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Return to academia a break from politics for HKU’s Gabriel Leung

Submitted by admin on Dec 10th 2012, 12:00am

News›Hong Kong

PROFILE

Patsy Moy

Gabriel Leung won’t discuss his stormy years as undersecretary for health, but say he’s glad to be back at the University of Hong Kong

Leaping from academia to the government four years ago, Professor Gabriel Leung quickly found himself learning political survival skills as he faced tough job assignments and a series of scandals.

Perhaps it’s not surprising, then, that when Donald Tsang Yam-kuen’s administration ended in June, Leung decided to leave the government and resume his teaching duties at the University of Hong Kong.

Now, at the relatively young age of 39, he has taken the helm of the university’s department of community medicine, to head a staff of more than 200 academic and administrative employees.

In an interview at his office at Cyberport, Leung refused to comment on his four years in the government. Rather, he kept emphasising how much he enjoyed being back in the academic world, and how excited he was about the university’s medical-research projects.

“Besides a major study to measure the mental and physical health – as well as the social well-being – of Hong Kong families, we are also undertaking many medical research projects on different public-health issues, such as hand, foot and mouth disease, influenza and other infectious illnesses.

“Our anti-smoking campaign, which has been run by the school of public health for many years, must continue. All these projects will last for years, and we will keep the momentum going,” Leung said.

“I have been busy flying here and there these days, to attend academic conferences and meet other medical experts. We need to build a close network with our overseas counterparts in order to improve our exchange of information, for better disease control and medical advancement.”

Throughout his career, Leung has been a high-flier with an enviable career path. After graduating in 1997, he joined the University of Hong Kong in 1999. Seven years later, he became one of the youngest people to obtain a tenured professorship in the history of the university.

His expertise in public-health science made him a natural pick for the government, to help the city prevent outbreaks of infectious diseases and cope with the health burdens of an ageing population. He was invited to become undersecretary for food and health in May 2008.

During his time as the right-hand man to then secretary for food and health Dr York Chow Yat-ngok, Leung faced some thorny political tasks, from lobbying for long-awaited health-care-financing reforms, to handling the widespread problem of illegal columbariums.

Leung played a key role in handling the aftermath of the Manila hostage killings in August 2010, in which seven Hong Kong holidaymakers and their guide were killed in the Philippine capital and others injured. With his boss on holiday, Leung represented the department and visited the survivors in hospital.

Leung attended Legislative Council meetings, where he sometimes came under fierce attack from lawmakers over government policies.

His roughest patch in government may have come after he became director of the Chief Executive’s Office last year. Leung reportedly came under enormous pressure and faced scathing attacks from the central government’s liaison office for failing to manage the conflict-of-interest saga over Leung Chun-ying’s involvement a decade earlier in a design competition for the West Kowloon arts hub.

At the time, Leung Chun-ying was running neck-and-neck with Henry Tang Ying-yen in the race to be chief executive.

In the last few months of Donald Tsang’s administration, the medical professor also had to handle a string of serious allegations of misconduct against Tsang. He was accused of accepting gifts from tycoons, including rides on private yachts and jets, and a bargain deal to rent a luxury penthouse in Shenzhen.

At least one observer thinks Leung should have remained in the government. Andy Ho On-tat, a former information co-ordinator with the Chief Executive’s Office, strongly believes Leung would have made a good health minister, given his strong leadership and competence.

“Personally, I believe Gabriel is a suitable candidate to be secretary for health and welfare,” Ho said. “He has a high EQ [emotional quotient], a strong network and competence. He is very effective as well, and goes about his duties very efficiently.

“Gabriel is also very knowledgable in areas outside the medical field, and is able to blend into new environments easily. Despite the weak government in the final few months [of Tsang’s term], Gabriel was able to handle his work very competently.

“As friends, we always laughed with him about his becoming the vice chancellor, or at least dean of the medical school, after his return to the university.”


Gabriel Matthew Leung

Age 39

Education Received a medical degree from the University of Western Ontario, Canada. Took a master’s degree at Harvard University. Won the Sir Patrick Manson Gold Medal for his MD thesis at HKU.

Then and now First joined HKU in 1999. Appointed undersecretary for food and health in 2008. Became director of Chief Executive’s Office in 2011. Currently head of the department of community medicine at HKU’s school of public health.

Topics:

Gabriel Leung

University of Hong Kong

Public Health

HKSAR Government


Source URL (retrieved on Dec 10th 2012, 6:08am): http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1101520/return-academia-break-politics-hkus-gabriel-leung

NASA – Earth at Night

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_2403.html

Plastic bulb development promises better quality light

Science & Environmhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20553143?print=trueent

By Matt McGrath Environment correspondent, BBC News

Wake forest university researchers

Continue reading the main story

Related Stories

US researchers say they have developed a new type of lighting that could replace fluorescent bulbs.

The new source is made from layers of plastic and is said to be more efficient while producing a better quality of flicker-free light.

The scientists behind it say they believe the first units will be produced in 2013.

Details of the new development have been published in the journal Organic Electronics.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

What we’ve found is a way of creating light rather than heat”

End Quote Prof David Carroll Wake Forest University

Brighter white

The new light source is called field-induced polymer electroluminescent (Fipel) technology. It is made from three layers of light-emitting polymers, each containing a small volume of nanomaterials that glow when electric current is passed through them.

The inventor of the device is Dr David Carroll, professor of physics at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. He says the new plastic lighting source can be made into any shape, and it produces a better quality of light than compact fluorescent bulbs which have become very popular in recent years.

The new light source is said to be twice as efficient as fluorescent bulbs

“They have a bluish, harsh tint to them, ” he told BBC News, “it is not really accommodating to the human eye; people complain of headaches and the reason is the spectral content of that light doesn’t match the Sun – our device can match the solar spectrum perfectly.

“I’m saying we are brighter than one of these curlicue bulbs and I can give you any tint to that white light that you want.”

Continue reading the main story

Lighting up the world

  • Lighting accounts for around 19% of global electricity use
  • A worldwide switch to low-energy bulbs could save the output of around 600 power plants

There have been several attempts to develop new light-bulbs in recent years – Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) have come a long way since they were best known for being indicator lights in electronic devices. Over the past decade, they have become much more widely used as a light source as they are both bright and efficient. They are now often used on large buildings.

Light not heat

Another step forward has been organic LEDs (OLEDs) which also promise greater efficiency and better light than older, incandescent bulbs. Their big advantage over LEDs is that they can be transformed into many different shapes including the screens for high-definition televisions.

But Prof Carroll believes OLED lights haven’t lived up to the hype.

“They don’t last very long and they’re not very bright,” he said. “There’s a limit to how much brightness you can get out of them. If you run too much current through them they melt.”

The Fipel bulb, he says, overcomes all these problems.

“What we’ve found is a way of creating light rather than heat. Our devices contain no mercury, they contain no caustic chemicals and they don’t break as they are not made of glass.”

Prof Carroll says his new bulb is cheap to make and he has a “corporate partner” interested in manufacturing the device. He believes the first production runs will take place in 2013.

He also has great faith in the ability of the new bulbs to last. He says he has one in his lab that has been working for about a decade.

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Delhi’s blanket ban on plastic bags

News aggregated by www.EnvironmentalHealthNews.org

In Delhi, a blanket ban on plastic bags starts this week. The latest effort by Delhi would mark the first time a city in India is enforcing a blanket ban on plastic bags within its territory. New York Times . 19 November 2012.

By RAKSHA KUMAR
http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/19/in-delhi-a-blanket-ban-on-plastic-bags-starts-this-week/

NEW DELHI–Babu Dayal sells fruit in front of the 3Cs Cineplex in Lajpat Nagar, New Delhi. When a customer buys a kilogram of bananas or half a kilo of apples from him, he hands them over in a plastic bag. But starting Nov. 23, Mr. Dayal will have to hope his customers have their own bags, as the Delhi government will begin enforcing a ban on the manufacture, import, sale, storage and use of plastic bags, sheets, films or tubs.

The last time the city government tried to ban stores from giving carry-out plastic bags was in 2009, a move that proved woefully ineffective, and was roundly criticized by the industry (maybe it didn’t help that the city also held a convention to celebrate the use of plastic at the same time.)

Despite that setback, the case for reducing Delhi’s reliance on plastic bags is undeniable: the capital produces 250,000 tons of plastic waste every year, and a huge chunk of it comes from Delhi’s 14 million households, which use about five carry-out plastic bags a day, according to the city government.

The latest effort by Delhi would mark the first time a city in India is enforcing a blanket ban on plastic bags within its territory. The ban in 2009 allowed the use of biodegradable plastic of 40 microns or thicker, under the theory that heavy-duty plastic bags are used again and again, not disposed of. But the newest ban extends to all varieties of plastic bags, even those for garbage. (City government officials say they will think about how to deal with waste disposal later.) The only exception is for the bags used for biomedical waste.

The ban is being enforced under the Environment (Protection) Act of 1986, which carries a maximum penalty of 100,000 rupees, and five years of imprisonment.

However, Sandeep Mishra, additional secretary of the environment for the city government, said the city plans to only fine the users and the shops that distribute plastic bags nominally, though he did not give exact details. “It takes time for it to sink in,” he said.

Enforcement will involve a government-wide effort, he said. “We will rope in the police department, food and sales division and labor inspectors to enforce the ban,” he said.

Mr. Mishra said that the stricter plastic ban was necessary, in part because of the failure of the last partial ban. “It was almost impossible to enforce the ban last time around as everyone claimed they were using the bags that were allowed,” he said.

This time the ban extends to the manufacturing of plastic bags and tubs in Delhi as well. Anti-plastic activists say this won’t have an impact on commerce. “If products are produced, they will find a way to be sold,” said Prashant Rajenkar, senior program coordinator at the nonprofit Toxics Link.

Under the 2009 ban, thin plastic bags vanished from shopping malls, big retail outlets and government-run retail outlets, but were still available at smaller stores and used for garbage disposal.

The new ban is giving sleepless nights to plastic bag manufacturers in Delhi, who have petitioned the Delhi High Court to block it. The High Court has issued notices to the central government, the Delhi city government, the three municipal corporations of Delhi and the Delhi Pollution Control Committee, asking them to respond to a petition by the All India Plastic Industries Association by Nov. 23, the same day that the ban goes into effect.

However, the government is confident that the courts would not get in the way of the city’s efforts to reduce plastic bag use. “Whenever we fight for an environmental cause, the courts have been in our favor,” said Mr. Mishra.

Government officials are also planning to start an awareness campaign about the separation and recycling of waste, using social networking sites, and will hand out a limited number of jute and cloth shopping bags to select Resident Welfare Associations.

Despite all the efforts, Mr. Rajenkar of Toxics Link said the ban may not work as well as the environmental advocates hope. “Plastic bags are very convenient, and unless there is an equally attractive alternative, people might not give it up completely,” he said.

Mr. Dayal, the fruit seller, agreed. Most of his customers buy his products on their way back home, he said, and they don’t remember to carry cloth bags with them. If it is deemed illegal for him to hand out plastic bags, he said, then he might offer a small bribe to the local policeman and continue to use the plastic bags.

Nike cuts ties with disgraced cycling star Armstrong

SCMP

Published on South China Morning Post (http://www.scmp.com)

Home > Nike cuts ties with disgraced cycling star Armstrong


Nike cuts ties with disgraced cycling star Armstrong

Submitted by calum.gordon on Oct 17th 2012, 9:04pm

Sport›Other Sport

CYCLING

Agence France-Presse in Washington

Lance Armstrong stepped down as chairman of his Livestrong cancer charity on Wednesday as Nike broke all ties with the disgraced cycling star over “seemingly insurmountable evidence” of doping.

Both developments came as the International Cycling Union (UCI) faced growing pressure to reveal how the 41-year-old, seven-time Tour de France champion had been able to escape detection for doping for so long.

In a statement on Livestrong’s website, cancer survivor Armstrong said he would “conclude my chairmanship … to spare the foundation any negative effects as a result of controversy surrounding my cycling career.

Separately, sportswear giant Nike – a major sponsor that had stuck firmly by Armstrong for months in the face of doping allegations – issued a statement that accused him of years of deception.

“Due to the seemingly insurmountable evidence that Lance Armstrong participated in doping and misled Nike for more than a decade, it is with great sadness that we have terminated our contract with him,” it said.

It added: “Nike plans to continue support of the Livestrong initiatives created to unite, inspire and empower people affected by cancer.”

Livestrong is one of the best-known cancer charities in the United States, having raised nearly US$500 million since it was founded by Armstrong in 1997 as he recovered from testicular cancer.

Its iconic yellow wristband was launched in 2004 in collaboration with Nike.

Armstrong always maintained he did not use banned substances, but in August he chose not to contest charges put forward by the US Anti-doping Agency (USADA) that he was a serial drugs cheat.

Last week the USADA, in a report supported by more than 1,000 pages of evidence, alleged that Armstrong was at the heart of what it called the biggest doping conspiracy in sports history.

“Lance Armstrong did not merely use performance-enhancing drugs. He supplied them to his teammates,” it said. “He was not just a part of the doping culture on his team. He enforced and re-enforced it.”

Evidence included testimony from 11 of Armstrong’s former US Postal cycling teammates, an expert’s finding that Armstrong blood changes indicated doping and documents showing a payment to doping-linked doctor Michele Ferrari.

“The evidence of the US Postal Service Pro Cycling Team-run scheme is overwhelming,” USADA chief executive Travis T. Tygart said.

“The evidence shows beyond any doubt that the US Postal Service Pro Cycling Team ran the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen.”

Although fingers have pointed at Armstrong for years, the UCI, cycling’s governing body, has never sanctioned him and it has since been suggested that some officials looked the other way.

Legal experts have said the sheer and unprecedented volume and detail of the USADA allegations could lead US prosecutors and companies to consider fresh criminal and civil actions.

Topics:

Doping

More on this:

Lance Armstrong paid motorcyclist to deliver EPO, ex-teammate says [1]

Lance Armstrong’s team ran ‘the most sophisticated doping programme ever’ [2]


Source URL (retrieved on Oct 17th 2012, 10:28pm): http://www.scmp.com/sport/other-sport/article/1063382/nike-cuts-ties-disgraced-cycling-star-armstrong

Links:
[1] http://www.scmp.com/sport/article/1062269/lance-armstrong-paid-motorcyclist-deliver-epo-ex-teammate-says
[2] http://www.scmp.com/sport/other-sport/article/1058441/lance-armstrong-accused-elaborate-doping-operation

Environmentalists sue California to stop fracking

Submitted by sean.kennedy on Oct 17th 2012, 8:51am

Business›Commodities

Reuters in San Francisco

Environmental groups sued the state of California on Tuesday in an effort to stop hydraulic fracturing as regulators attempt to devise new rules for the controversial oil and gas extraction practice.

The lawsuit accuses the regulator, the California Department of Conservation, Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources, with failing to evaluate the risks, even though fracking was used for more than 600 wells in the state last year.

Fracking, or pumping chemical-laced water and sand into a well to open cracks that release oil and gas, has generated a fierce debate across the country, leading to bans in one state and several municipalities. Yet the industry insists the practice is safe so long as wells are properly built.

A non-profit environmental law firm, Earthjustice, filed the lawsuit in Alameda County Superior Court on behalf of the Center for Biological Diversity, Earthworks, Environmental Working Group and the Sierra Club.

“Public outcry has finally forced the Department to take a look at fracking,” Earthjustice attorney George Torgun said in a statement. “They’ve held workshops and say they’re considering regulations. But the problem needs attention now before too much damage is done.”

In July, the Department of Conservation hosted several workshops to discuss potential regulation in anticipation of increased horizontal drilling in the state, which combined with fracking has unlocked oil and gas reservoirs around the country.

Given the public scrutiny, new rules are not expected to be finalised until mid-2013, officials said, though a draft set of rules are expected soon. State legislation to halt fracking, however, has so far received little support.

John Krohn, spokesman for oil and gas industry group Energy In Depth, pointed to the regulators’ new rules on fracking and also said that California already had strict oil and gas rules that protect groundwater.

“But fringe environmental groups will not settle for anything less than a ban, which is why they are taking the regulators to court,” he said in a statement.

The lawsuit acknowledged that fracking had been taking place in California oil wells since the 1950s, but the plaintiffs asked that the regulator not allow any more fracking until it has prepared “programmatic” environmental impact reports to cover the practice in various types of wells around the state.

Topics: fracking_ap.jpg

Environment

FRACKING


Source URL (retrieved on Oct 21st 2012, 6:35am): http://www.scmp.com/business/commodities/article/1062998/environmentalists-sue-california-stop-fracking

New business alliance’s members have most paid directorships

SCMP

Warning of drain on water supplies

SCMP

Greenpeace report claims 16 new coal-fired power projects on mainland will leave arid northwest facing grim future, with threat of severe shortages
Stephen Chen
Aug 15, 2012

Nearly 10 billion cubic metres of water – a quarter of the water that can be allocated for use from the Yellow River in a normal year – will be consumed by 16 new coal-fired power plants on the mainland by 2015, exacerbating water shortages in the arid northwest, a Greenpeace report said yesterday.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources, commissioned by Greenpeace, calculated this was the least possible amount of water likely to be used by the power plants due to be built under China’s 12th five-year plan.

The power projects, mostly in northern and western China, will be able to provide more than a third of the mainland’s coal-fired power generation capacity in 2015, while at the same time sucking in at least 9.975 billion cubic metres of water.

As a result, the report says, northwestern regions such as Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, Shanxi and Ningxia, where 11 of the power plants will be located, will experience severe water supply challenges in the next three years.

“China is trading millions of people’s water rights for energy,” said Li Yan, Greenpeace’s East Asia climate and energy campaign manager.

If all the water-intensive generating plants are built, they will restrict the water available for other uses, such as agriculture, and even tap into residents’ drinking water.

The researchers said that desperate farmers and thirsty urban residents would increase the risk of social upheaval in unstable border areas. In Inner Mongolia, the demand for water by coal mines, power plants and chemical factories during the five-year plan is projected to more than double by 2015.

The autonomous region has already seen protests and riots by Mongolian herdsmen whose pastures vanished after mines and factories sucked rivers and lakes dry.

Pollution is also forecast to rise, adding to the shortage of usable water, the report says. With most coal mines in remote areas, where environmental checks are lax, they will dump waste water containing harmful chemicals into rivers or lakes.

“Two years into the five-year plan, it’s time to rethink the pros and cons of this westward coal expansion and acknowledge the painful heritage it will leave: huge carbon emissions, horrible air pollution and a grim future for vast arid areas,” Li said.

But Professor Song Xianfang, deputy director of the institute’s Key Laboratory of Water Cycle and Related Land Surface Processes, said the spectre of water shortages would not stop the building of more coal-fired power plants.

Song, a key author of the Greenpeace study, said the central government’s top concern was to produce enough coal to solve the mainland’s electricity shortage.

When local governments drafted their plans, their priorities were to speed up growth, generate jobs and collect more tax. “They don’t worry about whether there will be enough water in the region to support their plans because they think they can always find ways to squeeze water from other sectors, such as natural reserves and agriculture,” he said.

binglin.chen@scmp.com

Description:

Action needed

Clear the Air says:

In the interests of clarity and prevention of money laundering, drugs’ proceeds and other illegal actions Hong Kong needs a minimum of two things to happen here:

–        We need a Fictitious Names Index http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/corporations/12457/x_ficticious_names/571874

to stop people hiding behind local or overseas front companies, including Government ministers and their wives.http://www.coordinatedlegal.com/fbn.html

–        We need laws to force Political Parties to reveal their funding sources so the public can see who is pulling their strings and make them more transparent in their policies and actions. At present North Korea, prostitution, munitions, landmines manufacturers  or Big Tobacco  could be funding our political parties and the public is none the wiser.

Minister dragged deeper into row
More evidence indicates wife of development chief may have been involved in subdividing flats, but she refuses to reveal ownership details of her company
Olga Wong, Joyce Ng and Thomas Chan
Aug 04, 2012

The wife of development chief Paul Chan Mo-po refused yesterday to disclose the ownership details of her company, which is under fire for owning unauthorised subdivided flats – even as more land records pointed to her possible role in subleasing the apartments.

Frieda Hui Po-ming, replying to the South China Morning Post (SEHK: 0583announcementsnews) last night, said she could not name the shareholders of two offshore firms that own Harvest Charm Development, which she co-owns. Harvest has two flats in Tai Kok Tsui and Jordan: one is subdivided into five units, the other three.

“I am sorry that I cannot disclose the identity of other shareholders against their will,” Hui said.

Her husband, who took over as secretary for development on Monday, finally broke his silence and faced the media over the controversy, in which his wife is accused of having knowledge of the partitioning.

Chan said he was never a shareholder of the company and that he quit as a director in 1997, three years after the company bought the two flats. Hui resigned as director of Harvest when the new administration took office on July 1.

A Stock Exchange filing by Chan in 2003 described Hui as the sole owner of Orient Express Holdings, the major shareholder of Harvest. The other offshore firm is said to be Strategic Assets Holdings, ownership of which is unclear.

Hui – contrary to her previous statement that the firm was a family business – said in a statement that she was not a controlling shareholder, although nominally she was.

“I am a corporate secretary with a business providing agent service … The two offshore companies are only registered shareholders of Harvest Charm and do not actually hold all its shares. Most of the shares are held in the capacity of an agent.”

More evidence surfaced that Hui may have known about the flats’ subdivision. Her signature appears on an agreement with the Lands Department in 2009, which settled the outstanding land rent for the Jordan flat – showing she was involved in overseeing the property.

This emerged a day after the flat’s principal tenant said a director of the company, Au Cheung-shing, was aware of the subleasing.

When Chan was asked about company ownership and Hui’s relationship with Au, he passed the buck. “I will pass the questions to my wife and let her answer,” he said, adding that he was ignorant about Harvest’s daily operations. Au, meanwhile, could not be reached yesterday.

In her reply to the Post as to why she chose to quit as a director in July even though she claimed not to be involved in the company’s day-to-day operations, Hui said her resignation hinged on personal reasons: her 90-year-old mother in Canada is frail and her daughter has started studying at university in the United States.

“I will be travelling more often to North America in the coming year. I think it is responsible to resign from the directorship,” she said.

While Hui plans to sell her shares in the company, the couple’s explanations failed to address calls for full disclosure.

Political scientist Dixon Sing Ming said failure to do so would fuel public mistrust in the government.

Analyst Ivan Choy Chi-keung described Chan and Hui as “cunning”, saying: “It seems to me the couple are trying to avoid a grilling.”