HONG KONG (Reuters) – Hong Kong’s leader told Beijing on Tuesday that the city’s residents wanted a full election in 2017, but said the financial hub would have to abide by the restrictive framework set down by China’s Communist authorities.

Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying offered no firm proposal, but said the contest would be run according to the “Basic Law”, or mini-constitution, that has governed Hong Kong since Britain returned it to Chinese rule in 1997, rather than international standards.

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Five organizers of a massive pro-democracy rally in Hong Kong were charged by police on Friday with a range of minor offences, as pressure builds on Communist Party rulers in Beijing to introduce political reforms in the former British colony.

Tuesday’s pro-democracy march, which organizers said attracted more than half a million people, and a subsequent sit-in by mainly student groups rank among the biggest challenges yet to China which resumed control over the former British colony on July 1, 1997.

HONG KONG, July 2 (Reuters) – Hundreds of Hong Kong police
forcibly removed kicking and screaming protesters from the
Central business district on Wednesday, holdouts of a mass rally
demanding greater democracy from Communist Party rulers in
Beijing.

The pro-democracy march on Tuesday, which organisers said
attracted more than 510,000 people, and a subsequent sit-in by
mainly student groups could be the biggest challenge yet to
China which resumed control over the former British colony on
July 1, 1997.

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Hundreds of police forcibly removed kicking and screaming protesters from the Central business district on Wednesday, holdouts of an all-night sit-in on the heels of a mass rally demanding greater democracy from Communist Party rulers in Beijing.

The pro-democracy march on Tuesday, which organisers said attracted more than 510,000 people, and the subsequent sit-in by mainly student groups could be the biggest challenge yet to China which resumed control over the former British colony in 1997.

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Hundreds of thousands of pro-democracy protesters marched in Hong Kong on Tuesday, many calling for the city’s leader to be sacked, in what could turn out to be the biggest challenge to Chinese Communist Party rule in more than a decade.

Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying said his government would do its “utmost” to move towards universal suffrage and stressed the need for stability after nearly 800,000 people voted for full democracy in an unofficial referendum last month.

HONG KONG, June 20 (Reuters) – Audit firm EY said
on Friday it would appeal a Hong Kong court’s ruling that
Chinese law does not protect the working papers of mainland
companies and suggested the regulator in Beijing deal directly
with its counterpart in the former British colony.

The audit firm said it would give relevant records located
in Hong Kong to Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission
(SFC). It added that it had already turned over working papers
on former client Standard Water that were located in China to
the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), and that EY’s
preference was for the CSRC to give those papers to the SFC.

HONG KONG, May 23 (Reuters) – A Hong Kong court has ordered
auditor EY to hand over documents related to a former
Chinese client in a boost for international regulators seeking
access to the books of mainland China companies listed outside
their home territory.

In a case filed by Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures
Commission (SFC) in 2012, the court on Friday rejected EY’s
contention that Chinese law prohibits the mainland partner of
the firm previously known as Ernst & Young from passing on
documents.

HONG KONG/TOKYO (Reuters) – Some trace of the passion that Zaharie Ahmad Shah had for flying can be found in the trail of e-mail exchanges and online message board posts that detail the Malaysia Airlines pilot’s construction of a state-of-the-art flight simulator at home.

Now the stack of computer monitors, graphics cards and software he painstakingly sourced and improved is being pored over by investigators trying to make sense of the disappearance more than two weeks ago of the passenger jet he was piloting.

HONG KONG (Reuters) – A state-owned Chinese retail chain has suspended sales of elephant ivory after a series of high-profile seizures of smuggled ivory in Hong Kong and protests by conservation groups drew growing attention to the trade.

Chinese Arts & Crafts suspended sales of elephant ivory at its stores in China and Hong Kong beginning in mid-March, it said in a statement e-mailed to Reuters late on Tuesday.

HONG KONG, March 18 (Reuters) – A state-owned Chinese retail
chain has suspended sales of elephant ivory after a series of
high-profile seizures of smuggled ivory in Hong Kong and
protests by conservation groups drew growing attention to the
trade.

Chinese Arts & Crafts suspended sales of elephant ivory at
its stores in China and Hong Kong beginning in mid-March, it
said in a statement e-mailed to Reuters late on Tuesday.