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Zxy:
Discrimination against pregnant woman riles netizens
BEIJING - A contract dispute involving a pregnant teacher in central China has sparked online outrage over job discrimination against women.
A female teacher with Shangbo Primary School in Shangqiu City, Henan province, posted pictures of a contract she signed with the school on microblog Sina Weibo, according to a report carried this week by the Voice of China.
Weibo user "5838013387" claimed that the school refused her application for maternity leave. After she decided to leave, the school fined her 800 yuan for breaking the contract.
According to the contract, the school "guarantees rest and vacation for its teachers," but any female teacher who "interrupts class schedules" due to pregnancy or other reasons should pay 2,000 yuan (307 US dollars) in compensation for recruiting and paying replacement teachers.
Female teachers preparing to have babies should get pregnant in the second semester," reads the high-handed provision. "If they get pregnant in the first semester, causing them to stop working or resign, they should pay 2,000 yuan in total."
Liu Zhu, headmaster of the private school, said the restrictive measure aims to "prevent disturbances to general school schedules."
"We will not stop anyone from becoming pregnant as long as their pregnancies do not interfere with the school curriculum," Liu said.
He added that the contract is signed annually, and that none of the 30-plus female teachers demurred when they signed it.
The story has spurred a wave of heated online discussions, with many netizens accusing the school of breaking the law.
"It's ridiculous," wrote Weibo user "Yigexingqiba." "Under such provisions, who dares to have a second baby?"
"This is obviously against the law, the teacher should file a lawsuit," read another comment.
According to China's Labor Law, all women are entitled to maternity leave when they work within the stated period of a contract. The law on the protection of the rights of women and children also stipulates that labor contracts should not contain any items restricting female workers from getting married or getting pregnant.
Local authorities have launched an investigation into the case.
Though unlawful, job discrimination against women still pervades Chinese society.
According to a national survey by the All-China Women's Federation (ACWF), about 75 percent of women said they were fired after getting married or pregnant.
Wu Liqing, an employee in a private company in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, said most of her female friends and classmates have experienced job discrimination, although most of them have stayed silent due to heavy employment pressure.
With the lifting of the one-child policy, the situation is likely to get worse if no measures are taken, according to Wen Jun, head of the Sociology Institute of East China Normal University.
Companies should learn to appreciate women's advantages and values and help them get back to work to contribute to company growth," she said. "Authorities should step up supervision on enterprises, while the government should compensate companies willing to recruit female workers."
Zhou Xiaozheng, a sociology professor with Renmin University of China, said women should "boycott" unfair clauses at work.
"They should learn to protect their legitimate rights," Zhou said.
That is the latest news up to today.Stay more on news scan.Thanks for listening and see you next week.
Lcj:
Migrant crisis: EU to unveil emerg
ency aid plan
The European Union is preparing to spend hundreds of millions of euros on humanitarian aid, as Greece struggles to cope with an influx of migrants.
Under plans to be submitted on Wednesday, EU funds could be deployed within Europe in the same way they are used to help crises outside the bloc.
The UN has warned of a humanitarian disaster caused by a build-up of migrants on Greece's borders.
Thousands of asylum seekers remain trapped on the border with Macedonia.
The plan to be submitted by the EU's executive body, the European Commission, means EU aid agencies would for the first time work directly with the UN and other groups inside Europe, rather than disbursing money to individual member states.
EU officials said the aid plan would allocate 300m euros this year to help any EU state deal with the migration crisis. In all, 700m euros would be made available over three years.
However, BBC Europe correspondent Chris Morris says that even if such funding can be deployed quickly, the EU also needs to stem the flow of new arrivals. That would mean better co-operation with Turkey, he adds.
Greece has asked the European Commission for nearly 500m euros in assistance to help care for 100,000 asylum seekers.
About 24,000 migrants in Greece are in need of housing and more than 8,000 are stuck in worsening conditions on the border with Macedonia.
The crossing at Idomeni has closed following protests by migrants desperate to continue their journey to countries further north, particularly Germany.
Despite the border closure, thousands more migrants and refugees are still travelling to Idomeni. With the camp overwhelmed, many have been forced to wait on buses and at petrol stations along the route from Athens.
Some migrants have been stranded at the overburdened camp for more than a week.
Caroline Haga, an emergency co-ordinator for the International Red Cross, said the Greek military had set up three more border camps near Idomeni but all are already full, with about 2,000 people at each.
On Tuesday, the UN refugee agency warned that Europe was "on the cusp of a largely self-induced humanitarian crisis".
Hcx:
China ratchets up anti-pollution effort
China will intensify its efforts to reduce pollution, Premier Li Keqiang said in his annual Government Work Report on Saturday, citing as an example ambitious targets in fighting smog that will increase the number of days with good air quality.
"Pollution control and environmental protection are important to people's health and the sustainable development of the nation. Sowemust work hard to move forward," he said.
Lower emissions of major water and air pollutants have been targeted, cutting them by 2 to 3 percent this year. This will help reduce the concentration in the air of PM2.5, particulate matter smaller than 2.5 microns in diameter that is hazardous to health.
The PM2.5 concentration declined in China from 72 micrograms per cubicmeter in 2013 to 55 in 2015, according to the Ministry of Environmental Protection.
The central government has further tightened restrictions on vehicle emissions, and another 3.8 million outdated or high-emission vehicles will be taken off the road this year.
The 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20), the national road map for social and economic development, is setting targets to raise the percentage of days with good air quality to 80 by 2020, from 76.7 percent lastyear.
The central government is emphasizing that all companies in major polluting industries - such as steel, cement making, papermaking and printing - meet the national emission standards.
Lu Lunyan, Climate and Energy Program director, the WWF China, said, "I am pleased to see the government's endeavors in environmental protection," adding that such measures, paired with the government campaign to phase out outdated and excessive capacity in the industrial production, could efficiently reduce polluting emissions.
Ren Wenwei, director of the Yangtze program (footprint) of WWF China, applauded the annual report and the national road map because they stipulate binding targets and various efforts to reduce pollution, "Such restrictions have previously and will even more so now force many companies to stop polluting and upgrade their technology,"Ren said.
Additionally, he said, the top leadership's attention to improving the environment is benefiting the quality of China's economic structure, which is transforming to a focus on services industries.
Zhao Kezhi, top leader of Hebei, a province with heavy air pollution, voiced full support for the tighter emissions restrictions and the government's efforts to fuel economic growth through environmental protection.
Lzy:
Gold, Oil Prices Up as Investors Seek Safe Haven
March 03, 2016The up-and-down prices of oil and gold mirror the unsettled world situation, and both reflect the economic squeeze most nations currently face.Analysts are talking about the oil crash being over, with prices stabilizing in the mid-$30-a-barrel range — from a recent low of $26 — despite record supply levels. That's a 30 percent increase in the past two weeks.The jump in the price per barrel has given rise to predictions that oil has bottomed out. Meanwhile, 413 oil rigs have been shut down in the United States because of an oil glut — with thousands of jobs lost."The supply and demand picture for oil is such that there's such a big glut over supply on a daily basis from the production side that, even if the demand side picks up marginally, we're still not going to eat up that for quite some time,” said commodities trader Eric Zuccarelli.And gold, according to Zuccarelli, has inched up because of interest rates in the United States and around the world.
FILE - Gold prices have risen because of interest rates around the world.Interest rates and gold have an inverse relationship. Generally, rising interest rates are bad for gold prices, while decreasing rates are good. In a zero-to-negative interest rate environment, gold prices usually benefit. The Japanese and European Central banks currently have negative interest rates.жѕз¤єзї»иЇ‘"We did see a very sharp move over a two-and-one-half-year period down to about 10.50 [$1,050 per ounce of gold] on the gold,” Zuccarelli said, “at which point the [Federal Reserve] finally began to raise interest rates for the first time since the world economy crashed. … As a consequence, the gold found some footing and reversed its downside and has rallied up to 12.50 [$1,250 per ounce of gold]."жѕз¤єзї»иЇ‘As primarily a metals trader, Zuccarelli said commodities are in a waiting game.жѕз¤єзї»иЇ‘"A lot of the industrial metals are stuck in much of the same world as oil, waiting for a true demand picture to come and sop up some of that excess supply,” he said. “So, whether it's copper — which I trade on a daily basis — which has put in pretty much of a bottom under $2, or some of the industrial metals — whether it's zinc, lead, tin, nickel, steel — most of the industrial complex is starting to find support, but not necessarily ready for the rallies that we've seen in the past."There are still questions about how far the price of gold will move, but in recent weeks it has been a good investment. However, like oil, the length of gold's rally is hard to predict.
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