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Division of Well being Urges Energetic Way of life on World Stroke Day to Scale back Stroke Threat

Public urged to steer energetic and wholesome way of life in assist of World Stroke Day

​In assist of World Stroke Day, the Division of Well being (DH) at present (October 29) appealed to members of the general public to steer an energetic and wholesome way of life to protect towards stroke.

World Stroke Day has been designated on October 29 annually by the World Stroke Group to extend consciousness and drive actions on strokes world wide.

A spokesman for the DH mentioned that stroke is among the main causes of ailing well being, long-term incapacity and dying. Yearly, strokes assault over 12 million individuals worldwide. In Hong Kong, stroke is the fourth commonest reason behind dying with 3 048* registered deaths in 2023.

A stroke occurs when the blood provide to a part of the mind is interrupted, or when the blood vessel of the mind ruptures resulting in a haemorrhage. Hypertension (HT) is the biggest single threat for stroke, adopted by a excessive physique mass index and excessive blood glucose.

“Bodily exercise can modify these frequent biomedical threat components of stroke. Epidemiological research assist a helpful impact of participating in a enough quantity of bodily actions on stroke threat, whether or not it’s merely strolling at a sooner tempo, bicycling or spare time activities,” the spokesman added.

Stroke threat might be diminished by adhering to an energetic and wholesome way of life. Members of the general public are suggested to interact in a minimum of 150 to 300 minutes of moderate-intensity cardio bodily exercise or an equal quantity and depth of bodily exercise all through the week, and restrict the period of time spent being sedentary and exchange sedentary time with bodily exercise of any depth together with a light-intensity bodily exercise. To additional cut back the chance of getting a stroke, members of the general public must also keep an optimum physique weight and waist circumference, cut back salt consumption and eat a balanced eating regimen, keep away from smoking and chorus from alcohol ingesting to protect towards stroke.

With an purpose to advocate members of the general public to extend their bodily actions, the DH launched the “10,000 Steps a Day” Marketing campaign in 2022 to encourage adults to step by step enhance their every day step aim to 10 000 primarily based on their very own bodily circumstances, skills, tempo and particular person circumstances. The marketing campaign has entered its third part this yr, and this yr’s occasion coincides with the seventy fifth anniversary of the founding of the Folks’s Republic of China. The Well being Bureau and the DH will for the primary time companion with Better Bay Space (GBA) Mainland cities to collectively promote strolling to mark the celebration. In Hong Kong, a strolling problem with the slogan of “Shall We Stroll and Discuss” will likely be held by means of the “e+Life Platform” on November 1 to encourage the general public to stroll with buddies. Contributors can use a step-counting cellular software to report their step counts through the problem interval and synchronise the info with the “e+Life Platform”. For particulars, please go to the occasion web site of the Strolling Problem (www.10000stepsaday.hk/?lang=en) and the thematic web site of “e+Life Platform” (app.ehealth.gov.hk/elife-overview).

The Major Care Fee has established the District Well being Centre (DHC)/DHC Categorical throughout 18 districts and has been proactively selling the Life Course Preventive Care Plan. The DHC healthcare group would work hand in hand with Household Medical doctors to assist purchasers to develop customised wholesome dwelling plans (together with smoking cessation, steadiness eating regimen, common bodily exercise and weight administration) primarily based on people’ well being wants at totally different phases of life, enhancing the general public’s functionality to handle their very own well being and stop strokes.

Aside from energetic and wholesome dwelling, early analysis and correct administration of hypertension and diabetes is one other key to reducing the chance of stroke. The Authorities launched the Persistent Illness Co-Care Pilot Scheme (CDCC Pilot Scheme) in November 2023, to subsidise Hong Kong residents aged 45 or above with no identified medical historical past of HT or diabetes (DM) to endure HT and DM screening providers within the non-public healthcare sector. They will then obtain long-term follow-up care in the neighborhood offered by Household Medical doctors, DHC /DHC Categorical, and different healthcare providers. For extra particulars, members of the general public could browse the devoted web site of the CDCC Pilot Scheme (www.primaryhealthcare.gov.hk/cdcc/en).

Along with selling stroke prevention measures, the Authorities is dedicated to enhancing providers for stroke remedy. The Chief Govt introduced on this yr’s Coverage Deal with that the Hospital Authority would arrange the primary stroke centre in accordance with the nationwide accreditation requirements at a public hospital of Hong Kong. By cross-specialty and patient-centred built-in neuromedicine providers, it goals to boost the effectivity of diagnosing acute strokes, expedite remedy and enhance affected person care, thereby reducing mortality charges, hospital mattress days and readmission charges in addition to bettering post-stroke rehabilitation.

The Authorities will proceed to step up efforts in enhancing public consciousness concerning the significance of energetic and wholesome dwelling within the space of stroke prevention and dealing in shut partnership with group companions to construct a health-enhancing surroundings. For particulars, please go to the thematic web site at www.change4health.gov.hk/en/index.html.

*Provisional determine

Speech by SJ at plenary session of 14th China-ASEAN Prosecutors-Normal Convention in Singapore

Following is the speech by the Secretary for Justice, Mr Paul Lam, SC, on the plenary session of the 14th China-ASEAN Prosecutors-Normal Convention in Singapore at present (October 29):

Mr Chairman, Your Excellencies, distinguished visitors, women and gents,

To start with, I wish to specific my heartfelt gratitude to Your Excellency Mr Lucien Wong, SC, for organising this yr’s convention.

Pressing name for co-operation within the struggle towards monetary crimes

The theme of this yr’s convention is “Fostering Co-operation on Combating Monetary Crimes”. The definition of economic crimes could be very large. In Hong Kong, they cowl a broad vary of money-related felony actions together with cash laundering, terrorists financing, fraud, theft, market misconduct in addition to corruption and irregularities within the monetary market. There may be, nonetheless, fairly often a typical ingredient: that’s they contain transboundary components.

In recent times, now we have witnessed an alarming rise in monetary crimes. The United Nations Workplace on Medication and Crime (UNODC) estimated that cash laundered globally in a single yr is 2-5 per cent of worldwide gross home product, that’s roughly US$800 billion to $2 trillion. Hong Kong, which ranks No. 1 within the 2024 Financial Freedom of the World Report compiled by the Fraser Institute, just isn’t immune to those challenges. In accordance with the most recent statistics launched by the Hong Kong Police Pressure, over 19 000 circumstances of deception have been registered within the first half of 2024, accounting for round 44 per cent of the entire variety of crimes and ensuing within the lack of HK$4.48 billion.

There may be, due to this fact, no marvel why there’s consensus that worldwide co-operation to fight monetary crimes is each important and imminent. In Could this yr, the Heads of the Monetary Motion Job Pressure (FATF), the UNODC and the Worldwide Prison Police Group (Interpol) issued an unprecedented joint name for actions to be taken throughout sectors and on the international degree to focus on the massive illicit earnings generated by transnational organised crimes that facilitate conflicts, fund terrorism and negatively influence weak populations.

Hong Kong is dedicated to participating in worldwide co-operation to fight monetary crimes proactively. That is each required and made attainable by the precept of “one nation, two methods”. Within the Fundamental Legislation of the Hong Kong Particular Administrative Area, Article 109 offers Hong Kong the mandate to supply an applicable financial and authorized surroundings for the upkeep of the standing of Hong Kong as a global monetary centre. Underneath Articles 96 and 152 of the Fundamental Legislation respectively, Hong Kong could make applicable preparations with international states for reciprocal juridical help, and representatives of Hong Kong could take part in worldwide organisations or conferences as members of delegations of the Folks’s Republic of China or in different applicable capability.

Hong Kong has been adopting a four-pronged strategy in combating monetary crimes with worldwide components: first, espousing worldwide regulatory requirements; second, establishing a collaborative community for efficient prosecution and asset restoration; third, embracing applied sciences as our new instruments; and, lastly, encouraging information and expertise sharing.

Espousing worldwide regulatory requirements

Let me start with espousing worldwide regulatory requirements. Whereas totally different jurisdictions have various authorized landscapes and totally different monetary methods, it’s important to make sure that the native authorized and regulatory frameworks would adjust to worldwide requirements. I’m proud to say that Hong Kong has to this point efficiently achieved this goal.

Owing to the truth that, in observe, it is extremely typically troublesome to determine, catch and produce members of economic crimes to justice and that the loss and injury attributable to such crimes are in lots of circumstances untraceable and irrecoverable, the Hong Kong regulation on this respect focus very a lot on efficient prevention and early detection of suspicious transactions. Our Anti-Cash Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing Ordinance (Cap. 615) (AMLO) units out the necessities on monetary establishments relating to buyer due diligence and report conserving; and different legislations impose statutory obligations for reporting suspicious transactions. Earlier this yr, the Hong Kong Courtroom of Closing Attraction in a landmark judgment often known as Tam Sze Leung & Ors v Commissioner of Police (2024) 27 HKCFAR 288 upheld the validity of the “letters of no consent” scheme underneath the Organized and Critical Crimes Ordinance (Cap. 455), which goals at helping monetary establishments to think about easy methods to cope with, or to not cope with, funds identified or suspected to be proceeds of crime.

Then again, the Securities and Futures Fee of Hong Kong publishes alert listing to supply early warnings to buyers on suspicious funding merchandise and digital asset buying and selling platforms. Very not too long ago in August this yr, the Hong Kong Financial Authority (HKMA), in collaboration with the Hong Kong Police Pressure and the Hong Kong Affiliation of Banks, prolonged the protection of the Suspicious Account Alert to bodily branches and Web banking transactions.

Hong Kong has been a member of the FATF, an intergovernmental organisation which units international requirements for combating cash laundering and terrorist financing, since 1991. Within the fourth spherical of FATF mutual analysis in 2018-19, Hong Kong’s anti-money laundering and counter-financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) system has been assessed to be compliant and efficient general, making it the primary jurisdiction within the Asia-Pacific area to have achieved an general compliant end result. The FATF additionally adopted Hong Kong’s follow-up report and recognised Hong Kong’s efforts in strengthening its AML/CFT regulatory regimes final yr.

That mentioned, Hong Kong doesn’t stay complacent. Hong Kong can also be one of many founding members of the Asia/Pacific Group on Cash Laundering (APG), an autonomous FATF-style regional anti-money laundering physique, based in 1997. The APG printed annual experiences to help governments and different stakeholders to have a greater understanding concerning the nature of current and rising threats. The 2023 report features a chapter on threats and developments associated to digital property and digital asset service suppliers. Hong Kong took the initiative to introduce a licensing regime for digital asset service suppliers underneath AMLO, which got here into impact in June 2023. To additional strengthen the digital property regulatory framework in Hong Kong, we consulted the general public on a regulatory regime for stablecoins earlier this yr and had obtained general assist.

Establishing a collaborative community for efficient prosecution and asset restoration

Let me flip to establishing a collaborative community throughout jurisdictions to allow efficient prosecution of economic crimes and asset restoration.

Hong Kong has established a complete co-operation regime for the mutual authorized help and give up of fugitives. The Division of Justice of Hong Kong printed varied sensible step-by-step pointers, comparable to “Information to Asset Restoration within the Hong Kong Particular Administrative Area” and “Pointers for Making Purposes underneath the Mutual Authorized Help in Prison Issues Ordinance (Cap. 525)”, with a view to helping our international counterparts in understanding the procedures in relation to worldwide authorized co-operation in felony issues in Hong Kong and the wide selection of authorized help that could be offered by Hong Kong, comparable to taking of oral proof, acquiring supplies underneath manufacturing orders, enforcement of exterior confiscation orders and restraining of dealing in property which can be topic to exterior confiscation orders, and many others.

Through the years, the Division of Justice has been offering efficient and well timed help to varied international jurisdictions, together with our ASEAN and Asia-Pacific companions. Let me share with you some examples. Just lately, pursuant to a request made by an East Asian nation, now we have efficiently obtained from the Excessive Courtroom a restraint order freezing property within the type of cryptocurrencies of a complete worth of greater than US$20 million, that are suspected to be proceeds of an enormous fraudulent scheme. In one other case relating to a request obtained from Indonesia, now we have restrained over US$8 million value of property, representing proceeds of offences of fraud and cash laundering, with a view to repatriating the confiscated funds again to the sufferer of crimes in Indonesia finally. Singapore is certainly one of our most valued and high authorized co-operation companions. Because of the tireless effort of the Lawyer Normal’s Chambers of Singapore, a fugitive was efficiently surrendered again to Hong Kong earlier this month to face justice in court docket for offences referring to a securities fraud. In one other case involving offences of cash laundering and corruption, Hong Kong is working very carefully with Singapore in our collaboration to repatriate US$13 million of proceeds of crime again to the sufferer in Mainland China. In yet one more instance, with the joint effort of Interpol and following intensive info sharing and joint investigations by the police from Singapore and Hong Kong, a transnational syndicate allegedly concerned in laundering ill-gotten good points derived from tech assist scams, together with round HK$33 million from the victims in Singapore, has not too long ago been crippled in August this yr, ensuing within the arrest of eight individuals in Singapore and Hong Kong.

One other vital improvement in 2024 is that, on June 26, 2024, Hong Kong has formally joined the South East Asia Justice Community (SEAJust), which was established in 2020 with the assist of the UNODC. This allows Hong Kong to utilize this necessary platform to facilitate co-operation in felony issues with different members, together with all my buddies right here at present.

I really feel obliged to take this chance to register my disappointment that, as a result of geopolitical causes, some Western nations have unilaterally suspended their mutual authorized co-operation preparations with Hong Kong, which is plainly towards frequent pursuits. Geopolitical issues shouldn’t be allowed to hinder worldwide co-operation in preventing monetary crimes.

Embracing applied sciences as our new arsenal of instruments

Let me transfer on to embracing applied sciences as our instruments. On this digital age, know-how is evolving at an unprecedented tempo. It’s unlucky that it has been misused to allow monetary crimes to transcend borders and get “larger” by way of amount and complexity, and permit the culprits to cover their identities within the digital world.

To counter such misuse, we should always think about easy methods to deploy technological developments as our ally. Particularly, we should always proactively discover the probabilities of leveraging highly effective synthetic intelligence (AI) instruments for detecting and disrupting monetary crimes at an early stage. For instance, AI-powered methods could facilitate real-time on-line transaction monitoring and particular person behavioural evaluation, and alert uncommon transaction patterns with pace and accuracy that human beings can’t duplicate. AI-assisted automation can also play a pivotal function in enhancing the effectivity of investigations. AI know-how is ready to analyse huge quantities of information at lightning pace. Automating some repetitive however important duties all through the investigation course of permits investigation officers to dedicate their time and power to growing methods in higher-impact circumstances.

On September 9, 2024, with a view to accelerating the usage of AI in monitoring cash laundering and terrorist financing dangers, the Hong Kong Financial Authority printed a round on “Use of Synthetic Intelligence for Monitoring Suspicious Actions”. The HKMA noticed that AI-powered methods take note of a broad vary of contextual info focusing not solely on particular person transactions, but additionally the energetic threat profile and previous transaction patterns of consumers in figuring out whether or not the exercise of a buyer must be flagged for additional investigation. These enhanced methods have proved to be more practical and environment friendly than standard rules-based transaction monitoring methods.

Encouraging information and expertise sharing

Lastly, let me say a number of phrases on encouraging information and expertise sharing.

Final month, a devoted group of prosecutors who concentrate on prosecuting subtle and syndicated high-tech crimes within the Prosecutions Division of the Division of Justice of Hong Kong paid a go to to Guangdong Provincial Folks’s Procuratorate, the Excessive Folks’s Courtroom of Guangdong Province and Guangzhou Web Courtroom. The sharing periods with Mainland judges and procurators have been tremendously helpful to deepening the mutual understanding of the most recent developments of deception circumstances and the dealing with of cryptocurrency circumstances.

And, after all, worldwide symposiums and conferences present a wonderful discussion board without cost move of concepts, which help in gathering and accumulating a normal pool of information, and stimulating new and progressive concepts to fight monetary crimes. This profitable convention is, by itself, an ideal instance.

On this facet, I’m very happy to tell you that, subsequent month between November 27 and 29, Hong Kong will organise the eleventh Asia and Pacific Regional Convention of the Worldwide Affiliation of Prosecutors (IAP) underneath the theme of “Efficient Prosecution Service within the Technological Age”. I stay up for welcoming you to Hong Kong.

Lastly, I’m additionally very happy to tell you that the Division of Justice of Hong Kong will formally set up the Hong Kong Worldwide Authorized Skills Coaching Academy very quickly. The Academy will organise sensible coaching programs, seminars, and worldwide alternate programmes to advertise exchanges amongst authorized professionals coming from totally different jurisdictions. This may increasingly function an extra platform for capability constructing and expertise sharing within the space of worldwide co-operation on combating monetary crimes.

Concluding remarks

To conclude, whereas the challenges we face in our struggle towards monetary crimes are daunting and are prone to be ongoing, they’re ones that we will and should overcome – collectively. On this conflict that we can’t afford dropping, allow us to stay steadfast to our dedication to align with worldwide regulatory requirements, work carefully through varied collaborative networks, make higher use of rising applied sciences, and share information and expertise. In co-operation lies our power, and in motion lies the promise of a safe monetary surroundings the place belief and integrity flourish.

On this notice, could I as soon as once more thank the Lawyer-Normal’s Chambers of Singapore for giving me and different members of the Hong Kong delegation such a fruitful expertise at this profitable convention, and to all of the distinguished audio system and buddies from the Mainland and ASEAN nations for his or her sharing of invaluable insights and experiences. Thanks very a lot.

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