China Chronicles August 31, 2012
- Another flight aborted by threat call
Shenzhen Airlines announced on its Weibo microblog this morning that its flight from Xiangyang in central Hubei Province to Shenzhen in Guangdong Province made an emergency landing at a third airport after receiving a threat call last night.
The Airbus 320 jet took off from Xiangyang Liuji Airport at 21:50pm last night and was scheduled to arrive at Shenzhen Bao'an Airport at 23:45pm.
But the crew received a threat from an anonymous caller at 22:29pm and was instructed to land immediately at Wuhan Tianhe Airport around 23:24pm, Wuhan airport authorities said.
All the passengers and crew members stayed overnight in a hotel to wait for another flight for Shenzhen this morning.
It is the second terror threat aimed at Chinese airlines this week. On Wednesday an Air China flight on route to New York returned to Beijing Capital International Airport after receiving a threat call. Police are now probing into the case.
- Another flight aborted by anonymous threat call
SHENZHEN Airlines announced on its Weibo microblog this morning that its flight from Xiangyang in central Hubei Province to Shenzhen in Guangdong Province made an emergency landing at a third airport after receiving a threat call last night.
The Airbus 320 jet took off from Xiangyang Liuji Airport at 21:50pm last night and was scheduled to arrive at Shenzhen Bao'an Airport at 23:45pm.
But the crew received a threat from an anonymous caller at 22:29pm and was instructed to land immediately at Wuhan Tianhe Airport around 23:24pm, Wuhan airport authorities said.
All the passengers and crew members stayed overnight in a hotel to wait for another flight for Shenzhen this morning.
It is the second terror threat aimed at Chinese airlines this week. On Wednesday an Air China flight on route to New York returned to Beijing Capital International Airport after receiving a threat call. Police are now probing into the case.
- Death toll rises to 37 in Sichuan colliery blast
THIRTY-SEVEN miners have been confirmed dead and ten others were still unaccounted for after Wednesday's gas explosion in a coal mine in the southwestern province of Sichuan, rescuers said today.
As of 1 am today, the rescuers have retrieved 34 bodies, and six miners were pulled out alive from Wednesday night to Friday morning, the search and rescue headquarters told Xinhua.
A total of 154 miners were working underground when the blast hit the Xiaojiawan Coal Mine in Panzhihua City at around 6 pm Wednesday, and 104 of them have escaped on their own or have been pulled out of the shaft. Three miners died on their way to hospital.
As of 6 pm yesterday, four hospitals in Panzhihua had received 54 miners, including 10 who were seriously injured and seven in critical condition, the provincial health department said.
Of the injured, 50 miners suffered from carbon monoxide poisoning and the other four suffered burn-related injuries, the health department said, adding that most of the injured are in stable condition.
The coal mine, some 750 km southwest of the provincial capital of Chengdu, is owned by Zhengjin Industry and Trade Co., Ltd.
Three owners of the mine have been taken into police custody and the mine's accounts have been frozen.
An investigation into the accident is underway.
Meanwhile, provincial authorities have ordered a thorough probe and overhaul on coal mines and other hazardous businesses.
<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank"…
- Mentally ill toiled in poor conditions, factory shut down
A GROUP of mentally ill workers was escorted home yesterday after media exposure of them being exploited in a sweatshop in the central Chinese province of Hubei stirred nationwide fury online.
Local media reports said that 11 workers, seven of them who appeared to be mentally handicapped, worked without protective gear or enough food in a plaster factory in Jingmen City, over 250 kilometers away from their hometown in the neighboring province of Henan.
The workers were covered in white dust from head to toe. Their dormitories were also covered with dust, filthy and crowded, said a report published early this month by a Hubei-based newspaper.
The factory's makeshift kitchen smelled sour and the workers were only offered two meals a day - mostly just plain noodles.
The report, with photos illustrating the life of the workers, went viral online on Wednesday after qq.com - a major web portal in China - put the news on its front page.
The report received 14,000 comments on Wednesday. Netizens denounced the coldness and inhumanity of the owner and questioned government supervision.
"I felt so sad and almost cried when I read the news," said a netizen identified as "Zhenbao" on Weibo.
"Where are the government workers? Couldn't they see? How can they just take taxpayer's money and do nothing?" said another blogger named Xiangxiang.
Most workers were brought to the Jingmen Qiangtai Plaster Company last winter by a man called Deng Yuhua, also a local of Nanyang City in Henan.
Deng said that the workers, aged between 40 and 50, were slow in both thinking and action and would do whatever they were asked.
Nine of the 11 workers are not married.
Xu Shunchi, owner of the factory, said the workers made on average 1,000 yuan (US$159) a month and Deng collected their wages.
Police yesterday confirmed Deng's claim that he had the consent of the workers' family before taking them to the factory and was sending paychecks back to their homes.
Acco rding to Deng, their family were actually glad that they could make money instead of being a family burden.
The factory owner and Deng are not likely to face criminal charges as police denied any form of slavery existed in the factory and the employees were not forced to work and their freedom was not restricted, said Qin Shaoxiong, an official with the human resources and social security bureau in the Duodao District, where the factory is located. However, there are problems such as unpaid wages as well as the miserable work and living environment, said Qin.
Authorities suspended the factory and the owner has been fined 20,000 yuan.
- Authorities: Flight not returned to nab fugitive
AUTHORITIES yesterday denied an online claim that an Air China flight returned to Beijing on Wednesday night to thwart a corrupt official's flee attempt. The airline earlier attributed the return to a "threat" and then said they found nothing abnormal.
There was no corrupt official onboard the aircraft and it flew back after receiving a tip from the United States, airport police and the country's flagship carrier said yesterday.
"The information came from a US intelligence agency, but it was not prudent to disclose any further details," said Xu Yanchun, an official with Air China's Beijing headquarters.
More than 200 police were dispatched to make two rounds of security checks on each of the 325 passengers after the plane landed in Beijing, the police told Legal Evening News.
The Boeing 747 - flight CA981- returned and landed at Beijing Capital International Airport around 8:30pm on Wednesday, about eight hours after it had set off for John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.
Air China issued an announcement shortly after, saying "the flight was returned to Beijing for the sake of passenger safety as it received a threatening message."
However, some people online claimed the pilots flew back after receiving an order from air traffic controllers that a corrupt official carrying a huge sum of money was found to be onboard.
The rumor arose after the airport authority said later in the day that nothing abnormal was found after passengers were checked. Passengers were not told the aircraft was returning until it landed.
Internet users also questioned why the aircraft had not landed at the nearest airport, such as in Hawaii, after receiving a threat but instead returned to Beijing.
"The crew members did not tell the passengers the truth in the air to avoid causing any panic," another Air China official said.
There was no airport that could accommodate the wide-body Boeing 747 aircraft on its way back, the official added.
The f! light to ok off again at 12:30am to take passengers to their destination. The carrier changed pilots and crew members to ensure the safety of the passengers because they had been tired after flying for eight hours, the official added. The aircraft finally landed at John F. Kennedy airport after flying for another 12 hours.
- Yellow River dike collapses in Gansu
Working staff check the collapsed dike on the Yellow River in Lanzhou, capital of northwest China's Gansu province, yesterday. A 100-meter section of a dike on the Yellow River collapsed on Wednesday evening, severing water pipes and affecting the availability of tap water. No casualties have been reported. Repair work on the pipes is under way.
- Varsity whistle blower has 'important clues'
A FORMER professor at Peking University who blew the lid on an alleged sex scandal involving top school officials has insisted that he has "massive important clues" but would only share them with the top Chinese discipline watchdog.Reacting to the university's plea to provide conclusive evidence regarding the scandal, Zou Hengfu, a former professor of economics at the school, said he hadn't planned on offering "major evidences" to the university during his meeting with university officials on Wednesday. Instead, in his e-mail sent to the university yesterday, he pointed to the corruption in the students union election, China Youth Daily reported.
"The reason why I contacted the university is that I want to prove I neither made false accusations nor hid myself from the media," he added.
Last week, Zou claimed in a microblog post that his former colleagues had regularly sexually harassed hostesses at a restaurant they frequented.
Zou claimed that deans and directors would "always do that" after having meals at the Mengtaoyuan Restaurant, located close to the university hospital. The posts have been widely circulated online and greatly tarnished the image of the university, one of the top higher-education institutions in China.
The university claimed Zou hadn't provided any evidence and couldn't be accessed until he called the university's discipline supervision office on Wednesday morning. But he just continued to expose a series of corruption cases rather than offer any useful evidence to confirm the sex accusations, according to a statement by the university.
"The university once again urges Zou to come to our office to provide conclusive evidence. Since his words have severely damaged our reputation, we won't wait for him endlessly and are ready to take further action any time."
The school refused to disclose whether it would take Zou to court as part of its so-called "further action."
Yesterday, Zou refused to confirm whether he has any conc! lusive e vidence while admitting to "exaggerating" some facts. "I meant only a handful of faculty behaved indecently. I always make overstatements and that's my style of speaking," he wrote on Weibo.com.
Although Zou's accusations are vague at best, they have struck a chord with some Chinese netizens. Weibo users have noted that Zou's account has been verified and tied to his real identity, adding that it is not likely that a public figure would risk his or her reputation by making false accusations.
- Health care firm in the dock for buying 'swill oil'
A LEADING health care product maker in China was found to have purchased 1.62 million tons of swill oil to produce a major component for antibiotics, which is widely used in the domestic market.
Jiaozuo Joincare Biological Product Co Ltd in central China's Henan Province, a subsidiary of the listed Joincare Pharmaceutical Group Co Ltd, spent 145 million yuan (US$22.82 million) between 2010 and July 2011 on "swill oil" - digouyou in Chinese - oil ladled from drains near restaurants, prosecutors said.
The dirty deal came to light during the hearing on the nation's first case on swill-oil making and selling in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, People's Daily reported yesterday.
Prosecutors said Jiaozuo Joincare was the biggest customer of Henan Huikang Grease Co Ltd, which bought huge amounts of swill oil, blended it with good-quality oil and sold it to food and medicine processors as raw material. Jiaozuo Joincare bought the swill oil at 8,950 yuan per ton, about 2,000 yuan less than the market price.
The company admitted to purchasing oil from Huikang once, but denied knowing the oil was made from restaurant waste at that time or purchasing the oil at lower price, according to its statement yesterday. "The company will bear full responsibility if our products are plagued by quality problems," it added.
Qiu Qingfeng, board secretary of Joincare, said the company had devised four other standards in addition to the national standards to test the oil, but had still failed to detect the swill oil, National Business Daily reported.
Jiaozuo Joincare gained 941 million yuan in revenue in 2010 but the figure fell to 698 million yuan in 2011 since it stopped its contract with Huikang, triggering speculation over its attempt to cut costs by purchasing swill oil.
- Rescue attempt for trapped miners
Workers yesterday get ready to reach 21 miners trapped underground at the Xiaojiawan colliery in Panzhihua, Sichuan Province. The death toll has reached 26 following a mine blast on Wednesday evening. Rescue efforts have been hampered by high temperatures in the gas-filled pit.
- Company meeting room arson suspect succumbs
A WOMAN who allegedly set a fatal fire three days ago died yesterday morning from injuries sustained after she jumped out of a sixth-floor window in central China's Hunan Province, the local government said.
Shi Yanfei, who is suspected of setting a fire in her employer's meeting room before jumping out of one of the room's windows on Monday morning in the city of Shaoyang, died at 8am yesterday after suffering brain damage and severe burns, a city government spokesman said.
The incident happened around 10am on Monday, when Shi, a retired employee at a local tap water firm, rushed into a meeting room where company heads were gathered, spilling gasoline in the room and igniting it before jumping out of a window.
One general manager and two vice general managers were killed, while three other officials were injured. The injured are still undergoing treatment, although their injuries are not life-threatening, according to the spokesman.
An initial investigation indicated that Shi set the fire because the firm refused to employ one of her children.
Although it was once commonplace for children to replace their parents in state-owned companies following their parents' retirement, intense job competition and market economics have put a dent in the tradition.
- 201208-237-46
scs1969 has added a photo to the pool:
- 201208-213-46
scs1969 has added a photo to the pool:
- 201208-177-46
scs1969 has added a photo to the pool:
- Service entrance
- Yonnie & Alex
Don6201 has added a photo to the pool:
- nobody home
Comments