However, the new plan was also greeted with criticism with the Civic Party's Ronny Tong calling it a short-sighted ploy to placate public anger. The Democratic Party's Albert Ho said the financial power balance braceletsecretary's U-turn had failed to address public concern and had also put him in an embarrassing situation and undermined his authority.Financial Secretary John Tsang also announced salary tax reductions of up to 75 per cent for the coming year, capped at 6,000 Hong Kong dollars. Tsang had earlier said he would not consider tax rebates or cash handouts as these might fuel inflation, already predicted to reach 4.5 per cent this year, up from 2.4 per cent in 2010. He came under fierce criticism from lawmakers from all political parties over his budget, which included a 2.36-billion-US-dollar package of one-off relief measures. Critics said the measures, especially the pension scheme injection, did little to help the poor and middle classes and several lawmakers threatened to vote against it when it comes before theshop online 2011Legislative Council for approval in April. Announcing the revised budget Wednesday, Tsang said the handout would not be given directly to people but allocated under a new system that would encourage people to save the money rather than withdraw and spend it. 'We have heard many noises that they [the public] found some of the measures unacceptable,' Tsang said. 'Given what I have heard and the discussions I have had with members of the legislature, we have decided to make this decision.' Hong Kong's finance chief on Wednesday bowed to pressure over his recent unpopular budget by promising a handout of 6,000 Hong Kong dollars (770 US dollars) to each adult resident. The move, which followed protests over the power balancebudget announced a week ago, replaced a proposal to inject the same amount of cash into workers' pension schemes.
At the end of the spacewalk, Kopra was one of the first people to congratulate the two spacewalkers on a successful outing. He especially congratulated rookie spacewalker Drew."Congratulations on a stellar job on your first spacewalk," Kopra who owns shop online 2011 told Drew. "Good job, dude."Drew also became the 200th person in history to work in the vacuum of space, according to NASA officials.Shortly after Bowen and Drew returned inside the space station, Mission Control radioed the station and shuttle crews to say that Discovery's STS-133 mission will be extended an extra day.The extra day will give the crew the opportunity to complete more work on a storage module that will be attached to the station's Unity node tomorrow.The coach Outlet storespaceship mix includes: a European cargo ship called the Automated Transfer Vehicle 2 (ATV), a Japanese cargo vessel known as HTV-2, a Russian cargo ship, two Russian Soyuz crew capsules and the shuttle Discovery."I've decided the HTV and ATV are both big," Bowen joked as he stood at the tip of the station's robotic arm to retrieve the broken cooling pump module.Today's spacewalk was Bowen's sixth and the first for Drew.Bowen, a veteran spacewalker, was a last-minute crew replacement for astronaut Timothy Kopra, who was the STS-133 mission's lead spacewalker. Kopra was injured in a bicycle accident less than six weeks before Discovery's launch, forcing him to sit out on the orbiter's historic final flight.Kopra remained involved in today's spacewalk, however, by providing support from mission control here at the Johnson Space Center."You're a good man for the job," Kopra radioed to Bowen prior to the start of the spacewalk.Inside Discovery, Stott played the song "coach handbags Message in a Bottle" by the Police to commemorate the occasion.Big spaceships, bigger space stationWhile working outside, Bowen and Drew caught some unique views of the space station, which is currently home to an international collection of spacecraft from four different space fleets.