Zhengzhou, China:
China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBRIC) inspector Huanting is said to be involved in actions that breach the law regulations, Global Times reported.
His probe comes in the wake of large-scale protests in Henan province where bank depositors are demanding the release of frozen funds.
On Friday, the provincial financial supervision bureau published a notice that they will repay the victims of the recent banking scam in order to placate the Henan bank protestors, local media reported.
According to local media, people who had deposited up to 50,000 yuan were repaid and now people with deposits up to 100,000 are getting repaid.
Earlier, The Chinese Communist Party’s tanks Wednesday rolled on the streets to scare Henan bank protestors amid large-scale protests in the province by bank depositors over the release of frozen funds.
Reports claiming Chinese Peoples Liberation Army (PLA’s) tanks are on the streets to protect Banks (Rizhao, Shandong Province) emerged, reported local media.
The incident comes in the light of the Henan branch of the Bank of China declaring that people’s savings in their branch are ‘investment products’ and can’t be withdrawn, added the media.
On July 10, more than 1,000 depositors gathered outside the Zhengzhou branch of the country’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China, to launch their largest protest yet.
Non-mainstream Hong Kong media also believes that at such a time when stability is emphasized most and stability is in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s interest, allowing such incidents to get bigger (such as the Zhengzhou bank protests) shows that these banks really do not have money to spare, at least not until the issues are resolved.
A good chunk of revenue for the local governments comes from leasing land, especially to real estate developers and since so many projects are lying unfinished, many construction companies have not bought land again, affecting the local government’s revenue.
Meanwhile, a Twitter account has noted that as early as 2 years ago, a Henan man surnamed Zhu was detained by police for spreading “false info” about a local bank in a WeChat group, which caused a mass withdrawal. The recent Henan banks crisis and the relevant protests have proved the 2-year-old false info apparently true, a local media reported.
Recently a video has been shared on Telegram showing a group of representative workers of China’s Railway No. 4 Engineering Group Co. Ltd, a state-owned enterprise, demanding wages from the officials.
6. LG polls delayed, parties came on street in opposition in Pakistan
KARACHI:
The Jamaat-i-Islami took out a number of rallies from parts of the city after Friday prayers. The workers of the right-wing party gathered outside the Sindh High Court building in Saddar where they staged a protest demonstration.
Carrying party flags, placards and banners, the protesters chanted slogans against the ECP decision and raised slogans against the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party, accusing it of conspiring behind the constitutional body’s move.
Addressing the demonstration, JI Karachi chief Hafiz Naeem ur Rehman alleged that the ECP was playing “dubious and rather dirty game”.
TLP sit-in continues; JI holds citywide rallies; Murad says his govt was against postponement
On one hand, he said, it failed to remove a political administrator during the campaign for local bodies’ polls and on the other, it played the role of a “B team” for the PPP government in Sindh by delaying the crucial polls on the pretext of rains.
“If the rain was the issue, why doesn’t the ECP delay the local bodies’ polls for a few days,” he asked.
He claimed that the delay for one month showed that the ECP was hand in glove with the PPP and Muttahida Qaumi Movement Pakistan (MQM-P).
TLP demands review of decision
The Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) continued its protest sit-in outside the ECP regional office and demanded that the commission review its decision.
The leaders of the party in their addresses also accused the PPP and the ruling alliance in the Centre of deliberately delaying the electoral process in Karachi and Hyderabad.
SUP to move court
Sindh United Party president Syed Jalal Mehmood in a statement “condemned” the decision and announced that they would move the court to challenge the fresh schedule of the local bodies’ polls in Sindh.
He called it a conspiracy “from the top” to favour the PPP and MQM-P as the decision of the ECP would ultimately strengthen the position of the ruling party over municipal affairs through “its political administrators” and save its partner from “devastating defeat from the province’s urban centres”.
GDA demands re-election in all four divisions
In a press conference, Sardar Abdul Raheem of the Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA) — an umbrella organisation of five political parties — while rejecting the delay in the second phase of local bodies’ elections in Karachi and Hyderabad, made a different demand and called for re-election in all four divisions — Sukkur, Larkana, Shaheed Benazirabad and Mirpurkhas — of Sindh where the PPP won the majority through “rigging and state power”.
He said that with fresh decision to delay the polls in Karachi and Hyderabad, the conspiracy hatched by the PPP and the ECP had been exposed as the ruling party after finding it hard to rig the elections in urban centres had used its influence in the constitutional body to delay the process.
He asked the state institutions and judiciary to take notice of ‘sheer violation’ of electoral procedures in Sindh.
Sindh govt ‘also against delay’
On the other hand, despite criticism from opposition parties, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah sounded confident that it was not his government and the party which pushed for the delay in the local government elections in Karachi and Hyderabad.
“Frankly speaking, we [Sindh government] were against any delay in the second phase of local government elections,” he said while talking to journalists just after participating in the concluding ceremony of Urs of Abdullah Shah Ghazi.
“We had even told the Election Commission that the provincial government would work to ensure the elections if any of the district receives heavy downpour. I believe that the parties which are staging demonstrations are in fact protesting against the decision of the Election Commission, not the government.”
7. Pakistan and its never ending political drama
Another constitutional and political crisis in Pakistan is headed towards the country’s Supreme Court this time over the chaotic voting for Punjab chief minister in the provincial assembly.
The vote was held on Friday to determine whether the province’s sitting chief minister — Hamza Sharif, the son of Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif — enjoyed the backing of the majority of lawmakers in the local parliament.
In Friday’s vote, former prime minister Imran Khan’s candidate, Pervez Elahi, initially won 186 votes but the Punjab assembly’s deputy speaker, Dost Mohammad Mazari, invalidated 10 of those votes over violations of voting regulations.
Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party and its allies, including PML-Q, had hoped to form the new provincial government in Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province. The alliance had last Sunday won 15 out of 20 seats that were up for grabs in the 371-member assembly.
In a statement broadcast on national television, deputy speaker Mazari announced that 10 lawmakers from the Pakistan Muslim League headed by Shujaat Hussain, a Khan ally, had violated regulations by voting contrary to demands from their leader, Hussain, who had allegedly asked they abstain from voting. Under Pakistani law, votes are disqualified if lawmakers vote contrary to their
Following Hamza Sharif’s surprise victory, Khan claimed his opponents had resorted to political machinations in Punjab and called on his countrymen to rally against Mazari’s ruling. By Friday night, protesters had started taking to the streets in major cities across Pakistan but the rallies remained peaceful. The PTI has now moved the Supreme Court against Mazari’s decision.
This is the second time that Hamza Sharif beat Elahi in the contest for the Punjab CM. The last time he had secured victory on April 16, his oath-taking had been delayed for days with then then-governor, Omar Sarfaraz Cheema, refusing to administer the oath to him. Eventually, National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf administered the oath to him on April 30, following the Lahore High Court’s directives.