Chinese prosecutors have joined an official inquiry into 10 schools that collapsed in last month’s devastating earthquake, preparing possible charges and seeking to ease public anger and suspicions.
In Shifang, one of several areas of Sichuan Province ravaged by the May 12 quake, the procuratorate, or prosecutor, will seek to ensure that probes into the sensitive school issue are done fairly, the Legal Daily reported yesterday.
Parents across Sichuan have complained that a disproportionate number of children died in the quake, due to lax and corrupt building practices. The quake killed nearly 70,000 people, with many thousands more missing and likely dead, and at least 9,000 of them were schoolchildren.
Prosecutors will “enter early into investigations into project quality at 10 collapsed schools in the city to gain first-hand material of construction quality at the collapsed schools, launching preliminary inquiries and prepare for possible investigations into professional crimes,” the Legal Daily said.
Rules on reconstruction issued by Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) demand that local governments preserve documents and samples from schools and other toppled public buildings to assess how to improve standards, the Xinhua news agency said yesterday. Schools, hospitals and other public buildings should be rebuilt to higher quake-resistant standards than homes in the same area, the rules demand.
Meanwhile, a teenager suspected of hacking into the Web site of a seismological bureau and falsely warning of a massive earthquake has been caught by police, state media said yesterday.
The 19-year-old from Jiangsu Province, only identified by the surname Chen, admitted to illegally entering the Web site to show off his technical prowess, the Beijing News reported.
Chen allegedly hacked into the Web site of Guangxi Province’s seismological bureau at the end of last month, the report said, changing words on the home page to urge people to prepare for a “huge earthquake of magnitude 9 or more.”
Chen reportedly hacked into the Web site again on June 1 and 2 and deleted some data, the report said.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘BODIES EVERYWHERE’: The incident occurred at a Filipino festival celebrating an anti-colonial leader, with the driver described as a ‘lone suspect’ known to police Canadian police arrested a man on Saturday after a car plowed into a street party in the western Canadian city of Vancouver, killing a number of people. Authorities said the incident happened shortly after 8pm in Vancouver’s Sunset on Fraser neighborhood as members of the Filipino community gathered to celebrate Lapu Lapu Day. The festival, which commemorates a Filipino anti-colonial leader from the 16th century, falls this year on the weekend before Canada’s election. A 30-year-old local man was arrested at the scene, Vancouver police wrote on X. The driver was a “lone suspect” known to police, a police spokesperson told journalists at the
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has unveiled a new naval destroyer, claiming it as a significant advancement toward his goal of expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, state media said yesterday. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim attended the launching ceremony for the 5,000-tonne warship on Friday at the western port of Nampo. Kim framed the arms buildup as a response to perceived threats from the US and its allies in Asia, who have been expanding joint military exercises amid rising tensions over the North’s nuclear program. He added that the acquisition
RSS