Kunming airport warns drone owners to steer clear

 

Changshui International Airport in Kunming, Yunnan Province. [Photo: China Daily]

Drones have been found at the clearance protection zone of an airport in southwest China’s Yunnan Province, and local police are investigating.

Sources with Kunming Changshui International Airport in the provincial capital said Sunday that there were four or five incidents in the past two days of drones flying close to the airport.

“Regulations stipulate that unmanned balloons, kites, gliders and parachutes are not allowed within the clearance protection zone, about 1,028 square kilometers surrounding the runway,” an official said. “Those who violate the regulations are subject to fines up to 100,000 yuan (about 14,600 U.S. dollars).”

The flying of drones could pose a threat to aviation safety, though the incidents reported did not disrupt flights at the airport.




Experiment zone in Qinghai to protect Tibetan culture

 

A woman wearing traditional Tibetan costumes is seen during a fashion show held at Batang grassland of Yushu city of Yushu Tibetan autonomous prefecture, Northwest China’s Qinghai province, July 26, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua]

The Ministry of Culture has agreed to build an experiment zone in China’s northwestern Qinghai Province to protect Tibetan ecological and cultural heritage.

According to Wang Dongmei, head of the culture and sports bureau in the Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai, the zone will cover the city of Yushu and its adjacent counties.

On the zone’s protection list are the physical and cultural heritage items related to the local Tibetan people in the Sanjiangyuan area, which is home to the headwaters of the Yangtze, Yellow, and Lancang (Mekong) rivers, Wang said.

Yushu is home to seven national-level cultural heritage sites, 29 provincial-level sites as well as two historical villages. The song and dance, costumes of ethnic minorities, and metal forging techniques are all listed as intangible heritage in China.

Wang told Xinhua that Yushu has eleven national items of intangible heritage and 24 national “cultural inheritors.”

“The experiment zone will help boost protection of Tibetan culture and local ecology as a whole, and sustainable development of the society and economy,” said Tsering Teg, governor of Yushu.

Yushu has recovered from a magnitude 7.1 earthquake that hit the region on April 14, 2010. It affected 246,800 people, leaving 2,220 dead and more than 100,000 homeless.




Top procuratorate vows to get tougher with economic crimes

China’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) has promised severe punishments for economic crimes that affect interests of lots of people, including illegally absorbing public deposits and fundraising fraud.

It also urged procuratorates to give more priority to the prevention of financial risks, cracking down on crimes such as money laundering and underground banking, and take an active part in Internet financial risk management, according to an SPP statement.

The SPP also pledged to strengthen work against manipulation and insider trading in securities and futures markets, and in supervision of property markets.

High-profile cases of financial crimes have been reported in China in the past years, including the illegal fund-raising activity of Ezubao and the case of Xu Xiang, general manager of a Shanghai-based investment company indicted for allegedly manipulating the securities market.




304 department-level officials receive disciplinary punishments in 2016

In 2016, 304 department-level officials from central government bodies received disciplinary punishment, according to disciplinary authorities.

Among the 304 officials, 126 were punished for violating the “eight-point” guidelines against bureaucracy and extravagance, according to a work conference on disciplinary work of central government bodies.

In 2016, discipline inspection authorities dealt with over 22,500 tip-offs concerning disciplinary violations of central state agencies’ officials, four times that of the previous year.




China contains rise in telecom fraud: ministry

Chinese police solved 83,000 cases of telecom and Internet fraud in 2016, up 49.6 percent year on year, according to the Ministry of Public Security.

The ministry noted that the number of cases has dropped significantly since last September.

The increase in telecom and Internet fraud has been contained, the ministry said in a statement, adding that economic losses caused by telecom and Internet fraud in 2016 decreased by 10.9 percent year on year.

Last year, Chinese police dispatched work teams to several countries, including Kenya, Laos, Malaysia, Cambodia and Spain, and took back 561 telecom fraud suspects, the ministry said.

In 2016, police nationwide busted nearly 7,700 telecom fraud rings.

According to the ministry, Chinese police have successfully stopped bank transfers to 73,000 fraud accounts and recovered 1.13 billion yuan (around 164.8 million U.S. dollars) since June 2016 when banks and police nationwide began cooperation to respond to telecom fraud.