The Secretary for Health, Lo Chung-mau, says thousands of vaccine exemption certificates will again be invalidated two weeks from now. This was revealed in a Legco paper after the Executive Council approved an amendment to legislation giving the minister the power to cancel the exemptions if there are grounds to believe they were issued without proper medical consultation. Professor Lo said there was reason to believe this was the case. Damon Pang reports:

There has been a divide amongst lawmakers over the amendment to the law empowering Professor Lo to invalidate improper exemptions. One legislator said the government should have appealed the High Court ruling. Another lawmaker said the government could amend the law if it was in the public interest. Kelly Yu reports:

Hong Thai Travel has announced that its branch services, which have been suspended since August, will not resume until further notice. The agency said the travel industry was in what it called, a "dark tunnel", and it would operate at the lowest cost until all travel restrictions were lifted. Joanne Wong reports:

Anti-epidemic measures will again be put in place for the Lunar New Year fairs in January, with no food outlets or stalls selling anything but flowers. There will be over 900 stalls, for which bidding will start next month. Violet Wong reports:

Exco convenor, Regina Ip, agrees the words "political neutrality" should be dropped from the code of conduct for civil servants to eliminate "misunderstandings". The civil service chief briefed lawmakers on Tuesday on her plans to drop the term, so staff could not use it as an excuse to avoid tasks. Ip says when she was security minister, she was accused of not being politically neutral when she voiced support for former leader, Tung Chee-hwa. She told Samantha Butler that loyalty to the government took precedence over political neutrality:

The Housing Secretary says she believes the government's plan to build “light public housing” will sound the death knell for sub-divided flats. Winnie Ho made the comment in an exclusive interview with RTHK, a week after the Chief Executive John Lee pledged to build 30,000 light public homes in the coming five years, with the first batch of 1,000 flats ready for occupancy in 2024. Maggie Ho reports:

The Secretary for Home and Youth Affairs, Alice Mak, says the government will provide subsidies to NGOs to convert hotels into youth hostels to speed up the process of providing affordable accommodation for young people. She also spoke about the government's plans for a network of volunteers to help the disadvantaged and with district community work. Vanessa Cheng reports:

A psychiatrist says the government needs to pay more attention to mental health, after an annual survey showed Hong Kong people's mental health score was below acceptable standards for the fifth year in a row. May Lam, the vice-president of the Hong Kong College of Psychiatrists, said people aged between 35 to 55 scored the lowest, perhaps because they experienced the biggest impact from the current economic downturn. She told Ben Tse that survey respondents voiced concern about their future, their finances and housing:

Hong Kong's largest power company has warned that increases in electricity charges are "unavoidable" next year because of surging fuel prices. But it has promised to help its customers cut their expenditure on energy, as Wendy Wong reports:

Queen Mary Hospital says an investigation is underway after it received a report that a doctor was suspected of improperly obtaining morphine oral analgesics - or painkillers. Robert Kemp reports:

Marine biologists say Hong Kong's record-breaking summer heat left coral "stressed and starving" across the territory. They also warned that water activities were potentially making the situation worse. Researchers from the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department, Baptist University and the Chinese University carried out coral checks in 19 locations across the SAR in August, and found bleaching at 18 of them. Apple Chui - a research associate professor at the Chinese University's school of life sciences - told Natale Ching the bleaching was "extensive":

Germany has approved Cosco's purchase of a nearly 25 percent stake in a terminal in Hamburg, the country's largest port. As Aaron Tam reports, it is less than the 35 percent stake that the Chinese shipping giant had wanted: