Some good news for those who have long been worried about the well-being of Liu Xia, the widow of the dissident and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo. This week she was finally allowed and go to Germany after eight years of what amounts to house arrest. Her release came a day before Chinese Premier Li Keqiang signed a commercial deal with Germany worth some 20 billion euros. Chinese officials deny a connection between these two events but the deal is also timely as a trade war between China and the United States moves from warm to hot.

We also talked to Bernard Chan, Convenor of the Non-official Members of the Executive Council, will be with us to talk about a whole lot things including housing policy, land supply and the current state of Hong Kong politics.

The flight to freedom of Liu Xia wasn’t the only good news this week. There was also very good news from Thailand where the coach and all members of the Wild Boars schoolboy football team were rescued from a cave after a complex and dangerous operation. They had been trapped for 17 days by sudden flooding in the Tham Luang caved in Chiang Rai. The search and three-day rescue mission involved Thai Navy Seals and diving experts from many countries. This extraordinary undertaking captivated world attention and saw offers of help pouring in from home and abroad. . Sadly, a former Thai navy SEAL, Saman Gunan, who’d volunteered to join the rescue, died while delivering air tanks. We’ll leave you with images of the rescue.

And that’s it from us for this week and in fact for this series. We’ll take a short summer break and will be back taking The Pulse of Hong Kong in mid-September. See you then.