Hong Kong cannot tolerate any more 'chaos': Carrie Lam

Hong Kong cannot afford to tolerate any more "chaos" that has disturbed the city over the past 12 months, said the special administrative region's chief executive Carrie Lam on Tuesday.

Lam announced during a weekly press briefing that the salaries of all political appointees will be frozen for a year starting in July. Non-official members of the Executive Council will also have their salaries frozen for a year starting in October.

Lam said the Hong Kong SAR government has received around 148,000 applications for its "Employment Support Scheme." Over 20,000 of them have been processed. These employers will start receiving funding as early as this Friday, which is a week ahead of the schedule previously announced by Lam.