Murderer or terrorist

As a result of the recent migrant crisis there has been a spate of violent attacks on migrants in numerous European countries and sadly some have resulted in deaths.  Elsewhere a number of Israeli Jews have been murdered by Palestinian terrorists through stabbings, rocks and car collisions.  To me all these deaths are deplorable.  The sad thing is that people on social media try to make political capital out of these tragic events.  One of these is - why are murders by muslims considered terrorism and why are murders by non-muslims considered murders and not terrorism? These memes appear usually on the politcal left and in muslim written articles.

To me it is the very simple.  When a muslim commits an atrocity, whether 9/11, 7/7, Madrid, Bali, Charlie Hebdo, the left media always make excuses for the attack, blaming Western foreign policy, occupation of muslim land, support for zionism and in the case of Charlie Hebdo, insulting Islam.  There is very little thought for the victim and there is always a motivating factor and if that factor wasn't there then there would be no muslim outrages.  Also in more insidious cases some muslims and their far left fluffers claim that these outrages are part of greater conspiracy to take away our freedoms, stoke up 'islamophobia' and demonize the muslim population. Israeli is usually mentioned in the same breath as these conspiracies.

In contrasts, such questions are not asked when Brevik killed the teenagers in Utoya, or when a neo-fascist hacked two school workers to death in Sweden, including a muslim.  Absent is the question of why Brevik and other neo-fascists carried these attacks and what motivated them.  They are simply seen as evil acts by evil men.  Whilst it may be interesting to discuss why these acts were carried out, they are sure to raise very uncomfortable questions for the left.

So it is not the mass media that makes the distinction it is the left and muslim commentators that make this distinction.

Parallel traders in Hong Kong

Whilst we hear daily reports of the migrant/'refugee' crisis that is affecting the West, there is a similar but not quite the same problem here in Hong Kong.  In Hong Kong there is no goods tax similar to VAT, compared to the mainland, which is quite substantial.  Also questions arise in the mainland as to the quality of the goods for sale and to whether the products are genuine or fake.  So there is no surprise that lots of mainlanders make day trips to HK to buy daily goods such as groceries, detergents, cosmetics, electronics, nappies etc.  This has led to parallel trading where mainlanders come to HK to buy retails goods, take them back and sell them on for profit.  The result of this is that businesses in Sheung Shui, Fanling, Yuen Long and Tai Po - the north districts - or districts closest to the mainland border, get alot of business.  The negative side of this is that prices are pushed up for locals and indeed, locals experience shortages.  We know that prices are dependent on supply and demand.  This has led to anti-mainland sentiment and indeed anti-parallel trader protests.  I saw some of this myself the other day when we went on a visit to some friends in Shenzhen.  Once our train stopped at Tai Po, lots of mainlanders came on with their shopping, some were clearly parallel traders. 
Although this pales in significance to what the Europeans are going through, it does show how freedom of travel can have positive and negative effects on any community.