AFP, HONG KONGHong Kong’s international Rugby Tens tournament in April next year — a curtain raiser to the famous Hong Kong Sevens — has been canceled, the latest sporting event to fall victim to seething political unrest. Organizers for the 10-a-side jamboree, part of a week-long rugby festival culminating in the Hong Kong Sevens from April 3 to 5, had been struggling to attract teams after six months of protests rocking the financial hub. “Owing to the ongoing situation in Hong Kong, the tournament has, for the first time, had difficulty in attracting and securing firm commitments from enough overseas teams of sufficient quality,” host Hong Kong Football Club said in a statement late on Wednesday. Hong Kong has been upended by six months of massive pro-democracy protests that have seen increasingly violent clashes between hardcore demonstrators and police, as well as regular transport disruptions. The WTA’s Hong Kong Open, Formula E’s Hong Kong ePrix and the Hong Kong Squash Open are among the sporting events to have been canceled.

BloombergJapan needs to overcome what UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres labeled a “coal addiction,” and the issue is causing mixed feelings among its officials attending climate change talks in Madrid this week. “In Japan, coal power is not seen as problematic as the international community sees it,” Koizumi said in Japan’s first address to the press at the gathering in years. The country is also the only economy in the G7 that is still building new coal plants. Japan currently gets about one-third of its power from coal amid public resistance to restarting the reactors. “We can’t make a declaration of phasing out of coal or fossil fuels right away,” Koizumi said.

By Sean Lin / Staff reporterAny party receiving funding from an external force in an attempt to influence elections should be “ruthlessly beat down,” Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said yesterday, after prosecutors seized NT$618 million (US$20.3 million) in underground cash transfers. The purpose of elections is to elect capable people, so government agencies must enforce the law and prevent vote-buying or other type of election rigging, Su told a weekly Cabinet meeting. Prosecutors have seized NT$618 million and six properties valued at about NT$20 million, the ministry said. As of Monday last week, police had handled 78 cases involving the spread of disinformation concerning the elections, it said. To ensure a smooth voting process in next month’s elections and alleviate crowding at polling stations, the commission said that it would add 1,340 polling stations, increasing the total to 17,226.

AP, CLEVELAND, OhioJames Harden scored 55 points — 20 in the fourth quarter — and Russell Westbrook added 23 points as the Houston Rockets on Wednesday night withstood an unexpected scare from Cleveland and held on for a 116-110 win over the free-falling Cavaliers, who have lost eight straight and 14 of 15. The inexperienced Cavaliers crumbled in the final minute, making three turnovers. However, Cleveland, came to play and were led by rookie Kevin Porter Jr’s season-high 24 points. Collin Sexton added 18, while Kevin Love had 17 points and 11 boards. We want Kevin to play at his best and I’m sure he does as well.

By Ann Maxon / Staff reporterThe campaign office of Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate, yesterday said that it is confident about winning next month’s presidential election, despite Han trailing by nearly 38 percentage points in the latest poll. Based on his interaction with voters, it is apparent that Han has many “hidden” supporters, she said. As a result, Han’s campaign office thought it might as well urge supporters to claim to support Tsai just to make the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) happy, Lee said. Asked about Lee’s remarks, Tsai said that although Han’s camp claims not to believe in polls, it often cites them. While polls show the DPP leading, she and her campaign team would continue to work hard to secure the public’s support, she said.

AFP, MELBOURNEErnie Els’ young International team yesterday got off to dream Presidents Cup start as they stunned Tiger Woods’ star-studded US to take a 4-1 lead after the opening four-balls. It paid dividends with the Internationals in front after the opening day for the first time since 2005. “We’ve got a long way to go, but this is an unbelievable start. We haven’t had a start like this for many years,” an elated Els said, adding that he never envisioned having a 4-1 advantage. There’s a long way to go.

Policing speech on social media sites has needed hefty investment, while still failing to stem criticism from users who find the policies either too aggressive or too lax. However, the open standard could upend Twitter’s business model in the process, giving rise to competitor services that offer filters, content suggestions or other tools that prove more popular with consumers. In an article that Dorsey shared titled Protocols, Not Platforms, tech news site Techdirt founder Mike Masnick outlined how an open standard could give rise to a “competition for business models” among developers. Dorsey said that Twitter chief technology officer Parag Agrawal would be in charge of hiring a lead for the research team, called BlueSky, which Twitter would fund — likely over many years — but would not direct, he said. He went on to recommend that blockchain technology might provide a model for decentralizing content hosting, oversight and even monetization of social media, without elaborating on possible alternatives to Twitter’s ads-driven business.

By Jake Chung / Staff writer, with CNANew Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) and Keelung Mayor Lin Yu-chang (林右昌) yesterday responded positively to the idea of combining Taipei, New Taipei City and Keelung into one administrative entity, which was broached by Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) earlier this week. Ko on Wednesday said that the concept of the six special municipalities — Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung — was “absurd” and a failure in terms of national planning. A “Greater Taipei” region — Taipei, New Taipei City and Keelung — could work, as they are adjacent to each other, he said. He said he believed that railway construction projects across the two municipalities and city should also include Taoyuan. Taipei needs Keelung, as it could balance wealth in the region while allowing Taipei to expand from only the Taipei Basin to having its own coast and harbor, Lin said.

BloombergThe world’s first carrier of liquefied hydrogen made its official debut at a shipyard in Japan, a small step toward tapping the carbon-free energy potential of the lightest element. The ship is to be used for technology demonstration to establish an international hydrogen energy supply chain by shipping the fuel from Australia to Japan, Kawasaki said in a press release. However, it is also volatile and flammable, while current production techniques are polluting and costly, the International Energy Agency said in a report in June. The ship will have storage capacity of about 1,250m3, less than 1 percent of the size of liquefied natural gas carriers. The vacuum-insulated, double-shell tank is to hold hydrogen chilled to minus-253°C, which shrinks the volume of the gas to 1/800th of its normal volume.

Aung San Suu Kyi, who is now Myanmar’s leader, told the court that the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims to neighboring Bangladesh was the unfortunate result of a battle with insurgents. “Even if [Aung San] Suu Kyi lies, she won’t be spared. Nur Kamal, another refugee at Kutupalong, also rejected Aung San Suu Kyi’s testimony. Will this be justified if [Aung San] Suu Kyi says so?” he said. Aung San Suu Kyi accused Gambia of providing a misleading and incomplete account of what happened in Myanmar’s Rakhine state in August 2017.

“There are only three reasons for this election — bribery, fraud and breach of trust,” he said, referring to criminal charges filed last month against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Both men had insisted they want to avoid another costly election campaign. Netanyahu insisted on serving as prime minister, while Gantz has refused to serve under a prime minister with such serious legal problems and called on Likud to choose a different leader. Even after the deadline automatically dissolved parliament, lawmakers worked throughout the night to finalize the March 2 election date. “To prevent this happening again, there is only one thing we must do: Win and win big,” he said.

Climate change represents the most salient risk we face, and we are already getting a glimpse of the costs. At one time, some Americans even hoped that climate change might benefit them. By assigning little weight — far too little weight — to very adverse outcomes, these studies systematically bias the analysis against doing anything. Whereas a below-threshold level of climate change might not affect the risk of frost or drought, a higher level increases disproportionately the risk of these extreme events. It is precisely when the consequences of climate change are large that we are least able to absorb the costs.

AFP, WASHINGTONDemocrats warned that US President Donald Trump was on the verge of dictatorship, while Republicans defended his record at the opening of a stormy debate on impeachment charges in Washington on Wednesday. The parties held to diametrically opposed views of Trump as they weighed articles of impeachment at the beginning of a two-day debate. “Today we begin consideration of two articles of impeachment against President Donald J. Trump,” Nadler said. Trump faces becoming only the third president in US history to be impeached and placed on trial in the Senate. Republicans say it was a conflict of interest at best that Biden’s son Hunter served on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy firm, while his father was US vice president.

BloombergEurope is arming itself for a more lawless world of trade — and the bloc’s sights are on the US. European Commissioner for Trade Phil Hogan on Thursday sought an upgrade to EU legislation on enforcing international commercial rules. His proposal would allow the EU to impose sanctions against countries that illegally restrict commerce and simultaneously block the WTO’s dispute-settlement process. Trump has also sought to restrict European trade with Iran after pulling out of an international agreement to control the country’s nuclear activities and backed out of a landmark UN accord to fight climate change. The proposal from Hogan — an amendment to 2014 European legislation — would effectively serve as a third line of defense for the EU, as it seeks to uphold the WTO system.

Founded in 2009 by Jeff McDermott, previously a cohead of investment banking at UBS Group AG, Greentech specializes in sustainable investing. It has helped Macquarie Group Ltd, Goldman Sachs Group Inc and others buy and sell wind and solar farms. The Tokyo-based firm unveiled plans earlier this year to boost its advisory business for companies in markets including the US, while cutting expenses in areas such as securities trading. “We are looking to grow our global investment bank, we’re looking to grow our presence in the Americas, and we’re looking to grow our advisory business,” Nomura Americas investment banking head Michael Rintoul said by telephone. Daiwa Securities Group Inc is also bolstering its advisory business in the environmental sector.