HILTON has announced the reopening of all of its hotels in China, announcing it would be "welcoming guests once again with Hilton's signature hospitality".

As part of its global recovery process, Hilton also announced the upcoming Hilton CleanStay initiative to ensure the safety and well-being of guests and team members.

"The safety and well-being of our guests and team members remain our highest priority and reopening all our hotels in the Chinese mainland is the first step in a measured global recovery process," Hilton president and CEO, Chris Nassetta said. 

"We are doing everything we can to look after our Hilton family, and I am incredibly proud of how our teams have rallied together to support their communities and each other. We are confident that there are brighter days ahead, and we are eager to welcome guests with our signature Hilton hospitality once again - in China, and all around the world."

Hilton Asia Pacific presdient, Alan Watts said, "Following a challenging past couple of months, we are thrilled to announce the resumption of operations in all Hilton hotels in the Chinese Mainland, marking a significant milestone for a market that has shown incredible resilience.

"We are seeing demand gradually return to China starting with domestic travel, and green shoots of recovery across the wider region as countries begin to ease restrictions. With the introduction of the upcoming Hilton CleanStay, underpinned with our partnership with RB and Mayo Clinic, we look forward to welcoming our guests and providing them with assurance and peace of mind as we pioneer a new standard of safety and cleanliness."

As one of the region's fastest-growing global hospitality companies, Hilton in the Greater China region currently has 255 hotels in operation and more than 500 hotels in the pipeline with nearly one in three rooms under construction carrying a Hilton flag.

Enhanced Hygiene Practices for a Cleaner and Safer Stay

Ahead of its global recovery process, Hilton also announced the new Hilton CleanStay program, in collaboration with RB, maker of Lysol and Dettol, and Mayo Clinic, the top-ranked hospital system in the US.

A first in the hospitality business, Hilton CleanStay builds onto the already high standards of housekeeping and hygiene to deliver an industry-defining standard of cleanliness and disinfection in Hilton properties across the world.

The program is expected to launch in June 2020 and will create a focus on cleanliness that will be visible to guests throughout their stay, providing them with assurance and peace of mind when they stay at any of Hilton's brands.

To find out more about Hilton CleanStay, visit:
https://newsroom.hilton.com/corporate/news/hilton-defining-new-cleanliness-standard

ends

By Leon Gettler >>

IN CHINA, a blockchain venture seeks to create a smart city. The implications of the research will be global. It could create smart cities around the world.

Ada Xiao is the chief strategy officer for PlatON, the pioneering global privacy-preserving computing network. Located in Hangzhou, it is working with Innova City, seeking to create China’s largest blockchain-powered smart city project. 

Is due to be completed in 2025.

Ms Xiao said PlatON is working with automotive component company Wanxiang, which has been investing heavily in electric vehicles.  The company has invested US$29 billion into the smart city.

“I believe it will become the biggest blockchain empowered industrial grade smart city in the world once it’s completed,” Ms Xiao told Talking Business.

“Innova City will be featuring Wanxiang’s advanced manufacturing facilities for renewable energy, and electric vehicles, and it will have 90,000 residents who will be living and working there once it’s completed.”

PRIVACY BLOCKCHAIN

Ms Xiao said Innova City would be using PlatON’s privacy blockchain solution. It would monitor driving behavioural data to train auto-driving systems, as well as to record and monitor electric vehicle life cycles, in order to manage ecological waste efficiently

“Basically we will build a smart city that’s safe, greener and more efficient,” she said.

As part of the privacy guidelines, PlatON would be encrypting the data to ensure it is not exposed.

She said it was groundbreaking work.

“We realise that with so many smart city projects out there, one thing that is of concern is they don’t have a very good privacy-centric, decentralised infrastructure which we think should be the foundation of smart cities because you need this privacy-centric infrastructure to facilitate data sharing and better collaboration to greater lengths,” Ms Xiao said.

“That is very crucial to making a city smart.”

DATA IS ‘NEW OIL’

Ms Xiao said data had now become the “new oil”.

“In order to make data the new oil in order to flow, we really need to make sure that privacy is preserved,” she said.

With a workforce of about 100, PlaTON has offices Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong and plans to open an office in Singapore.

Ms Xiao said PlaTON planned to move into other sectors, beyond smart cities and the goal was to create a network that would facilitate the safe and secure circulation of data.

“That’s not limited to smart cities,” she said.

“It can be used to accelerate industries and advanced technologies. We are seeing demand in verticals and industries such as finance, health care and IoT logistics.

“Bascially it is designed for industries and applications that can benefit from data sharing in a decentralised network.”

That would, she said, be particularly important in industries such as health care and finance that put a lot of emphasis on privacy. 

www.platon.network

www.leongettler.com

 Hear the complete interview and catch up with other topical business news on Leon Gettler’s Talking Business podcast, released every Friday at www.acast.com/talkingbusiness.

ends

By Ellen Boonstra, Asia correspondent >>

IN A GLOBALIZED world that is increasingly linked yet beset with all sorts of ethnic, economic and martial divides, Pope Francis arrived in Bangkok to preach a message of unity and compassion.

During his recent, four-day visit, the pontiff presided over Catholic mass at a historic church, had a private audience with His Majesty the King, visited a Catholic hospital and gave a speech at Government House.  

Before an audience that included Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, the Pope spoke of why he has made human trafficking a priority issue during his papacy.

While he lauded the Thai Government’s efforts to combat this social menace, he stressed the need for more countries to do their part in protecting women and children from exploitation. The most vulnerable members of society, he said, are routinely “violated and exposed to every form of exploitation, enslavement, violence and abuse".

In the midst of a global refugee crisis, he said, “May every nation devise effective means for protecting the dignity and rights of migrants and refugees, who face dangers, uncertainties and exploitation in their quest for freedom and a decent life for their families.''

Throughout his visit, Pope Francis, 83, balanced spiritual matters with secular concerns. At a holy mass in the Assumption Cathedral, founded more than a century ago, he urged the 7,000-strong audience to “maintain your joy and to look to the future with confidence. Rooted in Christ, view all things with the joy and confidence born of knowing that the Lord has sought us out, found us and loved us infinitely".

MULTI-FAITH MEETINGS

Pope Francis's visit, which coincided with the 350th anniversary of the establishment of the first Catholic mission in the country and the 50th anniversary of establishing formal diplomatic ties between Thailand and the Holy See, included a private meeting with His Majesty the King and a talk with the supreme patriarch of Thai Buddhism. 

At Wat Benjamobophit, where revered monarchs like the late King Rama VIIII and King Rama IV ordained as monks, the Pope met with the spiritual leader of Thai Buddhism, to discuss how these faiths can work together to promote religious harmony and help the needy.

It was the first such papal visit to the residence of the supreme patriarch since Saint John Paul II visited in 1984. Their meeting came only eight months after Pope Francis invited the supreme Buddhist matriarch to attend a summit of religious leaders discussing sustainable development projects under the umbrella of the United Nations.  

The biggest events of the papal visit took place when the pontiff said mass at the National Stadium and Tephasdin Stadium before some 70,000 Catholics. Dressed in the Vatican colours of white and yellow, some of these pilgrims had travelled from the furthest reaches of the kingdom to be blessed by the pontiff and hear him speak. As he drove around the stadiums in the pope-mobile, the crowd waved Vatican flags and shouted, “Viva Il Papa.”

Once again the Pope addressed the plight of the poor, who had fallen victim to human traffickers and been stripped of their “essential human dignity,” as well as “young people enslaved by drug addiction and a lack of meaning, which makes them depressed and destroys their dreams".

He also expressed concern about migrants, the homeless and labourers exploited by criminal networks, who remain invisible in many communities.

“Let us not deprive their communities of seeing their faces, their wounds, their smiles and their lies. Let us not prevent them from experiencing the merciful balm of God’s love that heals their wounds and pains,” Pope Francis said. 

ends

By Ellen Boonstra, Asia correspondent >>

ONCE KNOWN as one of the world’s top growers of recreational marijuana, Thailand has turned over a new leaf by becoming the first country in Southeast Asia to legalise cannabis-based products for medical patients, the Thai Government announced at a recent seminar.

The Narcotics Law of 2019, which came into effect earlier this year, states that “organisations and individuals who have obtained a license may produce, possess, import and export cannabis for the purpose of treating diseases and other medical conditions. The use of cannabis for study, research and the treatment of patients must be controlled under the care of registered practitioners, while the consumption or sale of cannabis for recreational use is still punishable by law”. 

Under strict guidelines laid down by the Ministry of Public Health and the Government Pharmaceutical Organization, the pilot program started last month at two hospitals in the provinces of Prachinburi and Sakhon Nakhon. Patients here are prescribed cannabis oil for a variety of ailments, such as the nausea and loss of appetite associated with chemotherapy, along with chronic cases of pain.

This year, more than 400 doctors and pharmacists have been trained in prescribing this age-old cure, along with almost 3,000 traditional medicine practitioners, said government officials at the seminar.

For decades now, medical researchers in the West have pointed out the curative properties of chemical compounds like CBD, with California becoming the first American state to lift the ban on medical marijuana in 1996.

Yet the roots of this versatile plant are buried deep in history and folk cures. The strain of the cannabis sativa plant, known as hemp, has been used as a fibre for 10,000 years.  Before the invention of modern paper, printers used its hemp variant to print everything from the Bible to Alice in Wonderland and the American Declaration of Independence.

THREE MILLENNIA IN CHINA

The use of medical marijuana has been chronicled as far back as 2900BC in China, but its popularity in Europe owes a debt to the Irishman, born in 1809. It was Dr William Brooke O’Shaugnessy, who prescribed it to Queen Victoria for menstrual cramps.

Believing that the plant had many other uses, he wrote in a medical journal, “When pure and administered carefully, cannabis is one of the most valuable medicines we possess.” 

In May 2019, the cover of The New York Times magazine showed a gummy bear laden with an extract from the marijuana plant known as CBD, with a list of promising cures that included everything from a possible cure for cancer to alleviating the symptoms of PTSD, brain injuries, depression and insomnia.

Only a decade ago a story like this in such a prestigious publication would have been unthinkable. But as countries around the world move to legalise medical marijuana – and in some cases, like Uruguay and Canada, its recreational cousin – the debate has shifted from the moral to the medicinal.

Across the world, companies have been quick to realise that investing some seed money in this cash crop will yield long-term dividends.

At the recent seminar in Bangkok, Adam Benjamin, director of Medifarm, said his company had already partnered with a firm in Israel, which is a world leader in medical marijuana.

An Australian firm, Medifarm now has its sights set on Thailand, where the company has offered its expertise for free.

“We would like to work with the Thai government on this for free,” Mr Benjamin said.

Medical marijuana, and its many offshoots, have enormous export potential, he said, as more and more countries move to legalise the medicinal and/or recreational use of cannabis products. 

Australian investments in marijuana farming and developing new medicines derived from this plant are surging, he added.

But the tight regulations that govern the use and distribution of such products in Australia have yet to be tested in Thailand. Critics of the new law believe that it’s ripe for exploitation.

To nip such problems in the bud, the Ministry of Public Health is laying the groundwork for a medical cannabis service system. Under the Special Access Scheme, the prescribing of cannabis-derived products will be strictly controlled.

After the Universal Coverage Scheme (UCS) came into effect Thailand in 2001 to provide affordable medical care for all, within a decade the program covered almost 98 percent of Thais. 

The supporters of the Narcotics Law of 2019 point to this ongoing success story as auguring well for the Thai government’s first steps into the growing field of medical marijuana.

www.medifarm.com.au

ends