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By Jane Cheung About 150 protesters participated in an anti-parallel trading demonstration in Sheung Shui in the afternoon on September 6 afternoon, resulting in an arrest of a localist group member of a localist group. The march was co-organised by a Sheung Shui community organisation and Local League which aims to express disapproval to parallel trading actions on behalf of Sheung Shui residents. Protesters marched around Sheung Shui, causing s Some pharmacies to shut their front gates as to avoid the parade that marched around Sheung Shui.  They Protestors urged passing by Sheung Shui residents who echoed their views to join the march. The group returned to Sheung Shui MTR station where more than ten parallel trading supporters gathered after an hour and a half. The protesters from two views had a shouty encounter despite being separated by a police-formed human barricade. Mr. Ray Wong Toi-yeung of the Hong Kong Indigenous, a localist group that participated in the protest, was arrested for allegedly assaulting a police officer on a footbridge near Sheung Shui MTR station. Mr Wong thanked his supporters outside Sheung Shui Police Station after he was released on bail at 11.30pm on Sunday. "Our defiance is worth it because of your support, and your actions had successfully asserted pressure to police," he said to his supporters. He then showed off his injuries accusing police of unnecessary violence on a police vehicle during the arrest. The two organisers issued a press release highlighting their concern over the potential smuggle of mooncakes as Mid-Autumn Festival approaches. They also criticised the recently launched "one week one visit" policy for failing to eliminate parallel trading actions. Mr. Peter Lam Kin-ngok, Tourism Board Chairman, told the South China Morning Post that protests would lead to a decrease of tourists visiting Hong Kong and …

Photo Courtesy of San Po Yan, HKBU The Financial Secretary has unveiled a $440.8 billion budget for 2015-16 that offers relief measures for businesses affected by the Occupy Movement and rebates for taxpayers. As expected, Mr John Tsang Chun-wah announced in his eighth budget that, as in recent years, public housing tenants will get rent waivers and social security recipients additional pay-outs, but the amounts will be smaller. The tourism and hospitality industry will benefit most under the targeted support measures, with licence fees to be waived for travel agents, hotels, guesthouses, restaurants and hawkers. Nor would commercial vehicles owners need to pay to have their vehicles examined. Other relief measures include reductions of salaries and profit taxes, waivers of rates and public housing estate rents, as well as an extra grant to CSSA recipients. Relief measures: -   3.15 million property owners will enjoy a maximum of $2,500 rates waiver per property from April to September 2015. -   Salaries and profits taxes are to be reduced by 75 per cent, subject to a ceiling of $20,000. -   Public housing tenants will enjoy rent remission for the sixth year consecutively, with the suspension period reduced from two months to one month. -   CSSA recipients will receive an extra two-month allowance of a minimum of $4,310. Economic development measures: -   An injection of $5 billion to the Innovation and Technology Fund to support entrepreneurial start-ups. -   $150 million is earmarked for the Enhancing Self-Reliance Through District Partnership Programme from 2016-17 to 2019-20 to benefit a greater variety of social enterprises and encourage participation from the commercial sector. -   An additional $700 million will be allocated to the fashion and film industries. The budget continues to deploy measures to sharpen the competitiveness of Hong Kong's four pillar industries -- trading and logistics, tourism, business and professional services, and financial services. In line …

The ups and downs of working holidays could force a young adult to grow, yet participating in the scheme should not be a decision made in haste.   In the past year, 25-year-old started in 2001 with the latest hired working holiday participants Hongkonger Mr Joseph Lee learned to scuba dive, ski and surf, thanks to his year-long working holiday in Australia. One of 51,000 young people from Hong Kong last year who participated in the working holiday scheme, Mr Lee said he stepped out of his comfort zone and discovered a talent for sports. A working holiday is a scheme that allows adults aged between 18 and 30 to work and live in a foreign country as a way to supplement holiday funds and aquire a better understanding of the host country. Hong Kong currently has bilateral agreements with Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Austria. The Working Holiday Scheme agreement with Austria going into effect in April this year, according to the Hong Kong Labour Department. Before Mr Lee went to Australia, he envisaged seeing koalas, kangaroos and platypus and also releive his recent heartbreak. But it wasn't always rainbows and butterflies. He said he was struck most by culture shock. "I was counting my change when a woman cracked a joke about it. At first, I was embarrassed. Then I thought perhaps people are just more outgoing and humorous even with strangers," Mr Lee said. Many participants take jobs in the hospitality, agriculture or labour industries, such as bartending or picking fruit on farms. Mr Thomas Ford, a winery owner in Goulburn, Australia said he has not only to meet people from all over the world but also because it is not easy to hire locals to help in seasonal work. "People …

Two years after ban is introduced, only four appeals over compensation have been processed   Sixty-five-year-old fisherman Mr Wong Kin-kwong has finally decided to leave the industry and sell his trawler, which has been his companion for more than 30 years. Born in a fisherman's family, Mr Wong started fishing after finishing primaryschool."IfIdon'tworkin the industry, what else can I do?" said Mr Wong, who has practiced trawling for 41 years. In 2012, the Legislative Council passed legislative amendments to ban trawling in Hong Kong waters with a view to saving the damaged seabed and depleted sea resources. Since then, Mr Wong has tried many means to make a living. He sailed further to fish; he took part- time jobs; he even rented his trawler to fishing enthusiasts and drove them to the fishing waters. Yet his income has failed to cover costs, including fuel. "Fishermen have to leave Hong Kong waters and sail to the outer sea. They need to face new waters, tougher waves and challenges of new sailing routes," said Mr Cheung Siu-keung, chairman of the Hong Kong Fishermen Consortium. Compared to younger fishermen, elder fishermen found it harder to adapt to the new environment, he said. According to the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department, 710 eligible larger trawler owners and 269 inshore trawler owners are affected by the ban. The Government pledged to give one-off assistance to the affected trawler owners and deckhands employed by them. Their applications for assistance are assessed according to a vessel's engine capacity, number of deckhands employed and fuel type. Mr Wong's trawler is regarded as an eligible larger trawler which "generally does not operate in Hong Kong waters". He was given an ex- gratia allowance of $150,000. "Financial compensation doesn't make much sense," said Mr Pang Siu-kei, community director from the …

MANY parents would take their children to parks to have some fun. But Ah-kiu (not her real name), a 43-year-old mother, is afraid to do so as she and her children have been called "locusts" with spite in a park twice. Locust is a pejorative term that some locals use in referring to immigrants or visitors from the Mainland. In their minds, the mainlanders have encroached on Hong Kong's resources like pests. Ah-kiu came to Hong Kong from the Mainland in 2008 to reunite with her family. On one occasion, a woman scolded her as a "locust" when Ah-kiu asked her to move aside of a slide so that her daughter could play on it. On another occasion, Ah-kiu and a friend went to a park with their children, and a man passing by mumbled: "Those locusts give birth to so many children." The Equal Opportunities Commission, Hong Kong 's statutory body responsible for enforcing anti- discrimination laws, sees a need to combat the kind of discrimination that Ah-kiu has suffered by legislation. In July, the commission started a consultation exercise to gauge public opinion on whether the scope of the Race Discrimination Ordinance should also outlaw discrimination on the grounds of "nationality, citizenship, residency or even though they are ethnically the same as Hong Kong people. At the public forums held by the commission, some locals strongly opposed the proposed amendment. They were worried that people from the mainland would become "the privileged". In an article published in the Chinese language newspaper Ming Pao in October, Mr Fan Kwok-wai, a Legislative Council member who launched a pro- locals campaign called Hong Kong First, says the proposed amendment would strip the permanent residents of their priority over new immigrants, and thus cause a fierce competition for public resources between the …

Civic Party legislator Ms Claudia Mo Man-ching says the electoral framework laid down by the NPC means the 2017 chief executive election will remain a "‘small-circle election'" masqueraded as democratic by allowing people to vote on the candidates by "one man, one vote". For the electoral reform to become law when it is eventually submitted to the Legislative Council, the government will need the support of two-thirds of the council's 70 members. But on September 1, a total 25 out of 27 pan-democrat legislators pledged to veto the proposed reform in a joint declaration, while the remaining two publicly opposed the NPC's decision. For the government to get what it wants, it will have to succeed in getting at least five pan-democrats to turn against their own camp – an unlikely feat particularly in the wake of the massive support for the Occupy Central movement shown over the past two weeks. Democratic Party lawmaker Mr Albert Ho Chun-yan says the gap between moderate and radical democrats has narrowed and everyone who has signed the declaration has to be responsible to his or her voters and the community. Meanwhile, Mr Jasper Tsang Yok-sing, President of the Legislative Council, says he would vote in favour of the proposal if only one more vote is needed and then step down. Though some pro-democracy supporters fear that the pan- democrats' tough stance against the NPC's decision and support for the Occupy Central movements may not endear themselves to moderate voters, Mr Kenneth Chan Ka-lok, lawmaker from the Civic Party, says he is not worried. "We can talk with our voters. I have the confidence that they will continue supporting us, as we are doing the right thing for Hong Kong," Mr Chan said. Ms Mo said pan-democrats, who have been pushing for civil nomination …