Hong Kong celeb English show Kris Lau pleads

A Hong Kong celeb English instruct accused of bribing a former marking assistant for exclusive facts pleaded no longer responsible on Thursday, extra than a yr after he becomes officially charged. Prosecutors accused Kris Lau Koon-wah, 44, of conspiring with Seraph Wong Tsz-hin, a 20-12 months-vintage scholar who previously labored as a marking assistant with the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority. Lau turned into said to have supplied Wong HK$1,000 (US$127) as an inducement or praise without lawful authority or reasonable excuse. In the alternate, Wong allegedly disclosed confidential facts approximately the English Listening and Integrated Skills paper of the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education administered utilizing the authority.

Both men on Thursday pleaded no longer guilty earlier than the performing most important magistrate, Ada Yim Shun-yee, to a joint rate of conspiracy for an agent to accept an advantage. The conspiracy lasted from April 17 to May thirteen, 2017, according to prosecutors. The prosecution was formerly placed on preserve following a similar case involving four instructors accused of leaking front examination questions. The High Court at the time discovered it intricate for prosecutors to rely on the offense of acquiring get admission to a computer whilst a defendant had used their own tool.

Celebrity English educate Kris Lau charged with leaking personal exam records. That ruling was unanimously upheld in April via five Court of Final Appeal judges. At least 8 phone-related instances were sooner or later affected, with the charge amended or withdrawn. Earlier this week, a Hong Kong taxi motive force accused of photographing a passenger who changed into breastfeeding and importing her photo to Facebook went unfastened after prosecutors needed to drop the price. Prosecutors within the gift case were pressured to amend their charges, dropping the smartphone price against Lau and Wong in May. Lau and Wong were scheduled to stand a 4-day trial beginning on January 13. A pre-trial evaluation could be heard on September 3.

Why Hong Kong’s angry and upset young people are making their voices heard, young human beings have been at the vanguard of persevering with protests in opposition to a proposed extradition invoice that has shaken Hong Kong. At the basis of the turmoil is a problem over what many human beings see because of the inexorable erosion of civil liberties and the city’s car­nomy by an ever-meddling principal government that refuses to supply complete democracy in the former British colony. But many young humans in what’s one of the international’s most densely populated and luxurious cities also are infuriated through sky-high dwelling charges and a feeling that a home of one’s own will by no means be greater than a dream
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Over the past decade, Hong Kong’s residential belongings fees have skyrocketed through 242 in step with cent. For the ninth 12 months in a row, the city’s assets marketplace has been rated the arena’s most unaffordable. The average month-to-month earnings are HK$19,100 (US$2,446) for men and HK$14,seven-hundred for ladies. The common month-to-month lease for a one-bedroom flat in the town center is HK$sixteen 551. In 2018, common domestic prices were 20.9 times the gross annual median household earnings, accor­ding to the Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey. You ought to purchase a French chateau
for what you’ll pay on your Hong Kong shoe box inside the sky.