PeterRS

Agreed. But you have to be clear about to which body elections referred. The Urban Council of Hong Kong (the name given to the City Council) was open to elections by an extremely limited electorate decades before the 1980s. In 1970 there were effectively 200,00 ellgible voters. Rules were eased and thereafter eligibility reached almost half a million in 1981. But Hong Kong people had absolutely no interest in elections. How many actually voted? Only 34,381!. I defy @forrestreid and anyone else to state this indicates an unequivocal interest in the introduction of democracy by a majority of the people. Note that the democratic groups @forrestreid refers to were set up in 1986 - two years AFTER the signing of the Joint Declaration. The movement was led by a handful of public figures but not at all popular at the outset. Indirect elections to a very limited number of Legislative Council (effectively Hong Kong's parliament) seats were then established. Once again, voting numbers were miniscule partly bcause of the limitations placed by the government on who could vote. It was only in 1991 - before Patten - when direct elections with very few restrictions on electors were introduced for a larger number of Legislative Council seats. This was far from any kind of universal franchise but it was a start. The government still held a majority of seats. Britain had by this stage become very nervous about China's intentions. Following the Tiananmen Square incident in June 1989, roughly 200,000 protestors marched through Hong Kong streets. This greatly displeased China. A new airport was planned off Lantau Island to replace the outdated Kai Tak airport, but under the terms of the Basic Law, China had to agree to the cost. This along with its surrounding infrastructure was estimated at somewhere around US$20 billion. China was relucant for Hong Kong to commit so much, despite the city having the world's third largest foreign exchange reserves. The old guard in Beijing had another reason for suspicion about Hong Kong's handling of its reserves. The Joint Declaration made it clear that these would be kept in Hong Kong for use by the government after 1997. Several Beijing lawmakers feared that as Britain left its former colony, it would find a way of transferring these funds to London. These were serious concerns which resulted in a fear of Britain's intentions. It took intense diplomacy to ensure that China's concerns were set aside and the airport construction got the go-ahead. Within Hong Kong, though, many had become nervous after June 1989 in Tiananmen Square and many senior professionals moved their families to Vancouver, Sydney and other cities. Ironically, as it became clear that China would leave Hong Kong alone after 1989, several new recruitment companies were set up to lure these professionals back to Hong Kong in more senior positions, while leaving their families overseas. These were fondly called "astronauts" and there were many tens of thousands of them! So Patten arrived in Hong Kong after a period of major discontent on both sides had finally seemed to be settled. It is true that the newly formed Democratic party won a majority of seats in the 1991 election. Fear of China had come to the fore and this enabled Patten to go about his duplicitous plan. Produced in absolute secrecy even from many of his masters in London, once announced Beijing was furious. And rightly so, given the promises both sides had made about consultations with and agreement by both parties if there was to be any change to the terms of the Joint Declaration and the Basic Law. China then did exactly what it said it would do - tear up the "through train" agreement and put in place its own legislative body. That was entirely Patten's doing, and anyone who disagrees with that has clearly not read the terms of the two Agreements. As I continued to live in Hong Kong for another four years and then returned for business virtually monthly for another 15 years, like many I believed China would live up to its obligations under the Agreements. Little actually changed, other than many more Chinese tourists visited the city. All the freedoms Hong Kong had enjoyed, including legal ones, continued. Indeed, Hong Kong thrived. But the Pandora's Box opened by Patten was only temporarily closed. In 2014, students especially were unhappy that the territory's Chief Executive would not be open to universal suffrage but only to a small group of electors chosen by Beijing. That started the umbrella movement which closed a major central motorway for three months and led to the destruction in the Legislative Council Chamber. A major disobediance campaign had started, one which I felt was bound not only to anger Beijing but to lead to some form of reprisal. There is no doubt that the students, as students tend to do in many parts of the world when they believe they have a serious grievance, went way too far. Remember Kent State University when the US National Guard killed demonstrating students during the Vietnam War? Unfortunately there were no voices of reason to temper their protests and point out the possible consequences. These took time, but we now know that Beiing used these and other protests to clamp down on Hong Kong people ruling their own affairs and killing democracy. This was all a result of Patten and his utterly selfish and idiotic plans for the installation of democratic systems. He is a man who believes totally in his own self-importance - as was later proved when he had to be fired as Chairman of the BBC. Making him Hong Kong's last Governor was a monstrous mistake by Prime Minister John Major. As I quoted in my previous post, Sir Percy Craddock was correct, "Britain reserved its biggest mistake to the last Act of the Play." And Britain has just sat back and done nothing but mouth platitudes when it is one of the two parties to the Agreements. John Walden and his colleagues were totally correct in saying "the introduction of democratic politics into Hong Kong would be the quickest and surest way to ruin Hong Kong's economy and create social and political stability." He is being proved correct.

My experience was in 1983. No idea what the land laws were then.

Probably the biggest issue rarely discussed is why Britain agreed in 1898 to a 99 year lease on the New Territories which accounts for more than 90% of Hong Kong's land area. After all, it had first been granted Hong Kong island and then the Kowloon Peninsula as far as Boundary Street in perpetuity as a result of the Opium Wars. By 1898 the Qing Dynasty government was in a far weaker position and the British were on their doorstep. Why did the British sit back and accept a lease rather than insist on the New Territories being also granted in perpetuity? We'll probably never know.

Not 100% true. John Major was clearly keen to offer Patten some kind of promotion for without him he would have lost the election to the Labour Party. He was offered a senior government position. He turned it down. He was offered a key seat in the House of Lords. He turned it down. The only job he wanted was to be Governor of Hong Kong. Yet unlike ALL previous governors, he had no experience of China, spoke no Chinese dialect, had never worked in the Beijing Embassy, and was a politician and not a diplomat. He had one aim and only one aim - to find a way of becoming some sort of hero by finding loopholes in the 1984 and 1990 Agreements by leaving Hong Kong virtually as a democratic state. Sorry but again not true - and recall I had been in Hong Kong for five years at that time and knew quite a number of civil servants (indeed, as you may well have - I just do not know). It was, let's also recall, basically only Margaret Thatcher who was determined to get the Chinese to maintain Hong Kong's status quo after 1997. She listened to neither of her two previous governors - the incredibly-wise in Chinese affairs Sir Murray MacLehose and Sir Edward Youde. She listened to none of the senior civil servants from both Westminster - notably Sir Percy Craddock her senior Hong Kong advisor - and Hong Kong (yes, many Hong Kong representatives sat in on those negotiations, including the Governor). Virtually every one was perfectly well aware that the Chinese under Deng would never accept her proposals. Thatcher came out of those negotiations with some egg on her face. In 1979, my first year in Hong Kong, there was water rationing. Then Hong Kong turned north to China who agreed that a pipeline be built to channel to Hong Kong all the water it needed from Guangdong Province. When Deng Xiao Ping told her to her face that China would have Hong Kong returned as mandated in law come hell or high water and could at a switch turn off 90% of Hong Kong's water, Thatcher idiotically proposed that the Hong Kong government would just convert oil tankers to water tankers and have them sitting in Hong Kong harbour. Yes, she really said that! At a media conference in Hong Kong after her last visit to Beijinig, she spouted a number of outright lies and poor Sir Edward Youde had to crrect her "version of discussions"! One senior Hong Kong civil servant, Barrie Wiggham, told me that Deng was adamant. Nothing Thatcher said moved him. She was left gutless having initially promised that Hong Kong would remain in British hands. Yet - and this is key - in 1984 there was no Democratic Party in Hong Kong and only a handful individuals speaking out about the need to establish democracy before 1997. And that, with all respect, is a total non sequitur. In both cases i wrote the truth. I do condemn the USA and Britain for much of their colonial deeds. The CIA getting rid of the PM of Iran is one thing. I did certainly believe that Hong Kong people did not seek democracy for they had never in their lives known what democracy meant! Almost 90% of Hong Kong citizens had emigrated from China's one-party state. But I never used the word "deserve". I was quoting a long-time senior civil servant of the territory. Surely that was obvious. Why therefore is that "surprising"? It isn't. But again you have made an innaccurate allegation. Few senior figures in Westminster wanted democracy for Hong Kong when Patten was appointed, apart from Douglas Hurd, the Secretary of State for Commonwealth and Foreign Affairs. Yet, according to Hansard, the official record of statements in the House of Commons, he had stood up in parliament and stated on July 1 1992 in a reply to a member about the increase in the number of elected members of the [Hong Kong] Legislative Council in the 1995 elections as agreed with the Chinese - "We have said that we shall discuss the 1995 elections with the Chinese, with the aim of ensuring as much continuity as possible." Note the word "discuss". Patten never discussed anything with the Chinese government. Further, the formal agreements with China already ensured an increase in directly elected members so that 50% would be directly elected by 2003. That is all in writing in agreements lodged not only with the United Nations but in Chinese law. The intention of both parties was that there be a "through train" so what was in place on 30 June 1997 would continue after 1 July 1997, the sole exception being that the Chief Executive of Hong Kong would be a Hong Kong citizen. Most British civil servants, the legal profession, the police etc. would remain in their jobs. As stated by Sir Percy Craddock, the Chinese government negotiators in 1989 had made clear that any unilateral attempt by Britain prior to 1997 to change the agreements regarding any increase in democratically elected seats in the Hong Kong legislature would result in the Chinese scrapping the agreement to increase directly elected seats to 50% and instead would impose their own conflicting arrangements. If that happened, Britain could do absolutely nothing about it. In other words, there was a procedure in place to increase democracy in Hong Kong substantially. But Patten's ham-fisted and unilateral non-discussions killed it! It has been said, although I have to add I can find no official writings about it, that John Major was incensed not only at Patten's changes but at the devious way he had gone about them. He tried to recall him back to London twice, but Patten refused. Major and many in his government were concerned, understandably, about the effect on Anglo/Chinese trade once Britain had broken its agreed promises on Hong Kong. The irony really is that very few in Hong Kong (well under 5%) had any interest in democracy after the signing of the Joint Agreement in 1984. As Sir Percy Craddock wrote in an April 1997 issue of Prospect magazine - All who look beyond the headlines will wonder why Britain, with its long and rich experience of China, should reserve its biggest mistake for the last act of the play.

One or two members here post about too much attention being gven to the "old days". We live in 2026 and should just enjoy what is on offer for gay men today. To a certain extent I agree and disagree. Enjoy the moment should be everyone's motto. But we should never forget that the "old days" for those of us who were around then were quite amazing and surely worth the occasional reminiscence. For had we not had the "old days", perhaps there would be little to enjoy today.

And that is the way you always treat those whose posts oppose your American view. You are wrong. And by the way, what is the most important Festival in Iran up to today? Most will say Ashura, the day i happened to arrive in Teheran during my visit. It is certainly of supreme importance to the Shia Musim community worldwide, but in Iran the most important Festival is Nowruz, so acknowledged by the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 64/253 in Febrary 2010. And since your knowledge of Iran is so widespread, no doubt you are aware that this is bascially a Zoroastrian celebration.

Understandably very late in the day, Qatar announed it would today run a few flights from several cities including Bangkok. The catch is that it will only take passengers as far as Doha. No flights beyond will operate.

Yet again you quote an American site and ramble on giving an American view. The FACT is that Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians are officially recognised under the 1979 Constitution as religious minorities. In Yazd I was privileged to attend a Zoroastrian service of worship. As you enter Yazd, you see the two Pillars of Silence where Zoroastrians used to leave their dead. Since the Islamic authorities banned cremation, this is one area where the Zoroastrian faith has suffered. Families wishing bodies buried in the traditional manner have to send them to Mumbai.

Just noticed @a-447's post. As I have written before, I visited Bali ten times in the first half of the 1980s. Always stayed at what was then the simple Tjampuhan Hotel just outside Ubud and loved every viisit. On about my fifth visit, one of the boys who worked in the hotel suggested I should consider buying some land and building a small Balinese house. He and his wife could then look after it when was away (which would be most of the year!). He then took me on his motorcycle to see a plot of land (I seem to remember it was called Sayan). He drove me a few miles west of Ubud and then south for another mile or so. When we walked through the trees, the view literally took my breath away. There was a longish plot of grass beyond which was a valley down to a stream with rice terraces on each side and beyond. Facing west, it caught the late afternoon sun and I just loved it. But reality hit. Although I was told that a plot of land and construction of a small Balinese-style house with a small pool in front would only be around £2,000, I knew that the chances of my being able to spend more than six weeks a year there were very slim. So, even with renting for part of the year and with that view at the front of my mind for weeks, I decided against it. Besides, I had loads of other parts of the world I wanted to experience. Some years later I learned that a Hong Kong solicitor had bought most of the land and erected six luxury villas. Each sold for about US$1.5 million and one had been purchased by Mick Jagger. Ah well! One of my many financial mistakes!!

Just to add I frequently add photos to posts, but error messages are now relatively common - and I have no idea why. Since I work on a desk top, I just copy the photo and insert it. That presents no problem for some reason.

It's merely dynamic pricing which a lot of airlines, pop concerts and others use. Some people who have to travel on certain dates will book the advertised price. As the seats in a business cabin remain unsold, so the price comes down. I had the same coming back from Hong Kong on Thursday in an A330 that was only about 20% full. I was twice offered upgrades to business (no premium economy on that plane) each offer lower than the previous one. For a short flight, I have no desire to pay anything extra. If it was long haul, I'd be much more interested. For an airline, a seat unsold is revenue lost. So better to get something.

Totally agree. Tokyo's summer temperatures and humidity levels usually exceed those in Thailand and it can be very uncomfortable outside.

You saw it correctly. But there are conditions. You must have entered Thailand at least once before and have an arrival stamp in your current passport. You must be entering on one of the visa exemption schemes. They are only located in the C arrivals hall - not in the west one. Then in the event of peak arrvals, the immigration officials have the right at their discretion to move you into a normal immigration lane. But certainly worth trying.

Can't evenyone with a biometric passport use the auto gates? I noticed when departing on Tuesday (a public holiday) the airport was humming with people but the departures immigration queues were quite light. The e-gates have certainly helped reduce those queues very considerably.

And you never thought of checking on any of the search engines about the change of name from Persa to iran before you made your inaccurate assessment. Why would they scrub it? Zoroastrianism is one of Iran's official religions. Armenian Christians are also part of an official religion. Vank Cathedral in Isfahan has a glorious interior.

Never mind emojis! You have never responded to my answer about the change of name from Persia to Iran. You gave the impression I was around at that time - and you made it seem like a joke. Your posts too often are like jokes rather than serious responses to serious questions you have actually asked!

Especially with news of him lying naked on the bed! Mind you, I think that would surely have them running for flights returning home pretty quickly LOL

Totally agree. Hotel review sites are the same with Tripadvisor heading the list, at least according to one Business Travel Magazine. I once complained to Tripadvisor Head office about obvously fake one-line reviews (allthough these were praising one hotel obviously to get it up the city's 5-star hotel rankings). I was rather surprised when Triadvisor then took down half those reviews. Qatar has ben my airline of choice on annual trips back to Europe, largely due to cost. Once when in the UK I was living about 50 ms from the airport and so checked the incoming flight on Flight Radar. Just as well because that flight was going to be 4 hours late in arriving, meaning I'd miss my connection in Doha. I was shocked that QR never once advised me of any late arrival, never provided any information of what onward flight to BKK I was booked on, and left me on my own in that huge biz class lounce in Doha. I know they have cabins for longish layovers and other semi-flat seats. I expect they were pre-booked, but no one told me about it. The 8-hour overnight layover in Doha was not pleasant.

Not sure why there are so many tourists now. When I return to BKK late afternoon yesterday, the airport was humming with arriving passengers. I have not seen it so crowded for quite a few years. Was it a holiday somewhere? My flight was CX from Hong Kong and was no more than 15% full.

Returning to the topic, as I flew out of BKK to HKG on Tuesday there were two El Al jets and one Qatar jet in parking spaces off the taxiways. When I returned yetsrerday afternoon, the israeli jets were still there and the single Qatar jet had been joined by two more.

So you question the legitimacy of whatever happened before you were born!! You never rescinded your comment about elections in Iran. Oh, I know! You will now comment that there is no present day indication if they were "fair". You have to look to history - before you were born - to answer that.

So true. To label Arabs as one people is ridiculous. Just as ridiculous as naming the British as one people formed from the same ethnic stock. Present day Britons were made up of a host of different tribes. And not only those who inhabited the islands many millennia ago. They are a mix of the Picts, a host of more than 20 settled tribes and ancient kingdoms, Neolithic farmers from the Near East, Celtic Druids, Germanic settlers, Roman, French, Viking and probably more. Throughout a long, long history, the country has settled into four bascially separate parts of one union. You might wish to look a bit more closely at the history of the United States where there were more than 1,000 distinct civilizations in the pre-Columbian era alone. The name Persia derives from the region in south western Iran that was home to the Persian Empire's founders. It was essentially the Greeks who promulgated the name to cover the entire country. It was never a name used by the Iranian peoples themselves. Those we named Persians actually called themselves "Airyan" (Irani). It is a term deeply rooted in Iranian culture and history, in ancient texts and Zoroastrian scriptures. It is a far more accurate name to depict the country as a whole rather than a small part of it. Hence iran. Raza Shah changed the name to symbolise a deliberate reconnection with the country's past and a pointer to a future away from colonial influence.

Sadly we tend to foget that Iran did have fair elections for the Majlis (parliament) following WWII. Mohamad Mosaddegh had first been elected to parliament as far back as 1923. Having been in favour of Reza Khan as the Prime Minister in the 1920s, he turned against him after a coup in 1925 when the British deposed the then Shah and installed Reza Khan in the post. Whereas Britain had discovered oil in Iran, following its own revolution Russia wanted and took part of Iran. In Britain's eyes, this was less for oil than the threat it posed to the British Raj in India and beyond. In 1941, the British forced Reza Khan's abdication in favour of his son, even though as Shah he had helped modernise Iran. A secularist, he even prayed in a Jewish synagogue and changed the name of Persia to Iran. In 1951, the Majlis voted 79 to 12 to elect Mosaddegh as the country's next Prime Minister. Mosaddegh introduced a lot of social reforms in the country. But Britain and the USA loathed the fact that he introduced legislation to nationalise the country's oil production. As Britain had discovered the oil, it regarded the income from it as its own, paying Iran a pittance for the rights. In the 1920s, Britain was supposed to pay 5% of net profits, but Britain never permitted any inspection of the Anglo Iranian Oil Company's books. In fact, although there were formal agreements, Britain often did not pay Iran anything. Mosaddegh then made life difficult for the British by, for example, instituting a blockade of the Gulf so oil could not be transported. There was also some bad blood between Mosaddegh and the Shah when parliament cut the Shah's personal budget. The end result was that Britain and the USA through the CIA helped get rid of Mossadegh through a variety of means that the CIA has used regularly since then, including paying tribesmen and mobs to demonstrate openly against Mosaddegh. The Shah initially fled to Rome. In Iran Britain, still recovering from its WWII efforts, could not carry out Mosaddegh's ouster on its own. Initially the USA was reluctant to join Britain's Iran advanture. But when Eisenhower came to power, everything changed. The two countries then arranged for Mosaddegh's ouster and far greater powers provided to the Shah. The USA then basically became the Shah's paymaster until he was forced from power in the 1979 Revolution. So Iran did have elections that were at least basically fair long before Britain and the USA took it upon themselves to destabilise the country. And everything since has to go back to the duly elected Mosaddegh's ouster in 1953.

Earlier today I came across an old Huffington Post article from 2014 updated to 2017. Given the changing fortunes of Hong Kong there were those who forecast a bright future - like the last pre-July 1 1997 Governor Christopher Patten - and those whose crystal balls predicted a much murkier future. I have made no attempt to to disguise my dislike of Patten, both as a Hong Kong Governor (from 1992)and subsequently as the Chairman of the BBC Board of Governors - a post from which he was fired. I did meet him just once in a very casual setting. He knew nothing about me and my work and he was clearly much more occupied looking around for someone more interesting to chat with. Fair enough. I could never blame someone for that. No, as I have written before, I resented him for his childishly secret - to all but a BBC TV team which he paid to come to Hong Kong several times to witness his shenanigans - attempts to find faults in the two documents which Britain and China had jointly signed laying out Hong Kong's future. They made perfetly clear that not a word could be altered without both parties having agreed in writing. Patten set out to embarrass China into putting Hong Kong on to a much more democratic path. One of those who felt this decade-long faint-hearted attempt at democracy was belated stupidity was a man named John Walden who had been a senior official in the government for decades. As the territory's Director for Home Affairs, he said this - "If I personally find it difficult to believe in the sincerity of this sudden and unexpected official enthusiasm for democratic politics it is because throughout the 30 years I was an official myself, from 1951 to 1981, 'democracy' was a dirty word. Officials were convinced that the introduction of democratic politics into Hong Kong would be the quickest and surest way to ruin Hong Kong's economy and create social and political instability." In 1975, hardly anyone in Hong Kong cared about democracy. There was not even a democratic party - finally formed in 1995. It was Patten who, often secretly, encouraged the rise of democracy, and to hell with what China thought. Yet Hong Kong was dependent on China continuing Hong Kong's laissez-faire attitude to politics and its way of life after 1997. Hong Kong people, most of whom had emigrated from desperately poor circumstances in China, were more interested in a roof over their heads, money in the bank and education for their children. So when Patten unilaterally announced major changes to the Joint Agreements, the Chinese government was as livid as the UK government would have been had the boot been on the other foot. China then cancelled what had been termed the "through train" in terms of how the territory was going to be run and instead installed its own administration. But the democratic forces deliberately unleashed by Patten ewere a Pandora's Box. They took root 15 years later in the student body. And as the world knows, even after demonstration and more demonstrations China did nothing. But eventually it could tolerate it no more, as it became obvious that Hong Kong political views were being aired in the mainland. Thus the clampdown of three years ago and the end of democracy in Hong Kong. Hong Kong which I shall visit again tomorrow is now devoid of the freedoms it once enjoyed and all because one pig-headed man with zero experience of China who should never have been appointed Governor thought he could outwit the old guard in Beijing. He totally failed and thus condemned Hong Kong to a less bright future. In my view John Walden and his government colleagues with similar views was spot on.

Getting back to the title of the thread, air travel around the Gulf region looks like it will be in chaos for several more days with several major airports still closed. There will then be a period of several days while airllines get planes and flight staff back to where they should be. I feel sorry for those who have booked flights to and from Asia via the Gulf at this time.