Yes, the lady has shown her hand and has announced her candidacy for the Legislative Council by-election.

Anson Chan was widely regarded as the woman behind the throne, having served under both British and Chinese rule. She stepped down from politics in 2001, paving the way for Donald Tsang, then financial secretary, to take her post and succeed Mr Tung after his resignation four years later.

But insiders always knew – or had faith anyway – that Chan, known as the “Conscience of Hong Kong”, would return.

And return she has. The 66-year-old announced her intention to run for a seat in Hong Kong’s legislature last week and her comeback has been greeted with enthusiasm by pro-democracy supporters and lukewarm responses by others.

The Financial Times reported her as saying, ”For me this is a defining moment – an opportunity to put to the test all the values I hold dear.”

And she told Time, "I don't really know whether I can succeed or not. But at least it's worth a try."

Across the waters, the opening of The Venetian Macao is being hailed as “a harbinger of great change” by the South China Morning Post, whose chief Asia correspondent Greg Torode opines it will “stand to change the face of the tourism industry in the region”.

In his Observer column titled “It’s not a game, let’s call a spade a spade”, he also wrote: “It also threatens to change our language and, with it, our understanding and perception of the casino industry.

“For words as basic as “casino” and “gambling” are fast disappearing under a successful public relations blitz on the part of the modern casino moguls now dominating Macau.

“The casino gambling industry seems to prefer the word “gaming”. That is, of course, if it has to refer to its core source of income at all.”

Singapore also gets a mention when he writes, “Rather than casino resorts, we are also seeing increased references to “integrated resorts“, an even more brazen euphemism of which Singapore, for one, has grown particularly fond of.”

While he said that “like most successful propaganda, it has a germ of truth”, he believes it is important to make distinctions between gaming and gambling because “gaming can also refer to war gaming or computer gaming, so it’s hardly precise in the modern age”.

No one though, he writes, refers to “gaming” on a horse or a football match or zipping across to Macau for a “game”.

Making those distinctions are important, he says, because “what is going on at the Cotai Strip has vast commercial, social and regulatory implications for Hong Kong too. The casino boom is going to be weighed up, chewed over and commented upon in ever-greater detail.”