Six In The Morning

Malaysia flight MH370: Chinese families ‘seek answers’

30 March 2014 Last updated at 07:01

  The BBC

Relatives of Chinese passengers from the missing Malaysia Airlines plane have flown to Kuala Lumpur to seek answers from the Malaysian authorities.

The family members say they have not been given enough information, and want to meet Malaysia’s prime minister and transport minister face to face.

Ten planes and eight ships are looking for remains of the airliner in a vast area of the Indian Ocean.

The airliner disappeared on 8 March with 239 people on board.

Some relatives of the flight’s 153 Chinese passengers have refused to accept the Malaysian account of events and have accused the authorities of withholding information.

China seizes $US14.5bn assets linked to ex-spy chief Zhou Yongkang – report

 Gold, paintings and property confiscated, and 300 relatives and allies held or questioned in huge investigation into corruption

Reuters

Sunday 30 March 2014 07.14 BST

Chinese authorities have seized assets worth at least 90bn yuan ($US14.5bn) from family members and associates of retired domestic security chief Zhou Yongkang, who is at the centre of China’s biggest corruption scandal in more than six decades, two sources said.

More than 300 of Zhou’s relatives, political allies, proteges and staff have also been taken into custody or questioned in the past four months, the sources told Reuters.

Prosecutors and the party’s anti-corruption watchdog had frozen bank accounts with deposits totalling 37bn yuan and seized domestic and overseas bonds with a combined value of 51bn yuan after raiding homes in Beijing, Shanghai and five provinces.

Egypt sentences additional Morsi supporters to death

Following the wave of death sentences given out this week to over 500 Islamists in Egypt, two more men have been slated for the country’s death row. The men were convicted of throwing youths off a roof.

DW

According to a report from Egypt’s state news agency on Saturday, a court in Alexandria has given two supporters of deposed former President Mohammed Morsi the death sentence. The two men had been convicted of throwing youths from the roof of an apartment building during violence that followed the ouster of the Islamist president, Morsi.

Two young men died in the incident, which occurred just after Morsi was deposed on July 3 of last year. Images of the men being thrown from the roof, along with scenes of the defendants raising a black flag often used by militants, were aired many times on national television.

The newspaper Al-Ahram reported that an additional 61 people (some pictured above) were also on trial in Alexandria for the violence that followed Morsi’s downfall, but those verdicts would not be given until May 19.

‘Nanobionics’ aims to give plants super powers

March 30, 2014 – 11:47AM

Deborah Netburn

Plants are an engineering marvel of nature. Fuelled by sunlight, they recycle our carbon dioxide waste into fresh oxygen for us to breathe. Plus, they make the world prettier. But, with a little help from us humans, can they be coaxed to do even more?

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have been experimenting with giving plants new powers by placing carbon nanotubes in their chloroplasts – the tiny engine of the plant cell where photosynthesis takes place.

After much trial and error, their efforts have succeeded. Some of the altered plants produced in the lab have increased their photosynthetic activity by 30 per cent compared with regular plants. Others were able to detect tiny traces of pollutants in the air. And that’s just the beginning.

How young is too young? Bolivia debates child labor law

 Bolivian law sets the minimum working age at 14, but congress is discussing changes. Would banning child labor help kids out of poverty or will it push them into more dangerous work?

By Sara Shahriari, Correspondent

LA PAZ, BOLIVIA

The cemetery in the Bolivian city of Potosi is a labyrinth, but Juan Carlos Espinoza never loses his way. Climbing a long metal ladder, the 13-year-old works here after school, polishing tombstones set into high walls for roughly $0.70 a job.

Working children are often seen as voiceless laborers, but in Bolivia, thousands of young people aged 6 to 17 have joined together to demand jobs free of abuse, and legal recognition of their right to work.

Currently, Bolivia’s congress is revising legislation that broadly affects children, including the legal working age. Some young people, like Juan Carlos, who is a member of the Bolivian Union of Child and Adolescent Workers (UNATSBO), want to see age limits lowered or eliminated. At the heart of the debate lies the question of whether banning child labor in low-income countries offers children a way out of poverty, or if it further harms poor youth by pushing them into even more dangerous and hidden work.

Toyota case shows it’s hard to prosecute execs

CRIME MAR. 30, 2014 – 03:30PM JST

  By ERIC TUCKER

WASHINGTON –

Efforts to conceal the extent of dangerous car defects at Toyota Motor Corp were so pervasive, prosecutors say, that an exasperated employee at one point warned that “someone will go to jail if lies are repeatedly told.”

Yet no one has gone to jail, nor is anyone likely to.

The Justice Department earlier this month socked the Japanese car company with a $1.2 billion penalty but brought no criminal charges against individual executives, an unsatisfying resolution for consumer activists who say prison is the best deterrence for corporate malfeasance.

But prosecutors say they had little choice, in part because of constraints with evidence and the challenge of gathering testimony and information from witnesses outside the United States.