"China’s biggest manager of bad debt said Thursday that it had attracted about $2.4 billion from eight investors, including Goldman Sachs and Warburg Pincus, before an expected initial public offering here."
Makes these protests look fooli$h:
"China blocks open vote in Hong Kong; Activists to stage protests in city’s financial district" by Jack Chang | Associated Press September 01, 2014
BEIJING — China’s Legislature ruled out allowing open nominations in the inaugural election for Hong Kong’s chief executive on Sunday, saying they would create a ‘‘chaotic society.’’ Democracy activists in the Asian financial hub responded by saying that a long-threatened mass occupation of the heart of the city ‘‘will definitely happen.’’
In setting tight limits on how far electoral reforms can go in Hong Kong, Beijing issued its firmest reminder yet that it is still in charge despite the substantial autonomy it promised the city after taking control from Britain in 1997.
The guidelines laid down by China’s communist leaders ratchet up the potential for a showdown pitting Beijing against Hong Kong democracy supporters, a group that represents a broad swath of society, including students, religious leaders, and financial workers.
The decision by the Legislature’s powerful Standing Committee sharpens fears that China wants to screen candidates for loyalty to the central government and is reneging on its promise to let Hong Kong’s leader be directly elected by voters, rather than a committee of mostly pro-Beijing tycoons.
‘‘At this very moment, the path of dialogue has been exhausted,’’ said Benny Tai, a leader of the Occupy Central with Love and Peace protest movement, which has vowed to rally at least 10,000 people to paralyze Hong Kong’s financial district — known as Central — to press demands for democracy.
Looks like war to me.
The group will launch ‘‘wave after wave of protest action’’ in the coming weeks ‘‘until we get to a point when we launch the all-out Occupy Central action,’’ Tai told reporters. University students are also planning to boycott classes next month.
Thousands of people gathered in a park across from Hong Kong government headquarters Sunday evening to protest the widely expected announcement, chanting slogans and waving their cellphones.
Earlier in the day, Li Fei, deputy secretary general of the National People’s Congress’ Standing Committee, told a news conference in Beijing that openly nominating candidates for the city’s chief executive would create a ‘‘chaotic society.’’
Under the Legislature’s guidelines, a maximum of three candidates, each approved by more than half of a 1,200-member nominating committee, will be put forth to Hong Kong’s 5 million eligible voters in 2017. The public will have no say in choosing candidates, raising fears of what some have termed ‘‘fake democracy.’’
They sound like state conventions to pick candidates for the ballot in Massachusetts.
‘‘These rights come from laws; they don’t come from the sky,’’ Li said. ‘‘Many Hong Kong people have wasted a lot of time discussing things that are not appropriate and aren’t discussing things that are appropriate.’’
Sorry.
Making clear that Chinese leaders intend to tightly control politics in Hong Kong, Li emphasized that candidates for chief executive should be loyal to China’s Communist Party.
‘‘He has to be responsible to Hong Kong and to the central government,’’ Li said. ‘‘If Hong Kong’s chief executive doesn’t love the country and love the party, then that can’t work in one country.’’
Under the principle of ‘‘one country, two systems,’’ Hong Kong is granted a high degree of control over its own affairs and civil liberties unseen on the mainland.
Occupy Central said the plan to block the Central financial district was ‘‘the last resort, an action to be taken only if all chances of dialogue have been exhausted and there is no other choice.’’ It said that ‘‘the occupation of Central will definitely happen,’’ without specifying a date.
Hong Kong’s government still needs to hold more consultations on Beijing’s guidelines and then formulate a bill that has to be passed by a two-thirds majority in the city’s Legislature. Occupy Central urged legislators, who hold just over a third of seats, to vote against it and ‘‘start the constitutional reform process all over again.’’
But the city’s leader, Leung Chun-ying, warned that if the proposal is blocked, it would fall to the nomination committee to pick a leader, and the city ‘‘would be deprived of the voting right that they would otherwise be entitled.’’
‘‘The decision on the nomination committee is very hypocritical,’’ said Christine Chu, who joined the prodemocracy rally Sunday night. ‘‘This is not true universal suffrage, so we cannot accept this result. We will do whatever we can to fight for what we want.’’
--more--"
"3 Chinese inmates kill guard, break out of jail" Associated Press September 03, 2014
BEIJING — Chinese authorities set up checkpoints and offered a reward of $48,000 for three inmates who killed a guard, donned police uniforms, and escaped Tuesday in a rare jailbreak.
Police were searching for the fugitives after they escaped from Yanshou detention center outside Harbin in northeastern China, the Communist Party’s People’s Daily newspaper said on its website.
The newspaper earlier said two of the men had been captured but later retracted that report.
An arrest warrant issued by provincial police said that the men, identified as Gao Yulun, Wang Damin, and Li Haiwei, were unarmed at the time of the jailbreak and that officials were offering a reward of $16,000 for information leading to the capture of each man.
The men killed the guard, and were wearing police jackets and shirts as they left the detention center, the warrant said.
A guard who answered the phone at the detention center said he was not permitted to answer questions, and calls to the county’s Communist Party propaganda office rang unanswered.
Speaking of propaganda....
--more--"
