BEIJING (AP) – Officials in Beijing have announced a new environmental police squad to root out illegal burning in the city, the latest government response to the widespread public anger over China’s persistent problems with smog.
Beijing’s acting mayor, Cai Qi, said at a meeting Saturday that the force would target open-air barbecues, garbage incineration and the burning of wood and other biomass, according to China’s official Xinhua News Agency.
Cai announced several other measures, including a target of cutting the use of coal by 30 percent in 2017, and shutting down 500 higher-polluting factories and upgrading 2,500 more. About 300,000 high-pollution vehicles will also be restricted from entering the capital starting next month, he said.
Beijing and dozens of cities in China spend many winter days under a thick, gray haze, with air pollution levels that routinely exceed World Health Organization guidelines. Last week, more than 20 cities were on “red alert,” the highest warning level in China’s four-tiered system, while Beijing was on the second-highest “orange alert.”
Smog is an acutely felt issue in China’s cities, where a red alert can lead to the closure of schools and businesses, flight cancellations, and shutdowns of highways to keep cars off the roads. During a red alert in Beijing last month, authorities banned construction crews from spray-painting and even seized the charcoal grills from some restaurants.
But enforcement remains an issue. China’s environmental ministry said during last week’s red alert that its inspection teams found companies resuming production despite a government ban. Many factories remain under severe pressure to meet production targets regardless of air pollution.
Cai on Saturday blamed polluting activities like burning garbage or wood on “the result of lax supervision and weak law enforcement.”
But China’s pollution is caused chiefly by its thousands of coal-burning factories and a surplus of older, inefficient vehicles. While it tries to answer the loud public calls to tamp down on pollution, the Communist government is also grappling with an economic slowdown and the challenge of maintaining growth.
China is also the world’s largest producer and consumer of coal, and measures like capping production days or shutting down older coal mines run the risk of driving up energy prices and further slowing the economy.
___
Associated Press researcher Henry Hou contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2017 The Washington Times, LLC.
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A man was killed in a fire that destroyed a home on Three Mile Pond in China early Sunday morning.
The man, who was not been identified pending notification of his family, was found outside the home after firefighters responded at about 1 a.m., said Steve McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety.
The fire at the single-family house was discovered by a plow-truck driver.
A team from the Maine Fire Marshal’s office is investigating the cause of the fire.
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Seventy six thoroughbred horses have been flown to Beijing in the largest ever single export of Irish racing bloodstock to China.
The animals transported in the three million euro airlift have all been purchased by Chinese businessman Zhang Yuesheng.
The transaction has been hailed as a major leap into the lucrative Chinese market. To date, over 90% of thoroughbreds imported into China are sourced from Australia and New Zealand.
The horses were bought from Irish breeders on behalf of Mr Yuesheng by Kildare-based bloodstock agency BBA Ireland.
They were flown in a Boeing 747 cargo plane from Shannon airport. They travelled with a team of professional flying grooms and a vet, with 30 handlers on the ground involved in the three-hour process of loading the animals at Shannon.
On arrival the horses were transported to stables where they will go into training in China before debuting in Chinese races.
BBA Ireland worked in conjunction with the Irish Thoroughbred Marketing (ITM), the not-for-profit, government-backed company that promotes Ireland as a leading source for the production and sale of quality thoroughbreds worldwide.
Declan Murray, managing director at BBA Ireland, said: « This is really good business for the Irish equine industry, not least for small breeders from whom most of these horses were purchased.
« Many of these horses might not have met the high standards of the Irish and European market but they are still of a higher standard than the average horse currently racing in China.
« So Irish breeders get a good price for horses they might not otherwise have got, the industry here further develops the emerging Chinese market and China gets a higher quality race horse. Everyone wins with this.  »
Chief commercial officer for Shannon Group, which operates Shannon Airport, Andrew Murphy said: « We are well used to ‘firsts’ at Shannon but having a record airlift of Irish horses to China from here was very exciting for all concerned.
« BBA Ireland are experts in this market and we are delighted to be working with them. We also have considerable experience and expertise over the years in handling this type of precious cargo through sizeable equine lifts for some of the Irish larger stud farms that have horses going to the United States, Middle East and onto Australia. « 

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It’s my birthday tomorrow. Depends when you’re reading this, of course, but it’s on 7 January, always has been, since I was born. Though in fact I did change it, for 20 years, to 7 July, much to my mother’s annoyance. We were always in Portugal in July, so I thought it would be a better time to have a party, rather than boring, dreary, miserable old January. If the Queen can have two birthdays, why can’t the rest of us?
No presents, please. Just wish me luck in getting to 90. That’s my ambition, having got over the hurdle of being 80 – hold on, 81 – tomorrow. I want to be here to see my older grandchildren, now aged 16, leave college, if they ever go, and get a job (they’ll be lucky). But mostly I want to see what it’s like when China dominates world football. Which they will do, don’t you worry.
For the past five years the Chinese have been throwing half-decent money at football but not getting much for it, buying knackered former stars who hang on for about a year and crawl back home again.
But now they’ve splashed out and spent top money, breaking the world record for salaries. Shanghai Shenhua are paying Carlos Tevez £615,000 a week, and SIPG FC, also of Shanghai, will be paying Oscar £400,000, making them the highest-paid footballers on the planet. Oscar is only 25 and could easily have moved from Chelsea to another Prem club.
The Chinese have still not tempted many top managers, but that will come. The club that Tevez is going to is managed by Gus Poyet, ex-Brighton and Sunderland.
Why are the Chinese doing it? Because they can. They have loads of money. They love the sport and plan to become a dominant force, exerting power and influence over the rest of football. And the world generally. Which is rather sweet and reassuring – that they consider football as a passport to world fame.
Then what will happen? I foresee the Premier League being demoted in the pecking order. If the Chinese league has all the world’s best players and clubs and managers, then naturally all dopey, half-witted, unthinking, craven fans, such as my good self, will want to tune in to their top games rather than ours.
“Ours”, of course, are no longer ours. The Prem is totally dominated by foreign players. All the top clubs have foreign managers, plus there are more and more foreign owners. It doesn’t really matter to them where they play or run football, if the money’s good enough, the standard of play high and the league competitive.
What about Sky? What will it do? Its audience figures are now shaky, but thanks to Uncle Rupert it’s a world player with branches everywhere. The recently launched China Global Television Network will doubtless compete with it for football rights – and could win.
The English Premier League is purely local. It can’t very well run a league in China, and won’t be able to boast it’s the best league in the world, which is a nonsense anyway. The Spanish league has the best players and the world’s two best teams.
Sky, technically, has been a plus for football, as its coverage is excellent, but I can’t see what good the Premier League has done, apart from making more money for the elite clubs, leaving the rest of football to scrabble around. It’s mad that in England we have three bodies for the sport – the Prem, the FA and the Football League. One committee of suits would be quite sufficient.
And what about us, the fans? We would still be able to watch the top players on our tellies. Our local teams, which date back well over a hundred years, and which we all love and cherish, blah blah, will survive in some form.
I fully expect, when I’m 90, that the Prem will have turned into one of those leagues in Australia or the US or Canada or the Gulf, where clapped-out stars went to play before dying, such as Jermain Defoe. What am I saying? He came back.
I bet he’ll still be playing here in 2026, along with John Terry and Steven Gerrard, who will be even bigger stars in a smaller pool. “Come on, you crocks,” I’ll shout at them. And myself. .
In 2017, a new political ad has begun doing the rounds. Produced by the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association, and shared by Labour’s grassroots organisation Momentum, it features Dutch, French and German citizens thanking the British taxpayers for paying European companies to run their trains.
Critics say the left is tapping into xenophobia. Here, filmmaker Paul Nicholson defends the controversial advert.
If you get a train in the UK today, chances are it will be on a publicly-run train. It won’t, however, be run by the British public. Almost every line in the UK is controlled by the state-owned rail companies of Germany, France or the Netherlands.
Nothing highlights the absurdity of rail privatisation more. If the free-market-promoting Tory government truly believed that the private sector is the most efficient, then why do the publicly-owned rail companies of other countries continue to win franchise contracts?
As your rail fares rise again, here’s a special message from our friends on the continent… #RailFail #RailRipOff pic.twitter.com/tiiuoVRIdh
— Momentum (@PeoplesMomentum) January 3, 2017
The Tories love the trappings of patriotism, the flag-waving and anthem-singing, but when it comes to really believing in the British people they fall short. They would prefer the French government to run British trains rather than let the British people do it themselves. They would prefer the German government running British trains than admit that rail privatisation has been a failure. Meanwhile, fares have increased by 27 per cent since 2010 while wages have fallen, as the quality of services continue to decline and staffing levels are cut, making travel less safe and accessible for passengers and resulting in strike action.
One of the main reasons I voted for Jeremy Corbyn for leader in 2015 was that he was the only candidate advocating bringing our railways back into public ownership. Although it’s a common-sense policy with support of over 60 per cent of the public from across the political spectrum, Labour is the only major party supporting this policy.
Bringing our railways back into public ownership is the perfect starting point to begin the rollback against Tory privatisation. If we can show people the flaws in privatised railways, then maybe we can convince them of the need to take back public ownership of our energy companies. To stop the escalating privatisation of the NHS. To show that selling assets such as the Royal Mail or council houses only results in them being leased back to us for a higher cost.
This is why I made this video for the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association. It has the dual purpose of showing that European countries have a public system that they are happy with, as well as showing the absurdity of our private system that results in these same foreign public companies running our network. I also wanted to make the point that for all the Brexiteer’s language about taking back control, for some reason they fall silent when it comes to privatisation, which will carry on regardless of whether or not Britain is a member of the EU. If we actually want to take back control from economic elites then we need to end the privatisation of our vital services, which enable private companies and other governments to make huge profits from services which are funded by the British public.
Some have criticised the video as pandering to xenophobia. I disagree. The video is intended to be funny and satirical, and is explicit in pointing out that the question of the EU is irrelevant to rail privatisation.
There was absolutely no intention to suggest that individual citizens of European countries are truly pleased about the privatisation of our rail networks. I’m an immigrant myself and the cast are all European migrants. The Dutch actor in particular was amused by those accusing him of having a dodgy accent! Overall, we’ve spoken for ourselves and hope we’ve injected some humour into the debate and attracted more attention to this important issue.
Paul Nicholson is a freelance filmmaker and a Labour member. The video ad was commissioned and paid for by TSSA. He is writing in a personal capacity.

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