The parents of a couple killed in a car crash five years ago finally have the grandson they longed for, after a surrogate carried to term a fertilized embryo deposited by the couple days before the accident.The baby, known as Tiantian, was born in a hospital in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, in December after his grandparents won a yearlong court battle to use the embryo, Beijing News reported on Monday.Shen Jie and his wife, Liu Xi, had been married two years and had been undergoing in vitro fertilization treatments at Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital in Jiangsu province at the time of their deaths in 2013.As each was their family's only child, their parents asked the hospital to release the four frozen fertilized embryos the couple had prepared in order to transfer them to a surrogate mother. Hospital administrators refused for fear of breaching State regulations.China's rules for assisted reproductive technology are unclear when it comes to the disposal of fertilized embryos that are not transferred to the biological mother. Surrogacy is illegal in China.Shen and Liu's four parents filed lawsuits against the hospital, demanding the embryos. The first attempt failed, but a year later the Wuxi Intermediate People's Court ruled in their favor, saying that granting access complied with social ethics.Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital agreed to release the embryos on condition that the four were accompanied by court personnel and with documents from another hospital willing to accept the embryos.Ding Lijun, a doctor in the hospital's reproductive medicine center, told China Daily that although they were sympathetic with the aging parents, they were cautious about handing embryos to individuals."There are thresholds for practicing every technology, and without the threshold, which we must strictly abide by, the technology runs the risk of being abused," she said.As no Chinese hospitals were able to accept the embryos, the couple's parents looked overseas for help and were eventually helped by a Chinese agency to transfer them to a hospital in neighboring Laos.They paid 300,000 yuan ($44,000) to the agency, which also helped them find a 28-year-old Laotian surrogate mother, who carried the child in Laos before traveling to Guangzhou to give birth.China Daily was unable to contact Tiantian's grandparents on Monday. However, Shen Jie's father, Shen Xinnan, who is caring for the child, told Beijing News: "I will tell Tiantian his story when he is older. He might have a difficult time in kindergarten explaining his circumstances."[email protected] custom baseball wristbands nikesequentially numbered silicone wristbandsnike silicone braceletscustom braceletspolynesian wristband tattoo designs
Customs officers check smuggled waste cotton in Qingdao, Shandong province, on June 11, 2018. [Photo by Zhang Jingang/For China Daily] Operations succeed through close cooperation with agencies, countries China Customs officers will continue to work with their international peers and various organizations to fight the smuggling of illegal solid waste, officials said at a news briefing on Tuesday in Shanghai. An operation dubbed Demeter IV and initiated by China in March involved 15 international organizations, including the World Customs Organization, the United Nations Environment Programme, the International Criminal Police Organization, the Secretariat of the Basel Convention and 75 solid waste importing and exporting countries and regions. During the 64-day operation from May 21 to July 23, all members worked together and effectively prevented smuggling by improving supervision, strengthening information exchanges and conducting joint investigations, which blocked, returned or seized 326,000 metric tons of solid waste, reported 214 illegal cases and issued 37 warnings, according to a news release from the WCO and the General Administration of Customs of China. Chinese customs played a leading role in the operation, reporting 125 cases to the WCO, nearly 60 percent of all reported cases, according to the administration. During the operation, China Customs officers also worked with 29 countries and regions on more than 40 solid-waste smuggling cases, blocked and returned nearly 75 tons of solid waste and arrested three major suspects. Ni Yuefeng, minister of the customs administration, referred to the operation as a pioneering success in international collaboration. For the law enforcement departments, ecological environment protection is a long-term task, Ni said. China Customs will continue to work with the international organizations and other member countries and regions to construct a prosperous, clean and beautiful world together. Erik Solheim, undersecretary-general of the United Nations, said at the briefing: Cross-border environmental crime is a massive criminal enterprise worth $260 billion a year and, sadly, every year it is growing. But this mission cannot be undertaken by any country alone, not China alone. Combating environmental crime across borders requires strong collaboration between countries. More than 10 billion tons of solid waste is produced annually and a large amount flows to developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America through illegal channels and severely damages their economy, according to the WCO. As illegal cross-border trafficking of solid waste is seriously damaging the balance of the global environment, the WCO organized 170 countries and regions in Asia, Africa and Europe in 2009 to carry out Operation Demeter I, in which China played an important role. The operation seized 8,927 tons of waste from Europe and the United States at 18 key ports, including Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Nanjing, according to the customs administration. Later, in 2013, China Customs initiated the successful Operation Demeter III, which targeted illicit maritime consignments of hazardous waste and other waste transported from Europe and other regions to the Asia-Pacific. In March, Chinese Customs initiated Operation Demeter IV, which focused mainly on the smuggling of solid waste as the government stepped up enforcement on a ban on solid waste imports. Since the beginning of this year, the Chinese government has banned imports of 24 types of solid waste, including plastics and paper, and has imposed tough quality restrictions on other recyclable materials. The list will be extended to include 32 types of solid waste on Dec 31, according to a newly released document. The newly added products include hardware, ships, auto parts and scrap stainless steel, titanium and wood. green rubber braceletcustom wristbands canadacustom womens braceletscolor wristbandsrubber band holder bracelet<%2fcenter>
