Perfect stage, but actress changes her lines
Pundits and journalists who had held out hope that prominent actress Liza Wang Ming-chun might cause a controversy at the annual Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference plenum look set to be disappointed. Wang, who made headlines last year when she called on Beijing to grant all pan-democrat legislators home-return permits, said she had decided not to make any formal submissions at the current plenary session.
A vocal critic who says the government gives too little support to the promotion of Cantonese opera, Wang had originally planned to raise the issue of conservation of Hong Kong's heritage. Now she has dropped the plan, saying the matter is too local to be raised at the national advisory body, and that she was busy reworking a proposal covering the nation's heritage conservation.
Shy of e-mails? Try the telephone
After year-long requests by Hong Kong deputies to the National People's Congress for a website of their own, a page affiliated with the NPC homepage finally appeared two weeks ago, just before the annual meeting began. The profiles and pictures of each Hong Kong member, with their e-mail addresses, were posted for people who wanted to contact them to air views or complaints.
Standing Committee member Rita Fan Hsu Lai-tai, however, pointed out yesterday that some deputies, especially older ones, might not be used to dealing with people through computers. She suggested at a meeting with the NPC Standing Committee's deputy secretary general, Qiao Xiaoyang, that a telephone hotline for local delegates could be set up, and staff would be needed to operate it.
