The Pulse：Cathay Pacific data leak, tree management in HK & Louis Cha

Millions of customers of Hong Kong’s biggest airline were made aware, on 24th October, that their personal data could be compromised. Time is crucial when it comes to cyber security, and this personal data leak happened at least seven months ago. Some Cathay customers have already been affected by phishing attempts, most likely caused by the data leak. With me to talk about the issue is Edmon Chung, Director of Internet Society Hong Kong.
On Thursday, the Environment Bureau proposed introducing a charging scheme for household waste that would be implemented by 2020 at the earliest, a year later than originally planned. The scheme has been discussed for more than a decade. The bill will be introduced in Legco on 14 November. At current rates of usage our landfills will reach capacity in two years’ time. On top of the usual thousands of tonnes of waste being dumped daily onto the three landfills, the past month has seen the addition of more than 12,000 tonnes of extra so-called waste that might have been turned to practical use. It mainly consists of timber from trees damaged by Typhoon Manghkut.
On Tuesday, novelist, founder of Ming Pao and influential figure in both journalism and politics, Louis Cha died at the age of 94. A celebrated writer of martial art novels, Cha is widely known to fans under his pen name of Jin Yong. In politics, he had a mixed relationship with Beijing. In 1985, Cha was appointed as a member of the Basic Law Drafting Committee and Consultative Committee. In 1988, his proposal for post-1997 political reform was widely criticised for its conservatism But Cha’s politics were not one sided as he became a bitter critic of the Beijing after tanks rolled into Tiananmen Square on 4th June 1989. Yet politics is not what he is best known for, he is far more famous for his wuxia, or swordplay novels that literally sold millions of copies. Cha wrote 15 martial arts novels, many of which were later adapted for television and movies.