Monday, July 28, 2014

Some long needed music here !


Back here - sorry letting you wait.

The stupid discussions about universal suffrage, MacDonalds Scandal, fake school books, Jimmy Lai's "donations" - nice. The daily & livelyhood problems not addressed at all. Here a copy about that DONATION STORY: Friday, July 25, 2014, 09:03 ICAC, IRD alerted to Lai’s donations By Timothy Chui in Hong Kong Additional complaints were filed on Thursday with the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC), police and the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) over secret donations totaling tens of millions of dollars made by a media tycoon to various political parties and figures in the opposition camp. A paper trail extending to more than 900 pages of leaked documents detailing Jimmy Lai Chee-ying’s activities, has revealed undisclosed donations from Lai, founder and chairman of Next Media, to several opposition figures and six lawmakers. They included members of the Democratic Party and Civic Party. Nearly all the payments were in the six-figure range, with the highest amounting to HK$500,000 in the case of opposition lawmakers Leung Kwok-hung and Lee Cheuk-yan. Lawmakers are required to declare donations in excess of HK$10,000 within 14 days. It is believed none of the implicated opposition lawmakers fulfilled this requirement. Tuen Mun District Councilor Chan Wan-sang lodged an ICAC complaint on Thursday and told China Daily the watchdog needed to scrutinize the 2012 election bids of Civic Party members Claudia Mo Man-ching and Tanya Chan Suk-chong as well as the Democratic Party’s James To Kun-sun. They had all failed to disclose donations totaling HK$1.5 million from Lai which Chan Wan-sang said constituted a breach of bribery laws. An ICAC spokesman declined to discuss individual cases but noted the commission will follow up the matter in accordance with the law. Concern group the Voice of Loving Hong Kong forwarded complaints to the city’s taxmen, graft busters and police as pressure mounts on opposition leaders to explain the millions of dollars in donations. Meanwhile, the suitability of Emily Lau Wai-hing as the head of the Legislative Council’s (LegCo) committee for enforcing investigations into conflicts of interest has been called into question. This is because her own political party has also been implicated in having received some of the millions of dollars worth of undeclared donations. On Wednesday, a coalition of Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions (HKFTU) lawmakers called for a LegCo investigation into the matter. Emily Lau, deputy chairwoman of the LegCo Committee on Members’ Interests, has been slated to lead this investigation because committee chairman Ip Kwok-him is on leave. Lau has pledged to call a meeting to discuss whether the legislature should look into the more than HK$10 million of donations made by media tycoon Jimmy Lai. These include payments to various opposition lawmakers. HKFTU lawmaker Wong Kwok-hing noted on Thursday that Lau’s position as chairwoman of the Democratic Party could constitute a conflict of interest and prove problematic if lawmakers are to scrutinize the donations. Wong said it would be improper for Lau to lead an investigation into colleagues from her own party. tim@chinadailyhk.com