Top news
The first of a two-part series dedicated to understanding the role of Hong Kong's information technology and communications industries in the unfortunate maintenance and further development of Hong Kong's universal English language requirement was completed and uploaded. See Government relations and Quality Assessment below for details.

Government relations

Hong Kong's Census and Statistics Department provided EARTH with the best data it has received from the Hong Kong government, since its first visit to Hong Kong's former Department of Education in the fall of 2002. It is nice to know once again that there are people in Hong Kong government who truly care.

Community relations

None to speak of. Hopefully Hong Kong industry will wake up when EARTH finally has a digital show to put on. Yeah, it will be in English with lots of pictures, and a Chinese/English interpreter to help field questions and comments from the audience.

Website additions and maintenance

New additions

• Quality Assessment
  
• Section five was changed to section six, and the first part of a new section five was added: Hong Kong's Information Society - Households and Consumers. With vision as far-sighted and geographically encompassing as that of the HKLNA-Project robust inquiry and understanding is required to ensure project survival.
• Accompanying this new section are three new tables, forty-four new graphs, and of course a new webpage that puts it all together in several concise statements including links to carefully selected and fully referenced new and old graphs and tables. Also included are 11 new footnotes.
  
• As is EARTH's habit, a review of last month's new Quality Assessment  addition was undertaken. Numerous small errors were found and corrected; no major mistakes were found. The webpages containing the graphs for this month's and last month's section will be reviewed in the month ahead.
  
  
• EARTH's Viewpoint - Needless to say there as been much to write about this past month. Probably so much in fact that choosing a particular topic has been difficult. It is for this reason that EARTH has stepped back and will provide a philosophical overview of recent world events on June 8.
  
  
• Tsong Kit for Beginners - Work has begun on Chapter 4, but the chapter is not yet complete and nothing new has been uploaded.
  

Maintenance

• Minor errors discovered in passing were corrected. With the exception of the editing of section six mentioned above and the reorganization of section five under Quality Assessment no further maintenance was undertaken.
  

Software update

• There were no new purchases.

Strategy Update
In order to recover from EARTH's recent financial backlog EARTH will probably take a break from the HKLNA-Project during the month of July and concentrate on its own survival. Hopefully part two of Hong Kong's Information Society will be completed by the end of June, when the HKLNA-Project's  20th monthly newsletter is expected to appear. One more addition to the Quality Assessment section can be expected after that, and then a third attempt at raising research money and the beginning of a new promotional campaign with a slick on-site Quicktime presentation.

Acknowledgments
Once again, special thanks to Dr. SIU Hin Ho, without whose help EARTH and the HKLNA-Project would have surely met a sudden end this past month. Also, special thanks to Alfred Lai and Rebecca Siu from the Information Technology and Telecommunications Statistics and Social Surveys sections of the Hong Kong Census and Statistics Bureau. Alfred Lai is Hong Kong's first money donor to the HKLNA-Project. He paid for the information data base, on which a portion of this month's and next month's Quality Assessment reports are based, out of his own pocket! Also, special thanks are extended once again to YANAGI Toshio, whose small financial assistance helped smooth the rough edges of still another month of bare minimum survival.

Once again, thanks to the folks at ProZ.com for their many helpful hints and useful suggestions with regard to the HKLNA-Project's internet presence.

Closing Remarks
Please do not forget to take advantage of EARTH's quality translation service.  EARTH's survival might very well be the HKLNA-Project's success!

Sincerely,

R. A. Stegemann
hsmr@pacific.net.hk