Chinese Kingston Hotel targets 2014 opening
BY SHAMILLE SCOTT Business reporter [email protected]
Wednesday, April 03, 2013

THE Chinese developer of a hotel behind Devon House hopes to start building in May.
ZDA Construction Limited’s three-storey business boutique hotel will have about 46 rooms, according to its Deputy General Manager, Gary Zhong.
An artist’s impression of the Shanghai Business Hotel, to be located near Devon House in Kingston.
1/1
“If all goes well, it shouldn’t take more than 10 months to be completed,” he said.
The Bank of China gave funding for the construction, and the hotel will cost US$7 million ($685.6 million), Zhong said.
Already, the company has been granted planning permission and environmental permit with stipulated conditions by the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA).
The initial plan was to have a 56-bedroom hotel with a multi-purpose games room, an open-air party space on the roof, along with a gym, a meeting room, a pool and a restaurant.
But, the plans have since been modified to include a restaurant, a meeting room and a pool, according to Zhong.
“We took off the fitness club and there will be no roof entertainment,” he said.
When the proposal to build the hotel was made last year, the resident of the Canterbury Manor Citizens Association objected to some aspects the development.
Residents complained that the hotel is out of character, as most adjoining buildings along Kingsway do not exceed two floors, and that it could restrict light and airflow, according to the citizen’s association.
Buildings on Kingsway are primarily residential and a hotel with large-scale business entertainment and recreational activities would be out of place, it said last year.
Even with an amendment, the residents have still raised some concerns.
“The proposed redesign still does not address our overriding concern that the development will adversely impact the residential orientation of Kingsway and is consistent with the multi-family housing developments typical of the area,” the association said.
But NEPA’s chief executive officer and government town planner, Peter Knight said quite a bit of work has been done with the investors on the plans.
“They (ZDA) have redesigned it and have taken the plans to us many times,” Knight said. “We can’t keep going back and forth, the decision has been made by the board.”
ZDA’s lawyer, George Duncan, said the principal will do what is required by the authorities and the company will follow through with
the plans.
He said the character of the area has changed with time and a three-storey boutique business hotel shouldn’t be an issue.
“The area was for single family homes, but has changed to multi-family homes, and some businesses are nearby,” he said. “Foreign direct investment would be brought to the country, value will be added to the land, and it will improve the aesthetics of area, because the area currently has an empty lot.”
ZDA constructed the Basic Medical Science Complex of the University of West Indies, Mona Campus and according to Zhong, the company has its eyes set on building some low-income houses in the future.

Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/business/Chinese-Kingston-Hotel-targets-2014-opening_13991690#ixzz2PSVOzoBv

BEIJING — In this country of almost 1.4 billion people, life is an unending struggle for resources — money, property, even spouses. And it doesn’t get easier in death.

Prices for graves are skyrocketing, driven by decades of unbridled development and scarce city land. The government’s answer to this conundrum: sea burials.

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Approved changes mark broadest restructuring of country’s electricity industry since 1950s.

Officials across China are selling hard the option of a watery grave by offering hefty financial incentives and planting stories in state media — with only marginal success. Many local governments, however, have saved their strongest pitches for this week, timing them to the Qingming Festival, when families nationwide take a day off to sweep their ancestors’ graves.

In the southern metropolis of Guangzhou, officials recently announced a $160 bonus for families that scatter ashes at sea. In Shanghai, officials upped their offer in the past year from $65 to a more persuasive $320. Topping them all, however, are the coastal cities of Shaoxing and Wenzhou, which are offering $800 and $1,290 respectively for sea burials.

To sweeten the deal, the government often provides transportation, including all-expense-paid boat trips.

The official eagerness is fueled by bureaucratic fears of chaos and anger once the country runs out of graves — a certainty in coming years, according to recent studies.

To cut down on space, cremation already is required by law in cities, but land shortages have increasingly sparked risky investments for even the small graves in which those ashes are usually interred.

The cheapest spots in some of Beijing’s more desirable cemeteries sell for more than $16,000, and Chinese media reports have cited luxury tombs sold for as much as $129,000. With virtually unlimited demand, many come with hefty maintenance fees after an initial 20-year lease and guarantee eviction if they go unpaid.

And the problem will only get worse as China’s elderly population increases. In 2011, 9.6 million people died in China. A government report issued last week predicts the number will reach 20 million annually by 2025.

Most provinces will run out of burial room in the next 10 years, according to the study by the Ministry of Civil Affairs. A few provinces — such as Shanxi, Shandong and Guangdong — have fewer than than five years.

Beijing’s leaders recently told state media that they’re planning to shrink grave sizes this year — from the current limit of one square meter per person — to stretch their reserves.

Amid these dire straits, local officials began floating the sea burial idea in the past few years. The government-funded version of it — offered by most bigger cities — can resemble a half-day cruise.

On the morning of the burials, dozens of families take a shuttle bus en masse to a dock, ashes in tow. Out at sea, an organizer holds a service, then leads relatives in mixing the remains with flowers. At an appointed spot, the ashes are cast overboard.

Critics worry that tradition and meaning of ancestor-honoring rites are being tossed out amid the government initiatives.

“Han Chinese have been burying their dead for thousands of years,” noted Zhou Xiaozheng, a sociologist at Renmin University in Beijing. “It’s not wrong to subsidize sea burials . . . but saving land shouldn’t be the deciding factor for how someone chooses to be buried. China’s land belongs to all Chinese. Why shouldn’t they get one square meter to lay down in when they die?”

It’s not the first time the government has tried to regulate its citizens after death. Once communists took control in 1949, millions of graves were plowed over in the years after and remade into farmland. Funerals were considered superstitious vestiges of feudalism, coffins wasted wood and graves wasted farmland.

Cremation — long shunned — was promoted as practical, even patriotic. Even Communist Party leader Mao Zedong had declared his wish to be cremated (in vain it turns out, as successors embalmed his body for permanent display in Tiananmen Square).

Although laws have made cremation almost universal in cities, the government’s sea burial initiatives have not had the same success.

Since Guangzhou announced its $160 subsidy earlier this year, fewer than 20 people have registered. In Shanghai — one of the earliest to employ sea burials, in the 1990s — the practice has barely made a dent. In 2010, sea burials numbered in the low thousands while grave burials totaled 53,311.

Speaking to local media this week, Lu Chunling, the chief of Shanghai’s mortuary service division, tried to strike an optimistic tone. There’s a chance, he said, that if the city is careful with its remaining grave space, it will run out in 15 years rather than 10.

Zhang Jie contributed to this report.

A Mararaba Upper Area Court in Nasarawa State Tuesday ordered three accused persons to be remanded in prison for the alleged unnatural offence of homosexuality.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reported that the accused were Armstrong Ihua, 40, of Ikorodu, Lagos State; Collins Ejike, 30, of Lugbe, Abuja, and Pius Bamayi, 25, of Masaka, Nasarawa State.

They, however, pleaded not guilty to the charge.

Earlier, the prosecutor, Mr. Stephen Kwaza, had told the court that one Pius Bamayi accompanied by Patrick Okorie of Luna Guest Inn, Mararaba, reported the matter at the Sani Abacha Road Police Station, Mararaba, on March 31.

Kwaza said Ihua and Ejike conspired between themselves and lured Bamayi under false pretence to Ihua’s room.

He said when Bamayi was asleep, Ihua and Ejike started having carnal knowledge of themselves.

According to the prosecutor, Ihua took advantage of Bamayi, who was sleeping by removing his trousers and performed fellatio on Bamayi.

He said the act woke Bamayi up, and he hit Ihua with his elbow.

The prosecutor stressed that the acts took place as a result of the Indian hemp the accused smoked.

He said the “unnatural offence” contravened the provisions of Section 284 of the Penal Code.

The prosecutor averted that the accused should not be granted bail so as to enable him carry out further investigation into the matter.

However, the accused persons’ counsel, Messrs Charles Maduewyi, Momoh Mohammed and Gabriel Okpake, prayed the court to grant their clients bail.

But the presiding judge, Mr. Vincent Gwahemba, however, refused to grant the accused bail on the grounds that the offence was not ordinarily bailable.

Gwahemba also said the oral application for bail was not adequate, and therefore ordered that the accused be remanded in prison.

He adjourned the case to April 23 for further hearing.

God’s Plan of Cooperative Dominion
by Karen Theisen

The book of Genesis gives God’s plan in creating humankind and in it we discover that it was His goal to display His glory by creating two distinct genders that would cooperate together to display God’s dominion on earth.

Genesis 1:27 NLT [1]
So God created humans in His own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female He created them.

The male gender displays some of the traits of God such as provider and protector. Men in general have greater physical strength than women. The male brain structure facilitates linear thinking. This explains men’s ability to detach from emotions in crisis, allowing singular focus on survival. Anthropologists speculate this is why men have been the primary warriors in all cultures throughout history. God reveals Himself as a warrior.

Exodus 15:3
The LORD is a warrior; the LORD is his name.

The female gender also displays traits of our heavenly Father such as nurturer and care-giver, often involving self-sacrifice to safeguard the family unit. God has designed the female brain to have more connectors between the left and right hemispheres compared to males. This structural difference contributes to a woman’s greater ability to multitask, an important quality in the rearing of children and homemaking. God’s ultimate act of self-sacrifice was the gift of His Son, Jesus Christ, whose life, sacrificial death, and resurrection, make it available for everyone who wants to become a member of the family of God to do so.

It is no coincidence that humans are most similar to our Creator-God within the covenant of marriage. Two distinct genders that both reflect characteristics of God come together in a celebration of covenant love and “create.” Children are the fruit of marriage and the primary reason why God warns against divorce.

Malachi 2:15
Has not the LORD made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? Because he was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth.

Though angels were created first, God’s intent in creating humankind was to reflect His glory in a unique way via the cooperation of two distinct human genders. God’s original mandate for males and females involved a cooperative dominion:

Genesis 1:28
God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule…”

Our heavenly Father’s vision of men and women sharing dominion was impaired as a result of the fall, and so rather than cooperation, gender competition has occurred throughout history. Mutual dominion was often replaced by male domination. [2] The Old and New Testaments, however, are filled with records of obedient servant-leaders who walked out God’s vision of cooperative dominion.

Micah 6:4b
I sent Moses to lead you, also Aaron and Miriam.

Moses, along with his brother Aaron and his sister Miriam, played a key role in the Exodus of Israel from the bondage of slavery in Egypt. A prophet speaks for God. All three siblings are identified as prophets, though Moses’ humility contributed to God’s designation of Moses as the chief prophet (Num. 12:1-8). God, however, had no objection in empowering a woman to be a spokesperson for Him.

Exodus 15:20
Then Miriam the prophetess, Aaron’s sister, took a tambourine in her hand…

After Pharaoh’s armies were drowned and Israel was safely across the Red Sea, Moses and Miriam led the congregation in praise and worship. The “Song of Moses and Miriam” is recorded in Exodus 15:1-18 and Miriam’s song is recorded in Exodus 15:21. These siblings’ cooperation contributed to God’s plans of deliverance for Israel.

Another powerful partnership was Deborah and Barak. Deborah is the only judge in the book of Judges who is also identified as a prophet or prophetess. [3] Her prophetic counsel to Barak, the commander of Israel’s armies, led to the overthrow of Jabin, the Canaanite King who had harassed God’s people for twenty years.

Judges 4:4-7
(4) Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, was leading Israel at that time.
(5) She held court under the Palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites came to her to have their disputes decided.
(6) She sent for Barak son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali and said to him, “The LORD, the God of Israel, commands you: ‘Go, take with you ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulun and lead the way to Mount Tabor.
(7) I will lure Sisera, the commander of Jabin’s army, with his chariots and his troops to the Kishon River and give him into your hands.’”

Beaten down by twenty years of Canaanite oppression, Barak was initially leery of this daring military strategy. He obviously respected Deborah’s prophetic ministry and agreed to the plan with one contingency–that she would join him on the battlefield. Deborah challenged his initial lack of faith in God’s revealed plan by disclosing that military victory would be given to a woman. True to God’s prophetic Word, Sisera was defeated by a woman, Jael. Imagine the cultural disgrace for such a renowned Canaanite warrior! Judges 5:7 states Deborah arose as “a mother in Israel” while Barak is listed in the heroes of our faith.

Hebrews 11:32 and 33
(32) And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets [this would include the female prophets!],
(33) who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised;…

The fruit of Deborah and Barak’s alliance was many years of peace (Judg. 5:31b).

Let’s examine another instance of gender teamwork fulfilling God’s plan of dominion. King Josiah ascended to the throne of Judah when he was only eight years old, following the assassination of his idol-worshipping father, Amon. Amon had sapped the financial resources of the kingdom by paying tribute to foreign governments in order to secure political ‘peace.’ The child-king Josiah inherited a weak, spiritually anorexic people who not only were untrained in God’s Word but who had become well practiced in idol worship, sexual fertility rites, and even were sacrificing their children to pagan gods.

Jeremiah 7:30 and 31
(30) “‘The people of Judah have done evil in my eyes, declares the LORD. They have set up their detestable idols in the house that bears my Name and have defiled it.
(31) They have built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to burn their sons and daughters in the fire—something I did not command, nor did it enter my mind.

God, the ultimate protector and warrior of the family, is a holy God. The idea of sacrificing the fruit of marriage—children, as a form of worship was so foreign to God that He used the figure of speech tapeinosis (understatement) to emphasize it. He says He did not command it, but actually He had strictly forbidden such a practice (Lev. 20:1-4). This demonically inspired practice was well entrenched in Judah when Josiah ascended the throne. Josiah, however, had a hunger for the one true God which began to blossom when he was fifteen years old.

2 Chronicles 34:3 and 4
(3) In the eighth year of his reign, while he was still young, he began to seek the God of his father David. In his twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of high places, Asherah poles, carved idols and cast images.
(4) Under his direction the altars of the Baals were torn down; he cut to pieces the incense altars that were above them, and smashed the Asherah poles, the idols and the images.

In the eighteenth year of King Josiah’s reign, at age 25, he ordered that the Temple be restored. In the process, the High Priest Hilkiah found the Book of the Law which had likely been hidden for safekeeping years earlier. Imagine the joy to again have access to God’s written Word! It was at this point that King Josiah realized that over and over again in the Mosaic Law God warned His people that if they abandoned Him, they would be destroyed.

2 Kings 22:11 and 13
(11) When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, he tore his robes.
(13) “Go and inquire of the LORD for me and for the people and for all Judah about what is written in this book that has been found. Great is the LORD’s anger that burns against us because our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book; they have not acted in accordance with all that is written there concerning us.”

No doubt Josiah was concerned about being conquered and enslaved by the superpower, Babylon. Faithful Josiah was struck to the core by the Word of God, and sent a messenger to Huldah the prophetess to ask God about the situation.

The prophetess Huldah was the wife of Shallum, Josiah’s valet (2 Kings 22:14). Perhaps because of Huldah’s proximity to the king due to her spouse’s job, she, rather than Jeremiah was consulted to give a prophetic word. [4] It is significant that her gender did not preclude her from being thought capable of giving a prophetic word. Huldah confirmed that there would be wrath from the LORD, but added that it would not occur during King Josiah’s lifetime.

2 Kings 22:18-20
(18) Tell the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the LORD, ‘This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says concerning the words you heard:
(19) Because your heart was responsive and you humbled yourself before the LORD when you heard what I have spoken against this place and its people, that they would become accursed and laid waste, and because you tore your robes and wept in my presence, I have heard you, declares the LORD.
(20) Therefore I will gather you to your fathers, and you will be buried in peace. Your eyes will not see all the disaster I am going to bring on this place.’” So they took her answer back to the king.

The prophet Jeremiah confirmed that Judah would be destroyed.

Jeremiah 25:8 and 9
(8) Therefore the LORD Almighty says this: “Because you have not listened to my words,
(9) I will summon all the peoples of the north and my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon,” declares the LORD, “and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants…I will completely destroy them and make them an object of horror and scorn, and an everlasting ruin.

The sin of the people of Judah had become so great, and they had ignored God’s warnings for so long, that He could no longer protect them from destruction. Yet even in terrible circumstances, His mercy and grace abounded, because He said Judah would only be a captive nation for 70 years, at which point Babylon would be destroyed:

Jeremiah 25:11 and 12
(11) This whole country will become a desolate wasteland, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.
(12) “But when the seventy years are fulfilled, I will punish the king of Babylon and his nation, the land of the Babylonians, for their guilt,” declares the LORD, “and will make it desolate forever.

Eventually Jeremiah’s prophecy came to pass. Persia conquered Babylon, which is how the Judean Mordecai came to be in Persia during the reign of King Xerxes (Esther 2:5-7). Mordecai, with Esther’s collaboration, was instrumental in her ascent to the Persian throne as queen. Mordecai and Esther then worked together to interrupt the demonic plot of Jewish genocide that was mandated under unwitting King Xerxes (Esther 3:8-15). Satan’s plot behind the genocide was to destroy the Jews so that the Messiah could not be born. However, God acted powerfully through courageous people so that the Judeans were not destroyed, and eventually, from the nation of Judah and tribe of Judah, the Christ was born.

God’s plan to bring the Messiah was accomplished centuries after the Babylonian Captivity through the obedience of a simple Jewish girl, Mary, who with the partnership of her betrothed, Joseph, provided a protective family for our Jesus to mature until he was ready to begin the redemptive work of His real Father, God.

Satan was unable to prevent the birth or resurrection of our Messiah, Jesus. That does not mean that Satan does not work diligently to thwart God’s plans and harm His people in any way he can. Since early after the resurrection, Satan’s efforts to thwart God’s dominion can be seen in his attempt to silence half of the church via misapplication of Scripture (a tactic he attempted with Jesus in Matthew 4:6):

1 Timothy 2:11-13
(11) A woman should learn in quietness and full submission.
(12) I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.
(13) For Adam was formed first, then Eve.

In Timothy’s time, only males were allowed to attend academies of learning where they learned in quietness (also translated “tranquility”) and submission. Verse 11 means females should have similar educational opportunities in the Word. In verse 12, the Greek verb authentein, translated “to have authority over” could also be translated “to declare oneself to be the author of.” [5] The context of this section of Scripture refers to the Gnostic infiltration that asserted that women were created before men and were therefore superior to men. This falsehood is contradicted in Genesis. The intent of 1 Timothy 2:11-13 was not to silence the voice of women, but rather to control the spread of false doctrine by making sure proper doctrine that fit with the whole Word was being taught. [For further study on this important section of Scripture read “The Role of Women in the Church.”]

The voice of women is recorded in the New Testament including Mary the mother of Jesus (Luke 1:46-55), Elizabeth (Luke 1:42-45), Anna the prophetess (Luke 2:36-38), and the daughters of Philip the evangelist who were identified as prophetesses (Acts 21:9). If God’s plan was that women were to be silent, why would He choose to have women’s words recorded in His Word? God’s plan of cooperative dominion remains, and men and women have the privilege of cooperating to accomplish His purposes in this day and age.

Jim Hoffer
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IRVINGTON, N.J. (WABC) — Police in Irvington, New Jersey are searching for a man they say threw hot oil on his ex-wife as she slept in her bed.

There is a widespread search underway for the suspect.

It is in a first floor apartment in Irvington where Terri Thompson’s life changed forever.

She had gone to bed after refusing the sexual advances of her former husband who had recently moved back in with Thompson and her two children.

Her sister who has spoken directly with the victim describes what happened next.

“He goes to the kitchen proceeds to fill a pot with water and oil, boils it then puts on gloves, carries the pot into bedroom and pours it on her,” said Claudia Menture, the victim’s sister.

Badly burned and beaten, she was able to crawl to her neighbor’s apartment across the hall to get help.

Since the Friday attack, Thompson has been in serious condition in the critical care unit at St. Barnabas Medical Center.

“She is wrapped completely from head to arms in bandages. They said the skin was falling off her that’s how bad she was burned,” said John Menture, the victim’s brother-in-law.

Irvington Police are looking for the ex-husband, 47-year-old Byron Stokely, who stole Thompson’s car after the alleged attack.

The part-time security guard is wanted on charges of aggravated assault which the family says downplays the seriousness of the crime.

“Him throwing hot oil and water and beating her and locking her in, he left her to die,” Claudia Menture said.

Irvington Police are warning that anyone who comes into contact with the 200 pound, 5’6″, Stokely should use caution and contact them immediately.

“He is someone who is very violent, he needs to be caught, he’s very dangerous,” Claudia Menture said.