Beijing: Hong Kong officials have dropped plans to make students take Chinese patriotism classes after massive protests.
Residents of the former British colony resented the plans, and said, that it was ‘brainwashed’ by Beijing.
According to The Guardian, the semi-autonomous Chinese city’s leader, Leung Chun-ying, said the government would leave it up to schools to decide whether to start the classes, and that it would not be mandatory.
Leung’s move comes after a week of protests by thousands in front of the government headquarters.
The decision comes a day before elections for the city’s legislature, the report said.
Chinese officials, however, were concerned that opposition to the compulsory Chinese education would damage the prospects for pro-Beijing candidates for Hong Kong’s legislature, it added. (ANI)
13 killed in bus accident
Kathmandu: At least 13 people were killed and 20 others injured when a passenger bus veered off the road in Nepal’s Gulmi district on Sunday, police said.
The Kathmandu-bound bus from Gulmi skidded off the road and plummeted some 300 meters down and stuck a tree on the slope in the remote mountain region of the country, according to Police Inspector Jitendra Basnet.
Eleven passengers died on the spot while two others breathed their last on their way to hospital in Palpa, the police inspector said. All those killed in the accident were local passengers going towards the capital.
According to eyewitnesses the ill-fated bus tumbled off the road while attempting to make way for another vehicle coming from the opposite direction. (PTI)
Bus bombing kills at 4 in Syria
Damascus: A bomb attack on a bus carrying civilians and troops in the central Syrian province of Homs killed at least four people and wounded dozens more on Sunday, state media and a rights watchdog said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported the attack. Two explosive devices were detonated as the bus travelled along the Homs-Messyaf highway linking the provinces of Homs and Hama, according to the Britain-based group.
“We know for sure that four people were killed but we don’t know if they were civilians or military,” the Observatory’s Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP on the phone. (AFP)