China has issued more than 98 million e-chip passports, which contain the personal information of the bearer, the Ministry of Public Security said Saturday. Since chipped passports were launched in March 2012, 6.6 million were issued that year alone a… read more
[unable to retrieve full-text content]The Chancellor’s message in Delhi and Mumbai this week is that the UK is perfectly placed to finance manufacturing growth in India. read more
Diane Abbott MP, Labour’s Shadow Home Secretary, responding to reports of a brutal attack on a 17 year old asylum seeker yesterday evening, said:
“Sadly this is not an isolated incident, but part of a sustained increase in hate crimes that this Tory government is yet to offer any effective response to.
“With right-wing politicians across the world scapegoating migrants, refugees and others for their economic problems, we are seeing a deeply worrying rise in the politics of hate.
“We must make clear that there is no place for anti-foreigner myths, racism and hate in our society.”
read moreSeven people died and another was critically injured in a series of car crashes in central China’s Henan Province, police with Xinyang City said Saturday. The accident occurred early Saturday at an expressway section in Xixian County of Xinyang. More … read more
“Today many businesses across the country will see their business rates increase substantially. For some firms, it will seriously threaten their viability and continued existence. However, today it also transpires that the Government’s inadequate measures to mitigate these effects are not even in place to help businesses. The support fund the Government promised is reportedly not even up and running and nor is the Government clear on how it will work.
“The Government’s botched business rate revaluation has created a huge and destabilising burden for many businesses. Prior to the budget Labour announced its Five Point Plan for business rates, which promised to set up an Emergency Relief Fund, undo Tory restrictions on the appeals process, bring forward the shift from RPI to CPI indexation, and remove most categories of new plant and machinery from valuations, as well as a fundamental rethink of business rates in the longer term. Today the Government must rise to Labour’s challenge by taking action to defuse the ticking time bomb of business rates and bringing forward additional transitional relief for small and medium sized firms.”
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