Briefs | Ho Chio Meng’s lawyer says he will appeal
Lawyer Oriana Pun has said her client Ho Chio Meng intends to file an appeal with the Court of Final Appeal. This month the same court sentenced the former top prosecutor to 21 years in jail and imposed huge financial penalties. On the sidelines of an event this weekend, Pun said that the inability to appeal constitutes a “technical problem that can be circumvented.” According to Pun, this “technical problem” is minor when compared with the right to appeal, which she said “constitutes a fundamental right.” Pun told TDM that the appeal will be filed soon. “We are going to present our arguments and our appeal to the Court of Final Appeal,” she said.
Pace of inflation quickens
The Composite Consumer Price Index (CPI) in June 2017 rose by 1.06 percent year-on-year to 109.44, according to information released by the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC). This increase was even higher than the 0.95 percent year-on-year growth recorded in May 2017. As in previous months, DSEC has attributed the increment to higher charges for outpatient services, eating out, rising tuition fees, vehicle prices and parking meter rates. Contributing to the increase were the price indexes for the sectors of education and health, which increased by 7.46 percent and 5.15 percent, respectively, year-on-year. The price index of food and non-alcoholic beverages – accounting for the largest share of household expenditure – went up by 1.77 percent. The price indexes of communication and housing and fuels dropped by 5.82 percent and 0.96 percent, respectively. The average composite CPI for the second quarter of 2017 (109.18) increased by 0.94 percent year-on-year.
SSM says flu situation is stable
The director of the Health Bureau (SSM) Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, Lam Chong, said that the influenza or ‘flu’ situation in Macau is stable. According to Lam, this is because large numbers of residents have been vaccinated against the disease; of the 95,000 people in Macau who have been vaccinated, 70 percent received the vaccine in primary school. The percentage of vaccinated residents rises to 90 percent when the elderly population are included. Many members of the elderly population have received the vaccine while residing in nursing homes. SSM previously stated that recent data recorded by its monitoring systems showed a significant increase in influenza infections compared to the same period last year.
