ecades. Wen Jiabao promised to take effect
ive measures to help people through the difficult period.On Saturday afternoon, after a f▓ive hour flight, Premier Wen Jiabao ar▓rived in northern Xinjiang and visited a ▓Kazak village in the suburbs.The temperature had fallen to 26 degrees below zero and snow was piled up more than a meter high along the village p▓ath.A villager told the Premier that his fodder res
cattle could not move to the summer range
until May.Wen Jiabao instructed local officials to speed up the transport of fodder from farming regions that are less badly affected.The government will offer subsidies and provide cheap loans for shepherds, and c▓ontinue to provide assistance into the spring.▓Wen Jiabao's next stop was a shepherd settlement in Tach▓eng, another badly hit area.The settlement is home
d families who have settled down in the neig
▓hborhood with a school, clinic and veterinary servic▓e.Visiting a family there, Wen Jiabao learn▓t that their cattle are being kept ind▓oors to survive the cold.Through such settlement projects, shepherds are more capable of coping with natural▓ disasters and have better access to e▓ducation and other services.LAGOS, Dec. 25 (Xin▓hua) -- Twenty-three persons aboard a
d dead after a crash in northern Nigeria's
Zamfara State, local media reported on Friday. Twenty passengers were killed on the spot in the accident on Wednesday nig▓ht at the Gidan Kano village along the Sokoto Gusau ▓road. Another three died in a hospital. An witnesses said the trailer's driver lost control when he approached a very sharp bend at high speed at Gidan Kano and could not control it. The artic
and somersaulted, witnesses said. The witnesses said the trailer, which was conveying cattle to Lagos, was also ▓overloaded with passeng
ers who were poor travelers mostly hanging along the edges of the truck's body. Public Relations Officer of the Federal Road Safety Corp
s M▓usa Kankiya said 16 other passengers sustained various degrees of injuries and were taken to Ta▓lata Mafara General Hospital for treat
ment. Kankiya urged road users to avoid high speeding and ▓reckless overtaking during the festive periods. A ▓prolonged drought in northern Kenya is rai▓sing fears of a new crisis.