The Block site causes chaos

Neighbours of the four houses being used for The Block TV series in the North Shore suburb of Takapuna say the huge construction effort is affecting their daily lives and impinging on their privacy. Linda Haynes lives next door and says her biggest concern is that the council is letting the production company break “all sorts of rules” to allow the show to go ahead

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China to reduce number of executions

China, often criticized for its liberal use of the death penalty, will reduce the number of criminal executions it carries out, a top official said. “As it is impossible for the country to abolish capital punishment under current realities and social security conditions, it is an important effort to strictly control the application of the penalty by judicial organs,” Zhang Jun, vice president of the Supreme People’s Court, said in an interview with Legal Daily, the state-run China Daily reported. “Judicial departments should use the least number of death sentences as possible, and death penalties should not be given to those having a reason for not being executed,” Zhang said.

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Report: China extends deadline on filtering software

China on Tuesday announced it would indefinitely postpone a mandate requiring all personal computers sold in the country to be accompanied by a controversial content-filtering application, state media reported. The announcement came one day before a government-set deadline that would have required the software, called Green Dam-Youth Escort, to come with all PCs, according to the official Xinhua news agency. The Chinese government has said the software is chiefly a way for parents to protect children from pornography.

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