious university a “manufacturing base” for fire bombs.

A number of protesters who had left PolyU on Tuesday, including several wrapped in emergency Mylar blankets, waited to to be taken to a hospital. Some of the protesters appeared to be suffering the effects of hypothermia after they had been struck by a stinging dye that had been shot from a police water cannon.

Beijing warns it alone can interpret Hong Kong’s laws.

In Beijing, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress took the unusual step of criticizing a Hong Kong court’s ruling that struck down a contentious ban on the wearing of face masks in public, effectively saying that the central government alone has the authority to rule on constitutional issues in the territory.

The Hong Kong High Court found that the ban, enacted in October, violated the territory’s mini-constitution, known as the Basic Law. In a statement released on Tuesday, a spokesman for the standing committee warned that the ruling “seriously weakened the lawful governing power” of the Hong Kong government.

The National People’s Congress, the country’s top legislative body, has the authority to interpret legal matters involving national issues — and to change the Basic Law itself — but the timing of the ruling raised new fears of Beijing’s efforts to erode the territory’s autonomy.

“When the state loses, she changes the rules of game,” Joshua Wong, a prominent opposition leader, wrote on Twitter. “Beijing never intends to play by the rules.”

Article 158 of the Basic Law does, however, give the congress the final authority over interpreting whether the Basic Law conflicts with national law. It also calls on Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal to seek the legislature’s interpretation in considering cases whose legal significance extends to national issues.

The statement suggested that Beijing was prepared to act decisively to restore the mask ban, but the implications could be much greater, showing that there are limits of the national government’s tolerance for an independent judicial system that has been a pillar of Hong Kong’s singular political and economic status.

In another statement on Tuesday, a spokesman for the Chinese government’s office that handles Hong Kong affairs, Yang Guang, also criticized the court’s decision to overturn the ban, saying it had “a gravely negative social impact” and “brazenly challenged the authority of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee and the governance powers of the chief executive conferred by the law.”

New chief calls on public to condemn protesters.

Hong Kong’s embattled police force, once regarded as “Asia’s finest,” has a new boss.

Tang Ping-keung, formerly the territory’s No. 2 police official, was named commissioner of police on Tuesday after approval from the central government in Beijing.

In an interview with the South China Morning Post, Mr. Tang blamed the public for tolerating the protests and in turn encouraging their violent acts. “If everyone had come out earlier to condemn the violence, society would not have turned into this state in five months,” he said.

“We can only end the unrest with society’s condemnation, reflection by the rioters, plus our appropriate tactics,” he added.

Mr. Tang also rejected a key demand of the protesters: setting up an independent commission to investigate police conduct during the protests.

“Our staff might think they are being particularly targeted if the well-established mechanism is bypassed. We will be disappointed,” he told the Post.

Katherine Li and Tiffany May contributed reporting.

🍁☕🍂🍞🍁☕🍂🍞🍁☕🍂🍞🍁☕

#breaking news #hong kong protests #hong kong #hongkong #china news #no china extradition #china #beijing #xi jinping #u.s. politics #republican politics #politics and government #politics #worldpolitics #world news #international news #top stories google news #top news #trending topics

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thefanficmistress · 5 years

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Because, I Love You: Requested ☆

Requested by @deepestfirefun - I love you soooooo damn much. My soul sister across the pond. Requested: You have broken up with your fiancé because you found out he was a total womanizer and it was quite the nasty break up too. You left your apartment, only took what you needed without looking back. Richard, your good friend heard about it while he was filming the Ocean´s 8 and without a second thought took you under his wings. You were an utter mess emotionally but spending time with Richard started to heal your wounded heart although you didn´t feel like trusting men ever again, except for Richard. He was furious to your ex-fiancé when he learned what had happened, he had been always very caring and protective of you. And while Richard did everything to make you feel better, you started to wonder if it had been Richard all along who you should have started a relationship with.

Warnings: Fluff, Swearing, Smut Pairing: Richard Armitage x Reader, Richard Armitage x Female Character, Richard Armitage x OC Context © me _______________ TAG LIST: @deepestfirefun @shikin83 @catthefearless @patanghill17 @aelinninielelain @xxbyimm @nowiloveandwilllove @nellindreams @hails270105 @armitages-gisborne @jassy2101 @abiwim @anemiechen @nelswp @vaneaustation @fizzyxcustard @purplerain85 @armitageadoration @princecami @princess-of-erebor1992 @leah-halliwell92 @vaneaustin @nelswp @nellindreams @raindrops-on-roses142 Please let me know if you would like to be tagged.

_______________

Current Requests: JANUARY - Closed @purplerain85 ( A Kiss in the Wild ) - RA Request : Release 1/6/2019 @deepestfirefun ( Because I love you ) - RA Request - Release date : 1/13/2019 @nowiloveandwilllove ( My Friend, My Beloved ) - RA Request - Release date: 1/20/2019 @deepestfirefun ( WORKING TITLE ) RA Request - Release Date :1/27/2019

Current Requests: FEBRUARY - OPEN

2/3/2019 - @purplerain85 ( WORKING TITLE ) - RA Request 2/10/2019 - @deepestfirefun ( WORKING TITLE ) - RA Request 2/17/2019 - Open 2/24/2019 - Open

Message me if you would like a FanFic Sunday Request. ________________ “What did you just say?” You questioned, almost dropping your phone in your lap. “Move in with me. At least until you get back on your feet.” He proposed. “I can’t ask you to do that. Not for me!” You exclaimed. “Yes you can! I’m offering. Happily, might I add.” Richard cooed on the other side of the phone, with a hint of a smile in his tone. Sitting in your car, with your hand on the steering wheel, you thumbed your thumb against the leather coating. You thought about his offer. He lived only a few minutes from your office, near central park, and the best thing was, he would be there. He was currently out of town but assured you that he would be back in a few days to continue filming Ocean’s 8 and he would make sure to take you out to get your mind off of things. After a break up, it’s best to be around family and friends. Richard was definitely a great friend to be around. He’s kind, and generous, a bit of goofball, but he always found a way to make things up to you or put a smile on your face. “I haven’t seen you in months, and I hate to tell you this, but I’m not taking no for an answer.” He added. “Richard, I honestly can’t do this. I need to be by myself.” “I’m not going to let that happen. I’m rather vexed at the entire matter, and if he shows up, I will have him thrown out or arrested.” His voice went very deep. A side of him you hadn’t heard before. Was that protection and anger in his voice? He wasn’t lying. Since you started dating Ethan, Richard and you had a hard time seeing each other. He was always out of town or too busy to actually spend proper time; he did however meet you for those 1-2 hr lunches before leaving or sent presents to you loft to apologize for not being able to make it. Also, to make matters worse, despite the fact that Richard was always so kind, and polite to your fiancée, Ethan didn’t like Richard. It showed in how possessive he was, not allowing Richard to be alone with you, be next to you, or even on the phone with you for a long period of time. Maybe Ethan could sense that under your guise as a friend, you did have feelings for Richard. You at one point convinced yourself that you were in love with him, and you needed to tell him. But with his schedule, you saw how difficult it was, and then realized it’s you. Richard wouldn’t be into you when he had many women around him. You had to back off in order to try to make the new relationship work. So, you put a lid on your feelings and said nothing. You were friends. Just friends. Ethan on the other hand… “Where are you right now?” He asked. “Siting in my car outside of The Hyatt.” You replied looking around at your surroundings. The Hyatt was a stunningly. Beautiful hotel in New York, and you were outside at the valet parking deciding on if you should go in or not. The streets were still busy for 3am, but it was The Big Apple, and this place never sleeps. It had rained earlier, and the streets glistened with the glow and flickering of the traffic lights. Restaurants and bars still open along the strip, and people gathered hand in hand walking and laughing. You wish you could laugh, but Ethan stole that from you months ago, and now you sit here alone, in your car in your flat shoes, and night gown. You had to pack a bag with enough clothes to last you a few days. Ethan was leaving for Hong Kong for work, and that would be the best time to get your belongings, and never see him again. “Please don’t sleep there, just go to my penthouse, we will figure out the rest.” He insisted. You knew that doing this, moving in with Richard, no matter how long you would be there, would piss Ethan off. And you honestly wanted to hurt him. Maybe not the same way he hurt you, but still hurt him nonetheless. “Are you sure about this?” “Very.” “Okay!” You conceded, “Thank you.” “Anything for you dove.” “Anything?” You sang sweetly, with hit of a smile on your face. “Absolutely anything.” He gushed over the phone. You pulled at a piece of thread on your nightgown, and blushed hard. Even from thousands of miles away, he knew how to make you swoon with just his voice and words. If he was in front of you and said that, it would have taken the force of an army to hold you back from kissing him. The way those words came out of his mouth stirred something inside of you that hadn’t been touched in months, but you could focus on that right now. You needed to get out of this car. “Head on over, I’ll call ahead, and make sure everything is taken care of.” “Thank you again, Richard.” “No need to thank me. I need you safe, and sound in our flat. I’ll see you in a few days, yeh?” He stated. “Yea ok. You said your goodbyes and headed over to his flat. After pulling into the Richards visitor spot under his flat building, you gather your things, and end upstairs to the 21st floor. Once you exit the elevator you are thrown off by the very large gift basket sitting in front of the door. You put your bag down and kneel to read the note left on top. *** To: The most beautiful woman in the world. From: The luckiest man in the world to have you in his life <3 Get some rest and enjoy the basket. You deserve it, and if I have to, I will send you more to keep a smile on your face until I get there. Yours always, Richard *** You smiled so hard, and pulled the note to your chest for a moment, as if you wanted to absorb the words into your very heart. You see another little baggy with the keycode to get into his flat, and you make your way in taking the bag and basket inside.

You flick on the light upon entering the foyer, a grand entertaining gallery opens into a living room and formal dining room with raised ceilings, accentuated by a dramatic glass skylight. You decided to look around the penthouse to get used to the surroundings. The room has been decorated to the highest standards with custom doors, wood-work cabinetry, and beveled glass to enhance the breathtaking views. A custom-carved stairway, wood-paneled elevator, beautifully-appointed powder room, and spacious closets are located just off the gallery. Adjacent to the formal dining room and located along Central Park is a tastefully designed eat-in kitchen with top-of-the-line appliances.

The 21st floor featured a luxurious master suite with a fireplace, terrace, and large sitting room. A magnificent master bathroom with bookmarked slabs of marble, two showers, two private water closets and two separate vanity sinks complete this space. The suite also included multiple fitted closets and a whimsical loggia with a wet bar along the terrace. Two additional south-facing bedrooms, two redesigned en-suite baths, an elegant study with terrace access and an automated Crestron system for lighting, shades and music. The 21st floor included a service entrance which you came in through seeing that Richard had the key to the main entrance elevator. “No wonder he doesn’t go out. He has everything he needs here.” You said to yourself, as you made your way back to the door to gather your things. You walked into the master bedroom and placed the basket on the bed. You finally opened the clear wrapping and started to pull out each item. Bath bombs, candles, wine, scented lotions, and oils. There was a silken pink night gown, with matching sleeping mask. Then a box of assorted chocolates, and your favorite box of perfume. A little while later, after a hot shower, and two glasses of wine, you climb into Richards bed, and cover yourself with the thick black blanket. Your phone buzzed, and you picked it up to see that Richard sent you a photo and text. he sent you a gif of his face smiling, and blowing you a kiss, then saying goodnight. You send him a text back saying goodnight and thanking him again before you placed it back on the nightstand. As you fell asleep your mind thought of pleasant things. Such as now being able to start your life over without Ethan. Perhaps with someone great. Someone like Richard. “Why am I not with you?” Was the last words that slipped from your lips before passing out. _____ See, this wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. You were supposed to find a guy, fall in love, get married, have children and live out your lives together. Old, holding hands and maybe, just maybe dying together in your sleep. But your life didn’t work out so luck that way. Time after time you had to fight for what you wanted, and when you thought you had it, life kicked you down again. Here you sat on the cold tile floor in the bathroom, in the dark holding your fiancés phone. The painful reality that he wasn’t who you thought. Your jaw clinched, the burning in your eyes began, and you turned the phone on. You had to know. You read every single one of the texts that he sent them. Every detail about what he wanted to do to them, and what he wanted them to do to him. How he couldn’t stop thinking of them, and how they were the only thing he ever wanted. He even said I love you to a few of them. They begged for him to dump you, and he said that he would, but he was waiting for the right time. He couldn’t even bother changing up his texts, they were the same lines, repeatedly. The same dick pics and fantasy. The only thing that seemed to change was the location to meet them for dinner, or the hotel room he would rent out for the day for his “Client Meetings” You turned the phone off and gripped your chest, right at your heart. You dug your nails into your skin until it hurt, but it would never compare to the pain you felt that spread through your body like a raging fire. It scorched every nerve in your body, and you began to shake. Your eyes burned and when you could hold on no longer you let out a scream that could have cracked glass, and you threw his phone against the wall. It shattered. Once that first tear broke free, the rest followed in an unbroken stream. You bent forward, pressed your palms to the floor, you began to cry with the force of a person vomiting on all fours.

You heard footsteps running up to the door.

“(y/n) are you ok? What was that noise?” A male voice said on the other side. “Just go away” you said, the words slipping from your lips so softly that only you could have heard it, but you secretly wish he did. You continued to cry, your fingers digging into the black cloth of the bathmat. You felt sick to your stomach. The ache in your heart was too much to bare. “(y/n) answer me!! What is going on? I am beginning to worry!” The voice said again, wiggling the door knob a few times. “Go the fuck away!” You managed to raise your head up and yelled. “Just leave, get out! I don’t want you here anymore!” You turned your body to the toilet now, lifting the lid, and prepared yourself for what was about to come up. “(y/n) What?! What are you talking about? “He yelled back, banging on the door. “Open up! What happened?” he pressed again, his voice very concerned and urgently searching for a reason why you would react this way. “I hate you.” You said softly into the toilet. You shook your head because you knew you had to throw up, and the rage that was building in your gut was making its way to your chest. The kind of rage that was instant and all you needed was the final push. The door knob started to shake violently, and then the door started to bang as if something was being pushed against it. With a loud BANG the door was forcefully opened, and Ethan came stumbling in, the wall across from the door catching him. He looked around the bathroom and saw his phone on the ground, and then looked up at you. “What is going on? It’s 4 o’clock in the morning, and you’re screaming.” He said as he bent down and picked up his phone examining the broken pieces. “I had work and clients on here, and you break it?” “Right! Work and clients “You quoted with your fingers. “I am sure your clients needed a picture of your fucking dick for their legal troubles. I guess you’re a full-service kind of lawyer. “you proclaimed, as you rose to your feet. You took a few steps closer to him. His face went completely white and he swallowed hard. His eyes shifted over to the right of you unable to look in your eyes and there it was. The shame or was it guilt. Either way he knew that this was it for him. “(Y/N)” He started, but you cut him off. “Who is Emily?” You shoved him back “Rhonda?” You shoved him again. “Dianna?” You asked pushing him one last time, this time harder and he was backed into the corner and could see his jaw tighten. “Oh, and my favorite, your fucking secretary Bridgette.” You smiled and shook your head. “I knew it. I knew it.” You stressed, your voice starting to shake with the buildup of anger, and more tears. “They mean nothing to me. Not like you. “Ethan said calmly to you. His eye contact making his words seem sincere. Was he telling the truth? Maybe, but it was too late. That trust had already been destroyed. “You’re a fucking liar.” You walked out of the bathroom and into the bedroom you shared. You walked to the other side of the room to get away from him. It was too much. You always had a feeling that something was right about him, but you couldn’t put your finger on it. You grabbed your bag from the closet, and started throwing clothes in them, cussing and yelling as you stuffed many items in it. You weren’t even sure what it all was, but the more that you put in that bag was the more you were close to getting out of there. Ethan tried to grab you to talk things out. Grabbing your arm, you pulled it away, he grabbed both of your wrists to calm you and to pull you into his chest, but you pushed him away repeatedly You took a shirt and hit him with it and he held his hands up grabbing the fabric in the air, twisting it around his hand and yanked you close to him. “Please calm down, we can talk about this.” He held you firmly to him, looking at you dead in your eyes, not even blinking. Was he terrified of losing you? Was he scared of what his life would be like without you? You fought more against his grip. “Would you stop! He yelled, “and fucking listen to me! They mean nothing to me! I want to marry you and be with you!” You looked closer into his eyes and saw that they were glazing over. Was he about to cry? Was he actually upset that he hurt you? For a brief moment, you settled down, and lowered your guard for a moment.

“I love you.” He said, releasing the grip on your wrist since he must have felt your nerves calm. “There is nothing to freak out about. My heart belongs to only you.” He said, leaning in closer to your face. “I want to kiss only you…” Ba-dum

The sound of your heart echoed in your ears as he spoke those words… “ I want to marry only you..”

Ba -dum But it wasn’t the words you wanted to hear. It was the wrong words. “I am going to marry you (Y/N).” he whispered right before his lips touched yours. Those were the wrong words…. “The hell you are!” You yelled as you pushed him back, but he still held one of your wrists. “What makes you think that I would even marry you?” You questioned as you finally yanked yourself free from his grasp. You turn and walk to the other side of the bed, snatching up your phone. Your fingers unlocked it and you started to search through it. You started muttering to yourself. “Great! I guess you’re going to call him now. Complain about me?” He gestured with his arms, shifting his weight from one leg to the other. “Call who?” You questioned, going through your contacts. Richards name slowly scrolled down, and your thumb landed on his name, but Ethan had caught your attention and you looked up from the phone. “Who do you think? Richard for fuck sake. You can’t seem to just let him the fuck go can you!” Ethan said, yanking up a shirt from the side chair, and putting it on, followed by a pair of mint green pants. You always hated those pants. “He has nothing to do with this. You did this! “You proclaimed. Snatching up your keys and walking over to the night stand to grab a few more things, shoving them into the bag. “Whatever you need to tell yourself (y/n) You’re probably acting like this because you slept with him, and now you are turning a tiny indiscretion of mine into this mountain of guilt.” He gestured with is hands and body movement. “Are you fucking kidding me right now?! Are you trying to turn this around on me? You gestured pointing to yourself.

“I’m just stating the facts. You couldn’t have him, so you had to get me. You were too weak to tell him how you felt, and he didn’t care enough about you to notice you. Why would he want you? He’s famous now and can have any woman he wants and you —“ SMASH! The vase you threw at his head shattered near him. He guarded his face and moved aside and looked at you. “WHAT THE FUCK!?!? Have you lost your mind?” He yelled as he moved around the broken pieces by his feet to a clearer spot. Then you looked down to continue to pack, grabbing everything that could fit into this large duffle bag. After stuffing what you could in it, you make your way to the door. “I had to settle for a piece of shit like you.” You added onto his statement, your voice was so calm, still, but the tears filled your eyes and burned as you looked at him without blinking. “I had to lower my standards to a pathetic man child who had to feed on someone else’s insecurities to make himself feel better.” “(Y/n) wait, I didn’t mean…” he said starting to walk towards you but when he saw that you straightened your back and took a more dominate stance, he paused. “You meant every word. And I shouldn’t have said yes to marrying you when in my heart I really didn’t want to. But my family, and your family pressured me. Especially when…” You paused for a moment and looked around the room and then back at him. “When I knew I would never love you the way I love him.” Those words flew from your mouth so fast. You never thought that you would think it, let alone say it out loud. You knew instantly from the look in his eyes that they’d hit their mark. In that instant your relationship shattered into glassy shards. Nothing would ever be the same again. “We’re over!” You completed as you walked out of the door. ______ The next day you remained in the protection of your dear friend penthouse. You closed the blinds, and the curtains. You brewed some coffee, with cream, and added some caramel into the mixture as you lazily walked back to his room. You hadn’t slept so well after dreaming about the fight you had with Ethan. It was so fresh in your heart and mind. You placed the mug on the night stand and crawled back into bed. Tucking yourself into the big red and white pillows and pulled the black duck down comforter over yourself. You leaned back against the pillowed backboard, reached for the remote, twitched on the TV and flipped through the channels until you landed on the TV show FRIENDS. Tossing the remote beside you, you tried to focus on the screen before you, but your phone went off again. You struggled with the decision to pick it up. Looking from the TV back to the phone, and then back to the TV again. Then back at the phone when it went off. You reached over and picked it up. You fingered through the unlock and brought up your phone log. 14 MISSED CALLS – Ethan Hawthorne Then you saw the notifications on your iMessages. You opened it. _______________________________ ETHAN {Please pick up the phone….. } ETHAN {We need to talk!!!} ETHAN {I’m not giving up on us! I don’t care how many times I have to call you or text you! } ETHAN {Why are you acting like this? Can we just please talk?! } ________________________________ You took a deep breath and hovered your finger over delete. For a moment you thought how freeing it would be to clear these, and never reply to him, but then again, what if you did reply. What if you told him to never call or message you again? Is saying nothing, really louder than saying anything at all? Without a second thought you deleted it. You closed your eyes, and put the phone on the nightstand, but before you could fully come to terms with what you just did, you heard a knock on the door. You were expecting anyone, but when you walked to the door, you looked through the hole, and saw a bouquet of flowers. You pulled back and took a step back from the door. Maybe you shouldn’t open it, maybe you should. Ethan was smart, sending you flowers so early. You bit your bottom lip, and then another knock came to the door. “Who is it?” You shouted. “I have a delivery for a Miss (Y/N).” the man said. “Can you leave it by the door?” You asked, walking closer to the door, and placed your hands on the wood. “I was instructed to hand it directly to her. You know….my job.” He replied. “Ok.” You sigh and open the door. As you open it, the bouquet was in full bloom in front of you. Bright red roses petals, with lush green stems. It was so large it covered the delivery guys face. “Do I need to sign for it or something?” you ask waiting with your arms crossed in front of you. “Not really, but if you would like to pay in the form of a hug. I wouldn’t object.” He said, as his American accent changed over to the floating melody of a British purr, and as the flowers came down, it revealed the most beautiful man you had ever seen. Richard stood before you with a big smile on his face. His eyes were sparkling, and his cheeks were flushed. He was so excited to see you. You weren’t sure what came over you when you lunged forward and flung your arms around his neck, pulling him into an embrace. He chuckled and leaned down to hug you back. He squeezed you and buried he face in your hair. You heard him take a deep breath, and you could have sworn you felt the thumping of his heart against your chest. It was racing. Or was it yours? At the moment you couldn’t tell, all you knew it he was here with you. You pulled back, but held onto his shirt, while he in return placed his hand on your cheek. You leaned into the warmth of his hand smiling. Your faith in men had left you, but you knew that Richard would heal it. Someone how. Starting by showing up earlier than he said, and now pulling this stun, in his own penthouse. “I can’t tell you how happy I am that you are here.” You stated excitedly. “But where are my manners, please come in.” you walked back over the threshold, and moved a side so that he could come in. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you, and in my penthouse no less.” He chimed back. Richard walked into the kitchen and placed the vase of roses on the counter top. He turned to look at you and removed his black coat and tossed it on the back of the counter. He looked around the room and shook his head. “What?” “Why is it so dark in here?” “I didn’t want any daylight in here.” “Why? A little daylight would be good for you (Y/N).” he stated as he walked across the room and to the window, he tossed the curtains opened, and the living room was flooded with golden light. He could have pushed the button that does it for him, but he was always the kind of guy to do things himself. You blocked your eyes for a moment, and then put your hands down to see Richard standing before the window with a halo of light around his head. The light caught in his beard, and he turned to look at you with glowing blue eyes. He wore a plaid shirt and dark blue jeans. A trimmed beard, and his hair combed over to one side. He looked good. Gorgeous. “Is that why you’re here? To open my blinds? You turn to Richard and hold up a cup. “Want some?” He walked over to the counter and sat down on the stool. He leaned forward and closed his hands together.

“Are you going to tell me what happened, or am I going to have to guess?” he sounded irritated, so his voice became a bit deeper. “Richard….” you sighed as you put the first mug into place on the Keurig, you put the K-Cup in the machine, and pulled the lever down, and hit BREW. You turned, and leaned back on the counter, with your hands on both sides of you along the counter top. “Don’t make me.” “What do you want me to say? He cheated. Cheated, a lot, and I was the dumb one who fell for his shit.” You said. The buzzer went off and you turned to remove the first cup, put another in its place, and a new K-Cup, and hit BREW again. You gently placed the cup in front of Richard, and reached over to hand him sugar, and creamer. “You’re not dumb, don’t say that. He cheated, yes, but that isn’t your fault.” Richard said has he put both hands on the sides of the cup. “Not my fault!?” You chuckle just saying those words. But you always thought that it was. Maybe it was in a way. You never really fully expressed yourself or showed that you were completely into the planning of your wedding, or him even. You were just there, going through the motions, while he was there, with other women. To be honest, he wasn’t the one you wanted. You lowered your head and started to cry. You heard the stool shift across the floor and in an instant Richards hands were on you, turning you. He crouched a bit to look at you, and tilted your head up to look at him, and when you did, he straightened himself. “Open your eyes.” he said softly. His hands cupped both sides of your face, his thumbs wiping away the tears from your face. “Look at me (Y/N).” he kindly stressed. So you did, and he was looking at you with such hope, and longing that it killed you. How can he be so calm at a time like this. How had you been so clam the past night? “I can’t do this anymore.” You weeped. “Do what?” “Love anyone again. How an I supposed to trust someone after this?” You asked, gripping his shirt. “It’s not going to be easy dove, but I’m here to show you that you can.” You looked up at him, and then to his lips. You always wondered what it would be like to kiss him. You lean in close to him, and place your forehead to his chin. He lowers his head to place a kiss on it. You didn’t want to bottle up your emotions. Sadness, obsessing, and full-blown crying fits was your way to deal with emotional upheaval, and pretending you were fine when you were not will have the same effect as a pressure cooker. So, you called out of work for the next few days, to let all your pent-up feelings loose, whether it was on your own with Celine Dion on full blast, with a box of tissues or with your best friend after two bottles of wine. And your best friend was here now, so here came the tears, and wine.

Sometime later, Richard gently rouses you from a deep slumber after you pasted out in his bed. Richard had to pick you up from the couch after the first bottle of wine. You drank the majority and like a gentlemen he let you. He tucked you in, and he settled in next to you, arm around you, and he just let you cry and cry. You complained about everything under the sun when it came to Ethan. The stupid pants he wore, to his cologne, how he said certain words, and how horrible he treated Richard. He sat at the edge of the bed, gently stroking your hair, and shaking you awake. As you woke, it felt as though your spirit returned to your body, and you felt heavy again, but warm under the blankets. You opened your eyes to see Richard sitting there, smiling down at you. “Good morning.” He said softly, as to not shock you with his presence. “Richard?” You said, as you slowly moved the blanket from your face rubbing the sleep from your eyes. “Yes, It’s me, you’re not dreaming.” He joked, rubbing your arm. “You’re here!” you cooed sleepily. “Yes, I live here. Did you drink so much you forgot?” “I know that.” Richard smiled and looked at you for a moment. His hand moved from your arm, to move a few strands of hair from your face. His index finger grazed your cheek, and you smiled. He tilted his head a bit and studied your face. “I jumped on the first flight I could.” You moved the blanket down, and stretched your arms wide, awaiting a hug you desperately needed. He smiled and leaned in to hug you. His arms slipped under you, and he pulled you into his arms. Practically pulling you up from the bed. You buried your face in his neck, and he squeezed you in return. You relaxed in his arms, and didn’t plan on letting him go, but you wanted to reveal in his warmth and scent. You take in a deep breath and then release it slowly. “I’m just happy you’re here.” “Of course, why wouldn’t I be?” He asked, as one of his hands stroked your back. “Because of your job.” “(Y/N)? Do you really think that would keep me away from you?” he asks, as he releases you and cups your face. “You know what I mean.” You say sweetly, placing your hands on his own. “Your friends break up doesn’t fall on the important spectrum when it comes to your career.” He chuckles and lets go of your face and stands up. “It’s not my career that makes all the decisions, but my heart. Time with you is all I always want, like air to a dying man.” He says, as he heads towards the bedroom door. “Which is to say that nothing would keep me from you. As selfish as that may sound.” “Richard…” you started, but he interrupts. “Now out of bed. You need to eat.” He walks out of the door. “I kind of like it here! Your bed is amazing!” You shout after him. “Then I guess I’ll bring your breakfast to you! He shouts back. You laugh to yourself and fall back into the large pillows. Your arms stretched out at your sides. The sound of breakfast for dinner sounded exciting to you. You remembered Richard’s cooking it for you whenever you both would get drunk, it was always delicious, and he always ate with you. You closed your eyes and several minutes later, you could smell the aroma coming from the kitchen. An hour later, Richard brought you the works. Freshly squeezed juice, toast with grape jam, eggs, bacon, and a bowl of grapes and honey dew. He placed it on his bed, with a giant tray, and there was enough for two people. You turned the TV on just for background noise while you both spoke, He told you the story about how after he got your call, he called his assistant and requested the next flight out of Los Angeles to New York that there was. He called ahead to the front desk and requested that you be let in, but it would have to be the servant’s entrance as he had locked the elevator to his floor. He called his other assistant in New York to find the best relaxation basket he could, and to make sure there was a sweet message from him for you. He wanted you to know that he would take care of you. When it was time for him to leave, he didn’t even pack any clothes. He grabbed his keys, phone, and wallet, and left. He didn’t have time to think, his instincts told him that you needed him, and you needed him now. On the plane he was anxious to see you, and he couldn’t wait to get out of the airport, and into the taxi to get home to you. “You didn’t have to do all of that. Did you even get any sleep?” You asked as you held the toast in your hand, looked at him. He looked at you and reached over to wipe a piece of jam from your lips. “No. I’d been up for about 24 hrs, I believe? There was no time to think about myself. I was worried about you.” He said as he went back to eating. You sat there staring at him and you lowered the toast to your lap. Your eyes started to burn and glaze over. “Why would you do that for me? Why do anything of it?” Your voice started to shake, and you honestly tried to hold back the tears. You hated crying in front of him, and you didn’t want him to think you were a cry baby, but damn it. He was always so sweet and kind to you. Why couldn’t you be with someone like him? Why couldn’t you have been the one in this bed for years, waiting for him to come home to you. You knew that you loved him, but just the thought of him flying across country, not sleeping until you were taken care of, and happy before taking care of himself hit you hard. Richard put his food down, cleaned his mouth, and swallowed the remaining food. He looks down for a moment nodding slightly to himself, as if he was talking to himself. Like the moment you get when you are building yourself up to finally say something. “Do you really have to ask?” He said, still looking down at nothing in particular. “After all this.” He looks at you. “I did it because….I love you, (Y/N).” You new that it would take time, but with those words you felt the break in your heart start to heal. END.

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bites-kms · 5 years

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HK Bars: Re-loaded

It’s vox populi that Hong Kong nights are great. The city is alive between the tetris buildings, live music venues, the poured-to-perfection drinks and the incomparable chill and fun vibe people foster. This is a re-vamp of the previous bar-hopping post on Bars in HK. This time, I had the opportunity to explore further and different neighborhoods with friends and fun colleagues.

Iron Fairies LG, 1 Hollywood Road, Central, Hong Kong.

With sister locations in Bangkok and Tokyo, this bar is undoubtedly great and one never gets tired of visiting either this or any of the other locations— and, in all cases, it’s quite unlike anywhere else in the city. Sutton’s establishments, one very well renown interior designer and bar entrepreneur, are known for mind-blowing, jaw-dropping, eclectic decor, and The Iron Fairies is no exception. Indeed, this is one bar you’ve got see in person to believe. In LifeStyle Asia Editor in Chief, Micheal Alan words’ the “metal-making tools line the walls, vials of ‘fairy dust’ hang from the ceiling in clusters and — most incredible of all — some 10,000 preserved butterflies dangle overhead, suspended on tiny metal rods (...) are incredible. Watching them sway back and forth is simply mesmerizing”. I guess I’ll have to go to the Tokyo one to make an Iron Fairies hat-trick!

Iron Fairy by LifeStyle Asia The Woods G, L, 17-19號 Hollywood Rd, Central, Hong Kong.

This was a great venue where I met my friend Sammie from Singapore. It’s an eclectic bar, around the main area of LKF, where a mirror door disguises it, and a museum-kind-of-display about different cocktail elements merged with design fashion runway aesthetics is part of the charm. Drinks were delicious and music was great. It’s a fantastic alternative to the mainstream happening in the neighborhood. I dared to have a different approach to an old fashion and it was delicious, with a little of spices and herbs. Great choice. Foxglove + Frank’s Library 18 Ice House St, Central, Hong Kong.

This is a great hidden speakeasy featured as a deluxe umbrella shop. Delightful venue, with even more striking and delicious drinks, with super charismatic bartenders made our stay a memorable one. There was this jazz band playing stellar music and then a Philippine guy took the mic and literally brought the house down with his songs (I mean, Frank Sinatra “Fly me to the Moon”, of coz!) and voice. It was so much fun! There’s a little speakeasy within the speakeasy called “Frank’s Library” and it serves a smaller, more selected list of drinks, in a library setting that isolates the music from Foxglove, turning this little bar into a cozier, more familiar one. The Old Man- Ernest Hemingway Lower G/F, 37-39 Aberdeen Street, Soho, Central, Hong Kong, Hong Kong.

Photo Credits: The Old Man - Ernest Hemingway Website Unfortunately, I couldn’t make it to this one. I did have nights to spare, but some of them I just strolled around, got lost and experience some great night walks and dinners, where I ended up with food-commas and completely exhausted. But I’m gonna write it down so I don’t forget to go next time I’ll visit the hood. It was honored as one of the World’s Top 50 Bars in 2018, so it’s a set date for sure. With unique decor, on its website one can read the true inspiration and homage this place gives to the author: “He was a sophisticated drinker, a lover of fine spirits, and a true connoisseur who sought out the best bars from Paris to Pamplona. The Old Man honors Hemingway by taking inspiration from his novels, history, and folklore, and by using novel ingredients and culinary accoutrements – thereby paying tribute to the spirits and cocktails he loved.” Damn... just realized I walked by its door so many times... I guess this time wasn’t meant to be! Piqniq R/F (Rooftop) HQueens, 80 Queen's Road Central, Central, Hong Kong.

This is a nice surprise in the middle of Central HK. After a beautiful Yayoi Kusama art piece and strong pink and red decor that highlights the instagrammable worth of this rooftop, one finds a breathtaking terrace in the middle of Hong Kong skyscrapers with an unforgettable view of the bay and the mountains. A solo glass of prosecco, in between dinners and another bar date closer to the hotel, was exactly what I needed to bond with Hong Kong.

Sevva 10 Chater Rd, Central, Hong Kong.

This was a fantastic double recommendation from my friend Mau and my friend Angelica. I remember Angelica mentioned it the first time I went to HK but, as it was expected, I was on its door and didn’t manage to find it properly. But this time, I went and enjoyed one of the few last nights with my ex-boss. We managed to find it and dare to take the elevator to the beautiful heights of its bar. It had a great drink list which I decided to pass on and go with my default and solid choice of prosecco to quench my thirst on this warm and cloudy Hong Kong night. We toasted for the good times and for the success we had over these days regarding our pitch. It was a great experience which definitely made me grow as a professional and as a leader, where I needed to juggle, define, forecast and ask for the resources I needed to make it happen, that included a physical trip to this city to lead in-house workshops.

Skye Hong Kong, Causeway Bay, Gloucester Rd, 310號27樓

Skye Bar, provided by Pullman Hotel in Trip Advisor. Promise, this would be my last cheat-recco since I didn’t make it to this one either - although I managed to go to the Ozone Bar at the Ritz Carlton. This bar is similar, it’s part of the Pullman hotel chain, and the literal cherry on top it’s its funky rooftop bar. Looks fun and with a memorable view. Ophelia Shop F39A & F41A, 1/F, Lee Tung Avenue, 200 Queen's Rd E, Wan Chai, Hong Kong.

What a bar! Also, quite hard to find in a small pedestrian street in Wan Chai, on a third or four floor, without a sign on it’s outside facade. It’s completely hidden to the naif eye. But this bar, on top of its completely outstanding fashion, hosted by a hot, tall, blond, thick-accented and not quite friendly Russian, is something to experience at least once or twice in a life time. They allowed us to seat on a reserved table since we arrived early and then, when prime time started, the weirdness also made their appearance. This bar has actual women laid down on it’s shelves and bars, with fans, burlesque and S&M outfits, as part of the kitsch decor. I didn’t know how to feel about that but certainly caught my attention and was something I’ve never seen before (and trust me, I’ve seen some weird s*it over the years and trips!)

Ping Pong 129 Second Street L/G Nam Cheong House, Sai Ying Pun, Hong Kong.

What a beautiful and great recco from my friend Pink. I wish we had made it together, but I saved the best for last. Hours before leaving to the airport and after a blogging session in a beautiful cafe near to my hotel (where I almost leave my credit card!) I went for a second-to-last drink to toast for this comeback to Asia and this amazing time in Hong Kong. Below a hidden normal door with no actual sign but an bull-eyed window that, after a closer look one realized is a ping pong paddle, there’s a long stairs that leads you to the best and probably only “Gintoneria” I’ve ever been to. People get crazy with Tequila or Wine bars, but man, this one, was finding Neverland for me. What a fantastic idea. More than Gintoneria, it was paradise. This beautiful neon means “Take care of your body. Seriously, can it get any better than this?? I ended up talking to a video designers and producers from China with rusty English but with tons of willingness to talk to me and make themselves understood from Shenzhen, and actually followed my company on Weibo and managed to connect to FB to follow and add me as a friend. What a great, great finding and an even more fantastic night, today’s font and dear memory!

#hongkong #bars #barhopping #discovery #travel #asia #love

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olympusintelligence · 5 years

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Part 1 Chapter 1

7 months ago 20/5/2018 21:30(Hong Kong Time

Outside the Theatre in the Western Kowloon District, Hong Kong

Flames were everywhere.

‘Let me go! She’s inside!’

Kyle cried out loud helplessly. Great fire had engulfed the entire theatre. His fiancee was being tortured in that purgatory.

'Damn Kyle, it’s 1300 °C inside. No one can go inside! You’re just a man, not a superman. You won’t save anyone even if you’re in it!’ A firefighter and a few cops were barring the deranged Kyle from running towards the fire scene. He had once met this detective before.

It was sizzlingly hot. The fire at the theatre had further heated up the temperature. It had so much vigor that it seemed it would never stop burning. The firefighting squad had been trying their utmost to contain the flames. Three helicopters had been dispatched to drop fire retardant over them, and around a dozen of firefighting trucks had been spraying the firefighting foam. The ground near the theatre subsided soon after the explosion, so the firefighters could only plod on it.

Meanwhile a very nasty smell permeated in the air. Many people at the scene recognized it as the mixed smell of burnt bodies.

The analysis from the government’s fire and explosion experts indicated no one could stay alive inside. Actually all firefighters had been forbidden from getting inside to save anyone as the flames were too hot for their fireproof gear to withstand.

‘Just leave me alone!’ Kyle was on the verge of mental collapse. He was like an injured beast trying to break away from its chains. Out of nowhere, a short, fat man punched him hard in the face. ‘Wake up!’

It was his boss Benny, a senior detective. The sweating man was wearing a casual tee and jeans. He had just hastily arrived. While gasping for air, he rebuked him,‘You bastard, just from your text I know you’ll get yourself into trouble!’ He was Kyle’s senior classmate in the university campus, and joined the police six years earlier than him. He had brought him to an alumni gathering, where he and Helen first met, but before he was transferred to Tsim Sha Tsui police station they had never been co-workers.

‘My fiancée’s inside. Just let me in!’

‘Even the firefighters don’t have the guts to walk inside! Don’t kill yourself for it!. You’re a detective!’

The phrase ‘detective' brought him back to his senses: Both his father and uncle were cops, and Benny encouraged him to join the Police Force when he had just graduated. After three years of hard work, he finally got in and had never planned any alternative careers. He had been quite submissive to what the fate had in store for him - Though there were strong sense of hierarchy, terrible scandals and complicated politics within the Force, he had never doubted this profession’s missions: maintaining law and order, detecting and crushing crimes, protecting lives and properties of the civilians…….All he wanted to do was to be a good cop, but he never imagined that one day it stood in his way of saving his lover.

Only an hour and a half ago, he just said goodbye to her, and they just shared a light kiss and nothing else. Though they had been engaged, they were too preoccupied with work for any intimacy.

She must have been burnt into ashes, like the fellow audience and theatre crew.

Why haven’t I hugged her at all?

His happiness had gone. Long distance love was grueling. She finally came to Hong Kong to get engaged with him, but only after enjoying a short time as the engaged couple, death separated them.

‘The seniors determined it as the first terrorist attack Hong Kong had ever had. We can only arrest those bastards responsible for the crime and bring them to court. That’s how you should avenge for Helen.’ Benny tried to calm him down. ‘You’re not in a good shape at all. We’ve still got a lot to do. You’re not in a good shape, so you’d better return home first. Report here at 6 tomorrow morning.’ Kyle was devastated. He had no mood to reply to him. He just kneeled on the ground and held his head. Benny then ordered two colleagues who had just arrived at the scene to bring him home.

Kyle was off duty on that day. He had just been transferred to the Crime Investigation Department at Tsim Sha Tsui Police Station.

He was celebrating his fourth year in the police with his fiancée Helen Lee. Before entering the police training camp he met Helen in alumni party, where she approached him first with a pick-up line ‘It’s been a long time.’ Kyle had no impression of her, but they soon fell in love. At that time he learnt she was a Hongkonger born in the States, and she had a nice Chinese name Lee Hoi Lun. As a buyer of a major international auction house, she mainly searched for artworks in every corner of the world, but he must be based in Hong Kong. Hence they only saw each other when they had long holidays or Helen happened to stop in Hong Kong for a while. Later Helen quitted the job, came to Hong Kong and joined a gallery in Central as its manager, as she hoped to meet Kyle’s parents and get engaged with him. Their relationship finally became more stable.

Helen then took Kyle’s ride to the newly built theatre in West Kowloon after dinner. It would have an opening ceremony that evening. The construction progress of the West Kowloon Cultural District had been lagging behind for many years, so the theatre’s opening seemed to bring in some fresh air to the cultural institution. Its management invited the best theatre crew in Asia to perform The Lady of the Camellias . As it was during the Le French May, the annual arts festival organized by the Consulate General of France to promote French art and culture in Hong Kong, the ambitious institution arranged the Chinese-English-French trilingual interpretation service for the audience, and invited the French Minister of Culture and the French Consul-General to speak at the ceremony. Helen’s current boss was a renowned French painter, so he also received an invitation. Though she had zero interest in drama, she still had to attend the opening ceremony and enjoy the drama with him as his assistant and partner.

The traffic was smooth between Jordan and Tsim Sha Tsui. Helen made great use of her time to tidy her make-up during the ride. Her brown curly hair was a good fit for her oval pale face. Her pretty honey brown eyes naturally seemed to sparkle like stars, and with her gifted perfect facial features she only needed few cosmetics to make herself look stunning. Wearing elegant high-heels, she was in a short white dress and black suit jacket, which somehow made her look taller.

‘Kyle, how do I look now?’ After blushing her mouth with a pink lipstick, she asked her with a smile. Kyle had been very used to her beauty, so he only commented, ‘Pretty as ever.’ He still had to concentrate on driving his Honda.

‘So far you’ve only answered “Good.” “Pretty enough.” “Very pretty.”’ Helen could not help but remark with a bit sarcasm. ‘No wonder you had never dated a girl before.’ Kyle was never a ladies’ man. Though he had a quite clean-cut face, it was still not popular with women. And his rather straightforward character was not everyone’s favorite. An average young woman may find him to be a tough nut to crack. He was not attentive to his outlook - His daily outfit only consisted of casual tees, jeans and sneakers, and had a jarhead haircut. The outsiders usually only perceived him as an ordinary thirty-year-old Asian man.

‘That’s why you love me.’ Kyle was too familiar with her humor. He had learnt to flirt with her. ‘Actually, only engagement is not enough. Let’s get married, honey.’

‘Ha, I can’t believe a man proposes to a woman like that! Where’s the ring?’ Helen just laughed directly, without any attempt to hide it. She was only honest in front of this honest man.

‘Wait, you’ve got the engagement ring. I think it counts.’ ‘Of course not, they are only silver rings. The wedding ring must be like the diamond ring worn by my classmates.’ They sparred with each other with witty words, and arrived at the theatre without sensing time had passed.

The theatre looked futuristic with its irregular round shaped silver building. As two high-ranking French officials were arriving soon, the police had tightened the security. Although Kyle was a detective, before he drove to the parking lot, he still had to stop his vehicle for his colleagues’ strict security check. After he parked his car, Helen kissed him lightly and whispered, ‘I’m anticipating your ring, my dear.’

‘I’ll be well-prepared next time.’ Kyle promised in earnest. Helen gave him a sweet smile in return, and got out of his car. ‘See you.’ Those were the last words she left behind.

Kyle watched his fiancée walking towards the theatre. He always sensed there was something enigmatic about her, but he could not figure out why.

When Helen saw Kyle had driven away, she continued to head towards the theatre, but her eyes grew cold.

Her boss had just arrived in front of Helen in haste, and he looked very tense.

‘Actually will it go wrong?’ He did not bother to greet her, but only expressed his worries in panic. Helen apparently scorned his cowardice. She just reminded him coldly, ‘You’re my boss now. Please act like one. Nothing else is your business.’

The painter knew that she still kept her cool 15 minutes before the operation began, so he became a bit calmer as well. He couldn’t help but imagine what exactly the young lady had been through before turning into such a cold, capricious beauty.

In the gallery, he was her nominal boss, but in that organization, she was the director, and he was just a small potato.

Kyle was on his way home. He recalled he still had to prepare at home for a meeting with a prosecution attorney on a homicide report.

Right at the instant, he sensed the earth shaking. It was from the West Kowloon District.

The news app on his iPhone reported the theatre there had exploded.

No…...You can’t die!

He immediately rerouted his car back to the theatre. When he finally reached the exit of the tunnel, he only saw the faraway theatre had been consumed by flames. All traffic was jammed. The alarming sirens of the firefighting trucks, ambulances and police cars had been relentlessly ringing. All off-duty members of the Tsim Sha Tsui police station had received the emergency return-to-duty order. He texted his boss, ‘I’ll save Helen.’

He could never turn back the clock.

@requiemesque @whataremetaphor @ill-write-when-im-dead @pilipalea @adie-dee @things-waiting-to-be-written

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newstfionline · 3 years

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Saturday, April 17, 2021

With layoffs down and spending up, US rebound gains momentum (AP) A much-awaited economic boom coming off the pandemic recession appeared to edge closer to reality Thursday with fresh data showing the pace of layoffs dwindling, consumers spending freely and manufacturing rebounding. The latest barometers point to a U.S. economy that’s steadily regaining its health as vaccinations accelerate, business curbs are lifted in many states and more people are willing to travel, shop, eat out and otherwise resume their spending habits. Though many Americans who have lost jobs or income are still suffering, hopes are rising that the benefits of the recovery will spread further in the coming months to groups of people who have yet to benefit. The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits tumbled last week to 576,000, the Labor Department said Thursday, a post-COVID low and a sign that layoffs are easing.

8 dead in shooting at FedEx facility in Indianapolis (AP) Eight people were shot and killed in a late-night shooting at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis, and the shooter killed himself, police said. Several other people were injured Thursday night when gunfire erupted at the facility near the Indianapolis International Airport, police spokesperson Genae Cook said. It was the latest in a recent string of mass shootings across the U.S. Last month, eight people were fatally shot at massage businesses across the Atlanta area, and 10 died in gunfire at a supermarket in Boulder, Colorado. It was at least the third mass shooting this year in Indianapolis alone.

Haiti’s ‘Descent Into Hell’ (Foreign Policy) Haitian Prime Minister Joseph Jouthe resigned Wednesday amid a political crisis that the Catholic archdiocese of Port-au-Prince described as a “descent into hell.” A string of kidnappings in the country now includes, as of Sunday, the abduction of seven clergy members and three other people on their way to church. “The public authorities who are doing nothing to resolve this crisis are not immune from suspicion,” the church wrote. It and several private sector employers’ federations closed their offices Thursday in protest. President Jovenel Moise tweeted that Jouthe’s resignation would make it possible to address insecurity, suggesting Jouthe had been ineffective in stopping the recent violence. His replacement is Claude Joseph, who had been serving as foreign minister. Moise himself has been under widespread social pressure to resign for months.

France Lawmakers Pass Contentious Bill Extending Police Powers (NYT) The French Parliament passed a contentious security bill on Thursday that extends police powers, despite criticism from political opponents and civil rights activists who have vowed to challenge the legislation before France’s Constitutional Council. Among other measures, the bill broadens the powers of municipal police forces, expands the police’s ability to use drones to monitor citizens in public and toughens sentences for people found guilty of assaulting officers. One of the most arduously debated measures criminalizes the act of helping identify officers with intent to harm them. Opposition to the bill sparked large protests last fall and was fueled by several widely publicized instances of police brutality, especially the beating of a Black music producer in Paris that was caught on security camera in November. The sharing of images is not explicitly mentioned in the final version of the bill that was passed on Thursday. But in its Article 24, the bill criminalizes the act of helping to identify on-duty police officers with the “obvious intent” to physically or psychologically harm them. Offenders would face up to five years in prison and a 75,000 euro fine, about $89,800.

Myanmar’s lost generation: nation’s youth sacrificing futures for freedom (The Guardian) For Myanmar’s young people, 2021 was supposed to be a year for optimism. After seeing through the Covid-19 pandemic, the rollout of the vaccine had begun and general elections in November had marked a step towards the country realising its potential. But in the wake of the 1 February coup, their dreams have turned into nightmares, as many of Myanmar’s young people have found themselves forced to sacrifice their futures to take a stand against the military. Aspiring engineer, Hlyan Phyo Aung, 22, is one of them. News portal Myanmar Now reported that he was hurt by an explosion during a crackdown on a protest in the central city of Magway on 27 March. A soldier reportedly shot off his injured hand at close range, another shot multiple rubber bullets into his other hand, and then troops kicked him in the face until onlookers flung themselves over him, saving his life. His right hand was amputated at the wrist; he may also permanently lose the use of his left hand. His left leg was shot eight times and may also be amputated, his right thigh has two bullet wounds, his face was battered and damage to his eyesight caused by the impact of the gunshots may also be irreparable. The military has stopped him from receiving treatment outside one of its own hospitals, and is also charging him with incitement, which carries up to three years in jail. The regime’s forces have killed at least 714 people since the coup, according to the Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), but hundreds more are likely to have been seriously wounded by live rounds, mortar fire, hand grenades and other weapons used by the military.

Thailand to close schools, bars after surge in COVID-19 cases (Reuters) Thailand will close schools, bars and massage parlours, as well as ban alcohol sales in restaurants, for at least two weeks starting from Sunday after a jump in COVID-19 cases, a senior official said. Activities involving more than 50 people will also be prohibited, Thailand’s coronavirus taskforce spokesman, Taweesin Wisanuyothin, said, adding that 18 provinces including Bangkok had been labelled as red zones with the rest of the country categorised as orange zones.

Tokyo Olympic Games may still be cancelled (Washington Post) The Olympic Games scheduled to be held in Tokyo this summer may have to be canceled depending on the coronavirus situation, a senior member of Japan’s ruling party said Thursday. The remarks were the first public admission by the ruling party that cancellation or postponement were under serious consideration, though the challenges of holding the Games have become increasingly evident because of a worsening virus outbreak in Japan.

China’s economy is roaring back, a year after coronavirus shutdown (Washington Post) China’s economy grew at a record pace in the first quarter, blowing past other major nations in its pandemic recovery. The world’s second-largest economy has more than regained its pre-pandemic activity, despite challenges such as lower efficacy rates of its coronavirus vaccines, pandemic travel limitations and U.S. sanctions on key Chinese industries. “The big picture is that China is catching up faster now to the level of advanced economies, faster than ever before,” said Nicholas Lardy, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE). Daily life in China returned to normal for most people last year because of exhaustive efforts to contain infection clusters and strict quarantine requirements for those entering the country. But Premier Li Keqiang warned this month that the recovery remains uneven, and that “new uncertainties” had emerged in the international environment—possibly a reference to fresh U.S. sanctions on Chinese high-tech companies and fashion-industry boycotts of Chinese cotton.

Hong Kong democracy leaders given jail terms amid crackdown (AP) Nine of Hong Kong’s leading pro-democracy advocates were sentenced to jail terms Friday for organizing a march during the 2019 anti-government protests that triggered an overwhelming crackdown from Beijing. Those sentenced include the city’s so-called “father of democracy” Martin Lee as well as pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai. They were found guilty earlier this month of organizing and participating in a massive protest in August 2019, where an estimated 1.7 million people marched in opposition to a bill that would have allowed suspects to be extradited to mainland China for trial. The protest was not authorized by the police. Their convictions and sentencing were the latest blow to the city’s flagging democracy movement, amid an ongoing crackdown by Beijing and Hong Kong authorities on dissent in the semi-autonomous Chinese city.

Up to 65,000 people on the run in northeast Nigeria after attack: U.N. (Reuters) Up to 65,000 people in northeastern Nigeria are on the run after an attack by armed groups on Wednesday in which 8 people were killed and at least a dozen injured, the U.N. refugee agency said on Friday. “Following the latest attack on Wednesday 14 April, the third in just seven days, up to 80 per cent of the town’s population —which includes the local community and internally displaced people— were forced to flee,” Babar Baloch of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told a Geneva briefing. Local officials and a resident said on Wednesday that suspected Islamists attacked the northeast Nigerian border town of Damasak, killing at least eight people and causing hundreds to flee to neighbouring Niger.

#headlines #news

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