China Chronicles November 20, 2012
- Officials punished for 5 boys' deaths in dumpster
Eight Bijie City officials were suspended or sacked from their positions after five boys died from carbon monoxide when they were left alone inside a dumpster and used the charcoal for heat.
Of the officials punished for their mismanagement were two deputy mayors in Qixingguan District, Tang Xingquan and Gao Shoujun, according to the Bijie City Committee of the Communist Party of China in southwest China's Guizhou Province.
The five children, aged between nine and 13, were found dead, along with the remains of burned charcoal, inside a litter bin last Friday. They were cousins of a local family surnamed Tao, Xinhua News Agency reported today.
It drizzled on Thursday night and the temperature went as low as 6 degrees Celsius, according to the local weather reports. The boys have hanged around for long time but received no help.
Tao Jinyou, one of the boys' father, said five children didn't show up for three weeks after they went out to play and parents and school teachers couldn't get any clues about their whereabouts.
Four had quitted school due to their poor performance, another sad father Tao Yuanwu said.
- HK vehicle crash leaves 3 killed, 56 injured
A double decker bus crashed with two other vehicles yesterday morning at Shau Kei Wan of the Hong Kong Island, and left three people dead and 56 injured including 5 in critical condition, local media reported.
The accident happened at about 11:38 am local time when the bus was running downhill and suddenly went out of control and collided with a taxi and another bus. A bus passenger told the media that the crash happened shortly after the driver fainted.
Three people on the taxi, including the driver and two passengers, were dead. The 56 people on the two buses were injured and sent to different hospitals for treatment.
- Wen praises ASEAN way in handling territorial disputes
China and members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have enough wisdom and capability to properly handle territorial and maritime disputes, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said yesterday.
Speaking at the 15th China-ASEAN summit in Cambodian capital Phnom Penh, Wen said seeking consensus through consultation and accommodating each other's concerns were the core principles of the ASEAN way.
The smooth implementation of cooperation among East Asian countries could be largely attributed to the adherence to the ASEAN way, which calls for shelving disputes and promoting consensus and unity, Wen said.
East Asian countries should follow such spirit when dealing with various issues including territorial or maritime disputes, he added.
Ten years ago, China and the ASEAN countries signed the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea and reached a series of important principles and consensus, Wen said.
These included: jointly maintaining and enhancing peace and stability in the South China Sea, solving territorial and jurisdictional disputes through consultations between sovereign countries directly involved, not taking actions that would complicate and enlarge the South China Sea issue, and opposing internationalization of the issue.
Over the years, there had been peace and stability in the South China Sea region, proving that China's dialogue and communication channels with the ASEAN countries were effective and should be cherished, Wen said.
China recently agreed with the ASEAN countries to accumulate consensus through deep dialogue and create conditions to start talks on a Code of Conduct in the South China Sea, which is a natural extension of the declaration, Wen said.
ASEAN leaders, at a summit on Sunday, agreed not to internationalize the South China Sea issue, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said yesterday.
Hun also said ASEAN leaders agreed to implement the declaration in a comprehensive manner and continue to conduct c! onsultations in line with the principles outlined in it.
China is willing to increase dialogue and enhance cooperation with ASEAN members in security and strategy, and make further contribution to East Asia's lasting peace and prosperity, Wen said.
The primary task for China-ASEAN cooperation at present was to cope with the global financial crisis. Against the backdrop of the crisis, the integration of regional economies will have a profound impact on the world landscape, Wen said.
- Liquor firm denies claim its drinks are tainted
A LIQUOR company is disputing the findings of a testing company in Shanghai that its products contain excessive and toxic plasticizers which could impair male sexual function and even cause liver cancer.
According to a report on news website 21cbn.com, Jiugui, a type of Chinese liquor selling for 438 yuan (US$70) a bottle, was found to contain three plasticizers with one being 260 percent above the permitted level.
There have been reports of plasticizers being illegally added to drinks to improve their appearance and taste. But they can be hazardous to health.
The website said its reporter, after a tip-off from "insiders," had purchased four bottles of Jiugui from an official store in Beijing and sent them to the National Food Quality Supervision and Inspection Center for checks.
But after the center refused to check the liquor saying that it would require authorization from the production company, the reporter sent them to a third-party company, Intertek Co, to be tested. Its tests showed that samples of the liquor contained three plasticizers - diethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP), diisobutyl phthalate (DIBP) and dibutyl phthalate (DBP), the website said.
The DBP was 260 percent above the level allowed in the country, the website said.
It quoted experts as saying long-term intake of food or drink with plasticizers disrupted hormone levels and could also damage the immune and digestive systems and even cause liver cancer.
However, liquor producer Hunan Jiugui Liquor Co in central China's Hunan Province disputed the findings and said they would not be recalling products.
It told NetEase website money.163.com that the Intertek company was not authoritative.
The website said the company had previously sent products to the country's quality supervision facility for checks but no plasticizers had been found.
Jiugui Vice President Fan Zhen told China National Radio he had been confused by the media reports. Fan said the company used tradition! al methods and didn't add plasticizer during the production process.
He also said there was no national standard for plasticizers in liquor but confirmed that the company would be sending their products to an official facility for checks.
Experts say any chemicals in the drink may have come from plastic products, such as conduits or containers, that are used in the distilling process.
- Discipline watchdog says corruption a serious battle
PUNISHING and preventing corruption is a "serious political battle" for both the Communist Party of China and the country, according a report released yesterday by the Party's discipline watchdog.
The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection has vowed heavier supervision of all its Party members and a crackdown on corruption during the next five years.
The Party must "practice self-discipline and be strict with its members," and maintain high-intensity pressure in tackling corruption, the report said.
Everyone is equal before Party disciplines and the law, and whoever violates them shall be punished, regardless of his or her position, the report said.
The Party must put people first and guard their interests, targeting the pressing problems that are deeply complained about by the masses, the report said.
The report stressed that "at a time when the world, China and the CPC are undergoing profound changes, challenges the CPC faces are of lasting, complicated and grave nature, such as in governance, carrying on reform and opening-up, steering a market economy and withstanding outside pressures."
It continued: "Dangers facing the Party have become more prominent, such as a sit-back-and-relax mentality, incompetence, disconnection with the people, and corruption."
In a bid to ensure clean governance, it warned Party members to "keep ringing the alarm bell against corruption" as it was a "prolonged, complicated and arduous" fight.
The central and local commissions for discipline inspection should work to "resolve pressing corruption problems that cause strong public complaint," the document said.
The CPC has promised severe punishment of corrupt officials, saying major efforts will be made on cases involving power abuse, bribery, depraved conduct, dereliction of duty, and severe infringement of the people's economic, political and personal rights and interests, according to the report.
Corruption cases occurred frequently, particularly in! certain regions and government departments, some of which involved huge sums of money and many corrupt officials. Those involving medium and high-ranking officials exerted threatening influence, the report said.
The document pointed out that corruption had become more complicated and camouflaged, while supervisory and prevention systems were still fledgling. This resulted in difficulties in discovering and investigating cases.
Lacked spirit
The report went on to add that some officials leveraged their power for illegal gains for their spouses, children, other relatives and people who work with them.
A minority of officials even lost faith, lacked spirit to endure hardship, distanced themselves from the public, indulged in formality, bureaucracy and extravagance; and a handful of officials even defied and violated the law and Party disciplines, the report said.
The chief of the discipline watchdog also called for a strengthened fight against corruption in order to build a clean Party.
At a conference attended by Party members and officials from the CCDI, commission head Wang Qishan championed efforts to improve CPC members' working practices.
Wang said the Party's discipline watchdog will target Party members' unhealthy practices.
He asked them to refrain from mediocrity, laziness, indiscipline and luxurious lifestyles.
Party members were told to correct unhealthy practices that harm people's interests and receive education that will help them better understand the viewpoints of the people.
Wang said efforts should be made to make the Party's political discipline strict.
Party officials, especially high-ranking ones, should better educate and restrain their relatives and staff members working closely with them, allowing no privilege.
The CCDI will strictly implement and improve the system for the officials to report their personal assets and strengthen administration on government personnel who have spouses or children living overs! eas.
A total of 668,429 people were given Party or administrative punishments from November 2007 to June 2012.Over the past five years, the watchdog opened investigations into 643,759 cases and settled 639,068, with 24,584 people handed to prosecutors for breaking the law.
- Party chief warns of graft risk
IF corruption is allowed to run wild in China then the ruling Communist Party risks major unrest and the collapse of its rule, Party chief Xi Jinping warned at one of his first major meetings since taking the role.
Xi told a study session of the 25-member Political Bureau of the Party's Central Committee on Sunday that graft was like "worms breeding in decaying matter" - an old Chinese saying that means "ruin befalls those who are weak."
"In recent years, some countries have stored up problems over time leading to seething public anger, civil unrest and government collapse - corruption has been an important factor in all this," Xi said.
"A great deal of facts tell us that the worse corruption becomes the only outcome will be the end of the Party and the end of the state. We must be vigilant." Xi added.
"Recently, our Party has had serious discipline and legal cases of a despicable nature which has had a bad political effect and shocked people," he said.
Xi told the session that Party members, especially those at senior levels, should not abuse their positions for personal gain, and that they were not above the law.
Officials "must also strengthen their management and control over their relations and those who work with them," Xi added.
- Group remembers victims of Japan's germ war in China
A CEREMONY commemorating victims of Japan's germ warfare in China 70 years ago was held in a Zhejiang Province village on Sunday, after which non-governmental figures from China and Japan made an appeal for the Japanese crimes to be acknowledged.
The ceremony was attended by volunteers, non-governmental figures from China and Japan and more than 100 descendants of victims in Chongshan Village, Yiwu City. The Japanese army used biological bombs on Chongshan and then, on November 18, 1942, torched the village to cover it up, killing 176 people.
"Although the power of an individual is weak, I would like to tell more Japanese about what really happened in history through my own efforts," Nishisato Fuyuko, who has worked as a journalist for several Western television stations covering Japan, said after the ceremony. She said few Japanese realize that the current tension in bilateral ties between China and Japan stems from historical events.
Fuyuko won her fame for joining the production of a TV documentary about Unit 731, the Japanese Imperial Army's Biological Warfare Unit. The documentary tells the horrible historical facts of the Japanese army recruiting elite scientists to develop and use biological weapons in China.
Her colleague Nasu Shigeo said he and a few other Chinese and Japanese citizens were on a trip to collect historical evidence concerning the germ warfare in Yiwu and other cities including Ningbo and Jinhua in Zhejiang.
"There is an urgent need to establish a non-governmental organization in Yiwu to push forward the study of germ warfare's history and expose the Japanese atrocities to the world," said Wang Xuan, who is with the team of investigators.
They visited the exhibition hall in memory of the victims in Chongshan on Sunday to review historical documents. They tell of how the Japanese army dropped biological bombs above the village on September 3, 1942.
Infectious disease broke out in a month. Japanese troops including Unit 731 entered t! he village in November to collect samples from the corpses and started experiments on humans, including vivisection without anaesthetic.
Local historical records show that 1,318 people in Yiwu were killed during the germ warfare. In Chongshan alone, 404 people died.
In 1997, a group of 180 Chinese plaintiffs from Zhejiang and central China's Hunan Province started a campaign demanding fair judgment of their accusation against Japan for its crimes in germ warfare. Yet they lost after the Japanese supreme court made its final judgment in 2007.
- Family blaming school in death of student
THE family of a 19-year-old woman are blaming a private vocational school in Qingdao City for the death of their daughter, who fell from the fourth floor of a restaurant when she and other students were taken out for late night beers last month by six male teachers.
Last year, the Qingdao Qiushi Vocational School was rocked by the deaths of another student and a teacher at the campus.
The woman who died last month, Liu Xiao'ao, and five other female students were invited out on October 27, the school's 20th anniversary, according to a man surnamed Kong, the woman's uncle.
Police told Liu's parents that the woman "accidentally'' fell from a window in the restaurant bathroom at 10:34pm, her family said. Police said they have ruled out murder but have not released a cause for the death.
Liu's family has doubts about the investigation. "I've sent my daughter to the school to study, not let the teachers take her out late at night to have dinner and drink beers," Liu's father told China Business Herald.
Kong said Liu and the other students were invited because the teachers wanted to discuss the school's anniversary celebration.
Police told him that the students and teachers had consumed a total of 40 bottles of beer. Police said she had alcohol in her body but they did not say how much.
"What are the teachers attempting on the girls by sharing so many bottles of beer with them?" asked the father.
The father told the newspaper school officials haven't answered his questions, but he said the school headmaster called him and warned him not to blame the teachers.
A reporter called the school but a senior official became furious and warned him "not to cause troubles."
"Why are you, little business reporter, covering this topic instead of some business news? Does the case have anything to do with you?" the official, Xu Jianzhong, asked and then hung up, the newspaper said.
Kong said the local government paid the family 600,000 yuan (US$96,! 157) in compensation.
Family members say they are ready to sue the school. School officials said they would pay 50,000 yuan to the family, an offer rejected by the father.
On July 28 of last year, a 28-year-old female teacher was sexually assaulted and found dead, naked in a school pond.
On November 24 of 2011, a student was found dead after falling from a school building. The reason for his death still remains unknown.
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zhaoxiaohou has added a photo to the pool:
- Guangdong #12
Araakii has added a photo to the pool:
A pile of dog bodies. Most people stopped eating dogs in China, especially in cities. But in small villages/towns, it's still a main dish on the dinner table.
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- Reflection
Von Andre has added a photo to the pool:
Merriam-Webster defined reflection as an instance of reflecting; especially : the return of light or sound waves from a surface. In physics, the law of reflection says that the angle at which the wave is incident on the surface equals the angle at which it is reflected. Well both hold true but I say reflection could occur in any place, we don't need light source or a mirror to see it. Reflection lives among us and we just have to accept for whatever it produces back.
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