The commitment of students in bringing people together will be the focus of the 39th annual Student of the Year Awards organised by the South China Morning Post.With the theme “Leading for a better society”, two new awards this year include a special prize for the most nurturing environment, which will go to a school and its students, and another for mentorship.A total of 11 awards in nine categories, including science, maths, languages, sports, and visual and performing arts, will be presented…

1. Pandemic drives rethink of Hong Kong’s hospital needs More isolation beds and more land to hold them among key concerns going forward, Hospital Authority chief tells the Post. 2. Inadequate links between public, private hospitals ‘Non-urgent’ cases postponed as overburdened public hospitals focus on Covid-19 patients. 3. Musician recounts horror from Covid-19 bar cluster Mark Anthony Balcueva struggled to breathe and had to be put on a cocktail of drugs, with only the thought of his…

A meeting in Hong Kong’s legislature descended into shouting matches and scuffles as 11 opposition lawmakers were thrown out by a pro-establishment leader who took control of a key committee to begin clearing a backlog of bills for review.The pan-democrats walked out of talks on Friday after losing their hold over the House Committee, threatening court action against Legislative Council staff, including legal advisers and security guards, whom they accused of abandoning political neutrality and…

Hong Kong started returning to normal on Friday as the city eased the social-distancing rules brought in to help combat the spread of Covid-19.For the first time in more than a month, residents were able to go to gyms, beauty parlours, bars, cinemas, and other public venues which the government previously forced to close.With local transmission of the virus levelling off over the past two weeks, officials have allowed a partial reopening of eight types of business, but with conditions attached…

Bars and other entertainment venues were finally allowed to reopen their doors on Friday after more than a month of coronavirus measures, but Hong Kong’s famed nightlife scene was far from buzzing as people remained wary over the potential risk of infection.But along with the caution there was a sense of optimism from customers and business operators alike.A day after the city detected four imported cases in Hong Kong residents returning from Pakistan, the number of new infections dropped to…

Hong Kong’s police chief has reacted with fury over the “dishonour brought to the force” by the arrest of 18 officers for various offences over the past three weeks, including nine detained on Friday in connection with actions against street sleepers.Commissioner of Police Chris Tang Ping-keung said the behaviour of the officers concerned had brought disgrace to the force and dealt a severe blow to its credibility and nullified efforts achieved over the years.“As commissioner, I am not just…

The High Court has thrown out a Hong Kong resident’s challenge to his quarantine status, dismissing his application for a writ of habeas corpus over his mandatory isolation at a government-run facility.Accountant Syed Agha Raza Shah, who tested negative for Covid-19 upon his return, was sent to the Chun Yeung Estate in Fo Tan for a 14-day stay after returning from Pakistan via Qatar with about 200 other Hong Kong residents on April 29.On Thursday, he applied for a writ of habeas corpus…

Investors and lawmakers in Hong Kong are urging regulators to seek compensation for people who lose money when listed companies collapse shortly after their initial public offerings.Under the current system, when banks sponsoring IPOs are found to have fallen short in their due diligence duties, the proceeds of any fine imposed by the watchdog goes to the government, not investors. Those fines amount to almost HK$1 billion (US$130 million) over the last 20 years, according to calculations by…

Hong Kong police arrested 10 people following a fight between two groups with different political views at the so-called Lennon Wall in Wong Tai Sin district in the early hours of Friday.Five victims aged between 20 and 44 suffered injuries to their heads, backs and limbs in the incident that happened at a public housing estate in Lok Fu shortly before 12.30am.The dispute first erupted when a group of about 20 people carrying handy tools and paint were seen removing messages at the Lok Fu…

Ocean Park could run out of cash by September, its CEO warned on Friday as he estimated the Hong Kong attraction had missed out on nearly 1 million visitors over three months of its coronavirus shutdown.With the health crisis intensifying the resort’s financial woes, Matthias Li Sing-chung said no decision had been made on when the park would emerge from the shutdown imposed on January 26, but said it could return within two weeks once conditions were deemed suitable, even if some social…

Two Hong Kong men found carrying weapons at an unauthorised protest last year were jailed for eight months on Friday.Fanling Court sentenced sales consultant Yung Wai-shing, 26, and clerk Chu Tsz-wan, 24, to jail for possessing an extendable baton, a laser pointer, a catapult and a packet of metal pellets at a march in Yuen Long on the night of July 27.The court sentenced co-defendant Vincent Chu Chun-hoi, a 19-year-old cook, to correctional training for carrying an air pistol at the same event…

The fate of some 27,000 Hong Kong cross-border pupils living in mainland China was in limbo, as the education minister said on Friday that it could not be guaranteed whether they would be exempted from quarantine rules amid the coronavirus pandemic when classes resumed in late May.Although Hong Kong’s government last week decided to exempt these cross-border students from a 14-day mandatory quarantine period when entering the city, a similar rule had so far not been lifted by the Shenzhen…

Police dispersed lunchtime protesters with pepper spray in an upscale Hong Kong shopping centre just 12 hours after the government relaxed some coronavirus social-distancing measures and allowed people to gather in groups of eight on Friday.Shortly after dozens of anti-government demonstrators began yelling slogans and belting out their anthem, officers entered the IFC Mall in Central to cordon off their protest site, forcing the Apple store to lower its shutters.Later, police used pepper spray…

A Hong Kong police officer arrested in connection with the seizure of 25kg of drugs worth HK$12 million is believed to have orchestrated its theft from the scene of a bust he was personally in charge of last week, according to police sources.If true, it would mean the announced record seizure of 296kg of Ice, a form of methamphetamine, actually involved 321kg.Sources said the station sergeant, who was arrested along with a constable in connection with the missing drugs, was in charge of the…

A Hong Kong man has admitted in court to raping his nine-year-old daughter and telling his younger son that it was none of his business when the child caught him in the act.The High Court heard the sexual attacks spanned nearly six years, since 2011, when the casual vegetable seller, who could not be identified for legal reasons, first attempted to rape his daughter after school.At the time she was only six, while he was 40.Acting deputy director of public prosecutions Catherine Ko said the…

The head of China’s cabinet-level office that oversees Hong Kong affairs has urged the city’s leader to examine possible ways of enacting a national security law and to ensure that elections for the legislature this year are conducted in a fair manner.The meeting between Xia Baolong, director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office (HKMAO), and Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor was held in Shenzhen at the end of last month, according to sources.Hong Kong is facing mounting pressure…

Hong Kong lawmakers on Friday rejected a proposal by four international schools seeking a total of HK$1.4 billion (US$180 million) in interest-free loans for campus development as they face financial pressure during the coronavirus pandemic.This came as Harrow International School Hong Kong announced this week it would offer a 20 per cent reduction of the summer term tuition fees to parents, following an earlier petition demanding a fee cut of up to 25 per cent.The proposal, which was tabled by…

A senior civil servant overseeing the distribution of reusable masks to all Hongkongers has promised to put the production of their replacement filters out to tender after admitting to shortcomings in the transparency of the original contract awarded by the government.Annie Choi Suk-han, permanent secretary of the Innovation and Technology Bureau, on Friday rejected suggestions the government had intentionally hidden the identity of the manufacturer chosen for the HK$320 million (US$41 million)…

A combination of three drugs suppressed the coronavirus within seven days when used on patients in Hong Kong, nearly twice as fast as a single medicine did, in a result seen as a leading hope in the fight against the pandemic, a study has found.The findings of the research, led by University of Hong Kong academics and published in The Lancet on Saturday, could signal progress in the search for a standard form of therapy for Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes the Covid-19 disease.It discovered…

After almost three months of hectic preparation, Denis Huen Yin-fan’s Hong Kong factory started delivering masks to customers last week to help protect them against the Covid-19 pandemic.Just as the supplies began reaching his clients, the Hong Kong government announced it will be distributing reusable and disposable masks to all households, free of charge, within weeks.Every household will receive reusable masks that can be washed up to 60 times, as well as a pack of 10 disposable masks.1.5…

It is about 7pm when Muslim community leader Raheel Ahmed, 57, gathers with his wife, two sons and daughter for a home-made meal of dates, rice and spicy curried chicken, salad, fresh fruit and juice.For this Hong Kong family of Pakistani origin, it is their first meal after fasting for more than 12 hours, as this is the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.The world’s 1.8 billion Muslims mark the month by abstaining from food or drink from sunrise to sunset, and gathering as a community in mosques to…

Hong Kong recorded zero new Covid-19 cases on Saturday, as a government adviser suggested that border control measures between the city and Macau could be the first to be lifted.It was also the 20th day in a row without any local infections, although a handful of imported cases over the past week had taken Hong Kong’s tally to 1,044 with four related deaths.Health experts earlier raised the prospect of Hong Kong being declared free of local transmission if there were no such cases after 28 days…

After taking care of his wife the whole day, Lam Man-hing, 70, finally has a little time to himself before bedtime.He browses the news, checks messages from friends on his smartphone and watches some television, with his wife Tang Siu-man, 74, asleep by his side.He checks on her from time to time, and keeps the TV volume low to avoid disturbing her.In the morning, like every day, she might not remember him.Tang has Alzheimer’s disease, a progressive form of dementia that begins with…

A revised bailout plan will be proposed by the Hong Kong government very soon to save Ocean Park from running out of cash as early as in June, the Post has learned.Two sources said that a HK$10.6 billion (US$1.35 billion) proposal tabled in January would not go ahead with officials unveiling an alternative on Monday at the earliest, after the Covid-19 pandemic forced the theme park on Southern district to shut down temporarily.On Friday night, the legislature’s Finance Committee announced that…

Hong Kong’s Canto-pop “dancing king” Aaron Kwok Fu-shing’s online charity concert on Saturday afternoon to help the city’s struggling dancers attracted about 2 million viewers and raised more than HK$1 million, amid local signs of an easing coronavirus threat.Kwok’s onstage moves are known to be inspired by Michael Jackson. The one-hour performance by the singer-dancer-actor, 54, flanked by about 100 dancers, was live-streamed on multiple channels on social media from 5pm to 6pm.He performed on…

As a journalist, you want to report the story – you never want to be the story. So after weeks of covering the coronavirus crisis, it was a shock to learn I had tested positive for Covid-19.Unfortunately, though I did not know it at the time of my diagnosis, my story with the disease would soon be taking an even darker turn when it left my 73-year-old mother Lien comatose and struggling for her life.I had arrived in Hong Kong from Britain on Monday March 23, following a holiday to see my family…

China Evergrande’s weekend sale of its Emerald Bay flats in Tuen Mun has flopped for the third time in as many months, as Hong Kong’s homebuyers shunned its meagre discounts in anticipation of further price declines.The developer managed to find buyers for 41 flats, or 12 per cent of the 335 units on offer at 8:30pm, according to sales agents.In March, the developer sold 49 of 141 flats when it launched the project in the midst of the city’s coronavirus outbreak, at a time when social…

Lawmakers on both sides of the political divide are considering whether to report their rivals to police after a row in Hong Kong’s legislature over control of a key committee descended into chaos in the chamber.Two opposition legislators revealed on Saturday they planned to make formal allegations of assault, while the pro-establishment camp was mulling filing complaints of its own to the force.It follows a turbulent meeting of the Legislative Council’s House Committee on Friday, when a pro…

While the coronavirus pandemic has forced the city’s tourism sector to a near standstill, agency head Christina Yuen Ho-yee is busier than ever, routinely working 12 hours a day.As the Covid-19 pandemic caused global lockdowns, sales at her firm, EGL Tours, dropped to zero between March and June, down from HK$500 million (US$64.5 million) in the same stretch last year.All of her roughly 600 staff members have been asked to take days of unpaid leave between April and June.But Yuen, the agency’s…

Hong Kong authorities have seized 34 tonnes of American ginseng worth HK$47 million (US$6 million) and arrested seven people in what is by far the biggest-ever bust of its kind in the city.The haul breaks a record set less than three months ago, when more than three tonnes of the traditional Chinese medicine valued at about $HK4.6 million were seized in February.Police and customs officers discovered a “suspicious-looking” fishing boat to the northeast of Hong Kong’s international airport on…

A top police officer told me an interesting story about the siege of Polytechnic University last year, when anti-government protesters of the militant persuasion had occupied the campus. He recalled intercepting and arresting a group of youngsters trying to flee the war zone and how he was struck by the reaction of a petrified teenager among them when she was being booked. “Absolutely terrified, shaking,” was how he remembered her. “She thinks I will take her around the back and shoot her…

A man in Hong Kong has died the day after police used what they described as appropriate force to arrest him for criminal damage, drugs possession and assaulting officers.The force said that Yau Tsim district officers on patrol in Nathan Road were called at about 5pm on Thursday by members of the public who reported that a non-Chinese man “smelling strongly of alcohol” had damaged a moving vehicle with a glass bottle and toppled over a nearby motorcycle.The suspect “fiercely resisted” when he…

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights is calling on governments and leaders around the world to ensure that their respective lockdown measurements don’t end up causing harm to people by those enforcing the lockdowns.   “Emergency powers should not be a weapon governments can wield to quash dissent, control the population, and even perpetuate […]

The post Governments Cautioned Not to Use COVID-19 Lockdown to Cause Harm appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Farhana Haque Rahman is Senior Vice President of IPS Inter Press Service; a journalist and communications expert, she is a former senior official of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

The post Press Freedom Needs Protection from Pandemic too appeared first on Inter Press Service.

For some time Wuhan in China and Lombardy in Italy were epicentres of the COVID-19 virus, something that has changed when the contagion is spreading fast in the US. A Lombardy in the grip of a deadly epidemic might among several Italians give rise to memories of their school days. For almost a century, Alessando […]

The post Public Health and Epidemics appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Manssour Bin Mussallam, is Secretary General-elect of the Organisation of Educational Cooperation (OEC)

The post The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Reinvention of the Spirit of Solidarity and Cooperation appeared first on Inter Press Service.

OSCE Special Representative for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings offers recommendations to governments on short-term responses to COVID-19:

“Human trafficking feeds off vulnerability. It is precisely when our global community is shaken by a crisis of this magnitude that our obligation to combat the exploitation of vulnerable people becomes most acute.”

The post OSCE PRESS RELEASE: COVID-19/Human Trafficking appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Stella Paul is the recipient of the IWMF Courage in Journalism Award, a multiple winner of the Asian Environmental Journalism Awards, the Lead Ambassador for World Pulse and a senior IPS correspondent.

The post Protect Journalists’ Rights so We can Stop the COVID-19 Disinfodemic appeared first on Inter Press Service.

This year’s World Press Freedom Day on 3 May falls during COVID-19 lockdowns in many of our countries. Restriction on movement means journalists all over the world are facing obstacles in getting interviews and data, and verifying stories before publishing. In addition, the global pandemic has been used by many governments to control not just […]

The post Journalism is Not a Crime…and Fake News on Social Media is Not Journalism appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The post Freedom of the Press as a Guarantee for Human Dignity and Well-Being appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Press freedom in Bangladesh has been in decline long before the coronavirus came to our shores. Over the last decade, thanks to increasingly repressive media laws and highhanded measures adopted by the authorities, the health of journalism has been deteriorating in such a way that even the stalwarts of the fourth estate began to worry […]

The post Blocking media access during Covid-19 appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Pamela Coke-Hamilton, Director, Division on International Trade and Commodities, UN Conference on Trade & Development (UNCTAD)

The post Impact of COVID-19 on Tourism in Small Island Developing States appeared first on Inter Press Service.

ONLINE HIGH-LEVEL DIALOGUE Moderated by Jorge Ramos (journalist & author, Univision)

 
4 May 2020, 17:00-18:15 CET (GMT+2) / 11:00am-12:15pm EDT

 
JOIN LIVE: http://en.unesco.org/commemorations/worldpressfreedomday
 

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After her mother passed away, her father remarried and moved elsewhere, and so attending school became a luxury for 12-year-old Sheuly Munda. Along with her grandmother Belmoni, a registered tea-garden worker, Sheuly now plucks leaves at a tea garden in Moulvibazar district’s Srimongol upazila. “I wanted to continue my study, but my grandmother said she […]

The post May Day: Large number of children work in tea estates appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated inequalities and revealed to what extent current economic models are not sustainable. It has also shown that most countries are not equipped to cope with a health crisis. The World Food Program is warning that the lives and livelihoods of 265 million people in low and middle-income countries will be […]

The post The Unseen Link Between Clean Cooking and the COVID-19 Pandemic appeared first on Inter Press Service.

As the sun sets over the hills, Prafulla Debbarma, a small tea grower in Dhanbilash village in north eastern India, walks along the labyrinth path of his farm and past a thick blanket of well-grown tea plants. In the fading light, the farmer appears deeply worried. This tea farm, the sole source of his livelihood, […]

The post Has COVID-19 Reversed Progress for India’s Small Tea Growers? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Like much of the West, Argentina did not take many early precautionary actions after the Covid-19 epidemic was confirmed in January, but became the first Latin American country to act decisively with a 12 March public health emergency declaration. The presidential decree came a day after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global pandemic, […]

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David Medine is Senior Financial Sector Specialist at the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP). He is also CGAP’s lead on data protection and security and works to develop novel, consumer-oriented approaches to data protection and to encourage the creation of cyber security resource centers for developing countries.

The post Financial Scams Rise as Coronavirus Hits Developing Countries appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The new coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to wreak havoc across the world, as the number of infections and deaths rapidly rise. It has the potential to infect anybody regardless of age or gender. There are grave concerns that the economic fallout from COVID-19 may be comparable to that of the Great Depression. According to Johns Hopkins […]

The post Global Impact of New Corona Virus and Population Issues appeared first on Inter Press Service.

As social distancing, quarantines and lockdowns have spread across the globe to slow the spread of coronavirus, they have imposed some of the greatest worldwide restrictions on public gatherings in living memory. These restrictions may be necessary for public health, but they require the most anxious scrutiny to prevent them being misused to quash legitimate political […]

The post How Coronavirus Makes us Rethink Youth Protests appeared first on Inter Press Service.