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Chinese customs detains 15 suspected of smuggling baby milk formula A woman shops for baby milk formula at a store in Shanghai. Photo: Bloomberg
Fifteen people were detained last month in coordinated raids across China on criminal gangs accused of smuggling 1 billion yuan (US$152.4 million) worth of baby milk formula into the country over the past two years, according to state media reports.
The suspects were apprehended when 178 customs officers raided dozens of locations in Guangzhou, Shanghai, Shaoxing, Wuhan, Changsha and Shenzhen, Xinhua said on Friday.
The suspects were members of syndicates that used foreign courier firms to illegally import the milk formula from overseas, the report said, adding that by claiming the goods were for personal use they were able to evade customs duties and sell them online at discounts of up to 40 per cent.
Hong Kong Ballet’s artistic director Septime Webre followed his sister to ballet school and never looked back Artistic Director of the Hong Kong Ballet, Septime Webre, at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre, in Tsim Sha Tsui. Photo: SCMP / Xiaomei Chen
The seventh son: I m the seventh son in a family of eight brothers and one sister. My six older brothers were all born and brought up in Cuba. My mother was Cuban and my father American. They left Cuba during the revolution and I was born in the United States soon after they arrived in the early 1960s.
As a small child, we moved to the Bahamas and my first memories are of a beautiful island with a gorgeous white beach and blue water. There were only four kids in my class at school. My dad had a sugar plantation in Cuba and was an engineer who designed sugar mills.
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Time to bring stranded Hongkongers home Travellers at check-in desks at Terminal 2 of Heathrow Airport in west London in December. Photo: AFP
The hundreds of Hong Kong residents stranded in Britain since December by a sudden, unprecedented ban on flights might not attract much sympathy. The pandemic has claimed almost three million lives and many have endured much greater suffering.
But last week s mad scramble for seats on the first two chartered flights to bring them home is the latest frustration in a stressful experience. Those trapped include students, teachers, the elderly, families with young children, pregnant women, professionals and businesspeople.
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Fifa 2022 World Cup deaths in Qatar: the ugly side of the beautiful game The Khalifa International Stadium, one of the venues of the Fifa 2022 World Cup. Photo: dpa
Every four years, when the World Cup rolls around, most football fans are willing to pay the price of sleep deprivation and sorely tested relationships. But there have been other, far steeper, costs for next year s edition in Qatar.
In February, reports emerged that more than 6,500 migrant workers from India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka had died in the Middle East nation since 2011, when it won the right to host the tournament. A significant proportion of those who died were involved in Doha s US$200 billion World Cup-related infrastructure drive, according to The Guardian.
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Coronavirus: experts back quarantine-free travel to Hong Kong for fully vaccinated passengers from low-risk countries Calls have been made for restrictions on travellers entering Hong Kong to be lowered. Photo: Nora Tam
Health experts have backed calls for fully vaccinated travellers from Covid-19 low-risk countries to be allowed quarantine-free entry into Hong Kong subject to conditions such as mandatory testing.
The city s tourism lawmaker on Friday also said a proposal to partially lift Covid-19 restrictions for visitors from mainland China will fail to revive the sector.
Officials are looking at expanding the Return2HK scheme - which welcomes back Hongkongers from Guangdong province or Macau without them undergoing mandatory 14-day quarantine - to other parts of the country, as well as offering the exemption to non-residents crossing the mainland border.