Railway police in Shanghai say they have detained 47 suspects and rescued 21 babies in a months-long crackdown on child trafficking.
The sting operations since last spring, involving police in five provinces, cracked a major baby trafficking ring, with the most recent raid netting 18 suspected child traffickers and 12 babies, according to a police statement on the local government Web site, reported yesterday in local newspapers.
Many of the children were kidnapped from Yunnan Province and taken by train to Jiangsu and Shandong provinces. It was unclear if any of the babies were meant for families in Shanghai.
Nationwide, police have rescued 2,008 kidnapped children and solved 1,717 cases since the crackdown was launched on April 9, a report in the People’s Daily said.
Chinese have a traditional preference for male heirs that is particularly strong in rural areas, resulting in trafficking of boys. Some families also sell their girl babies in order to try for a boy, since the country’s one-child policy limits most families to having one child.
The Ministry of Public Security has said it is setting up a DNA database to combat child trafficking. The database will include DNA from the parents of abducted children and samples from children who are suspected of having been abducted or vagrant children with an unclear history.
Meanwhile, police in Malaysia have rescued six babies from child traffickers who paid women to deliver infants to childless couples for purchase, an official said yesterday.
Authorities have arrested 15 suspects involved in the Kuala Lumpur-based trafficking group, including its operations leader and two pregnant women, a city police official who spoke on condition of anonymity said.
Four boys and two girls — including one two-weeks old — have been rescued and placed in the care of welfare officials since police launched the crackdown earlier this month, he said.
The group promised to pay Malaysian, Indonesian, Filipino and Vietnamese immigrant women 5,000 ringgit (US$1,500) for each baby delivered, officials 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
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS