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LAGOS nike air max 97 gold uomo , July 25 (Xinhua) -- The Nigerian government Tuesday saidit has approved special promotion of 6,199 soldiers fighting BokoHaram terrorists in restive northeast part of the country, tovarious ranks.


Nigeria's Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Tukur Buratai gave theapproval, Brig.-Gen. Sani Usman, an army spokesperson said in astatement reaching Xinhua in Lagos.


He said 329 Staff Sergeants were promoted to Warrant Officers,371 Sergeants to Staff Sergeants and 707 Corporals toSergeants.


Others are Lance Corporals to Corporals, 1,290 soldiers;Privates to Lance Corporals, 3,502 soldiers.


The army spokesman quoted Buratai as congratulating the newlypromoted soldiers and urged them to increase the tempo of theongoing clearance operations of the Boko Haram terrorists in theNorth-East.


Last weekend, Buratai directed troops to capture AbubakarShekau, the self-styled leader of Boko Haram, ""dead or alive.""


He commanded the troops to employ all arsenal at their disposalto smoke out Shekau wherever he is hiding in Nigeria.


Boko Haram has been blamed for the deaths of more than 20,000people and displacing of 2.3 million others in Nigeria since theirinsurgency started in 2009. Enditem

" " Ma Yun, left, founder and chairman of Alibaba Group, talks with Xu Jiayin, right, Chairman of Evergrande Group, as Ma arrives at the headquarters office of Evergrande Group in Guangzhou city, South China's Guangdong province, 4 June 2014. [PhotoIC]

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group is to join the soccer industry, having agreed to buy 50 percent of shares in Guangzhou Evergrande, the defending Chinese Super League champion said on Thursday. Alibaba will pay up to 1.2 billion yuan ($191.9 million) to acquire the shares, club sources said.


The club, owned by Chinese property giant Guangzhou Evergrande Real Estate Group, last season became the first Chinese club to win the Asian Football Confederation(AFC) Champions League.


At a joint press conference, Alibaba founder and chairman Ma Yun and real estate tycoon Xu Jiayin announced this much anticipated co-operation.


Evergrande's blitz to conquer the Chinese top league has left many dumbfounded. Promoted to the Super League in 2011, the Guangzhou club won the title in the very season before they went on to dominate 2012 and 2013.


In 2013, the club claimed the AFC Champions League crown, becoming China's first Asian champion since the country launched the professional league in 1994.



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BEIJING, Sept. 28 (Xinhua) -- Despite lingering global economic fragility, China's centrally-administered state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have seen strong growth in the past five years.


Official data showed that the total assets of China's central SOEs reached 50.5 trillion yuan (about 7.62 trillion U.S. dollars) by the end of 2016, an 80 percent jump from the end of 2011.


Behind the robust growth was years of non-stop reforms since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 2012, which served as a strong boost for their efficiency and vitality.


"Looking back over the past five years, China has completed the top-level design of the SOE reform, making it more systematic, comprehensive and coordinated," Xiao Yaqing, chairperson of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), said at a press conference Thursday.


RESTRUCTURING UNDERWAY


The central government has been actively restructuring its SOEs in a bid to improve their efficiency and competitiveness, with the number of central SOEs falling to 98 from 117 five years ago.


Since the 18th CPC National Congress, 34 central SOEs have been restructured, including a merger between two of China's top bullet train makers and another between two major steel producers.


Meanwhile, two new firms, Aero Engine Corporation of China and China Tower, were established to meet industrial development needs.p "Technology and market development is the strongest drive for the central SEO restructuring," said Xiao, describing the restructuring efforts in the past five years as "unprecedented."


The mergers and reorganizations have helped the SOEs lift their global competitiveness by optimizing allocation of industrial resources, and up to 48 centrally-owned SOEs made it into the Fortune Global 500 rankings this year, according to Huang Danhua, vice-chairperson of the SASAC.


Besides creating industrial giants, the restructuring offered a boost to their technological innovation capabilities and at the same time reduced management and production costs, according to Huang.


At a cabinet meeting Wednesday, authorities reiterated the need to further advance the restructuring of the central SOEs, especially in equipment manufacturing, electricity, communications and chemical industries.


DEBT RISKS UNDER CONTROL


The SOEs, especially the centrally-administered ones, have played a vital role in China's ongoing supply-side structural reform by leading the excess capacity cuts and keeping their debt ratio under control.


From January to August this year, the central SOEs have beaten government-set targets by reducing 16.14 million tonnes of steel capacity and 55.1 million tonnes of coal capacity.


These companies have also trimmed 88.5 billion yuan of annual losses by dealing with "zombie companies" and loss-making enterprises.


Meanwhile, debt risks at the central SOEs are under control as the companies maintained a steady debt ratio over the past five years, data from the SASAC showed.


By the end of August, the average debt-to-asset ratio of central SOEs dropped to 66.5 percent, 0.2 percentage points lower than the beginning of this year, according to Xiao.


"The debt risk level at central SOEs is reasonable, appropriate and totally controllable," he said.


MIXED-OWNERSHIP REFORM