Well, the United States’ mid-term elections may be over, but on this side of the world elections are still on going.
Taiwan’s voters go to the polls this Saturday, and on Sunday voters in Kowloon West will be going back to the ballot box for a Legislative Council by-election.

On Saturday, Taiwan’s 19.1 million voters have a chance to participate in local and regional elections and to vote in a series of referenda on subjects ranging from power plant output to same sex marriage to what Taiwan should call itself in the 2020 Summer Olympics. For Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen, who took office in 2016, it’s being seen as a mid-term report. She and her ruling party are facing some keen competition amid allegations of Mainland meddling in the polls. With me in the studio is political commentator, Sam Cheng.

Donald Trump’s anti-immigration rhetoric played a key role in his run for president two years ago. He said America would build a wall to keep out immigrants and he’d make Mexico pay for it. That has not happened but it didn’t stop Trump once again using the spectra of uncontrolled immigration to rile up his base to go out and vote for candidates he was supporting in the mid-term elections. He labeled migrants travelling en-masse to the US as being “gang members” and “very bad people” and deployed almost 6,000 troops to the southern border giving them the power to use fatal force. Our producer, Liz Yuen went to El Paso, Texas to talk to some recent migrants.

Sadly, Chan Ming-kau did not live to see this development. He died of a sudden heart attack the day after speaking to The Pulse. Since the Handover, China has several times refused to let United States’ naval vessels make a stop in Hong Kong. This week, despite vigorous disagreements between China and the US over trade and territorial claims in the South China Sea, four US navy vessels are allowed to visit Hong Kong. We’ll leave you with that and the assurance that battleship Pulse will be docking at this spot again next week. Goodbye.