You said you would not do it again. But you did not tell me the truth.
You said I was the one you love. But I had to think how many people you have said to.
You said I could believe you from then, but you haven't told me even basic thing.
I was frustrated when I saw your words without logic.
I was frustrated to think I will hate you nor to forgive you.
I was frustrated when I thought we could be together.
I don't have strong heart to ignore your tear.
I want to close my ears to listen your stories.
I was destroyed because I love you.
I was destroyed because I could not forget you.
Incentive may play some role in dealing with plastic bag overuse in Hong Kong. Last week, our class had done a survey of supermarkets to find out how many people are still using plastic carrier bags a year and a half after the introduction of the 50-cent-per-bag levy. Most people we asked during the survey said they don’t use them because they have to pay. This is good in a way: it has led, according to the government, to a 90 per cent drop in use of these bags. But I wonder how far people are willing to volunteer to save the environment when saving money is not part of it.
One negative thing we noticed was that many people still take the small transparent plastic bags, which are free. This small bag cannot be recycled nor reused them.
Does this mean we have to regulate everything? Supermarkets only charge for normal plastic bags and give away the small transparent ones without any limit. For sure those plastic bags will have an impact on the environment because they cannot be recycled nor reused them. Whether Hong Kong needs a levy on those small bags depend on the public.
While many news organisations are facing budget constraints in the era of the internet, the financial information service Bloomberg is going from strength to strength, celebrating its 50,000th news terminal in Asia.
Bloomberg, which sells primary financial news via for subscribers, rents about 300,000 terminals worldwide at a cost of about US $2,000, or HK$ 15,579, a month, said Ben Richardson, an editor at Bloomberg’s Hong Kong bureau in charge of government and political coverage.
The company has increased the fee every two years or so and has no worries about profitability.
He said stories about there being no money in traditional journalism any longer are not true. “There is huge money,” he said. Bloomberg and Reuters have proved that it could be made from providing people with news accurately and quickly.
He said the majority of their readers were on the sell side, that is, traders and stockbrokers who usually knew their financial information and just needed to pick out the figure they needed. He said about 40 per cent of their customers only looked at the headlines.
He said a headline alone will move markets, and people will make money from that information.
Reuters and Bloomberg spend millions of dollars each year getting the news out faster by upgrading the speed of connections.
Mr Richardson said when he worked for Reuters more than ten years ago he had 10 minutes to get the first headline. Then when he joined Bloomberg in 2001 they cut their time to 7 minutes, and it’s now down to 2 minutes. “Soon we’ll be publishing the news before it’s happened,” he joked.“The more prepared you are, the faster you can get the news.”
If financial journalists cannot provide information quickly and accurately, their customers would lose money in the market, and would no longer use their service, he said.
Government data shows the amount of waste increasing more than ten thousand tonnes each year.
In addressing the waste problem, the government plans to extend the Tseung Kwan O landfill despite lawmakers’ and residents’ opposition to the plan.
Activists say the government should come out with a better strategy to solve the problem.
From Hong Kong Banyar Kong Janoi reports.
Kwok Pik-han, a 19-year-old first year university student, lives in Tseung Kwan O, only 50 metres from the land fill site that contains thousands of tonnes of waste dumped over many years.
“My nose has some problem because of air pollution. I always have runny nose and it affects my life so much. We can still smell nasty smell so it is a good environment to live.”
A few weeks ago, the government proposed to extend the landfill near her village.
“The government planned to build up bigger landfill in Tseung Kwan O, which Tseung Kwan residents do not like it: we against it. District’s council fights for it not to do so now they are finding some way to deal with rubbish problem because there is so much rubbish in Hong Kong.”
Hong Kong produces more waste than it’s neighbours Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore.
Yet it recycles the less according to the environmental organization Friends of the Earth.
The garbage at another land fill site, Siu Lang Shui in Tuen Mum is stacked 120 metres high.
This landfill site is still being used as a waste site by the Hong Kong Government.
Some teachers and students in Hong Kong are eager to tackle the waste problem.
At Sir Ellis Kadooris Secondary School, visiting landfills and educating student to reduce and recycle waste are school activities.
This year the school received a Hong Kong Green School Award from the Environmental Campaign Committee, a group of civic leaders hoping to tackle environmental problems in Hong Kong.
Yet teacher Sam Chan says the school has limited resources.
“Government should assign more funding for school specify for use of environmental education”
Sam Chan says separating garbage and telling students what kind of garbage can be recycled has reduced waste at the school.
Professor Jonathan Woon Chung Wong is currently doing a research on waste management in Hong Kong.
“A lot of people say that, green groups say that, we don’t need landfill, we don’t need incinerator. What we need is people separation. Do think it is okay. I would say that Hong Kong is very strange situation. We don’t have compulsory charging waste. You can dump your waste without paying anything.
Compulsory government charges for waste can motivate citizens to reduce their waste.
Yet Jonathan says that even countries that have charges and separation for waste still have to have to deal with landfills and incinerators.
“Even though, you can do the best in the world, you still have waste to dispose into the landfill. Waste separation is a must. We need to do it but it is not the solution for the current situation.”
“So where all rubbish go? This is dilemma I would say that it is really difficult situation now. You can’t really have any choice. The choice is first we need to expand our landfill site because it takes time to build also. At the same time, we need to immediately get the permission to build incinerator otherwise five years later, you need to ask extension again. The extension will continue unless you build incinerator.”
The government environmental department was not available to give comment.
Back at Kwok Pik-han is also active in the school green activities.
She is fighting for waste separation and reduction among the students in the university.
“People may think that you are a person even you do recycle and reduce waste yourself it won’t help but I think if we do not do it the problem get more serious.”
Because for Kwok Pik- han the site near Tseung Kwan O isn’t just a potential garbage dump, it’s her home.
Download Burmese sex workers say they don’t carry condoms because if they do they will be arrested by the police.
Sex work is illegal in Burma and there are no government programs to educate against HIV/AIDS.
As a result Burma has one of the fastest rates of HIV/AIDS infection in Asia after Cambodia and Thailand.
Banyar Kong Janoi went to meet sex workers in the capital Rangoon and has this report.
It’s a Sunday night and the JJ night club is full of working girls who look between 16 and 20 years old.
They cross the dance-floor in super high stiletto heels and miniskirts made from flimsy material. They move awkwardly to blasting heavy music.
A few Burmese male customers watch closely from low tables.
18-years-old Ya Min says she works here to survive.
“I am working in this job to support my family who don’t have enough money. So I invest my body into this job.”
She began working as a prostitute two months ago after she struggled to find another job in the capital.
Sex work is illegal in Burma and the Burmese military government strictly prohibits prostitution and brothels.
But Yan Min says it’s easy to bribe the police.
“We bribe local policemen so we can work. When other police come they call us and warn us that there will be a raid and to hide. We pay them a monthly fee between 30 – 50 US dollars, sometimes it’s 150 dollars. We have to give them whatever they ask. I never carry condoms because if they see the condom they know that I am a sex worker.”
Lawyer U Aung Thein from the Central Executive Committee of the National League for Democracy, condemns the government’s handling of sex workers.
He says the Suppression of Prostitution Act, which was enacted in 1949, is not just.
“The law aims to stop all sex work. Women can be easily labeled as prostitutes and houses that are suspected of being brothels are targeted. But the law does nothing to the men who have sex with prostitutes.”
He says the military regime has mishandled the issue.
“Because it’s criminalised the sex workers go underground and therefore they are not being educated about health and sexually transmitted diseases. In this situation HIV/AIDS is being spread quickly because there are no controls.”
Figures from 2005 from the Burmese National AIDS Programme show more than 30 percent of sex workers are HIV positive.
Burma has one of Asia's highest adult HIV/AIDS rates after Cambodia and Thailand.
Another sex worker who goes by the named Tin Tin says many of collegues are HIV positive.
“One of them was beautiful and young when I met her with a slim body. But she became very thin and had abscesses on her body and on her mouth. When everyone is cold, she is hot; everyone is hot, she is cold. Then her abscesses became bigger and bigger. I don’t really know what a HIV patient looks like but another colleague said she had it.”
She says her colleague was sent back home after her boss found out that she was HIV positive.
“He gave her some money to go back home. The girls also gave her some money. We encouraged her not to be depressed but she was very sad. I told her you will be OK when you get home to your family. She insisted that she wasn’t HIV positive.”
She does not know if her friend is still alive.
As the people who are HIV positive are usually poor they can’t afford antiretroviral drugs.
Tin Tin has never even heard of them.
She says sex workers use traditional medicine.
“Three of my colleagues are HIV positive. They inject penicillin and drink some leaf liquid which you can buy on the street. It’s made by mixing the leaves with salt. It’s believed to kill the HIV virus. There are some people who drink that tea and stay healthy.”
Tin Tin says despite the risk she will continue working as a prostitute.
“I will not regret my decisions if I get HIV/AIDS because I have chosen my path. I knew the risks when I started this job. I do it because of the money. I don’t know if my body is clean. Some clients use condoms; some don’t. Some only use one when I ask them to. Sometimes the condom breaks. I protect myself as much as I can but I have to sleep with lots of men, I can’t say how many.”
Economic hardship also drives Burmese girls to travel to China and Thailand and work in the sex industry.
Along the Thai-Burma border, agents recruit women by promising them with jobs but then force them into the sex trade.
Naw Kanda is the spokesperson for a safe-house that helps migrant workers on the border.
“Not only HIV, we have tuberculosis, malaria and disabled people. The program is only for people who were arrested and deported. Some time, people come and drop a patient without letting us know. Like last time, when we went to the church and we came back, there was an old man here. He was dropped here and we don’t where he is from. We can’t just ignore them when they’re already here, and sick and nowhere to go! Right?"
She says most sex workers also have very limited choices.
“In my own opinion, sex workers, especially people from Burma, they have no choice. They are forced to do it even though they don’t want to do it. And then some men when they came, they don’t use condom that’s why they got it. Some time they got it from injection. They have to use drugs so they can work more for the employer.”
