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RFA English Language News Summary to July 28 2010
The following are headlines and below that area a fuller summary of stories broadcast by Radio Free Asia’s language services during the past week. These stories have been translated into English. Click on a link for the full version.
- Nanjing Blast Toll Rises
- North Korea World Cup Team Shamed, Reprimanded
- Uyghur Webmasters Sentenced
- Sichuan Holds Two Activists
- Lead Poisons Yunnan Children
- Vietnamese Police Use Tear Gas, Batons To Break Up Youth Killing Protest
- Mass Protest Over Proposed Cuts To Cantonese Broadcasts
- Khmer Rouge Figure Convicted, Victims Say Sentence Too Light
- North Koreans Send Funds Home
- Chinese Man’s Death in Custody Unresolved
- Uyghur Journalist Gets 15 Years
Big Drop In Number Of Websites In China
The number of websites in China has fallen over the past six months according to Chinese Government officials who say it is simply a technical anomaly.
However critics contend it is a sign of more repressive government control of China’s cyberspace.
In recent weeks RFA reported there have been reports of a crack-down on microblogging sites in addition to the usual internet censorship.
RFA’s Mandarin Service say the The China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), a state network information center under the Ministry of Information Industry (MII) has reported a nearly 14 percent drop in registered websites.
Kiwis, Chinese Clash Over Free Speech
Over the last month a controversy has simmered in the small pacific nation of New Zealand following a state visit by China’s Vice President Xi Jinping in June.
And central to the issue is, at what point does a nation abandon its fundamental values for fear of upsetting a trading partner?
It started with a Tibetan flag. As the Chinese delegation arrived at Parliament they were greeted by Green Party MP Russell Norman, holding up a Tibetan flag in silence.
Chinese security officials with entourage intervened and tore the flag away and assaulted him. The whole incident was caught on television.
New Zealand’s reaction to the incident has been mixed but New Zealand Prime Minister John Key was quick to apologize for Russell Norman’s actions not once but twice, once in New Zealand and last week on a visit to China according to TVNZ.
Key said: “I really don’t think that we should be inviting people to New Zealand at that level of seniority and then not showing them the respect that they can enter and exit a building.” Read the rest of this entry »
Censorship In China The Old Fashioned Way
There is considerable interest and attention paid to China’s attempts at online censorship but when a prominent government critic was detained this week it showed old fashioned and less sophisticated methods of shutting down free speech were alive and well.
Best-selling Chinese author and democracy advocate, Yu Jie, told RFA’s mandarin service that he had been detained by security agents on Monday and threatened with imprisonment if he went ahead with plans to publish a book criticizing China’s Prime Minister Wen Jiabao.
Asia’s Dumb Criminals Catching Up To Their Western Counterparts
Crime is usually a serious business and no joke for the victims but there are a breed of villains one can almost feel sorry for because they are so stupid.
Until recently, most of the stories have come from western countries. There was the robber in England who took his mask off because he could not hear what was being said and was then caught on a security camera, the two New Zealanders who tried to make a jail break while handcuffed together then ran either side of a telegraph pole knocking each other out not to mention the man found asleep and naked in a house. He had been so drunk he thought he was at his own home 20 miles away.
So it is comforting to know that crime and stupidity are universal human traits. A CNN report has listed the top ten dumbest criminals in Asia – they include a getaway car that was too small to a Japanese bank robber who asked the bank teller for instructions on how to commit a hold up. All are set out below in there magnificent incompetence.
Mekong River Commission Wants New Dam Construction Put On Hold
The Mekong River Commission (MRC) says there should be no new dams on the river until more studies are done on their likely effects.
Vietnamese newspaper Thanh Nien reported this week that the MRC has decided there is too little known about the risks to the environment and the 60 million people who depend upon the Mekong for food, transportation and water to allow construction of the 12 proposed dams to proceed.
RFA has reported extensively on the Mekong including a comprehensive multi-part series Traveling Down the Mekong which looks at the river and its people from the source in Tibet to the outlet via the Vietnam Delta into the South China Sea. Included in the series is an in depth look at how harnessing the river’s power is leading to a variety of consequences.
News Summary In English Of RFA Stories For The Week Ending June 30
The following are headlines and below that area a fuller summary of stories broadcast by Radio Free Asia’s language services during the past week. These stories have been translated into English. Click on a link for the full version.
- Shaoguan, One Year On From Bloody Ethnic Clashes
- Sweatshops Have To Change In Face Of Employee Unrest
- Petitioners who use Maoist songs to highlight grievances are told to keep quiet.
- China Expands Internet Controls
- Urbanization is claiming Chinese farmland, but the cost is steep
- Tibetan Businessman Turned Activist Gets 15 Years Jail
- North Koreans Shun New Currency
- Strike Halts Toyota Plant In China
- Aid workers look into the case of 32 ethnic Rohingya asylum-seekers in Cambodia
USA Internet Kill Switch – Political Censorship or Responsible Security Precaution
China’s Censors Cutting Off More Than 90 Percent Of Blogs
Censors in mainland China are blocking more than 95 percent of blog postings according to reports in the South China Morning Post.
Quoting experts speaking at a regional forum the report (full version below) says there are more than 220 million bloggers in China but most of them have their writing deleted or blocked on the internet.
New Xinjiang Policies Inadequate
New policies introduced to manage China’s northwest Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region will not do enough to improve stability in the region, according to exiled Uyghur leader Rebiya Kadeer.
The policies, put forward by China’s Central Government at the first work conference on Xinjiang held in Beijing last month, promise to focus on bringing “prosperity” and “development” to the region.
They include new regulations on taxation that will supposedly return 5 percent of profits derived by companies from the extraction of natural resources in Xinjiang back to the region.
But Kadeer sees not a change in the underlying principles of Beijing’s policy toward Xinjiang, but “only a change in its shape or appearance.”
“If the nature of the policy does not change, slight modifications will not bring any stability in the region in the short term, let alone the long.”
Kadeer called the new tax on natural gas and petroleum “a progressive step,” but pointed out that the Beijing had not clearly laid out plans for how the tax would be used in the region.
“This step, while in the right direction, is still not where it needs to be because paying a 5 percent tax to the regional and local governments does not mean that Uyghurs will benefit from it. As has happened before, the benefits will likely flow to Han authorities and Han Chinese [migrants to the region],” she said.
Chinese President Hu Jintao said during the work conference that the policies were being introduced to benefit “local population.”
But in the past, efforts to improve the infrastructure of Xinjiang has largely led to improved roads and facilities used by the extractive industries and Han majority migrants that set up businesses and communities that dilute Uyghur cultural heritage, she said.
“There is no official mechanism or specific regulation guaranteeing that Uyghurs will benefit from the 5 percent tax contribution,” Kadeer said.
“The regional and local governments are not elected democratically according to the will of the local Uyghur people. They are not mentally or ethically prepared to serve the Uyghurs, so this empty promise would not provide a profit for Uyghurs.”
She added that the recent appointment of Zhang Chunxian as party secretary to the region would not effectively solve ethnic unrest between Han and Uyghurs in Xinjiang.
“He was appointed, not elected. Regardless of his personality or capability as a leader, I believe that an appointed leader can not solve the ethnic problems,” she said.
“Compared to Wang Lequan’s declaration of ‘hit as soon as they raise their heads, destroy them while they are still a sprout’ and ‘the struggle against spilitism is a struggle of life or death,’ Zhang looks much more ‘liberal.’ But his first announcement for the region was an intent to ‘crackdown on enemy forces.’”
“Which version is the true Zhang Chunxian, we will see in the future.”
Kadeer called on Beijing to end the execution of and release all Uyghur protesters involved in last year’s July 5 ethnic unrest in the Xinjiang capital Urumqi, which left 200 mostly Han Chinese dead.
She also called for a start to talks with the “true representatives” of Uyghurs in Xinjiang and those abroad in exile on how to resolve ethnic unrest in the region.