Society

More than half of the children’s crayons and fingerpaints tested were found to release toxic metals, the Consumer Council said in a press conference today. “Although there is no immediate risk, potential long term diseases may appear,” Nora Tam Fung-yee, Chairman of the Research and Testing Committee of the Consumer Council, said in the press conference. The Consumer Council tested 12 models of crayons and seven models of fingerpaints. The blue crayon from Swiss company Caran d'Ache’s “Hobby Line 1/2 watersoluble wax pastel” had the highest amount of aluminium, exceeding the EU Toy Safety Directive limit by almost five times. “Blue and black crayons contain the most harmful elements as black coal is one of the raw materials,” said Prof. Tam in the press conference. Children’s paints in Hong Kong must comply with one of four standards, including the EU standard used in the test, according to the Hong Kong Toys and Children's Products Safety Ordinance. Over half of the tested fingerpaints failed to comply with the EU Toy Safety Directive which requires children’s paints to taste bitter so they won’t be eaten. Fingerpaints produced by Spanish companies Jovi and Jar Meló, Korean company Mungyo and US company Crayola did not contain embittering agents at the EU standard, according to the Council. The council said parents should read package instructions and select paints based on the child's age. Parents should also consider purchasing crayons with a plastic barrel to reduce risk for ingesting harmful substances and be sure children clean their hands after use. Caran d'Ache responded to the council that the product involved stopped production in 2013 and had complied with the EU standard then. New products comply with the latest standard, said the company. Jar Meló and Mungyo responded to the council that they had added embittering agents …

Residents of buildings with only one covid-19 case, including the mutant strain, will self-monitor instead of going to government quarantine centres, Dr Ronald Lam, Controller of the Centre of Health Protection, said today in a press conference. More than 1,000 residents are being released from quarantine centres, including from Kornhill and Caribbean Coast where mutant strain cases were found, after they test negative. “To prevent further transmission, a very cautious approach needs to be taken,” Dr Lam said in the press conference. Close contacts still need to quarantine, Dr Lam said, but the fully vaccinated will have seven days of home confinement plus seven days of self-monitoring. Department of Health clarified at night that close contacts still need to go to government quarantine centres plus seven days of self-monitoring. Fully vaccinated includes those with a “full course” after 14 days. People who have recovered from Covid-19 within nine months are also included. Onee Chan, a resident at Kornhill who was sent to the government quarantine centre at Penny’s Bay yesterday, said she was speechless over the new measure. She said it was not sensible to put all residents into the quarantine centre. “The requirements to release are also nonsense. It’s absolutely annoying to ask us to do testing at their centre on our own. How can they guarantee everybody to strictly follow? Self monitoring is a joke. We’ve been self monitoring ourselves for more than a year,” Ms Chan said. Shorter hotel quarantines were also announced for airport arrivals from designated countries beginning May 12. Measures for extremely high-risk and very high-risk areas, including the United Kingdom, remain unchanged. Control measures for quarantine hotels will also be reviewed, said Dr Lam.

Jean Francois Harvey from Harvey Law Group, along with over 60 immigration companies, were at the International Immigration and Property Expo on March 27. However, what Mr Harvey witnessed there left him dumbfounded. “I saw consultants openly telling people to buy start-up visas. I also saw others squarely selling jobs — it may not be a real job, but it’ll get them the visa,” Mr Harvey recounted. Paying money for a job offer is illegal in Canada, but such blatant advertising at the expo shows how many people are not aware of Canadian immigration policies, making them susceptible to misinformation and fraud. Immigration fraud has long been an issue in Hong Kong, as Mr Harvey observed throughout his 29 years as an immigration lawyer. “But now, there’s a big increase in interest in immigration, so there’s more misinformation than ever,” said Mr Harvey. The number of Hong Kong passport holders applying for temporary or permanent residency in Canada reached 8,121 in 2020, hitting its highest point in at least five years despite border closures because of Covid-19, according to Reuters. And with misinformation comes fraud. Canadian Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Marco Mendicino released a statement on March 5 to commemorate the government’s Fraud Prevention campaign, saying, “Immigration fraud targets people who want to come to Canada in good faith. Sadly, the pandemic has exacerbated these troubling activities, with new ways for dishonest individuals to defraud clients.” A 2019 investigation by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation exposed how an immigration consultancy targeted Chinese nationals and charged them up to $170,000 Canadian dollars (HK$1,052,754) for a fake job. CBC also found that Hong Kong had reported “high rates of fraud or suspected fraud, and only 15-22% of arranged employment offers were found to be genuine.” Nancy Caron, a spokesperson for Immigration, …

Hong Kong’s unemployment rate in December 2020 stood at 7%, according to government figures. It was the highest in 17 years. The Hong Kong Council of Social Service, a group co-ordinating NGOs in the city, estimated that more than 359,900 families, or 17.1% of economically active households, were affected by unemployment or underemployment in the last quarter of 2020. More than 1.1 million people had at least an unemployed or underemployed member in the family, HKCSS added. As a result, 24,200 children in 92,500 unemployed poor families were living below the poverty line, HKCSS estimated. Mr. Khan watched “I’m Livin It,” a Hong Kong movie which featured the struggles of the city’s homeless people and “McRefugees” that is homeless people who spend the night at 24-hour McDonald’s restaurants. “I was thinking everybody put their grocery [in] the fridge. When you go home, [if you] want something to eat, you would open the fridge. People just want to open the fridge and take whatever they want,” Mr. Khan said. Mr Khan said he painted the fridge blue because “everyone wants to see a blue sky.” When he started the project, Mr Khan said, he had to shop at the supermarket to fill the fridge. But after his daughter posted about the project on Facebook and made it go viral, local media rushed to his place to find out more. “Between 9 am and 6 pm, within half an hour, all the food was gone,” said Mr. Khan. “There [were] actually incidents [where], a homeless guy [was] standing in front of the fridge and he looked at it for another ten seconds and suddenly, he said, ‘I haven’t opened any fridge for years’,” Mr. Khan added. Aziz Khan (not related to Ahmed Khan), 30, knew Ahmed Khan as a family friend and …