Last Sunday, thousands of people took to the streets to protest against government proposals to amend Hong Kong’s extradition laws. Despite that, on Wednesday, the government pushed ahead with initiating the legislative process with measures that amend the two laws allowing fugitives to be transferred to jurisdictions where Hong Kong lacks extradition or rendition arrangements, this principally means the mainland, Macau and Taiwan. The government’s proposals have stirred huge criticism from human rights activists, as well as the legal and business sectors, both locally and internationally. Unsurprisingly the criticism that got the lion’s share of the government’s attention came from the business sector As a result last Tuesday, Chief Executive Carrie Lam agreed to exclude nine economic crimes from the 46 categories of offences covered. With me is former Chief Secretary Anson Chan who has just returned from a trip to the United States at the invitation of the White House.

Last month, cyclone Idai swept through Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi. It was the deadliest storm to hit these countries in three decades, killing more than 800 people, and severely affecting millions more. In its wake, over a thousand people were infected with cholera. The United Nations describes it as “one of the worst weather-related catastrophes in the history of Africa”. As ever it’s the world’s poorest people who bear the brunt of the impact from man-made climate change. There is a very widespread feeling that world leaders just aren’t taking the issue seriously enough. Now a younger generation of activists, inspired by the Swedish teen, Greta Thunberg, are speaking out about climate change and their future.