blogmacau.info

Another slot hall was open by the Sociedade de Jogos de Macau (SJM), this time at Macau Tower.

The hall houses some 200 slot machines, and a stored value card system is in force in a bid to attract more customers.

Stanley Ho, CEO of SJM, said that the customers focus of the hall will be young people and visitors, so he did not worry about compeition.

Ho was also optimstic about the prospect of mainland China's ”golden week” holiday thanks to its national day, saying that SJM casinos strive to achieve a double-digit increase in business turnout during the period.

An operator of ferry services between Macau and Hong Kong has submitted a proposal to the Government to levy fuel surcharge.

Pansy Ho, Managing Director of Shun Tak Holdings which operates the TurboJet service, said that fuel costs comprise about 30 to 40% of the total cost of the services.

She hopes that the Government could reply “before November” on whether the proposal is approved.

Ho did not disclose how much the fuel surchage is proposed.

There were 23,368 paid employees working in the gaming industry by the second quarter of 2005, an increase of 18.2% compared with the same period in 2004.

Analysed by occupation, 13,560 were engaged in positions that are directly related to betting services, such as hard and soft count clerks, cage cashiers, pit bosses, casino floorpersons, dealers, betting service operators, etc., while 4,085 were engaged as services and sales workers, including casino and slot machine attendants/hosts, security and surveillance workers, etc., up 27.4% and 13.8% respectively.

In June 2005, the average earnings (excluding bonuses and allowances) for full-time paid employees rose slightly by 0.5% over June 2004 to MOP 10,931. Average earnings for positions that are directly related to betting services was MOP 11,303, which fell by 5.8% over June 2004. The average earnings of services and sales workers increased by 5.0% compared with June 2004 to MOP 6,492.

At the end of June 2005, there were 13,046 vacant posts in the gaming industry, a remarkable increase of 164.9% over June 2004.

Within these vacancies, 7,240 were directly related to betting, while services and sales workers had 4,572 vacancies.

For recruitment prerequisites, 10.6% of the vacant posts required working experience; 58.9% required senior secondary or higher education. Besides Cantonese, other preferred language skills were Mandarin (88.8%) and English (54.5%).

The Government provides further support to the bank being accused for its links with North Korea by the US Treasury, by issuing loans.

The Government Gazette published a supplementary despatch yesterday (29 September), authorising the issuance of loans to Banco Delta Asia as a means of “capital support”.

The despatch also stipulated that the amount and conditions of the loans will be decided by the Monetary Authority of Macau.

The issuance was in effect backdated from 20 September, which means that the Government had already intervened with the operation of the bank after the appointment of members to participate the management of the bank, and later a complete takeover for the time being.

Meanwhile, bank business was normal after the announcement of takeover by the Government.

Herculano de Sousa refused to comment on the details of the first meeting, which took place at the head office of the bank.

Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture Chui Sai On will lead a delegation to attend the 33th UNESCO General Conference in Paris on 1 October.

Macau will participate the conference in the capacity of an associate member.

Agenda of the conference will include the deliberation of UNESCO budget, and the election of a new Director-General.

During the stay in Paris, Chui will open the French Representative Office of the Macau Government Tourist Office (MGTO), as well as the promotion campaign of the Historic Centre of Macau.

Other members of the delegation include Ho Lai Chun da Luz, Director of the Cultural Affairs Bureau (IC), João Antunes, Director of the MGTO, Chan Chak Seng, Acting Deputy Director of IC, as well as members of staff of the Secretary's Office, IC and MGTO.

Updates to blogmacau.info will be reduced from today (29 September) until mid-October. Apologies for the inconvenience caused.

The final vote count of the Legislative Assembly Election 2005 has been published this morning (28 September).

Some 128,830 voters in the direct constituency, or 58.39% of the total, went to polling stations, of which 124,898 casted valid returns. There were 660 blank returns and 3,272 null returns.

The number of returns for each contending group is as follows:

Group 1 For Macau (892 returns, 0.71%)
Group 2 New Power for Macau (448 returns, 0.36%)
Group 3 New Democratic Macau Association (234,89 returns, 18.81%)
Group 4 Association for Activism for Democracy (655 returns, 0.52%)
Group 5 New Youth of Macau (3,058 returns, 2,45%)
Group 6 Union of Workers (457 returns, 0.37%)
Group 7 Union Promoting Progress (11,989 returns, 9.60%)
Group 8 Union for the Good of Macau (8,529 returns, 6.83%)
Group 9 Alliance for the Development of Macau (11,642 returns, 9.32%)
Group 10 Association for the Democracy and Social Well-Being of Macau (4,358 returns)
Group 11 Vision Macau (1,974 returns, 1.58%)
Group 12 Union for the Gaming Sector Workers of Macau (921 returns, 0.74%)
Group 13 Convergence for the Development of Macau (6,081 returns, 4.87%)
Group 14 Union for Development (16,596 returns, 13.29%)
Group 15 Association for Helping the Community and Engagement with the People (2,943 returns, 2.36%)
Group 16 New Hope (9,974 returns, 7.99%)
Group 17 Civil Rights Association (191 returns, 0.15%)
Group 18 United Citizens Association of Macau (20,701 returns, 16.57%)

The elected members in the direct constitunecy are:

Ng Kuok Cheong (23,489 returns)
Chan Meng Kam (20,701 returns)
Kwan Tsui Hang (16,596 returns)
Leong Heng Teng (11,989 returns)
Au Kam San (11,744.5 returns)
Leong On Kei (11,642 returns)
Ung Choi Kun (10,350.5 returns)
José Maria Pereira Coutinho (9,974 returns)
Fong Chi Keong (8,529 returns)
Leong Iok Wa (8,298 returns)
Chow Kam Fai David (6,081 returns)
Iong Weng Ian (5,994.5 returns)

All candidates in the indirect constituencies won the election uncontested. They are:

Representing the employers' interests:
Susana Chou (462 returns)
Kou Hoi In (231 returns)
Cheang Chi Keong (115.5 returns)
Ho Teng Iat (57.75 returns)

Representing the employees' interests:
Lau Cheok Va (419 returns)
Lee Chong Cheng (209.5 returns)

Representing the professionals' interests:
Chui Sai Cheong (247 returns)
Leonel Alberto Alves (123.5 returns)

Representing the philantrophic, cultural, educational and sports interests:
Vitor Cheung Lup Kwan (1,449 returns)
Chan Chak Mo (724.5)

The results have been posted at the front door of the Public Administration Building at Rua do Campo, as well as the election website.

The ease in setting up IT networks and e-government systems thanks to the small size and concentrated population in Macau helps to attract international IT firms to station in Macau, according to the director of a UN-linked institute.

Mike Reed, of the United Nations University International Institute for Software Technology (UNU-IIST) based in Macau, said in an interview with the Macao Daily News that they want to take the opportunity in setting up e-government for Macau to develop the Special Administrative Region into a centre for e-governance in the developing countries.

The Institute will demonstrate the experience of e-government development, known as the “e-Macao” project, in conferences in Vietnam, Tunisia and Nepal.

It will also chair the themed seminar on e-governance in developing countries during the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunisia in November.

The Summit will be the largest scale of its kind ever held in the world, and the Institute hopes that it could elevate the status of Macau in the international IT community.

The Institute plans to develop more open source softwares for the Asian markets and help training technicians for these countries, so that they become participants in software development and applications, and eventually to expand the influence of open source software technologies to the Pearl River Delta, as well as mainland China and the neighbouring countries.

Reed pointed out that in Asian countries including China, open source softwares have been applied in e-government systems, thus saved from the costs of royalties and increasing independence of developers.

Through these softwares, developing countries can become producers of softwares rather than consumers. Although China needs a lot of personnel with expertise in open source coding, training is still insufficient.

Reed pointed out that Brazil has been a successful example in building the open source code development model, and the Institute is seeking collaborations with Brazilian institutions, taking advantage of the traditional connections between Macau and Lusophone countries.

Meanwhile, the Institute also plans to collaborate with the EU to set up a standard for the application of open source softwares on e-governments, and using the standard tools of e-government components to participate in the verification of these open source codes. Thus Macau can also be developed into a centre for verficiation of e-government open source codes.

Reed deemed that the development of the gaming industry will not bring negative effects to the development of IT sector, and the small territory of Macau has in fact attracted some international IT firms such as IBM, Microsoft and Intel to approach to the Institute to seek for opportunities to collaborate in developing a radiation centre for open source code development and application.

A man was sentenced to 29 years in prison for murdering wife and burnt her body, almost the maximum sentence permitted by local law.

Chen Jian was found guilty of one count of murder, five counts of attempted murder, one count of arson and four counts of blackmail, which should result to 57 years of prison sentence altogether.

However, due to the maximum sentence permitted by local law is 30 years, he was sentenced to 29 years in prison, plus 800,000 Patacas (US$100,000) in compensation.

The case happened in the early hours of 12 October 2004, when Chen had a row with his 52-year-old wife over a 6 million Patacas debt as a result of losing in casinos, who was then stabbed to death.

Five other people, who were the relatives and friends of the woman, were still in the flat when the case happened. Chen threatened them with a knife and forced them to go into a room. When they later needed to escape from the window as the flat was set on fire, fire officers failed to rescue them owing to the fault of fire engine. They later had to escape using sheets in the room.

The incident raised concerns over the maintenance of equipment in the fire brigade.

Director of Health Bureau Koi Kuok Ieng expressed concerns over the bird flu cases involving humans in Indonesia, saying that the Government has prepared vaccines to deal with the situation.

An inter-departmental meeting will be held next week to discuss the recent developments, he said.

Koi revealed that the WHO has estimated that the chance for bird flu to outbreak in the Western Pacific region is “very high”, and his Bureau has already arranged elderly people and frontline medical care staff to receive vaccination since September.

Meanwhile, the Government has prepared 30,000 flu vaccines to deal with the large-scale outbreak.

Koi also admitted that there is little could be done to prevent from the outbreak of bird flu, since its infection rate is higher than SARS, and it could not be spotted through temperature checks at ports alone.