China Chronicles October 1, 2012
- 6 dead, 14 injured in bus fire near Beijing
Six people, including five German nationals and a Chinese, died and 14 others were injured after a tourist bus rear-ended a container truck and caught fire today near Beijing, police said.
The bus, whose had a license plate from Beijing, was carrying a group of German tourists and was driving on a pivotal expressway linking Beijing with Shanghai when the accident happened at 8:30 am, said police authorities in Tianjin.
Police said the tour group was organized by the Beijing-based China Youth Travel Service.
It said the identities of the victims were not immediately known.
It was also unclear how many people were traveling in the bus. Witnesses said they saw a few people escaped from the flames.
A photo posted by witnesses on the web showed the whole vehicle was engulfed in flames and dark smoke.
The municipal government of Tianjin has demanded urgent treatment of the injured. The cause of the accident is under investigation. - Bus catches fire near Beijing, casualties unknown
A tourist bus caught fire this morning near Beijing, but the number of casualties were not immediately known, witnesses said.
It was also unclear how many people were traveling in the bus.
Photos posted by witnesses on the web showed the whole vehicle was engulfed in flames and dark smoke.
The accident happened at the juncture area between Beijing and Tianjin, on a pivotal expressway linking the capital with Shanghai.
Traffic police in Tianjin's Wuqing district were on their way to the site. - guilin 279 copy
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- Pink app to help end anti-gay bias in HK
Paul Ramscar believes his Pink Dollar app is a lot more than just another snippet of smartphone software: it is a social game-changer that will help end discrimination against gays and lesbians.
The smartphone application aims to put members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in touch with businesses deemed friendly to sexual minorities in Hong Kong.
"It's not just an app, there is a bigger cause here," said the former investment banker who hails from Britain and moved to Hong Kong in 2007.
Ramscar believes the software - soon to be launched on Apple iPhones and eventually Android devices - will break down cultural barriers in a city where homosexuality was decriminalized only two decades ago.
More than 100 cooperating firms will participate in Pink Dollar, from gyms to restaurants and real estate agents.
Users will rate businesses' LGBT-friendliness with a scale from light to hot pink. A hot pink rating is the friendliest.
Those that receive bad reviews may get a "please explain" visit from Ramscar himself.
With the "pink dollar" LGBT market worth around US$2-3 trillion globally a year, Ramscar said the app will benefit businesses as much as consumers.
"The gay community keeps spending. They don't stop their spending habits because they don't have the commitments of kids, school fees and having to put extra food on the table, so they keep spending," he said.
Hong Kong is relatively safe for the gay community, but rights groups say local laws are discriminatory and prejudice is widespread.
Survey author Amanda Yik, from Community Business, a non-profit group that promotes corporate social responsibility, said the Pink Dollar app itself is a sign that discrimination exists in the regional banking center.
"It shows there is definitely a business opportunity and market share that companies can tap into if they are able to demonstrate they are inclusive and welcome the LGBT community," she said.
Evan! Steer, who has listed a restaurant and a bar with the app, believes it will make a difference. "At the end of the day, money talks and people will start asking which businesses are not on the app. Where money flows, it can influence policy," he said.
- Helicopters keep an eye on Beijing's holiday traffic
BEIJING police were using helicopters to monitor expressway traffic for the first time yesterday, the start of the eight-day Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holiday.
Traffic built up before dawn as holiday-makers rushed to hit the road to take advantage of the country's toll-free expressways trial. The Beijing Traffic Management Bureau said there were long queues of cars in front of the toll gates of all 17 expressways in Beijing by 6am.
Helicopters relayed video of traffic to ground command headquarters to help police direct traffic and check driving violations.
The police aviation fleet was set up in July last year.
- Early start didn't help in the rush for buses
There was chaos at a long-distance bus station in Ji'nan, capital city of eastern Shandong Province on Saturday, as thousands of passengers tried to avoid the holiday rush by arriving early.
Local traffic authorities said too many passengers happened to have the same idea - taking the day before the holiday off in order to avoid what they thought would be the peak travel period.
Saturday's problem was compounded by the fact that many coaches returning to the station got stuck because of the huge increase in traffic on the roads and subsequent gridlocks.
Anxious passengers described their experiences online, saying that the station had canceled security checks to speed up traffic.
One passenger said she waited for five hours to board a bus but was kept waiting for another one hour before it finally hit the road.
She accused the bus station authorities of selling as many tickets as they could but not caring whether they could handle the numbers or not, leaving passengers to suffer extreme over-crowding and delays.
Another passenger, Sun Wanbao, complained that people could not move around inside the station because of the over-crowding with people stepping on each others' feet.
There were also huge crowds at railway stations in Wuhan, in central China's Hubei Province.
The city's three stations handled 180,000 passengers on Saturday, higher than the record on a single day during the Spring Festival, the traditional busiest period.
Heavy traffic gridlock in many parts of the city delayed many travelers on their way to the stations, causing about 13,000 to miss their trains and have to ask for refunds or re-scheduling of their tickets.
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