Where debating everything under the sun is only the beginning

The residents of Beijing are no strangers to sinkholes.

They have seen sinkholes resulting from the construction of subways, the collapse of underground infrastructure, even inexplicable natural phenomena.

Yet none of them had been like this one caused by an illicit building project under the home - a home away from home, to be precise - of a lawmaker from Xuzhou, Jiangsu province, East China.

The 15-by-5-meter, and 10 meter-deep hole caused the collapse of the proprietor's own quadrangle as well as part of another next to it on Tuesday. Fifteen households had to be evacuated due to safety considerations.

The accident temporarily halted public transport and water supply along a historical street in uptown Beijing, all because the moneyed entrepreneur lawmaker wanted to dig an 18-meter-deep, five-level basement under his Beijing home.

Historical courtyards, mostly old quadrangles, in the historical districts of Beijing are subject to strict government protection. Part of the proprietor's home is under grade-II protection according to Beijing's regulations. Which means all building projects related to it must be approved by the relevant authorities.

The lawmaker has not consulted them. Not because he was not aware of the need. His 2010 attempt to renovate the property was stopped by the district authorities, and he was fined.

Last July, the authorities again summoned the owner, ordering him to stop the new basement project, which he had started without approval. Again, he was fined.

This lawmaker from Xuzhou is reminding us, again, of exemplary lawlessness.

We are curious what has motivated him to openly ignore an explicit local legislation. We are ashamed to be talking about a lawmaker's disregard of the law. We have no idea what has brought him the seat on the local legislature.

But more likely than not, it was money.

In fairness to the lawmaker, he should not be the only one blamed. His project has proceeded for a while. And the urban management authorities have received repeated complaints from the lawmaker's neighbors. Even without those reports, signs of building activities have been obvious at the site.

Strangely, the urban management officers, who are infamous for treating helpless street vendors with unnecessary force, have appeared forceless throughout. We just wonder why they have been so unlike themselves in this case.

Since the gaokao determines your academic career, essentially your future, the stress level is very high. And since the exams are on the same days in a province, those days have an impact on society. The months ahead of the exam are usually the worst in a student's life. Thereafter there's a chance of learning, not merely cramming.

An annual cross-border police crackdown on organised crime activities, postponed last year due to the Occupy protests, has hit back harder this year - with 51,000 suspects arrested in Hong Kong, Macau and Guangdong.

In Hong Kong, police raided more than 7,500 premises, including vice dens, gambling venues and residential flats.

A total of 4,343 people, including 1,177 mainlanders, were arrested for various offences such as drug trafficking, gambling and illegal lending.

Officers confiscated about HK$102 million in cash, illegal drugs and contraband and froze more than HK$2.1 million in crime proceeds during the three-month operation that ended last week.

Meanwhile those cripto-comunist-nazis-capitalists changed the one children imposition. Now on Chinese can have two children.
They will double faster than rabbits. Not even nature catastrophes can finish with them.