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China

Outrage In China As Concrete Cones Keep Homeless Away From Underpasses

NANFANG DAILY (China), GUCHENG.COM (China)

Worldcrunch

GUANGZHOU - For a country like China, founded on the precepts of fairness and justice, where the proletariat are supposedly the masters, this wasn't supposed to happen.

Thanks to photographs posted this week by a Chinese blogger, we see the space under a viaduct in Guangzhou city covered with sharp protruding mini concrete pyramids. The nasty-looking teeth-like cones are 10 centimeters high and cover the whole area underneath the elevated road.

Obviously they have been put there so those on the margins of society give no thought to congregating there, even if some manage to sleep in a narrow place nearby: see photo below.

After the news was disclosed it immediately spread across China and caused a public firestorm. The majority of people are appalled at the inhumanity of the Guangzhou authorities as well as their contempt for basic human rights. One blogger asked: "If the authority has the time to do such things, why can't it use the energy and money in helping these people instead?" Gucheng.com reported that another commentator added: "Who gives you the right of using tax-payers' money to make life difficult for people?"

After days of public indignation, the Guangzhou Municipal Construction Committee's official finally admitted that the cement cones in several locations of Guangzhou were put there 10 years ago. Originally they were indeed intended "to prevent tramps from living there", according to the Nanfang Daily.

According to many bloggers who responded to the incident, many other Chinese cities apart from Guangzhou use the same "eyesores', as many put it, to fend off the destitute.

Like those all over the world, China's major cities are full of the impoverished. Often they are migrants who come from the rural areas, and end up stranded on the streets without being able to find any work. The Chinese authorities used to implement an administrative procedure of forced custody and repatriation. They detained people who didn't have a residence permit (the hukou) or a temporary living permit and returned them to where they could legally live or work. The regulation was abolished in 2003 under public pressure after a poor chap called Sun Zhigang was beaten to death while in custody because he happened not to have the right papers on him when searched.

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Economy

Lex Tusk? How Poland’s Controversial "Russian Influence" Law Will Subvert Democracy

The new “lex Tusk” includes language about companies and their management. But is this likely to be a fair investigation into breaking sanctions on Russia, or a political witch-hunt in the business sphere?

Photo of President of the Republic of Poland Andrzej Duda

Polish President Andrzej Duda

Piotr Miaczynski, Leszek Kostrzewski

-Analysis-

WARSAW — Poland’s new Commission for investigating Russian influence, which President Andrzej Duda signed into law on Monday, will be able to summon representatives of any company for inquiry. It has sparked a major controversy in Polish politics, as political opponents of the government warn that the Commission has been given near absolute power to investigate and punish any citizen, business or organization.

And opposition politicians are expected to be high on the list of would-be suspects, starting with Donald Tusk, who is challenging the ruling PiS government to return to the presidency next fall. For that reason, it has been sardonically dubbed: Lex Tusk.

University of Warsaw law professor Michal Romanowski notes that the interests of any firm can be considered favorable to Russia. “These are instruments which the likes of Putin and Orban would not be ashamed of," Romanowski said.

The law on the Commission for examining Russian influences has "atomic" prerogatives sewn into it. Nine members of the Commission with the rank of secretary of state will be able to summon virtually anyone, with the powers of severe punishment.

Under the new law, these Commissioners will become arbiters of nearly absolute power, and will be able to use the resources of nearly any organ of the state, including the secret services, in order to demand access to every available document. They will be able to prosecute people for acts which were not prohibited at the time they were committed.

Their prerogatives are broader than that of the President or the Prime Minister, wider than those of any court. And there is virtually no oversight over their actions.

Nobody can feel safe. This includes companies, their management, lawyers, journalists, and trade unionists.

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