A woman rides an electric bike in Beijing. [Photo/China News Service] Electric bikes without a licence will be forbidden to hit the road in Beijing as the city plans to implement a license system, according to a draft rule now under review by the city's law-making authorities. The standing committee of 15th Beijing Municipal People's Congress, the city's top legislature, deliberated the proposed regulation on Wednesday. The draft regulation says Beijing will adopt a sales catalogue system for e-bikes that meet national standards. Riders will need a license and a plate number to use an electric bicycle on the city's roads. E-bikes that fail to meet these standards but are already in use have three years before they are totally phased off the streets. Electric bikes not in the catalogue will be banned from sale or registration in the capital. The planned regulation sets a maximum speed of 15 kilometers per hour for electric bikes and forbids charging in places that affect safety such as stairwells and passageways in residential buildings. The regulation also sets requirements for companies that provide sharable e-bikes. They face fines between 5,000 yuan ($778) and 30,000 yuan for violating traffic rules. Users also face a fine from 20 yuan to 50 yuan if they park an e-bike in the wrong place. Beijing will ban the production and sale of motorcycles, power-driven tricycles or four-wheelers that don't fit national standards through legislation. Furthermore, the regulation over vehicles used by courier services and food delivery companies will be drafted by Beijing's commercial, post, traffic and police authorities pending governmental approval. medical id silicone wristbandswristbands canadasilicone wristband manufacturerrubber band bracelets picturesfuck cancer bracelet
Researchers collect data of the carcass of a beached sperm whale on Monday in Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia. WAKATOBI/AP JAKARTA - A dead whale that washed ashore in eastern Indonesia had a large lump of plastic waste in its stomach, including drinking cups, bottles and flip-flops, a park official has said, causing concern among environmentalists and government officials in the Southeast Asian country. Rescuers from Wakatobi National Park found the rotting carcass of the 9.5-meter sperm whale late on Monday near the park in Southeast Sulawesi province after hearing that villagers were beginning to butcher the rotting carcass, park chief Heri Santoso said on Tuesday. Santoso said researchers from wildlife conservation group WWF and the park's conservation academy found about 5.9 kilograms of plastic waste in the animal's stomach containing 115 plastic cups, four plastic bottles, 25 plastic bags, 2 flip-flops, a nylon sack and more than 1,000 other assorted pieces of plastic. Although we have not been able to deduce the cause of death, the facts that we see are truly awful, said Dwi Suprapti, a marine species conservation coordinator at WWF Indonesia. She said it was not possible to determine if the plastic had caused the whale's death because of the animal's advanced state of decay. Indonesia, an archipelago of 260 million people, is one of the world's largest plastic-polluting countries. It produces 3.2 million tons of mismanaged plastic waste a year, of which 1.29 million tons ends up in the ocean, the study said. The problem has grown so bad that Indonesian officials declared a garbage emergency last year after a 6-kilometer stretch of coast along the island of Bali was swamped with rubbish. Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, Indonesia's coordinating minister of maritime affairs, said the whale's discovery should raise public awareness about the need to reduce plastic use, and had spurred the government to take tougher measures to protect the ocean. I'm so sad to hear this, said Pandjaitan, who recently has campaigned for less use of plastic. It is possible that many other marine animals are also contaminated with plastic waste and this is very dangerous for our lives. He said the government is making efforts to reduce the use of plastic, including urging shops not to provide plastic bags for customers and teaching children about the problem in schools nationwide to meet a government target of reducing plastic use by 70 percent by 2025. This big ambition can be achieved if people learn to understand that plastic waste is a common enemy, he said. Ap - Afp
