Health & Environment

Stigmas over mental health stop people from seeking out help, said scholars at a global conference on mental health in Hong Kong yesterday. Breaking stigmas is important for getting better social support and professional engagement, said Paul Wong Wai-Ching, a professor of social work and social administration at the University of Hong Kong and one of thirteen scholars speaking at the National Counselling and Psychotherapy Conference Hong Kong 2025. “The main issue is that people don’t come to counselling or therapy,” said Kenneth Law, a social worker from the Zubin Foundation, a local charity that works with ethnic minorities. “Either they are afraid or don’t know how to.” Hong Kong fell at 88 out of 147 in Oxford University’s World Happiness Report this year, its lowest-ever position. Around a quarter of Hong Kong children suffer from mental disorders and a quarter of people aged 15 to 24 show suicidal behavior, according to surveys by the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the University of Hong Kong in 2023. “I got inspired on what to do in my field,” said Cathy Wu Jiaxu, a student at Hong Kong Baptist University who attended the conference. “This conference provided me an opportunity to be updated and prepared,” said Caroline Shaw, a wedding planner for more than two decades who changed careers and is studying to be couples counselor. Other talks included female menstrual mentality from Vanessa Wong; athletic performance from Karen Lo Eugene-chuang; narcissistic relationships from Armani Durvasula and teenage digital usage from Nicolson Siu Yat-fan, Evgeny Evseev and Kimberly Carder; suicide bereavement by Paul Wong Wai-Ching.  The conference will move to Malaysia and then the Philippines in October and November. 

Tropical Cyclone Alfred, South East Queensland’s first tropical cyclone in 50 years, is predicted to make landfall on Australia’s eastern coast with dangerous winds and heavy rainfall on Friday night or Saturday morning.  The more than 2.5 million people in Brisbane may experience winds of up to 120 kilometres per hour and up to 200 millimetres of rain by Saturday, according to the Bureau of Meteorology, As of Thursday, BOM stated that Alfred was still over 200 kilometres east of Brisbane, but may bring damaging storm tides and major flooding when its centre crosses the coast on early Saturday.  Alfred is the first cyclone to hit the region since Cyclone Zoe in 1974, less than two months after Cyclone Wanda flooded 13,500 homes.  Cyclone Alfred, a category 2 cyclone, has winds with an average maximum speed of 89 to 117 kilometres per hour,  A category 2 cyclone is destructive enough to damage infrastructures, cause power outages, and uproot trees, said Xiaocheng Yu, a climate science researcher at the University of Queensland. “Due to its stable circulation pattern,  Alfred is expected to stall near Brisbane, increasing the risk of intense and prolonged rainfall,” she said.  She mentioned that intense rainfall could lead to flooding, especially in Brisbane, where a river runs through it.  “Tropical cyclones are small-scale, high-variability systems, making accurate predictions challenging,” she added.  She encourages the public to stay indoors and take precautions to protect their homes and garages from flooding.  Brisbane resident Taneen Estah, 19, said she is concerned. “I’ve never experienced one. Nobody in my family knew until yesterday. We live on a hill, so we might not experience flooding, although we may be stuck at home for a few days,” she said.  Estah said she struggled to stock up on necessities due to panic-buying at supermarkets. …