The first woman, the first Chinese - and the first time an attorney-general has received law qualifications by correspondence course.

Unlike the other frontrunners for the first local attorney-general - to be named secretary of justice after June 30 - Elsie Leung Oi-sie, 57, did not have the benefit of studying at Oxford, Cambridge or London.

She attended Sacred Heart Canossian College, an all-girls Catholic institution in Mid-Levels, and became an articled clerk, taking her qualifications from the College of Law as a correspondence course.

Chinese ambassador to Australia Xiao Qian said on Wednesday that Beijing “has the obligation to take measures” to protect the legitimate rights of Chinese companies overseas if the port of Darwin were taken back through a forced sale, according to Australian media reports.

The sudden demise of a major gold trading platform has rocked the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, leaving tens of thousands of retail investors with combined losses totalling more than 10 billion yuan (US$1.4 billion), according to investors and domestic media reports.

But as the gold spot price surged again over the past few weeks, a wave of customers tried to cash out their earnings, pushing the company into a liquidity crunch and leaving it unable to meet surging redemption requests.

Hundreds of investors gathered outside the company’s offices in Shenzhen over the weekend to demand their money back, prompting a police intervention to maintain order, according to videos posted by investors on social media.

Authorities in Shenzhen’s Luohu district announced on Wednesday that a task force had been set up to investigate abnormal business operations at JWR, financial news outlet Yicai reported.

The company’s unpaid funds may exceed 10 billion yuan, according to estimates compiled by investors cited by Yicai.