News: August 2007 Archives
By Luo Ya | The Epoch Times
August 30, 2007
Shuang Shuying, a 77-year-old Beijing resident, was sentenced to two years in prison this February for defending human rights and insisting on practicing her religion.
Already in poor health, Shuang endured severe torture whilst incarcerated, causing her weight to plummet from roughly 110 pounds down to just 73 pounds. Shuang has also lost her vision while serving her sentence, leaving her unable to recognize her visiting son. She was left to rely on her limited hearing to communicate.
Shuang's father, Shuang Deli was executed for being an anti-revolutionary in 1949 when the Chinese communist regime took power and confiscated the family's property. The family was made to witness his death. Before the family was able to claim the body, they had to pay for the bullet. History seemed to repeat itself following Shuang's first marriage, as her husband was sentenced to 20 years in a labor camp for being an anti-revolutionary.
To extricate her from the poverty brought about by having her assets taken and family members imprisoned, Shuang married a man named Hua Zaichen. The couple had two boys and one girl. In 1957, Hua was also sent to a labor camp and imprisoned for 20 years. Shuang was forced to raise the children without a father. During the Cultural Revolution, officials demanded that she divorce her imprisoned husband, but Shuang refused. For her disobedience, Shuang was beaten while hanging naked from a pillar by local authorities and made to kneel on a triangular frame.
Shuang's son, Hua Huiqi, became a Christian in 1990. Because of his involvement with the church, he was often followed and beaten by police. Shuang worried about her son's safety, so she accompanied him to his church. Shuang began to learn about Christianity and was later baptized in 1992. Since then, Shuang turned her dwelling into a boarding house for fellow Christians who came to Beijing appealing for their rights. Her service attracted police surveillance and continued harassment.
Because Shuang's house was very close to Tiananmen Square, officials viewed at as a politically defiant dwelling. When Beijing authorities won their bid to host the 2008 Olympic Games, they dismantled Shuang's home claiming that it hurt the "New Beijing, New Olympics"--the slogan chosen for the Games. The family was transferred to another suburb and detained in a facility known as "Guanjiakeng." The police supervised the family 24 hours a day, and frequently beat them.
By REUTERS | The New York Times
August 30, 2007
Toys "R" Us Inc is recalling 27,000 wooden coloring cases that were made in China and sold under its Imaginarium brand because lead was found in the printed ink on the art set's outer packaging and in some watercolor paints.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, which announced the recall on Thursday, said the 213-piece coloring set includes crayons, pastels, colored pencils and water colors that were packaged in a light tan wooden carrying case.
The printed ink on the outer packaging of the case contains lead, and some of the black watercolor paint contains excessive levels of lead, the agency said.
The cases were sold at the toy retailer's stores and on its Web site from October 2006 through August 2007 for about $20. Of the 27,000 cases that were recalled, Toys "R" Us said 8,300 were sold to customers during the recall period.
It marks the latest in a string of recalls of Chinese-made products due to lead paint, including Mattel Inc's recent recall of Pixar Sarge die-cast toy cars, and Sesame Street and Dora the Explorer toys.
Lead paint has been linked to health problems in children, including brain damage.
By RTTNews | nasdaq.com
August 23, 2007
A prominent California Republican congressman is helping to spearhead GOP efforts to urge President Bush to boycott the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing amid concerns that China has not improved its often-criticized human rights record.
Introduced by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., the nonbinding resolution calls for the U.S. government to take "immediate steps" to boycott the games unless the "Chinese regime stops engaging in serious human rights abuses against its citizens and stops supporting serious human rights abuses by the governments of Sudan, Burma and North Korea against their citizens."
Rohrabacher, a member of the House Committee on International Relations, said the Olympic Games represent the "noblest elements of humanity," while the communist Chinese government "represents the opposite."
"The Olympic torch is supposed to be a beacon of light shining upon mankind's higher aspirations in the world, and it's a travesty to have that torch hosted by a regime that is the world's worst human rights abuser," he said.
The resolution is co-sponsored by House Republicans Joseph Pitts of Pennsylvania, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, Thaddeus McCotter of Michigan, John Doolittle of California, Dan Burton of Indiana, Frank Wolf of Virginia and Christopher Smith of New Jersey.
Rohrabacher said just as the United States turned a blind eye to Germany's Nazi regime by participating in the 1936 summer games in Berlin, the U.S. participating in the 2008 games would ignore China's ties to the Sudanese government, which has been complicit in the genocide in the Darfur region.
By BBC News
August 24, 2007
The wife of a jailed human rights activist in China has been prevented from leaving the country to pick up an award on his behalf, friends say.
Yuan Weijing had been due to travel to the Philippines to collect a human rights award for her husband, Chen Guangcheng, who was jailed last year.
But fellow activists say the Chinese authorities revoked her passport and stopped her boarding the flight.
Chen Guangcheng was jailed for damaging property and disrupting traffic.
But his supporters say the real reason Mr Chen, who is blind, was sentenced for four years and three months is because he exposed violations linked to China's one-child policy, including forced sterilisations and abortions.
Prestigious award
Yuan Weijing said the authorities told her on Thursday that they had revoked her passport, even though it was still valid.
She said the authorities then attempted to block her journey both from her home in Shandong province and from the house in Beijing where she stayed in overnight.
She was eventually detained at the airport and her luggage removed from the flight, friends said.
Yuan Weijing had been due to collect the award from the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation in Manila - one of Asia's most prestigious honours.
The foundation had named Chen Guangcheng as one of seven winners for his "irrepressible passion for justice in leading ordinary Chinese citizens to assert their legitimate rights under the law".
Mr Chen, 35, has campaigned against what he says are abuses of the Chinese government's one-child policy.
Before being imprisoned, he accused local health workers in Linyi city, in Shandong province, of illegally forcing hundreds of people to have late-term abortions or sterilisations.
China brought in its one-child policy 27 years ago, in a drive to curb population growth, but forced sterilisation and abortion are prohibited.
by CNN
August 20, 2007
Distressed family members shouted and scuffled with guards after a third day without word on 172 miners trapped in a flooded mine in eastern China, where rescue crews began pumping water Sunday.
Paramilitary police and emergency crews plugged a breach in a dike that burst Friday after heavy rains, flooding the Huayuan Mining mine, officials and state media said. As industrial pumps began siphoning water that stood 65 feet deep in the shaft, experts analyzed accident data to try to locate the missing miners, a provincial official said.
"There's some hope, and we will expend one hundred percent, a thousand percent of effort to carry out the search and rescue," Zhang Dekuan, spokesman for the government of Shandong province, where the mine is located, told reporters.
In contrast to the blanket coverage in the U.S. of rescue efforts for six miners in Utah, accounts in China's wholly state-owned media have been terse. Reports Sunday focused on the successful mending of the breach, but said little about the trapped miners -- a sign that the government remains nervous about public anger over perceived mistreatment.
Despite Zhang's media briefing in a local hotel, no officials or mining company executives emerged from Huayuan's sprawling, gated compound to talk to the miners' waiting, anxious relatives. No list of the missing had been issued, they said.
"They are treating these people like they are things to be sacrificed," said Li Chunmei, whose 42-year-old brother was believed to be trapped in the 600-yard shaft. "You would think an official could come and tell us what's going on, whether there are any signs of life, are they dead or alive."
Dozens of relatives -- sobbing mothers and children among them -- shouted "Why don't you come out!" at officials who stood with police and security guards behind the gate. At one point, the crowd surged, bending the aluminum gate and setting off a fracas of shoving. Later, a middle-aged woman broke through only to be wrestled away by two guards in camouflage.
By BBC News
August 17, 2007
Some spectators attending the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing face serious health problems due to air pollution, a leading health expert has warned.
Dr Michal Krzyzanowski of the World Health Organisation told the BBC that those with a history of cardiovascular problems should take particular care.
He also said the city's poor air quality could trigger asthma attacks.
The warning came as Beijing began a four-day test scheme to take 1.3m vehicles off the city's roads.
During the test period, cars with registration plates ending in odd and even numbers will each be banned from the roads for two day.
Any driver caught contravening the restrictions will be fined 100 yuan ($13, £6.50) by 6,500 police officers.
If the strategy works, it will be used next August to reduce air pollution and traffic during the Olympics.
Officials expect the ban to cut vehicle emissions by 40%, although correspondents said thick smog continued to hang over the city on Friday.
Beijing's residents, who are being told to take public transport rather than their cars during the test period, appear to be supporting the pilot project.
'Highly polluted'
But despite the plans to cut emissions, Dr Krzyzanowski said the WHO still feared for the welfare of those planning to attend the games next year.
"All of the cities are pretty highly polluted by European standards, but even by the standards of Asia, Chinese cities are pretty highly polluted," he told BBC Sport.
>> Read the complete article
By CHARLES HUTZLER | Associated Press | via (uncensored) Yahoo! News
August 17, 2007
Communist authorities have banned most state media from reporting on the deadly collapse of a bridge in southern China, with local officials punching and chasing reporters from the scene, reporters said Friday.
The harassment and the reporting ban, issued by the Central Propaganda Department, came Thursday while reporters swarmed the tourist town of Fenghuang to report on Monday's accident.
Unidentified locals roughed up a group of five newspaper and magazine reporters as they interviewed families of those killed, according to a photographer and a reporter whose colleague was among the journalists involved.
The collapse of the bridge, which was under construction, left at least 41 people dead, making it one of the worst building accidents in China in recent years.
On Friday, rescue crews blasted massive stone and concrete columns to clear the way for a deeper search of the rubble for two dozen missing workers.
The rough treatment given the media stands at odds with the responsible, concerned image China's Communist Party leadership has tried to convey publicly in the wake of the accident and the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Officials from President Hu Jintao on down have promised a thorough investigation into the collapse and punishment for any wrongdoing.
But the accident has raised troubling questions about shoddy building and possible corruption between the officials and contractors, and by trying to control reporting on the disaster, Beijing is fueling those suspicions.
"The local government does not want the media to uncover the collapse," said Li Datong, a veteran newspaperman forced from a top editing job two years ago for running reports that angered authorities. Li said he was told about the harassment in Fenghuang by reporters involved.
A duty officer in the Fenghuang police department, Liu Xiajun, said reporters had made an emergency call reporting the harassment Thursday, but he said he could not elaborate.
An official in the Propaganda Department's information office who declined to give his name said he was "not clear" about the ban and declined further comment.
While all media in China is state controlled, some outlets have engaged in lively, aggressive reporting in recent years, taking advantage of greater social freedoms that have accompanied economic growth and seeking higher profits. Accounts of reporters being beaten by local thugs have increased, with one reporter even being beaten to death early this year.
After the Propaganda Department issued the ban, editors soon phoned their crews in Fenghuang, ordering them to clear out. Editors "told them to disappear within 10 minutes from Fenghuang," the photographer who was having dinner with a group of reporters Thursday night wrote in an e-mail.
The photographer and the reporter asked that they and their media not be identified for fear of reprisals by the department, China's top media censor.
Under the ban, state media were ordered not to send reporters to Fenghuang or independently gather the news but to rely solely on reports by the government's Xinhua News Agency, according to the reporter.
By Louise Story and David Barboza | The New York Times
August 15, 2007
Mattel, the world's largest toy company, yesterday announced the biggest recall in its history.
In a double-barreled announcement, the company said it was recalling 436,000 Chinese-made die-cast toy cars depicting the character Sarge from the animated film "Cars" because they are covered with lead paint.
At the same time, the toy maker said it was recalling 18.2 million other toys because their small, powerful magnets could harm children if swallowed. The magnetized toys were also made in China, but they followed a Mattel design specification.
About half of the toys in each recall were distributed in the United States.
Amid a wave of increasing safety concerns about products made in China, the recall threatened to set the toy industry on its heels -- just as companies are beginning to ship toys to stores for the holiday shopping season, when half of all toy purchases are made.
Separately, laboratory tests have found that some Chinese-made vinyl baby bibs sold at Toys "R" Us stores appear to be contaminated with lead.
Industry analysts said Mattel's woes are part of a much larger problem.
"If I went down the shelves of Wal-Mart and tested everything, I'm going to find serious problems," said Sean McGowan, managing director and the toy analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities. "The idea that Mattel -- with its high standards -- has a bigger problem than everybody else is laughable. If we don't see an increase of recalls in this industry, then it's a case of denial."
Even Mattel executives said repeatedly yesterday that the company may have more recalls.
By Natasha Metzler | The Associated Press | via (uncensored) Yahoo! News
August 14, 2007
Toy-making giant Mattel Inc. issued recalls Tuesday for about 9 million Chinese-made toys that contain magnets children can swallow or which could have lead paint.
The recall includes 7.3 million play sets, including Polly Pocket dolls and Batman action figures, and 253,000 die cast cars that contain lead paint.
Nancy A. Nord, acting Consumer Product Safety Commission chairman, told a news conference no injuries had been reported with any of the products involved in the new recall.
"The scope of these recalls is intentionally large to prevent any injuries from occurring," she told the news conference.
At least one U.S. child has died and 19 others have needed surgery since 2003 after swallowing magnets used in toys, the government said. Several injuries had been reported in an earlier Polly Pocket recall last November.
Mattel, in a full-page ad Tuesday in some U.S. newspapers, said the company was "one of the most trusted names with parents" and was "working extremely hard to address your concerns and continue creating safe, entertaining toys for you and your children."
Tuesday's recall was the latest blow to the toy industry, which has had a string of recalled products from China. With about 80 percent of toys sold worldwide made in China, toy sellers are worried shoppers will shy away from their products.
It was also the second recall involving lead paint for Mattel in two weeks. Earlier this month, consumers were warned about 1.5 million Chinese-made toys that contain lead paint.
"There is no excuse for lead to be found in toys entering this country," Nord said. "It's totally unacceptable and it needs to stop."
Free-Tibet activist expelled by Beijing gets hero's welcome on return to Canada
By Nicholas Keung | The Toronto Star
August 10, 2007
A weary Lhadon Tethong received a hero's welcome from her family and supporters as the human rights activist arrived in Toronto last night - less than two days after being detained by China for calling for freedom for Tibet.
With tousled hair and wearing a backpack, the 31-year-old woman was embraced by her father Tsewang Choegyal, brother Losel and cousin Cindy Rees as a dozen Tibetan-Canadians chanted her name and waved red, yellow and blue Tibetan flags.
"It feels great to be back," sighed Tethong as people threw beige and yellow Tibetan scarves on her neck.
"I was worried about my personal safety," she said. "It's hard not to be freaked out. Whenever I felt afraid and nervous, especially in the night, I would just think about what protection I thought I did have.
"Compared to ... Tibetans and Chinese dissidents - (who have) no protection, no foreign passports or foreign press to come to their aid - what I was doing really felt small compared to that."
Tethong, executive director of the New York-based Students for a Free Tibet, was among three Canadians detained after a group of activists hoisted a banner saying "One World, One Dream, Free Tibet, 2008" on the Great Wall Tuesday, as the one-year countdown began for the Beijing Olympics.
Tethong was detained Wednesday and deported for blogging and posting photos online about what her group called China's "propaganda campaign" in the year leading up to the Games.
Fellow Canadians Melanie Raoul, 25, and Sam Price, 32 - who were among six activists who raised the banner - arrived home in Vancouver earlier yesterday to hugs from their parents and supporters.
"She has been an activist since she was small," said Tethong's father, a Tibetan who met his Canadian wife, Judy, in India before they settled in Victoria, B.C., in 1975. "It's a relief to see her home, safe and sound. We're all proud of her."
Chinese Communist troops moved into Tibet in 1951. Tibetans regard China's presence as an occupation.
Tethong, a graduate of Dalhousie University, said the world has to seize the opportunity to bring China's rights records to the forefront.
"China is under the gun right now," she told reporters at the airport. "They wanted this (Olympic pride), but they didn't want what it means to be a free and open society, which is to allow dissent and to allow protest."
By Associated Press | via (uncensored) yahoo!news
09 August 2007
China deported a group of activists who hung a banner on the Great Wall calling for Tibetan independence ahead of celebrations marking one year until the Beijing Olympics, an activist group said Thursday.
The six members of Students for a Free Tibet arrived in Hong Kong on Wednesday following their two-day detention by Chinese authorities, said Kate Woznow, the group's campaign director. They were not physically mistreated during that time but were exhausted from repeated questioning, she said.
Three Americans were part of the group: Leslie Kaup of St. Paul, Minn., Nupur Modi of Oakland, Calif., and Duane Martinez of Sausalito, Calif.
On Tuesday, the group scaled down part of the Great Wall to unfurl a huge banner reading "One World, One Dream, Free Tibet 2008."
Also deported to Hong Kong was Lhadon Tethong, the activist group's executive director, who had been in Beijing blogging about "China's Olympics-related propaganda," the group said in a statement. A British colleague was detained and deported as well.
"Even though she knew there was a likelihood she was going to be detained, it still seemed that what she was doing -- blogging -- isn't illegal. In most countries it wouldn't cause anyone to bat an eye," Woznow said in a telephone interview from Hong Kong.
By Jim Yardley | The New York Times
August 08, 2007
Human rights groups on Tuesday accused China of failing to improve its record on civil liberties, and of harassing lawyers, dissidents and journalists, despite official promises to make human rights a centerpiece of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
Meanwhile, a group of Chinese scholars, journalists and lawyers wrote an open letter to President Hu Jintao and other national leaders calling for the release of political prisoners, including jailed Chinese reporters and inmates convicted on religious grounds. The group wrote that China's Olympic slogan, "One World, One Dream" should instead be "One World, One Dream, and Universal Human Rights."
The criticism came from groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and journalism advocacy organizations, and foreshadowed how China's human rights record is likely to come under growing scrutiny as the Olympics approach.
The timing is hardly a coincidence. Wednesday is the start of the one-year countdown to the Olympic opening ceremony, and a public relations battle has erupted between Beijing officials, who are planning a major celebration, and advocacy groups that want to use the milestone to attract attention to their causes.
"Unless the Chinese authorities take urgent measures to stop human rights violations over the coming year, they risk tarnishing the image of China and the legacy of the Beijing Olympics," said Irene Khan, secretary general of Amnesty International.
Amnesty International said several political advocates in Beijing were under threat of close surveillance or house arrest. At the same time, authorities are persecuting Chinese journalists, the group said. And the police are sweeping up vagrants and other Beijing residents under a controversial policy that allows officers to detain people for up to four years without trial, it said.
The report described the detentions as part of a citywide "cleanup" operation to prepare for the Olympics.
Chinese Olympic officials have said that advocacy organizations should not exploit the Games to further their own agendas, but the government also appeared to be growing accustomed to criticism from a range of groups. On Monday, Jiang Xiaoyu, an executive vice president for the Beijing Olympic Committee, said that "we are mentally prepared that such voices will become louder in the future."
Last week, Human Rights Watch released a broad critique of China's record on civil liberties, accusing authorities of clamping down more tightly on dissent and blaming Olympic preparations for exacerbating longstanding problems like evictions and abuses of labor rights.
On Tuesday, the Committee to Protect Journalists called for the release of 29 domestic reporters imprisoned in China, as well as greater press freedom for foreign and Chinese journalists.
Under a regulation enacted Jan. 1, accredited foreign journalists may travel freely throughout China and conduct interviews without official permission. But a recent survey of Beijing-based foreign correspondents found that harassment and numerous obstacles still existed.
On Monday, the police in Beijing briefly detained several foreign journalists who were covering a protest by the advocacy group Reporters Without Borders. The group had displayed a banner outside the local Olympic headquarters that depicted Olympic rings made of handcuffs.
by Dan Martin | AFP | via (uncensored) yahoo!news
August 7, 2007
China's communist leaders faced a barrage of criticism at home and abroad on Tuesday over human rights abuses, casting a shadow over Beijing's efforts to celebrate the one-year Olympics countdown.
Leading the calls for Beijing to start honouring Olympic ideals was a group of China's top dissidents, who issued a rare open letter calling for an end to the "systematic denial of human rights" in the country.
The letter, signed by 37 dissidents, writers, lawyers and academics, urged the government to free all prisoners of conscience, allow the return of dissidents abroad and release its stranglehold over the media.
Not doing so makes a mockery of Beijing's own 2008 Games slogan "One World, One Dream", said the petition.
"'One world' can still be a world where people suffer discrimination, political and religious persecution, and deprivation of liberty," said the letter, posted on the website of China Rights Defenders, a loose coalition of rights activists.
Organised campaigns by China's small and harried dissident community are rare.
The signatories included Bao Tong, once a close aide to deposed former Chinese leader Zhao Ziyang and now the country's top dissident.
"Human rights is the most important matter facing China," Bao, who lives under tight surveillance in Beijing, told AFP by phone.
"The Olympic motto of 'One World, One Dream' should apply to the rights of the Chinese people as well."
The petition's release was timed to pressure China as it marks Wednesday's one-year countdown to the Beijing Games, which start on August 8, 2008, with much fanfare.
China is planning a huge party on Wednesday at Tiananmen Square, the same place where the military crushed democracy protests in 1989, killing hundreds if not thousands of people.
Amnesty International said China would tarnish its own image and the Olympic movement unless it took urgent action on human rights.
It said dissidents and rights defenders remained in detention or under tight monitoring, and that authorities continued to use detention without trial in efforts to "clean up" Beijing for the Olympics.
Also Tuesday, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Human Rights Watch released separate reports saying foreign and Chinese reporters were still being harassed despite pledges of greater media freedom ahead of the Games.
The reports said police and plainclothes "thugs" working for the government were often used to intimidate or even attack reporters covering issues the government hopes to suppress, such as political dissidents, China's control of Tibet, the spread of HIV, and social unrest.
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS | via ABC News
August 5, 2007
Scores of people have been arrested in a traditionally Tibetan area of western China following public calls for the return of Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, reports said Friday.
Police and army reinforcements were sent to the town of Lithang in western Sichuan province following the incident Wednesday at an annual horse festival that attracts thousands of people, according to the overseas monitoring group International Campaign for Tibet and the U.S. government-supported Radio Free Asia.
The reports said a local resident, Runggye Adak, was detained after he climbed onto a stage erected for Chinese officials, grabbed a microphone and asked the crowd if they wanted the Dalai Lama to return.
Other residents appealed to police and local officials to release him, leading officers to fire warning shots to disperse the crowd outside the local detention center.
RFA [Radio Free Asia] said about 200 Tibetans were detained following the protest, but gave no indication of whether they were still in custody.
International Campaign for Tibet said additional arrests were reported, but gave no figures or estimates.
A woman who answered the telephone at Lithang's police station confirmed the protest had occurred, but hung up when asked for details.
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS | The New York Times
August 4, 2007
China is cracking down on cable television operators who offer unauthorized foreign satellite broadcasts -- the communist government's latest bid to maintain its monopoly on information, a newspaper reported Saturday.
China's TV regulator last month ordered local authorities to root out operators that provide Chinese homes with foreign channels, which are officially restricted to tourist hotels and compounds where foreigners work and live, Hong Kong's South China Morning Post newspaper reported.
Summaries of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television's order said it was aimed at strengthening regulation, maintaining government information controls and ''blocking the intellectual and cultural infiltration of enemy forces.''
Penalties were not stipulated, although the report said violators would have to reapply for the right to receive all satellite broadcasts.
The highest profile victim of the crackdown could be Hong Kong's Phoenix satellite news channel, hugely popular among China's urban middle class and received in millions of homes across the country despite the restrictions.
The report said the crackdown was intended to both silence voices other than official media and protect the monopolies of local stations that have lost viewers to channels such as Phoenix.
The joint venture with Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. offers a wider range of news and views, although it largely hews to the official Chinese government standpoint and avoids sensitive political and social issues.
By Chris Buckley | REUTERS | via (uncensored) yahoo!news
August 3, 2007
Parents around the world may have been shocked this week when 1.5 million Chinese-made Fisher-Price toys were recalled because of excessive lead content, but for mums and dads in China lead poisoning is just a fact of life.
Mattel Inc.'s worldwide recall of dozens of products is the latest in a deluge of safety scares that have rattled international consumer confidence in Chinese-made goods.
High levels of lead from toys, water pipes and industry can cause behavioral problems and slow learning among children.
But if Beijing was worried about Chinese children being affected, that was not reflected in state-run media on Friday, which were silent about Mattel's recall.
And it was business as usual in the toy section of Beijing's Tianyi department store.
"I do not worry so much, if the toy looks fun for my child, it is okay. My child is already so big, he is not going to put the toy in his mouth," said a Mrs. Zhang, who was buying toys for her four-year-old son.
Indeed, for many parents, lead competes with many other toxins in the heavily polluted country as a source of anxiety.
"There are just too many things to worry about," said Li Huijing, mother of a five-year-old girl. "There are some things I just try not to think about. I try to pay more for good toys."
HOUSE PAINT, OLD PIPES
China has responded to rising consumer expectations by setting stricter standards for lead in toys, most recently introducing new labeling rules. But imposing those standards on the country's vast and fragmented toy sector is difficult.
China makes 75 percent of the world's toys, according to the national chamber of light industry, and many of the thousands of producers are small and resistant to regulation.
They make cheap plastic, metal and wooden toys that -- if regular news reports are a guide -- often have a lead content well above government-set limits.
A 2005 report in a Beijing newspaper cited estimates that 60 percent of Chinese-made toys used paint with lead above internationally accepted limits.
The China Toy Association would not answer questions about the problem.
By Mindy Fetterman, Greg Farrell and Laura Petrecca | USA Today
August 3, 2007
First it was Thomas the Tank Engine trains. Then Easy-Bake Ovens. And now Big Bird, Elmo, Cookie Monster and Dora the Explorer.
All are beloved children's characters that were licensed to toy manufacturers who contracted with companies in China to make the toys. And all have had those toys recalled. Millions of them. Just since June.
The latest is Mattel (MAT), which announced Thursday that it was recalling 1.5 million toys made in China for the company's Fisher-Price division.
Those toys feature the Sesame Street characters — the big yellow one; the little red one; the hairy blue one — and Nickelodeon's adventuresome bilingual cartoon girl.
By The Associated Press | The New York Times
August 2, 2007
One year before the start of the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese government has failed to live up to promises of greater human rights and has instead clamped down on domestic activists and journalists, Human Rights Watch said Thursday.
China, which has long been criticized for its human rights record, has cracked down on dissent to stave off potential political instability, the human rights group said.
''The government seems afraid that its own citizens will embarrass it by speaking out about political and social problems, but China's leaders apparently don't realize authoritarian crackdowns are even more embarrassing,'' Brad Adams, the Asia director of New York-based Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.
The Beijing Olympics, which begin Aug. 8, 2008, are a huge source of pride for China. In bidding for the games back in 2001, Chinese leaders promised International Olympic Committee members that the Olympics would lead to an improved climate for human rights and media freedoms.
Instead, there has been ''gagging of dissidents, a crackdown on activists and attempts to block independent media coverage,'' Adams said.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry had no immediate comment on the Human Rights Watch statement. In the past, China has said it was fulfilling all the commitments made in it's bid for the games.
The IOC said it believed the Olympics have had a positive effect China.
''While some may question China's ability to meet it's obligations related to the Beijing Games, we think it is premature to state that China has failed to live up to it's pledges,'' IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davis said.
Human Rights Watch sighted several examples of activists who have been obstructed, including a husband-and-wife couple, Hu Jia and Zeng Jinyan, who have been under constant surveillance and travel restrictions since May for allegedly ''harming state security.''
Others include Jingo Yanking, a military surgeon who broke government secrecy to reveal the true scale of Beijing's SARS outbreak in 2003. He has reportedly been banned from leaving China to accept a human rights award in New York.
Hu, an AIDS activist, said law enforcement authorities told him last year, while he was in custody for nearly six weeks, that Olympic security measures started two years ahead of the Beijing Games.
''Olympic security includes extinguishing all threats,'' he said. ''The greatest threats aren't necessarily terrorists or crime, the greatest threats are those who reveal China's social problems and protest the government.''
The purpose of the website is to publish articles by journalists about a variety of topics concerning the People’s Republic of China. All journalists and the publications that publish their writings are clearly identified. All copyrights belong exclusively to the identified sources of these articles. | Powered by
Information + More