Phoenix TV operates six television channels in Mandarin and multi-media businesses, including a website, a weekly magazine and a publishing company. According to the Financial Times, the mainland-controlled Phoenix plans to set up an English channel in two years to increase earnings from overseas.

Liu Changle, the chairman and CEO of Phoenix said the station already possesses the required landing rights but has yet to decide whether to build the new platform inhouse or acquire an existing one.

The company’s plan for expansion indicates a need to diversify its income sources. At present, the non-government television broadcaster does not have full access to mainland audiences.

Three channels have been granted landing rights in Guangdong Province and are available for viewing in three-star and more hotels in other provinces.

Phoenix TV studio

“It’s difficult to predict the timing and extent of opening of the television market in the mainland currently,” Liu told reporters, “thus why not consider foreign markets? ”

Since the 2008 Olympic Games, China has made efforts to enhance its international image by investing huge sums in its state-owned media. But in recent months, the government has tightened control over media in the wake of democratic uprisings in nations across the Middle East and North Africa.

Phoenix TV has built a following among those able to view its broadcasts in the mainland for its coverage of events not reported by government broadcasters. These include live coverage of the 9-11 terrorist attacks in 2001 and Iraq War in 2003.

Its talk shows present opinions that vary from the uniform angles adopted by state-owned media, widely regarded as party propaganda tools.

“Currently, more and more passionate graduates majoring journalism wish to work at Phoenix, where they can practice real journalism,” said Du Ping, a commentator on current affairs.

Activists gathered at the Legislative Council building ahead of the speech to press their claims for measures to narrow growing income disparities in Hong Kong:

Tsang said Hong Kong’s budget surplus topped HK$71 billion, well in excess of the $25.2 billion shortfall predicted a year earlier, and listed a series of concessions that he said would total about HK$44 billion.

Financial analysts said Tsang had to walk a tightrope between meeting public expectations without fueling inflation by implementing over-generous sweeteners.

“Fighting inflation is our main task this year,” said Tsang.

VIEW VOX ASIA’S LIVE COVERAGE OF THE BUDGET HERE

Speaking at his fourth budget speech on Wednesday, Tsang confounded expectations by refraining from tax concessions but announced a series of handouts totalling some HK$20 billion.

External links:

• Hong Kong Red Cross
• St James’ Settlement

Highlights:

• China’s online game market revenue will reach $9.2 billion by 2014 — Niko Partners
• Online gaming revenue in China seen expanding 32 percent in 2010 to US$4.7 billion from $3.6 billion — JP Morgan
• Sales of “virtual commodities” booming

Top right: Such is the lure of these MMORPGs that it it not unusual to see youngsters playing them to the brink of exhaustion. Photo by Deirdre Wang Morris.

BEIJING

Recorded and Edited by Nini Suet

BEIJING locals regard fireworks as an essential celebratory activity, believing in their power to wash away bad luck and inauspicious spirits.

The explosive celebration is not without downsides. The smoke and the resulting debris causes severe pollution; fireworks kill and maim people and cause considerable damage.

According to state media, 20 people died in southern China’s Guangdong province this February from fireworks accidents, casting a tragic shadow on the holiday season.

Due to the hazardous nature of firecrackers, many urban cities in mainland China banned the activity in the 1990s. However, as a result of strong civilian defiance, Beijing erased its 12-year-ban on fireworks in 2006, and other major cities followed suit.

When the government relaxed the ban on fireworks in most areas during key festivals, it passed regulations to monitor the production, sale and transportation of firecrackers — but there are few controls on letting them off.

HONG KONG

Narrated by Lise Dalmeijer

HONG KONG banned fireworks following riots in 1967 when the violence of the Cultural Revolution spilled across the border into the then British colony.

During the short-lived turmoil, rioters set more than 8,000 home-made bombs, a number of them manufactured from the gunpowder in firecrackers.

The ban was partially lifted in 1982 when the trading house, Jardine Matheson, celebrated its 150th anniversary by sponsoring a fireworks display event over Hong Kong’s harbour to ring in the Chinese New Year.

Since then, large-scale fireworks displays have lit up the harbour every Lunar New Year. The displays are sponsored by private corporations.

The ban on private individuals setting off fireworks remains in place but is widely flouted in many of the villages of the New Territories and Outlying Islands.

The penalties are severe — the offence can attract a fine of up to HK$25,000 — but prosecutions are rare.

Comments in the video by Emesa Lee, 25, and Ivan Hu, 27, both students.

Andrea Fenn, Tem Hansen and Richard Macauley visit the territory’s only drug-rehabilitation school, Christian Zheng Sheng College, to seek an insight into youth drug culture.

[ Continued below the video ]

Continued

Zheng Sheng College, located on the remote Chi Ma Wan Peninsula of Lantau Island, is overcrowded and is seeking to relocate from its run-down premises. The boarding school applied to the Hong Kong government to take over a disused secondary school building in the residential village of Mui Wo, also on Lantau. The Mui Wo Rural Committee led protests against the application. Zheng Sheng’s application remains in limbo.

Produced by Rich Macauley and Andrea Fenn

Photo Right By Alex Hofford

Filed earlier:

RTHK’s The Pulse profiles the Post-80s Generation [External Report]

RTHK is a Hong Kong government-funded, editorially-independent radio and TV station broadcasting in Chinese and English.

Barry C. Chung & Rebecca Valli report.

Right: Photo courtesy of SpaceOddissey – licenced under Creative Commons 2.0 / CC BY 2.0

The study concludes that pregnant women—particularly those in their second and third trimester—are more susceptible to miscarriages due to the pandemic H1N1 virus and thus recommends vaccination as a method of prevention.

The evidence from Australia comes at a time when public confidence in the vaccine in Hong Kong is low, following six cases of still birth and miscarriage among  pregnant women who had been vaccinated.   Public health officials say that there is no evidence linking the miscarriages and still births to the vaccination.

Hong Kong purchased 3 million doses of the vaccine from French Pharmaceutical maker Sanofi Pasteur and launched a campaign in late 2009 to fight the pandemic. The first batch of vaccines was received in mid-December, but fears of possible side effects coupled with complacency outweighed the fear of contracting the virus. Consequently, the public was not convinced the vaccination was necessary.

The debate rages between the apparent benefits and risks associated with the vaccine. Some doctors seem reluctant to administer the drug, especially to pregnant women in the first trimester when miscarriages are more common.

An average of a hundred pregnant women were vaccinated in the first two weeks of the vaccination program, which started on December 21, 2009. In the week ending February 12, the number dropped to 14, according to figures released by the Centre for Health Protection.

Benjamin J. Cowling, professor at the School of Public Health of the University of Hong Kong, thinks the media should be held responsible for pregnant women’s decision not to get vaccinated.

“In the case of  H1N1, pregnant women are not getting vaccinated because they perceive a risk, and they perceive a risk because of the media hype,” he said, adding that Hong Kongers perceive that the risk of getting vaccinated is higher than the risk posed by the virus itself.

Cowling also denies any link between the vaccine and miscarriages. “I suspect the risk of serious infection [from H1N1] in pregnant women outweighs the potential reactions to the vaccination,” he said.

Doctors also appear are reluctant to ask women in the early stages of pregnancy to get vaccinated.

“A lot of doctors would not push pregnant women to get vaccinated during the first trimester. They would rather tell them to wait,” said Dr Choi Kin, a private doctor and former president of the Hong Kong Medical Association. “That’s because foetus deaths are common in the first trimester and people would inevitably link miscarriages to the vaccine,” he said.

Choi was adamant in denying a  link between miscarriages and the vaccine. “There is no evidence that pregnant women are at risk after taking the vaccination.”