How the Hezbollah disrupted my Monday

Most people don't start a blog post about their trip with the last day of their trip. But I will. Because I'm not most people.

On the last day of my trip, I got up at 7.45am Lebanon time to pack and have breakfast. K drove me to the airport, taking turquoise little Speedy one last time. By this time I had already been in Lebanon a week, and now used to the unruliness of Lebanese driving, and no longer clutching onto the edge of my seat.

I was going to have two hours to transit in Dubai..should be enough, right? I thought. I got to check in, I was told there's a DELAY by approximately one hour. Uh oh. But surely they'll try to catch up with flying time right? Pray.

I went through immigration, free wifi ran out, so tried to email and Facebook my supervisor using an airport complimentary stand-up pc, telling him about the possible further half day delay of my return. I had already extended my leave by two days so that I could stay the weekend and make my trip 4 days longer. Oops.

But the delay ended up being two hours. No chance of catching the flight to HKG anymore. Shit.

As I boarded the flight, I overheard the flight attendant telling an abnormally patient biz-class passenger that the delay is due to the war in Syria, resulting in planes having to reroute so as to not fly over Syrian air space, and causing delays in and out of airports in the surrounding area. Middle East conflict just got REAL.

I got to Dubai at the same time as my home-bound was taking off. Messaged my colleague Alex and he emails DXB airport CX staff. Perks of working in an airline..! Immigration into Dubai took centuries. It's hot, and in an air-conditioned terminal in the middle of a desert, my anxiety and annoyance quickly turned into sweat blotches on my back. Is my sublo* travels luck running out?! It has been a pretty smooth year so far. I don't usually believe in "luck". Or signs. But you do wonder.

Finally got through immigration, grabbed my luggage, and because I didn't know better, left the postmodern state-of-the-art sci-fi-looking Terminal Three (the Emirates terminal), embraced a mild 33'C, and then got blasted with air-con again on a free shuttle bus that took me to Terminal 1 (the crappy terminal). After maneuvering around T1 for a bit and talking to a few uniform-clad people who didn't know how to deal with me, the info desk lady finally calls CX airport office for me. They were nice enough (well they were warned by Alex) and invited me into their office so that I could rebook myself onto the next flight, and leave my suitcase while I go get a bite and a bit of reading material (Cosmopolitan DUBAI edition - finally, a girly magazine withOUT 50pages graphically describing some whiny annoying couple's kin
ky sex experience).

5 hours later, I nervously wait for the check-in desk to close, anxiously wait to be given my boarding pass, politely cut the immigration queue (with the help of CX airport staff), breathlessly power walk to the gate, and patiently wait as the flight is DELAYED again. By an hour. Not too bad. I was finally going home, half a day later than I was supposed to, but at least on premium economy!

And that was the end of my (first) Middle Eastern adventures.

* Sublo - subject to loading / standby flights / FREAKIN CHEAP (but risky) STAFF TICKETS

SARS, 10 years on

I was about to take my HKCEE exams - the most important exams until that point of my life. It was that horrible period between spring and summer, wet, humid, stuffy, choking in a prickly face mask that does absolutely nothing to prevent contagious diseases. I took it off, most of the time, much to the annoyance of my teachers. That was all I cared about. But taking a look back now, 10 years later, I realise how much I had underestimated just how serious it actually was.

The lessons of Sars, 10 years on [scmp]

Margaret Chan says the mode and speed of the deadly spread of Sars 10 years ago did catch us out, but we should remember it today for how the world rose to the challenge to contain it

Ten years ago, on March 12, I sent an urgent e-mail to the World Health Organisation. I was in charge of Hong Kong's Department of Health at that time. We were screening more than 50 hospital staff for symptoms in a mysterious outbreak of flu-like illness. I was alarmed for two reasons. First, these were health care workers, the lifeblood of health systems everywhere, and some were extremely ill with pneumonia. Second, the cause could not be identified. The mysterious nature of the outbreak bothered me deeply, as I believed that Hong Kong's laboratories and scientists were among the best in the world. That view was subsequently confirmed internationally as events unfolded in what became a nightmare experience for me, Hong Kong, and the world.

That same day, the WHO used the internet to alert the world to Hong Kong's outbreak and a similar outbreak at a hospital in Hanoi, where 25 staff were acutely ill with pneumonia or severe respiratory illness, and five were in critical condition. Media coverage of the WHO alert was intense, and that set the alarm bells ringing in hospitals the world over. Vigilance - and anxiety - were high.

More bad news came the following day, when authorities in Singapore reported atypical pneumonia in three young women who had recently returned from a stay in Hong Kong.

By March 15, it was clear that the first new disease of the 21st century was spreading explosively along the routes of international air travel. At 2am, the head of the WHO outbreak alert and response team received an urgent call from Singapore. A doctor who had treated the first cases there was attending a medical conference in New York. He, too, had fallen ill with similar symptoms and was flying home. WHO traced the airline and flight details. At a stopover in Frankfurt, the doctor and his two travelling companions were identified and immediately placed under medical care. They would become Germany's first cases. On the same day, Canada reported its first cases of atypical pneumonia.

The WHO issued a stronger alert. It named the new diseases after its symptoms: severe acute respiratory syndrome. The WHO defined characteristic symptoms and asked all travellers to be alert to what it called "a worldwide health threat".

As details about the earliest cases began to emerge, Hong Kong was again in the spotlight. All of the earliest outbreaks, outside mainland China, could be linked to a single location: the ninth floor of Hong Kong's Metropole Hotel. They could further be linked to a single event: a one night's stay, on February 21, by a physician who had treated pneumonia patients at a hospital in Guangzhou. He was admitted to hospital the following day and died soon after. In a classic piece of detective work, Hong Kong's Department of Health epidemiologists linked that brief stay to 13 infections that seeded the outbreaks in Hanoi, Singapore, Toronto and Hong Kong, starting chains of transmission that would eventually affect thousands.

In the four months following the March alerts, Sars closed schools, businesses and some borders. Air travel to Hong Kong and other severely affected areas seemed to halt overnight. Tourism dried up. Consumers stayed at home. Economic losses mounted into the millions and millions of dollars. By the time the outbreak was declared over, on July 5, nearly 8,500 people had been infected and nearly 800 had died.

Those four months were heartbreakingly hard. But they were also a time of triumph. Rarely has the world shown such solidarity. Scientists from multiple countries put aside their academic rivalries and collaborated around the clock sharing all they knew, all their special tricks of the trade. Hong Kong scientists were instrumental in identifying the causative agent - an entirely new coronavirus - and devising the first diagnostic tests. Top scientific journals set aside their rules about content access and expedited publication dates to ensure that new knowledge about the disease was immediately available to all. Clinicians spent long hours in teleconferences, sharing knowledge about symptoms and treatments, trying to unravel the mysteries of the new disease.

I remember Hong Kong's empty streets and the masked faces of the few who ventured out. I remember the funerals of health care staff who died following their dedicated care of patients. But I also remember the clean-up campaigns, the volunteer groups and the civic initiatives of support. I remember collaboration from all parts of society, like the police who contributed an electronic tool, developed to track criminals, that greatly facilitated the tracing of patients' contacts to find those with symptoms and give them care.

I remember the sudden explosion of cases in the Amoy Gardens housing estate in early April and how that event prompted an unprecedented isolation order to prevent further spread. I remember, too, the almost instant expert speculation from abroad that the explosion of cases at the housing estate was proof that the Sars virus was now airborne. I remember the emergency investigation, conducted by the Department of Health and eight other government agencies, that quickly proved that rumour false, calmed down the panic, and helped the people of Hong Kong cope. Though that event has been investigated by multiple other research groups, no one has ever challenged the conclusions reached by the Hong Kong teams.

Sars revolutionised our understanding of the power of real-time communications. During the outbreak, the WHO issued daily situation updates, keeping the public and the media fully informed, as knowledge about the disease and effective measures for control began to emerge.

One set of statistics defines this power well. The WHO alerts provided a clear line of demarcation between the earliest outbreaks, in China, Hong Kong, Hanoi, Singapore and Toronto, all of which were severe, and the 26 additional countries and territories where cases subsequently occurred. Areas with outbreaks before the alerts began on March 12 accounted for 98 per cent of the global total number of cases and 79 per cent of total deaths. The other 26 sites, characterised by high levels of vigilance and preparedness, were able to prevent further transmission or limit it to just a handful of cases.

Sars also shattered the notion that countries blessed with high standards of living and top medical care were somehow invincible to the threat from new diseases. Sars was largely a disease of wealthy urban centres. The virus spread fastest and most efficiently in well-equipped hospitals.

Sars taught the importance of meeting an emergency with whatever tools are at hand. Sars was a 21st-century disease in its mode and speed of spread. But it was eventually defeated using the 19th-century tools of case detection, contact tracing, isolation and infection control.

In the view of some, the humble thermometer was the weapon that broke the chains of transmission.

In the end, Sars was a story about human ingenuity and determination, about a world united by a shared threat, about how a lethal new virus could bring out the best in human nature.

Dr Margaret Chan is director-general of the World Health Organisation

Let's get this out of the way and never mention these two words ever again...

The words "illegal structures" - so overused, so trivial, so who-the-fudge-gives-a-rats-arse, so sick of them. Almost as sick of them as I am of Maroon 5 and Rihanna and that Korean rapper.

There seems to be some kind of obsession with illegal additions to housing structures recently.

This fixation with illegal structures started during the chief executive "election", when it was discovered that the man who was supposedly the next CE was housing a huge luxurious illegal basement in his huge luxurious house. Yes, his "lavish underground wine palace" (terms lavish/palace/wine are all relative when talking about any of those in HK) even made it to the Telegraph dot co dot uk news, despite 1. there really wasn't a real election, 2. he's not the first or the only one with such structures, and 3. I really can't care less.  The local media did go mental, and hired cranes so that they can get their cannon-like cameras over Tang's high walls and fire shots of shame and successfully shoot down his attempts of becoming the next chief.

And then it was also discovered that the newly elected chief CY Leung also has luxurious illegal structures in his luxurious homes. The media went even more berserk, and all they could talk about for literally, WEEKS, was how many extra illegal flower pots and store rooms he's got in his multiple homes and how many lies he's told and how we should be caring. Tough luck. Still not interested.

Then there's the issue of highlighting the insane number of village houses in "rural" Hong Kong (well, relatively rural) that have had illegal structures added onto them by their sly and greedy owners. It is also revealed that there's a government department, with a director, 40 staff and an annual budget of HK$36 million to "tackle the illegal works". Now THAT I DO care - that's MY hard-earned taxed money, and it's going to be used to remove extra shelving on rural houses rather than adding extra beds to hospitals or helping the old/frail/disabled/poor?

CAN - Clean Air Needed

In case you haven't noticed, air quality in HK has gotten significantly worse recently. So bad that even I've gone out of my way to figure out how to add this little HK Clean Air Network ("CAN") Air Pollution Index widget on the right hand side over there. 

According to these CAN guys:

• Hong Kong air pollution causes three (avoidable) deaths a day, more than 1,100 per year.
• Hong Kong’s air is three times more polluted than New York’s and more than twice as polluted as London’s.
• By WHO standards, Hong Kong’s air is only healthy 41 days a year (according to data in 2006).
• 53% of the time, the majority of Hong Kong air pollution is attributable to local sources.
• Although overall emissions tonnage has fallen in the past 15 years, roadside pollution has not improved. Because of its high concentration in close proximity to us, roadside pollution poses the biggest threat to human health.

And if that wasn't enough to stuff up your nostrils, take a sniff at this chilling video (the sound effects and animation perhaps a little bit too OTT in my opinion, but does make a point)

Time to get serious about cleaning our air?? I should think so.

What CAN we do?

- raise awareness and promote the www.cleanairnetwork.org/eng website
- join their Facebook group or Twitter site (OK I DO realize Facebook and Twitter won't solve the world's problem so read on)
- donate to and/or volunteer at CAN
- write to LegCo members and/or your District Council members
- read this CAN KIT to find out more

Taking too long to apologise

How long does it take and how many governmental officials or non-governmental doctorates does it take to get an apology out of Japan?

For decades they've been trying to get the Japanese Government to apologies for the atrocities their former government and army committed in Asia during the Pacific War. And yet no progress has made. Perhaps apart from the fact that I managed to buy the book "The Rape of Nanking" in a bookstore in Japan. 

Read this latest letter to the Japanese Ambassador from Peter Stanek, President, Global Alliance to Preserve the History of WWII in Asia.

10.1 crash

October first, twenty twelve.

The national day fireworks was going to be the fantastic finale to a fabulously fun-filled four-day weekend. But the night ended in fatal chaos and tragedy.

Workers of Hong Kong Electric Co. who were "lucky" enough to win tickets to a boat trip in a "lucky draw" were invited to see the National Day Fireworks up close with their families, unbeknown to them that they were about to be part of HK maritime history's worse accident in over 40 years.

The Lamma ferry collision caused 38 fatalities, including children, numerous injuries, and a lasting scar on the mention of the date Oct 1st on all of HK people's hearts.

Will they still continue with the fireworks next year? How do we go on "celebrating" Oct 1st, when the first thing we remember about the date is all those innocent lives lost?

And, to be quite honest, have we HKers ever actually thought of Oct 1st as anything more than just another public holiday? Most other public holidays have fairly legitimate reasons or purposes or origins that perhaps we might feel is more relevant for us to celebrate - e.g. Chinese New Year - it's the most important season of Chinese culture and well you cannot not celebrate the new year; July 1st handover - this is a fundamental date in Hong Kong's modern history; Christmas - we've always celebrated this and gives us more legit excuse to go shopping (as if we need one)...but Oct 1st National Day? Which Nation? Hong Kong wasn't part of China when the People's Republic of China was officially founded on 1st Oct 1949. We were actually a part of the United Kingdom by then. We didn't need to fight anyone off our territory on the night of 30 Sep 1949. We didn't take part in overthrowing any puppet emperor or figurehead political leader or march through the wilderness to get to where we are. The Brits kept us minding our own business while the rest of the country was in upheaval.

Perhaps rather than celebrating the birth of our "motherland" who abandoned us and then took us back 15 years ago, HK people are "celebrating" the business that this long weekend brings since the rest of China gets a whole week off and bus-/boat-loads of Chinese tourists flood into the city with their suitcases full of cash and luxury-brands-shopping-list.

Bickering bad for business

China/Japan/Philippines - please resolve your petty conflicts so that I can at lease get a raise at the end of the year thank you. 

Traffic is falling between China and Japan as well as China and the Philippines as a result of China's dispute with those nations over tiny and largely uninhabited islands. The situation in Japan is young and follows a wave of anti-Japanese protests and sentiment, resulting in some Japanese passengers cancelling tickets over safety concerns while Chinese passengers cancel tickets as a mark of nationalism. All Nippon Airways has reported ticket cancellations while China Southern and Spring Airlines are cancelling some services.

The Philippines has not seen anywhere near the level of public uproar that Japan has, largely due to historical contention between China and Japan. But the Philippines has been hurt from a Beijing-imposed travel ban that has resulted in scores of tour agencies, which carry most Chinese tourists, cancelling trips. Scheduled seats between China and the Philippines are at a near two year low. Restrictions in the Philippines mean service resumption could hinge on slow bureaucracy changes while Japan will need a shift of public attitude, which may take much longer to be restored

 Source: CAPA News