Find the killer!

BUFFALO 1

This buffalo had to be put down after a hit-and-run on South Lantau Rd on Monday morning.

The four-year-old female was crossing the road just below the Nam Shan camping site when it was hit at about 7am.

The driver faces up to 12 months’ jail time and a $10,000 fine for failing to stop. It is the second buffalo killed on Lantau roads in two months.
If you have any information, please contact the police of the Lantau South police on 2984 6200 or the Lantau Buffalo Association via its Facebook page.

The incinerator is back – but don’t give up on Shek Kwu Chau yet

The super-incinerator is back – not that it was ever completely canned – and in fact is inevitable, according to Environment Under-Secretary Christine Loh.
Citizens vs the Super-Incinerator

“We’re going to need treatment – we’re going to need a big one,” she told RTHK’s Backchat programme today.

But there’s good news as well bad news in the remarks by the former head of Civic Exchange, who has taken on board some lessons of the Shek Kwu Chau debacle.

First, she’s proposing a holistic approach to the city’s waste problem, rather than trying to solve it with a boondoggle.
 
Second, she promises the government will seek the best technology, and in fact was dismissive of what she termed the “dioxin-spewing” SKC facility.
 
Third, the government is a long way from deciding where any future incinerator will be built.
 
Loh said following CY Leung’s policy address last week, which had called for “an integrated waste treatment system,” the department would issue a waste management blueprint by the end of March.
 
We want to put all the things that HK has to do to have a modern waste reduction, waste separation, recycling, treatment, whether it’s incineration treatment technology as well as landfill. We want to put it on one piece of paper so that everyone can see what has to be done and why and when we might need to take certain decisions.
 
The paper would canvass what incineration would involve and “when do you have to do it, what kind of size do you really need, and people can have a chat about what different technologies are out there,” she said.
 
Loh said the government seek advice from experts on waste technology, and not just those who are selling the equipment.
 

The idea is that whatever technology we go for in the end, it’s going to be waste-to-energy, a much more updated scheme.

Bottom line is that Loh has pretty much completely reset the government’s waste management policy. You’d think her more considered approach makes it harder for proponents of Shek Kwu Chau, which was a fail on cost, technology, environmental impact, location and policy-making grounds.

But those have never been obstacles before, so let’s watch this space.

UPDATE: Here’s the audio of the Backchat session.

 

Nothing for Money

An open letter to RTHK’s Money For Nothing programme
Dear Money For Nothing
I’ve finally figured out your name: I pay taxes to fund your show, and I get nothing for it. Hong Kong is one of the world’s most exciting business cities, and you miss all of it.
Right now you’re probably preparing for the Monday show, so let me guess: the big story will be the US unemployment figure. Then you’ll talk about what Bernanke’s going to do, or maybe Draghi, and because it’s a Monday you might fill in with some blather on China before you get to the Jon Stewart clip. Then finish with a pointless light story, like a dotcom billionaire building a tiger sanctuary in Bhutan.
Unless your target is a 75-year-old day trader without an internet connection, there’s nothing fresh, original or meaningful there.

What’s missing is everything that’s not finance. Hong Kong has some cutting-edge industries, like aviation and logistics, that offer plenty of material, not to mention an audience craving information, but you give them no reason to tune in.
The finance topics that you are so devoted to are done in more depth elsewhere, so there’s no need for financial types to listen either – unless it’s to hear themselves.

Because if there’s one thing worse than the irrelevant content it is the steady stream of bankers, fund managers and stock analysts dispensing their unreliable advice.  These are the unembarrassed hustlers who got us into this mess. Brian Curtis not only fawns over them like a Wanchai bargirl; he actually asks them for stock tips.

I could rattle off a dozen easy-to-get stories in each of those sectors above. Your programme has managed to avoid all of them. I’m actually wondering if it’s part of a plot to even further marginalise RTHK.
Long story short: drop the banksters, cut back the global, focus on the Hong Kong real economy. You’ll get some listeners back, and people might take you seriously again.
You’re welcome
Robert Clark

Rainbow Wong – buffoon or fraud?

Depending on whether you ask the police or someone who can actually count, between 500 and 2000 people turned out for last Sunday’s protest against the Shek Kwu Chau incinerator in Central.

But no matter how you reckon it, one person who failed to turn up was Lantau District Councillor Rainbow Wong.

Which is odd because four months ago he was reelected on a platform explicitly opposing the project.

What he said then was: “The government should advocate sorting of household waste instead of building an incinerator on Shek Kwu Chau.” (In the Chinese version he states he is “opposed to the building of the Shek Kwu Chau incinerator.)

Since then Rainbow seems to have had second thoughts. Or, given his previous support for the incinerator, third thoughts.

At last Monday’s District Council meeting, he declined to speak on the matter, complaining he was unprepared because the paper fellow councillor Amy Yung had given him were in English (yet strangely he was prepared enough to take a position in his platform).

To clarify the matter, I wrote to Rainbow’s office last Tuesday. Evidently still suffering from the same bout of shyness he hasn’t yet got back to me.

So the jury is still out on whether he has been caught unawares by his own election platform, or if he has just perpetrated a cheap fraud on the voters.

Those with slightly longer memories recall that before he was against Shek Kwu Chau, Rainbow was all for it.

So Rainbow, if you’re reading this… well OK, you can’t! But if you can get someone to translate, let us know if you want Lantau voters to view you as a buffoon or fraud.

Build it, burn it, then figure out if we need it

Good thinking.

AFTER the Hong Kong government wins the go-ahead for a high-temperature incinerator on Shek Kwu Chau, it calls for a consultation on a new charging system for waste.

Then again it is of a piece with the rush to build the furnace. The Environmental Protection Department approved the project without having costed it. Having committed the taxpayers to it, it is up to the Legco Finance Committee to come up with the cash – probably around April.

Lantau speed cams coming in Q1

If you’re a Lantau driver you’d be well aware of the 12-feet high speed cameras that have loomed over our roads since early last year.

The Transport Department installed one each in Mui Wo and Pui O and two on Tung Chung Rd, leading to an immediate decline in speeds until drivers realised the orange pillars did not actually contain any monitoring equipment.

That will soon change, the department now says. An official told Lantau Confidential that they are now “under testing” and will be handed over to Lantau police some time in the first quarter.

Police say they haven’t yet had any formal word on activation of the cameras, though they note that the final decision on activating them is a joint one between the police and the TD.

According to the SpeedCameraPOI website, which plots the locations of road traffic cameras worldwide and puts them in a downloadable file, Hong Kong had 51 speed cameras as of April 29 last year.

Fare game: Ferries down, taxis up

Lantau ferry fares are about to go down, but before that happens taxi charges are likely to go up.

The Legislative Council has approved a Transport and Housing Bureau plan to tip another HK$40m in subsidies into outlying island ferry services. The government already spends nearly HK$40m a year on subsidies, mostly on pier maintenance.

The new funds will be used to subsidise fares to Mui Wo, Cheng Chau and other main island routes. However, we won’t feel the effects of these until after the next three-year islands ferry tender is completed in 2011.

Meanwhile, Lantau taxis have joined urban and New Territories taxi drivers in asking for a HK$2 hike in flagfall because of higher operating costs.

The increase would amount an average 4.11% increase in Lantau taxi fares, according to a bureau policy paper.

The net income of Lantau taxi owners has fallen as much as 13% in the first ten months of 2010 compared with 2009, – a result of higher operating costs, the bureau says, although it does not say what these are.

The LegCo Transport Panel will consider the price increases on Friday.

Tong Fuk terror threat

Sarah Palin and other world leaders have leapt to the defence of Tong Fuk after WikiLeaks documents revealed the village’s role in the USA’s global critical infrastructure.

The WikiLeaks document contains a list of key US resources worldwide, including PCCW’s international cable station at Tong Fuk beach.

Palin and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have warned that release of the document makes Tong Fuk, and the 3,000 other places on the list, terrorist targets.

Said a local resident, who declined to be identified for fear of terrorist reprisals: “If it hadn’t been for the five-storey PCCW building and the warning signs on the beach we would never have known it was there.”