Hong Kong should improve its sports-related laws and regulations to better align with international standards and address the increasingly complex demands of the emerging sector, the chief justice has said. Andrew Cheung Kui-nung said on Saturday that bolstering the legal environment was crucial as sports had evolved into “a massive industry”. He cited competition rules, athletes’ rights, commercial contracts and arbitration mechanisms as areas of focus. “As Hong Kong athletes continue to achieve great success in the international sports arena, the influence of the sports industry is growing day by day,” he said at the opening ceremony of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Lawyers Sports Meet. “The legal industry must develop in parallel to meet the increasingly complex demands of sports law.” Cheung said developments included formulating and improving laws and regulations to ensure fairness in sports and the protection of athletes’ rights. The industry also needed to provide professional legal support...

Hong Kong director Jun Li Jun-shuo has said he received threats and insults from German right-wingers after reading out a pro-Palestine speech by an Iranian actor at the Berlin International Film Festival. Li, whose actions triggered a police probe, also told the Post that he was not worried about his safety, adding that he planned to watch the German election on Sunday and stay for the entire festival, where his latest film Queerpanorama premiered. “It will definitely have an impact on the promotion of the film. I believe that the truth will become clearer as it is debated, and I believe that people who hold an open attitude will understand,” he said on Friday. “I condemn any use of violence against civilians and the systematic injustice that endangers human life.” Videos of Li reading out the speech at the festival last Saturday were recorded and uploaded online. According to German...

A former primary school principal has been jailed for six months in Hong Kong for scamming the institution out of HK$270,000 (US$34,715) by lying about missing salary payments and withdrawing funds without authorisation. Chen Yi-hsin, former head of the Yan Chai Hospital Chiu Tsang Hok Wan Primary School in Tsing Yi, pleaded guilty to four counts of fraud at West Kowloon Court, the government announced on Friday. Magistrate Yu Chun-cheung said the defendant breached the trust placed in him as a principal and the court would not consider a community service order. “A school principal, as the leader of a school, should not use his official position for personal gains,” a spokesman for the Independent Commission Against Corruption said. The anti-corruption watchdog launched an investigation into Chen after receiving a complaint. In early April 2023 and again in early May of that year, Chen falsely claimed to the school that...

Hong Kong health authorities have apologised for mistakenly giving pneumococcal vaccines to two children at a health centre instead of hepatitis B jabs. The errors were detected during a regular check when personnel at the Tin Shui Wai Maternal and Child Health Centre reviewed vaccination records after service hours on Monday, a spokesman for the Department of Health said on Thursday. They discovered an inconsistency in the number of vaccines administered between 4pm and 5.30pm. During the period, seven children were supposed to have received the hepatitis B vaccine. But the records showed two doses were unused, while two extra shots of the 15-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV15) were administered. After checking the vaccine stock, it was confirmed two children had mistakenly received the pneumococcal vaccine due to nursing staff error, the spokesman said. “The Department of Health has instructed all Maternal and Child Health Centres to strengthen the training...

The number of people remanded in Hong Kong hit a 24-year peak in 2024, surpassing the previous high last year by 18 per cent, while prisoners serving jail sentences for national security and anti-government protest offences dropped for the first time. Wong Kwok-hing, commissioner of the Correctional Services Department, said on Thursday that the expanded population behind bars had also posed “formidable challenges” to both the governance and security of correctional institutions. “Very often due to the rise in penal population, the number of disciplinary offences has also risen,” he said. Wong also revealed during Thursday’s annual review that instead of amending the law to ban people who remained under a supervision order from travelling abroad, authorities only required these individuals to seek approval before leaving the city. The prisons chief said last February that he would look into banning those on supervised release from leaving the city after activist...

Hongkongers have been warned about a new phishing scam in which fraudsters cheated a victim out of HK$22,000 by sending fake text messages that included a hashtag prefix limited to government bodies and registered firms such as banks. Police and experts said the scam involved the jamming of mobile signals with an electronic device to enable fake SMS messages with the “#” sign to be sent out. The Post explains the scam and what phone users can do to protect themselves. 1. What happened? Police said on Wednesday they had arrested a 23-year-old man this week in connection with 28 complaints concerning suspicious text messages purportedly from registered accounts of government departments, delivery firms and online payment systems. In 2023, the Office of the Communications Authority (OFCA) introduced the hashtag prefix system to help residents identify genuine messages. More than 440 companies had registered for the “#” prefix by January...

[The content of this article has been produced by our advertising partner.] As parents, it can be challenging to watch our children wrestle with their emotions without interfering. However, this process of learning to self-regulate lays a strong foundation for future success, and it is crucial that we provide tools for our children to master self-regulation. At Stamford, the social-emotional learning program is a timetabled subject delivered to students as young as 5 years old. By adopting the award-winning “Second Step Student Well-being Program” developed by the Committee for Children, we empower students to develop essential human skills in an age-appropriate manner, supporting them to master life skills such as managing emotions, nurturing positive relationships, and meeting goals. Self-regulation is one of the first topics in the Second Step program. With the support of teachers and counselors, students learn to articulate and navigate their feelings confidently. From there, they learn...

More Chinese and global issuers and investors are expected to be drawn to offshore yuan bonds in Hong Kong and elsewhere, thanks to the currency’s cost efficiency, according to investment bank China International Capital Corporation (CICC). On Wednesday, China’s Ministry of Finance sold 12.5 billion yuan (US$1.7 billion) worth of bonds in Hong Kong, with tenors ranging from two to 30 years. The ministry has issued sovereign bonds in the city for 17 years in a row, totalling 366 billion yuan as of last year, which is part of Beijing’s strategy to support Hong Kong as the offshore yuan business hub. The latest “dim sum” bonds were oversubscribed by 1.86 times and pay a 1.75 per cent to 2.37 per cent coupon annually. The issuance came earlier than it did in years past to allow global investors to invest in high-quality assets and increase the supply of offshore yuan financial...

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has made it incumbent on banks to conduct a mandatory name-matching process on customers for real-time fund transfers, the latest step by the city’s financial regulator to tackle scams. Financial institutions have been urged to adopt “refined measures” on their instant fund transfer systems such as the Faster Payment System (FPS) and intra-bank fund systems, according to a statement issued by the HKMA on Tuesday. For transactions exceeding HK$1,000 (US$128) or other currencies of an equivalent amount, banks were now required to check customers’ names in real time, according to the HKMA. The banks have until the end of May to comply with the measure. A previous announcement by the HKMA in 2021 required banks to conduct the mandatory name-matching process on real-time fund transfers of HK$10,000 or above. 01:33 Hongkongers lose HK$200 million to scams in a week, AI voice-cloning used Hongkongers lose...

Hong Kong authorities have condemned “the unfounded smear and malicious attacks online” by fugitive former lawmaker Ted Hui Chi-fung after he hit back at a court order that allowed the government to confiscate HK$800,000 (US$102,800) of his and his family’s assets. A Hong Kong court on Monday ordered the confiscation of proceeds Hui obtained from “committing offences endangering national security”, with the ex-legislator calling the act “absurd” and a “violation of human rights” on his social media account. The Department of Justice had applied for the order, saying Hui had transferred nearly HK$2.5 million to his mother and wife. Hui later said in a social media post that the court had ordered HK$800,000 to be confiscated. “It is a common and effective practice to make an application to the court for a confiscation order to prevent offenders from benefiting from their criminal acts,” a government spokesman said on Monday night,...