China Chronicles February 21, 2013
- 7 confirmed dead in Shanxi mine flood
SEVEN men have been confirmed dead after being trapped underground for more than 40 hours in a coal mine flood in north China's Shanxi Province, the local government said today.
The accident happened at about 4 am on Tuesday in Yangquan, where 12 people illegally dug a mine pit in a residential building. Six of the 12 managed to escape the flood.
A preliminary investigation showed another six people were excavating coal in a connected pit nearby when the flood occurred. One man from this group was trapped underground.
Rescuers had pumped more than 12,000 cubic meters of water out of the pits by the time they wrapped up their work.
Liu Xianyun, a production safety official in the city of Yangquan, said the pits' owner tried to escape instead of reporting the accident immediately to the local government.
He said police have detained the main suspects in the illegal mining operations.
Related government departments are making a geological survey of the area and looking for hidden dangers in order to avoid secondary disasters, said Liu.
The mine pits are located in residential areas and are close to a special railway for coal transportation.
The government of Yangquan has initiated a campaign to discourage illegal mining. The government is investigating related cases and encouraging local residents to report illegal mining operations.
- 7 confirmed dead in Shanxi mine flood
SEVEN men have been confirmed dead after being trapped underground for more than 40 hours in a coal mine flood in north China's Shanxi Province, the local government said today.
The accident happened at about 4 am on Tuesday in Yangquan, where 12 people illegally dug a mine pit in a residential building. Six of the 12 managed to escape the flood.
A preliminary investigation showed another six people were excavating coal in a connected pit nearby when the flood occurred. One man from this group was trapped underground.
Rescuers had pumped more than 12,000 cubic meters of water out of the pits by the time they wrapped up their work.
Liu Xianyun, a production safety official in the city of Yangquan, said the pits' owner tried to escape instead of reporting the accident immediately to the local government.
He said police have detained the main suspects in the illegal mining operations.
Related government departments are making a geological survey of the area and looking for hidden dangers in order to avoid secondary disasters, said Liu.
The mine pits are located in residential areas and are close to a special railway for coal transportation.
The government of Yangquan has initiated a campaign to discourage illegal mining. The government is investigating related cases and encouraging local residents to report illegal mining operations.
- 9 Chinese sailors missing in boat sinking off South Korean waters
A fish-carrying vessel of Cambodian nationality sank off waters in Ulleung Island of South Korea, leaving 12 people missing including nine Chinese sailors, the Yonhap News Agency reported citing the relevant authorities.
The South Korean Coast Guard received a request for rescue around 7:04 am local time today from the Cambodian-flagged, 296-ton boat that carried nine Chinese and three South Korean sailors. At that time, the boat was located 548 km northeast of Ulleung Island of South Korea on the East Sea.
The South Korean coast guard dispatched four ships and four patrol planes to search for the missing sailors, while asking the Japanese and Russian authorities to help with the rescue operation. The Japanese authorities sent two patrol ships and two plans to search for the sailors.
The authorities have yet to identify the cause of the sinking and whether the sailors were alive or dead.
- China's armed forces not involved in cyber attacks
CHINA'S armed forces have never backed any hacking activities, a military spokesman said yesterday as he denounced a US cyber security report.
China bans activities that disrupt cyber security and the Chinese government always cracks down on cyber crimes, defense ministry spokesman Geng Yansheng said.
On Monday, US cyber security firm Mandiant released a report alleging that a secret military unit in Shanghai was behind years of cyber attacks against US companies.
Geng said Mandiant's report had concluded the attacks came from China simply because they were linked to IP addresses based in China. But he said it was common knowledge that hacking attacks involved the theft of IP addresses. This was something that "happens almost every day."
Cyber attacks were transnational, anonymous and deceptive with their source often difficult to identify, Geng said.
China was a major victim of cyber attacks, he said, with military end users frequently coming under attack from abroad. Source IP addresses suggested the majority came from the US.
"But we do not point fingers at the United States based on the above-mentioned findings," Geng said.
Geng said China would like to resolve issues through joint law enforcement and consultations with other countries.
The Ministry of Public Security had assisted more than 50 countries and regions in investigating some 1,100 cases of cyber crime since 2004, and China had established bilateral law enforcement cooperation with more than 30 nations and regions, including the US, Britain, Germany and Russia.
Lodging one-sided media accusations will not help solve problems, but only jeopardize existing cooperation, he said.
Jin Canrong, an American studies expert at Renmin University of China, said the motive behind the hacking claims was to seek an upper hand in Sino-US relations.
With the US losing its traditional superiority, Jin said, it had fewer cards to play with, but accusing China of cyber attacks had b! ecome a new one.
The US military feared budget cuts and were whipping up fear about new threats such as cyber attacks from China, particularly when traditional security threats looked less daunting, Jin said.
He also said that the US government was under pressure from the business world with many US companies, keenly aware of the competition from China, concerned about losing their core technologies and assuming, unduly, that China was stealing from them.
- Microblogs with the scoops ...
A MICROBLOG focusing on Xi Jinping scooped China's official media earlier this month with the first details of his inspection tour of Gansu Province.Entries on the "Xuexifensituan" ("Learning from Xi Fan Club") account are often written in a tabloid style, with brief, declarative statements tracing the movements of the Party chief.
The posts on weibo.com appear to contain exclusive material and always come out ahead of official media reports.
On February 10, a 28-year-old interior decorator in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, revealed he was the man behind "Xuexifensituan." He refused to disclose any more personal information at the time, but promised a public interview as early as today.
The microblog has attracted almost a million followers since it began in November.
Meanwhile, the microblog's popularity has given rise to other accounts devoted to news and information on top leaders, including personal details usually withheld from the public.
Among them is "Xianglixuexi" ("Learning from Li"), a Weibo account about Vice Premier Li Keqiang, which yesterday alone attracted more than 2,700 followers, bringing the total number of followers to above 12,700 as of last night.
Various pieces of information regarding the vice premier have been posted on the microblog, including samples of his handwriting, rarely seen photos that go all the way back to his childhood and a picture of the latest book by Cheng Hong, his English professor wife.
She is referred to as "Sister Cheng" and one entry has details of her educational background.
The microblog relays some of Li's off-the-cuff quotes and showcases the moments when he seems most accessible.
During Li's inspection tour of Enshi, Hubei Province, he stopped by a clothes shop and inquired about the taxes and fees the owner had to pay. When the owner tried to downplay his financial burden, Li said, according to one entry: "I am not your tax officer, you can tell me the truth."
After a young boy ! unwittingly rose to fame for appearing half naked in a news broadcast while Li was visiting his home, the vice premier was praised for breaking from tradition and carrying out truly unplanned inspections.
"Xianglixuexi" later posted some of the little boy's personal information and a photo of him and his family to wish readers a Happy New Year.
A woman from Beijing is behind the microblog.
In an interview with the Beijing Times, she chose not to reveal her identity, saying her background didn't matter, what did was the public response.
She said she started the account in response to people's expectations for the new leaders' governance styles.
She said several moves following the election of the new leadership, such as efforts to publicize their personal stories, had raised hopes the top leaders would launch their own microblogs.
Wang Yukai, a professor with the Chinese Academy of Governance, said the emergence of such fan clubs showed that the public approved of the new leadership.
- Dog photos spark concern for lab animals' welfare
A SET of photographs depicting two mistreated dogs has sparked concern for the welfare of laboratory animals in China.
The two scrawny dogs had been left with no water or food in a locked room at Nanchang University, with dozens of dead rats in cages as their only company, according to a woman surnamed Yin who fed the dogs after discovering them.
She said one dog's teeth had all been pulled out, while the other was seriously injured from being tied up too tightly.
Netizens expressed outrage after the pictures were posted online.
"We should respect life when striving for scientific advances," was one comment while another read: "Laboratory animals have helped mankind a lot, so we should care for them in return. They deserve to live a cozy life."
Hong Yijiang, director of Nanchang University's Biological Sciences Department, said the department hadn't carried out experiments with dogs for years.
"They may be stray dogs that were seeking shelter," he said but admitted the room where the dogs were found used to house laboratory animals.
Zhang Beibei, director of the Nanchang Small Animal Protection Association, said that even if the dogs were not kept for experiments, the public should still protect laboratory animals' welfare.
Animal experiments cannot be completely abolished, said Liao Kan, a researcher at the Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences. He said about 15 million animals were used in scientific research in China each year.
Wu Xiaohong, of the Animals Asia Foundation, said scientists should follow the "3 Rs" principle - reducing the number of animals used, refining their methodology and replacing animal experimentation with other methods.
Many institutions and researchers do respect their animals.
At the Shanghai organization's laboratory animal center, researchers have set up a memorial to all the animals that have died for scientific research. And medical students at Xi'an Jiaotong University pay their respects to ex! perimental animals with bouquets every year.
A draft of China's first comprehensive animal welfare law - the China Animal Protection Law - was issued in September 2009. It has yet to become law.
- Rescuers drain landslide lake
Rescue workers unload pipes to pump water from a barrier lake created by a landslide in Kaili City, Guizhou Province, yesterday. The water level in the lake, which flooded several houses at the foot of the mountain, dropped about 1.5 meters after 20 pumps were started. About 80 villagers have been evacuated. The landslide on Monday buried five people, and all are feared dead.
- She hit me, says boss of 'Crazy English'
"CRAZY English" founder Li Yang, whose wife divorced him because of domestic violence, is now accusing her of abusing him.
Lodging an appeal against a court ruling that he pay American Kim Lee 12 million yuan (US$1.9 million) plus 50,000 yuan for psychological trauma, Li said his ex-wife sometimes beat him first, locked him outside for hours at night, deleted his computer files, dumped his books and documents in a pool, and threw food at him while he was giving a lecture.
Li wants the court to check whether his ex-wife had psychological problems which would explain her behavior.
Chaoyang District People's Court in Beijing accepted Li's appeal on Monday, the final day of a 15-day grace period, China National Radio reported yesterday.
On February 3, the court granted a divorce because of the violence Lee had suffered and gave her custody of the couple's daughters, aged 10, 6 and 4. Li must pay 100,000 yuan a year for each child until they reach the age of 18.
Lee had previously uploaded pictures showing injuries, including a bleeding left ear, swollen forehead and bruised knees, she said had been caused by her husband.
She became something of a folk hero for China's battered wives after her story went viral online.
In his appeal, Li said the couple's 2005 marriage in the United States was invalid as he was still married to his first wife. The official marriage was in the southern city of Guangzhou in July 2010. Most of the family wealth was made before the wedding so Lee shouldn't have been given such a large sum, he said.
Li is also asking the court to let him raise his three daughters, who are attending an international school in Beijing. His ex-wife had no stable income, he said, and could not afford the cost of their education. He also said the girls would be better able to study the Chinese culture by staying with him.
Li became famous for creating "Crazy English," a method of shouting out words and phrases to memorize and practice the ! language. He claims to have taught millions to speak English since the early 1990s.
He once said he married Lee not out of love but to research American child-raising techniques.
Li even claimed that wife-beating was normal in China.
- Quake damages nearly 900 houses in Yunnan
AN earthquake jolted Yunnan Province yesterday afternoon, damaging nearly 900 houses and affecting the lives of more than 5,000 people.
The earthquake with a magnitude of 4.8 hit Mojiang Hani Autonomous County at 1:01pm. Its epicenter was 5 kilometers below the earth's surface, according to the China Earthquake Networks Center.
People in Mojiang said they felt the earthquake strongly. One individual said he saw a television set and water dispenser shake on the second floor of his office building when the earthquake occurred. He added that he and his colleagues immediately ran out of the office building.
The county's publicity authorities said the tremor toppled 10 houses and damaged 880 others, affecting 5,016 people.
The earthquake came shortly after a string of tremors hit south and southwest China during the past two days.
A 4.9-magnitude quake, which occurred at 10:46am on Tuesday with an epicenter 6 kilometers below the earth's surface, toppled 72 houses and damaged 949 others in Yunnan's Qiaojia County. Eight people were injured, including two who are in a serious condition.
Neighboring Sichuan Province was also hit by two earthquakes with magnitudes of 4.5 and 4.7 on Tuesday.
In addition, a 4.1-magnitude quake hit south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region early yesterday morning. No casualties were reported.
On Tuesday, a seismic official with the China Earthquake Administration said the central government is planning to build a national earthquake monitoring and warning system in five years.
While the system wouldn't be able to predict earthquakes, it would be able to detect quakes and notify people within seconds before seismic waves hit them, said the official who requested anonymity.
The project includes the establishment of some 5,000 stations across the country and will require an investment of 2 billion yuan (US$320.4 million), according to the official.
- 39 punished for toxic chemical leak in Shanxi
THIRTY-NINE people have been punished after a chemical leak contaminated a river in north China's Shanxi Province last month, a task force that is responsible for addressing the incident said yesterday.
An investigation by the task force found Tianji Coal Chemical Industry Group in Changzhi City, which is responsible for the leak, and some Changzhi government departments were to blame for the serious contamination.
Zhao Junyi, an official with Changzhi environmental monitoring department, Huangpu Shouyi, director of the environmental protection department of Tianji, and three others have been transferred to judicial organs.
Twenty-four managers with the company who were responsible for supervision have been given Communist Party of China and administrative disciplinary sanctions.
Nine local officials, including Pan Xianzhang, vice mayor of Changzhi, Shen Xufeng, director of the Changzhi Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau and Yang Fujin, the director of the Changzhi Municipal Work Safety Supervision Bureau, have also received Party and administrative disciplinary sanctions. Shen and Yang were also removed from their posts.
In addition, Zhang Bao, mayor of Changzhi, was sacked as a result of the contamination.
Meanwhile, the investigation revealed the immediate cause of the leak was due to a poor-quality metal hose that was made by a Beijing-based company in a chemical plant owned by Tianji Coal Chemical Industry Group.
According to previous reports, an initial investigation had revealed that a loose drainage valve in the plant was to blame for the leak.
The December 31 leak of about 9 tons of aniline into a river in Changzhi contaminated downstream water in neighboring Henan and Hebei provinces, resulting in water supply problems.
Changzhi authorities delayed reporting the leak for six days.
- US will change visa procedure
THE United States is changing its visa application system in China starting on March 16 to make it a little cheaper and more convenient.
Beginning on March 16, applicants will only pay the visa processing fee of US$160 for most non-immigrant visa types, according to the US Embassy's website. Previously, applicants also had to pay to book appointments and arrange for the return of their passports, the website said.
Applicants will have the option to pay online using any debit card issued in China or a credit card issued abroad, the website said.
Applicants will also be able to use a new online system to make visa interview appointments and to check the status of their applications. They will be able to call the new Call Center to make an appointment or have questions answered at no extra charge. In the past, applicants needed to pay to inquire about visa procedures when contacting the Call Center, according to the website.
Under the new appointment process, the US Embassy and Consulates will continue to offer a drop-off non-immigrant visa renewal service for most applicants who are eligible to renew their visas without a personal interview.
"The wait time to get your appointment throughout China on average is two to four days right now," Gary Locke, the US ambassador to China, said yesterday at a press conference in Beijing. "That's a significant drop."
In 2012, the US Mission in China processed more than 1.34 million non-immigrant visa applications, an increase of 34 percent from 2011.
- Visa application made easier, cheaper
US visa applicants will find the whole procedure getting much easier next month when China introduces a new method for visa appointment, fee payment and passport delivery.
Starting March 16, Chinese applicants will only need to pay a lump sum of US$160 for most types of nonimmigrant US visas. Previously, applicants need to pay additional fees for interview appointment and passport delivery.
They will have the option of paying online, using a debit card issued by a Chinese bank or a credit card issued by a foreign bank, or paying their application fee with a UnionPay card at any CITIC Bank ATM terminal or with cash in any CITIC Bank office.
- Spring Festival 2013, 春節 / Yuyuan Garden, 豫园 / Shanghai / PR China
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© André Vogelaere. All my images are protected under international authors copyright laws and may not be downloaded, not be used on websites or blogs, reproduced, copied, transmitted or manipulated without my written explicit permission.
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