Hong Kong

Two Nigerian nationals have been indicted on charges of swindling a Hong Kong businessman out of more than $53,000 in what federal prosecutors in Baltimore say was a fraudulent banking scheme.Lemmy O. Akioyamen, 35, of Greenbelt and Cletus Ediale, 28, of Silver Spring, convinced the businessman that he could cash in on a $28.6 million windfall in their home country, prosecutors said.In a form letter the men are believed to have sent to hundreds of businessmen around the United States, the men purported to control a secret fund in a national petroleum company in Nigeria, according to an indictment in U.S. District Court in Baltimore.

People often ask movie critics just how they assign stars when rating movies. Let's put it this way: "The Replacement Killers" gets a half a star for length alone."

HONG KONG -- Tung Chee-hwa, a former shipping magnate and the new chief executive of China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region beginning at midnight tomorrow, faces one of the tougher political high-wire acts in recent years.As Hong Kong returns to China tomorrow after more than a century and a half under British rule, he must make this unique marriage work as the world watches.Satisfying the leaders in Beijing and the people of Hong Kong seems an almost impossible task.Tung, 60, is a conservative, genial businessman.

WASHINGTON -- When President Nixon met Chairman Mao, Nixon said, with sincerity as well as diplomatic gallantry, "The Chairman's writings moved a nation and have changed the world." Mao replied, with more melancholy realism than feigned modesty, "I have not been able to change it. I have only been able to change a few places in the vicinity of Peking."Henry Kissinger, who was there, says the episode revealed how Mao "could not escape the nightmare that shadowed his accomplishments and tormented his last years: that it might all prove ephemeral, that the exertions, the suffering, the Long March, the brutal leadership struggles would be but a brief incident in the triumphant, passive persistence of a millennial culture which had tamed all previous upheavals, leaving little more in their wake than the ripples of a stone falling into a pond."

HISTORY DOES repeat itself. Ten years ago this month -- on "Black Monday" -- the Dow Jones average plunged a staggering 508 points. Yesterday, Black Monday returned to Wall Street, sending stocks down a record 554 points.Time for concern? Absolutely. Time for panic? Absolutely not.Given the market's sharp run-up in recent years, a major correction was inevitable. As Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan put it back in December, too many investors had a bad case of ''irrational exurberance,'' believing (wrongly)

BEIJING -- The contrast was foreboding.In Hong Kong, tens of thousands of people staged a solemn memorial to mark the eighth anniversary of the Chinese government's massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing during the Tiananmen Square uprising.Here, in the place ruled by the same government that will take over Hong Kong on July 1, no protests were allowed.In Hong Kong yesterday, demonstrators sang anthems and held a dramatic candlelight vigil. A 30-foot-high "Pillar of Shame" statue of twisted human bodies depicting oppression stood spotlighted in the dark.

PARIS -- Two themes have dominated discussion of Hong Kong's return to Chinese sovereignty: human rights and China's supposed future global geopolitical challenge. Both are grand distractions from the regional political issues that will dominate the start of the 21st century.The current debate asks whether China will respect the Western-style human rights regime installed in Hong Kong by its last British governor, Chris Patten. The answer must be no. This conception of individual rights is not only subversive of the present Chinese government's political system but inconsistent with the politico-cultural assumptions of much of the region.

Hong Kong's currency crisis is either the final tranquilizer dart in the hide of the Asian "tigers" or the best opportunity to make big money in small-nation bond markets since 1995.Either way, U.S. investors are paying close attention.After shrugging off the Pacific Basin's cascading economic symptoms for more than three months, U.S. stock markets resounded in sympathy yesterday. The Dow Jones industrial average fell by 186.88 to 7,847.77 after reports that Hong Kong stocks had plunged 10 percent, extending the Asian financial center's losses past 37 percent since August.

HONG KONG -- A yellow sign stenciled with interlocking black rings and a single word hangs over Kennedy F. Shortridge's laboratory. That word is "Biohazard.""In here," Shortridge said, opening the chrome door of an incubator, "we will grow the virus."Dozens of scientists around the world, principally in Hong Kong and at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, are working feverishly to understand the new flu virus that has spread from chickens to humans here, so far killing two.The flu, called H5N1, is a previously unknown strain of influenza virus that has jumped directly from chickens to humans, a leap that apparently had not occurred in previous flu outbreaks.

LONDON -- If Britain's defeated prime minister, John Major, had any real commitment to Europe he betrayed it by the timing of his resignation as leader of the Conservative party.Privately he touts as his successor Chris Patten, the most pro-Europe of senior Conservatives, but by resigning immediately he has made it impossible for Mr. Patten to throw his hat in the ring. Mr. Patten's current preoccupation as governor of Hong Kong precludes involvement with British electoral politics until the hand-over of Hong Kong to China in seven weeks.

"The Men Who Stare at Goats," starring Jeff Bridges as an Army shaman and George Clooney as his best pupil, is a refreshingly unpredictable and fizzy comic fantasy. It tickles the fancy even when it strains credibility. It riffs off the American military's real-life exploration of unconventional intelligence-gathering and combat techniques as well as the Army's attempts to redefine itself after the bloody mess and stagnation of Vietnam. History buffs might bristle at the way the film fiddles with the actual Cold War recruitment of "psychic spies" for a project called Stargate, based in Fort Meade outside Baltimore.

Betty Rosen says fashion isn't a top priority, yet the 76-year-old Pikesville resident is known around town for her style. She and her husband, Buddy Rosen, love to travel, and that's when she does most of her shopping - that is, when this professional photographer isn't taking pictures of faraway places and people. Whether she's headed to Asia, the grocery store or Gertrude's at the Baltimore Museum of Art for Moveable Feast's annual "Dining Out for Life" event, Rosen always looks picture-perfect.

PSC holds first hearing over Constellation nuclear deal Maryland energy regulators are holding on Wednesday the first of three hearings for public comment on Constellation Energy Group's deal to sell half of its nuclear power business to a French utility. The hearings are part of the Maryland Public Service Commission's review of whether the $4.5 billion transaction is in the public's interest. The hearings are scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Department of Legislative Services Building in Annapolis; Sept.

This week marks the beginning of the Chinese New Year, and there's no better place to celebrate the start of the lunar calendar than in Hong Kong. 2009 is the year of the Ox - people born under this sign include President Barack Obama. Hong Kong is one of CheapTickets.com's value destinations for the year, offering savings of 59 percent on lodging this month. The city offers cultural riches for any visitor. Hong Kong is divided into several districts, including Kowloon peninsula, Hong Kong Island and the New Territories.

Mary Elizabeth Walsh and Markus Paul Mueller were married in the chapel at Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church in Glyndon, MD on September 13, 2008. The Reverend Monsignor Lloyd E. Aiken performed the ceremony during a nuptial mass. The bride is the daughter of Celeste H. and Francis X. Walsh, Jr. of Westminster, MD and the groom is the son of Rosa and Adolf Mueller of Hilton Head Island, SC and Wernberg, Austria. The bride, who wore an ivory organza and lace gown, was given in marriage by her father.

The deadly H5N1 virus, bird flu, has resurfaced in poultry in Hong Kong for the first time in six years, reinforcing warnings that the threat of a human pandemic still exists. During December, India, Bangladesh, Vietnam and mainland China also experienced new outbreaks. In that same period, four new human cases in Egypt, Cambodia and Indonesia were reported to the World Health Organization. A 16-year-old girl in Egypt and a 2-year-old girl in Indonesia have died. The new cases come at a time when the number of confirmed human deaths from H5N1 bird flu have fallen for two years in a row and fewer countries are reporting outbreaks among poultry.

WB shrouds 'Dark Knight' from Chinese audiences Batman landed in Hong Kong, but that doesn't mean The Dark Knight will open all over China. The movie opened in Hong Kong theaters. But Warner Bros. decided not to release the film in mainland China - or even submit it for censors' approval - because of "prerelease conditions" and "cultural sensitivities," the studio said Tuesday. Warner Bros. officials may have been concerned the film - particularly scenes shot in Hong Kong, where Batman nabs a gangster - would offend censors.

One Bond about another: He's 'marvelous' as 007 Roger Moore told reporters in Hong Kong on Thursday that Daniel Craig is "marvelous" as James Bond because he brings a fresh dimension to the character. Moore, 81, who starred in seven Bond films in the 1970s and the 1980s, said Craig's performances in Steven Spielberg's 2005 political thriller Munich and Sylvia in 2003 helped shape a new Bond. Moore, speaking at an event in Hong Kong to promote his autobiography My Word Is My Bond, said he had yet to see Craig in Quantum of Solace.

Questions raised about Iranian leader's health BEIRUT, Lebanon : Reports about the health of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have stirred speculation about whether the controversial populist will run again for the country's highest elected office in June. In an interview published Saturday by Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency, a close associate of Ahmadinejad said the president had fallen sick because of overwork and exhaustion. "Every human being can face exhaustion under such a workload," lawmaker Mohammed Ismail Kowsari, an ally of Ahmadinejad, said in the interview.

Stephen Chow to follow in Bruce Lee's footsteps HONG KONG : Hong Kong comedian Stephen Chow will play Kato in the Columbia Pictures' adaptation of The Green Hornet, taking on a role made famous by the late action star Bruce Lee's portrayal in a 1966 TV series, the Hollywood studio said. Chow will also direct the movie, which will be the Kung Fu Hustle director and star's American debut, Columbia Pictures said in a statement. Canadian actor Seth Rogen will star as the Green Hornet, a debonair newspaper publisher who moonlights as a masked crime-fighter along with his martial arts-expert sidekick, Kato.