Hong Kong privacy watchdog backs tighter rules on access to land records

South China Morning Post - Nov 6, 2026

Hong Kong’s privacy watchdog has backed a proposed overhaul of rules to tighten access to land records, warning that journalists have no exemption when collecting data as complaints over information misuse appear to be worsening. Privacy Commissioner Ada Chung Lai-ling said on Friday that journalists do not enjoy an exemption under the Privacy Ordinance when gathering information, even though certain safeguards apply to how the data is subsequently used. “The Privacy Ordinance does provide an...

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Overseas institutions keen on Hong Kong university towns, happy to help local peers

Overseas institutions keen on Hong Kong university towns, happy to help local peers

Leaders of overseas institutions have expressed keen interest in taking part in Hong Kong’s planned university towns in the Northern Metropolis megaproject and stress that while financing remains a challenge, they will collaborate on activities to help ensure projects are financially viable. The university heads also called on the Hong Kong government to provide affordable housing in the new university towns, roll out policy incentives to retain top global talent and clearly define what success...

Beyond the Exhibition Hall: AWE’s Waterfront Debut Offers a Glimpse of What’s Next

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Chinese vice premier calls for joint efforts to achieve balanced trade

Chinese vice premier calls for joint efforts to achieve balanced trade

Chinese Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang on Thursday called for joint efforts to achieve balanced trade through greater market openness, deeper investment cooperation, innovation and the removal of trade barriers.

Hong Kong police to enable AI facial recognition on CCTV network this month

Hong Kong police to enable AI facial recognition on CCTV network this month

Hong Kong police will enable artificial intelligence-powered facial recognition technology across their expanding smart surveillance network this month to improve the tracking of missing persons or suspects, with plans to save the data it generates for up to 180 days. The force said the facial recognition technology was widely used by law enforcement agencies around the world and stressed that residents’ privacy rights would be protected. “Leveraging AI [facial recognition] would cut the time we...

Hong Kong developer Hysan’s Lee Garden Eight draws law firm out of Central: sources

Hong Kong developer Hysan’s Lee Garden Eight draws law firm out of Central: sources

Hong Kong law firm Woo Kwan Lee & Lo is reportedly relocating to Causeway Bay after more than five decades in Central’s Jardine House, reserving about 39,000 square feet in Hysan Development’s Lee Garden Eight in a major lease for the new commercial complex. Market sources identified the firm as the incoming tenant at Lee Garden Eight, which is scheduled for completion this quarter. The firm will occupy an entire low to middle floor, according to local media reports. The firm declined to...

Giant panda personalities ready for public debut in Atlanta

Giant panda personalities ready for public debut in Atlanta

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Atlanta is ready for pandas

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Atlanta is ready for pandas

[FRIENDS OF KOREA] An American teenager in Seoul in 1967

[FRIENDS OF KOREA] An American teenager in Seoul in 1967

I was 13 when our family of 10 (mom, dad and eight kids ranging in age from 1 to 15) arrived at Kimpo Airport in August 1966. We arrived a bit prior to the first volunteers of the Peace Corps K-1, because our school started in early September. The older kids attended Seoul Foreign School (SFS) in Yeonhui-dong, behind Yonsei University. In fact, the founders of our school were some of the same missionaries who founded Yonsei, such as the Underwoods, the Allens and the Avisons. Today, there is a statue to Horace Grant Underwood in front of one of the Yonsei buildings. Being born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, and at our young ages, none of us kids were very familiar with the outside world, so when Dad (Kevin O'Donnell, the first Peace Corps country director for Korea) told us he got a new job and we were going to move to Korea, we thought he said Berea, a Cleveland suburb near the airport, and wondered why in the world would anyone want to move there. He said, "Not Berea — Korea. It's a foreign country over by China and Japan." This got most of us quite excited, but my older sister wa

[FRIENDS OF KOREA] How one Peace Corps Volunteer helped deaf Koreans find their voice

[FRIENDS OF KOREA] How one Peace Corps Volunteer helped deaf Koreans find their voice

As I trudged across Sinchon Rotary and up the steep walkway to Severance Hospital, I kept repeating to myself a phrase from a childhood story about a train engine: “I think I can, I think I can.” It was a bitter cold winter morning in 1969. Today was the day that I was to come to the hospital and show the doctors in the ear, nose and throat section of the hospital that I could, indeed, get a deaf child to speak. Only days earlier, I had arrived in Korea to volunteer for the Peace Corps at age 23. Once it got around that I had training as a speech therapist for the deaf, Peace Corps Korea Director Kevin O'Donnell urged me to pursue it. At the time, Korea had no speech pathology center. George Worth, an American missionary in Korea, introduced me to staff at both Seoul National University (SNU) Hospital and Severance Hospital. Both hospitals were interested in starting a program but wanted to see how it could work, so they told me to come back the next day, when they could bring me a patient. That's how I found myself "auditioning" for a speech and hearing center. I was confident tha

[FRIENDS OF KOREA] Two Peace Corps Volunteers' brush with cinematic fame in 1960s Myeong-dong

[FRIENDS OF KOREA] Two Peace Corps Volunteers' brush with cinematic fame in 1960s Myeong-dong

One evening in Seoul, having nothing better to do, I decided to go out on the town in Myeong-dong with my friend Ron Rezac, a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer. Back in the 1960s, Myeong-dong was a trendy spot for Korean youth, filled with bars, cafes and music venues. After a few hours and a few beers (maybe more than a few), I let it be known that I, strangely, wanted to cap off the evening with some tea. The two of us hightailed it to a nearby "dabang" cafe, walked up some stairs to get in and were met at the door by a man who told us the place was closed and we couldn't come in. "What do you mean we can't come in!" we protested. "We have our rights!" we demanded in our excellent Korean, no doubt causing him to nearly keel over from the fumes of our beer breath. Seemingly at a loss, he let us in, pointing to a table where he wanted us to sit. Once inside, we learned that the reason they didn't want to let us in was that a movie company had taken possession of the dabang for the night to shoot a feature film. They decided on the spot that the scene in the dabang would now include two drunk

Children bear cost of adoption delays, advocate says

Children bear cost of adoption delays, advocate says

Children awaiting adoption in Korea are losing precious time to form bonds with permanent families as lengthy reviews and unclear screening standards delay placements, the head of an adoptive families’ advocacy group said. In an interview with The Korea Times after a press conference Tuesday outside the Board of Audit and Inspection in central Seoul, Oh Chang-hwa, head of the National Adoptive Family Federation, called for faster adoption matching and transparent assessment standards. “Children are there and parents are there. But they cannot meet,” he said. His organizations and six other civic groups submitted a petition asking the state auditor to inspect the screening and matching procedures under the new adoption system, which took effect on July 19, 2025, shifting responsibility for adoption procedures from private agencies to the central and local governments. Their complaints center on administrative delays, allegedly inconsistent screening and excessive collection of sensitive family information. According to figures submitted to the National Assembly and cited by the fede

Documentary spotlights Peace Corps Volunteer's role in Gwangju Uprising

Documentary spotlights Peace Corps Volunteer's role in Gwangju Uprising

The 1980 Gwangju Uprising produced a great many memorable photos, not least of which was one of a young man with blonde hair helping carry a man on a stretcher through the streets. The identity of this foreigner remained a mystery for decades, but as U.S. Peace Corps Volunteers (PCV) who were there began publishing their memoirs, his identity and role in the uprising gradually came into focus. The person in the photo was a PCV named Tim Warnberg, who had arrived in Korea in 1978 to work as a health volunteer at Gwangju Christian Hospital. Those who knew him before his arrival in Korea remember him as someone whose character and concern for others help explain his actions in 1980. Warnberg was from Brainerd, Minnesota, where his father was the town’s longest-serving sheriff. His mother was, as his sister Roxanne Wilson remembers, “devoted to caring for others” and creating “a home that was warm and inviting to neighbors, friends and persons in need.” As his closest childhood friend, Keevie Fairbanks, put it, “Tim was the best of both of his parents.” Robert Grotjohn, who at

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