• Beyond the Beyond notes an upcoming exhibition of photos of Vaclav Havel.
• blogTO notes a local controversy over the demolition of a community-built skate park.
• Centauri Dreams considers how advanced starfaring civilizations might deal with existential threats.
• Crooked Timber looks at how presidential debates could be used to teach logic.
• Language Hat ( Read more... )

Another South China Morning Postarticle by Peter Guy looks at the risk of large-scale emigration by young Hong Kongers.

According to a Chinese University of Hong Kong survey featured this month in the SCMP, about 40 per cent of Hongkongers want to move away from the city. One in 10 prospective emigrants is making actual plans to do so. Respondents ( Read more... )

The South China Morning Post's Peter Guy fears for the future of Hong Kong, dominated by an oligarchy of the rich.

As one power descends another ascends. The passing of Cheng Yu-tung (1925-2016), property tycoon and founder of New World Development, marks the closing of a Hong Kong era. It also ushers in a difficult and uncertain future ( Read more... )

• blogTO shares photos of old Toronto department stores.
• Discover's Citizen Science Salon reports on how people are facing California seals and sea lions faced with famine.
• D-Brief warns people to be cautious about the newest claim of detections of extraterrestrial intelligence.
• The Dragon's Gaze reports on the discovery through microlensing of a ( Read more... )

Bloomberg's Pooja Thakur Mahrotri and Frederik Balfour report on how the two Chinese-majority city-states in East Asia are dealing, differently, with real estate prices.

On the surface, the property markets in Singapore and Hong Kong have much in common. The two Asian financial hubs have both moved to rein in runaway home prices in recent years ( Read more... )

• blogTO notes that Toronto has its first Ethiopian food truck.
• Beyond the Beyond considers the alien ocean of Europa.
• Centauri Dreams looks at the protoplanetary disks of brown dwarfs.
• D-Brief notes that Saturn's moon Dione may have a subsurface ocean.
• The Dragon's Gaze looks at how broadly Earth-like exoplanets form their atmospheres.

At Open Democracy, En Liang Khong writes about how younger Hong Kongers are starting to stop identifying as Chinese. Much may come of this in the longer run.

When I finally arrive back in Hong Kong in the early hours of a September morning, two years after the 2014 pro-democracy protests, it’s in the middle of a storm. Walking through the rain- ( Read more... )

Christopher Dewolf's Vice article takes a look at one farm in Hong Kong and its connection to wider currents about Hong Kong identity and self-sufficiency. Fascinating stuff.

I went to a banana farm to learn about growing fruit in Hong Kong. Instead I learned about democracy ( Read more... )

Quartz' Vivienne Chow reports on the demographic dynamics behind the Hong Kong independence movement.

When Edward Leung and Chan Ho-tin, the de facto leaders of the nascent Hong Kong independence movement, led thousands of protesters in a rally outside the government headquarters last Friday night (Aug. 5), it was about more than just the ( Read more... )

• The BBC reports from Asmara, Eritrea's capital, on the eve of war.
• Bloomberg notes the economic problems of Hong Kong and Singapore, looks at the final day of campaigning in the Brexit referendum, and notes the interim president of Brazil's desire to oust Rousseff.
• Bloomberg View takes issue with the rejection of nuclear energy in the name of the ( Read more... )