Fars of global military conflicts and wars have risen since Donald Trump took office as US president. So far, when not conducting foreign “diplomacy” by Twitter, he’s launched 59 missiles at Syria, dropped the “Mother of All Bombs” on Afghanistan, and taken a tough line on North Korea and its provocative missile tests. From the other side of the Pacific, North Korea has said, worrying even the People’s Republic of China, that it will test missiles every week if it wants, and threatened, “all out war” if it needs to retaliate. WIth us in the studio to talk about it is Jean-Pierre Cabestan, Head of Department of Government and International Studies of Baptist University.

Ever wondered where our tax dollars go? Well, according to the government, infrastructural projects, many referred to by those less prone to cheerleading as “white elephants”, top expenditure, followed by education, social welfare and health. HK$100 billion is earmarked for such projects in this year’s Budget. One of the grandest is the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge. Critics have called it the “bridge to nowhere”, and not long after it’s completed it’s going to face competition from a new 24-km. bridge over the Pearl River Delta linking Zhongshan and Shenzhen. There are murmurs in some quarters that the Hong Kong-Macau-Zhuhai bridge isn’t going to be ready for commissioning, as scheduled, by the end of the year. The government insists it will, although there will still be some elements to complete. It’s 34 years since Hopewell Holdings founder Gordon Wu first suggested the idea. Agreements on funding were reached between Hong Kong, Macau and the mainland in 2008, and – inevitably – as with all such long running projects, it’s going to end up costing more than was planned. We have no idea of the safety record of the project on the mainland side, but in Hong Kong there’s been a considerable human cost, in terms of both injuries and death.