scmp: Number of new H.I.V. infections at record high

Number of new H.I.V. infections at record high

Of the 438 cases emerging last year, 43 per cent resulted from infections via male homosexual activity, health department report says

Lo Wei Updated on Mar 14, 2012 http://goo.gl/pkQ2h

The city saw a record number of new HIV infections last year since the first patient was diagnosed in 1984, with male homosexual activity the source of infection in 43 per cent of the cases, the Department of Health said yesterday.

The 438 new cases last year marked an increase of 12.6 per cent from 389 in 2010.

Overall, HIV prevalence in the city is estimated at under 0.1 per cent - low by international standards, which define infections to be widespread if more than 1 per cent of the general population is affected.

Infections through male homosexual contact was a prevailing trend, said Dr Wong Ka-hing, a consultant with the department's Centre for Health Protection.

"The rise in infections in men having sex with men has been obvious since 2005, being the highest among all high-risk groups," Wong said. "The trend is also seen in other parts of Asia."

There were 188 such cases last year, a 12.6 per cent rise from 2010. This mode of transmission made up 43 per cent of the 5,270 cumulative HIV infections last year. HIV prevalence in the group is about 4 per cent.

HIV, or human immunodeficiency virus, is the cause of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (Aids), which is characterised by clinical complications such as infections and cancers due to a suppressed immune system. The most common Aidsrelated illnesses in Hong Kong are pneumonia and tuberculosis.

Wong said more gay men sought to test for HIV, which was a good sign.

In fact, more people had undergone the test in recent years. The proactive approach explained the high overall infection number, Wong said, but it was disappointing that the declines posted in 2009 and 2010 did not continue.

He warned people not to delay the diagnostic test, citing the finding that 95 per cent of 82 new Aids cases last year were patients diagnosed with HIV less than three months ago.

"This shows that many people have been infected for a long time before being diagnosed," he said. "They are not alert enough to get tested and this is not good for treatment."

Without treatment, about half of HIV patients would progress to Aids within 10 years, he said.

Recent international studies found early treatment more effective, contrary to previous advice, he said. It would also help prevent disease, as treatment decreases the amount of the virus in body fluids, thus reducing the chances of transmission.

A cocktail of drugs is the mainstream treatment. But it only suppresses the virus, so taking medication is a lifelong necessity. It was effective; more than 90 per cent of patients who took the medication regularly were able to suppress the disease, he said.

He urged high-risk groups, such as people engaged in homosexual activities, sex workers, and drug users using syringes, to undergo regular check-ups. Safe sex using condoms was the most effective preventive method, he said.

wei.lo@scmp.com

scmp: Deal for nuclear plants in Europe

Deal for nuclear plants in Europe

A year after the Fukushima disaster, China is set to relaunch its suspended atomic programme by agreeing to help build two reactors in Turkey

Chow Chung-yan Updated on Mar 10, 2012 http://goo.gl/kbFlr

China will help build two nuclear power plants in Turkey, it was revealed yesterday.

The deal signals a relaunch of Beijing's nuclear programme after the Fukushima disaster in Japan a year ago tomorrow.

Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, will travel to Beijing next month to sign an agreement on the peaceful use of nuclear energy.

This will provide a policy basis for the two governments to finalise the commercial venture.

Beijing has previously provided nuclear technology to Pakistan. But the sales to Turkey will have an extra significance for both the mainland's nuclear industry and geopolitical strategy.

In an exclusive interview with the South China Morning Post, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan said his country wanted to complete three nuclear plants before 2023.

One in Mersin has already been contracted to Russia and is currently under construction.

For the other two in Akkuyu and Igneada, Turkey will hold talks with China, South Korea and Japan.

Babacan hinted that the two projects may not be awarded exclusively to a single country.

Instead, the three Asian nations may have to share the business.

He said: "It doesn't have to be a competition ... You will see. We are very interested to talk with Chinese authorities on that issue."

When asked if his government was confident about the safety and maturity of the Chinese technology, the minister said: "Definitely."

Industry sources said China would be particularly involved in the Igneada project, which is located near the Bulgarian border on the Black Sea coast.

In Beijing, a person familiar with the situation confirmed that China was in talks with the Turkish government in Ankara. He was confident that China would play a central role in both projects.

The source claimed Guangdong Nuclear Power Group was preparing to build the two pressurised-water reactors and indicated that South Korea and Japan would play only "peripheral roles".

He said the reactors would be based using French technology with significant Chinese improvements and modifications.

Beijing suspended the approval of all new nuclear projects and ordered a comprehensive review of the existing ones immediately after the Fukushima crisis.

But it is now ready to move ahead. Yang Qi, president of the Nuclear Power Institute of China and a top political adviser, said earlier this week in Beijing that Chinese nuclear technology was "among the safest in the world".

He believed that demand for nuclear energy around the world would gradually resume.

Some Chinese experts see the crisis as an opportunity for China to break into the market, with traditional suppliers such as France, Germany and the US in retreat.

The nuclear deal is also important to China's overall geopolitical strategy, with both sides expressing a strong wish to boost ties.

Additional reporting by Stephen Chen

chungyan.chow@scmp.com

scmp: Daya Bay shines light on dark matter

Daya Bay shines light on dark matter

Stephen Chen Updated on Mar 09, 2012 http://tinyurl.com/86xvrwa

An international team led by mainland scientists announced in Beijing yesterday that it had discovered a new form of elementary particle behaviour at Guangdong's Daya Bay nuclear power plant. Scientists said the observation had led to the determination of an elusive scientific constant that may eventually shed light on the whereabouts of dark matter, the invisible hypothetical matter thought to account for a large part of the total mass of the universe. The breakthrough at Daya Bay showcases China's scientific muscle in the frontiers of research and has Nobel Prize-winning potential, according to some commentators. Professor Wang Yifang , spokesman for the Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment, told a press conference at the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of High Energy Physics in Beijing yesterday that they won a neck-and-neck race with France and South Korea to discover a new type of neutrino transformation. And they had also determined the crucial scientific constant behind the behaviour. The neutrino, an electrically neutral and weakly interacting subatomic particle, is known to oscillate from one state of existence to another. But the latest observed transformation happens to only about 10 per cent of neutrinos. Professor Cao Jun, a researcher with the institute and a key member of the team, said the discovery cleared one of the biggest remaining obstacles in the search for dark matter. Scientists could now confidently put up affordable experiments to verify CP violation, a theory that explains why most of the dark matter vanished after the Big Bang that created the universe, he said. "It is a scientific milestone for China," Cao said. About 250 scientists from six countries including the United States and Russia have been involved in the project. Starting in 2007, the researchers dug underground tunnels near the reactor and set up some of the world's most sensitive detectors. Hong Kong scientists from Chinese University and the University of Hong Kong designed and built subsystems for detector monitoring, background measurement and data acquisition, among other contributions. binglin.chen@scmp.com

scmp: HK women yet to have their day

HK women yet to have their day

Updated on Mar 08, 2012 http://goo.gl/8joqV

Today is International Women's Day. What sets it apart from Mother's Day - apart from the fact that it has not been commercialised - is that it does not just honour women's traditional family role, and it is not just for one day a year. Rather, it seeks to advance women's equality and empowerment the year round. You could be forgiven for being unaware of that in this city. According to one online search for events marking International Women's Day, just four have been identified in Hong Kong, an insignificant number on a per-capita basis compared with more than 400 in Britain, nearly 250 in the US and more than 130 in Australia. And the four include Hong Kong participation in a bike ride in Cambodia against sexual slavery.

These local events do not entirely do justice to women's achievements in a man's world. The city has a reputation for having the most female senior officials in government, following in the footsteps of former Chief Secretary Anson Chan Fang On-sang. Nonetheless, women remain under-represented in boardrooms and executive leadership positions in business. That is Hong Kong's loss. The city not only has more females than males, but greater earning power has led to their increasing independence and mobility.

Better educational opportunities for women have not translated into economic outcomes. As a writer observes on the opposite page, society is not doing enough to raise girls to be leaders, or to teach boys to perceive women as equals. Until it does, it may be some time before we can expect a woman to be elected Hong Kong's chief executive.

Meanwhile, it is ironic that on this International Women's Day, the more widely read content in this newspaper will not be the two articles about women's progress on the opposite page, but a news item about chief executive candidate Henry Tang Ying-yen's wife standing by her man in the best tradition of family values. That, however, will soon be yesterday's news. Women's equality and empowerment will remain a live story.

scmp: Hey, parents, leave those kids alone

Hey, parents, leave those kids alone

Controversial author and TV host explains why the cellphone is the new umbilical cord

Vanessa Yung (vanessa.yung@scmp.com) Updated on Mar 04, 2012 http://goo.gl/ymLS1

New York-based columnist Lenore Skenazy sparked a furore across the United States four years ago after writing about her decision to let her then nine-year-old son take the city subway on his own.

It brought back childhood memories for some readers, but many berated her for child neglect. The incident led her to coin the phrase "free-range kids" and inspired her blog of the same name and eventually a book, Free-Range Kids: How to Raise Safe Self-Reliant Children (Without Going Nuts With Worry) about her old-school approach to parenting.

Skenazy hosts the World's Worst Mom, a new television series on overprotective parents and their children. Before its Hong Kong debut this week, she shares some of her parenting experiences.

When you wrote about letting your son ride the subway on his own, did you expect so much public criticism?


No, I didn't. He had been asking me and my husband if we would let him try to find his way home from some place by himself. We talked about it and decided that he seemed ready, and we do trust our city.

It was only a month and a half after the actual subway ride [when I wrote the column]. It wasn't until it ran the next day, when I started getting calls from the press, that I realised how controversial this topic was. I was on a lot of big television shows and talk shows in America, defending myself. I [realised] two things.

[People] said: "Oh, I used to take the subway" or "I used to ride my bike to school" or "I used to play outside until the street lights came on, but I would never do it now." That's what I didn't realise: nobody lets their kids do anything now.

The other thing is how widespread that is. Because I live in New York City, I didn't realise that, around the country, parents are driving their children to school, waiting at the bus stop when they come home, and won't let them play outside. There are parents who send their kids out with leashes now, and there are parents who put a GPS [global positioning system] in their children's backpacks. There are parents who tattoo their phone numbers, temporarily, onto their children when they go outside.

Then it became apparent to me why my son taking the subway was such a big deal. I didn't know quite how terrified all of America had become, and now, I fear, that it's that way all over the world.

What do you mean by "free-range kids", and how do you strike a balance between giving them the chance to learn and ensuring they do the right thing?


People sometimes think that "free-range" means free-wheeling, like, "Oh, just let them go." It's really not that at all. It's basically making sure that we teach them the skills they need, and then, when they have learned them, giving them the freedom and the responsibility that goes with getting a little older.

So, for instance, I wouldn't let my kid take the subway before I was sure he knew how to cross the street.

You have to teach your children that they can talk to strangers if they need information or if they need help. They could ask a stranger, but they can never go off with a stranger [or] get into somebody's car.

These are all the things that I think a free-range parent has to do. You just have to believe the evidence in front of you. And that's what World's Worst Mom does. I just want to show parents what their kids are capable of. I'm there to show them that they've been way better parents than they even believe themselves and that now their kids are ready to put those lessons into practice.

Parents don't believe this because they've made it into such a terror in their heads until I push them aside and say: "Well, your kids are going to do it, anyway, because you've taught them to deal with the frustration of falling when they're going to learn how to ride a bike." You just have to believe in your kids.

What would you suggest parents start off doing if they want to give their children a freer rein?


One thing I suggest is to leave your cellphone at home sometimes. I say that because I know that I can't get my children to deliberately leave their phones at home. So, it's up to us, because one of the things I think that has kept parents from letting go is the fact that now there's this umbilical cord called the cellphone.

It makes sense to be watching your kids all the time when they're age three and you have to say, "Oh, don't touch that. That's hot."

But as your children get older, you want them to start making their own decisions, because you don't want to send your kid off to college having decided everything for him. But when you have a cellphone, it's very tempting to do that.

I know that from my own life. When my older son was 10 - he's 15 now - and I had left [while] he was eating breakfast [at home]. I had just gotten out of the building when my cellphone rang and I thought: "Oh, my God, what's the matter?"

I answered, and my son said: "Mum, can I have another slice of banana bread?"

I felt bad because he thought he had to ask me if he could eat something if he was hungry.

That was what made me realise that we've become too dependent on being in touch and me making decisions for him. When you have the cellphone, you're so attached that you get used to doing everything for your children, and your children get used to it, too.

What about in the long run?

The macro way is to allow yourself to just think back on your own childhood and remember some of the great moments you had. You'll find most of them did not involve your parent helping you do something.

It was probably one of the building blocks of who you are - that first time that you got lost but you found your way home, when you climbed that tree or when you built something. Whatever it is that you did by yourself that you loved and that you treasure. This is something wonderful; why wouldn't you give that to your child?

You're giving them all the help and all the protection. Why wouldn't you give them the confidence and the self-reliance that you get when you do something on your own?



World's Worst Mom premieres Tuesday on Discovery Home & Health at 7.30pm (Cable TV Channel 57, Now TV Channel 214 and bbTV Channel 318)

scmp: 40pc of young women too thin

40pc of young women too thin

The number classified as underweight has nearly doubled in 15 years, raising concern about their increased potential to develop osteoporosis

Thomas Chan Updated on Mar 02, 2012 http://tinyurl.com/6qzzdnq

The proportion of young Hong Kong woman who are underweight nearly doubled over the past 15 years, leaving more women at risk of developing the bone disease osteoporosis, according to a study by a Queen Mary Hospital doctor. Dr Annie Kung Wai-chee found the percentage of 20- to 29-year-old women monitored from 2005 to 2010 who could be classified as having low body weight was nearly 40 per cent, up from 23 per cent in a 1995-2000 study conducted by the hospital's osteoporosis centre. Kung used the World Health Organisation's classification of a body mass index (BMI) - calculated by dividing a patient's weight by their height squared - as the basis of her study. It says an index of 18.5 to 22.9 is normal. In other words, four in 10 Hong Kong young women included in the study's most recent phase had a BMI that was lower than 18.5. Kung said weight-conscious women were getting thinner and exposing themselves to an increased risk of osteoporosis, a decrease of bone tissue and loss of bone density over time. "When a female is in puberty and she tries to control her body weight by eating less, she can't get enough calcium and vitamins to sustain bone growth," she said. Low body weight, smoking and too little calcium in the diet are all possible contributors to the disease. Apart from brittle bones, it also causes height loss and stooped posture. Researchers monitored the BMI of women in various age groups in two phases, with 1,080 in the earlier group and 550 in the latter. Similar increases were also seen among other age groups. About 30 per cent of those 80 or older were found to be underweight in the second phase, many more than the 6 per cent in the first phase. Kung described the consequences as extremely serious and cited the experience of one of her patients as an example. "Four years ago she weighed 36.3 kilograms and her BMI was 14. One day she slipped on a wet floor and broke her left leg," Kung said. The patient was diagnosed with osteoporosis after surgery. "A minor accident like this wouldn't cause such serious consequences to youngsters with normal bone density," Kung said. The then 19-year-old woman ate two meals a day but only dry food. After four years of treatment, she now weighs 41kg. Even though she was still underweight, Kung said, the disease was being managed. "If a person has been underweight for more than a year, it's very difficult for body weight to resume to a normal level because of psychological factors and dieting habits," Kung said. To avoid developing osteoporosis, the doctor said women should maintain a healthy body weight through a balanced diet and regular exercise. She advised those whose BMI was less than 18.5 to have a bone-density check. The Osteoporosis Society of Hong Kong says 300,000 women and 100,000 men suffer from the disease. thomas.chan@scmp.com

scmp: HK residents first in flats plan to stop speculators

支持限制私樓只向港人出售。

HK residents first in flats plan to stop speculators

Housing Society wants to ban corporate buyers at six projects with apartments costing up to HK$5.5 million

Paggie Leung Updated on Jan 13, 2012 http://goo.gl/xXiKF

The Housing Society plans to give priority to Hong Kong residents in its latest project, becoming the first developer to set such a condition for a private development.

Wong Kit-loong, the society's chief executive, said yesterday: "We want to give priority to Hong Kong people in buying our flats and we'll not accept corporate buyers. This will reduce speculative activities."

With an increasing number of property investors from the mainland, there have been calls for the government to designate land for building flats to be sold only to locals. Last week chief executive hopeful Leung Chun-ying suggested limiting sales of new flats to Hong Kong residents, to keep property prices at reasonable levels. Academics, however, fear this smacks of protectionism and would affect the city's reputation as a free economy.

The Housing Society has joined hands with the Urban Renewal Authority to develop six private residential developments, five in Sham Shui Po and one in Shau Kei Wan, to provide more than 1,400 flats.

The first development to be launched is Heya Green, which will go on pre-sale as early as April and is expected to be ready in the third quarter of next year. It is located at 18 Po On Road in Sham Shui Po and will have 327 flats. About 80 per cent are two-bedroom flats of 570 square feet while the rest are three-bedroom flats of 780 sq ft.

These were non-subsidised flats that would be sold at market prices, the society said. The current rate is HK$6,000 to HK$7,000 per sq ft, so they will cost between HK$3.4 million and HK$5.5 million.

"They will be simple but elegant flats without luxury facilities but have high efficiency rates of about 80 per cent," Wong said.

Daniel Lau King-shing, the society's director of development and marketing, said any Hongkonger would be able to buy the flats, without any restrictions on income or assets. The society is considering selling the apartments to local permanent residents.

Democrat legislator Lee Wing-tat criticised the society for its overlapping role with private developers, saying that the statutory body should provide housing "with a social objective" such as helping first-time homebuyers to attain ownership. Lee liked the idea of selling only to Hongkongers, but without any income and resale restrictions, he said, the projects would still attract investors and speculators.

Andy Ho Ming-pui, Midland Realty's director of Kowloon district, said the prices were reasonable and would draw some first-time buyers.

The Housing Society is a non-profit organisation that is also the biggest provider of subsidised housing in Hong Kong after the Housing Authority.

paggie.leung@scmp.com