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The article presents information on a conference related to tourism and hospitality industry, and also invites readers to submit papers on same topics for the conference. Information about the "Fifth International Conference on Tourism Industry: Development, Marketing and Sustainability," which will be held in Hong Kong from May 23-25, 2002, is presented. In the conference topics related to the development of tourism industry and hospitality industry in Asia will be discussed. Papers related to marketing and promotion of tourism, tourism forecasting, and economic aspects of tourism are also called for.

Even though many African and Asian countries share a common history of European colonialism and thus a model of economic development shaped within the aegis of center-periphery analysis, many Asian countries have been able to ride through the burden of center-periphery economics and built more successful political economies than most African countries. This state of affairs has often led many African analysts to point to Asian success stories like China and South Korea for comparative analysis and often see these Asian countries as models of socio-economic and socio-cultural success to emulate. In particular, Africans in the Diaspora, especially Africans in China, tend to compare very frequently the socio-economic and socio-cultural conditions of their host countries with those of their source countries. This paper outlines and discusses how a group of Africans living in Hong Kong and other parts of Asia see Korea and Korean culture through the prism of Korean television dramas, which constitute a popular cultural phenomenon among Hong Kong/Asian youths. Through qualitative and quantitative survey methods, participant-observation, and questionnaire surveys, the paper reports on how African community members of Hong Kong and others think of Koreans. We show that Africans draw a lot of comparisons between Korean and African ways of conceptualizing the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies of East Asian welfare regimes focus on similarities between social security schemes. In contrast, this paper explores cross-national variations in public–private pension mixes in six welfare states: China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. Our research echoes the pension policy analysis of international organisations but takes a step forward with emphasis on the historical and institutional characteristics of the respective pension systems. The analysis identifies three institutional patterns. First, the statist pension system (Taiwan and China) primarily relies on public pensions to provide old-age security, with private pensions playing a rather minor role. Second, in the dualist pension system (Japan and Korea) both public and private pensions work in parallel to ensure retirement income, though a clear security gap exists between workers in the formal and informal economies. Finally, the individualist pension system (Hong Kong and Singapore) is characterised by genuine fully funded individual accounts, emphasising citizens' own responsibilities for ensuring old-age security. These three types of pension systems demonstrate distinct institutional characteristics and policy outcomes, illustrated by the juxtaposition of their institutional structures as well as by the comparison of key indicators collected from government reports and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development statistics. The paper concludes with a theoretical reflection of East Asian pension policies and a diagnosis of the distinct challenges confronted by each of the various pension patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Family Therapy is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper discusses and examines the development of an Asian bond market, which serves as a bridge to establish financial cooperation in the region. The issues of currency denomination are discussed. In addition, the role that China may play in the establishment of the bond market is presented and analyzed. It is argued that cooperation between China and Hong Kong is desirable to further enhance the development of the market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While there has been considerable commentary and analysis on the origins and aftermath of the Asian Financial Crisis there have been few studies which focus on the housing markets of the countries most directly affected. This is surprising given the importance of housing investment in many Asian economies and that over-inflated real estate was deeply implicated in the crisis. This paper explores the particular dynamics of the Hong Kong housing market and its institutional structure during the Asian Financial Crisis. The paper focuses specifically on the relationship between the development structure and the shaping of the policy process and on the interconnections between the housing market and the wider economy. It explains the apparent resilience of the giant developers during the crisis. More generally, the paper emphasises the importance of endogenous institutional dynamics in mediating the impact of the crisis in Hong Kong. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hong Kong has tried to develop itself as a regional education hub for a decade. However, the policy is being criticized because Hong Kong has neither diversified its student population ethnically and culturally nor expanded its share in the global higher education market. This paper explores this context to examine the significance of the education hub concept in the development of higher education in Hong Kong. Based on an analysis of the concept of education hub the paper argues that the purposes of building an education hub need to be defined. It also argues that an instrumentalist interpretation of internationalization of higher education is not enough to understand the importance of the education hub notion to the higher education development in the city. An idealistic and educational approach in this respect is a relevant idea for the prospect of Hong Kong as an education hub. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By the nineteenth century, with the advance of British colonial activities, British corporate laws had been transplanted to maritime Asia with varying degrees of vigour. In British Hong Kong, these laws often clashed with native customs. Through a reconstruction of the legal disputes found in urban Hong Kong, this paper discusses how British and Chinese business traditions interacted with each other during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Before assessing the historical implications and consequences of these legal decisions, this paper will also explore whether the Chinese institution of tong is compatible with British law in urban Hong Kong. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines three controversies that revolve around the Hong Kong government's efforts to privatise components of its property assets in the years following the Asian financial crisis in 1997. While the rolling back of welfare and privatisation of public goods are typical features of the 'neo-liberal turn', the consequences of and responses to these processes are highly contingent upon specific historical experience and social practices. By examining the narratives of different actors over the course of these controversies, this paper aims to elucidate the contradictions and mutual entanglements between the ideology of neo-liberalism and everyday discourse and how the contestation in each of the three cases worked to reshape and ultimately to preserve the existing regime of legitimation. It also illustrates how the long-running 'laissez-faire' principles of Hong Kong's colonial period have contributed to the ongoing absorption of political critique, thus exposing the limits of 'people power'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a former colony, Hong Kong's education system has been powerfully influenced by ideas from the West. However, these influences have been mediated by a number of factors of contingency - the most important of which is culture - which shapes implementation, particularly of what counts as successful practice. The aim of this paper is to trace the interpretation and implementation of key ideas about school leadership and to offer some analytical projections into the future based on current trajectories. It explores three broad sets of constraints on the development of leadership practice: the features of the Hong Kong school system, the influence of a Confucian cultural tradition, and the process oriented nature of the professional practice of effective school leadership. The paper concludes by offering an analysis of how this dynamic process view of leadership can be used to understand current attempts to build a school-based approach to educational leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land and buildings form a significant portion of the national wealth in most economies, but in Singapore and Hong Kong, two small city-states where land is scarce, real estate has an important role in the functioning of the whole economy. Transnational property and development companies are important players in Singapore and Hong Kong. They form an important part of the local stock market and have enjoyed considerable growth while providing substantial revenue for governments and wealth for individuals. Because of this important role, the paper redescribes Singapore and Hong Kong as property states, not rent-seeking economies as the term rent is usually used in discussing Asian capitalism. The importance of real estate, an immobile asset, is not only surprising in a global era defined in part by the mobility of capital, but also because in Singapore and Hong Kong land is publicly owned. The paper attempts to explain the anomaly by analysing the land allocation mechanisms in Singapore and Hong Kong. In spite of their similarities, real estate markets in Singapore and Hong Kong exhibit several differences, linked in turn to different policy options for their management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spectacular economic success of the Newly Industrialising Countries (NICS) of Asia since the 1960s, has led to the quest to identify other less developed countries which may be just about to become the next NICS of Asia. This paper examines the arguments for and against the view that there is a "second tier" of less developed countries which are about to join the ranks of the Asian NICS. While Malaysia and Thailand are generally thought to be the most likely candidates, this paper argues that one hitherto unrecognised contender. China, is likely to join these countries in achieving NIC status. This paper examines the question of whether there are likely to be more Newly Industrializing Countries (NICS) emerging over time, following in the footsteps of the original four in Asia (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan). While some writers suggest that several developing countries are about to achieve NIC status in the near future, others argue that world trading conditions have deteriorated to such an extent as to make this very unlikely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1998 Asian financial crisis, there has been considerable corporate governance reform in the region. But such reform has proceeded on two tracks. On one track, international rules are dominant, and common accounting and financial reporting standards are essentially accepted as necessary for trade and investment. On the second track, however, local cultural norms continue to exert a strong influence on the functioning of the boards, the quality of dialogue with shareholders, and the way they manage related party transactions and capital raising. As a consequence, in these matters of internal governance-where legacy issues and culture, and not international standards, continue to be the main driving force behind governance-there continue to be significant differences among Asian countries. And thus even as convergence is occurring in certain aspects of governance, it is expected to remain limited, particularly in the functioning of boards and internal governance. As for the case of China, there was such a flurry of rule-making in the early 2000s-a national Code of Corporate Governance in 2002, and a Directive on Quarterly Reports in 2003-that people in Hong Kong used to enjoy saying that China's corporate governance standards were higher than Hong Kong's. But if that may have been true on paper, the reality has been quite different. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this current era of rapid globalization and knowledge transmission, students in Hong Kong and Asia who are being trained in counseling theories and systems face a dilemma. To be recognized internationally as professionally trained counselors, they need to comprehend some of the multiple theoretical approaches to mental health, the development of a person and the techniques needed for assessment and intervention. To practice professionally they must have an understanding of theoretical orientations and become self-reflective in their practice. The texts they use are mainly from Europe or the United States, with the case study focus being either on Americans or on Asian Americans. How do they distinguish between what is required of them internationally and local cultural needs of clients in Hong Kong or different parts of Asia? Much of the literature on pedagogical methods used for educating counselors argues for the development of multicultural competencies. While this is important, this paper argues for students to understand and be aware of the dialogue between globalization, indigenization and reconceptualization of counseling theories. Examples of how this is attempted in a Hong Kong counseling training program will be put forward, with a brief discussion of some current writings from Chinese and Taiwanese counselors and their attempts to indigenize and adapt Western theories for their own context, as well as the importance of exposing students to this research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Internationalization becomes increasingly important in higher education in a globalized world. Exporting higher education services by recruiting overseas students is an integral facet of internationalization of higher education. It not only helps develop the place as an education hub but also facilitate internationalized environment of higher education. Alongside this global trend, Singapore, Malaysia, and Hong Kong are of no exception and have embarked on the process of internationalizing their higher education campuses by recruiting more international students, striving for achieving the policy goal of developing themselves into regional education hubs. Hong Kong has no doubt had some comparative advantages over other Asian competitors in the region but there are several major hurdles it needs to overcome before it can successfully export its higher education services. This paper reports part of a territory wide study in order to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of exporting Hong Kong's higher education to the Asian markets. In addition, to counteract the economic driven imperatives in restructuring higher education, the author would like to caution the importance of going beyond income generation and put forward a question of what the real aim and mission of internationalization of higher education are in the Asian region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Asia's emergence as a key player in the global economy is witnessing intense competition within the region to become Asia's next great international financial centre (IFC). Hong Kong, Singapore and Shanghai, among others, are vying for primacy, attempting to attract dense clusters of financial services firms and reap the lucrative rewards associated with this. This paper explores this emerging competition. It does so from the perspective of attempting to map the parameters necessary to become an IFC, particularly the institutional, political and spatial contexts that facilitate the concentration of international financial services. Why and how financial clustering occurs and the factors that determine the location of financial centres is an important public policy concern, both for established centres eager to maintain their competitive position as well as emerging economies keen to identify the policy levers necessary to support financial sector growth. To that end, the paper explores the experiences and strategies of three of Asia's current contenders: Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore. It analyses the policy architecture, financial sector strategies, institutional mechanisms and spatial geographies undergirding financial sector growth, and the constraints, obstacles and challenges each face in developing and or consolidating their IFC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to present an empirical investigation into the relationships between the selected organizational variables, business process improvement (BPI) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) success. Design/methodology/approach - It is based on a sample of 96 firms operating in an Asian (Hong Kong) setting. Non-parametric statistical tests are conducted on the sample. Findings - It has found that the extent of BPI is positively related to ERP success, and senior management support of BPI (MSB), and senior management support of IT (MSI) and CEO-IT distance are negatively related. However, it has also found that there exist no statistically significant relationships between approaches to business process changes and BPI, between MSI and ERP success, and between CEO-IT distance and MSB. It has also yielded divergent findings for the impacts of CEO-IT distance on the levels of senior MSI and MSB for the sub-samples of firms of Western and Asian origin. Research limitations/implications - This research has produced empirical evidence in an Asian setting for some of the hypothesized relationships and pointed out that the impacts of certain organizational variables may differ across firms of different geographic (cultural) background. However, it is primarily empirical in nature and is weak in its theoretic underpinning to explain why these organizational variables are adopted in the study. Originality/value - The findings of this study in an Asian setting add to those conducted in the West, and thus help fill the lacuna of research involving the variables relevant to ERP adoption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the time-series behaviour of house prices for the four Asian markets, namely, Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo and Taipei, by using structural time-series methodology. The paper assumes two types of trend models to characterise and compare the long-run movement of house prices. It also examines the cyclical pattern hidden in the series. The long-run trend rate in these markets ranged between approximately 1.6 and 3.2 per cent per annum. Hong Kong, Singapore and Taipei have relatively higher figures, which could be expected in light of the rapidly growing economies. Surprisingly, their cyclical patterns were fairly similar, although causes of the cycles differed. The markets were found to have stochastic cycles of around one year, two to four years and seven to ten years, which were consistent with previous findings on real business cycles commonly observed internationally in other macroeconomic time series. However, the found stochastic nature suggests all these markets are not in a steady state and is still changing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relates the topics of the different articles featured in the October 1998 issue of the 'Pacific Economic Review.' Speculative pressures on Asian currency boards; Foreign exchange market in Hong Kong, China; Monetary policies in Singapore.

Abstract: Some of the policies central banks used during the Asian Financial Crisis had elements of unconventional monetary policy in that they involved the government buying assets that the private sector was unwilling to hold. We focus on public funding of bank recapitalizations in Thailand and the extraordinary purchase of equities in Hong Kong. Although it is important to calibrate these policies appropriately, we believe they helped to stabilize economies through channels that were not well understood at the time of the Asian crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The economic success of some of the countries within the East Asian region has generated a range of studies which have attempted to identify the sources of that growth. One strand within these analyses has focused on the critical role of schooling in the accumulation of human capital. This paper examines the role which education has played in the rapid development of the four 'Asian Tigers'; namely: Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore. It is argued that whilst patterns of educational provision displayed some common features there were also significant differences in other areas such as the role of the state, sources of educational funding, the role of technical education and of the school curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Bamboo is the world''s fastest growing woody plant and some species can grow up to a foot a day if the right conditions were met, therefore it can be a sustainable raw material resource for energy demand. In Asia, bamboo is mainly used for scaffolding and about 50,000tonnes of bamboo waste is generated annually in Hong Kong. To utilise the growing bamboo waste, pyrolysis which is a promising technology for tackling waste disposal can be employed. This paper proposes the pyrolysis mechanism and develops a mathematical model for bamboo pyrolysis process using the parameters generated from the TGA/DTA analysis. This model helps to understand the bamboo pyrolysis better and it was then used to study the effects of different operating parameters on bamboo pyrolysis. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article determines a general trend in Asia for recognizing the importance of laws governing corporate rescue. It discusses the trends and challenges faced by jurisdictions in Asia to enforce their laws on corporate rescue with special reference to the proposed reform to corporate rescue laws in Hong Kong and the impact of mainland China on the region as a whole. It reflects that there are philosophical differences between jurisdictions over the objectives of insolvency law.

Objectives: Educational inequalities in cardiometabolic diseases (CMD) are globally recognised; nonetheless, the evidence on potential explanatory mechanisms and effective strategies for CMD prevention and inequality reduction is relatively scarce in Asia. Therefore, the current study examined the extent and potential mediators of the association of education level with CMD conditions (i.e., hypertension and diabetes) in an advanced economy in Asia.Design: A cross-sectional study.Setting: This territory-wide cross-sectional Population Health Survey in 2014-2015 was performed in Hong Kong. Demographic, socio-economic and lifestyle factors were collected via questionnaire, while clinical data on blood pressure and glucose levels, lipid profiles and anthropometric measures were obtained during health examination. Hypertension and diabetes statuses were objectively defined by both clinical data and the use of relevant medications.Participants: 2297 community-dwelling adults aged between 15-84 years recruited via systematic replicated sampling of living quarters.Results: Multivariable binary logistic regression analysis showed that lower education level was significantly associated with hypertension among women but not men, whereas similar pattern was also observed for diabetes and other related clinical risk factors. Also, general and abdominal obesity were independently associated with hypertension and diabetes among both women and men, and substantially mediated the observed inequalities across education levels among women. Specifically, abdominal obesity was a particularly strong risk factor and mediator for diabetes.Conclusion: Educational patterning of CMD was more apparent among women in Hong Kong. Obesity control appears to be important for both overall CMD prevention and reduction of educational inequalities in CMD among women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyzes the role of global real estate capital flows, the real estate sector and the politics of cities in the economic growth and urban development in Asia. Explanation on how property prices in global cities like Singapore and Hong Kong is made; Role of urban politics in cities in reducing negative externalities that have the power to retard economic growth; Strategies used by Singapore and Hong Kong in marketing their cities.

Copyright of Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary & Nonprofit Organizations is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study analyzes whether academics with advanced degrees from foreign universities are more research productive than their domestic counterparts in the three selected East Asian higher education systems - Korea, Hong Kong, and Malaysia. The three systems have relatively large proportions of foreign degree holders among their professoriates. The data for this study is drawn from the Changing Academic Profession survey. In our negative binominal regression analysis, we found that foreign degree holders are not more research productive than their colleagues with domestic degrees, and even slightly less productive than domestic degree holders in soft disciplines (arts, humanities, and social sciences) in Korea unless they have further foreign post-doc experience after their PhD. Furthermore, foreign degree holders are less productive in hard disciplines (natural sciences, engineering, and bio-medical sciences) in Malaysia. Finally, we discuss the findings and attribute them to contextual differences between the three localities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is the 10th in a series of articles exploring international trends in health science librarianship. This issue describes developments in health science librarianship in the first decade of the 21st century in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The next issue will report on Japan and South Korea. JM [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The early twentieth century witnessed both the thriving of Chinese newspapers in the British colony Hong Kong and the boom of Chinese translation of foreign literature. This article, through the translated literature in Chinese newspapers, explores the interaction among print media, Chinese women, and translation in the early twentieth century Hong Kong. It argues that many factors contributed to the prevailing ideology concerning women in the British colony, including the skewed sex ratio, Confucianism as the hegemonic ideology, and the conspiracy between elite Chinese and the colonial rulers, and thus that the manipulation of images of women in Chinese translations was ideologically motivated. Such pervasive ideology characteristic of Hong Kong at that given moment in history undoubtedly created pressures on the translators, which were exacerbated by the difference in the construction of the images of women in the English original and its Chinese translated counterparts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines post-war British cultural diplomacy in Hong Kong, focusing on the British Council and Hong Kong House. Drawing on colonial office, British Council and Hong Kong government archival collections, it argues that neither the British nor Hong Kong governments placed a high priority on promoting British cultural values to the Hong Kong Chinese. Moreover, even this limited emphasis declined after the late nineteen-sixties, reflecting both Britain's retreat from what John Darwin calls the 'empire project' and the emergence of a more pronounced Hong Kong local identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In January 2011 Hong Kong's Legislative Council voted against any bid to host the 2023 Asian Games. Set against the background of the historical development of sport in Hong Kong including previous experiences with bidding for and hosting international sporting events, the key parameters of the debate within Hong Kong relating to a possible 2023 bid are analysed. The Hong Kong government's failure to win the day on the Asian Games bid was a result partly of a concern by the public and politicians that it had not previously demonstrated a genuine commitment to promoting grass-roots sporting activities in Hong Kong and partly of the problematic governance structure in Hong Kong which meant that no major political party could see electoral benefit from supporting the government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The men-having-sex-with-men (MSM) population has become one of the major risk groups for HIV-1 infection in the Asia Pacific countries. Hong Kong is located in the centre of Asia and the transmission history of HIV-1 subtype B transmission among MSM remained unclear. The aim of this study was to investigate the transmission dynamics of HIV-1 subtype B virus in the Hong Kong MSM population. Samples of 125 HIV-1 subtype B infected MSM patients were recruited in this study. Through this study, the subtype B epidemic in the Hong Kong MSM population was identified spreading mainly among local Chinese who caught infection locally. On the other hand, HIV-1 subtype B infected Caucasian MSM caught infection mainly outside Hong Kong. The Bayesian phylogenetic analysis also indicated that 3 separate subtype B epidemics with divergence dates in the 1990s had occurred. The first and latest epidemics were comparatively small-scaled; spreading among the local Chinese MSM while sauna-visiting was found to be the major sex partner sourcing reservoir for the first subtype B epidemic. However, the second epidemic was spread in a large-scale among local Chinese MSM with a number of them having sourced their sex partners through the internet. The epidemic virus was estimated to have a divergence date in 1987 and the infected population in Hong Kong had a logistic growth throughout the past 20 years. Our study elucidated the evolutionary and demographic history of HIV-1 subtype B virus in Hong Kong MSM population. The understanding of transmission and growth model of the subtype B epidemic provides more information on the HIV-1 transmission among MSM population in other Asia Pacific high-income countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the development of television in Hong Kong should be viewed as a part of British media history. Yet within this context, it is striking that the Hong Kong Government did not follow the public ownership model of the BBC (even though it had followed a similar model with radio broadcasting), nor did the Government make significant efforts to use television as a vehicle for promoting British culture within Hong Kong. Instead, Hong Kong television was commercial from the beginning, with Government regulation and Government-produced content emerging only in response to political crisis in the late 1960s-and even then, only to a very limited extent. I argue that this early television history reflects both the increasing autonomy of the Hong Kong Government from London in the post-war period, and the development of a distinct Hong Kong Britishness that favoured minimal regulation of oligopolistic commercial interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which examined the present conditions of higher education services offered in Asian markets. It also aims to conduct market segmentation analysis of these markets and suggest the most appropriate market entry strategies for education service providers in Hong Kong, China. Results showed that the high demand for high education overseas remains unmet and the visibility of the higher education in Hong Kong was weak in Asian markets. It notes that higher education institutions and the Hong Kong government should work together to investigate the potential markets and employ marketing strategies.

Interest among academics towards Hong Kong's global status has gradually waned since 1997. However, identifying Hong Kong's position on the international platform is essential if the Special Administrative Region's competitiveness is to be distinguished from that of regional rivals. The positioning challenge not only results from the sovereignty retrocession, but also from the rapid pace of globalization and the intensified competition from major cities in the Greater China Region. Instead of focusing on the much-researched topic of the direct competition between Hong Kong and Shanghai or Singapore, an exploration of Hong Kong's hitherto little-researched re-branding experience not only throws light on Hong Kong Special Administrative Region's policy orientation, but is also valuable in understanding how other cities in the region conducted similar exercises. This article reviews the overall evolution of the 'Asia's World City' (AWC) discourse as promoted by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region from 1997 to 2007. It starts by reviewing the international identity of post-colonial Hong Kong as background to the discourse, in order to reconstruct various theoretical assumptions that led to the re-branding exercise. The second section examines the purpose and evolution of the AWC campaign, and identifies the problems within the discourse. The concluding section focuses on the unrealized theoretical assumptions and other administrative and ideological constraints that the HKSARG faced in the exercise as a means to explaining the overall limited achievements of the campaign and proposes possible ways to remedy the shortcomings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Media education has been around for quite some time in the West (Bazalgette et al. 1990), but it only started to gain acceptance in Asia (Cheung 2005), particularly in Hong Kong, in the last decade. Recently, it has been gaining more attention in Hong Kong thanks to the curriculum reform in which liberal studies will become one of the four core subjects to be taken by students in the New Senior Secondary Curriculum and media is one of the six themes to be studied in the subject of liberal studies. This article argues for the need for teaching media education in liberal studies and shows the many connections between the two subjects that facilitate this integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the trafficking of women from mainland China to Hong Kong, China to be involved in the sex industry. The author's opinions regarding the lack of enforcement of regulations regarding the sex industry in Hong Kong are discussed. Increases which have occurred regarding the number of Chinese women involved in the sex industry in Hong Kong are mentioned. The role in which Asian governments are required to play in protecting women from becoming victims in the sex industry are discussed. Reasons for the increase which has been seen in the number of sex workers in Hong Kong are mentioned.

We used epidemiologic evaluation, molecular epidemiology, and a case-control study to identify possible risk factors for the spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza A virus (subtype H5N1) in chicken farms during the first quarter of 2002 in Hong Kong. Farm profiles, including stock sources, farm management, and biosecurity measures, were collected from 16 case and 46 control chicken farms by using a pretested questionnaire and personal interviews. The risk for influenza A (H5N1) infection was assessed by using adjusted odds ratios based on multivariate logistic regression analysis. Retail marketing of live poultry was implicated as the main source of exposure to infection on chicken farms in Hong Kong during this period. Infection control measures should be reviewed and upgraded as necessary to reduce the spread of influenza A (H5N1) related to live poultry markets, which are commonplace across Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents news briefs related to corporate social responsibility and environmental management in Asia for the period February to April 2006. The Japanese government has approved a bill to revise the antidiscrimination law guaranteeing equal employment opportunities. A survey reveals that majority of female workers in Korea think that sexual discrimination is prevalent both in the job search and in the workplace. Half of the visitors to Hong Kong, China had complained of the worsening air pollution in the city, according to a survey conducted by Friends of the Earth.

Significant dust storm impacts have seldom been recorded and reported in Hong Kong. Herein, four cases which occurred in Hong Kong during the spring times of recent years are examined using back-trajectory computation and chemical analysis of air-borne samples. All of the cases show that the dust was transported from the source to Hong Kong in 2–5 days and that PM10 concentrations approached or exceeded the European Union air quality criteria and the USA National Ambient Air Quality Standard. The chemical characteristics of the samples taken in these events agreed both with those from the source regions and with those archived from selected Hong Kong datasets. The concentrations of the crustal constituents (Al, Fe, Mn, Ca) of the Hong Kong samples on the episode days were at least three times higher than the concentrations measured on non-episode days. The mass ratios of Fe/Al and Mn/Al (but not Ca/Al) can act as good tracers of Asian dust storms to this coastal site where sea-salt and other anthropogenic species are normally dominant. Furthermore, unusually high Mg levels indicated a mainly crustal origin for this element, rather than the marine origin normally found at this coastal location. Particulate nitrate exhibited more elevated concentrations in all of the dust storm samples than in non-dust-storm and local samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents information on a study on suicide statistics from Hong Kong and Singapore over the period 1984-1994. Physical characteristics of both countries; Data and method; Results and discussion.

The article focuses on Asian countries that have experienced economic growth over the past 50 years including Hong Kong, China; Japan; Singapore; South Korea and Taiwan. With the exception of Hong Kong, the economic success of the Asian countries has been attributed to the interventionist framework. Export-orientation is one strategy that is most associated with the success of the five Asian countries. The export-oriented strategy helped the five Asian countries in many ways. The ensuring growth of employment enabled the country to save and accumulate capital for reinvestment. The export-oriented strategy also positively affects the competitive advantages of the country. There are other non-economic factors, such as culture, the need to survive, strong government, historical factors and even luck, that could have helped in the development process of these countries. Policy-makers must know how to use the total-systems approach to solving economic problems. In other words, policy-makers must know how to analyse their economies as complex systems.

Unethical consumer practices in Asian countries have attracted much attention from business practitioners. The availability of counterfeit products such as computer disks, fashion clothing and watches, etc., provide a negative impression to the business world. This research aims to investigate the job-related ethical beliefs of hotel employees in Hong Kong. The results show that the four-dimensional factors model as suggested by Vitell and Muncy (1992) can explain hotel employees' job-related ethics. Correlation analysis revealed that there was a significant relationship among the four factors and the general attitudinal statements. Significant differences were observed when analysing the demographic variables (i.e. age and education level) with the four factors including: no harm; unethical behaviours; actively benefiting; and passively benefiting. The results suggest the need for a clearer ethical policy for employees, and the identification of the behaviours that are viewed as "no harm" in the work environment. Hotel management will benefit by being able to identify those areas where employees need guidance and education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]