In Brief

Resume building HOS flats, government is urged

A motion urging the government to consider resuming building Home Ownership Scheme flats and the sale of public rental housing flats was passed by the Legislative Council. But Secretary for Transport and Housing Eva Cheng Yu-wah said the administration had no plan to resume the construction of HOS flats. She said it would closely monitor the private property market to see whether there was a need to resume building the flats, which were sold at about 70 per cent of the market price.

Talks held to smooth path on cross-border patents

Guangdong and Hong Kong officials are discussing ways to make it easier for people to apply for patents across the border, senior provincial officials said. Li Zhongduo , director of the Guangdong Provincial Intellectual Property Office, said an increasing number of Guangdong people had applied for patents in Hong Kong in the past few years and every year thousands of Hong Kong residents, especially those working for Hong Kong-owned businesses, did the same in Guangdong.

Chinese University alumnus co-authors UN climate report

Chinese University alumnus and distinguished physicist Gabriel Lau Ngar-cheung has co-authored an assessment report for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change, the joint winner of the Nobel Peace Prize this year. The university said he was one of the contributing authors of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, which presented the latest knowledge on the physical basis of global climate change. Mr Lau graduated from the university in 1974 and has been working in the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory on the Princeton University campus in the US. He has been involved in the scientific research covered by the IPCC since its establishment in 1988.

Buses may be allowed to enter checkpoint interchanges

The government is considering allowing school buses to enter public transport interchanges at border checkpoints on a limited scale to pick up students before and after school. Currently, school buses are not allowed to pick up students at Lok Ma Chau and Shenzhen Bay control points. The government will also follow closely the use of cross-border school buses whose operators are suggesting parents pay a monthly fee of HK$800.