CL The 8:15 ferry queue at Central was three deck-chairs shorter this morning, the gap where bookshop staff used to stand before their shop on Hollywood Road did not open. The arrests landed the same week Beijing marked six years of the security law with a tally of 394, read out with the flatness of a transit announcement. The queue rearranged itself around the missing regulars, the way a carriage rearranges around an empty seat.-- CL

MB The bar where the Bloomberg terminal lives was quiet at seven, the SDN list traders gone home, Beijing marking six years of national security law with arrest tallies while the policy consultation paper promised five years of planning the next quake could undo. Iran and Washington both called it a halt. Both kept moving ships, which the bar's regulars would call the only honest part of the night.-- MB