A Beijing court has sentenced a man to four years in prison for attempting to smuggling ivory products into the country. The defendant, identified only as Liu, was also fined 40,000 yuan ($6,000) after a hearing at Beijing No 4 Intermediate People's Court on Tuesday. Police detained Liu at Terminal 3 of Beijing Capital International Airport on Feb 4 after being found in possession of 16 ivory products from the Republic of Equatorial Guinea. Prosecutors said the items weighed a combined 8.82 kilograms and were worth more than 367,000 yuan. "It was the first case in which we applied a new guideline on accelerating the judicial process and giving leniency to those who confess their crimes," according to the court, which said Liu had confessed on Feb 9. The guideline was issued by the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate late last year. It states that defendants who plead guilty and do not contest the sentence proposed by prosecutors can be fast-tracked and receive leniency. "In the past, sentences in cases like Liu's were announced at a later date. This time, we were able to make it immediately after the hearing," the court said. 202mm to inchesrubber bracelets ukcustom silicone wristbandssilicone fidget spinnercustom made rubber braceletscheap rubber wristbands
Yang Shichai on board his garbage collection ship Canghai No 9 in the East China Sea. [Photo by Hua Zhibo/For China Daily] A businessman who once made a living from the ocean now spends his time and money on scooping trash from its waters. The garbage collection ship Canghai No 9 has just returned from its 438th mission and is moored in the port of the Shengsi Islands in Zhoushan, Zhejiang province. Measuring 16.5 meters long by 3.6 meters wide, the ship has a loading capacity of 21 metric tons. Its deck holds a big basket of trash, including plastic bags, bottles and disposable meal boxes. Its owner, Yang Shichai, is busy moving trash collected from the ocean off the ship. Its final destination is a garbage treatment plant on the island. Designed by Yang, the trash-collecting ship cost him about 530,000 yuan ($80,800) to build. Since it was put into use in May 2016, the ship has retrieved more than 2,000 cubic meters of garbage from the ocean. I've earned some money from the ocean. I just want to give back what I've gained, said Yang, who has tanned skin and scars on his hands from working long hours outdoors every day. Growing up on the shore, he started a refueling service for ships at sea at the age of 18. Later, he set up a company dedicated to recycling the oil residue. But his focus shifted from making a profit to cleaning up trash because of a video. A dead whale was found in the Pacific and its belly was full of trash, Yang said. The horrible scene from that video stuck in my mind.
