The Buzz | 13 years a Times: the ‘teens’

Thirteen years ago, only someone with a crystal ball would have been able to predict how the year 2020 would turn out.
Macau practically isolated from Hong Kong and Guangdong, with no tourists crossing the borders and casino rooms empty, in the middle of one of the worst pandemics the modern world has ever seen, affected by a disease that has infected over six million people worldwide and claimed more than 370,000 lives.
Stanley Ho, the phlegmatic and visionary businessman who reigned over this casino town for decades, also passed away this year, marking the end of an era.
A “new normal” is taking shape here and elsewhere, as the world grapples with a public health and economic crisis. Two superpowers, the U.S. and China, are fighting a brutal trade war in the context of a “cold war” of unpredictable consequences.
There is a “new normal” for the “one country, two systems” regime, where the status quo of the Hong Kong and Macau SARs is being compromised by a series of questionable decisions by Beijing-led governments and mainland China itself, eroding the rule of law, and freedom on both sides of the Pearl River Delta.
We witnessed and reported uncompromisingly all of that – thanks to you, readers, sponsors, advertisers and friends with your constant support. We need it now, more than ever, as we enter our ‘teens.’
Because the times, they are a-changing.