Temporary Traffic Order – Perth Road

From the City Council :

Dundee City Council proposes to make an Order under Section 14(1) of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 for the purpose of facilitating carriageway resurfacing works.  The Order is expected to be in force for four weeks from 24 July 2017.  Its maximum duration in terms of the Act is eighteen months.

The effect of the Order is to prohibit temporarily all vehicular traffic in Perth Road from Hawkhill to Roseangle.

Working hours will be 11 am to 8 pm Monday to Friday and 11 am to 6 pm Saturdays.  Access will be maintained outwith these times.

Alternative routes will be available via (1) Hawkhill,, West Marketgait and Nethergate, and (2) Roseangle, Magdalen Yard Road and Windsor Street.

Queries can be answered by the Network Management Team, City Development Department, Dundee House, 50 North Lindsay Street, Dundee, DD1 1LS, or phone 433082.



Brexit and sloppy journalism

Some newspapers and BBC commentators, led by the Evening Standard seem to think everything revolves around Brexit if it is negative. They either avoid the positive or dismiss it as happening despite Brexit.

It has become a lazy habit of mind. Since Brexit, if the pound goes down, it is because of Brexit. When the pound goes up they tend to ignore it. After Brexit they delighted in the short sharp markdown of the Stock Market. When the strong upwards move commenced in the FTSE100 they said they had not meant the FTSE 100, the larger stocks, but had meant the FTSE250 which more accurately captures the domestic economy. When that too surged they switched to another topic.

They quietly dropped their recession forecasts for last winter, and tiptoe round the excellent jobs figures which have continued to show good new job generation throughout the post Brexit vote year. Instead they shifted their forecasts from recession to slowdown, and shifted the date from soon to later.

Using their methods I should be arguing that since the Brexit vote the Stock market is up sharply, showing improved confidence in our future prospects. I should point out that business has given a resounding vote of confidence in post Brexit UK in the most positive way possible, by hiring many more staff. I would point to the continuing very high levels of inward investment, to the growth in new housing being built and sold , and to high levels of consumption as all marvels of the vote. There we have it – the Brexit vote has brought us more jobs, more homes, more inward investment, more business confidence. The main complaint I now have from anti Brexit business is a worry they will not be able to recruit all the labour they need in future. In other words they plan to stay here and invest and grow here.

I do not do so because I think the impact of Brexit is exaggerated. Just as joining the EEC and then the single market did nothing to raise our growth rate – indeed it went down – so leaving the EU will have little economic impact. What it will do is important politically, giving us the power back to shape our own destiny and have a better economic future if we wish to make the changes necessary to bring that about.




8 dead, 1 missing in NE China downpours

Eight people died and another went missing due to rainstorms in northeast China’s Jilin Province, local authorities said Saturday.

Rescuers transfer an injured person in Yongji County, northeast China’s Jilin Province, July 14, 2017. Heavy rain caused waterlogging in Yongji County from July 13 to 14. [Photo/Xinhua]

Torrential rain battered central and eastern Jilin on Thursday and Friday, forcing relocation of more than 120,000 people as of 8 a.m. of Saturday, according to provincial flood control authorities.

In Yongji County, which saw record-breaking daily precipitation, five people died in the disaster.

The rainstorms have affected lives of nearly 320,000 people in 13 counties, damaging homes, roads, bridges and dikes.




CPC issues revised regulation on inspection

The Communist Party of China (CPC) Friday issued a revised regulation on inspection, in a renewed effort to improve supervision and governance of its more than 89 million members.

Shifting its focus from fighting corruption and Party rule violations in the initial rounds of inspections, the amendment lifted political inspection to a more prominent place on its supervision agenda.

The revised rules clearly stipulate that “political inspection should be deepened, and inspections should mainly focus on upholding the Party leadership, improving Party building, and advancing comprehensive and strict rule of the Party.”

The inspections should staunchly safeguard the authority and the centralized, unified leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core, and ensure the CPC is always the firm and core leadership of the socialist cause with Chinese characteristics, it said.

“Political inspection is a major innovation in both theory and practice of the inspection work of the 18th CPC Central Committee,” said Yang Xiaochao, member of the inspection leadership group of the CPC Central Committee.

“Incorporating requirements of political inspection into the regulation is a key point and highlight of the latest revision,” Yang noted.

At a meeting on May 26, the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee decided to amend the Party’s regulation on inspection work, to reflect the latest innovative practices.

The CPC inspection regulation was first put into force on a trial basis in 2009. This is the third version of the regulation following the release of a revised version in August 2015.

The regulation made public Friday also stipulates that Party committees at both the central and provincial levels should conduct inspections on Party organizations of all localities, departments, public institutions and enterprises under their jurisdiction.

In addition, Party committees at the municipal and county levels are also required to establish special agencies to conduct inspections.

On June 21, the CPC discipline agency published the results of its 12th round of inspections into CPC organizations in provincial-level regions, central CPC and government organs, major state-owned enterprises, central financial institutions and centrally-administered universities.

This was the final round of such inspections during the term of the 18th CPC Central Committee, as the 19th CPC National Congress will be held in Beijing later this year. The 18th CPC Central Committee thus became the first in the Party’s history that has successfully inspected all these entities in its term.

Such internal supervision has proven effective in exposing problems.

According to the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, more than 50 percent of investigations into centrally-administered officials were as a result of information found by discipline inspectors, since the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012.

The municipal- and county-level inspections should pay special attention to corruption and bad work styles which hamper the interests of the general populace or alienate Party members from the public, such as major corruption scandals committed by low-level officials or village bullies, said Yang, of the inspection leadership group of the CPC Central Committee..

“With inspections extending from the central to the county level, the comprehensive and strict rule of the Party can be expected to reach the grassroots,” he said.




Investigation reveals fugitive Guo Wengui’s lies

A police investigation found that Guo Wengui, one of China’s most-wanted fugitive, had knowingly used fabricated and distorted information to mislead the public.

According to Chinese police, Chen Xiangjun, 43, who has been unemployed since junior high school, and Zong Zuoling 32, also currently unemployed, confessed that they had offered to give Guo fake information in exchange for money.

Last month, Guo claimed that a relative of a high-level official in China controls 20 trillion yuan (about 3 trillion U.S. dollars) in assets at different firms.

It turned out that Guo’s so-called “proof from senior officials” was all fake business data created by Chen, who received 50,000 yuan in payment for the information.

“I sent him fake information to win his trust, and he asked me to uncover more information on relatives of senior officials so that he could reveal it overseas,” said Chen.

Guo gave out his personal social media accounts online and promised to pay informants, according to the police

Zong, who had less than five yuan in his bank account and 90,000 yuan in credit card debt when the police captured him, claimed to know the secretaries of senior officials.

Chat records showed that Guo promised to give Zong 2 million yuan in exchange for information about Zhang Yue, a former provincial-level official in north China’s Hebei Province.

“Guo told me that he was engaged in anti-graft work,” said Zong. “He criticized me for not giving him accurate information, but still released the fake information I gave him.”

Guo, the actual controlling shareholder of Beijing Pangu Investment and Beijing Zenith Holdings, fled China under the suspicion of multiple crimes in August 2014 and is currently listed on an Interpol “red notice” for wanted fugitives.