Category Archives: Macau

The Iraqi authorities announced Friday the success of the early voting of the parliamentary elections with a 69 percent turnout ahead of snap parliamentary elections this Sunday.

Judge Jalil Adnan Khalaf, Chairman of the Board of Commissioners at the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC), said in a press conference that the participation in early voting indicates the beginning of successful legislative elections.

Khalaf stressed that no irregularities were registered during the early voting, and the results of early voting will be combined with the result of the Oct. 10 snap elections, which will be announced 24 hours after the end of the general polls.

However, an IHEC statement posted on its official website showed that 821,800 voters cast their ballots out of 1,196,524, which is 69 percent of the early voting voters across the country.

Early voting for Iraqs security forces, prisoners, and displaced people began at 7:00 a.m. local time (0400 GMT) and ended at 6:00 p.m. local time when the electronic devices automatically closed the voting process.

More than 1 million voters from the security forces are scheduled to cast their ballots at 595 polling centers across the country, and more than 120,000 displaced people will vote in 86 polling centers during the day.

The Iraqi parliamentary elections, originally scheduled for 2022, were advanced in response to months of protests against corruption and a lack of public services.

According to the electoral commission, about 24 million Iraqis are eligible to cast their ballots for 3,249 candidates, running individually and within 167 parties and coalitions, vying for 329 seats in the legislature.

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Iraq announces success of early voting, with turnout of 69 percent - Macau Business

Like a few other projects under the Marvel Studios umbrella, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings was temporarily halted as the world began to shut down in early 2020 as a result of the ongoing global pandemic. Because of that, the production had to take certain liberties to make sure the film was out on time. That includes building Macau from the ground up using computer-generated imagery despite the region being an actual, real-life metropolitan area.

Due to the various travel restrictions that quickly began to form, Marvel Studios and the team at RodeoFX put their heads together on what to do. Under normal circumstances, the film's second unit would travel to Macau and film blank plates the studio's visual effects vendors would then alter for the movie. Since time was of the essence, Ara Khanikian and his team at Rodeo opted to go the "from-scratch" route.

Luckily for the team, the second unit had shot some scouting footage by the time travel shutdowns were in place they were able to reference. Between that and extensive use of Google Maps, Khanikian and his team were able to perfectly recreate a city usually home to 650,000-some residents.

The team started at the primary skyscraper, a fictional building, used in the movie. From there, RodeoFX fleshed out the city. Those buildings closest to the skyscraper got a premium treatment, with accurate modeling, textures, and the works because those were the buildings that'd actually make the cut in the film.The further you got out from the building, the less detailed the building models became.

"We wanted to avoid building every single building accurately, because that would have been just insane in terms of the amount of work," Khanikian tells ComicBook.com ."So we were looking at it going, 'Okay, well, you know what, behind our hero skyscraper is an area that looks a lot like the slums,' so we kind of analyze how they look and they have a repeating pattern the way that they're built and then we would build a little city block of slums and then just duplicate them with a lot of variation of height and textures and this and that."

Regardless, the team always wanted to be as accurate as possible, no matter the cost.

"We wanted it to make sure that it stands on its own, no matter what the shot is. So that in all of these shots, we can just plug and play Macau and just render it out with the proper camera and then concentrate on just matching the lighting with the scaffolding, the building, the skyscraper, all of that, dialing that work in terms of lighting and CG and leaving Macau, just letting it be, basically, and only fine tune it if we needed to in a shot," he adds.

Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Ringsis directed byDestin Daniel Crettonand produced byKevin FeigeandJonathan Schwartz, with Louis D'Esposito, Victoria Alonso, and Charles Newirth serving as executive producers. David Callaham & Destin Daniel Cretton & Andrew Lanham wrote the screenplay for the film, which is now in theaters.

What did you think of Shang-Chi's MCU debut? Let us know your thoughts either in the comments section or byhitting our writer @AdamBarnhardt up on Twitter to chat all things MCU!

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Shang-Chi VFX Teams Had to Build Macau Digitally Because of COVID Shutdowns - ComicBook.com

Recent crackdowns have proven that few sectors are safe from Beijings control, says the FTs Lex column. No industry looks as vulnerable as Macaus gambling market. Shares in the territorys casino operators fell sharply amid a regulatory review that may end up cutting the number of casino licences in the worlds largest gambling hub. Should the new laws limit the number of licences below six, some operators could go out of business when all current permits expire in June 2022.

Even if that doesnt happen, it is clear that Macau will be more demanding than in past years, says Katrina Hamlin on Breakingviews. Operators may face unprecedented micromanagement, including state representatives scrutinising daily operations, and stricter oversight for junkets, which organise visits and credits for high rollers. Theres even a suggestion that firms may require government approvals to pay dividends.

The message for markets extends beyond Macau, says Shuli Ren in Bloomberg: China is serious about its common prosperity campaign. Hence shares in Hong Kongs four biggest property developers also tumbled after reports that Beijing has asked the territorys real-estate billionaires to resolve the citys housing crisis. The high cost of property in Hong Kong is often blamed for fuelling the widespread political protests in 2019. Investors now fear developers could be forced to donate some of their large land banks to the government.

Deflating Hong Kongs real-estate bubble wont just mean squeezing the tycoons it will also require a big shake up in tax policy, adds Jacky Wong in The Wall Street Journal. The territory earns twice as much from land sales as income tax, which is partly why tax rates have stayed so low until now. Hong Kongs housing market has produced immense wealth for some... Leaner times could be ahead.

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Xi Jinping's crackdown spreads to Macau and Hong Kong - MoneyWeek

As of 9am on Sunday (September 26), 230 thousand people have been tested for COVID-19 over the last two days. A total of 172,279 thousand joined the NAT mass testing programme which started on Saturday at 3pm, while another 58,901 have already been tested on their own since 3pm on September 24 (Friday).

In total so far 129 thousand specimens have already been analysed and all tested negative, according to the Novel Coronavirus Response and Coordination Centre. as cited by TDM Radio Macau (Chinese channel).

The 230 thousand figure accounts for slightly more than one third of the local population.

All citizens are asked to undergo the nucleic acid test (NAT) in the designated 52 testing stations set up across the SAR which will be operating round-the-clock until September 28, 3pm. These include 31 general NAT stations, seven caring stations and 14 self-paid units.

Those who hold certificate of a negative NAT carried out in the 24 hours prior to the beginning of the mass testing campaign (September 25, 3pm) are exempted from taking a new test.

The mass nucleic acid testing campaign runs until 3pm on Tuesday (September 28).

The Civil Protection Operations Centre urges those who havent done nucleic acid test should enter the system:https://eservice.ssm.gov.mo/allpeoplernatestbook/to make a booking as soon as possible, to avoid clustering together on the 3rd day, leading to long waiting time.

The estimated waiting time at each NAT station can checked athttps://eservice.ssm.gov.mo/aptmon/aptmon/en

The move comes after two new cases of COVID-19 were reported on Friday night and on Saturday morning respectively. Cases number 65 and 66 are ofof security guards working at Golden Crown China Hotel. These cases are related to a previous one confirmed on Friday, of a 31-year-old male resident of Turkish nationality who tested positive for COVID-19 in a nucleic acid test carried out Thursday night and had arrived in Macau, via Singapore, from Turkey, on September 18th.

The Macau SAR is under state of immediate prevention since 12am, Saturday (September 25).

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COVID-19: 230,000 tested as of 9am, no new positive results - Macau Business

Experts call for the creation of a mechanism of legal cooperation in environmental governance and collaborative environmental governance in the Greater Bay Area

MB September 2021 Special Report | GreenMacau

On the other hand, the O3 pollution in this region has been worsening year by year, which is widely affecting the air quality and residents health in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. The assessment is included in the 2020 Reporton theStateof the EnvironmentofMacau published by the Environmental Protection Bureau (DPSA, the acronym in Portuguese).

In face of this, DSPA recommends that studies be carried out on the emission and regulation of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and continues to insist on constant inspection of gasoline vapour recovery at filling stations, but Macau alone can solve nothing.

And Macaus future direction will be shaped by the GBA development plan in all domains, the environment included.

The problem in this area, as in others, is how to reconcile three different legal systems, especially those in the Mainland and Macau with that of Hong Kong, all of them based on very different models.

The coexistence of the three legal systems implies that the environmental protection laws of each region govern only the respective region, with no effect on the other regions, according to the most complete study on the subject, published in Macau by Feng Zehua and Zhan Pengwei.

The two Chinese academics add, Thus, regarding issues related to the governance of the land and hydrographic basins, joint governance of coastal and offshore territories and joint governance of the environmental atmosphere, due to the jurisdiction limits of the respective environmental protection laws it is not possible to efficiently achieve the expected objectives of joint governance.

Feng and Zhan list several examples: firstly, today the severe pollution of the waters surrounding Hong Kong and Macau have to do with daily industrial pollution from the nine cities in Guangdong that lie upstream, so the separate application of laws in these three regions undermines joint governance on environmental issues affecting the different cities.

The coexistence of three legal systems is a unique feature of the GBA, but it is also an obstacle that must be overcome in this type of cooperation, particularly with regard to environmental governance Feng Zehua and Zhan Pengwei

Second, the authors state that differences regarding the enforcement of laws governing ecological and environmental issues is one of the indicators of the social responsibility assumed by the governments of Hong Kong and Macau towards their citizens, but they emphasize in the case of the nine cities of Guangdong, under the direction of the Central Government, the focus is always placed on the promotion of economic development, ignoring the importance of protecting the environment, which results in different environmental protection measures being adopted by the Public Administration.

Furthermore, regarding differences in the legal sphere, according to Feng Zehua and Zhan Pengwei there are non-governmental organizations in Hong Kong and Macau that can bring legal action in the public interest in favour of environmental protection, while in the nine cities in Guangdong only prosecutors can bring lawsuits in the public administrative interest with regard to the environment, which affects the articulation between the laws of the three regions jointly governing the same issue.

In short, they conclude, the coexistence of three legal systems is a unique feature of the GBA, but it is also an obstacle that must be overcome in this type of cooperation, particularly with regard to environmental governance.

Both authors show concern over the problem how it will be possible to resolve the differences resulting from the inequalities of the legal positions of the cities included in the GBA in the short term, and therefore propose the creation of a mechanism of legal cooperation in the environmental governance of the GBA.

Another Mainland scholar proposes a solution with points of contact: collaborative environmental governance is the proposal of Ying Ren of the Green Development Law Research Centre, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies.

Mr Ren agrees with the legal problems existing in the field of environmental supervision and therefore puts forward countermeasures and suggestions to further improve the supporting mechanism of environmental supervision in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area under the environmental protection law.

According to Ying Ren, taking up environmental supervision must be the starting point to comprehensively improving the systematic guarantee of in-depth cooperation among Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau.

Its core issues include two aspects. One is exploring the innovation of a collaborative governance system with environmental supervision as the starting point. The other is the dynamic balance between the right to development and the protection of environmental rights.

Cooperation has continued to be deepened

The DSPAs response to Macau Businesss question on coordination mechanisms within the GBA is laconic, stating only that, based on the Outline Development Plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area, the cooperation in the field of ecological protection between Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau has continued to be deepened, and exchanges and cooperation in various aspects have been strengthened, joint prevention and treatment has been promoted, and they are working with a commitment to improving environmental quality at the regional level.

An example of this cooperation is the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Pearl River Delta Regional Air Quality Monitoring Network, comprising 23 air monitoring stations located in Guangdong Province, Hong Kong and Macau designed to monitor six major air pollutants: SO2 (sulfur dioxide), NO2 (nitrogen dioxide), O3 (ozone), RSP (Respirable Suspended Particulates), FSP (Fine Suspended Particulates) and CO (carbon monoxide).

The network publishes annual reports on the monitoring results and on long-term pollution trends of the PRD as well as quarterly statistical monitoring results.

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Special Report GBA and the case for legal synchronization - Macau Business

Environmental science expert Wai Ming To is sceptical on solar or wind energy being developed in Macau. He argues instead that the city can do slightly better is to adopt smart/intelligent building systems that optimize the use of electricity for air-conditioning, and air and water heating

MB September 2021 Special Report | GreenMacau

For the first time, a Macau-based scholar was included among the top 2 per cent of world scientists based on citation impact for the year 2019. Professor Wai Ming To of the Macau Polytechnic Institute has research interests encompassing environmental science, technology and management, energy analysis, total quality management and services management, among others. Macau Businessinterviewed Professor To, who declared it is very unlikely that Macau can be a sustainable, energy-efficient city in the short and medium term.

Limited space, high population density and an economy based on mass tourism will these factors prevent Macau from being a beautiful city of leisure, or is it still possible to make Macau the site of sustainable development?

Wai Ming To The factors listed in your question limited space (Macaus land area is about 30 km2), high population density, and an economy based on mass tourism will definitely have an adverse effect on Macau as a beautiful city of leisure from residents and tourists perspectives. With its limited resources, Macau should focus on sustainable development, not sustained development whose focus is primarily on economic growth without acknowledging the existence of a finite carrying capacity a limit on what Macau can bear. In fact, a local higher education institution estimated that Macaus optimal tourism carrying capacity is less than 110,000 person-times per day, or 40.1 million person-times per year. It was reported that among 104 days surveyed in 2017, the number of visitors per day exceeded the optimal daily rate on 21 of those days (around 20 percent of the days surveyed).

Do you believe Macaus biggest environmental problem to be the effects of excess municipal solid waste, or are there other more important issues?

WMT People, including residents and tourists, generate a huge amount of municipal solid waste. However, solid waste may not be obvious to most people as an environmental problem. Macaus environmental complaints were mostly against noise issues such as community noise (about 8000 cases in 2020) and air pollution such as oily fumes from commercial kitchens (about 260 cases in 2020). Community noise and air pollution directly affect residents well-being and constitute a nuisance.

People have been educated to practice reduce, reuse, recycle (the 3R principle) for years. Unfortunately, they have seldom put the principle into practice over the past twenty years

Is it because people dont take the solid waste problem seriously that it isnt alleviated? Is there a lack of collective awareness?

WMT Municipal solid waste is primarily transferred to Macaus Incineration Plant for treatment. Most residents put their garbage into the waste collection units and forget about its impact on the environment. People have been educated to practice reduce, reuse, recycle (the 3R principle) for years. Unfortunately, they have seldom put the principle into practice over the past twenty years, when Macaus economy was good and people had more and more money to spend. That is a lack of collective conscience, as you said.

Now lets talk about renewable energies: do you think Macau will be able (in the medium term) to be a sustainable, energy-efficient city?

WMT Macau is a small city and has many high-rise buildings. Thus, solar energy is not efficient due to the shadowing effect of adjacent buildings and the small ratio of rooftop area to total floor area. Additionally, Macau does not have an onshore/offshore wind farm that can produce a steady supply of electricity. The only way Macau can do slightly better is to adopt smart/intelligent building systems that optimize the use of electricity for air-conditioning, and air and water heating. This means it is very unlikely that Macau can be a sustainable, energy-efficient city in the short and medium term.

Solar energy is not efficient due to the shadowing effect of adjacent buildings and the small ratio of rooftop area to total floor area

The Central Government allocated 85 square kilometres of territorial waters to Macau in 2015. Does that present an opportunity to build offshore wind farms?

WMT Building an offshore wind farm requires substantial investment on the part of the Macau Government and the Macau Power Company (i.e. CEM). Additionally, a team of experts would need to be appointed to assess whether an offshore wind farm is feasible within the 85 km2of territorial waters given to Macau by the Central Government.

Do you think the most decisive role (for the changing of habits) belongs to the Government or to the citizens? Is there enough awareness of these issues in Macau?

WMT The Macau Government plays a more important role in promoting environmental awareness. The Macau Government should work closely with educational institutions (from kindergartens to tertiary institutions) to improve environmental awareness among the next generations.

Among the top 2 per cent of world scientists

Wai Ming To is a Professor of Management in the School of Business at the Macau Polytechnic Institute. He received his PhD from Imperial College London and serves as an expert in the Ministry of Science and Technology of the Peoples Republic of China.

Professor To is among the best scientists in the world, according to a list, published by a research team from Stanford University (USA), of the top 2 per cent of the worlds most-cited scientists in various disciplines.

I was surprised to learn that I was included as one of the worlds top 2 per cent scientists based on citation impact in the year of 2019, he answers Macau Business. Nevertheless, it did not change my attitude towards doing research. I just want to collaborate with my fellow researchers to improve our understanding of how people feel, perceive and behave in organizations and different hospitality settings and how big the impacts we produce on the environmental, social and economic systems are.

One of his primary research topics is the haze problem in Macau, Hong Kong and Shenzhen. We demonstrated that haze problems in these three cities follow an Environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) a hypothetical, inverted-U-shaped relationship between an environmental change and a citys economic development. For example, Macaus haze hours per year first increased, from 3 hours in 1986 to a peak level at 766 hours in 2007, and then improved as Macaus economy continually evolved (only 57 hours in 2016). Additionally, my fellow researchers and I have collected Chinas fisheries data and have realized that China has done a great job keeping marine and inland capture fisheries at a relatively low level over the past two decades. Chinas fisheries are primarily based on aquaculture production. We are going to analyse all this data (on haze and the fisheries) carefully and publish the findings in international journals.

Wai Ming To also intends to explore a number of interesting topics in Macaus service sector with past and present colleagues. The topics include consumer perceptions of the ethics of retailers, the diningscape in restaurants, and the use of social media for work (particularly in light of the Covid-19 pandemic) in Macau.

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Special Report - It is very unlikely that Macau can be a sustainable, energy-efficient city in the short and medium term. - Macau Business

Posted on: September 13, 2021, 05:06h.

Last updated on: September 13, 2021, 05:51h.

Whats the one thing you will soon find all over Macau casinos that you wont find in Las Vegas for love nor money? Nope, its not corrupt Communist party officials making whoopee. In fact, the answer may be staring right at you, down there in bottom right corner of your screen.

Yes, its clocks. Specifically, clocks on slots.

Clocks have always been absent from Las Vegas casinos because of their inconvenient ability to convey time and to disrupt the dreamlike compulsion loop in the human mind.

Macau casinos have always followed the same school of thought, gleefully spurning horological devices, until now.

On Monday, the Macau gaming regulator, the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ), confirmed to GGRAsia it had informed its operators that by the end of 2024, all slots in the gambling hub must be fitted with intermittently flashing clocks showing the local time.

That means all existing machines must be retrofitted with an appropriate timekeeper by the end of the grace period. The clocks will flash up at the beginning of play and at every ten minutes thereafter, according to the regulator.

The purpose of a clock on the gaming machine is for the promotion of responsible gaming, DICJ explained.

Its a progressive move from a jurisdiction that is seldom held up as a beacon of responsible gaming. In fact, Macau lacks the kind of robust corporate and social responsibility framework for its casinos thats almost always present in jurisdictions in the US and Europe.

This probably has something to do with the casino industrys powerful influence within the special administrative regions (SAR) highly corporatized political system. Although thats not to say DICJ hasnt initiated sporadic social responsibility drives before.

In 2012, it issued a set of Responsible Gambling Principles, which required casinos to implement measures such as publicizing gaming odds and providing information about the risks of gambling. It also established a problem gambling hotline and required operators to establish counseling kiosks.

Meanwhile, the lighting inside windowless casinos was required to mirror natural daytime and night-time cycles (remember those?) another one Macau has on Las Vegas.

Further measures were introduced in 2016, accompanied by stricter anti-money laundering controls.

But theres a big question mark over how significant the new measure will be to a gaming industry thats far less reliant on spinning reels than we are in the US.

Clocks on slots would be a huge deal in Las Vegas, for example. In 2020, there were 213,000 slot machines in the city. Thats in comparison to the 90,000 slots in Macau.

In the six months to July 2021, in the whole of Nevada, where the slots positions outnumber the population, revenue from the machines came in at $4.6 billion. Thats just under 70 percent of the $6.6 billion total gaming haul.

While we dont have a comparative breakdown for Macau, slots are far less popular in the SAR, where, culturally, table games are king. But Macaus casinos arent required to put a clock within shooting distance of a table game, or even an electronic table game, under the new rules.

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Macau Casinos Must Have Clocks on All Slots by... - Casino.Org News

geography of the special region in China

Macau is a Special Administrative Region on the southern coast of China. It is located at the south of Guangdong Province, on the tip of the peninsula formed by the Zhujiang (Pearl River) estuary on the east and the Xijiang (West River) on the west. Macau is situated 60km (37mi) west of Hong Kong, and 145km (90mi) southwest of Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong Province. It is situated immediately east and south of Zhuhai.

The region comprises the Macau Peninsula and the islands of Taipa and Coloane. Macau was once an island but gradually a connecting sandbar turned into a narrow isthmus. Land reclamation in the 17th century made Macau into a peninsula, and a barrier gate was built to mark the separation between the peninsula and the mainland. Pre-colonial records show that Macau totalled only 2.78km2 (1.07sqmi) but began to increase as a result of Portuguese settlement. Land growth has accelerated since the last quarter of the 20th century, from 15km2 (5.8sqmi) in 1972 to 16.1km2 (6.22sqmi) in 1983 to 21.3km2 (8.22sqmi) in 1994. Macau's size has gradually increased as result of continued land reclamation, especially on Taipa and Coloane. In 2014, the total land area was approximately 30.3km2 (11.7sqmi).

There is a 0.34km (0.21mi) long border between Macau and mainland China and a forty-kilometre-long coastline. The main border crossing between Macau and China is the Portas do Cerco (Barrier Gate) Frontier Checkpoint on the Macau side, and the Gongbei checkpoint on the Chinese side.

Geographic coordinates: 2210N 11333E / 22.167N 113.550E / 22.167; 113.550

Location: Eastern Asia, bordering the South China Sea and China

Terrain: generally flatElevation extremes:lowest point: South China Sea 0 mhighest point: Coloane Alto 172m (564ft)

Macau has generally flat terrain resulting from extensive land reclamation, but numerous steep hills mark the original natural land mass. The modern high-rise skyline of Macau obscures much of the hilly landscape. The Macau skyline both defines and obscures its topography.

The Macau Peninsula is narrow in shape but varies in terrain.

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Although Macau is located in the tropics, it has a humid subtropical climate (Kppen climate classification Cwa), because the Siberian pressure system in the winter pushes cool air further south than similar semipermanent permanent high pressure systems. Its average year-round temperature is 22.7C (72.9F). Summers are very hot and humid: the July average temperature is 28.9C (84.0F) and the highest daytime temperature could reach 35C (95F). However, the heat is generally less intense than many places in mainland China due to the coastal location. Winters are short and mild: the January average is 15.0C (59.0F) and the lowest temperature could drop to 5C (41F), but very rarely any lower. There is about 2,120 millimetres (83in) of rainfall annually, with drier winters.

Macau is exposed to tropical storms originating from the southern Pacific Ocean during the summer. Major destruction occurred in September 1874, when a devastating typhoon hit Macau and high seas swept across the low-lying area of the peninsula. There are always a few tropical storm occurrences in Macau each year (typically between May to October), although they vary in strengths. When they occur, they usually bring strong winds, rainfall and lower temperatures.

Prevailing winds and weather types change follow the monsoon pattern. It is warm and moist when the southeast and southwest winds are coming from the Pacific Ocean, and typhoons are relatively common during summertime. It is dry and slightly cold when the north winds are coming from Siberia or the northern part of Mainland China.

During the transition period from northeast monsoon to southwest monsoon (March and April), the weather is moist and foggy. It is Macau's spring season. Summer is from May to September, when the southeast and southwest monsoon prevailing. It is rather hot and rainy. The weather in autumn (the end of September and October) is sunny and warm, when the southwest monsoon withdrawing gradually and the northeast monsoon advancing south. It is generally regarded as the most comfortable season there. Winter is from November to February next year, when the northeast monsoon prevailing. It is mainly dry, with occasional cold fronts arriving.

There are moderate to high levels of humidity year-round, with an annual average of 79.3%. Annual sunshine totals are moderate, at more than 1800 hours.

Negligible. In the past, large amounts of granite were extracted from Macau's hills for use as building material.

Relying on water supply from the Xijiang River, in 2006 Macau suffered its worse crisis of salinity in freshwater during the dry season, which takes place in late winter and early spring.[4]To address salinity issues, as of 2018 three water supply pipelines to Macau have been built and a fourth pipeline was planned for completion in 2019.[5]

Until early 20th century, the Macau peninsula was dotted with small farms on its northern area, beyond the walls protecting the city. Currently, in the Macau peninsula, no arable land, natural pastures or woodland exists and forests have been cleared and plant species have been subjected to profound changes. Coloane on the other hand, due to its later colonisation, still has its forests and is dotted with small farms, namely around the Coloane, Hac Sa and Ka Ho villages.

arable land: 0%permanent crops: 0%other: 100% (2011)

In 2010 plans were announced for an additional 3.5 square kilometres of land reclamation in Macau, to be carried out over five years and divided into six phases. These areas cover an area east of the Outer Harbour Ferry Terminal, an area south of Avenida Sun Yat Sen, and the north side of Taipa Island.[6]

The change of total area of Macau (in km square) since the year of 1912:

Dense urban environment.

Geography note: essentially urban; three bridges connect the two islands of Coloane and Taipa to the peninsula on mainland, and an isthmus connects Coloane and Taipa.

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Geography of Macau - Wikipedia

Although most of the legislative power in the future Henqgin cooperation zone will be held by Zhuhai authorities, civil and commercial regulations in the area will be in line with Macau and international standards, local authorities stated.

The in-depth cooperation zone in Hengqin will also be able to request the delegation of powers to the National Peoples Assembly, its Standing Committee or the State Council to carry out, when necessary, changes to existing laws or administrative regulations, in order to implement policies and measures for reform and opening-up.

The members of the administrative committee that will manage the Guangdong-Macao In-depth Cooperation Zone in Hengqin were revealed last week, with Chief executive Ho Iat Seng and four of the SARs Secretaries included, together with several Guangdong officials.

The administrative committee will be run under a dual-director system, jointly led by the Governor of Guangdong Province and the MSAR Chief Executive and will coordinate efforts and make decisions on major plans, major policies, major projects and major personnel appointments, concerning the Cooperation Zone

The executive committee in charge of the area will include nine work entities: an administrative affairs bureau; a legal affairs bureau; an economic development bureau; a financial development bureau; a commercial services bureau; a finance bureau; a statistics bureau; an urban planning and construction bureau; and a livelihood affairs bureau.

According to authorities, a study will be carried out on the definition of norms for the Cooperation Zone, in order to provide an institutional guarantee for the development of the area in the long term.

However, most of the legislative power will be in the hands of Zhuhai authorities, which was said to allow flexible adjustments to laws, administrative regulations and local regulations.

With the exception of the new campus of the University of Macau in Hengqin and the area under Macaus jurisdiction of the Hengqin Border Post, the Cooperation Zone is subject to Mainland China law, whose legal rules differ from those of Macau and at the international level, a note issued by local authorities indicates.

Macau residents and qualified international staff may encounter problems of not adapting to the rules when living, working or starting their own businesses in the Cooperation Zone. Therefore, the General Project states that the legal rules in civil and commercial matters in the Cooperation Zone must be articulated with Macau and be in line with international criteria, in order to create a regime that guarantees a pleasant environment for living and working in a similar way.

For the Macau government, if international and SAR standards are followed in the cooperation zone, this will enhance its attractiveness for Macao residents and qualified international staff.

With the promotion of the construction of the Cooperation Zone, economic and personnel exchanges between Guangdong and Macao will become more frequent, and there may be growing conflicts on different issues, making it necessary to provide them with adequate mechanisms for resolving them, authorities added.

The plan for the area foresees the reinforcement of exchange and cooperation in the judicial area between Guangdong and Macau, as well as the creation and improvement of diversified mechanisms for the resolution of conflicts in commercial matters, including judgment, arbitration and mediation in international commercial matters.

The General Project also refers to the strengthening of the functions and role of the court in the New Zone of Hengqin, with a view to providing judicial services.

Secretary for Administration and Justice Andr Cheong had already expressed last week that crimes committed in the Hengqin In-depth Cooperation Zone will be prosecuted under mainland China law.

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Hengqin cooperation zone civil and commercial regulations in line with Macau and international standards - Gov't - Macau Business

The Macau SAR has the obligation to adopt more active measures to promote vaccination specific campaigns targeting health professionals, staff at border posts, civil servants, teaching staff and school workers, among other key groups, the expert delegation from the National Health Commission indicated in a report.

The National Health Commission visited the SAR at the end of September when it evaluated the current prevention and control measures in force in Macau.

Although praising the pandemic measures enforced by the citys authorities since the pandemic outbreak, the report points out that since there are frequent trips between the population of Macau and the city of Zhuhai and freedom of movement with the Mainland, continuing anti-epidemic works that can prevent imported cases and avoid an internal resurgence of the pandemic in the mainland were of great importance.

Therefore the expert delegation urged further standardizing the prevention and control of the pandemic, including the strengthening of surveillance and alert work, improving hospital infection control, increasing the capacity for rescue and clinical treatment and intensify vaccination roll-out.

The Macau SAR has the obligation to adopt more active measures to promote vaccination specific campaigns targeting health professionals, staff at border posts, civil servants, teaching staff and school workers, among other key groups, the Health Bureau said in a response to the report.

There is also an obligation to adopt more active measures to promote the work of vaccination, carrying out specific communication and dissemination actions for health professionals, staff at border posts, civil servants, teaching staff and school workers, among other key groups, strictly applying the principle of one should be vaccinated whenever possible.

According to Health Bureau Director, Alvis Lo, in recent days, a number of measures have been launched in Macau, including the strengthening of nucleic acid testing capacity for key groups, the publication of guidelines for vaccination requirements for workers and monitoring of personnel management measures in isolation facilities, among other measures that meet the suggestions of the group of experts.

The number of people vaccinated has increased in recent days and there is an expectation that the support of the population can be obtained, so that there is an increase in the rate of vaccine coverage, achieving the objective of self-protection and the protection of other people, Lo said according to the announcement.

This month the Public Administration and Civil Service Bureau issued an order to the public sector mandating that after September 27 public workers will have to choose between being vaccinated for Covid-19 or have to carry out nucleic acid testing every 7 days.

The measure was said to have raised the daily vaccination rate average to about 4,000 a day.

More than 50 non-tertiary schools have also enrolled in the collective vaccination campaign against COVID-19, and inoculations will be organized in schools or groups will be organized to carry out collective vaccination at the Macau Forum.

According to the most recent update, a total of 332,204, people in Macau have been vaccinated with at least a dose of either Sinopharm or BioNTech vaccines, but only 291,195 received the required two doses.

This represents about 47 per cent of the total population and 53 per cent of people above 12 years of age.

The Health Bureau also noted that various associations and groups will perform their functions of raising awareness in society, explaining to them the advantages, scientific knowledge, measures to prevent and control the epidemic, as well as trying to increase the rate of vaccination, through the use of different channels, with a wide campaign in government agencies, institutions in Macau and communities.

Both parties also exchanged in-depth views on the current epidemic situation in Fujian Province, the applicable age range of Sinhopharms inactivated vaccines, ways to increase vaccine coverage, and health code systems for epidemic prevention.

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Macau will have to step up vaccination works - National Health Commission - Macau Business