Tourism in trouble: Hong Kong demonstrations hit economy

Agencies
August 12, 2019

Hong Kong, Aug 12: Empty hotel rooms, struggling shops and even disruption at Disneyland: months of protests in Hong Kong have taken a major toll on the city's economy, with no end in sight.

City leader Carrie Lam has warned that the international financial hub is facing an economic crisis worse than either the 2003 SARS outbreak that paralysed Hong Kong or the 2008 financial crisis.

"The situation this time is more severe," she said. "In other words, the economic recovery will take a very long time."

The private sector, in particular the tourism industry, has begun counting the cost of more than two months of demonstrations that erupted in opposition to a bill allowing extraditions to China but have morphed into a broader pro-democracy movement.

The figures are stark: hotel occupancy rates are down "double-digit" percentages, as were visitor arrivals in July. Group tour bookings from the short-haul market have plunged up to 50 percent.

"In recent months, what has happened in Hong Kong has indeed put local people's livelihoods as well as the economy in a worrying, or even dangerous situation," warned Edward Yau, Hong Kong's secretary for commerce and economic development.

The city's tourism industry says it feels under siege.

"I think the situation is getting more and more serious," Jason Wong, chairman of the Travel Industry Council of Hong Kong, told AFP.

The impact is so bad that travel agents are considering putting staff on unpaid leave as they try to weather the storm, he warned.

Even Disneyland hit

Images of increasingly violent clashes between masked protesters and police firing tear gas in the city's streets have made global headlines, with protesters announcing new demonstrations throughout August as they press their demands.

A Hong Kong Tourism Board spokesperson told AFP that the number of forward bookings in August and September has "dropped significantly," suggesting the economic toll will linger throughout the summer season.

A string of travel warnings issued by countries including the United States, Australia and Japan is likely to compound the industry's woes.

The fall in arrivals has hurt Hong Kong's carrier Cathay Pacific, which was also forced to cancel flights this week during a general strike that caused chaos in the city.

And even Disneyland Hong Kong has been hit, with CEO Bob Iger telling reporters: "We have seen an impact from the protests."

"There's definitely been disruption. That has impacted our visitation there."

The retail sector has also been hit by the drop in arriving visitors hunting for bargains, shops often forced to shutter during the sometimes daily protests.

Experts say the crisis is compounding the economic downturn Hong Kong was already experiencing as a result of being caught up in the US-China trade war.

It's a "double whammy," warned Stephen Innes, Managing Partner of Valour Markets."

"We always take a view that oh, this too will pass. But so far that view is not holding any water... and now it seems like every weekend we're dealing with further escalations," he told AFP.

'Nastier than expected'

The property market, which fell over 20 percent during the 2008 financial crash, remains strong.

But Innes warned that the deepening crisis could result in capital outflows.

"All the money from the mainland that has propped up Hong Kong property markets could reverse as quickly as it flowed in," he said.

"This is getting a little bit nastier than any of us had expected."

The economic picture for the city was far from pretty even before the protests began, with growth shrinking from 4.6 percent to 0.6 percent year-on-year in the first quarter -- the worst quarterly performance in a decade.

Preliminary data suggests the second quarter fared no better, and while the government still hopes for 2-3 percent growth this year, predictions from major banks are more pessimistic.

Those falls reflect the effects of the US-China trade war on an economy that relies heavily on logistics processing and is vulnerable to a fall in trade.

The impact of the protests on growth will not be clear until later in the year, but Martin Rasmussen, China Economist at Capital Economics, said the crisis was likely to weigh heavily.

"In the beginning they were quite peaceful, you could say comparable to the protests back in 2014," he said, referring to pro-democracy Umbrella Movement in the city.

"Now they've become much more extreme, so we think the impact on the economy will begin to take its toll."

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News Network
March 4,2020

Tokyo, Mar 4: Takeda Pharmaceutical Co said on Wednesday it was developing a drug to treat COVID-19, the flu-like illness that has struck more than 90,000 people worldwide and killed over 3,000.

The Japanese drugmaker is working on a plasma-derived therapy to treat high-risk individuals infected with the new coronavirus and will share its plans with members of the U.S. Congress on Wednesday, it said in a statement.

Takeda is also studying whether its currently marketed and pipeline products may be effective treatments for infected patients.

"We will do all that we can to address the novel coronavirus threat...(and) are hopeful that we can expand the treatment options," Rajeev Venkayya, president of Takeda's vaccine business, said in the statement.

Takeda said it was in talks with various health and regulatory agencies and healthcare partners in the United States, Asia and Europe to move forward its research into the drug.

Its research requires access to the blood of people who have recovered from the respiratory disease or who have been vaccinated, once a vaccine is developed, Takeda said.

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Agencies
January 10,2020

New York, Jan 10: The US's National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) announced that it has accepted an invitation from Tehran to participate in its investigation into the crash of a Ukrainian plane amid speculations that an Iranian missile might have brought down the plane.

The federal agency said in a statement on Thursday that the Iran Civil Aviation Organization has notified them that they could take part in the investigation of the plane crash that occurred shortly after taking off from Tehran on Wednesday, killing all 176 people on board, reports the Efe news.

"The NTSB has designated an accredited representative to the investigation of the crash," said the independent US government agency tasked with investigating transport accidents.

Since the aircraft was a US-made Boeing 737-800, international regulations allow Washington to be a part of the accident investigation.

However, it remains unclear to what extent the NTSB representative will be able to play an active role in the probe, as US sanctions complicate cooperation with Iran, and the two countries have no diplomatic relations.

The NTSB announcement came hours after US intelligence sources told several media outlets that the Kiev-bound Ukrainian International Airlines (UIA) flight 752 could have been accidentally shot down by an Iranian missile.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau later confirmed that his government had "evidence" indicating that the aircraft "was shot down by an Iranian surface to air missile", although he added it may have been unintentional.

The accident occurred on the same day after Iran launched more than a dozen ballistic missiles at two US military bases in Iraq, in retaliation for the killing of Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani in an American drone attack in Baghdad on January 3.

However, the Iranian authorities have denied that they had accidentally shot down the plane and claimed the accusations were a part of a psychological warfare campaign against Tehran.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said they welcomed the presence of experts from countries whose citizens have died in the tragic accident, and requested Trudeau and any other government to provide any information they had regarding the crash.

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Agencies
June 27,2020

Washington, Jun 27: Facebook has said that it will flag all "newsworthy" posts from politicians that break its rules, including those from President Donald Trump.

Separately, Facebook's stock dropped more than 8 per cent, erasing roughly USD 50 billion from its market valuation, after the European company behind brands such as Ben & Jerry's and Dove announced it would boycott Facebook ads through the end of the year over the amount of hate speech and divisive rhetoric on its platform.

Later in the day, Coca-Cola also announced it joined the boycott for at least 30 days.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg had previously refused to take action against Trump posts suggesting that mail-in ballots will lead to voter fraud, saying that people deserved to hear unfiltered statements from political leaders.

Twitter, by contrast, slapped a "get the facts" label on them.

Until Friday, Trump's posts with identical wording to those labelled on Twitter remained untouched on Facebook, sparking criticism from Trump's opponents as well as current and former Facebook employees.

Now, Facebook is all but certain to face off with the president the next time he posts something the company deems to be violating its rules.

"The policies we're implementing today are designed to address the reality of the challenges our country is facing and how they're showing up across our community," Zuckerberg wrote on his Facebook page announcing the changes.

Zuckerberg said the social network is taking additional steps to counter election-related misinformation.

In particular, the social network will begin adding new labels to all posts about voting that will direct users to authoritative information from state and local election officials.

Facebook is also banning false claims intended to discourage voting, such as stories about federal agents checking legal status at polling places.

The company also said it is increasing its enforcement capacity to remove false claims about local polling conditions in the 72 hours before the US election.

Ethan Zuckerman, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Center for Civic Media, said the changes are a "reminder of how powerful Facebook may be in terms of spreading disinformation during the upcoming election".

He said the voting labels will depend on how good Facebook's artificial intelligence is at identifying posts to label.

"If every post that mentions voting links, people will start ignoring those links. If they're targeted to posts that say things like 'Police will be checking warrants and unpaid traffic tickets at polls' a classic voter suppression disinfo tactic and clearly mark posts as disinfo, they might be useful," he said.

But Zuckerman noted that Facebook "has a history of trying hard not to alienate right-leaning users, and given how tightly President Trump has aligned himself with voter-suppressing misinfo, it seems likely that Facebook will err on the side of non-intrusive and ignorable labels, which would minimize impact of the campaign."

Earlier in the day, shares of Facebook and Twitter dropped sharply after consumer-product maker Unilever announced a new ad boycott on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram through at least the end of the year.

The European company said it took the move to protest the amount of hate speech online.

Unilever said the polarised atmosphere in the United States ahead of November's presidential election placed responsibility on brands to act.

In addition to the decline in Facebook shares, Twitter ended the day more than 7 per cent lower.

Unilever, which is based in the Netherlands and Britain, joins a raft of other advertisers pulling back from online platforms.

Facebook in particular has been the target of an escalating movement to withhold advertising dollars to pressure it to do more to prevent racist and violent content from being shared on its platform.

"We have decided that starting now through at least the end of the year, we will not run brand advertising in social media newsfeed platforms Facebook, Instagram and Twitter in the U.S.," Unilever said.

"Continuing to advertise on these platforms at this time would not add value to people and society."

Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment. On Thursday, Verizon joined others in the Facebook boycott.

Unilever "has enough influence to persuade other brand advertisers to follow its lead," said eMarketer analyst Nicole Perrin.

She noted that Unilever pulled back spending "for longer, on more platforms (including Twitter) and for more expansive reasons" in particular, by citing problems with "divisiveness" as well as hate speech.

Sarah Personette, vice president of global client solutions at Twitter, said the company's "mission is to serve the public conversation and ensure Twitter is a place where people can make human connections, seek and receive authentic and credible information, and express themselves freely and safely."

She added that Twitter is "respectful of our partners' decisions and will continue to work and communicate closely with them during this time."

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