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SCMP Reporter

Q Should legislation control junk phone calls?

Definitely. I am sure the number of complaints quoted by the Office of the Telecommunications Authority is only the tip of the iceberg. I get my fair share of junk phone calls. I usually give a polite decline before hanging up.

But one time I asked the junk-caller where she had got my number from. She promptly called me 'dead stupid' and hung up. She called from a private number, wasted air-time which I paid for, and insulted me, and there was nothing I could do about it.

Now I just hang up as fast as I can when I know it is a junk call, so as not to be identified as 'a talker'.

Another more serious and lasting problem is  junk faxes. With a single computer and a private phone line, a junk-faxer can send out thousands of faxes every night at no cost, wasting other people's resources to promote things like computer repairs, cheap air tickets, escort services and whatnot.

For two years, my company has been forced to unplug the fax machine at night to avoid getting the 30-plus pages of junk we get every night, not including the 20 pages we still get during office hours.

Complaints to PCCW only yielded the absurd solution of subscribing to an extra service to bar private numbers. Why should customers have to pay more to be free from junk-faxers?

And why is the government seemingly oblivious to the problem? Perhaps they also get junk faxes in their office, but since they do not have to dig into their pockets for the wasted film and paper, they are not at all bothered by them.

Jack Chan, Tsim Sha Tsui

Q Should prostitutes be driven off the streets?

I read your article with great interest as I spend about 100 days a year at the Sheraton and often get approached in the area. What is amazing is that if I am walking near top hotels on Hong Kong Island,  I am not approached, nor am I approached if I  walk to Harbour City, where there are also five-star hotels.

I believe the reason the hookers are so prolific in the area mentioned in your article is its proximity and easy access to the well-known drug area of Chungking Mansions, which is a blight on Nathan Road.

In fact, it is so bad that many of my customers now do not want to stay at the Sheraton as they have to walk up the road and pass the gauntlet outside Chungking Mansions.

I believe that if the police put a permanent person in that area, we would automatically see an improvement, with fewer hookers, less drug-pushing, less hustling of customers etc.

Ellian J. Perch, Tsim Sha Tsui

Prostitutes working on the streets are disconcerting for many visitors to Hong Kong and a lucrative source of funding for organised crime. Even the police recognise it is impossible to stifle the problem of the world's oldest profession by conventional methods, so perhaps we should consider the success of our European counterparts in regulating and licensing the trade.

Rather than the current futile and short-term solution to drive it from the streets, the European alternative has proven effective, with health and safety benefits for sex workers and their customers. It also has the added bonus of marginalising the criminal element.

Then perhaps we could avoid autocratic curfews and the offensive assumption that every unregistered guest is a prostitute, which, like the fundamental problem itself, does nothing for Hong Kong's reputation.

Robert Karlson, Central

Q What do you think of the Hotung/HKU plan?

There is enormous community attachment to this site and its buildings and the public does not have faith that the government or private developers will 'do the right thing' - that is, preserve this site properly. The government does not have a coherent and well-thought out conservation policy.

As I recall, the Home Affairs Department earlier this year undertook a public consultation exercise to review the government's heritage and conservation policy. The results of this review have not yet been released. This exercise was not broad-based or extensive enough. Also, there has been no transparency or  enough effort to inform and engage all sectors of the public for this review.

Nevertheless, the government seems determined to offer the Central Police Station site for tender. But I ask: what is the rush? Why rush to tender before the heritage conservation policy has been discussed and set?

Given the importance of this site, I would ask the government to please delay the tender before a coherent heritage conservation policy has been set.

Kloronie  Hung, Siu Lam

Q Should the Town Planning Board review the Central reclamation plan?

The Town Planning Board should not only review the Central reclamation plan but also promise never to carry out further reclamations in Victoria Harbour.

Hong Kong is the financial and trade centre of Asia only because of its location. We owe it to our deep beautiful harbour.

Even a 10-year-old realises this from his social education textbook.

Moreover, many new roads such as Western Harbour Tunnel and the West Rail are not popular. And the  traffic problems on Tuen Mun Highway and the Hunghom Cross Harbour Tunnel have still not been solved. Many wonder if the best solution really is to build another highway.

It is obvious that damaging the treasure that is Hong Kong's harbour just for traffic is  unwise. Many other solutions besides reclamation can solve traffic problems from Central to Wan Chai too. The Town Planning Board should review the Central reclamation again.

Kwan Ka-shing, Mongkok

The Town Planning Board should review and cancel the proposed Central reclamation plan  put forth. This reclamation scheme will change the face of Hong Kong and its harbour for the worse.

Grover C. Dear, Central

On other matters ...

On the morning of September 13, while travelling through the corner of Garden Road (which becomes Cotton Tree Drive), our New World First bus came very close to a potentially horrendous accident. After making the 180-degree turn into Garden Road, the driver accelerated in what looked to be too high a gear.

The bus began to travel too fast for the approaching corner. Although the driver applied the brakes, he wasn't able to reduce speed.

The driver, on reaching the corner, pulled the steering wheel violently and the bus under-steered towards the rock wall.

We just made it around the corner but the bus had taken up most of the road to do so. If there had been a vehicle in the other lane, it would have been crushed. We were still moving at a great rate of knots after the corner, approaching traffic banked up at the lights outside the American Consulate.

As we approached the area on the hill where all buses have to stop (and where most don't, by the way), we were still going too fast to pull up safely.

The driver locked the brakes, causing the cabin to fill with the stench of hot brakes. We literally skidded into the bus stop.

Again, had the traffic been a bit denser and banked back further up the hill, or if another bus had already been in the stopping area, we would no doubt have run through everything in front of us.

I have a heavy vehicle licence and can say that I have never had a vehicle in this position before. I was very frightened. So were most people I could see onboard.

On reflection, given the overcrowded state of these buses in the morning, I wonder how many people could be seriously hurt if a speeding bus hit something.

My first reaction was to go to the company's website to make a complaint.

Strangely enough, it did not have this facility. Instead, it merely has a service questionnaire to answer.

James Killingsworth, Mid-Levels



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