News of the Day – ‘We have not seen the bottom’

 

 

‘We have not seen the bottom’

5:00pm, Mar 09, 2009, SCMP 

 

Financial Secretary John Tsang said on Monday the global economic slowdown would get worse before it got better, as he sought to justify his prudent annual budget.

Mr Tsang said that he had to maintain the government’s reserves – which currently stand at around HK$500 billion (US$64 billion) – due to the uncertainties of the global economy.

“We have not seen the bottom. The worst is still to come,” he said, in a talk to the city’s business community.

“Some may think I am using scare tactics. I am not.”

With financial giants such as the Royal Bank of Scotland, AIG, and HSBC, reporting record losses in their annual results, Mr Tsang said he would have to wait until the middle of this year to have a better grasp of how Hong Kong’s economy is going to play out.

“At this time this year, I believe we need to be more pragmatic and more prudent than ever. That’s why I do not want to give too much of your hard-earned money too readily and too fast,” he said.

In his budget delivered last month, Mr Tsang said Hong Kong’s gross domestic product had shrunk 2.5 per cent in the fourth quarter year-on-year, as the key finance and export industries were hit by the global slowdown.

Many analysts had called on Mr Tsang to raid the hefty war chest to stimulate the flagging economy, but he resisted making any huge spending promises.

Hong Kong slipped into recession in the third quarter of last year, a sharp contrast to the China-inspired boom over the past four years.

 

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News of the Day – Women’s future important, not mine, says Edison Chen

 

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Women’s future important, not mine, says Edison Chen

Star hopes former lovers will be rehabilitated and happy Peter Brieger in Vancouver Feb 26, 2009  SCMP

Edison Chen Koon-hei has again voiced his concern for the celebrity lovers scarred by last year’s sex-photos scandal, while ruling out his imminent return to the city’s entertainment business.

“I hope every one of the victims can become healthy again and be happy again,” Chen said outside a downtown Vancouver courthouse on Tuesday.

“I hope the victims involved can stand back up. That is more important than me at this time. Their wellbeing in this case is more important.”

It was the second time in as many days that Chen, 28, cast himself as the protector of female entertainers who appeared in hundreds of his personal sex photos circulated on the internet in January last year.

The pop star testified in Canada as a key prosecution witness in the coming criminal case against Sze Ho-chun, an electronics store employee accused of stealing the photographs from Chen’s computer.

Before his cross-examination on Monday, Chen warned that he would refuse to answer any questions of an “intimate nature” about his former lovers, Cecilia Cheung Pak-chi, Gillian Chung Yan-tung, Bobo Chan Man-woon and Rachel Ngan Wing-sze. He reluctantly confirmed the identity of the entertainers in court.

“I am determined to protect their innocence,” he told the hearing in the British Columbia Supreme Court. “They have suffered enough.”

After the hearing wrapped up on Tuesday, Chen said he had no immediate plan to return to Hong Kong and hoped his testimony would close the book on a scandal that captured international headlines.

Chung, best known for her role in the singing duo Twins, will soon return to the entertainment business after self-imposed seclusion, according to her management company.

“Just wait for a little bit, but she will make her comeback very soon,” the chief executive of record company Emperor Entertainment Group, Ng Yu, said. “We just hope this [scandal] can end soon and people will stop digging things up.”

Authorities at the Department of Justice approved this week’s Canadian hearing because Chen had refused to return to Hong Kong to testify at Sze’s trial, due in April.

“I came to Vancouver to be a witness and hope that this will bring closure,” he said. “If the case is not over, I definitely will not go back to Hong Kong and I don’t want to cause more issues. In this past year, I’ve thought about a lot of things and had much unhappiness, but I hope, with hard work, I can get through this and I hope this case will soon be over.”

Chen, surrounded by his mother and bodyguards, said he had stepped back from work this year to think about his future. Asked about Sze’s court case, he said: “I want justice – that’s it. Over this past year, I’ve done a lot of different things, went to a lot of different places and met some different people and learned some new things that I feel that I needed to learn. I want to try and find my own values, my own identity. In truth, I hope that when this case is over, we can move on and I can live my life.”

In court, the actor-singer testified that all the sexually explicit photos were taken with his lovers’ consent.

Chen’s mother told reporters her son had always been a good boy and that he called her often and returned home to be with her every New Year.

News of the day – Tobacco duty in HK to rise by 50pc

 

Tobacco duty in HK to rise by 50pc

 

BUDGET 2009
Regina Leung
1:52pm, Feb 25, 2009  SCMP

 

Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah on Wednesday announced an increase in Hong Kong tobacco duty by 50 per cent “with immediate effect” – saying it was needed for public health reasons.

Mr Tsang was unveiling new fiscal measures in his second budget address in the Legislative Council.

“The duty on cigarettes will increase from around HK$0.8 to about HK$1.2 per stick. We will also continue to step up our efforts on smoking cessation, as well as on publicity and enforcement in tobacco control,” he said.

There had been calls from health experts for the government to consider raising tobacco taxes in an effort to curb smoking-related diseases such as lung cancer.

According to customs statistics, a tobacco tax of 80 cents per cigarette levied in Hong Kong – unchanged since 2001 – makes Hong Kong cigarettes among the cheapest in the developed economies. It is estimated that over 6,000 people die in Hong Kong annually of smoking-related illnesses. Health experts are also concerned about the dangers posed by passive-smoking.

Mr Tsang said although the government’s fiscal position this year was likely to be weak, spending on healthcare would be boosted.

“The government will honour its pledge to increase healthcare expenditure to 17 per cent of recurrent expenditure by 2012,” he said.

“When the financing arrangements are finalised after the consultation on its implementation, we will draw an amount of HK$50 billion from the fiscal reserves to implement the reform” he told the legislators.

Mr Tsang said the government would increase Hospital Authority funding by about HK$870 million a year over the next three financial years.

“The annual subvention for the Hospital Authority by 2011-12 will be approximately HK$2.6 billion higher than now.

“I have also earmarked some HK$840 million for the next three financial years to implement various complementary measures to strengthen primary care services and the support to chronic patients, promote public-private partnership and develop a territory-wide electronic health record system,” he said.

He said the government would provide additional funding of about HK$19 million to enhance the care for people with disabilities.

Mr Tsang said that because of the growing ageing population, healthcare posed the greatest challenge to the public finances.

He said the Food and Health Bureau would continue with the second stage of a public consultation on healthcare reform.

Mr Tsang said more measures to support the development of food testing services were also planned.

“This will help Hong Kong to develop into a food testing hub in the region,” he added.

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News of the Day – Where beggars can be choosers

Where beggars can be choosers

 

Clive Graham-Ranger
Feb 23, 2009  SCMP

 

 

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Like so many of Phnom Penh’s main thoroughfares, the road into town from the airport is a chaotic mix of street vendors’ cries, pungent food-stall aromas, everyday bustle and choking exhaust fumes. The early morning traffic jam is not helped by the waves of barang (foreigners) and Khmer elite whose giant 4×4s jockey for position.

The upside, however, for the ever-present troupe of barefoot beggars who line the road is a finger-drumming queue of monied and mobile donors. Hun “Lucky” Li Heng, 22, was a prince among that ragged band of panhandlers and admired by street kids. Unlike them, though, his meagre takings fed his siblings, not the demands of drug dealers and gamblers.

“I came to Phnom Penh to escape and find a new life,” he says, sipping a soft drink. “My mother died when I was very young, so I have no memories of her. My father didn’t have a job. I come from Svay Rieng, where there was little or no work. The future was in the capital.”

So Heng hitchhiked west and ended up on the airport road, where he joined a gang of panhandlers. “Mostly we collected bottles and cans and sold them to the dealers who would come around every couple of days. It was a living, but not a great one,” he says, hiding his shyness behind a raised hand and infectious laugh.

Trapped in a cycle of necessity, he could be collecting bottles and cans to this day. Fortunately, however, he was spotted by a volunteer from Friends, a Phnom Penh-based non-governmental organisation, and put to work in its kitchens. Heng had an unusual and amazing ability to taste and smell the culinary possibilities of local herbs and spices, and was given a chance to learn the arts of cooking, fine dining and service.

Cleaned up and wearing chef’s whites, he was a quick learner and within months became the chef at Romdeng, a classy Friends restaurant that specialised in Cambodian food in the city’s  NGO enclave.

It was a talent that did not go unnoticed. Although Heng is not backward in coming forward to impress with his intelligence and culinary knowledge of spices and aromatic herbs, he owes his present position as a kitchen guru to a  close friend.

Frits Mulder, the Dutch owner of Frizz restaurant located behind the royal palace in Phnom Penh, says: “A friend of his came by and gave me Heng’s CV, which was very impressive. The only problem for me was his age. How could anybody so young know so much about Cambodian food and have the kitchen skills to make it?

“So I called him, invited him to the restaurant for a chat and was immediately impressed. Here  was a 20-year-old with the in-depth knowledge of Khmer food that  older chefs I had met could  never replicate.

“I took him on and in a matter of months he had created a stunning array of drinks and salads that are unique to my restaurant.” Mulder recognised that the next stage in his relationship with the young talent was simple. He would build a culinary school around his protege’s talents and give the world “what it deserved, the true and unique taste of Cambodia”.

Heng says he is lucky in more ways than he can describe, particularly his rediscovery and promotion of his culinary heritage. Formerly the poor relation of Southeast Asia’s regional cuisine, Cambodian food is fast catching on as a tasty alternative that also has the distinct advantage of having long-lasting health benefits.

News of the subtle and complex flavours he created reached the world of television chefery and in recent months Heng’s name and cooking classes have featured in television shows across the region.

Heng is also about to make his debut on British television with celebrity chef Rick Stein. Although he was initially nervous about being filmed while he worked with Stein, he says it turned out to be fun. “Once I got used to the fact that we would do one sequence and the camera would stop and move around to get another angle and shoot exactly the same thing again, I was able to relax and enjoy it.”

He says he’s not envious of Stein’s millionaire celebrity through television shows and best-selling cookery books. Although obviously tempted by the opportunity to accumulate such fame and riches, he has a more concerned and down-to-earth view of his future that dates back to his days of begging and scavenging on the airport road.

“For too long Cambodia has had only two classes, rich and poor,” he says. “Too many of my people selfishly do things only for what they can get out of it. It’s time we changed and encouraged successive generations to achieve the kind of success we wish for ourselves.”