Healthcare may trump Brexit in battle for British vote - Reuters

LONDON (Reuters) - As Britain’s “Brexit election” campaign swings into action, it may not be the country’s exit from the European Union which takes centre stage but another national obsession - the health service.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson greets and speaks to nurses at National Institute for Health Research at the Cambridge Clinical Research Facility, in Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge, Britain October 31, 2019. Alastair Grant/Pool via REUTERS

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has cast the Dec. 12 election as necessary to break the deadlock in parliament over Brexit, telling voters that only by returning his Conservatives with a majority can the country finally quit the European Union.

But many supporters of the opposition Labour Party, whose ambiguous position over Brexit has alienated some voters, believe the best chance of winning power is to focus the debate on other issues.

The state-run National Health Service (NHS), which has provided free at the point of use healthcare for more than 70 years, is a hugely emotive issue. Opinion polls consistently show voters cite it as the second biggest issue after Brexit.

Struggling under the pressure of record demand due to a growing and ageing population, as well as cut backs to social care services, the NHS has warned it faces a shortfall in funding despite government promises of extra money.

Despite its cherished status, complaints about long waiting times for consultations and operations, crumbling hospitals and staff shortages are a regular feature of public discourse.

Labour plan to make the NHS a big part of their campaign.

“This government has put our NHS into crisis, and this election is a once-in-a-generation chance to end privatisation in our NHS, give it the funding it needs,” Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said on Wednesday, attacking Johnson in parliament.

Corbyn’s central charge: the NHS is at risk of being sold off to American corporations in any post-Brexit trade deal Johnson’s government does with U.S. President Donald Trump.

“Labour won’t let Donald Trump get his hands on our National Health Service,” Corbyn said to cheers from the audience at his campaign launch in southwest London on Thursday.

“Quite bluntly, it’s not for sale,” he said, as the crowd rose to its feet and chanted: “Not for sale, not for sale.”

Johnson has repeatedly said the NHS would not be on the table in any trade talks but opposition lawmakers say they do not trust him.

Trump, who said during a visit to Britain in June that everything including health would be on the table in trade talks but then backtracked and said health would not be, told LBC radio that Corbyn’s claim was ridiculous and he did not know where it came from.

Asked about whether the health service would be up for grabs in trade talks, Trump said: “No, not at all, we wouldn’t even be involved in that, no.”

“No. It’s not for us to have anything to do with your healthcare system,” he said. “No, we’re just talking about trade.”

WINTER CRISIS?

The face of a “Leave” campaign which promised to spend the money Britain sends to the EU on the NHS instead, Johnson’s message to voters is he would deliver Brexit so Britain can move on to focus on priorities such as health, education and policing.

“BackBoris for more NHS funding so that you and your family get the care you need,” the Conservatives said on Twitter, as Johnson visited a hospital on his first day of campaigning. He has done at least 9 hospital visits since taking office in July.

During one such visit he was confronted by a Labour activist and father of a sick child, who said the care his baby daughter had received had not been acceptable and that the health service had been destroyed by the Conservatives.

The NHS led two newspaper front pages on Thursday, with the Labour-supporting Daily Mirror splashing: “Election warning: Boris and Trump plot NHS sell-off”, while the pro-Conservative Daily Mail read: “Poll: Boris more trusted than Corbyn on NHS”.

Created by a Labour government in 1948, the NHS is one of the biggest employers in the world and in 2019-20 is due to account for 166 billion pounds ($215.04 billion), or around 20 percent, of Britain’s annual public spending.

It has traditionally been strong ground for Labour, with polls usually showing them as more trusted on the NHS. A December election, Britain’s first winter vote since 1923, could play to that strength.

Pressure on the NHS increases during the winter months, adding to public concern and fuelling newspaper headlines about the annual “NHS winter crisis”.

“Most years you see a spike in the issues tracker for the NHS in the winter months as you get stories about winter crisis, waiting times going up,” said Chris Curtis, Political Research Manager at polling firm YouGov.

YouGov’s latest research showed 32 percent of voters viewed Labour as best able to handle the NHS, versus 26 percent for the Conservatives. In contrast, just 9 percent believed Labour was best on Brexit, compared to 24 percent for the Conservatives.

“It is much better for Labour to be focusing on the NHS than it is for them to be focusing on Brexit,” said Curtis. “It is very likely that that could end up helping Labour in this campaign.”

Many opinion polls give Johnson’s Conservatives a double digit lead over Labour, but it is early days in a six-week campaign.

At the last snap election, in 2017, Johnson’s predecessor Theresa May saw her party’s large poll lead all but evaporate during the campaign, ultimately losing her small majority in parliament on election day.

($1 = 0.77 pounds)

Additional reporting by Elizabeth Piper; editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Angus MacSwan

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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2019-11-01 09:47:20Z
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North Korea, emboldened by Trump peril and Chinese allies, tries harder line - Reuters

SEOUL (Reuters) - Successful sanctions evasion, economic lifelines from China and U.S. President Donald Trump’s impeachment woes may be among the factors that have emboldened North Korea in nuclear negotiations, analysts and officials say.

Both Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un continue to play up the personal rapport they say they developed during three face-to-face meetings. But North Korea has said in recent days that it is losing patience, giving the United States until the end of the year to change its negotiating stance.

North Korea has tested the limits of engagement with a string of missile launches, including two fired on Thursday, and experts warn that the lack of a concrete arms control agreement has allowed the country to continue producing nuclear weapons.

The missile tests have practical value for the North Korean military’s efforts to modernize its arsenal. But they also underscore Pyongyang’s increasingly belligerent position in the face of what it sees as an inflexible and hostile United States.

In a best-case scenario, Thursday’s launch was an attempt to make the December deadline feel more urgent to the U.S., said Andray Abrahamian, a visiting scholar with George Mason University Korea.

“Still, I think that Pyongyang has concluded they can do without a deal if they must,” he said. “The sad thing is I think that will lock in the current state of affairs, with its downsides for all stakeholders, for years to come.”

‘NOT SO PROMISING’

Trump’s reelection battle and the impeachment inquiry against him may have led Kim to overestimate North Korea’s leverage, said one diplomat in Seoul, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the negotiations.

“It looks like Kim has a serious delusion that he is capable of helping or ruining Trump’s reelection, but no one in Pyongyang can stand up to the unerring leader and say he’s mistaken – you don’t want to be dead,” the diplomat told Reuters. “And Trump is all Kim has. In order to denuclearize, Kim needs confidence that Trump will be reelected.”

The Americans, meanwhile, came into working-level talks on Oct. 5 in Stockholm with the position that North Korea must completely and irreversibly dismantle its nuclear program, and pushed for a moratorium on weapons tests as part of a first step, the diplomat said.

Although some media reports said the United States planned to propose temporarily lifting sanctions on coal and textile exports, the diplomat said the talks in Stockholm did not get into details.

“The U.S. can’t take the risk of easing sanctions first, having already given a lot of gifts to Kim without substantial progress on denuclearization, including summits,” the diplomat said. “Sanctions are basically all they have to press North Korea.”

When American negotiators tried to set a time for another round of talks, North Korean officials were uncooperative, the diplomat said.

“The prospects are not so promising,” the diplomat added.

ECONOMIC LIFELINES

Although United Nations sanctions remain in place, some trade with China appears to have increased, and political relations between Beijing and Pyongyang have improved dramatically.

Kim and China’s president, Xi Jinping, have met several times, and the two countries exchange delegations of government officials.

A huge influx of Chinese tourists over the past year appears to be a major source of cash for the North Korean government, according to research by Korea Risk Group, which monitors North Korea.

Korea Risk Group chief executive Chad O’Carroll estimates as many as 350,000 Chinese tourists have visited this year, potentially netting the North Korean authorities up to $175 million.

That’s more than North Korea was making from the Kaesong Industrial Complex - jointly operated with South Korea before it was shuttered in 2016 - and is almost certainly part of why Kim is showing less interest in U.S. proposals, O’Carroll said.

The United States and South Korea suggested tourism, rather than resuming the Kaesong operation, as a potential concession to the North after the failed second summit between Trump and Kim in Hanoi in February, the Seoul-based diplomat said.

“That’s based on the consensus that any sanctions relief should be immediately reversible, but once the 120-plus factories are put back in, it’s difficult to shut it down and pull them out again,” the diplomat said.

The United Nations, meanwhile, has reported that North Korea is successfully evading many of the sanctions, and that the government may have stolen as much as $2 billion through cyber attacks.

“Stockholm suggests Pyongyang is also fine with their ‘Chinese backstop’, i.e. whatever agreement they have on lax sanctions enforcement,” Abrahamian said. “I worry that instead of trying to get a deal, they think Trump will be more desperate for a win than he actually is and will miss the window.”

INTERNAL DEBATE

Trump and Kim’s second meeting abruptly fell apart when both sides refused to budge, with North Korea demanding wide-ranging sanctions relief and the Americans insisting on concrete disarmament steps.

“It’s very clear that the failure of Hanoi triggered a debate inside North Korea about whether Kim’s path - moving down the road to denuclearization - was the right way to go,” said Joel Wit, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center in Washington.

For now, North Korea seems inclined to avoid engaging further with the United States or South Korea until they make more concessions, Wit said.

FILE PHOTO: People watch a TV broadcast showing a file footage for a news report on North Korea firing two projectiles, possibly missiles, into the sea between the Korean peninsula and Japan, in Seoul, South Korea, October 31, 2019. REUTERS/Heo Ran/File Photo

Other analysts are skeptical that Kim will ever give up his hard-won nuclear weapons, but say the opportunity for even a limited arms control deal may be slipping away.

“North Korea appears to be interested only in a deal under its terms to the exact letter,” said Duyeon Kim, with the Washington-based Center for a New American Security.

“Pyongyang is able to demand more, be tougher, and raise the bar because its confidence comes from  qualitative and quantitative advancements in its nuclear weapons,” Kim said.

Reporting by Josh Smith. Editing by Gerry Doyle

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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2019-11-01 08:19:45Z
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China's top political body met in secret and issued an ominous message to Hong Kong - CNN

It also came with a stark message for Hong Kong.

The four-day plenum, which ended Thursday, came at a time of huge pressure on Chinese President X Jinping's government, including an ongoing trade war with the United States, a slowing domestic economy and violent protests in the former British colony.

The official communique only contained broad references to "increasing challenges at home and abroad." No definite plans or new policies were presented by the lengthy document.

One thing that was made clear though was that Xi is still firmly in charge, despite the recent troubles.

"The plenary session calls for the entire party and peoples of all nationalities to unite more closely around the Party Central Committee with comrade Xi Jinping as the core," the statement said.

The Communist Party Central Committee's almost 400 members meet semi-annually to formulate new policy and approve personnel changes at the top level of government. The committee met for its fourth plenum in Beijing this week.

Among praise for the government and Communist Party buzzwords, there was an ominous message from the Chinese government for Hong Kong protesters, now in their 21st week of demonstrations.

"We must establish and improve the legal system and enforcement mechanism for safeguarding national security in (Hong Kong and Macao)," the official statement read.

Safeguarding national security

Hong Kong has now been a thorn in the Chinese government's side for more than four months.

Mass protests which began over a controversial China extradition law have grown into more violent demonstrations over fears around Beijing's tightening grip on the important financial hub.

Until now, the Chinese government has been relatively restrained on the protests, stating their support for the Hong Kong government and their faith in local authorities to resolve the crisis.

But there have been hints of tougher action by Beijing if the demonstrations grew out of control or if they crossed any of the Communist Party's "bottom lines."

"Don't ever misjudge the situation and mistake our restraint for weakness," Yang Guang, spokesman for mainland China's Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office, said in August.

It is almost certain that the situation in Hong Kong was widely discussed behind closed doors in Beijing during the fourth plenum this week but very little of that appears in the final communique.

"Hong Kong and Macao must be governed in strict accordance with the Constitution and the Basic Law, and the long-term prosperity and stability of Hong Kong and Macao should be safeguarded," the statement said.

It then stated the need to "improve" the legal system and enforcement mechanism in Hong Kong and Macao.

That is likely to be a euphemism for enacting Hong Kong's hugely controversial Article 23 national security law, according to Willy Lam, an adjunct professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and longtime analyst of Chinese politics.

"Of course we don't have hard and fast evidence but I think a logical conclusion would be the introduction of Article 23," Lam said, adding that Chinese officials had been pushing for it behind closed doors for some time.

Part of the Basic Law, Hong Kong's de facto constitution, Article 23 calls on the local government to "enact laws on its own to prohibit any act of treason, secession, sedition, subversion against the Central People's Government."

But attempts to bring it into force in 2003 led to massive protests and it hasn't been touched since.

"It would be very divisive, especially after what happened in the past four or five months," Lam said. "If Beijing were to introduce Article 23, then the stormy weather will be back. It will exacerbate conditions."

Xi triumphant

The Communist Party's plenum meetings are one of the country's main forums for major changes of party policy and have previously changed the course of Chinese history.

In 1978, it was during a plenum that then-Paramount Leader Deng Xiaoping began the policy of economic opening which would turn China into an economic powerhouse.

It was at the second plenum in January 2018 that the Communist Party agreed to remove term limits on the office of the Chinese presidency, effectively allowing Xi to remain president for life.

In the lead-up to this week's plenum, there were rumors of possible personnel changes at the top levels of the Chinese government which could begin to outline a successor to Xi.

The Party Secretary of industrial city Chongqing, Chen Min'er, was reported to be in the running for a seat on the Communist Party's Standing Committee. It would have been a huge promotion and a clear sign of big things to come.

It followed whispers of dissatisfaction with Xi and his tight grip on power. Since the trade war with the US began in mid-2018, it had been rumored that opposition to the Chinese president was growing behind closed doors. So far, Xi has even refused to nominate any potential successor, a break from modern Communist Party tradition and a sign that he retains a significant hold on power.

In the end, there were no major changes, and no personnel announcements other than the automatic promotion of two new alternate members to the Central Committee.

Instead the president and his signature Xi Jinping Thought are mentioned prominently in the communique, from domestic and international policy to military advancement.

"We must firmly establish the guiding position of Xi Jinping's strong military thinking in national defense and army building," the statement says.

If the communique is an accurate representation of what happened behind closed doors, Xi Jinping is here to stay.

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2019-11-01 07:32:04Z
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Hong Kong just entered a recession. Experts say economy will 'remain weak' amid protests, trade war - CNBC

Hong Kong protesters donned Halloween masks in Lan Kwai Fong on Thursday evening, defying an emergency law that bans face coverings.

Anthony Wallace | AFP | Getty Images

Hong Kong's economy will likely "remain weak" for the rest of this year, economists and trade experts told CNBC on Friday.

"They're getting hit on two fronts. The protests are impacting retail sales. It is impacting tourism. Added to that, of course, you've got the U.S.-China trade war, which is impacting exports. So, we're expecting that it is unlikely that we're going to see a positive growth in Q4. We're going to see further contraction," said Sian Fenner, lead Asia economist at Oxford Economics.

The Asian financial hub slid into a recession for the first time in a decade in the third quarter, according to government data published Thursday. The city's statistics agency said domestic consumption weakened amid ongoing anti-government protests. It also cited the protracted U.S.-China trade war as another factor, as Hong Kong reported "an enlarged decline" in exports.

Billy Wong, deputy director of research at the Hong Kong Trade Development Council said that Hong Kong's negative growth did not exactly come as a surprise.

"The number is not that happy, but I wouldn't say it's really a surprise. I think it was really expected for Hong Kong to facing economic downturn," said Wong.

He agreed that the trade war and protests are the main factors contributing to the contraction in Hong Kong's economy. Wong noted, however, that while exports have slowed since last November, the city's GDP didn't contract until the third quarter of this year. When asked, he agreed that weak consumption and a slowing economy could lead to layoffs in sectors like dining and retail.

But one industry has seen some positive growth, Wong said. As people avoid the streets, supermarkets benefit as people buy more home necessities, he said.

Hong Kong may report negative growth this year as the economy reels from more than four months of social unrest, Financial Secretary Paul Chan wrote in a blog post.

Paul Yeung | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Weak consumer spending

Local businesses told CNBC they are certainly feeling the financial impact of domestic unrest. Even shops in the normally bustling Wan Chai district are getting hit.

Kitty Chan, who works at her parent's flower shop, said she's noticed that far fewer people are buying bouquets for functions. She estimated that profits have dropped 50% for the shop, which she said had been in the district for 15 years.

"If the protest continue, I think it really drops ... They will be coming to buy the flower in the morning, in the morning time, afternoon time, after 7 o'clock they're all gone," she said.

Andy Ho, who works at a pharmacy in Wan Chai, gave similarly grim figures: "Our store has been here for 50 years. Our business has really declined in recent months — close to 40%."

He said as long as the social unrest remains unresolved, the economy "will remain weak."

"For our store, 70% of our customers are local and 30% are tourists. Among the 30% tourists, 80% of them have disappeared. As for locals, in the recent months, people are really less willing to spend ... the economy in the next few months will still be weak," said Ho.

Hong Kong — a former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997 — has been crippled by widespread demonstrations since early June. Reuters reported on Thursday, local police used tear gas to disperse hundreds of protesters, many dressed in black and wearing now-banned face masks, mixed in with people dressed up for Halloween in the city.

Oxford Economics' Fenner said the biggest uncertainty for the city right now is when the protests will end, and "until that stops" key domestic drivers like retail and tourism will struggle to grow.

China-US trade war

In a Friday note, Bank of America Merill Lynch wrote that Hong Kong may be facing a "prolonged recession" and lowered its full-year GDP forecast to a 2.1% year-over-year decline. Its previous 2019 GDP forecast projected a more muted decline of 0.1%.

"Hong Kong is particularly vulnerable to external demand weakness, given its reliance on tourism and dependence on the Chinese economy. Many sectors (tourism, retail, hotel, catering and transportation) have already taken a blow from the months of disruptions to business. Not to mention that high level of uncertainty also significantly impaired business confidence and suppressed investment demand," the bank wrote.

The U.S. and China were set to meet in Chile to sign "phase one" of the trade deal. But President Donald Trump announced that the trip was cancelled on Thursday due to protests in the South American nation, adding that "the new location will be announced soon" for the two leaders' signing.

While Oxford Economics' Fenner said "phase one" will likely "go ahead," this does not mean the trade war is done. She said that there will most likely be more "flip flopping" moving ahead but probably no more escalations in terms of tariffs.

"But the damage has already been done. We've got tariffs now, that 18 months ago on average about 3%. They're now over 20%. And we're not looking for those tariffs being removed anytime soon," said Fenner.

With no end in sight for either the protests or trade tensions between China and the U.S., HKTDC's Wong said, "for the rest of this year, things will remain weak."

But Wong is hopeful that maybe as China and the U.S. both see a slowdown in their economies, they will be more inclined to strike a deal, and thus relieving some trade pressure for Hong Kong.

— CNBC's Vivian Kam contributed to this report.

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that the flower shop in Wan Chai has been open for 15 years. A previous version misstated how long it had been operating.

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2019-11-01 06:06:02Z
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'Satisfaction': N Korea confirms tested multiple rocket launcher - Al Jazeera English

North Korea confirmed on Friday it conducted a third test of a new "super-large" multiple rocket launcher that it says expands its ability to destroy enemy targets in surprise attacks, as nuclear talks with the United States remain in limbo. 

The official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) described the tests a day after South Korea and Japan said they detected two projectiles launched from an area near Pyongyang, the North Korean capital.

North Korea has been moving to enhance its military capabilities.

The latest test of the rocket launcher follows two tests in August and September of the same weapon. 

More:

Kim Jong Un "expressed satisfaction" at the success of the tests and congratulated the scientists who had developed the weapon, KCNA said, suggesting that Kim was not at the site.

North Korea's state newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, published a photo of the multiple rocket launcher, surrounded by yellow flames and smoke.

Thursday's test verified that the "continuous fire system" of the multiple rocket launchers was able to "totally destroy" a group target of the enemy with a surprise strike, KCNA added.

Military officials in Japan and South Korea said on Thursday afternoon that the North had tested a projectile that travelled more than 322 kilometres (200 miles) across the country before landing in waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.

Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Japan had lodged a protest over the test, which he described as a missile launch and said was "extremely regrettable".

'Escalatory behaviour'

“North Korea is engaged in increasingly escalatory behaviour," US Senator Cory Gardner, a Republican and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific and International Cybersecurity Policy said in a statement.

"This launch and continued North Korean aggression underscore the need for the Trump Administration to recommit to the maximum pressure policy" and for Congress to impose additional sanctions against the Kim government, Gardner said.

However, South Korea's national security adviser Chung Eui-yong said the North's missile launches did not pose "very grave threats".

"We're also test-firing missiles, no less than North Korea does," he told a parliamentary session. "Our missile defence and intercept capabilities are absolutely superior to theirs."

The weapons test is the first since working-level talks on October 5 between the US and North Korea ended without agreement.

North Korea has repeatedly emphasised an end-of-the-year deadline for denuclearisation talks with Washington that Kim set earlier this year.

Although Kim and US President Donald Trump have a "special" relationship, "Washington political circles and DPRK policymakers of the US administration are hostile to the DPRK for no reason," a North Korean statement on KCNA said last month.

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea is the official name for North Korea.

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2019-11-01 03:46:00Z
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'My heart is broken': Fire nearly destroys historic Japanese castle built 500 years ago - USA TODAY

Mari Yamaguchi, Associated Press

Published 8:49 AM EDT Oct 31, 2019

TOKYO — A fire broke out early Thursday and spread quickly through historic Shuri Castle on Japan's southern island of Okinawa, nearly destroying the UNESCO World Heritage site.

Firefighters battled the blaze for about 12 hours before bringing it under control in the afternoon.

The fire in Naha, the prefectural capital of Okinawa, started from the castle's main structure and quickly jumped to other buildings. Three large halls and four other structures burned down, a fire official said.

No one was injured. The cause was not immediately known.

An annual weeklong castle festival that began Sunday was to run for a week but the remaining events were canceled.

Video on NHK public television showed parts of the castle engulfed in orange flames, then turning into a charred skeleton and collapsing to the ground. Many residents watched from a hillside road and quietly took photos to capture what was left of the castle before it was largely lost. Some people were crying.

Tragedy: Fire on moving train kills 71 passengers in central Pakistan

"I feel as if we have lost our symbol," said Naha Mayor Mikiko Shiroma, who led an emergency response team. "I'm shocked."

Okinawa Gov. Denny Tamaki cut short a trip to South Korea to return to Naha. "My heart is broken," he said. "But I also feel strongly that we must reconstruct Shuri Castle, a symbol of the Ryukyu Kingdom filled with our history and culture."

The castle is a symbol of Okinawa's cultural heritage from the time of the Ryukyu Kingdom that spanned about 450 years from 1429 until 1879, when the island was annexed by Japan.

It is also a symbol of Okinawa's struggle and efforts to recover from World War II. The castle, built 500 years ago, first burned down in 1945 during the Battle of Okinawa near the war's end, in which about 200,000 lives were lost on the island, many of them civilians.

California wildfires: Easy Fire burns 1,650 acres; fire crews reach 45% containment at Kincade Fire

The castle was largely restored in 1992 as a national park and was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2000 as part of a group of ancient ruins, castles and sacred sites that "provide mute testimony to the rare survival of an ancient form of religion into the modern age."

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters that the central government will do its utmost to reconstruct the castle.

The government dispatched officials from the Agency for Cultural Affairs and other government organizations to join efforts to investigate the cause of the fire and study ways to protect other historical sites from disasters, Suga said.

Kurayoshi Takara, a historian at the University of the Ryukyus who helped reconstruct Shuri Castle, said he was speechless when he saw the fire. He told NHK that the castle reconstruction was a symbolic event for Okinawans to restore their history and Ryukyu heritage lost during the war.

"I still can't accept this as a reality," Takara said. "It has taken more than 30 years and it was a monument to the wisdom and efforts of many people. Shuri Castle is not just about the buildings, but it reconstructed all the details, even including equipment inside."

UNESCO Director General Audrey Azouley expressed her sympathy. "Deep emotion and sincere solidarity with the Japanese people as we see the tragic fire at the beautiful #shuricastle," she wrote on her Twitter account. "This is a loss for all humanity."

Okinawa was under U.S. occupation until 1972, two decades after the rest of Japan regained full independence.

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2019-10-31 11:57:00Z
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Hong Kong's first recession in a decade could be even worse than feared - CNN

Hong Kong plunged into recession in the third quarter, according to official data released Thursday. The economy shrank 3.2% during the three months to September, compared to the previous quarter. That's a sharp slowdown from the 0.5% contraction recorded in the second quarter, and much worse than economists had expected.

With no immediate resolution to the city's political crisis on the cards, Hong Kong's first recession in a decade could extend into the new year. Compared to the previous year, the economy shrank 2.9% in the third quarter.

"Frankly, there is no room for optimism," embattled Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam said at a business event on Thursday, ahead of the preliminary growth figures. Hong Kong will release revised GDP figures next month.

As a major trading hub, Hong Kong was already hurting from the US-China trade war and China's slowing growth. Five months of mass demonstrations is now pushing the city toward an economic crisis.

A government spokesperson said Thursday that Hong Kong's economic growth had been on an upward trend since last year amid a slowing global economy and US-China trade tensions, but "the situation showed an abrupt deterioration recently due to the severe impacts of the local social incidents."

"Much of the pressure is now coming from the political unrest. The trade war itself would cause Hong Kong's GDP growth to slow but not a contraction, while the political unrest could," said Tommy Wu, a Hong Kong-based economist with Oxford Economics.

Economists are now predicting that for the whole year, Hong Kong will miss its earlier target of between 0% and 1% growth, and the pain could continue into next year.

Hong Kong's GDP "is quite likely to fall into negative growth in 2019 and also 2020 [...] I can't see how the protests could end," said Iris Pang, economist for Greater China at ING.

Wu expects Hong Kong's economy to contract 0.1% in 2019 and "only to grow at a meager 0.6% in 2020."

"The downside risk to the forecast is significant. If the political unrest prolongs beyond this year, I would expect next year's GDP to contract as well," he said.

Mass demonstrations have decimated the city's tourism industry. Visitor numbers plunged 37% year on year for the third quarter.

Hotels are on average only two-thirds full, a drop of 28% compared to the same period a year earlier. InterContinental Hotels Group said in an earnings report earlier this month that revenue per room in Greater China fell 36% last quarter, citing "ongoing unrest in Hong Kong." The company operates several luxury hotels located in areas frequently targeted by protesters.

Retail figures are also taking a beating as several shops have been forced to close early or shut down for a full day several times over the last few months.

Some protesters have targeted shops, restaurants and banks viewed as unsympathetic to their cause, smashing in windows, vandalizing storefronts with graffiti and even setting fire to some properties.

Last week, the city's Financial Secretary Paul Chan announced a new round of economic measures to support businesses affected by the ongoing unrest, including slashing rents in half at properties leased by the Hong Kong government, providing fuel subsidies for taxi drivers and fee subsidies for local ferries. Those plans follow on earlier initiatives, including the allocation of 2 billion Hong Kong dollars ($255 million) to support small companies and a 19 billion Hong Kong dollar ($2.4 billion) stimulus package to help safeguard jobs and provide relief to "people's financial burden."

Despite the troubled Hong Kong economy, the city's financial markets are largely holding up. The Hang Seng Index (HSI) is still up 4% for the year, and the political crisis hasn't been a deal breaker for investors yet, many of whom still see the city as an important gateway to Asia.

The IPO market is also proving resilient: In September Anheuser-Busch InBev (BUD) listed its Asia business on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKXCF) raising $5 billion in the second biggest IPO of the year after Uber (UBER).

That deal pushed the amount of funding raised on the Hong Kong exchange to the third highest in the world this year after the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq, according to Deloitte.

Michelle Toh contributed to this report.

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https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/31/business/hong-kong-economy/index.html

2019-10-31 11:10:00Z
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