Hong Kong saw net outflow of 90000 residents over the past year - The Straits Times

HONG KONG (AFP) - Hong Kong's population declined by 1.2 per cent in the past year, including nearly 90,000 more residents departing than moving to the city, figures released on Thursday (Aug 12) showed.

This comes as Beijing cracked down on dissent, and the Covid-19 pandemic kept the finance hub sealed off.

The population decrease continues the largest decline since the city began keeping comparable records in 1961 and comes during a period of intense political turmoil.

Mid-year population estimates for 2021 showed Hong Kong's population stands at 7,394,700 - a decrease of 87,100 (1.2 per cent) from the same time last year.

End-of-year figures for Hong Kong in 2020 also showed a 1.2 per cent decline, and Thursday's numbers suggest there has been no respite in the drop-off.

Hong Kong had recorded a year of population decline only once before, by 0.2 per cent after the severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) epidemic in 2003.

The city houses a rapidly ageing society, with deaths over the last year outstripping births by 11,800.

But the government data also revealed a new cause for population decline - more residents leaving than arriving.

The figures showed a net outflow of 89,200 Hong Kong residents for the period.

That is over four times higher than the 20,900 outflow recorded for the same mid-year period in 2020.

In 2018, Hong Kong recorded an inflow of 8,500, and in 2019, this figure was 23,000.

Hong Kong has kept coronavirus infections low by closing itself off to non-residents for most of the pandemic.

The move has kept people safe but crippled the travel industry and made it difficult for both residents and expats to see loved ones overseas.

Thousands of Hong Kongers have also packed their bags to escape a broad crackdown on dissent in response to huge and often violent democracy protests two years ago.

Over the spring and summer, the airport witnessed frequent tearful farewells as residents boarded flights, mostly to Britain, which has said it will offer a pathway to citizenship for many Hong Kongers, in response to Beijing's crackdown.

Hong Kong's airport witnessed frequent tearful farewells over the spring and summer. PHOTO: AFP

The Hong Kong government does not keep official statistics of how many have left the city for good, but figures point to some sort of exodus taking place.

Around 1,500 Hong Kongers on average were leaving via the airport each day in July, up from around 800 in the first half of the year and despite the pandemic throttling international travel.

Early withdrawals from the city's mandatory pension fund - which can be made only when someone departs permanently - have also soared in the last 12 months.

Hong Kong's government has repeatedly brushed off the departures, saying many will one day return and those who leave can be replaced with Chinese mainlanders.

Hong Kong previously saw large numbers of residents depart in the run-up to the 1997 handover to China and after Beijing's deadly 1989 Tiananmen crackdown.

However, the overall population did not decline and many returned.

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2021-08-12 12:48:37Z
CAIiEJoos-zVEZW3mvvIoLs88DYqGQgEKhAIACoHCAow_7X3CjCh49YCMMa2pwU

Overcrowding due to misunderstanding over walk-in immunisation, says KL COVID-19 vaccination centre - CNA

KUALA LUMPUR: Large gathering of foreigners at a vaccination centre at Rumah Prihatin @ Grand Seasons on Wednesday (Aug 11) was because of a misunderstanding that it provided walk-in COVID-19 vaccination for non-Malaysians, said its management.

The management of the centre said that it only provided walk-in vaccination for Malaysians, with priority given to senior citizens, persons with disabilities, as well as marginalised and vulnerable groups.

Bernama reported that walk-in vaccination for foreigners was being carried out at the vaccination centre in Bukit Jalil and not at Rumah Prihatin @ Grand Seasons.

In a statement, the vaccination centre management said it had taken action to disperse the crowd but they refused to budge despite being given warnings.

However, the situation was eventually brought under control with the help of police and officers from the Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL), it added. 

“The vaccination programme is managed by Rumah Prihatin under the MyMedik Vaccination Programme @ Wilayah and it did not involve other parties. We regret what happened and will further improve compliance with the standard operating procedures (SOPs) to ensure this incident does not recur,” said the statement.

A seven-minute and 15-second video had gone viral on social media  since Wednesday, showing large crowds gathering in the compound of the centre with no physical distancing.

Many expressed fears that they might cause further outbreaks of infections in the country which is already struggling with rising daily COVID-19 cases. Malaysia reported yet another record high of 21,668 cases on Thursday.  

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2021-08-12 10:03:25Z
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Taliban move closer to Afghan capital after taking Ghazni city - CNA

KABUL: The Taliban seized the strategic Afghan city of Ghazni on Thursday (Aug 12), just 150km from Kabul, their most important gain in a lightning offensive that has seen them overrun 10 provincial capitals in a week.

The interior ministry confirmed the fall of the city, which lies along the major Kabul-Kandahar highway and serves as a gateway between the capital and militant strongholds in the south.

"The enemy took control," spokesman Mirwais Stanikzai said in a message to media, adding later the city's governor had been arrested by Afghan security forces.

Pro-Taliban Twitter feeds showed video of him being escorted out of Ghazni by Taliban fighters and sent on his way in a convoy, prompting speculation in the capital that the government was angered with how the provincial administration capitulated.

As security forces retreated across the country, Kabul handed a proposal to Taliban negotiators in Qatar offering a power-sharing deal in return for an end to fighting, according to a member of the government's team in Doha who asked not to be named.

A second negotiator, Ghulam Farooq Majroh, said the Taliban had been given an offer about a "government of peace" without providing more specifics.

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2021-08-12 12:30:57Z
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Malaysia PM Muhyiddin to stick to confidence vote next month; fresh polls a 'last resort' - The Straits Times

KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia's Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin is resisting demands to bring forward a parliamentary confidence vote from next month, despite the King joining the chorus of calls for the embattled Premier to prove his majority.

The Straits Times understands that consecutive meetings were held with party chiefs of his Perikatan Nasional (PN) government on Wednesday evening (Aug 11)  - first at the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and then at his residence - to discuss internal matters, as well as the best plan of action moving forward.

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2021-08-12 09:55:50Z
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China mahjong dens were Covid-19 superspreader sites, spurring crackdown - The Straits Times

BEIJING (BLOOMBERG) - A favourite pastime of elderly Asians has been implicated as a major driver of China's current outbreak of Delta virus cases, sparking the shutdown of tens of thousands of mahjong dens across the country.

The so-called chess and card rooms, where hundreds of elderly people gather in packed and poorly ventilated spaces primarily to play mahjong, were how a 64-year-old woman surnamed Mao spread the Delta variant in the eastern city of Yangzhou, seeding the biggest single outbreak in China's ongoing wave of infections.

Local officials in Jiangsu province, where Yangzhou is located, have now shut down more than 45,000 chess and card rooms, and  the authorities in Beijing and at least four other hard-hit provinces - Henan, Zhejiang, Hunan and Heilongjiang - have followed suit.

The spread of the virus through these mahjong dens despite China's rigorous measures and fast vaccine roll-out reflects the challenges posed by underground social sites across the region.

From hostess bars in Japan, to social dancing clubs in Hong Kong and karaoke lounges in Singapore, these locales have stymied governments which are some of the most successful in the world at containment.

In China's case, Madam Mao had travelled from the nearby city of Nanjing, where China's Delta outbreak first started, to a relative's home in Yangzhou, where she played mahjong in several chess and card rooms before being diagnosed with Covid-19, said local media reports.

One of the rooms that Madam Mao visited had a nondescript facade and small entrance, but opened into a cavernous basement that could accommodate around 100 mahjong tables.

In the week after her diagnosis, nearly a hundred people in Yangzhou contracted the virus, with 64 per cent of them exposed in mahjong rooms, and nearly 70 per cent of them aged 60 years and older.

The Yangzhou cluster has escalated in severity because only 40 per cent of local elderly people were vaccinated; among the 448 people who have been sickened, 23 have developed severe disease and 12 are in critical condition, raising the prospect of China's first Covid-19 related fatality in nearly seven months.

The mahjong cluster is Yangzhou's first serious outbreak since the pandemic began, and inexperienced officials have already been punished for mishandling the response.

Mass testing efforts - the city's 4.5 million population has undergone six rounds of testing - resulted in more than 40 people infected while waiting in line to be swabbed.

The current Delta outbreak across China has seen more than 1,000 symptomatic infections in less than a month, with cases reaching as far south as Hainan and as far north as Heilongjiang.

Though more than 60 per cent of the population has been vaccinated, the government has defaulted to targeted lockdowns, transport controls and mass testing, insisting that China must stamp out all infection to protect lives, even as many other countries accept that the virus will be endemic.

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2021-08-12 04:12:01Z
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Extreme weather will be a bigger drag on China’s growth than earlier thought - South China Morning Post

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Extreme weather will be a bigger drag on China’s growth than earlier thought  South China Morning PostView Full coverage on Google News
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2021-08-12 04:04:19Z
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Viral video of 'hugging queue' for Covid-19 vaccine in Malaysia sparks outcry - The Straits Times

KUALA LUMPUR - A viral video showing a group of people queueing in tight proximity to one another outside a vaccination centre in Kuala Lumpur has sparked an outcry and raised concerns of further outbreaks in a country where the authorities are already struggling to bring down the stubbornly high daily Covid-19 cases and deaths.

The seven-minute video, apparently taken outside the Rumah Prihatin @ Grand Seasons hotel public vaccination centre showed people queuing up so closely that at some point, they looked like they were hugging one another.

The video, posted on Instagram on Wednesday (Aug 11), has prompted Deputy Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob to urge the relevant authorities to take action.

"I am shocked to see the video of the situation at the Rumah Prihatin Hotel Grand Seasons... today, which was so crowded. The standard operating procedures (SOPs) have been flouted.

"I hope the authorities can ensure situations where foreign workers are crammed like this will not occur again because it can cause an outbreak.

"I will contact the relevant ministries and the police so that this incident can be handled immediately," Datuk Seri Ismail said in a posting on his Instagram account on Wednesday.

In the video, a man was seen to be dismounting his motorcycle on the side of a road before shouting at the crowd to maintain physical distance. He also asked the patrol officers at the scene to intervene, and made a plea to International Trade and Industries Minister Azmin Ali to "do something", as he said many of those waiting in line appeared to be foreigners.

Later in the video, the man said the police had complained about his motorcycle being parked illegally when they should be more concerned about the long line of people who broke Covid-19 safety protocols.

"Why are you busying yourself with my motorcycle parked on the yellow line, but not the thousands who were queueing like they were hugging one another?" he asked.

"Why do the people in power - from ministers to police - not know how to exercise their powers in situations like this?

"People are dying. Fathers, mothers, children - all these people are dying. Use your powers," the man, visibly upset and in tears, implored as he talked to the camera.

The video, posted on Instagram on Wednesday, has garnered more than four million views. The vast majority of the around 11,000 comments on the post supported the man.

In a separate statement, police said they have deployed a compliance team to control the situation at the PPV.

"Word has been spread to the public in attendance to observe social distancing and wear face masks, as stated in the SOPs.

"The compliance team successfully controlled the situation at the centre until the vaccination programme was over," Dang Wangi district police chief Noor Dellhan Yahaya was quoted by the Malaysiakini news portal as saying.

The hotel on Wednesday attributed the long queue to a misunderstanding that it would provide walk-in vaccination for non-Malaysians.

The crowd had refused to leave despite being asked to disperse by the police, said Rumah Prihatin @ Grand Seasons, which is a charity hotel set up to provide meals, beds, counselling services and vaccines to people affected by the pandemic.

This was due to a misunderstanding "that Rumah Prihatin provides a walk-in vaccine service for non-citizens", it said in a statement, as quoted by the Malay Mail news portal.

"As a result, an unanticipated 'rush crowd' occurred."

The only public vaccination centre accepting walk-in vaccinations for non-Malaysians is at the Bukit Jalil National Stadium, the hotel added.

The man and his wife, who reportedly shot the video, said they returned to the hotel less than an hour later and saw a sizeable number of people remaining outside without social distancing being observed, though the crowd appeared to be smaller.

Malaysia recorded another 20,780 infections on Wednesday, bringing the total number of cases to 1.3 million since the start of the pandemic.

There were 211 new deaths reported on Wednesday. The current death toll from Covid-19 in Malaysia stands at 11,373.

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2021-08-12 03:40:45Z
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