TNAG-2601-FCO40-3789-Departure-of-Lord-Wilson--former-Governor-of-Hong-Kong--July-1992 — Page 95

FCO40 Hong Kong Department Records 聯邦事務部香港部檔案 All

VM

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Year-end review by the Government's Refugee Co-ordinator Clinton Leeks was reported by the Post. The paper played up his remarks that pressure was put on UNHCR to repay the $450 million it owed to the Government for the care and maintenance of VMs. He vowed that the interest-free debt would not be written off. In another development, the paper said the UNHCR was considering one or two direct flights to Ho Chi Minh City next month to get returning VMs from the south home.

HK DOLLAR

Remarks by banker David Li in which he said the Chinese Government would not allow the HK dollar-greenback peg to extend beyond 1997 were reported in good coverage by HKS. Mr Li urged HK's authorities to scrap the peg and to replace it with a basket of international currencies. He also called on the Exchange Fund Office to take up the role of a clearing house so that it would have most of the functions of a central bank, besides that of issuing notes.

OTHER STORIES

Both papers noted that legislation to scrap the death penalty and replace it with life imprisonment was to be introduced by Easter. Legco member Elsie Tu was quoted by HKS as saying that most of the members of the legislature would support the move even though the death penalty could be reinstated after 1997. However, the Post said HKU Professor Peter Harris had warned against a hasty decision to remove the penalty. He said from his supervision of research over 10 years, more than two-thirds of the population was in favour of the death penalty.

The Post in its editorial said the biggest insurance policy that HK and Taipei could buy for themselves was to keep on giving strong impetus to the rightward shift in Chinese economics, and in its wake, politics, by funnelling assistance to the red capitalists.

According to three separate curvoye, the Poet gaid more than half åt lower-income working parents were against legislation to penalise guardians who left children unattended at home.

TOTAL P.11

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