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A summary of news on 29 September:

Audit
The audit report for the 4th East Asian Games is expected to complete by the end of this year, according to Audit Commissioner, Fˆhtima Choi, who was interviewed by local media. The report on the auditing of accounts is expected to be published soon, and detailed auditing is pending for comments by the Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture.

Casino
Grand Waldo Casino Hotel at Cotai was officially opened. Vice-Chairman of Galaxy Entertainment, Lui Yiu Tung, said that his company did not have radical measures to expand their market shares, and pointed out that simply expanding gaming tables and increasing commissions offered to brokers are not enough for the development of casinos. The total investment of Grand Waldo amounts to HKD 3.2 billion, offering 168 gaming tables and 318 rooms. The total floorspace area is 620,000 square feet.

Donation
A total of 100 soldiers from the Macau Garrison of the Chinese Liberation Army donated blood to Macau's blood bank. The Garrison has organised soldiers to donate blood to Macau every year, and after seven years of organisation, a total of 245,000 ml of blood had been donated by more than 700 soldiers and army officers.

Celebration
Traditional associations celebrated in advance the 57th anniversary of the establishment of the People's Republic of China. Ma Man Kei (°¨¸U¸R), Chairman of the Macau Chinese Chamber of Commerce who is also the Vice-Chairman of Beijing's Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, said in a reception that the population should plan for crisis at times of prosperity. Meanwhile, celebration receptions were also organised by the General Association of Trades Unions of Macau and Kiang Wu Hospital.

Landline and mobile communications in Macau may be affected for a while after midnight on 1 October following a major upgrade exercise.

In the announcements carried by all local newspapers today (29 September), the operators – CTM, Smartone and Hutchison forewarned customers that the upgrade exercise will last to the maximum of approximately 30 minutes from midnight on 1 October.

The upgrade will involve the addition of prefix numbers for six-digit landline numbers and seven-digit mobile numbers.

Callers should dial “28″ before the original six-digit landline numbers, and “6″ before the original seven-digit mobile numbers.

Other seven-digit landline numbers, which are Direct-dialling-in (DDI) numbers, are not affected by this upgrade, but will eventually be upgraded on 1 January 2008, when another “8″ has to be dialled before the numbers.

A buffer period has been set between 1 October and 28 February 2007, when callers are able to connect whether they are dialling numbers carrying the new prefixes or not.

And from 1 March 2007, old numbers will no longer be connected.

A batch of students set off for Portugal last night (28 September) to study Law under a sponsorship scheme.

The 10 graduates from senior secondary schools and six Law licentiates were funded by the Macau Tertiary Education Foundation. The Foundation has sponsored 30 students in 2004 and 10 others in 2005.

14 of these past students were successfully enrolled into universities in Portugal, according to Tong Chi Kin (­ð§Ó°í), Director-General of the Foundation, which he expressed satisfaction over the outcome.

He also pointed out that Law licentiates are less willing to brush up their Portuguese language skills in recent years, and said that that could be because the licentiates “wished to work early”.

With the help of the Macao Foundation and the Education and Youth Affairs Bureau, the Foundation provides full sponsorships to senior secondary school graduates to study Law in Portugal and to Law licentiates in Macau to study Portuguese.

The aim is to foster billigual legal experts for Macau.

Application to launch ferry services between Macau and Tuen Mun has been rejected by the Macau Government.

The Macao Daily News reported that technical and safety considerations are cited the main causes for rejection, and the insufficient capacity at the Macau Maritime Terminal is also a major factor.

The decision has been notified to the Marine Department of Hong Kong.

The operator has decided to launch services between Tuen Mun and Jiuzhou Port in Zhuhai instead.

Earlier the operator claimed that the route will become “a major corridor” connecting Macau and north west Hong Kong as well as the Port at Huanggang.

A summary of news on 27 September:

Explosion
A CEM maintenance staff was injured when a sub-station at the Pˆhtio da Dissimulacao near Rua da Felicidade was slightly exploded. 16 switches were affected, resulting in power cuts for over 1,590 households, including the Government Headquarters. The Headquarters, however, is not affected as it has its own backup power generation system.

Visitors
Joao Manuel Costa Antunes, Director of the Macau Government Tourist Office, told Macao Daily News that he expected Macau will receive more than 20 million visitors by the end of this year, much higher than last year. Incoming visitors during the National Day “Golden Week” vacation is expected to reach about 480,000, some 15 to 20% higher than last year.

Tourism
A German tourist received a special souvenir given by the Macau Government Tourist Office at the Maritime Terminal in celebration of the World Tourism Day. A tray race was also held in the afternoon with representatives of 22 Macau hotels and restaurants participating.

Clarification
Executives of the Macau University of Science and Technology said that recent remarks by Legislator Au Kam San (°ÏÀA·s) over its ownership and operation “misleading”. The University is non-profit making entity run by a philanthropic foundation, and that its stadium if operated by the Sports Development Board. Earlier Au made inquiries to the Government on why the University was able to receive huge amounts of Government funding given it is a private university.

Macau may be willing to invest in the bridge connecting with Hong Kong and Zhuhai by proportional funding method, according to the head of a study group.

Ieong Wan Chong (·¨¤¹¤¤) told Hong Kong-based Ming Pao newspaper that the rumours about the Macau Government not being willing to invest in the Hong Kong-Macau-Zhuhai Bridge is not true, although the bridge does not bring big effectiveness for Macau, given its size of territory.

He suggested Macau should contribue about 10 to 15% of the total construction cost of the bridge, and Hong Kong should invest about 50%, since it will achieve the greatest effectiveness.

Ieong also expressed helplessness over the delay of construction, and appealed to the Governments of Macau, Hong Kong and Guangdong to recognise the significance of the bridge with initiative.

Academics and officials expressed different opinions over Ieong's remarks.

Raymond So (Ĭ°¶¤å), Associate Dean of the Faculty of Business Administration at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, pointed out that it is fair for Macau to propose this idea, but authorities in Guangdong will eventually ask Hong Kong to contribute more for the bridge.

Wang Fumin (¤ý´I¥Á) of the Guangdong Communication Department told the newspaper that the funding scheme is unlikely to publish at the end of this year, and further meetings should be called for by the Hong Kong side in the future.

The Envrionment, Transport and Works Bureau of the Hong Kong Government pointed out that they are “following up” the studies of the bridge.

Meanwhile, Zheng Tianxiang (¾G¤Ñ²») of Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou expressed worries that Macau's proposal might further delay the progress of debates over the funding of the bridge. He speculated that Ieong's comments is only a means of business negotiations.

The Vice Chairman of the National People's Congress pointed out that Macau's gaming sector is a symbolism of cultural pluralism, and that it can be tolerated as long as it is not abused, and does not cause family destructions and hatred.

Xu Jialu (³\¹Åíi) told reporters after the opening ceremony of a seminar on Confucianism held at the Macau Polytechnic Institute that other sectors of the economy also express pluralism.

The point for the Government to develop economy is to raise the standards of living of the populations, and the Government can adjust the distribution of the fruits of economic development through taxes and other means, he pointed out.

He also stressed that taxes are important foundations for social stability.

When asked how to deal with the situation when the population has begun expressing stronger criticism over Macau Government's policies, Xu indicated that criticisms are in fact “important medicine” for policy-makers and executors. They can find ways to resolve the problems through these criticisms, and can explain to the public if their policies are not wrong.

He pointed out that this is the most fundamental characteristics for a democractic society.

There is so far no detailed plans to list Macau's Fisherman's Wharf in the stock market, clarified by CEO of the theme park, David Chow (©PÀA½÷).

However, he revealed that he used to plan to list Landmark Hotel in Europe, but was abandoned because of timing issues.

He also stressed that the Fisherman's Wharf does not belong to SJM. Stanley Ho only holds 51% of the stakes in personal capactiy.

Stanley Ho and Ambrose So told reporters at the General Assembly of STDM on 25 September that Landmark Hotel and Macau Fisherman's Wharf will be listed in Hong Kong's stock market in due course.

The plan to have SJM listed in Hong Kong's stock market was approved by 88% of the total shareholders.

Stanley Ho, General Manageer of STDM, SJM's mother company, told local media after a special shareholders' meeting of STDM that the shareholders' list will be remade upon the verdict of the Court of Final Appeal, and applications will be submitted to the stock exchange in Hong Kong.

STDM will strive to complete the application process by the end of this year.

About 20 to 25% of SJM's total shares will be made available for trades, and is expected to raise HKD 15 billion in funding.

Meanwhile, representative lawyer of Moon Valley's Winnie Ho, Albert Ho, was refused entering the venue of the meeting. However, another lawyer, John Clancey, was allowed in.

STDM claimed the reasons why they allowed a representative from Moon Valley Foundation to attend the meeting is to avoid further “accusations” that will harm the rights of other shareholders, and to avoid any further “unncessary procedings” raised by Winnie Ho in the future.

Macau has sucessfully developed a full-text translation software from Portuguese to Chinese.

The network version of the Portuguese/Chinese Bi-directional Translation System (PCT), developed by INSEC-Macau, makes use of local networks or intranets to connect the translation systems of all users through the central server.

The knowledge among users in translations can then be shared, and can therefore guarantee the consistency of the translated contents and the efficiency of translation work.

It can also serve as a lug-in for Microsoft Word, so that a more friendly translation platform can be provided.

Advanced automated translation technology is also used, so that when typical translations become invalid in particular situations, the system can execute deeper-level analyses for phrases and forms, so that optimal translations can be produced.

The accuracy rate of the software is claimed to be between 70 and 80%.

In the past, PCT was developed as a stand-alone software that was installed in individual computers.

Dong Mingchui (¸³¦W««), Executive Chairman of INSEC-Macau and Chief Researcher for the University of Macau, said that Macau has conditions to develop automated translation softwares. Apart from translations from Portuguese to Chinese, there is a market to develop translations from English or French to Chinese.

He also revealed that INSEC-Macau will complete developments of a software that translates text from Chinese to Portuguese by next year.

The network version of PCT was funded by the Science and Technology Fund, with technological assistance offered by the University of Macau and Tsinghua University in Beijing.