China Chronicles May 26, 2012
- Chinese-Thai military training
Marines from China and Thailand undergo joint training yesterday in Shanwei, a city in southern China's Guangdong Province. The training was aimed at combatting regional terrorist organizations. The two countries trained together from May 11 until yesterday.
- Chat
- Ghana bails 38 Chinese miners
GHANA yesterday agreed to the bail of 38 Chinese citizens it detained earlier this week for alleged illegal mining after the Chinese Embassy stepped in.
Ghanaian authorities will later take legal action over the Chinese miners, the China News Service said, citing embassy officials.
The arrests on Tuesday morning came after a local gold mine owner reported to police that another mine owner had illegally employed Chinese miners at the village of Akutoase, about 400 kilometers from the capital of Accra.
The Chinese miners and their Ghanaian counterparts were caught by police when they were mining near a river, causing serious environmental problems, it was reported.
Meanwhile, Nigeria on Thursday released 80 of nearly 100 Chinese nationals it had arrested on suspicion of being in the country illegally, the Chinese consulate-general in the port city of Lagos said. Most of those held in a crackdown on Tuesday in Lagos and Kano were said to be textile traders working in city markets.
Those still in custody face being sent back to China as they have overstayed their permits, Xu Chunman, an official with the consulate, told Xinhua news agency. The issue has been resolved, Xu said.
The People's Daily reported that in a textile products market in the northern Nigerian city of Kano alone, the government arrested 45 Chinese dealers.
- China keeps quarantine on Philippine fruit
CHINA'S quality watchdog said yesterday that it will maintain a quarantine on fruit imports from the Philippines.
The move is aimed at preventing the introduction of harmful organisms into China and safeguarding the nation's ecological security as well as people's health, according to a statement posted on the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine's website.
It said that China's move is in line with rules and standards set by the World Trade Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
The agency said earlier that harmful insects or bacteria had been found in pineapples, bananas and other fruit imported from the Philippines in the last year.
The statement added that AQSIQ officials and experts held talks with a visiting Philippine delegation about the problems, showing the delegation photos of harmful organisms found with the exported fruit.
The AQSIQ said the Philippine side has invited Chinese delegates to the Philippines to conduct examinations, but the AQSIQ has no immediate plans to send delegates to the country. The AQSIQ also rejected a demand by the Philippines to send its own quarantine experts to jointly examine the exports, which the AQSIQ said violates international conventions and Chinese law.
The Chinese administration urged the Philippines to take effective measures to improve and enhance preventive efforts against harmful organisms in orchards and packaging plants, as well as to strengthen quarantine checks before exports, the statement noted.
- HK takes back funds it donated in Sichuan
THE Hong Kong government has decided to reclaim the HK$2 million (US$257,600) it donated to an earthquake-devastated city in Sichuan Province after local authorities pulled down a school built with its aid money.
Stephen Lam, chief secretary of the administration of Hong Kong, said the city of Mianyang did not inform Hong Kong before it dismantled the school.
He went to Sichuan Province on Thursday and said Hong Kong will allocate the returned money to other reconstruction projects in Sichuan.
"Hong Kong has provided aid to Sichuan for 123 reconstruction projects and the remaining ones will be completed this year," Xinhua news agency cited Lam as saying.
The Hong Kong government has donated HK$9 billion in total to aid Sichuan's reconstruction.
The Sichuan provincial government said it respected Hong Kong's decision and will conduct an investigation into what it called the unauthorized demolition in Mianyang.
Mianyang authorities blamed Wanda Commercial Prosperities Co Ltd for tearing down the Zijing Ethnic Minorities High School to make room for its massive real estate project.
However, a statement issued by the Mianyang government on Monday said the school was torn down for safety concerns because the school building was leaning after recent heavy rains.
Wang Jianlin, a Wanda executive, dismissed the unauthorized demolition, claiming the practice had nothing to do with Wanda.
"We hadn't planned to bid for the land in Mianyang before the demolition was finished, but local authorities invited us to start a project. They promised 'everything was okay,' but problems occurred once we got the land-use right," he said.
- Police rescue 13 victims of prostitution ring
THIRTEEN girls and young women between the ages of 14 and 20 who were lured or forced into prostitution in several provinces have been rescued by police in Chongqing in southwest China.
Police also apprehended 12 suspects, most of them related to each other or their fellow villagers, who were found to have made more than 500,000 yuan (US$78,950) from over 150 cases of forced prostitution.
The underground ring was tightly organized with a clear distribution of work and a complete network stretching over the provinces including Sichuan, Guizhou, Henan and Anhui, Xinhua news agency reported yesterday.
A 16-year-old girl surnamed Guo, a native of Chongqing, was able to escape and tell police her story in the Yubei District of Chongqing on March 27. That blew the lid off the underground prostitution ring.
She said a man surnamed Jiang took her from Shenzhen, where she was seeking a job, to Chongqing after promising sightseeing and high-salary jobs.
"An ad posted in a Shenzhen labor center read: 'Nannies are needed in Chongqing and Sichuan. Tens of thousands of yuan are paid every month. Flights are free.' I was in bad need of money and then contacted Jiang," Guo said.,
To win Guo's trust, Jiang led Guo to visit his company in a local high-end residential complex and showed her a complete set of licenses and certificates. Guo was convinced and flew to Chongqing, where her nightmare began, Xinhua said.
A couple bought the girl, confiscated her identification card and money, and locked her in a rental house. They forced her to sign a contract to engage in prostitution and banned her from "making boyfriends and staying out overnight."
A teenaged girl might be priced between 2,000 yuan and 10,000 yuan, and one ring member managed one to four girls, Xinhua cited police as saying.
To gain more money from clients, girls were forced to disguise themselves as poor students, and a deal could even bring in tens of thousands of yuan.
According to police,! more an d more people began trapping young women by impersonating rich young men or falsely offering good salaries. Some even lured teens to shoot nude photos or got them addicted to drugs to better control them, authorities said.
- High levels of chromium found in more capsules
IN the latest round of medical capsule inspections, 204 batches made by 56 pharmaceutical enterprises across the nation were found to contain excessive chromium.
The involved companies were in Beijing and the provinces of Heilongjiang, Hebei, Liaoning, Hunan, Gansu, Zhejiang, Anhui and the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
Eighty-seven batches of toxic capsules were made by 15 factories in Liaoning and 60 batches were produced by seven plants in Heilongjiang, local food and drug authorities announced on their websites yesterday.
In east China, 11 factories in Anhui were found to manufacture 25 bad batches while Zhejiang, the main production area for capsules, saw nine tainted batches from six factories, authorities said.
Many of the toxic capsules were antibiotics, including Cefradine, Amoxicillin and Norfloxacin, online information showed.
The Hong Kong Department of Health said on Thursday that it would recall nearly 3,000 boxes of cold medicine capsules that were found to contain levels of chromium 16 times higher than allowed.
The Superior Gan Mao Qing Capsules were imported by a licensed proprietary Chinese medicines wholesaler, Kin Lik Trading Co Ltd. Another brand produced by Kin Lik, Quick Acting Gan Mao Qing Capsules, would also be recalled, the administration said on its official website.
In a national crackdown by the State Food and Drug Administration in April, 74 batches made by 15 companies had high levels of chromium. Officials said producers' licenses would be suspended.
- Submachine gun seized from gun-running gang
A TRANSNATIONAL firearms smuggling and trafficking gang has been busted, according to a statement yesterday by the Public Security Bureau in Nanning, capital of south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
Police have arrested 14 suspects and confiscated 37 guns, 1,686 bullets, a batch of gun powder and a fully loaded Thompson submachine gun.
The ringleader, surnamed Li, accompanied by his two partners, surnamed Liu and Zhang, smuggled guns from neighboring countries, posted ads online and delivered the goods to buyers through express delivery, police said.
Their crimes came to light in October when Nanning police discovered a parcel contained bullets.
Police arrested the receiver of the package in Tianjing and followed leads to an Internet user called "carpenter," who claimed to be a former special forces soldier and own firearms for sale. Police soon identified the mysterious personality as Liu, who was later found to have engaged in more than 10 deals.
Police arrested Zhang on December 30. Meanwhile, 11 other suspects were apprehended in provinces including Sichuan and Guangdong.
Suspects said 14 seized guns came from the 33-year-old Li, native in Shantou, a city in Guangdong Province.
He was alerted by the police crackdown and fled to Thailand.
On April 18, Chinese police flew to Thailand and contacted local authorities. Five days later, Li was arrested, and on May 9, he was escorted back.
- in the debate courtyard
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