China Chronicles November 29, 2012
- Memorial service held for fighter jet production head
A high-profile memorial service was held for Luo Yang this morning in Shenyang, the birthplace of China's new J-15 fighter jet as well as the provincial capital of Liaoning.
Luo, head of the production phase of the J-15, experienced a heart attack on Sunday after observing aircraft carrier flight landing tests for China's first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning. He later died in hospital.
He was also chairman and general manager of Shenyang Aircraft Corp. (SAC), a subsidiary of China's state-owned aircraft maker, Aviation Industry Corp. of China (AVIC).
Thousands of people stood in silence in the Huilonggang Cemetery for Revolutionaries in a tearful farewell to Luo.
- Court upholds death penalty for man in car-crush murder
THE Fujian Province High Court yesterday upheld the death sentence for a man who crushed the husband of a woman he harassed to death with his car.
He Wei was sentenced to death for intentional homicide and ordered to pay the victim's family 640,000 yuan (US$ 102,720) in compensation by a court in Zhangzhou City in March.
He appealed the court ruling, arguing that he was drunk and surrendered himself to the police, and compensated the family with money.
The high court said that though the convict drank a lot that day, he was still able to drive smoothly and rolled over the man whose wife he had harassed.
After killing the man, He contacted a friend to drive him to another county in Fujian. This indicates he was still clear-minded, the high court said.
The victim was chased to his house gate and the victim's action of crashing the windshield of He's car with a brick was regarded as self-defense, the court said.
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- Sharp rise in HIV cases for young and over-50s
HIV rates have risen significantly among people aged 15 to 24 and those over 50, China's health authority announced yesterday.From January to October, 16,131 new cases of HIV infection among people over 50 were reported, a year-on-year increase of 20.2 percent. There were also 9,514 new cases of HIV among young people aged 15 to 24, up 12.8 percent, the Ministry of Health said.
The ministry also said that 17,740 AIDS-related deaths were reported the first 10 months, a rise of 8.6 percent.
It said nine provincial regions accounted for 79.9 percent of reported HIV carriers and AIDS patients. The regions weren't named.
The ministry said the latest figures showed that 34,157 new cases of AIDS were reported in the 10-month period, up by 12.7 percent year-on-year.
In total, China reported 492,191 cases of HIV/AIDS by the end of October, including 68,802 new cases.
Figures for Shanghai are to be announced tomorrow but on November 25 last year the city had 1,294 new HIV carriers, 509 new AIDS patients and 64 AIDS-related deaths.
Of the new carriers, about 68 percent were from out of town, Shanghai Health Bureau said.
At the time, the city had a total of 7,498 HIV carriers and 1,813 AIDS patients, with 307 deaths, since the first HIV case was reported in 1987 and the first AIDS patient was identified in 1996.
Sun Xinhua, of the ministry's disease control and prevention bureau, said 84.9 percent of the new cases reported this year were the result of unprotected sex, according to China News Service.
Sun said the prevalence of HIV/AIDS among male homosexuals was rising quickly. HIV transmission between homosexual men accounted for 21.1 percent of new cases so far this year, compared to 15 percent in the same period in 2011.
Vice Premier Li Keqiang has promised to let non-government groups play a bigger role in fighting HIV/AIDS.
At a meeting with non-government groups on Monday, he told them: "You have a greater understanding of ! what sufferers want. The government will continue to offer support and pay even greater attention to and listen more closely to the voices of civil society groups and you will be given greater space to play your role."
State television showed pictures of Li shaking hands with sufferers. In China, discrimination against people with HIV/AIDS is rampant, even in the health-care community.
Meanwhile, Lei Zhenglong, vice director of the disease control and prevention bureau, told an AIDS forum in Liaoning Province that China had offered free treatment to nearly 200,000 AIDS patients and the mortality of AIDS patients undergoing treatment had dropped from 31 percent to 10 percent.
However, challenges remained. The change of the main spreading vehicle from blood to sex made prevention and control more difficult, Lei said.
According to China's AIDS Action Plan for the 12th Five-Year Program period (2011-2015) published by the State Council in February, the country aims to decrease AIDS fatalities by 30 percent by 2015, and new cases by 25 percent as compared to 2010.
Since the end of 2003, the government has carried out the policy of "four frees, one care" for people living with HIV/AIDS. This includes free blood tests for those with HIV, free education for orphans of AIDS patients, free consultation and screening tests, and free antiretroviral therapy for pregnant women.
- State Council vows tighter rules for farmers' land
THE State Council has vowed to tighten laws on the expropriation of farmland, warning that the problem risks fuelling rural unrest and undermining food security in China.
"Rural land has been expropriated too much and too fast as industrialization and urbanization accelerate," it said after a meeting of China's Cabinet chaired by Premier Wen Jiabao.
"It not only affects stability in the countryside but also threatens grain security," it warned.
More reforms were needed and a better legal system set up to resolve the problem, including stricter regulations on farmland expropriation, the State Council said in a statement.
It passed a draft amendment altering rules on how to compensate farmers who lose their land.
The draft will be submitted to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, for deliberations, the statement said.
The Cabinet also urged giving more priority to the countryside in efforts to boost investment and consumption to bolster a slowing economy.
The government must make efforts to beef up support for farmers and place more importance on rural development, its statement said.
Farmers in China do not directly own their fields. Instead, most rural land is owned collectively by a village, and farmers get leases that last for decades.
In theory, villagers can decide whether to sell or develop the land. In practice, however, officials usually decide. And, hoping to win investment, revenue and pay-offs, they often override the wishes of farmers.
Protests by farmers over land seizures have erupted in villages across the country in recent years, prompting calls for better protection of farmers' property rights to the land they have contracted.
In a keynote report to the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China earlier this month, President Hu Jintao pressed for reform of the land expropriation system and an increase in farmers' share of gains in land value.
- Village official lodges appeal despite his early release
A VILLAGE official in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality has appealed against a two-year sentence of re-education through labor despite being released after little more than a year of his term in a labor camp.
The appeal came nine days after Ren Jianyu, an official in Pengshui County, was freed and eight days after a local court dismissed his father's appeal on his behalf against the imprisonment.
Ren, 25, was arrested on August 17, 2011 after forwarding and commenting on more than 100 pieces of "negative information" and given a two-year term in a labor camp for "incitement to subvert state power" without a court process a month later.
Chongqing's re-education through labor committee reviewed the imprisonment, however, and freed Ren on November 19, saying the punishment was "improper."
A day later, the Chongqing No. 3 Intermediate People's Court rejected his father's appeal filed in August this year, saying "the appeal should have come within three months after the re-education term was given."
Ren, however, said the time limit set for appeals had not been exceeded and the court should rule that his two-year sentence was illegal.
"I will continue to appeal for my innocence and social justice," Ren said.
He is also to plead for compensation and resumption of his civil servant status.
"Now whenever I talk with people, I feel terrified and hope to finish the conversation sooner," he said. "This is the bigger harm re-education through labor has brought to me.
"I was scared at the moment when I was arrested. Meanwhile, I felt it ridiculous and unbelievable. Have I subverted state power just because I forwarded a couple of microblog postings? Millions of netizens express their own viewpoints online and should they all be imprisoned in labor camps?" Ren asked.
He lashed out at the re-education through labor system.
"The system is against the rule of law and is too arbitrary," he said. "The re-education through labor committee can ! independently deprive people of their personal freedom and there are no specific rules on how long the freedom can be denied. This kind of law enforcement is too horrible."
- New trial date set for HK football tycoon
A JUDGE in Hong Kong has granted Birmingham City owner Carson Yeung's request to postpone his trial on money laundering charges.
Douglas Yau adjourned the trial, due to start yesterday, until April 29.
Yeung's newly appointed lawyer, Joseph Tse, argued that more time was needed to prepare for the case which involves five counts of money laundering involving more than HK$720 million (US$92 million).
The court heard that five other lawyers had tried and failed to unfreeze Yeung's assets so he could pay for his defense. Tse says he has managed to raise money from an alternative source, The Associated Press reported.
The case is set to put the 52-year-old football tycoon's wealth under an intense spotlight and will probe the former hairdresser's rags-to-riches rise and his ownership of the English football club.
His lawyer is confident he can prove the businessman was already a wealthy man before the alleged offences occurred.
"The prosecution's allegation is simply the fact that he was a hairdresser and now he has so much money," Tse told the court yesterday.
"Before 2001 he and his father were people of affluence. They had wealth and assets in China," Tse said, adding that they had owned a hotel on the Chinese mainland.
Relatively unknown before his emergence in English football, Yeung maintained a low profile even after he took control of Birmingham in 2009 in an 81 million pound (US$130 million) takeover.
Media reports have described how Yeung made his first fortune on cheap stocks, then increased his earnings by co-founding Greek Mythology, a casino in Macau, in 2004. He was prosecuted by Hong Kong's financial regulator for failing to disclose his holdings in a company in the same year and ordered to pay a small fine.
His other business interests include investments in "apparel sourcing trading, entertainment and media services" through Birmingham International Holdings, according to the firm's listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange ! website.
Birmingham International Holdings, controlled by Yeung, is the parent company of Birmingham City.
The prosecution is said to be planning to call 19 witnesses when the trial starts next year, and 25 days have been set aside for the proceedings.
Yeung was arrested and charged in June last year with five counts of "dealing with property known or believed to represent proceeds of an indictable offence." He has not entered a plea.
Prosecutors have said that about HK$720 million passed through accounts connected to him between 2001 and 2007, although details of the allegations remain unclear.
- Report on rare monkeys being eaten ends with officials sacked
FOUR forestry officials in Zixi County, Jiangxi Province, have been sacked after media reports said rhesus monkeys, an endangered species, were rampantly hunted and sold to restaurants, with some ending up on the tables of government banquets.
Wu Kaifa, director of the Zixi Forestry Bureau, and three other officials, Zhou Faquan, Fang Huidong and Peng Zhihua, have been removed from their posts.
The report also triggered an investigation by the State Forestry Administration.
Two poachers surrendered to police yesterday. One of them told China Central Television that he hid in the mountains after watching the report. He said he surrendered because of too much mental pressure.
Criminals convicted of killing endangered species face jail terms from five to 10 years.
One restaurant, Laolou Lobster, in downtown Zixi opens only at night and serves a variety of "exotic animals," according to the CCTV report. One kilogram of the monkey's meat sells for 560 yuan (US$90) and a monkey head can fetch 800 yuan, the eatery owner, surnamed Lou, told CCTV. He showed off a frozen rhesus monkey with a curled body and a face that looked as if it was in pain. "It was killed two days ago and weighs more than 5 kilograms," CCTV quoted him. Lou said he buys dozens of rhesus monkeys each year, without revealing the identities of the sellers.
Zhenwei, another restaurant in a suburb of Zixi specializing in wildlife animals, offers rhesus monkeys along with wild geese, hog badgers and bamboo rats.
The owner told CCTV: "A wild goose sells for 400 yuan and the meat can be steamed, braised in brown sauce and eaten in soup." The restaurant receives more than 100 guests each day.
Zhenwei is one of the designated restaurants serving the Fuzhou City government in Jiangxi. Zixi is under the jurisdiction of Fuzhou.
Restaurants have to go through public bidding to be a government-designated service provider, CCTV said.
Meanwhile, big demand has led to rampant poaching at Gao! fu Forest Farm in Zixi.
CCTV footage showed three illegal hunters shooting dead seven rhesus monkeys at the farm within three hours. But no farm official showed up to stop it. The seven monkeys are worth about 3,000 yuan at the local market.
One monkey was shot in the face. A poacher grabbed its head, lifted it up and threw it down to check whether it was still alive. "A dead one is worth less," he told CCTV.
Poachers have placed at least 10,000 iron traps throughout the forest farm to catch live monkeys, the report said.
"Many restaurants call us asking for rhesus monkeys," one of the poachers was quoted.
The 50-year-old farm is one of five state-owned forest farms in Zixi. A farm employee said about 1,000 rhesus monkeys live there.
After the CCTV report, authorities shut down eight stores and restaurants in the area and seized more than 100 iron traps and other tools used for poaching.
- Molested girls speak out
A SCHOOL teacher has been arrested for molesting girls in Wuwei County, Anhui Province, police said. The school headmaster was fired after the scandal surfaced.
The middle-aged teacher surnamed Xu at Sanshuijian Primary School was accused of "fondling the hips" of eight girls in his grade-six class, Jianghuai Morning Post reported yesterday.
An 11-year-old girl was quoted as saying: "The teacher touched me inside my trousers and wanted to give me 1 yuan (US$0.16), but I didn't accept it.
"Xu took off his underwear and asked me to fondle him," the girl continued, adding she had been molested many times in the past two years.
Other victims told the newspaper Xu molested them in the school's storage room.
- Cop accuses boss of drug ties
A POLICE chief in Qingyuan City, Guangdong Province, is under investigation after his subordinate accused him of having ties to drug traffickers and offering them protection.
Xie Longsheng, former deputy police chief in Yingde City, which is under the jurisdiction of Qingyuan, said Zheng Beiquan, Yingde's police chief before being promoted to Qingyuan, deliberately covered up a drug bust because his brother was involved, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported yesterday.
Police in Yingde caught 175 people, including dozens of minors, in a raid at the unlicensed Xinhuayue hotel in March, the report said. Officers also seized nearly 2 kilograms of illegal narcotics, including ketamine and ecstasy, during the raid.
Officers regarded the bust as a big success and reported it to Zheng, who "gave no response," according to Xie.
Hotel camera surveillance footage showed Zheng's brother was present during the raid and the hotel owner, Zeng Weibiao, was Zheng's old schoolmate.
"We never expected Zheng would be so irrational to order us to free all the suspects," Xie told the newspaper. Xie then launched a secret investigation and found Zheng's brother owned 15 percent of the hotel, the report said. When they tried to uncover more details, Zheng allegedly hindered their work. On August 6, Xie and the bureau's political commissar, Zhu Yingzhong, were transferred while Zheng was promoted.
Qingyuan's Party discipline watchdog on Tuesday said Zheng is being investigated on suspicion he abused his power for personal gain and having severe economic problems.
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20121111
Minox BL-1217214
Ilfordpan 100
Rodinal 1+50
15min.20℃
Tap Water
DIY reel in JOBO Tank
Dots report : Minor black & white
Film wide : 9.30mm - Store during the Primary school@Hong Kong
Jimmy101cactus has added a photo to the pool:
20121111
Minox BL-1217214
Ilfordpan 100
Rodinal 1+50
15min.20℃
Tap Water
DIY reel in JOBO Tank
Dots report : Minor black & white
Film wide : 9.30mm
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