ACC Appointment
The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has approved the appointment of Shri Rajinder Khanna, [Former Secretary
The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has approved the appointment of Shri Rajinder Khanna, [Former Secretary
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Zhou Xingbai (L) stands trial on Feb. 17, 2017 for a blast that he carried out at the Shanghai Pudong International Airport last June. [Photo: Weibo.com] |
A man found guilty of setting off a homemade bomb at the Shanghai Pudong International Airport last June has been sentenced to eight years in prison.
According to a verdict announced by the Shanghai No.3 Intermediate People’s Court on Friday, Zhou Xingbai was also deprived of his political rights for two years.
Zhou set off a homemade explosive device at a check-in counter at 2:26 p.m. on June 12, 2016. Four people, including a Philippine national, suffered minor injuries. A number of flights were cancelled or delayed due to the incident.
Zhou also cut his own throat with a knife at the airport but was taken to hospital for medical treatment.
The 29-year-old from southwest China’s Guizhou Province became a migrant worker in 2006 after finishing middle school.
He has allegedly been addicted to online gambling since 2014, squandering his savings and living in heavy debt. On his WeChat account, he wrote that he owed many people money and was going to do something “very crazy.”
Zhou has no mental illness and should take full criminal responsibility for his actions, according to the Institute of Forensic Science under the Ministry of Justice.
Prosecutors in eastern China’s Zhejiang and Shandong Provinces are investigating recent hospital malpractice that caused infections, according to the Supreme People’s Procuratorate Friday.
The procuratorate said that it had been closely watching the latest developments in the investigation and asked for early intervention by local prosecuting departments to help police objectively collect evidence.
In early February, five people were found infected with HIV after a technician at Zhejiang Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital reused pipettes on separate patients, according to Zhejiang provincial health and family planning commission.
In Shandong, a total of nine patients were infected by hepatitis B in January after medical staff at the hospital’s hemodialysis unit were negligent.
One of my main arguments for the UK to leave the EU was to allow the rest of the members to complete their union free from the UK seeking to hold them back. Anyone looking at the state of the Eurozone can see that the poorer parts of the zone need larger financial transfers from the richer parts. The way the system works at the moment is through the so called Target 2 balances. The latest figures show that Germany now has a huge deposit of Euro 796 billion with the European Central Bank. This is lent out interest free for as long as it is needed to the large deficit countries. Italy, Spain, Greece and Portugal are the main beneficiaries. In a normal currency Union the equivalent region to Germany would simply send more grants to the parts of the Union needing more money. These balances may well become an important part of the German election debate over how much money Germany should share with the rest of the Union, and how that should be organised.
David Cameron felt he had to keep the UK out of the Fiscal treaty that wanted to start to address this issue. The UK always made clear as a member it did not wish to see a bigger EU budget and did not wish to send more of its cash to the poorer high unemployment regions of the south of the Eurozone. The rest of the EU with the possible exception of a few richer Northern countries did want a growing budget with more solidarity recognised in higher transfer payments. It was increasingly difficult to be in the EU but not be in the Euro, the central feature of the EU. The UK was also reluctant to work on a European defence identity or common armed forces, was out of the Schengen common borders and an opponent of the planned political Union with an EU Treasury and more common taxation. The UK public had always been told the EU was just a glorified free trade area which should be good for our exports. In practice it was a customs Union with many and growing features of a full economic, monetary and political union, which was better for their exports to us. It stopped us having free trade agreements with many other parts of the world.
One of the strange things about the UK debate since the decision to leave is the wish of some to argue both that the UK will lose out badly from leaving, and that we have to be punished to make sure we do lose out. The Commission and some in other member states who keep on saying they need to demonstrate we will lose from departure argue a contradiction. If, as they say, belonging is such good news, leaving is punishment enough. If, as they imply, belonging is such bad news, then of course they need to replicate as many of the undesirable features of belonging as they can on the departing state to stop it doing better! It makes it a highly negative approach. Pessimism rules, and a few suggest revenge is their favourite dish. They will of course discover revenge is a boomerang. They cannot hurt us because we are shaking off their controls but they can hurt themselves by imposing high tariffs on their agricultural exports to us and higher taxes to make up for our lost contributions. They should also remember that their own Treaty makes it clear they have a legal obligation to get on well with a neighbouring state and to trade with it.
I find the delay in the EU acknowledging that all UK citizens legally settled in the rest of the EU can stay there is shocking. Surely these officials and politicians understand that no decent country expels legally settled law abiding citizens from its jurisdiction? The UK has no wish to expel EU citizens legally here in the UK. What is holding back the rest of the EU saying the same? This should not be a negotiation. This is not something the UK wants and has to pay for. This is just basic decency, and international law.
17 February 2017 – Amid worsening of an already devastating drought in Somalia, United Nations agencies have underlined that only a massive and immediate scale-up of humanitarian assistance can help the country avoid falling into another catastrophe.
According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) some 6.2 million people – almost half the country’s population – are either severely food insecure or in need of livelihood support.
“Huge numbers of Somalis have come to the end of all their possible resources and are living hand-to-mouth,” said Steven Lauwerier, the UNICEF Somalia Representative, underlining that there is only a small window of opportunity to arrest the looming humanitarian crisis and save lives.
The situation of children is particularly concerning: close to one million children are estimated to be malnourished this year, including 185,000 severely malnourished and in need of urgent lifesaving support. There are also grave fears that this number could increase to 270,000 over the coming months.
The ongoing drought and other shocks have left communities – that have already been battered by decades of conflict – with little to no resources to fall back on, the two UN agencies said in a joint news release.
Whole villages have lost their crops or seen their livestock die. The prices of water and locally produced food have risen dramatically, and thousands of people are on the move in search of food and water.
The drought has also led to an increase in waterborne diseases with more than 4,000 cases of Acute Watery Diarrhoea/Cholera this year.
“Humanitarian assistance has saved lives in the drought-affected north over the past year, but as the crisis spreads we have no time to lose,” added WFP Country Director Laurent Bukera, noting that together with its partners, the UN agency is “moving as quickly as possible” to reach people with lifesaving support.
Humanitarian assistance has saved lives in the drought-affected north over the past year, but as the crisis spreads we have no time to loseWFP Country Director Laurent Bukera
The two agencies further noted that humanitarian access remains conqueringly limited in some drought-affected areas of the south, but that WFP and UNICEF are reinforcing their joint efforts to scale up the response in areas that are accessible, where millions of lives are at risk.
The agencies have been responding together to the drought by providing food and water vouchers to hundreds of thousands across the most affected areas of Somalia as well as nutrition assistance.
As additional resources are mobilised, the joint response will continue to expand in the most vulnerable regions.
However, with growing needs, more funds are needed. UNICEF and WFP together still require more than $450 million to be able to provide urgent assistance required in the coming months.