Hong Kong Stocks Trade Higher, But Shanghai Weak

HONG KONG –  Hong Kong stocks rose in early trading Friday, with the Hang Seng Index up 0.4% at 21,505.21. Chinese developers were mixed, as a state-run newspaper reported sluggish property-market activity in China’s largest cities during the Lunar New Year holiday amid worries that the government may further tighten controls to cool real estate prices. Beijing North Star Co. Ltd. dropped 0.6%, China Overseas Land & Investment Ltd. lost 0.5%, and China Resources Land Ltd. fell 0.9%. Two of China’s largest residential developers — Vanke Property Overseas Ltd. and Poly Property Group Co. Ltd. advanced, with Poly Property up 1.9% and Vanke adding 1.1%. Mobile carriers rose, as China Telecom Corp. Ltd gained 0.3% after being raised to outperform by Credit Suisse. China Unicom (Hong Kong) Ltd climbed 2.2%, and China Mobile Ltd. tacked on 0.7%. On the mainland, the Shanghai Composite Index declined 0.8% on the first day of trading after a seven-day break for the Lunar New Year. During the holiday, China released its official manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index for January, which slipped to a six-month low.

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Hong Kong Stocks Trade Higher, But Shanghai Weak

Hong Kong Sunset - Captured with DJI Phantoms and GoPros

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Hong Kong Sunset - Captured with DJI Phantoms and GoPros

Hong Kong Seizes Smuggled Elephant Tusks

HONG KONG — Customs officials in Hong Kong on Friday announced one of the largest seizures of smuggled ivory ever made in the city – and their fifth since last October — highlighting the pervasiveness of a trade that conservationists describe as an all-out crisis for elephant populations in Africa.

The shipment, consisting of 1,148 tusks weighing in at 4,800 pounds, was worth an estimated $ 2.25 million, according to a customs department statement.

The tusks were concealed in a container coming from the West African nation of Togo.

Rising affluence in Asia has caused demand for ivory and many other wildlife products to soar in recent years, putting many animal and plant species under severe pressure.

Despite rising awareness and warnings that poaching has pushed some species to the brink of extinction, enforcement and penalties often remain weak, and represent an insufficient deterrent to poachers and smugglers, wildlife experts say.

In the case of ivory, the demand stems mainly from China, where it is highly prized for its use in ornaments and sells for hundreds of U.S. dollars per kilogram on the black market.

Tens of thousands of elephants have been killed for their tusks in recent years in Africa, where the revenues from the poached ivory are believed to be fueling conflicts across the continent.

The fact that the number of large-scale shipments (nearly 1,800 pounds) has been on the increase also is indicative of organized criminal involvement, say experts at Traffic, an organization that monitors the trade in endangered wildlife.

Two other seizures made in Hong Kong in the past nine months weighed in at just over nearly 2,900, while a shipment intercepted last October weighed more than 8,300 pounds. All originated from Africa.

Hong Kong, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines are the main transit points within Asia for large ivory consignments arriving from Africa, Richard Thomas, a spokesman for Traffic, said in an e-mail on Friday.

NYT > Global Home

Hong Kong Seizes Smuggled Elephant Tusks

Carney: Snowden Leaving Hong Kong A "Setback" In U.S. Relations With China

JAY CARNEY: “I think as I just said, when it comes to our relations with Hong Kong and China that we see this as a setback in terms of their efforts to build, the Chinese, their efforts to build mutual trust. And our concerns, I think, are pretty clearly stated.”

RealClearPolitics Video Log

Carney: Snowden Leaving Hong Kong A "Setback" In U.S. Relations With China

Snowden says he will stay in Hong Kong and fight extradition

Photos of Edward Snowden, a contractor at the National Security Agency (NSA), and U.S. President Barack Obama are printed on the front pages of local English and Chinese newspapers in Hong Kong in this illustration photo June 11, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Bobby Yip

By John Whitesides

WASHINGTON | Wed Jun 12, 2013 12:04pm EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The National Security Agency contractor who revealed the government’s top-secret monitoring of phone and Internet data says he intends to stay in Hong Kong and fight any effort to bring him back to the United States to face charges.

Edward Snowden, in his first public comments since he dropped out of view in Hong Kong on Monday, said he did not travel to the former British colony to avoid punishment for leaking details of the surveillance program.

“I am not here to hide from justice. I am here to reveal criminality,” Snowden told the South China Morning Post, an English-language newspaper in Hong Kong, in an interview published on Wednesday.

“My intention is to ask the courts and people of Hong Kong to decide my fate,” Snowden said. “I have had many opportunities to flee Hong Kong, but I would rather stay and fight the United States government in the courts, because I have faith in Hong Kong’s rule of law.”

Snowden revealed details last week of the vast U.S. government monitoring of phone and Internet data at big companies such as Google Inc and Facebook Inc in leaks to Britain’s Guardian newspaper and the Washington Post.

The revelations have sparked a criminal investigation and an internal Obama administration review of the potential damage to national security, as pressure has grown from lawmakers and advocacy groups to impose tighter controls on domestic surveillance.

Snowden, who had been working at an NSA facility as an employee of contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, has drawn a mix of condemnation and praise for the revelations. The controversy ignited a renewed debate about the balance between privacy rights and security concerns in the United States in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks.

“I’m neither traitor nor hero. I’m an American,” Snowden told the newspaper.

Hong Kong has an extradition agreement with the United States that has been exercised on numerous occasions, but so far Snowden has not been publicly charged and the United States has not filed for his extradition.

In Washington, the head of the National Security Agency will appear before a U.S. Senate panel on Wednesday, offering the NSA’s first public testimony since the revelations of the surveillance programs.

General Keith Alexander, NSA director and head of U.S. Cyber Command, is expected to face pointed questions from the Senate Appropriations Committee. Alexander, who briefed senators on the issue behind closed doors on Tuesday, will be joined in the Senate budget hearing by other cybersecurity officials.

(Additional reporting by Susan Heavey and Deborah Charles; Editing by Karey Van Hall and Claudia Parsons)

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Reuters: Politics

Snowden says he will stay in Hong Kong and fight extradition

Hong Kong legal battle looms for NSA contractor

HONG KONG (Reuters) – A potential extradition tussle in Hong Kong over an American who has exposed the U.S. government’s top-secret surveillance programs could prove to be a test case for civil liberties in the financial hub controlled by China.

Reuters: Top News

Hong Kong legal battle looms for NSA contractor