Compiled by MARTIN CARVALHO and R.ARAVINTAN
A GROUP of angry parents gathered at a school in China’s Liaoning province after their children fell sick, having been fed food salvaged from the bin, China Press reported.
According to some of the parents who obtained CCTV footage from the school in Benxi city, canteen operators had apparently run out of food to feed the pupils.
Instead of buying new ingredients, canteen workers were seen picking scraps from the bin and mixing them with fresh food before serving them.
The footage sparked an uproar when it was shared on a parents’ chat group.
“What kind of school feeds its students food taken from a bin? Is there any humanity left in them?” one parent asked.
The protesters chanted slogans like “our children are being fed dog food every day” and “we want justice for our children”.
Some of the parents claimed that the school had deleted the CCTV footage and yet to give them a satisfactory explanation.
The county authorities later issued a statement, saying that a task force would be set up to investigate the matter.
> Malaysian manufacturers of prayer items will absorb the rising cost of materials in a bid to keep prices low for consumers this Chinese New Year, China Press reported.
“Prices of raw materials have gone up by around 10%.
“Manufacturers and retailers like us have had a discussion and we agreed not to pass the cost to consumers,” said Prayer Goods Traders’ Association of Malaysia Dai Tian Cheng.
The manufacturers understood that the people would have many other expenses during the festive season, he said.
As such, he said they had agreed to reduce their profit margins this year as a way to retain their customers.
According to Dai, their clients would usually visit their shops twice during Chinese New Year, once for items to decorate their altar at home and another for prayer items such as candles and joss papers.
The above articles are compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with a >, it denotes a separate news item.
