The city’s acting mayor said they would “ensure zero increase of such structures”.

In November 2017, Beijing tore down buildings that violated safety codes, evicting tens of thousands of workers.

It is unclear how many workers will be displaced this time.

The Chinese capital will also continue to “close small shops operated from illegal openings cut in the wall”, according to an annual report released by acting mayor Chen Jining.

Officials believe these are illegal modifications to traditional buildings.

Although the campaign is being presented as a way to improve the city, critics accuse the government of targeting a vulnerable population with few rights.

Millions of migrant workers have moved from the Chinese countryside to cities in recent decades. The World Bank predicts that by 2030, as many as 70% of Chinese people will live in cities.

However, in recent years Beijing has been trying to reduce the population in some parts of the city by 15% to ease pressure on its infrastructure.

–

Source: BBC

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According to him, this will enhance the roll-out of government’s vision to make sure all Ghanaians, both home and abroad, are well catered for.

Since his assumption of office, Dr. Dwamena has set about organizing Ghanaians in China and Hong Kong into communities with elected executives for each community.

Addressing the Ghanaian Community at a symposium and dinner organized for the Bejing and Hong Kong Communities and the Beijing Community, Dr. Dwamena indicated that, the doors of the embassy were wide open to Ghanaians in China.

Present at the event was the Director -General of Ghana’s Criminal Investigations Department (CID), ACP Bright Oduro.

On his part, he urged Ghanaians in these two countries and elsewhere to abide by the laws of those countries.

“If you don’t do what the laws want you to do, to have a peaceful stay in China or Hong Kong, but decide to do what their citizens do, and you fall into trouble, and you will burden yourself, family and the country as well.”

“If you are lucky, you will be brought home to face jail sentence, if not, the country’s laws will deal with you and no government or any person can intervene, because in these countries, laws are not anything to joke with” he emphasized.

The Embassy used the occasion to organize sports activities for the Communities; Beijing, Beijing Students & Embassy Staff, Guangzhou and Hong Kong.

The teams competed in soccer, lime and spoon, sack race, and tug of peace.

Beijing Community emerged as the winners with Hong Kong and Guangzhou following respectively. Each Community was presented with a trophy and cash as seed fund for the various groups.

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By: Duke Mensah Opoku/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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At the Temple of Heaven, a popular tourist site, toilet users have to stand in front of the smart paper machines with a high definition camera to have their faces recognised, according to Huanqiu, a publication affiliated to the People’s Daily.

Each toilet user can only get a piece of paper measuring 60 cm (24 inches) to 70 cm (28 inches) each time. If they wish to get more paper, then they are required to wait for nine minutes.

Six machines have been installed in the toilets to stop tourists from taking paper to use at home.

Users are required to remove their hats and sunglasses to have their faces recognised.

Following a screenshot photo of their faces, an automatic roller is then activated to provide the user with tissue paper.

If the same person appears within a short time, the device will refuse to roll out paper.

The machines are installed in three public toilets so far. The Temple of Heaven management said it is a pilot scheme to see if visitors are accepting of the new technology, The Beijing News reported.

The new toilet facility has attracted thousands of comments on Weibo, China’s microblogging platform.

‘Probably they should not provide tissue papers for free in the first place,’ one user ‘smiling crab’ noted.

‘This smart paper machine will be vandalised very soon,’ another user ‘coke N’ said.

‘From now on toilet users will be embarrassed to take tissue paper,’ one user ‘vintage lover’  commented.

–

Source: Daily Mail UK

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He said given their sterling performance and the enormous opportunities that existed, they needed to go beyond the idea of community ownership and list on the stock market to attract both local and foreign investment to expand their activities.

Mr Mante was speaking at a day’s seminar on “Enhancing the value of rural bank shares as an attractive asset class for rural and community banks” in Kumasi.

The programme was put together by JCS Investment Limited, the Nwabiagya Rural Bank and Goodwell Investments, with support from the Norwegian Microfinance Initiative.

It is part of efforts aimed at helping to provide the RCBs with the necessary technical assistance to draw additional investments outside shareholders’ contributions.

Mr Mante said although there had been some challenges, the performance of some RCBs in the last three decades showed they were matured and well-positioned to take advantage of the enormous potential at the rural banking sub sector, if they could attract enough capital for their operations.

He said they required opening up for investments to pull long term capital to boost their operations.

Raymond Amanfu, Director, Other Financial Institutions Supervision Department of BOG, said as at the end of March total assets of the 136 RCBs nationwide stood at GH¢1,864 million.

Deposits they had mobilized and credits for the same period came to GH¢1,864.55 million and GH¢716.98 million, showing “a-year-on-year growth” of 13.95 per cent and 12.66 per cent respectively.

He, however, expressed concern about the situation where the top 26 RCBs controlled 52.5 per cent of the aggregate deposits and 50.8 per cent of the credits.

Mr Amanfu said that posed what he termed “concentration risk” and appealed to directors, shareholders and management of the banks to do more to reduce such concentration.

They should also be innovative, proactive and competitive in providing excellent services to customers.

Mr Enock Arkaife, Head Projects at the ARB Apex Bank, said reforms introduced had helped to revamp and strengthen the financial position of RCBs and urged them to continue to devise effective strategies that would help reduce risk.

Source: GNA

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