Former Moutai VP Gets 11-Plus Years On Bribery Conviction
Liu Zili, the former vice president of China's top liquor brand, Kweichow Moutai Group, was sentenced to 11 and a half years in prison for bribery and was also fined 1 million yuan and had illegally gained property confiscated, according to a notice by the Intermediate People's Court of Bouyei-Miao Autonomous Prefecture of Qiannan, Guizhou Province.
The notice revealed that during the period from 2008 to 2018, when Li acted as vice president, general manager and vice secretary of the company, he accepted bribes totaling 18.55 million yuan ($2.68 million). In exchange, he approved the acquisition or brand management rights of various liquor brands. Kweichow Moutai was involved in aggressive merger and acquisition activity when it surpassed Diageo as the world's largest liquor distributor in 2017.
The court also found that Liu's wife and daughter were indirectly involved in the bribery. Liu pled guilty in the court.
The judge said that the court showed leninecy in sentencing in consideration of Liu's cooperation during the investigation and because he had surrendered part of his illegal gains.
Hong Kong Documents First Confirmed COVID-19 Reinfection
A 33-year-old Hong Kong man who had contracted COVID-19 in March and was later diagnosed as fully recovered has tested positive again for the coronavirus at airport screening in Hong Kong upon his recent return from travels in Europe. The dual infections indicated different genome sequences of the virus strains, Hong Kong TVB News reported.
The microbiology research team at the University of Hong Kong cited the case as "the world's first documentation" of a patient who recovered from COVID-19 becoming reinfected by another strain of COVID-19 afterward. Other cases of people testing positive again after seeming to recover have been dismissed by some as the illness enduring and reemerging, the New York Times reported.
Without catching a second strain it was impossible to answer if it was a new infection or the original case resurfacing. This case is unique because the patient contracted the illnesses in different continents.
There were as many as 24 nucleotides - the components that make up the virus' RNA - creating differences between the two infections, said researchers at the University of Hong Kong.
The patient had reportedly traveled in Britain and Spain earlier this month. He was first infected by SARS-CoV-2 in late March and fully recovered by the middle of April.
Experts noted that the patient was asymptomatic in response to the second infection. Researchers said this might indicate that his immune system was responding and offering some level of protection.
Globally, around 24 million people have tested positive for COVID-19 infection, WHO's technical lead on COVID-19, Maria van Kerkhove, told reporters in Geneva on Monday. Most people - even patients with mild cases - exhibit an immune response, she said. It remains unclear how strong and how long the response lasts.
"Before this report, many believe that recovered COVID-19 patients have immunity against re-infection, however, there is evidence that some patients have a waning antibody level after few months," said researchers at the University of Hong Kong.
Esports Score Big In Domestic Market
China's esports users are expected to top over 400 million people by the end of 2020, potentially becoming the world's largest esports market, according to a report recently released by Tencent's own data platform, Penguin Intelligence and Tencent eSports, which is associated with data and measurement firm Nielsen Holdings, and the International Esports Federation.
A form of competition using sports video games, esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions. Just as in live sports, there are professional players, teams and leagues.
The report indicates that China will soon exceed the U.S. market in terms of number of esports users. Among users, 60 percent are youths under the age of 30, with the majority of those competitive players under the age of 25. There are over 50,000 professionals working in the esports industry, but analysts expect the industry could employ up to 500,000 esports pros.
Similar to traditional sports such as playing pingpong, esports require the spirit of sports, said Deng Yaping, a Chinese table tennis player who won eighteen world championships, including four Olympic championships, between 1989 and 1997, Tencent News reported.
The esports game industry generated revenues of $10.3 billion for the first half of 2020, a huge increase of roughly 55% year-on-year, according to a report released by the China Game Industry Research Institute.
Analysts project China's esports market will reach 140.57 billion yuan ($20.34 billion) by the end of 2020, and 165.14 billion yuan in 2021, with mobile games and esports events contributing most of the growth.
Zhuhai-Macao Port Resumes Operation
The Zhuhai-Macao Port of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge (HZMB) Port will officially open to traffic for vehicles from Guangdong province and Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR), starting Wednesday morning. Private cars from these two regions will no longer be required to register online for customs clearance in advance, CCTV reported.
The Zhuhai-Macao Port includes Zhuhai-Macao vehicle passage of HZMB and Zhuhai-Macao passage of Hengqin Port. Large-sized buses still won't be allowed to pass the customs in these regions.
Macao Customs said that drivers traveling in the two regions have to carry permission documents for crossing borders, and show negative test results for coronavirus as well as a health monitoring app QR code.
The Zhuhai-Macao freight passage of the HZMB Port officially opened to traffic on August 16. With the Macao SAR's former Lotus Port traffic transferred to Hengqin Port, trucks traveling between Zhuhai City and Macao SAR have been temporally reassigned to the new facility, CGTN reported.
As of Monday, Macao had reported no local infection cases in the past 148 days and no infection cases from abroad for 59 days.
Meituan Dianping Gallops Into the Top Five Hong Kong Stocks
Online on-demand delivery giant Meituan Dianping shares rose 8.4 percent to close at HK$265.8 ($34.3) on Monday, bringing the company's market valuation to over HK$200 billion, which places it as the fifth-most valuable stock listed in Hong Kong, Yicai Global reported.
The other four top-listed companies are Alibaba Group Holdings, Tencent Holdings, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and Ping An Insurance Group, with market valuations of HK$731.6 billion, HK$677.4 billion, HK$246.4 billion and HK$205.2 billion, respectively.
As of this March, Meituan Dianping's share reached HK$100 and then galloped to HK$200 in early July. Meanwhile, the company's second-quarter revenue increased 8.9% to 24.72 billion yuan ($3.58 billion), exceeding the market expectation of 23.4 billion yuan.
There were nearly 3 million food delivery staff working for with the platform in the first half of 2020, with about 1.39 million new recruits. The company said that its digital platform has been taking positive steps to alleviate unemployment pressure.
According to the company's fiscal report for the first half, Meituan's "new businesses" experienced a revenue increase of 22%, to 5.6 billion yuan. Meituan's catering takeaway business alone saw an increase of 14.5% during this period.
Income from Meituan's dine-in, hotel and tourism business fell 13.4%.
