August 2009 Archives
By RADIO FREE ASIA
August 26, 2009
Parents in China say authorities are failing to make good on promises to test children for lead poisoning.
Promises by local government officials offering free blood tests to children affected by pollution from smelting plants in the central Chinese province of Hunan have yet to be fulfilled, residents and officials said.
An official at the hospital near worst-hit Wugang township, where more than 1,000 children are believed to have higher-than-normal levels of lead in their blood, said the hospital had not yet been told how to deal with the large numbers of worried parents trying to book tests.
"There are several dozen patients coming for blood tests every day, but I don't know the actual patient numbers per day," said an employee who answered the phone at the Wugang People's Hospital.
"Senior management has requested a survey [of lead poisoning cases], and we will know the procedure in a few days' time," she added.
Local officials have promised the closure of privately owned zinc and manganese smelting plants after being hit by a wave of violent clashes between police and angry parents in central Hunan and northern Shaanxi provinces in recent weeks.
Official Chinese media also reported that free blood tests would be available for children affected by the polluting factories, but residents of Wugang say the authorities have yet to deliver on their promises.
Bribery alleged
"There are only three government permission slips for free individual blood tests for the whole village," a mother surnamed Wang from Wugang said.
"Some parents are willing to pay the cost themselves in order to have their children checked. However, local hospitals have been bribed by someone, so the parents never see the correct results," she said.
Another Wugang villager surnamed Zhang said she had been turned down for lead tests at several hospitals in the area.
"Some said there was no electricity, some said the machines weren't working, and some said the maintenance staff hadn't shown up for work at the right time, and so on," Zhang said.
Some villagers even went as far as Hengyang city, taking their children to at least five hospitals, she said.
"But none of the children has actually been tested," she said.
A resident of nearby Shuangjiang village surnamed Liu said she was turned down for a blood test for her two-year-old as far away as southern Guangxi province.
"They knew about the lead poisoning cases in Wugang and they asked if I was from there," she said.
After she told the truth, the hospital refused to test her child.
Calls to the Wugang township government went unanswered during office hours Monday.
Cover-up
A villager from nearby Hengjiang village surnamed Wang said the township government had initially tried to cover up the widespread incidence of lead poisoning among local children.
"The government at first had promised to give an answer [to our complaints] but didn't keep their word," she said.
"Then, the villagers surrounded the cars of officials. Finally, the government [said it would] allow three children to go for free blood tests," she said.
More than 1,300 children have been poisoned by lead from the year-old manganese factory near Wugang, with hundreds of cases also reported near a cement factory in Hunan's Lengshugang city, and Fengxiang county in northern Shaanxi province.
The Dongling Lead and Zinc Smelting Co. was ordered by environmental protection authorities in Fengxiang county to suspend lead and zinc production Aug. 6 following a public outcry.
Fengxiang county government has offered free blood tests for 1,016 children aged 14 and under from three villages of Changqing Township, official media reported.
Original reporting in Mandarin by Qiao Long. Mandarin service director: Jennifer Chou. Translated by Chen Ping. Written for the Web in English by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Sarah Jackson-Han.
By BBC World News
August 25, 2009
Police and local government officials in China have swamped a village at the centre of a lead poisoning case in Changqing, which left hundreds of children sick.
Villagers are forbidden from speaking to journalists, and reporters attempting to visit the area are being detained and questioned by the police.
Quentin Sommerville was one of those detained in Bao Ji, a township of Changqing.
By Francois Bougon | Agence France Presse AFP | via UNCENSORED Yahoo! News
August 23, 2009
HENGJIANG, China (AFP) - The landscape near Hengjiang village offers a picture-postcard view of China, with rice paddies, water buffaloes and rolling green hills. It seems an unlikely spot to find industrial pollution.
But more than 1,300 children in this rural part of central Hunan province have tested positive for suspected lead poisoning, caused by a nearby manganese smelting plant, and parents are worried, confused and scared about the future.
"In late July, the children here started feeling unwell -- they had headaches, they couldn't sleep and were generally quite weak," said one 40-year-old man whose 13-year-old daughter has been affected.
The man, who refused to give his name for fear of trouble with the local authorities, said a group of parents complained to officials at the Wugang Manganese Smelting Plant in Wenping town, but they were ignored.
Now, the factory has been shut down, two plant executives have been detained, one is on the run, and two officials from the local environmental protection bureau are under investigation for dereliction of duty.
Another smelting plant in northern Shaanxi province was ordered to close its doors this month after more than 850 children were found to have lead poisoning, according to official reports.
The twin incidents highlight how China's rapid industrialisation over the last 30 years has led to widespread environmental damage, resulting in some of the world's worst water and air pollution.
Many poverty-stricken regions in China's rural interior have allowed the establishment of high-polluting industries without the necessary environmental standards in a desperate bid to boost economic growth, state media has said.
The manganese plant in Wenping -- which residents say has been spewing black smoke and dust since it opened more than a year ago -- was unlicensed, state media reported.
It is located within 500 metres (yards) of a primary school, a middle school and a nursery, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
In both Hunan and Shaanxi, angry villagers protested, demanding answers.
So far, they don't have any, and they fear for their children's future.
The father of the 13-year-old girl in Hengjiang says the lead level in her blood was 120 milligrams per litre -- surpassing the normal reading of between zero and 100 milligrams. His nine-year-old son so far is healthy.
"Most of the cases so far have not been that serious, but we really don't know what is going on. It's the unknown that scares us," he said.
Another villager, who also asked not to be named, approached, clutching requests sent to four local children to undergo secondary exams at a hospital in the provincial capital Changsha.
"They gave us initial results, and now they want to do new tests -- what does that mean?" he said.
In preliminary tests, 1,354 children -- 70 percent of those under the age of 14 in four villages near the plant including Hengjiang -- were found to have elevated lead levels in their blood.
A reading of more than 200 milligrams is considered hazardous. Children are more vulnerable to lead poisoning, which can harm the nervous system and impair motor skills.
The lead poisoning scare comes less than a year after China was rocked by a massive contaminated milk scandal. Six infants died and 300,000 fell ill after consuming products tainted with melamine, an industrial chemical.
"The reason why children are often victims here is specific to China," Zhao Lianhai, who leads an activist group for parents whose children consumed bad milk, told AFP.
"There is a lack of responsibility, and of willingness to investigate to the end to find out who is responsible. Officials protect each other, and there is a laissez-faire attitude towards their corruption."
Near the Wugang plant, one villager lambasted a local Communist Party boss who criticised the factory's failure to abide by environmental standards in the local press.
"On the day the plant opened its doors, he was there," the man said with visible disdain.
By Shirong Chen - BBC News
15 August 2009
The Chinese government has issued a new regulation to stop petitioners from travelling to the capital, Beijing.
Legal officials from Beijing will now visit people with complaints in the provinces in order to hear their cases.
Petitions can also be filed online and a response or solution is to be given within 60 days.
Officials have previously tried to stop the thousands who go to the capital with complaints about land grabs, police beatings and legal abuses.
It is the first time the highest level of the ruling Communist Party has taken such measures in order to deal with the issue.
'Extremely horrible'
China's army of petitioners flocking to Beijing is a constant embarrassment to the authorities.
The phenomenon has been attributed to China's imperial past, when people sought the emperor seeking justice.
But it reflects a growing distrust of the local courts and officials, with a widespread public perception that the legal system is corrupt.
A top judge with the country's supreme court, Mr Shen Deyong, has described this distrust as "an extremely horrible situation".
Now, the Communist Party says it will send legal officials to areas with a high number of petitioners, to review cases on the spot.
Officials in every province, city and county have also been told to set aside one day every month in order to deal with petitions locally.
People who make repeated trips to Beijing have been warned that if they persist in doing so, their cases may be dismissed without review.
The move is part of a drive to maintain social harmony and stability ahead of the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China.
Beijing has tightened security and ordered hotels and private landlords not to provide accommodation for petitioners before the celebrations in October.
By Saad Al-Ghamdi | Al-Watan (Saudi Arabia) | via ArabNews (Saudi Arabia)
August 16, 2009
Millions of Uighur Muslims in China's Xinjiang province have been the victims of persecution and exile or execution simply because they demand a dignified recognition of their religious, cultural and ethnic rights and identity. In their unwavering resistance to government suppression, the Uighurs are only armed with their faith in their religion and heritage. They tenaciously cling to their Turkic ethnicity and use the Arabic script to write their language.
Exiled Rebiya Kadeer, a 60-year-old mother of 11, is in the forefront of the struggle of the downtrodden Uighurs. While admitting her Chinese nationality, Kadeer is not willing to give up her ethnic and religious identity for the dominant Han culture in China.
According to a statement by an official of Amnesty International last year, "Few people around the world would know what's happening to the Uighurs if it weren't for a 59-year-old mother of 11 children who served as a representative in the National People's Congress, Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer."
This former member of the Political Consultative Congress and China's delegation to the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women has become a big embarrassment to the Chinese government. She has exposed to the world the large-scale human rights violations practiced by the Chinese provincial and central governments.
Since the age of 14, despite poverty and poor health, she has been worried about the humiliating existence of the Uighurs and has worked to regain their lost freedom and dignity. She had to work as a laundress in order to feed her family as her husband's work did not suffice for the family.
Although her first marriage eventually broke up, with hard work and determination she became a successful businesswoman and once she was even ranked as the seventh wealthiest business personality in China. She has also spent a lot of time doing charitable work in order to aid her people.
She hoped to work within the Chinese system and improve the downtrodden Uighurs. It was while looking for an ally in her service to the people that a likeminded Uighur activist, Saddiq Razi, was released from jail after nine years of punishment. She visited him and offered to marry him with a proposal to struggle jointly for the cause of Uighurs. Surprised by the wealthy woman's proposal, he asked her why she wanted to marry an ex-convict like him, her reply was, "For the sake of Uighurs. I want us to be together in the struggle for Uighurs."
Razi married her though his colleagues initially suspected her of being a government's agent.
Impressed by Kadeer's philanthropic efforts, the provincial and central governments nominated her to the Political Consultative Congress in 1992, and appointed her a member of China's delegation to the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995. Such positions never distracted her from demanding a dignified life for her people.
Using her influence in Beijing, Kadeer tried to persuade high ranking Chinese officials to change their repressive policies against Uighurs. Her insistence on real autonomous authority for the people and especially her harsh criticism of the government's human right violations during a National People's Political Consultative Conference session in 1997 prompted the government to turn against her.
She was arrested in 1999 and then sentenced to eight years in jail.
Kadeer's case became an international embarrassment for the Chinese government after Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch publicized her case and worked for her freedom. After her release on medical grounds, she toured the world, actively campaigning for the rights of the Uighur people.
Lately, the Chinese government has reportedly been extorting confessions from the people in Urumqi and other places that Kadeer incited them to riot and rebel against the government so that she could be arrested again on fabricated charges which might even warrant her execution. Even before the July riots in Urumqi, the Chinese authorities had tortured her sons and other relatives for forced confessions against her. Despite the government's intimidating pressures and the torture of her own children, that fragile woman from the remote Uighur region remains unwavering in her stand.
By RADIO FREE ASIA
August 13, 2009
Chinese writer Tan Zuoren goes on trial, and supporters say his plan to issue an independent report on last year's deadly earthquake is the reason.
Authorities in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan have detained dozens of relatives of schoolchildren killed in a devastating 2008 earthquake after they tried to attend the high-profile trial of writer Tan Zuoren.
Sang Jun, whose child died when the Mianzhu Fuxin No. 2 Elementary School collapsed in the May 12 quake, said several hundred parents had tried to enter the public gallery of the Chengdu Municipal Intermediate People's Court on Wednesday.
"There were several parents detained who were representing each school [in the earthquake region]," Sang said.
"A lot of people were taken to the Huangzhong police station, and they haven't yet been released."
"We went there to find them, and the police made us wait outside. There [were] about 400-500 people outside the police station waiting," he added.
Parents from Shifang city, Beichuan county, and Dujiangyan township in the areas worst-hit by the quake had all traveled to the provincial capital to try to attend the trial, which was adjourned without a verdict Wednesday, Sang's lawyer said.
Defamation charge
Tan Zuoren is formally accused of defaming the Communist Party in e-mailed comments about 1989's bloody crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators around Tiananmen Square.
But activists say he was detained because he planned to issue an independent report on the collapse of school buildings during the Sichuan earthquake, in which more than 80,000 people died.
Official figures show that 5,335 children died in the quake, although unofficial sources say the number could be as high as 10,000.
Top Chinese artist Ai Weiwei was also outside the courthouse, where he said he was beaten by police.
"I took issue with the legality of their actions, so they turned on me and started beating me," said Ai, who is also a blogger and social commentator and the designer of Beijing's emblematic "Bird's Nest" stadium, which formed the centerpiece of the 2008 Olympics.
By Andrew Jacobs | THE NEW YORK TIMES
10 August 2009
China's nascent legal rights movement, already reeling from a crackdown on crusading lawyers, the kidnapping of defense witnesses and the shuttering of a prominent legal clinic, has been shaken by the detention of a widely respected rights defender who has been incommunicado since the police led him away from his apartment 12 days ago.
Xu Zhiyong, 36, a soft-spoken and politically shrewd legal scholar who has made a name representing migrant workers, death row inmates and the parents of babies poisoned by tainted milk, is accused of tax evasion. The accusation is almost universally seen here as a cover for his true offense: angering the Communist Party leadership through his advocacy of the rule of law.
If convicted, he could face up to seven years in prison.
"We're all shocked by his detention, because Xu Zhiyong has always tried to avoid taking on radical and politically sensitive cases," said Teng Biao, a colleague. "His only interest is fighting for the rights of the vulnerable and trying to enhance China's legal system."
Mr. Teng helped Mr. Xu establish the Open Constitution Initiative, a six-year-old nonprofit legal center that the authorities closed last month, charging that it was improperly registered and that it failed to pay taxes.
Mr. Xu is not the first rights advocate in China to face the wrath of the authorities in recent years. Gao Zhisheng, a vocal lawyer, vanished into police custody six months ago, and Chen Guangcheng, a blind lawyer, was beaten and then jailed after exposing abuses in China's birth-control program.
Although rights lawyers and grass-roots social organizations have always been tightly controlled here, the pressure has intensified in recent weeks. More than 20 lawyers known for taking on politically tinged cases were effectively disbarred, and the police raided a group that works to ease discrimination against people with Hepatitis B.
By Vivian Wai-yin Kwok | FORBES MAGAZINE via forbes.com
August 07, 2009
In addition to its cheap labor costs, China has another comparative advantage as the world's factory: Companies often pay almost nothing to pollute China's air, water and soil and to poison its people.
Need pliant workers to handle toxic chemicals? Wages are just $2.60 a day. What if the chemicals contaminate a town? Compensating a family of five costs just $732. Local water supply contamination makes 4,000 people vomit? That's just $7 per household. Cost of bribing local Chinese officials to look the other way rather than adhering to safety standards? Well, that's unknown, but given the frequency of China's pollution atrocities, apparently it is cost-effective.
While companies can get away with pollution atrocities for years, the Chinese government, in the long run, may have to pay a high price for allowing it: political instability triggered by the unanswered grievances of pollution victims.
Ammonia Leak in Inner Mongolia
In the past few weeks, local officials in Hunan Province and Inner Mongolia have been busy trying to control public anger after a spate of serious pollution incidents. In the latest one, 246 people--factory workers, emergency rescuers and nearby residents--were sickened by an ammonia gas leak at a pharmaceutical plant in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on Wednesday morning.
Liquid ammonia spilled from a pipe that suddenly burst while a truck was unloading 30 tonnes of the chemical at the Chifeng Pharmaceutical Group factory. The Inner Mongolia government ordered people living within 2 kilometers and downwind of the leak to evacuate, and the local public security, environmental protection and work safety authorities set up a team to investigate the accident, according to China Daily.
An initial investigation blamed old pipes, the failure of emergency valves in the ammonia tanker, and the overloaded truck, as major reasons for the leak, Xinhua reported Thursday afternoon.
Ammonia, which is widely used as a household cleaner, is a corrosive substance. People exposed to very high levels of the chemical can experience severe burns to their skin, eyes, throat or lungs, according to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, a federal public health agency under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Sewage in the Water Supply
Residents of Chifeng, the run-down mining city in Inner Mongolia where the ammonia leak occurred, had only just recovered from another environmental disaster. Two weeks before the spill, thousands had been sickened when local water supplies were contaminated. More than 4,300 Chifeng citizens fell sick with diarrhea, vomiting and fever after drinking tap water. The city's water supply has yet to be fully restored.
Local officials say the water was contaminated after heavy rains on July 23 caused a power outage at a sewage pump station. The outage allowed raw sewage to flood into the well that supplies tap water to most of the city, various local media reported.
Chifeng citizens could have avoided the danger if they had been notified immediately about the incident. Instead, the local authorities stalled. They didn't alert the public for two days.
After the dirty water sickened the city, two senior officials, including the director of the Chifeng municipal construction commission and his deputy, were sacked. The state-owned water supply company agreed to pay 50 yuan ($7.30) in compensation to each household.
Metals Contamination in Hunan Province
Meanwhile, in the central province of Hunan, desperate citizens in Liuyang City have been trying to take to the streets again this week to protest unsafe operations at a government-protected factory. The pollution has already killed at least five people and poisoned another 500 with toxic pollution from cadmium and indium, metals used at the local factory.
About a thousand villagers from Shuangqiao, Jiankou and Puhua villages besieged a police station and city government headquarters last week to complain that the local government had failed to protect them from the deadly pollution.
This week, they didn't get the chance to protest. Instead, thousands of police officers were deployed to seal off major government buildings in Liuyang to prevent another riot. At least eight journalists who tried to interview villagers or take photos of the factory were detained, and told they could rely on the government to give them all the information they needed, according to the South China Morning Post.
Residents blame the Xianghe chemical plant, which had been illegally producing indium, a metal used to produce thin-film coatings for lamps and for liquid crystal displays (LCDs) in flat-panel video screens. Last week, the riot drew publicity, forcing the government to shut down the illicit plant.
The factory opened in 2004. Workers there were paid 18 yuan ($2.6) a day--about the cost of a McDonald's Happy Meal--to produce the highly toxic chemicals used to make the TVs which sell for more than an average worker's yearly salary.
Indium compounds are highly toxic, and can damage the heart, kidney, liver or embryos of those exposed to it. Cadmium, also used at the plant, can cause short-term lung damage in humans who inhale it. Prolonged exposure to cadmium causes chronic kidney disease. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says exposure to cadmium probably causes cancer too.
China is the biggest producer of indium, contributing over 40% of the global supply. Indium prices averaged about $685 per kilogram in 2008, down from a peak of $946 a kilo in 2005, based on the estimates by United States Geological Survey, which forecast a supply deficit for indium for at least another year.
High indium prices gave Xianghe an incentive to produce it illegally, probably with the cooperation of corrupt officials. A former Xianghe worker told the South China Morning Post that local environmental inspectors visited the plant occasionally, but that plant's management was always alerted ahead of time.
The factory and the local government tried to appease residents by providing free medical check-ups to the 2,888 residents living within a 1.2 kilometer radius of the factory plus compensation of about 5,000 yuan ($732) for a family of five, according to a report by AFP.
After the medical checks showed abnormally high concentrations of cadmium and indium in nearly a fifth of the area residents, local officials could no longer deny that Xianghe had discharged life-threatening pollution. In July, several villagers died, and autopsies showed their bodies contained massive amounts of indium.
Those who have been poisoned are demanding free medical treatment, and untested residents who live further from the factory demanded the government provide medical tests. After authorities sent sick villagers back home, protesters rioted last week.
The tension between citizens and the government is increasing, and thousands of police are monitoring villagers in an effort to prevent further riots.
A Plea From Environmentalists
Meanwhile, two environmental advocates aren't just counting on the Chinese government to stop pollution. They are taking a different approach, trying to publicly shame Western firms buying from Chinese polluters.
Green groups Friends of Nature and the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs called on Timberland to monitor two Chinese suppliers the non-profits say have repeatedly breached China's pollution limits.
The two Timberland suppliers are Shanghai Richina Leather, which has been fined by pollution watchdogs since 2004 for producing emissions higher than the legal limits, and Falcon Tannery in Guangdong, which violated water pollution limits for three years, according to the South China Morning Post.
By Edward Wong | The New York Times
August 06, 2009
Human rights advocates are calling on the Chinese government to cancel the criminal trials of two men who pushed for official investigations into the causes of widespread school collapses during the devastating 2008 earthquake in Sichuan Province.
The trial of one man, Huang Qi, began Wednesday but adjourned without a verdict. Mr. Huang, a well-known blogger and civil rights campaigner, is accused of possessing state secrets, which carries a sentence of five years to life. The second defendant, Tan Zuoren, a writer and also a prominent rights advocate, faces a potential five-year sentence for subversion and is to go on trial Wednesday.
"These trials are not about a reasonable application of the law, but about silencing government critics whose work has considerable public benefit and sympathy," Sophie Richardson, the Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, an advocacy group based in New York, said in a written statement released Tuesday. "The government is likely seeking to squelch those who cause it embarrassment, but in the process it is undermining domestic and international confidence in its ability to cope in a transparent way with natural disasters."
Mr. Huang's wife, Zeng Li, said in a telephone interview that her husband's trial began at 10:30 a.m. and continued for three hours. It was unclear Wednesday night when the trial, closed to the public, would resume.
The May 2008 earthquake was the most devastating natural disaster in China in decades, killing nearly 69,000 people and leaving about 18,000 missing, all presumed dead, according to official estimates. Initial reports from the official news media said about 7,000 schoolrooms collapsed and as many as 10,000 schoolchildren might have died. In May, the government released the first official toll of students killed in the quake, saying 5,335 students were dead or missing.
Many of the schools collapsed even though buildings next to them remained standing, which grieving parents and advocates attributed to shoddy construction and corruption. Officials in Sichuan blamed the earthquake itself, not bad construction.
By SHARON LaFRANIERE and JOHN GROBLER | THE NEW YORK TIMES
01 August 2009
Namibian prosecutors investigating allegations of kickbacks on government contracts with China have expanded their inquiry to include a Chinese contract to build a key railroad link, investigators said Friday, indicating that they suspect a pattern of corruption on deals with China.
Earlier allegations of bribery involving a contract to supply Namibia with scanners at security checkpoints raised alarms in both Namibia and China because the company that makes the scanners, Beijing-based Nuctech Company Limited, was headed until late last year by the son of Hu Jintao, China's president. Although there is no suggestion that President Hu's son, Hu Haifeng, knew of the Namibian dealings, Chinese government censors have blocked China's Internet users from reading or searching for any reference to the case.
Investigators have said they want to question Mr. Hu as a witness, not a suspect, in the case. Hu Haifeng was Nuctech's president when the $55.3 million contract to supply the scanners was signed in May 2008, according to the company. He had been promoted to the position of Communist Party secretary of Tsinghua Holdings, which runs Nuctech and about 30 other businesses, by early this year, when Nuctech is accused of having paid $4.2 million in kickbacks to a Namibian front company.
On Friday, anticorruption investigators confirmed that they were investigating allegations that China National Machinery & Equipment Import and Export Company, or CMEC, had agreed to pay the same Namibian company 10 percent of the final contract price for help in sealing a deal to build a 38-mile-long rail link. The Namibian company, Teko Trading, was controlled by one of the nation's public service commissioners, Teckla Lameck, and an associate, Kongo Mokaxwa. Investigators say the company existed only on paper.
Namibia's acting head of railways protested at the time that non-Chinese competitors were willing to do the job for one-fourth of CMEC's initial price of $144 million. When Namibia threatened to use competitive bidding procedures, CMEC agreed to lower its price to $61 million and this year was awarded the contract.
Ms. Lameck and her partner were jailed in July in Windhoek on charges of fraud, bribery and corruption stemming from the Nuctech contract. Their lawyer has denied any impropriety, describing payments to their bank accounts as "just business."
A Chinese citizen, Yang Fan, was jailed on the same charges. He listed himself on government applications as Nuctech's Africa representative and as Teko Trading's marketing manager.
Investigators charge that once Nuctech received its first installment of money from Namibia, it transferred $4.2 million to Teko Trading. The two Namibians went on a spending spree, court records suggest. Mr. Yang, who is accused of receiving $2.1 million, bought property in South African golfing estates and transferred money to various accounts, the records indicate.
The payments from Nuctech to Teko Trading came to light under a new Namibian law that requires banks to report transfers of more than about $135,000. In an affidavit filed in court, a Namibian prosecutor said Nuctech had promised to pay Teko Trading an additional $8.6 million for bogus services related to provision of the scanners.
Financing for both contracts under investigation came largely from a long-term $100 million loan to Namibia from China's Ex-Im Bank. President Hu offered the loan when he visited Namibia in February 2007, according to media reports.
Much like similar development loans from some Western countries, China's financing required that Namibia pick Chinese companies for projects financed with loan proceeds. Some Namibian officials have said that requirement effectively stifled competition for the railway contract.
China has emerged as a major financier and developer of infrastructure projects in Africa.
Sharon LaFraniere reported from Beijing, and John Grobler from Windhoek, Namibia. Jonathan Ansfield contributed research.
By Andrew Jacobs | The New York Times
31 July 2009
In the realm of potential threats to China's stability, an organization that advocates on behalf of people infected with hepatitis B would seem to be low risk.
But on Wednesday, the group's director, Lu Jun, found himself squaring off against four security officials who were trying to cart away stacks of literature they claimed had been printed without official permission.
In the end, Mr. Lu scored a partial victory. After eight hours looking through drawers and photographing volunteers, the inspectors walked off with 90 pamphlets, but Mr. Lu prevented them from delving into the group's computer files. "I fear this is not the end of it," he said Thursday.
The raid on Mr. Lu's organization, the Yi Ren Ping Center, comes at a precarious time for China's nongovernmental organizations, many of which operate in a kind of legal gray zone. Two weeks ago, officials used a bureaucratic infraction as the reason to shut down the country's pre-eminent legal rights center, Gongmeng, or Open Constitution Initiative. The closing followed a separate disbarment of 53 lawyers known for taking on civil rights and corruption cases. Just before dawn on Wednesday, the founder of Gongmeng, Xu Zhiyong, was taken into police custody, and he has not been heard from since.
"The permissible space in which civil society groups can operate was already small, but right now that circle is getting smaller and smaller," said Sharon Hom, the executive director of Human Rights in China, which is based in New York. "If an organization is creating an independent voice, putting together a newsletter or organizing people in any way, it's going to feel the full brunt of the authorities."
Although it is unclear exactly why the government is tightening its grip on such organizations, legal experts and rights activists generally agree that it may be related to the celebrations, three months from now, of the 60th anniversary of China's Communist revolution. A similar clampdown took place in the months before the 2008 Summer Olympics, when security officials in Beijing stepped up the harassment of dissidents and encouraged thousands of migrant workers to return to the countryside.
"It's basically a foolish attempt to make the year as peaceful and uneventful as possible," said Jiang Tianyong, a lawyer who was among those blocked from renewing their licenses.
Another explanation, Mr. Jiang and others say, is that some powerful segments of China's leadership feel threatened by the rise of independent entities working to advance causes like labor rights or clean water, or in the case of the Yi Ren Ping Center, protection for people with hepatitis B.
There is widespread trepidation over hepatitis B in China, a fear that has been intensified by an explosion in advertising for medical testing services and sham cures. Even though it is preventable with a vaccine -- and most of those infected will not become ill -- state-owned companies, medical schools and food-processing plants have come to believe that it is sensible policy to bar the infected.
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