100 hurt as Macau ferries collide in fog

Poor visibility blamed for crash of high-speed vessels
More than 100 passengers were injured - a dozen of them seriously - when two high-speed ferries collided off Macau in thick fog last night.

The collision between the Funchal, bound from Hong Kong to Macau, and the Santa Maria, bound for Hong Kong, occurred in mainland waters at about 8.30pm. Normal service had resumed less than two hours earlier after being disrupted for six hours.

The accident happened at the end of a day in which thick fog caused serious disruption to sea traffic around the coast, with three collisions in Hong Kong waters and chaos at ferry terminals.

Last night's crash sent passengers aboard both ferries flying.

"We saw lights coming and then there was a loud bang," one passenger said.

"Many people flew out of their seats after the impact. I heard that the captain was also injured. It was such chaos," the passenger said.

Another passenger said the front window of one of the ferries was broken.

"Some people were injured. Some of them collapsed aboard the boat," he said.

One of the ferries was able to return to Macau under its own power after the crash, about five nautical miles off the city. The other had to be towed to port. Two dozen ambulances and fire engines were sent to the pier to receive the wounded.

Ferry services to and from Macau, including those serving the mainland, were suspended for two hours following the accident.

Macau Ports Authority spokeswoman Wong Soi-man said: "About 100 people were injured, about a dozen of them severely. We are not sure what caused the accident but the heavy fog was one of the main reasons."

Earlier, Macau authorities closed one of the two seaways between the city and Hong Kong for nearly six hours because of poor visibility - as low as 100 metres at one point.

The measure caused severe disruption to services.

Hundreds of passengers were stranded at ferry piers. The journey, which normally takes less than an hour, was taking more than twice as long.

"The trip took me two hours," said Angela Leong On-kei, the fourth wife of casino mogul Stanley Ho Hung-sun.

To clear the crowds, ferry operator TurboJet suspended the sale of tickets between 3pm and 8.30pm.

At 10.10am, a Macau-bound jetfoil with 386 passengers and crew on board collided with a Hong Kong fishing boat in dense fog off Fan Lau, Lantau.

Both vessels suffered minor damage but no one was hurt. The jetfoil continued its journey after authorities had examined it.

East of Hong Kong, a fishing boat sank after a mainland vessel struck it about 11.30am. Three men and a woman were rescued by a fire boat before the vessel went down.

At about 12.45pm in the same area, a Fire Services Department speedboat collided with a fishing boat.

The speedboat's railings and a windscreen were damaged. The 16-metre fishing boat suffered slight damage to its bow.

The Observatory said visibility east of Hong Kong fell below 1km between 10am and 1pm. At Waglan Island it was as low as 100 metres.

A warm, humid maritime airstream brought the foggy weather, the Observatory said. It is expected to be humid and foggy again today, before temperatures fall tomorrow.

SCMP Jan 12, 2008

Hong Kong as a tourist destination

I'm quite sure you know a lot about Hong Kong's tourist spots, like The Peak, Repulse Bay, Disneyland and Ocean Park. However, if you are not a Hong Kong resident, what will you think of Hong Kong as a tourist destination? Let's take a look at this article and find out how Hong Kong is described in "The Times", a newspaper from Britain.

Link to the article.

NSW Police Force has released a print campaign to raise awareness of the fact that the number of teenagers dying as a result of listening to ipods whilst they cross the road is beginning to reach “epidemic proportions”.

Link to the site.

Sony Alpha DSLR-A200

• 10.2 effective Megapixel APS-C CCD sensor with improved noise control
• Uses Minolta/Sony Alpha lens mount; 1.5X focal length conversion ratio
• Super SteadyShot sensor-shift image stabilization
• 2.7" LCD display with 230k pixels (versus 2.5" on the A100); no live view
• Optical viewfinder has 95% coverage and 0.83X magnification
• Full manual controls; RAW image format supported
• Autofocus performance is 1.7X better than the A100
• Same anti-dust system as the A100
• Takes up to 6 RAW or an unlimited number of JPEGs in a row at 3 frames/second
• CompactFlash Type I/II slot
• More compact body than its predecessor; flash now pops up automatically
• Optional battery grip
• Uses NP-FM500H lithium battery; 750 shots per charge; camera can provide real-time battery life percentage
• USB 2.0 High Speed support
• Shipping in February for $799 with an 18 - 70 mm lens, and $999 with that lens plus an additional 75 - 300 mm lens

DC Resource

Baby gives the evil eye

Baby Gives The Evil Eye - Watch more free videos

Sony Ericsson announces W760 Walkman slider

Though Sony Ericsson already has a couple phones out with support for North American 3G, you're feasting your eyes on the first and only Walkman branded handset to feature the sacred 850 and 1900MHz bands of HSDPA action. The W760 slider features quadband EDGE plus triband HSDPA, integrated GPS, FM radio, 3.2 megapixel camera, Memory Stick expansion, stereo speakers, and support for the "SensMe" technology recent handsets from the company have been rocking, allowing users to simply shake the phone to control music playback. No word on pricing, but it should launch in the second quarter of the year.

Engadget.

Ang Lee talks about his movies

Director Ang Lee has said he would rather his sexually explicit film Lust, Caution lost money than be shown in a "compromised" form.

The film - a 1940s espionage thriller set in Shanghai during the Japanese occupation - received a restrictive NC-17 rating when it opened in the US last September.

The period drama, which won the Golden Lion award at the 2007 Venice Film Festival, will be released in the UK on 4 January with an 18 certificate.

While an 18 certificate is roughly equivalent to an American NC-17, the US rating is generally considered to affect a film's ability to attract a big American audience.

The film was shown unedited in Hong Kong and Taiwan, but had its sex scenes excised by authorities in China.

BBC news.

Link to the story.

Flour ban could see stocks running out within a month

Importer warns mainland action may be disastrous

One of the largest flour suppliers in Hong Kong is rejecting orders from new customers, and estimates its stock could last no more than one month in light of a mainland ban on flour exports meant to stabilise domestic supply.

The warning came after the Ministry of Commerce introduced a new quota and permit policy this month on wheat, corn and rice flour exports.

The customs authority imposed the ban, although details of the policy are still being worked out.

A ministry official would not say yesterday when the ban would be lifted, but the Commerce and Economic Development Bureau said it was in close contact with mainland authorities on the ban.

"We hope the exports can be resumed as quickly as possible," a bureau spokeswoman said.

The policy change has not just further stretched flour supplies but also might further increase the price after a tax of 5 per cent to 25 per cent on 57 types of grain products, including flour, was earlier imposed by the Ministry of Finance.

The Shiwo Trading Company, one of the largest suppliers of flour from the mainland and Japan, made the one-month estimate on its supply and said it would be disastrous if the ban was not lifted by then.

"We have rejected new customers, and we might not accept extra orders from existing ones," the firm's managing director, Leung Yiu-kam, said.

"I have also heard that other suppliers already have been having difficulty meeting demand."

While the company pledged not to raise prices, Mr Leung said food producers relying on low-quality mainland flour would suffer much more than others using more reliable Japanese flour, even though it cost 50 per cent to 80 per cent more.

Of the more than 156,000 tonnes of wheat imported in the first 10 months of last year, about 61 per cent came from the mainland and 28 per cent from Japan. Mainland flour is priced at between HK$100 and HK$120 per 22kg bag.

Lam Soon, the largest flour importer, said supplies to its customers remained normal but did not say how long stocks would last and whether it had adjusted its price.

Winner Food Products, a local instant noodle producer, and Garden, the dominant bakery products supplier, said their production had not been affected because they had a diversified source of flour. The price of noodles, however, had already increased.

Maxim's Caterers also said it was reviewing prices for its bakery products due to a surge in prices of other ingredients. Taipan bakery said yesterday that although it was using Japanese flour, it had experienced a 40 per cent rise in the costs of other raw materials, which forced it to raise bread prices by up to HK$1.

A spokesman for Tai Cheong Bakery, known for its egg tarts, said that although the flour supply had been stable so far, "we can't stock up too much flour as it will become damp if kept too long. We have to order [a new supply] every day to replenish the stock".

SCMP Jan 5, 2008

After saying "hello", do you know how to make conversation to another person?

I think most of you have difficulty in spoken English. Apart from saying "Hello" or "Good morning", you have no idea on how to carry on with the conversation. Today, I'll introduce you a BBC podcast telling you all sorts of "How to...". The aim of this podcast is to help you learn and practise useful English language for everyday situations. I hope you enjoy the podcast.

Link to the site.

This is NOT a booklet

LG.Philips announces 14.3-inch flexible e-paper display



Try to contain yourself when we rattle off the following list of specs for LG.Philips's latest A4 sheet of flexible e-paper: 14.3-inches, 1280 x 800 pixels, 16.7m colors, 300 micrometers thick, full 180° viewing angle. It'll be at CES, but apparently only for Korean models to hold and love. The rest of us? Not so lucky, not even by a long shot.

Engadget