ZHUHAI, China/HONG KONG (Reuters) – In an underground mall just a stone’s throw from China’s teeming border with Macau, a row of 30 small shops with identical golden plaques does a brisk, though shadowy trade with mainland Chinese visitors, many of them bound for the gambling hub.

“Good rates. Better than the banks,” shout salespeople jostling to usher clients into shops where thick wads of Chinese 100 yuan ($16.31) and HK$1,000 ($130) bank notes change hands and shuffle noisily through electronic cash-counting machines. Licensed as liquor and dry goods stores with stacked shelves of rice wine and cigarettes, many conduct their real business in back rooms – as underground bankers and remittance agents.

ZHUHAI, China/HONG KONG, May 20 (Reuters) – In an
underground mall just a stone’s throw from China’s teeming
border with Macau, a row of 30 small shops with identical golden
plaques does a brisk, though shadowy trade with mainland Chinese
visitors, many of them bound for the gambling hub.

“Good rates. Better than the banks,” shout salespeople
jostling to usher clients into shops where thick wads of Chinese
100 yuan ($16.31) and HK$1,000 ($130) bank notes change hands
and shuffle noisily through electronic cash-counting machines.
Licensed as liquor and dry goods stores with stacked shelves of
rice wine and cigarettes, many conduct their real business in
back rooms – as underground bankers and remittance agents.

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Striking dock workers at a port operator backed by Hong Kong’s richest man Li Ka-shing failed to reach a deal for higher pay on Wednesday, prolonging a dispute that could cost the city its position as the world’s third-largest container port.

Roughly 500 workers, who say they have not had a pay rise in 10 years even as the cost of living has soared, are demanding a hike of around 20 percent and better work conditions.

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Malaysian writer Tan Twan Eng won the 2012 Man Asian Literary Prize on Thursday for a novel dealing with the aftermath of Japan’s wartime occupation of his country, becoming the first Malaysian to claim one of Asia’s main literature prizes.

Tan, born in 1972, beat out four other authors, including Turkish Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk, for the $30,000 prize in what was described as a “far-ranging and intricately layered novel”.

SHANGPU, China (Reuters) – An explosion of unrest in a south China village after a controversial sale of farmland, followed by a harsh police crackdown on villagers, has become a testing ground for a man considered a potential leader of the country.

The village, Shangpu, is in Guangdong, bordering Hong Kong. The province is China’s most wealthy and most politically aware, and the Communist Party chief there is Hu Chunhua, a member of the powerful 25-person national politburo and a protégé of former leader Hu Jintao.

SHANGPU, China (Reuters) – Torched vehicles and violent clashes in the Chinese village of Shangpu as farmers protest the loss of land to developers is an uncomfortable reminder to Beijing’s incoming leadership that, for many, pledges of reform to prevent land grabs ring hollow.

Seizures of land across China have been fuelled by soaring prices and Beijing’s urban expansion drive. But outdated laws mean farmers have little legal recourse to oppose land grabs – commonly where village leaders sell off plots to a developer with little or no consultation – or to demand fairer compensation.

WUKAN, China (Reuters) – Zhuang Liehong, a 28-year-old cigarette and liquor salesman, was fed up. Businessmen were seizing land here in Wukan, his hometown fishing village in southern China. Village officials not only didn’t help – they had secretly sold the land. Outside authorities did nothing.

In 2009, Zhuang and a handful of other young villagers launched what they called the Wukan Hot-Blooded Patriotic Youth League. They began with a petition campaign. It was ignored. An early rally drew few supporters.

WUKAN, China (Reuters) – Zhuang Liehong, a 28-year-old cigarette and liquor salesman, was fed up. Businessmen were seizing land here in Wukan, his hometown fishing village in southern China. Village officials not only didn’t help – they had secretly sold the land. Outside authorities did nothing.

In 2009, Zhuang and a handful of other young villagers launched what they called the Wukan Hot-Blooded Patriotic Youth League. They began with a petition campaign. It was ignored. An early rally drew few supporters.

HONG KONG, Feb 27 (Reuters) – Hong Kong expects economic
growth to come in between 1.5 to 3.5 percent in 2013, the
city’s financial secretary John Tsang said in his annual budget
speech on Wednesday, while offering a raft of relief measures,
tax concessions and sweeteners.

“The intricate external environment will remain unstable in
the year ahead,” said Tsang, warning of potential instability
from currency wars and a trade slowdown to the financial hub’s
small and open economy.

HONG KONG, Feb 22 (Reuters) – Hong Kong is imposing higher
stamp duties on property transactions, officials said on Friday,
the latest effort to cool an overheated property sector that
boasts some of the world’s most expensive apartments.

Financial Secretary John Tsang said Hong Kong’s property
market “exuberance has regained momentum in January” and for
this reason, stamp duties for flats would be increased across
the board for most buyers.