Thailand-bound tour cancelled

Three leading travel agencies - Wing On, Hong Thai and Miramar - have cancelled Thailand-bound group tours, affecting some 425 tourists scheduled to depart from Thursday to next week.

Secretary for Security Ambrose Lee said that a taskforce is monitoring the situation in Bangkok after the state of emergency was declared and may raise the travel alert level from the current red alert, which urges people to avoid all unnecessary travel.

He estimated 2,000 to 3,000 Hongkongers are traveling on their own in Thailand. The taskforce liaises with airlines daily to ensure there are enough seats to facilitate the evacuation of Hong Kong travelers if the situation deteriorates.

KPMG manager charged over IPO

A senior manager of the auditing firm KPMG was charged by the ICAC with offering a HK$100,000 bribe to a subordinate in relation to the global offering of Hontex International Holdings Company Limited (Hontex).

Leung Sze-chit, aged 32, allegedly offered HK$100,000, in collusion with another person, to an employee of KPMG as a reward for preparing the accountant's report in the prospectus for the global offering of Hontex on February 20.

Officer accused of smuggling

An acting Principal Officer of the Correctional Services Department is facing a charge of bringing unauthorized articles into prison after allegedly smuggling a USB memory stick containing pornographic images.Andy Fung Tat-shing, 46, will appear in Eastern Magistracy Friday for plea.

Social harmony seen declining

Only 26 percent of Hong Kong people polled in a survey by the Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies consider the city to be a harmonious society.

The result of the survey among 1,005 adults between February and March is much lower than 37.5 percent and 37.8 percent recorded in similar surveys in 2006 and 2008.

Some 65 percent find the tension between the rich and the poor is severe and 60 percent find the political strife serious.

Combined meds more effective

A study by the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) showed that the use of clopidogrel plus aspirin is more effective in preventing recurrent stroke than aspirin alone.

During clinical trials among stroke centers in Asia, including those in Chinese mainland, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, CUHK randomly assigned dual therapy - clopidogrel plus aspirin and monotherapy just aspirin to 100 stroke patients. Results showed that the number of microembolic signals, an indicator of blood vessel blockage, in the dual therapy group were lower than monotherapy group. Moreover, none of the patients suffered from recurrent stroke in the dual therapy group.

The results of this study have been published in the international journal Lancet Neurology.

Funeral for local CPPCC member

A funeral was held for Tsui Tsin-tong, a Hong Kong member of the Standing Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), in Peking Union Medical College Hospital in Beijing Thursday.

Tsui, 69, suffered a stroke when he was in Beijing during the 11th CPPCC meeting in March. He underwent brain surgery in the hospital and passed away on April 2.

China Daily

(HK Edition 04/09/2010 page1)