Afghan minister accused of taking $30 million bribe from China

By Joshua Partlow, Washington Post, Wednesday, November 18, 2009 -

KABUL – The Afghan minister of mines accepted a roughly $30 million bribe to award the country’s largest development project to a Chinese mining firm, according to a U.S. official who is familiar with military intelligence reports.

The allegation, if proved true, would mark one of the most brazen examples of corruption yet disclosed in a country where the problem has become so pervasive that it is now at the heart of Obama administration doubts over Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s reliability as a partner. The question of whether Karzai can address his government’s graft and cronyism looms large as he prepares for his inauguration Thursday for a new term, and as President Obama completes a months-long strategy review that will define the future of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan after eight years of war.

Karzai is coming under intense international pressure to clear his cabinet of ministers who have reaped huge profits through bribery and kickback schemes. Although he announced a new anti-corruption unit this week, the president has been reluctant to fire scandal-tainted ministers in the past, and it is unclear whether he is ready to do so now. Meanwhile, Afghans’ perceptions that they are ruled by a thieving class have weakened support for the government and bolstered sympathy for the Taliban insurgency.

In the case of the minister of mines, there is a “high degree of certainty,” the U.S. official said, that the alleged payment to Mohammad Ibrahim Adel was made in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, within a month of December 2007, when the state-run China Metallurgical Group Corp. received the contract for a $2.9 billion project to extract copper from the Aynak deposit in Logar province. Aynak is considered one of the largest unexploited copper deposits in the world.

The selection of the Chinese firm, known as MCC, has angered some Afghan and American officials who worked on the bidding process with Adel. They say he was biased toward the company and did not give a fair hearing to the proposals of Western firms. But the issue has also gained urgency because the ministry is reviewing offers for another massive mining deal — this time for an iron ore deposit west of Kabul known as Haji Gak — for which MCC is the front-runner.

“This guy has done this already; we’re in the same situation again,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

In an interview, Adel denied repeatedly that he has received any bribes or illicit payments during his three-year-old tenure as minister and said that MCC won the contract after a fair review process. The Chinese company’s investment — including plans to build a railroad and a 400-megawatt power plant, and to make an $808 million bonus payment to the Afghan government — far exceeded that of other firms, Adel said.

“I am responsible for the revenue and benefit of our people,” Adel said. “All the time I’m following the law and the legislation for the benefit of the people.”

The performance of the Mines Ministry under Adel typifies the weakness of Karzai’s government. Afghanistan’s wealth of mineral resources represents a potential bright spot in an otherwise feeble economy. Flush with copper, iron, marble, gold and gemstones, the mining sector could become a major source of revenue for the country. ….. (more details from the Washington Post)

China loses grip on 60th anniversary security

Jane Macartney in Beijing, Times Online, Oct. 9, 2009-

China’s vast security operation to ensure the smooth running of celebrations marking the 60th anniversary of Communist Party rule is starting to fray.

After a week of holidays to mark the October 1 festivity, signs of normality began to return to the streets of Beijing. The brothels are back.

Alleys and streets throughout the capital are still festooned with huge national flags. Almost every home has a flag, depicting five gold stars against a red background, displayed outside its front door. The bigger, the better.

But the thousands of volunteers recruited to police the celebrations are disappearing and police vigilance is wavering. The shutters have been lifted from the windows of hole-in-the-wall rooms down narrow alleys where heavily made-up girls have reappeared – sitting on sofas, combing their long hair or just gazing out at passers-by.

Police had announced with great fanfare in June the launch of a three-month crackdown on prostitution. Rising joblessness early in the year had led to an increase in gang crimes, prompting the Ministry of Public Security to create a special division to tackle organised prostitution, gambling and trafficking of women. Police targeted entertainment venues such as dance halls and nightclubs as well as beauty salons and massage parlours that operate as fronts for brothels. Police say they investigate about 140,000 cases of prostitution a year involving 250,000 prostitutes and their clients.

In a country of 1.3 billion people that marks barely a dent in an enormous industry. In almost every hotel in every city, women call guests each evening offering a massage or presenting services in even more direct language. Karaoke halls provide girls as the norm. Barber shops are well known for being a front for brothels. Many girls simply set up shop in the backstreets of Beijing, sitting in their windows backed by a glimmering pink light just a stone’s throw from the local police station.

The reappearance of these girls under the noses of the local police highlights the co-operation that exists between the two. In many cases, girls are expected to turn in a quota of their clients to police who can then either blackmail or arrest them.

A survey this year showed that prostitutes are not universally reviled in China. More than 7.9 percent of respondents to the poll by Insight China magazine said that they considered sex workers to be trustworthy, placing them above politicians and scientists. Only farmers and religious workers scored higher.

Security is still tight in parts of Beijing, with guards in camouflage stationed at bridges round-the-clock. But some are starting to doze on the job with offices due to open today and the nationwide excitement generated by the military parade through Tiananmen Square on October 1 starting to dissipate. …… (more details from Time Online)

Central China Farmers Protest Land Grabs

Radio Free Asia, 2009-07-22 -

In an undated photo, residents of Nanwan village in southern Guangdong province protest outside a government building against alleged corruption surrounding an eel farm built on their land. (Provided by villagers, published by Radio Free Asia)

HONG KONG— Villagers in one of the poorest regions of China have vowed they will fight a government proposal to use their farmland for a cement factory, as a deadline for agreement set by local officials passed on Wednesday.

Residents of poverty-stricken Gushi county in the central province of Henan said they had been sent a letter only last week by village-level officials proposing the sale of a plot of desperately needed farmland at below-market compensation levels.

Dongba village resident Wang Dengyou said the villagers are dependent on agriculture as a way to eke out a living.

“Our plan was not to sell this land,” said Wang, who received the government letter offering 12,500 yuan (U.S.$1,830) per mu (0.06 hectares). “If we sell it, then we won’t have anything to eat.”

“We decided that it wasn’t enough compensation,” he said. “Even if the price was a bit higher, if we sold it we would still have lost our food supply.”

The government letter also threatened the villagers with land requisition and no compensation at all if they refused the offer, residents said.

Alleged corruption

Villagers accused local officials of skimming off a high percentage of money received from the property developers for the land.

“If you think about it, the county government has received 20,000 yuan per mu, while they are only offering 12,500 yuan per mu to the villagers,” Dongba resident Yang Huaibing said.

“This is being pulled by [officials in] our village.”

Calls to the Dongba village government and nearby Wangpeng village government went unanswered during office hours Tuesday.

According to local media reports, a series of land disputes has followed county Party secretary Guo Yongchang’s 2004 pledge to bring more investment to Henan, which has some of the poorest rural communities in China, as local officials make bids to acquire land in the area.

New developments have included spacious business centers and palatial government office buildings, reports said……. (more details from Radio Free Asia)

China Regime Tries to Defuse Waitress Rape Case

By Zhou Meihua, Epoch Times Staff,  Jun 2, 2009 -

The legal case that has grabbed the attention of ordinary people throughout China, in which on May 10 a waitress in China’s Hubei province allegedly killed a Communist official who she said was involved in a sexual assault on her, took a surprising turn last Sunday as the Chinese authorities described the killing in what might appear to be an exculpatory manner. Legal experts, though, say the charges against her remain unchanged.

The announcement, many believe, stems from the regime’s effort to appease the public during the run-up to the twentieth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre on June 4 and occurs at the same time as measures meant to silence discussion of this explosive topic.

According to a Xinhua news release of last Sunday, on May 10 the waitress Deng Yujiao at a karaoke-spa center, “was coerced by Huang Dezhi and Deng Guida to bathe with them.” When she refused, it was said, “she was violently pulled and pushed around [by the two officials] and was also verbally assaulted.”

Under such circumstances, says the news release, the waitress’s stabbing of the two officials, which killed one and injured the other, is considered by the police “excessive self-defense.”

According to bloggers, the decision is widely seen as the Chinese authority’s attempt to alleviate the widespread anger among the people, who believe that the authority is trying to cover up a rape or attempted rape by communist officials.

Another Version

The Sunday news release offers yet another official description of what happened in the incident, in addition to three different earlier versions of the story.

Earlier, the waitress reportedly was asked by the official Huang Dezhi to provide “special service” (meaning sexual service), which was then changed to “bathing service” (a young woman giving a man a bath). Last Sunday’s version says she was coerced to “bathe with them.”

Besides, the waitress, instead of being “held down [on a sofa]” or “pushed to sit [on a sofa],” as the earlier versions said, is now said to be violently pulled and pushed around while being verbally assaulted.

No rape or attempted rape is implicated in the Xinhua statement.

The news release also says that Huang Dezhi, vice-director of the Investment Office of the town Yesanguan, has been expelled from the Chinese Communist Party and stripped of all his offices because he breached Party rules through accepting his client’s dinner invitation and through forcing a waitress to bathe with him.

In addition, the third official, Deng Zhongjia, who earlier had been left out of the picture by the authorities because “he did nothing illegal,” is said to have been fired from his job for the “bad influence he may have in society.”…… (more details from The Epoch Times)

Sex and corruption in China’s Dream City

By Kent Ewing, Asia Times Online, June 2, 2009 -

HONG KONG – Until recently, Deng Yujiao seemed an unlikely hero. The 21-year-old pedicurist worked in obscurity at the Xiongfeng Hotel in central Hubei province’s Badong county. The hotel’s Dream City leisure center is probably a euphemism for a brothel, but she was known only as a toenail cutter there until May 10.

On that night, she says she was assaulted by two government officials, one of whom slapped her repeatedly with wads of cash while insisting that she have sex with him. When the two men pushed her onto a sofa a second time, she recalls, she reached into her bag for a knife, an instrument she used in her trade, and began slashing away.

One of the officials, Deng Guida, the 44-year-old head of business promotion for the town of Yesanguan and the apparent would-be sex client, died from his wounds; his unnamed colleague, also 44, survived.

While there was little public sympathy for the dead man or his injured cohort, suddenly a previously unknown pedicurist working in a seedy hotel was being hailed by Chinese netizens as a champion of women’s rights and hero of the underclass. Women’s groups, including the semi-governmental All-China Women’s Federation, took up her cause, and even state media picked up her story, which has become a national sensation.

Until last week, that is, when the country’s censor tsar, jittery about public ire manifested in any form as the 20th anniversary of the June 4 Tiananmen Square crackdown approaches, decided to pull the plug.

“Hubei’s case concerning Deng Yujiao,” a gag order from the Central Publicity Department stated, “has been under judicial investigation in accordance with the law, and news organizations should halt following up the case temporarily and call back journalists working in Hubei immediately.”

Since the department issued this edict, two journalists – Kong Pu of the Beijing Times and Wei Yi of the Nangfang People Weekly – have reportedly been beaten and detained as they attempted to interview Deng Yujiao’s grandmother, and Yesanguan has been sealed off by local authorities……. ( More details from Asia Times Online)

China milk scandal firm bankrupt

BBC News, 12 February 2009 -

A Chinese food group at the centre of a contaminated milk scandal which killed six babies has been declared bankrupt with debts of $160m (£113m).

Sanlu, which had been one of China’s most trusted brands, was the first of 22 firms found to have sold the milk.

More than 300,000 children were made ill by the milk, to which melamine had been added to boost protein readings.

The chairwoman of the Sanlu Group, Tian Wenhua, has already been sentenced to life imprisonment.

Other Sanlu executives received sentences of five to 15 years. Two other men were sentenced to death.

But anger among the Chinese population was not only directed at Sanlu. As the scale of the deadly scam became known, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao gave a rare public apology for failing to prevent the crisis.

Chinese product safety regulators have now announced they are investigating whether a unit of the French Danone group also used the toxic chemical.

- BBC News

Review: China in 2008– the CCP started to lose its stranglehold (3)

The Diplomat, Australia, 24-Dec-2008 -

Government insider turned dissident writer Jennifer Zeng asks whether 2008 will be remembered as the year the CCP started to lose its stranglehold over China

(cont’d)

Millions of Internet users renounce the (Communist) Party

While governments of Western countries, including Australia, still fail to appreciate how fragile the communist regime really is, more and more people in China are awakening from their previous delusions about the Party.

On the Internet, more than 44 million people have already publicly renounced the CCP and its related organisations, while many so-called ‘naked’ officials are busy transferring their money – and sending their wives and children – overseas in anticipation of having to leave the country in a hurry one day.

Official figures show that at least 4000 suspected corrupt officials have already fled China, taking with them more than five billion yuan ($1.1 billion), but it’s not only low-ranking officials who are leaving the country.

In 2005, Chen Yonglin, consul for political affairs in the Chinese consulate in Sydney, defected. This year two high-profile Party cadres, Xin Weiming, Deputy Head of Luwan District of Shanghai, and Yang Xianghong, Party Member Secretary of the Lucheng District of Wenzhou City, did likewise. They both disappeared while visiting France in October.

Many people, including a large proportion inside the CCP, no longer doubt that the Party boat is sinking. The question is, of course, how many more people must suffer prior to its ultimate demise? (End)

* Jennifer Zeng’s biography, Witnessing History – One Woman’s Fight for Freedom and Falun Gong, is published by Allen & Unwin.

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- The Diplomat

China Toy Manufacturer’s Gifts List to Officials Exposed

Epoch Times Staff  Dec 31, 2008 -

Chinese New Year is the gift season for businesses in China. A Nanjing toy manufacturer’s list of gifts to governmental officials was accidentally revealed to the public on December 27, 2008. T

he list showed that Jiashide Toys Products paid 144,800 Yuan (approximately US$ 21,198) as “gifts” to Chinese officials in 2007.

According to the manufacturer’s records, Jiashide Toys manufactured and exported soft toys. The company shut down October 2008 for unknown reasons.

Many suppliers visited the factory recently to collect on outstanding accounts/debts amounting to over 400,000 Yuan (approximately US$58,552). The owner was nowhere to be found.

The debt collectors decided to ransack the factory to collect debt evidence and came across a list of 2007 New year’s “gifts” that were paid to regime officials.

The roster specifies more than 40 “gift” transactions, actually bribes, and detailed the names and the amount paid each individual. According to the recipient’s importance, the “gift amount” is staggered, from a high of 10,000 Yuan cash to supermarket vouchers worth 200 Yuan.

The list also detailed 94,000 Yuan of expenditures for gift cards, 24,000 Yuan cash, 17,800 Yuan in vouchers, and 9,000 Yuan worth of brand-name clothing—144,800 Yuan in all.

This disclosure once again showcases the common practice of merchants and others offering bribes in the form of “gifts” to Chinese officials during holiday time, hoping for a favour from the regime. There is no other way to do business in China at present—Chinese officials are the barriers to either smooth or rocky business transactions of any kind in China. These bribes are guarantees for business owners and could be looked on as “public relations between the regime and the citizens.”

- The Epochtimes

Deadly corruption of China: bankrupt amid global financial crisis?

by globalization, finance, politics forum Sunday, Dec. 28, 2008 -

forecasting: China’s coming collapse: corruption, finance, trade, outsourcing, politics, leadership, government, law, and society

Has China’s ongoing reform altered the nation’s political-economic landscape as far as government corruption is concerned? What is the next if this corruption goes deeper?

A compelling new report says that runaway corruption in China poses a lethal threat to the nation’s economic development and “undermines the legitimacy of the ruling Chinese Communist Party.”

Evidence from official audits, press articles and law enforcement data, the report says, indicates that “corruption in China is both pervasive and costly.”

Bribery, kickbacks, theft and fraud, particularly by government officials, are said to be rampant.

Pei Minxin (裴敏欣) wrote the report issued last month by the Carnegie Endowment of International Peace, based in Washington. Pei is a political scientist educated at the Shanghai International Studies University. He earned his PhD at Harvard and his work has been widely published in the US.

The report asserts that corruption in China “has spillover effects beyond its borders” that hurt US, Japanese and other foreign investors.

“Illicit behavior by local officials could expose Western firms to potentially vast environmental, human rights and financial liabilities,” the report says.

Public statements by Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤), Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) and other senior Chinese officials suggest that China’s leaders are well aware of the widespread problem but have been unwilling to curb it.

The report says: “The odds of an average corrupt official going to jail are at most 3 out of 100, making corruption a high-return, low-risk activity.”

If Hu comes down too hard on corruption, he risks losing support of the delegates at the recently held party Congress who elected him. Those delegates are drawn largely from party officials at the local and provincial level.

Pei is not alone in assessing corruption in China. George Zhibin Gu ( 顾志斌), an investment banker who was educated at Nanjing University and earned a doctorate at the University of Michigan, has suggested that corruption may destroy China’s economy, which has been growing at 8 percent to 10 percent a year. In the West, a 3 percent growth rate is respectable……. (more details from Cleveland Indy Media)

Review: China in 2008– the CCP started to lose its stranglehold (2)

The Diplomat, Australia, 24-Dec-2008 -

Government insider turned dissident writer Jennifer Zeng asks whether 2008 will be remembered as the year the CCP started to lose its stranglehold over China

(Cont’d)

Pollution, corruption, food adulteration

The Paralympics had barely drawn to a close when news of the poisoned milk powder broke. If the Sanlu Group had not been partly owned by New Zealand’s Fonterra and launched an investigation, thousands more babies might be dying from the results of melamine poisoning. The authorities had known there was a problem since December 2007, but it was all hushed up because of the Olympics.

Food and water contamination is a massive problem in China. Zhou Qing, award-winning author of What Kind of God – A Survey of the Current Safety of China’s Food, warned years ago that food security could ultimately spark the collapse of the CCP, and there are increasing signs that the people are less accepting of the situation. Certainly the statistics make sobering reading.

Over 40 per cent of drinking water in rural China falls short of government standards, animal feed is almost universally tainted with melamine, excessive pesticides and chemical fertilisers are used to boost yields, and harmful antibiotics are widely administered to control disease in seafood and livestock. Talcum powder is routinely added to flour and rice is chemically whitened. And yet, miraculously, the CCP is still able to ensure access to the best-quality organically grown produce for party officials.

Throughout 2008, the CCP has used the global financial crisis to reinforce the superiority of the country’s social system. In reality, though, China is far from immune. Its stock market has plunged by nearly two-thirds in the 11 months to September and the economy remains sluggish, with large numbers of factories going bankrupt as international demand for Chinese-made consumer goods slides. According to the State Planning and Development Commission, nearly 70,000 small- to medium-sized companies went out of business in the first half of 2008.

It is these factors and their associated social repercussions that most threaten the CCP’s monopoly on political power. As well as the poor and hungry, beneficiaries of Party patronage, who had grown extremely rich in previous years, are known to be unhappy that their worth has been cut by 50 per cent of late.

Meanwhile corruption, rampant throughout the financial markets, has reached epidemic levels among government officials, and people have finally had enough. In August, 28-year-old Yang Jia allegedly broke into the Zhabei Branch of Shanghai’s Bureau of Public Security, where 2700 police officers were working, and stabbed six policemen to death and wounded four more.

In any normal society, this would be horrific news. Yet 90 per cent of bloggers and Internet users in China showed sympathy and support for Yang after rumours spread that he had been badly treated by police in the past. At his second trial in October, in a display of public dissatisfaction with the regime, more than 1000 supporters gathered outside the court to support Yang. One man held a huge banner that read, The knight-errant will endure forever. Many others shouted, ‘Overthrow the fascist government! Overthrow the Chinese Communist Party! Yang Jia is a hero!’ A small group was even bold enough to wear T-shirts displaying Yang Jia’s photo. The protests were to no avail, however, as Yang was executed in November.

It is a measure of the level of anger at social injustice and the bias of the judicial system that so many people, including ‘Bird’s Nest’ Olympic Stadium designer Ai Weiwei, should publicly support a suspected cop-killer. And the prevailing mood of dissatisfaction is growing. Riots are now a daily occurrence, including in June when an attempted police cover-up over the assault and death of a teenage girl triggered large-scale violence in Guizhou Province. Up to 100,000 are reported to have participated in the riot, with 160 office buildings and 40 cars torched. (to be cont’d)

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- The Diplomat

A second reporter arrested after investigating suspected corruption in China Shanxi province

Reporters Without Borders, 15 December 2008 -

Reporters Without Borders strongly condemns the arrest of Guan Jian, a reporter with the Beijing-based weekly Wangluo Bao (Network News), while investigating allegedly corrupt real estate transactions in Taiyuan, the capital of the northern province of Shanxi. Guan was arrested on 1 December and has been held incommunicado ever since.

It is the second case this month of a journalist being arrested as a result of reporting on alleged abuse of authority and corruption in Shanxi. CCTV reporter Li Min has been held since 4 December.

“Abuse of authority by local officials is common in this region, which is biggest source of coal in China and is riddled with corruption,” Reporters Without Borders said. “It is becoming increasingly dangerous for journalists to investigate corruption allegations involving officials. We urge the central government to investigate these cases and punish those who are really guilty.”

Beijing News quoted Shanxi Public Security Department sources as saying Guan has himself been charged with corruption. He was arrested at a Taiyuan hotel by police officers from Zhangjiakou in the neighbouring province of Hebei. Video footage recorded by the hotel’s security camera shows him being forcibly taken away in a car by five men.

Guan, 49, went to Taiyuan at the end of November to investigate allegations of illegal land transactions involving a real estate company and local officials. Wangluo Bao has not named the company but it is reportedly headed by the deputy director of the Shanxi People’s Congress.

Wangluo Bao editor Ren Pengyu said to Beijing news he has had no contact with Guan since a call a few hours before he went missing in which he said he had just had a good interview.

Guan’s son Guan Yufei told the Reuters news agency he had not had news of his father since his abduction. “His friends couldn’t reach him, his colleagues couldn’t either,” he told Reuters. “At first we thought he had just gone on a reporting trip, but then after several days when he still wasn’t in touch, we got worried.”

Guan Yufei went to Taiyuan to look for his father but, aside from the hotel security camera footage, came back empty-handed.

CCTV reporter Li Min was arrested at her Beijing home on 4 December by four policemen who had been sent from Shanxi province by Shanxi prosecutor He Shusheng, whom Li had accused of abuse of authority in a report broadcast by CCTV. Like Guan, Li has herself been accused of corruption.

- Reporters Without Borders

(phots) China Police Rob Forced Demolition Victim’s Corpse From Family at Hospital

By Gu Xiaohua, Epoch Times Staff, Nov 28, 2008 -

Crime scene, when police tried to take remove the victim’s body. (The Epoch Times)

To cover-up a death caused by a forced demolition, police went to extremes to abscond with the victim’s corpse from the family in the hospital’s parking lot in eastern China’s Yantai City, Shandong Province. Currently, relatives do not know the whereabouts of the victim’s body.

The victim’s name was Sun Jianjun. His younger brother told The Epoch Times, “My brother was severely beaten on November 25, and he was in critical condition until the morning of November 27. The doctor said his body temperature and blood pressure recovered to normal, but then again, my family were notified that evening at 11:15 p.m. that he passed away after another medical rescue attempt. When I arrived at the hospital, I saw six police in the ward.”

“After the police left around 2:30 a.m. on November 28, I discovered seven police vehicles parked under the hospital building, and another ten arrived about 9:00 a.m. We guessed that police planned to remove my brother’s body, so we called all our relatives to come and lift my brother’s body and walked out the hospital together. Nearly a hundred police suddenly came up, pulled away my family members and relatives, and loaded my brother’s body in a car with plate “Luf8477” and disappeared. Up until now, we still don’t know where my brother’s body is.”

According to The Epoch Times reporter’s investigation, the Yiantan Municipal Police Bureau started a forced demolition with the excuse of building police family apartments. Before the demolition, the developer agreed to compensate the Sun family 1.8 million yuan, but later they cut the compensation to only one-third of the agreed upon amount.

The family head SunSier (the father of the deceased victim) was injured with an axe. (The Epoch Times)

Around 1:00 a.m. on November 25, around 40 people came to Sun’s house to carry out the forced demolition. They first set fire to one of the houses. When the family rushed out to fight the fire, they broke into the house and beat the family; three family members were severely injured and admitted to the hospital.

After the beating, demolition personnel razed the houses using an excavator.

According to the Sun family, they have resisted the forced demolition eight times since this past April, although they had repeatedly reported this to the authorities and local media, nothing happened. Their houses have finally been destroyed plus the cost of one of the son’s lives.

- The Epochtimes

China Vet Exposes Toxins in Food Supply

By Xin Fei, Epoch Times Staff, Nov 23, 2008 -

Ms. Wang Haizhen, a vet from Hebei Animal Pharmaceutical Co., exposes corruption within the industry. (The Epoch Times)

Ms. Wang Haizhen, a veterinarian from the Hebei Province Animal Pharmaceutical Co, recently went public with information exposing corruption in China’s food industry.

According to her, as early as 2005, several toxic substances including melamine were detected in some animal feed, resulting in contaminated milk powder, eggs, and pork having entered the food market and harming consumers. She said after the Sanlu Company’s contaminated baby formula incident, many other companies in the area have still been using chemicals such as the known carcinogen iodized rhodium protein, which is more dangerous than melamine.

Wang’s husband was arrested a few years ago for contacting the authorities in regards to contaminated animal feed. When the Sanlu incident occurred, she made the decision to not only continue appealing for her husband’s release but also follow in his footsteps by appealing for the people.

Wrongfully Imprisoned

Gao Songlin, Wang’s husband, was a sales manager for the Feilong Company, a subsidiary of the Hebei Animal Pharmaceutical Co. In 2005, Gao discovered that certain banned substances were being used in the formulas for some animal feed the company had been producing.  Much of this feed was already distributed, which means counterfeit drugs and toxic feed additives had already entered the market and contaminated the animal husbandry in some areas. This later led to the subsequent emergence of contaminated milk powder, eggs, and pork.

Gao was shocked by all this. He made arrangements to speak with An Diajin, the head of the legal department of the company in an effort to have the toxic substances removed from the animal feed formula. Gao also reported it to the Ministry of Agriculture several times. A month after the seizure of the company, An Dianjin falsely accused Gao of embezzlement. What should have been a civil case turned into a criminal case without a criminal investigation. Gao was arrested and sentenced to four years in prison.

Wang said, “The accusations are entirely false!”

Wang remarked that authorities had long since been aware of the presence of toxic substances in animal feed and its harmful effects but did their best to keep it quiet. She said they failed to take any preventive measures, and in order to protect their own best interests, they retaliated against the whistleblower.

“When my husband said he would report it, the person from the Pharmaceutical Company said, ‘Go ahead! Many of our men are the authorities.”

Toxic Materials Still Being Used

According to Wang, Hebei is the largest manufacturing base in China. It contains several large animal pharmaceutical companies for food additives, animal feed and animal pharmaceuticals. The Feilong Animal Pharmaceutical Company is one of them.

Wang said, although the Feilong Company was closed, it quickly changed its name and went on with business. Its plant and employees never changed. Just like the Sanlu Company, it changed its name and went right on with business.

According to Wang, a lot of manufacturers are still using melamine even after the Sanlu Scandal was exposed. Besides melamine, they also add large doses of Rh proteins, Lipiodol, Clenbuterol, attractant agents, just to name a few, to get the effect of accelerating the growth rate of animals. But the chemicals and toxic materials they are adding can easily have carcinogenic effects. Some of these additives are more dangerous than melamine.

She reported that in Hebei alone, there are several hundred companies like this. Besides these, there are several thousand unregistered companies. There are many cases like these in other parts of the country.

According to Wang, people on the inside know all the dirty tricks. Therefore they are usually very careful when it comes to eating meat. Consuming meat containing these additives on a long-term basis can lead to serious health consequences. Higher cancer rates nowadays are directly associated with eating contaminated meat.

She said it’s a secret trick of the trade to avoid meat as much as possible……. (more details from The Epochtimes)

China’s second-richest person detained: state media

AFP, Nov. 23, 2008-

BEIJING (AFP) — China’s second-richest person, who made his fortune building up the nation’s largest home appliance chain, has been detained on suspicion of market manipulation, state media reported on Monday.

Hong Kong-listed shares in Huang Guangyu’s company, Gome Electrical Appliances Holdings, were also suspended on Monday, according to a statement from the firm to the city’s stock exchange.

The shares were suspended “pending the release of an announcement in relation to price sensitive information”, the statement said.

This followed a report on the website of Chinese state-run finance magazine Caijing saying Huang had been detained and was under investigation on suspicion of market manipulation.

The magazine, which did not reveal its sources, said the detention took place Wednesday last week, and other Chinese media outlets carried the story.

With assets of 18.4 billion yuan (2.7 billion dollars), Huang was ranked as number two on a list of China’s richest people issued by US magazine Forbes in October.

An executive at Gome’s investor relations department contacted by AFP Monday morning said she was not aware of the reported case.

- AFP

Thousands of Protestors Overrun Communist Office in Northwest China

By Samuel Spencer, Epoch Times Staff, Nov 18, 2008 -

People watch armed police from the side of the street. (The Epoch Times)

Between 2,000 and 10,000 people protested and attacked a Communist Party office in Gansu province of Northwest China early Tuesday. 60 people were reported to have been hurt in the protests.

The numbers of protestors varied in reports —state-run media reported 2,000 protestors, and various online blogs reported that close to 10,000 people had been protesting.

The riots are believed to have occurred due to the regime’s decision to move its offices at the city of Longnan to another city. One blog reported that the move had resulted in the termination of housing construction for thousands of families who had been affected in the Sichuan earthquake. The May earthquake killed 275 people in Longnan and destroyed many houses.

State-run media reported that 30 residents had gathered on Monday to protest the reallocation of the office, but that the number had quickly grown.

The violence is only the latest of numerous angry protests that have broken out against the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

In recent weeks, numerous protests by disgruntled taxi drivers have broken out across the country, especially in Chongqing. The taxi driver protests were prompted by what many believe to be collusion between the regime and fleet owners to let taxi drivers bear the brunt of the fallout from low fares and rising costs.

In June, 30,000 people rioted outside the Party office in Guizhou province, setting fire to government vehicles after a local girl’s death. The death of the 15-year-old girl, who had been raped and murdered, was widely rumored to have been covered up by police and government officials.

The Chinese Communist Party has often used a growing economy to offset questions about its human rights records and its iron-fisted rule, but the recent economic downturn is now testing the limits of how far free expression can go under the Communist regime.

- The Epochtimes

Deaths uncounted in China’s tainted milk scandal

By CHARLES HUTZLER, The Associated Press, The Washington Post, USA, Saturday, November 15, 2008-

LITI VILLAGE, China — Li Xiaokai died of kidney failure on the old wooden bed in the family farmhouse, just before dawn on a drizzly Sept. 10.

Her grandmother wrapped the 9-month-old in a wool blanket. Her father handed the body to village men for burial by a muddy creek. The doctors and family never knew why she got sick. A day later, state media reported that the type of infant formula she drank had been adulterated with an industrial chemical.

Yet the deaths of Xiaokai and at least four other babies are not included in China’s official death toll from its worst food safety scare in years. The Health Ministry’s count stands at only three deaths.

The stories of these uncounted babies suggest that China’s tainted milk scandal has exacted a higher human toll than the government has so far acknowledged. Without an official verdict on the deaths, families worry they will be unable to bring lawsuits and refused compensation.

So far, nobody is suggesting large numbers of deaths are being concealed. But so many months passed before the scandal was exposed that it’s likely more babies fell sick or died than official figures reflect.

Beijing’s apparent reluctance to admit a higher toll is reinforcing perceptions that the authoritarian government cares more about tamping down criticism than helping families. Lawyers, doctors and reporters have said privately that authorities pressured them to not play up the human cost or efforts to get compensation from the government or Sanlu, the formula maker……. (more details from The Washington Post)

China orders demolition of leading rights activist’s home

AFP, Nov. 17, 2008-

BEIJING (AFP) — Beijing authorities have issued an order to destroy the home of one of China’s leading rights activists, who has been in police custody for more than 200 days, her husband and lawyer said Tuesday.

The plight of Ni Yulan is one of the highest-profile of the many so-called “land grab” cases in China, where city residents are evicted from their homes or farmers kicked off their lands to make way for developments.

Ni, 47, is a long-time campaigner against such government-backed land grabs and was jailed for a year in 2002 for her activist work, and she is now facing losing the home she shares with her husband.

Beijing’s Xicheng court recently ordered developers to level Ni’s home and told the family to vacate the premises by Friday last week, her husband, Dong Jiqin, told AFP, adding he had refused to leave.

“They stuck the demolition notice on our front door,” Dong said.

“Nobody came to talk with us, there were no negotiations for compensation, no public hearings.”

Dong said the notice informed him they would be given an apartment somewhere else in Beijing, but there were few details and no official came to speak with them about the offer.

Ni was sentenced in 2002 for “damaging public property” after being arrested at a rally aimed at stopping the demolition of another courtyard home in Beijing.

Dong and rights activists said she was beaten in the 2002 arrest and has since had to walk with a cane due to injuries sustained then.

At that time, Dong and Ni’s courtyard home, in a historic part of central Beijing, became a target for developers and she was re-arrested in late April this year as she campaigned to stop it from being knocked down.

Ni was charged with “obstructing official business,” and she has been in custody ever since, although she has not appeared in court.

Her lawyer, Hu Xiao, said he was pushing for court proceedings to begin quickly.

“She is physically weak and her jailing has put a lot of stress on her,” Hu told AFP.

“She is a handicapped person, so we have asked the court to begin her trial as soon as possible out of respect for her health.”

Dong and Hu said they had hoped a death sentence handed down last month to the head of the Xicheng court, which has overseen Ni’s case, for corruption related to building projects may have helped their cause.

The sentencing of Xicheng court chief Guo Shenggui was announced a few days after one of China’s top law enforcement officials vowed to protect the rights of ordinary citizens in land grab cases.

Dong said he had all along suspected that Guo approved her jailing in 2002 and the police harassment that had followed them ever since.

But he said he feared now that their initial hopes following Guo’s downfall were misplaced.

The Xicheng court refused to answer questions from AFP on Tuesday.

Land grab cases are one of the most sensitive social issues in China, and frequently lead to protests.

As all land belongs to the state in China, local officials enjoy immense powers to determine land-use rights, and critics say residents and farmers are often forcefully evicted in shady deals between the government and developers.

In the latest such incident reported in the state-run press, up to 2,000 people attacked a local Communist Party headquarters in northwest China’s Gansu province on Tuesday.

The protesters smashed windows of the party building and nearby cars in Longnan city to protest the forced demolition of homes and eviction of tenants there, according to the Xinhua news agency.

- AFP

China blocks anti-corruption website for 6 months

By Chris Thomas, SOH News, on Thursday November 6th, 2008-

Since May 2008 when the News Office of Hubei authorities illegally shut down the anti-corruption website “China’s supervision network”, the chief of the website Wang Jin-Xiang appealed to Hu Jin-Tao many times without any outcome. He also disclosed that the authorities’ blockade of the website was not supported by any legal documentation and banned him from filing a lawsuit.

Wang Jin-Xiang expressed at an interview with a reporter that the website has gained popularity among commoners, but the authorities accused us of news diversion. Without any legal procedure, a website that exposes the degenerated society of China and communist officials has been sealed off.

He said: [recording]

First, we believe that this practice is inconsistent with the law. Second, our network is to supervise government officials, which is not against the law. Our network, in fact, won the favour of people (in Here) people are allowed to speak. The phenomenon of corruption and law-breaking practices need to be exposed while our website is a platform to encourage freedom of speech. We demanded them to provide legal paper, which the Hubei Provincial Telecommunication Administration Bureau also refused to issue.”

He added: “China’s Supervision Network has been the interest of many righteous people, and petitioners involved in many wronged cases for redressing would also like to publicize their situation over the Internet, in the hope of gaining legal consultations. They often talk about their cases on this website.”

Finally, he also said that China’s Supervision Network is different from other websites in the Mainland, for it stands out as the most in nationwide participation and large web traffic with several tens of thousands of registered users. The deliberate act of the Chinese Communists in blocking the most concerned website in the Mainland is groundless and it’s also unreasonable to ban lawsuit’s against it’s illicit action.

The above news is brought to you by Fu Ming, Lou Lan and hosted by Chris Thomas for Inside China Today on SOH Radio Network.