Twelve officials have been jailed for negligence and abuses of power that led to at least 277 people being killed in a landslide in northern China last year, state media reported yesterday.
The Sept. 8 disaster in the northern province of Shanxi occurred when an illegal mine dumping pond burst, swamping a village of 1,000 people in a torrent of mud and sludge.
Investigations found the dumping pond had been built in violation of regulations and had almost no safety inspections, Xinhua news agency reported, citing the Xiangfen County court.
Eight land and resources officials, an environmental protection official and three township officials were handed jail sentences on Saturday ranging from one to five years, the report said.
DISMISSAL
Also on Saturday, Xia Zhengui (夏振貴), 53, former secretary of the Communist Party of China committee in nearby Linfen City, was dismissed from the National People’s Congress for his role in the disaster.
The accident led to the resignation of Shanxi Governor Meng Xuenong (孟學農) and the dismissal of Zhang Jianmin (張建民), Shanxi’s vice governor, last year.
Officials were suspected of “deliberately concealing” the discovery of bodies during initial rescue efforts to keep the death count down, state media previously reported, quoting the national work-safety administration.
Corruption is often cited as a reason for the horrendous number of deaths in China’s mining industry.
MINING DEATHS
The total number of mining-related deaths last year is unknown, but more than 3,200 people died in China’s coal mines alone, official figures show.
However, independent monitors say those numbers are likely far lower than the true number of deaths, as officials and mine owners often try to cover up accidents to avoid punishment.
Government figures also show that almost 80 percent of the nation’s 16,000 mines are illegal, Xinhua said.
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Committee is to gather in July for a key meeting known as a plenum, the third since the body of elite decisionmakers was elected in 2022, focusing on reforms amid “challenges” at home and complexities broad. Plenums are important events on China’s political calendar that require the attendance of all of the Central Committee, comprising 205 members and 171 alternate members with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at the helm. The Central Committee typically holds seven plenums between party congresses, which are held once every five years. The current central committee members were elected at the
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaffirmed his pledge to replace India’s religion-based marriage and inheritance laws with a uniform civil code if he returns to office for a third term, a move that some minority groups have opposed. In an interview with the Times of India listing his agenda, Modi said his government would push for making the code a reality. “It is clear that separate laws for communities are detrimental to the health of society,” he said in the interview published yesterday. “We cannot be a nation where one community is progressing with the support of the Constitution while the other
CODIFYING DISCRIMINATION: Transgender people would be sentenced to three years in prison, while same-sex relations could land a person in jail for more than a decade Iraq’s parliament on Saturday passed a bill criminalizing same-sex relations, which would receive a sentence of up to 15 years in prison, in a move rights groups condemned as an “attack on human rights.” Transgender people would be sentenced to three years’ jail under the amendments to a 1988 anti-prostitution law, which were adopted during a session attended by 170 of 329 lawmakers. A previous draft had proposed capital punishment for same-sex relations, in what campaigners had called a “dangerous” escalation. The new amendments enable courts to sentence people engaging in same-sex relations to 10 to 15 years in prison, according to the