â€‹Hong Kong Customs on November 30 seized about 10 000 items of suspected counterfeit goods with a total estimated market value of about $2.1 million at the Tuen Mun River Trade Terminal Customs Cargo Examination Compound.
      
     Through risk assessment, Customs on that day inspected a 40-foot container arriving in Hong Kong from Nansha, Guangdong. After inspection, Customs officers found the batch of suspected counterfeit goods, including clothes, footwear, mobile phone cases and accessories therein.
      
     An initial investigation revealed that the batch of suspected counterfeit goods would be transhipped to overseas regions.
      
     An investigation is ongoing.
      
     Customs will continue to combat cross-boundary counterfeit goods activities with stringent enforcement action based on risk assessment and intelligence analysis.
      
     Under the Trade Descriptions Ordinance, any person who imports or exports any goods to which a forged trademark is applied commits an offence. The maximum penalty upon conviction is a fine of $500,000 and imprisonment for five years.
      
     Members of the public may report any suspected counterfeiting activities to Customs' 24-hour hotline 2545 6182 or its dedicated crime-reporting email account (crimereport@customs.gov.hk) or online form (eform.cefs.gov.hk/form/ced002).
      

  

     The Centre for Food Safety (CFS) of the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department today (December 12) announced the findings of the Food Consumption Survey in the Younger Population 2021-2022. The survey collected food consumption information from the local younger population aged from 6 to 17. The data obtained will help enhance the risk assessment capacity of the CFS that targets at the younger population, providing a scientific basis to formulate effective risk management measures and risk communication messages, with a view to safeguarding public health.

     Data collection of the survey was conducted through video calls between July 2021 and November last year. A total of 1 389 respondents aged between 6 and 17 who speak Cantonese, Mandarin or English were successfully enumerated. The survey used two non-consecutive days of "24-hour dietary recall" and a "food frequency questionnaire" to obtain food consumption estimates (i.e. the types and amounts of food consumed). The "24-hour dietary recall" interview was used to collect comprehensive dietary data through inviting the respondents to recall all food and drinks consumed over the previous day with a view to understanding the intake amounts of food and drinks commonly consumed by the younger population. The "food frequency questionnaire", on the other hand, was used to understand the intake amounts of certain foods such as seasonal food and festive food (e.g. Chinese New Year pudding, lychee). Furthermore, respondents' body height and body weight data were also collected to facilitate the interpretation of the food consumption information collected.

     A spokesman for the CFS said, "Through this survey, the CFS has obtained a set of food consumption data of Hong Kong's younger population, comprising the average daily intake amounts of 31 food groups and 157 food subgroups consumed by the respondents. The data collected will enhance the capacity of the CFS to conduct more accurate and reliable food safety risk assessments for the younger population. The CFS will also use the food consumption data to review the sampling strategy of the routine Food Surveillance Programme and to assess and propose amendments to local food safety standards and regulations."

     "The CFS adopts a food safety control paradigm based on the risk analysis model and the data obtained from food consumption surveys is a cornerstone of the CFS's food safety risk assessment work, which is conducive to more scientific and proportionate measures for regulatory control of food safety in Hong Kong", the spokesman added.

     The report of the Food Consumption Survey in the Younger Population 2021-2022 has been uploaded to the CFS website (https://www.cfs.gov.hk/english/programme/programme_firm/programme_fcs_yp2021-22.html). Summary results of the food consumption data included in the survey report have also been uploaded to DATA.GOV.HK for download and conducting relevant scientific research by members of the public and academic institutions.

     The coming Geminid meteor shower in mid-December will be one of the most spectacular astronomical phenomena of the year. The best time for local observation will be from the night of December 14 to the early morning of December 15. The Hong Kong Space Museum will live-stream the Geminid meteor shower from 9pm to 11pm on December 14 via its YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/hkspacem) and "LCSD Plusss" Facebook page (www.facebook.com/LCSDPlusss) and introduce ways to observe the meteor shower and some relevant astronomical knowledge. It is estimated that, during the peak at 3am on December 15, the zenithal hourly rate of the meteor shower may reach 150, the highest among the many meteor showers in 2023.

     During a meteor shower, meteors appear to emanate from a point (known as the radiant) in the night sky. On December 14, the radiant of the Geminid meteor shower will rise in the northeast at about 7.30pm, and the number of meteors will increase as the radiant rises higher in the sky. As it is around the second to the third day of the lunar month, the influence of moonlight will be negligible, resulting in favourable observation conditions. Observers are advised to observe the Geminid meteor shower at a site with a wide field of view and little light pollution. More than 20 meteors may be observed in an hour during the small hours.

     As astronomical observations depend heavily on weather conditions, members of the public are advised to pay attention to the latest weather update before the outdoor activity. For details of the Geminid meteor shower and the live-streaming, please visit the Hong Kong Space Museum's website at hk.space.museum.

     â€‹Invest Hong Kong announced today (December 12) that it has helped French semiconductor company Prophesee set up a regional headquarters in the city to push its neuromorphic artificial intelligence (AI) technology across Asia.
      
     The department welcomed the establishment of Prophesee in Hong Kong. The Associate Director-General of Investment Promotion, Dr Jimmy Chiang, said, "We are happy to see that the company capitalises on the city's advantages in research and development capabilities, advanced technology infrastructure, legal system and deep pool of local talent to set up its regional headquarters in Hong Kong."
      
     He added, "With opportunities brought by the National 14th Five-Year Plan and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, Hong Kong can act as a strategic hub for innovative companies, like Prophesee, looking to access the Mainland market."
      
     The Co-founder and CEO of Prophesee, Mr Luca Verre, said that the company's primary objective is to expand the adoption of the neuromorphic AI technology in mass market segments such as mobile phones, augmented reality or virtual reality headsets, and Internet of Things (IoT) cameras, as well as industrial automation and automotive sectors.
      
     He said, "The Greater China region and the broader Asia markets represent the largest and fastest growing market for many of these segments. As we are accelerating our commercial expansion and are already achieving wins with major mobile manufacturers and IoT solution providers in the Greater China region, we think it's an optimal time to come to Hong Kong and make it a regional centre for our further expansion in Asia."
      
     He added, "The new Hong Kong office is not only our regional headquarters in the Asia-Pacific region, but also our new customer innovation centre. It oversees the business operations in the Greater China region, Japan and Korea and develops innovative neuromorphic solutions for our global customers. We will be transferring and also hiring senior executive team members in Hong Kong to facilitate the process."
      
     Prophesee develops a breakthrough Event-Based Vision approach to machine vision. This new vision category allows for significant reduction of power, latency and data processing requirements to reveal what was invisible to traditional frame-based sensors until now.
      
     To get a copy of the photo, please visit www.flickr.com/photos/investhk/albums/72177720313317524.
      
     For more information about Prophesee, please visit www.prophesee.ai.

  

     Following is the transcript of remarks by the Chief Executive, Mr John Lee, at a media session before the Executive Council meeting today (December 12):

Reporter: Good morning, Mr Lee. Some English questions. Firstly, the District Council Election on Sunday had the lowest election turnout since the handover. Does this low voter turnout mean that the new District Council system has low legitimacy with the public, and how would the Government justify the costs of promoting this District Council Election? The second question, how would the Government plan to overcome voter indifference in the coming elections, and do you believe that this persistent situation would be unhealthy going forward? Thank you.

Chief Executive: We had about 1.2 million voters coming out to vote. I think that was a good turnout. First of all, I think each election has its own characteristics. The enhanced and improved District Council election system has the merits of producing the most qualified and competent District Council members to contribute to the well-being of the districts. There are, of course, people who are still trying to sabotage the election. You can see that both the ICAC (Independent Commission Against Corruption) and the Police have arrested people who dare to contravene the law to in some ways incite people not to come out to vote. There was resistance by people who have been rejected by the system because they are not qualified or they do not subscribe to the same principle, which is ‘patriots administering Hong Kong’. There are still some people who somehow are still immersed in the wrong idea of trying to make the District Councils a political platform for their own political means, achieving their own gains rather than the districts' gains. There are still people who have ideas that represent as if they are agents of a foreign country. These kinds of soft resistance still exist. Some voters haven't come out to vote for different reasons, but obviously, those who tried to sabotage the election still exist and, of course, they will be trying to do anything they can to make the election not successful.

     But the turnout of 1.2 million voters has indicated that they supported the election, they supported the principles, and they supported the idea that the new District Councils will be producing good candidates, good District Council members for the overall good of each district. What is most important that I want the society to focus on is what the election will produce. We have already passed the election process. It is important that we focus our attention on the outcome of the election. The outcome means a constructive District Council, rather than what used to be a destructive one. The outcome is District Council members who will be monitored for their performance to ensure that they do well, rather than previously, some District Council members pursued their own political interests, sabotaged the system, and reacted against the governance of the Hong Kong Government or the Central Government. The new District Councils will be the one that is constructive, focusing on livelihood issues, local issues and district matters. The new District Council members will be helping those who live in the districts when they have problems they want to solve. The District Council members will be readily available to give their help. This is what is important. The new monitoring performance system will be announced in regard to the details, and people living in the districts are very welcome to join in the monitoring system, so that all the District Council members will be performing to their best for the interests of the local people.

     We did what we need to do to promote the new District Council system, because it is different. I want people to know the big differences of being constructive versus destructive, taking care of people's interests rather than those in the past taking care of their own political interests and sometimes acting as agents of foreign forces. It is also important to tell them the big difference that these District Councils will produce members who will be from different backgrounds, sectors and professions, who will be more representative, more connected to the districts and, of course, more committed to bringing overall good to district residents. This is important because we have now turned over a new leaf. This is going to be what will be good for Hong Kong. That message has to be loud and clear, and received by people of Hong Kong.

(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)