Chinese authorities are investigating reports that dozens of men armed with steel pipes and bars attacked a group of migrant construction workers seeking unpaid back wages, officials and reports said yesterday.
Six migrants were injured, two of them seriously, in the attack on Tuesday in Xian, a city in northern China's Shaanxi province, the state-run newspaper Shanghai Daily reported Friday.
The government office overseeing the construction site said Friday it had ordered the real estate developer to pay the workers their overdue wages.
"We will supervise the developer and make sure that every worker can get his money back," said a press spokesman at the Xian High-tech Development Zone, who like many government officials gave only his surname, Wang.
According to Wang, the construction company ran out of money after the real estate developer failed to pay it.
"By now, we have a list of more than 100 people who are owed about 1 million yuan [US$12,000] in wages" in total, he said.
"We're waiting for the list to be completed. The developer has promised to pay all the money within one week of checking and confirming the list."
A group of workers, mostly farmers from neighboring Sichuan province, had summoned local reporters to complain about their unpaid wages, and were arguing with a manager of the construction company when about 30 people arrived and began beating them, the newspaper reported.
Phone calls to the Xian police were not answered Friday morning.
The front-page Shanghai Daily report highlighted the attack as a sign that labor laws meant to protect migrant workers are poorly enforced. Official reports put the number of such itinerant laborers at 140 million, most of them underemployed farmers who seek construction work and other manual labor disdained by city dwellers.
Top communist party leaders have been demanding better enforcement of laws meant to protect such workers, but implementation at the local level is weak.
"Migrants deserve respect," said a headline on the newspaper's editorial page. It said the case was "but one little sliver of a nationwide story."
STEPPING UP: Diminished US polar science presence mean opportunities for the UK and other countries, although China or Russia might also fill that gap, a researcher said The UK’s flagship polar research vessel is to head to Antarctica next week to help advance dozens of climate change-linked science projects, as Western nations spearhead studies there while the US withdraws. The RRS Sir David Attenborough, a state-of-the-art ship named after the renowned British naturalist, would aid research on everything from “hunting underwater tsunamis” to tracking glacier melt and whale populations. Operated by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), the country’s polar research institute, the 15,000-tonne icebreaker — boasting a helipad, and various laboratories and gadgetry — is pivotal to the UK’s efforts to assess climate change’s impact there. “The saying goes
Police in China detained dozens of pastors of one of its largest underground churches over the weekend, a church spokesperson and relatives said, in the biggest crackdown on Christians since 2018. The detentions, which come amid renewed China-US tensions after Beijing dramatically expanded rare earth export controls last week, drew condemnation from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who on Sunday called for the immediate release of the pastors. Pastor Jin Mingri (金明日), founder of Zion Church, an unofficial “house church” not sanctioned by the Chinese government, was detained at his home in the southern city of Beihai on Friday evening, said
TICKING CLOCK: A path to a budget agreement was still possible, the president’s office said, as a debate on reversing an increase of the pension age carries on French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday was racing to find a new prime minister within a two-day deadline after the resignation of outgoing French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu tipped the country deeper into political crisis. The presidency late on Wednesday said that Macron would name a new prime minister within 48 hours, indicating that the appointment would come by this evening at the latest. Lecornu told French television in an interview that he expected a new prime minister to be named — rather than early legislative elections or Macron’s resignation — to resolve the crisis. The developments were the latest twists in three tumultuous
FIRST STAGE: Hamas has agreed to release 48 Israeli hostages in exchange for 250 ‘national security prisoners’ as well as 1,700 Gazans, but has resisted calls to disarm Israel plans to destroy what remains of Hamas’ network of tunnels under Gaza, working with US approval after its hostages are freed, it said yesterday. Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz said that the operation would be conducted under an “international mechanism” led by the US. “Israel’s great challenge after the hostage release phase will be the destruction of all Hamas terrorist tunnels in Gaza,” Katz said. “I have ordered the army to prepare to carry out this mission,” he added. Hamas operates a network of tunnels under Gaza, allowing its fighters to operate out of sight of Israeli reconnaissance. Some have passed under
RSS