Record high for DC nominations

The two-week nomination period for the 2011 District Council elections on Nov 6 closed on Wednesday with a record 935 nominations for 412 elected seats.

Competition is expected to be especially fierce this year with district council members to be returned in city-wide contests for five "super-seats" in the 2012 Legislative Council vote.

Passenger flow rise expected

An estimated 5.65 million passengers are expected to pass through land, sea and air control points in Hong Kong, during the upcoming National Day Golden Week (Oct 1-7) and Chung Yeung Festival (Oct 5).

The figure represents an increase of about 17 percent from the corresponding holiday period last year.

About 2.09 million passengers, averaging about 299,000 daily, are expected to pass through the Lo Wu control point, which is the busiest control point.

The busiest day for both inbound and outbound traffic at the Lo Wu control point is expected to fall on Chung Yeung Festival (Oct 5), when about 198,000 passengers are expected to depart from Hong Kong and about 180,000 people are expected to arrive in the city.

Fireworks show to draw 330,000

The police estimate some 330,000 people will watch the National Day fireworks display at the Victoria Harbour on Saturday (Oct 1).

Special traffic arrangements and crowd management measures will be implemented to facilitate public viewing of the fireworks show that starts at 9 pm.

Members of the public are advised to make use of public transport as some roads on both sides of Victoria Harbour will be closed to vehicular traffic before and after the event, and parking spaces will also be reduced.

CFS warns on red bean ice

The Centre for Food Safety (CFS) found that 15 of 198 samples of cold-served non-prepackaged beverages (NPB), such as red bean ice, need to improve their hygienic quality.

The risk assessment survey targeted NPB mixed or topped with different solid ingredients such as pearl tapioca, jelly, aloe vera, fruit and red beans.

Since the additional ingredients may be prepared in advance and processed manually, chances of contamination increase.

While all passed microbiological tests, 15 samples had unsatisfactory ACC, a count for bacteria naturally occurring in most foods and those caused by contamination.

Since ACC is likely to be high in fresh fruit or vegetables, the assessment is not applicable to 53 NPB samples with fresh fruit or vegetable ingredients.

Further analysis on the 15 samples with undesirable hygienic quality showed that those NPB samples containing dairy ingredients or red or green beans were more likely to have excessive ACC.

A CFS spokesman pointed out prolonged storage of the prepared ingredients at ambient temperature might have resulted in their unsatisfactory microbiological quality.

China Daily

(HK Edition 09/29/2011 page1)