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A plainclothes policeman catches a woman during a police crackdown on prostitution in Quanzhou, Fujian province, October 29, 2011. China should remove criminal and administrative penalties against sex workers which often lead to serious police abuses, Human Rights Watch said in a report released on May 14, 2013. The abuses include torture, beatings, physical assaults, fines and arbitrary detentions of up to two years, as well as a failure to investigate crimes against sex workers by clients, bosses and state agents, according to the report. Prostitution is not permitted under Chinese law, although the industry has boomed since the country launched economic reforms in 1978. REUTERS/Stringer

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Blast at Electrabel Dutch power plant

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AMSTERDAM | Thu Nov 8, 2012 4:21am EST

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A blast rocked the Electrabel electricity plant in the southern Dutch city of Nijmegen on Thursday, sending clouds of steam into the sky.

Local authorities said no one was hurt and power supplies to client were not disrupted after a boiler exploded, scattering debris across the facility.

Police advised residents in the area to keep their windows and doors shut and to remain inside, but the warning was lifted within two hours.

Officials at the plant were not immediately available to comment on a report by the Dutch news agency ANP that the accident at the coal and bio-mass-fired plant halted shipping in nearby waterways.

(Reporting by Anthony Deutsch; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
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