Activists who tracked crackdown on churches face secrets charges 

SCMP - Thursday, February 26, 2004
BILL SAVADOVE in Shanghai

Two Christian activists have been formally charged with collecting state secrets after documenting a crackdown on underground churches in Zhejiang province, a US-based human rights group said yesterday.

The charges, which fall under the category of endangering state security, were laid against Liu Fenggang and Xu Yonghai earlier this month in the provincial capital of Hangzhou, Human Rights in China said.

Police detained Liu, who was based in Beijing, in October while he was researching a crackdown on Christian groups in Hangzhou's Xiaoshan district. Authorities detained Xu, who was assisting the research, in November.

Rights groups say the pair had also been in touch with overseas religious organisations. Liu was reporting on the destruction of house churches and the arrest of their members, Human Rights in China said.

Foreign rights groups say mainland officials can apply very broad definitions to what constitutes a state secret.

The news that formal charges have been laid comes as Zhejiang toughens its crackdown on unapproved worship following a temple fire in Wufeng village this month. The blaze killed 41 people who were worshipping at an illegal temple dedicated to a folk god.

Zhejiang has in the past turned a blind eye to the unregistered religious groups which proliferated in the province amid loose controls. But local officials began cracking down last July, knocking down churches and temples and forcing groups to register.


Law 'being used to repress Tibetans' 

SCMP - Tuesday, February 10, 2004
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE and ASSOCIATED PRESS in Beijing

Beijing is abusing the law to repress political, cultural and religious expression by Tibetans, a human rights group said yesterday, citing the case of a prominent monk sentenced to death on bombing charges.

In a 108-page report, New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the persecution of Tenzin Deleg Rinpoche highlighted the ongoing restrictions placed on Tibetans. "In spite of China's rhetoric about legal reform, Tenzin Deleg's case shows that when it comes to Tibet, the Chinese government still does not tolerate uncontrolled political or religious activity," said Mickey Spiegel, a senior researcher in the Asia Division of HRW.

Tenzin Deleg was last seen on December 2, 2002, when he was given a death sentence with a two-year reprieve by a closed court in Sichuan province. This will probably to be commuted to life imprisonment.

He is currently being held in Chuandong No 3 Prison, a high-security facility in Dazu county more than 600km from his home.

Lobsang Dhondup, a 28-year- old farmer and Tenzin Deleg's alleged co-conspirator in a bomb attack in the Sichuan capital of Chengdu which killed one person and injured another, was executed in January last year.

The pair were also blamed for two explosions in the Ganzi area of the Kham Tibetan region under the Sichuan provincial administration.

More than 30,000 Tibetans signed a petition protesting at the monk's arrest. At least six of Tenzin Deleg's supporters had also been jailed, HRW said.

Their cases have been raised by the United States but it appears to have made little difference.

HRW called for the immediate release of Tenzin Deleg pending a new trial conforming to international standards.

In a tape released at the time and said to have been smuggled out of jail, Tenzin Deleg protested his innocence from his cell.

The Foreign Ministry rejected the report. "China is a country governed by law," it said. "Those criminals who conduct insurgence and terrorist bombing activities will be punished."


Amnesty exposes Nepal's shoot-to-kill policy on Maoist rebels 

SCMP - Saturday, February 7, 2004
MARK WILLIAMS in New Delhi

The military in Nepal has effectively hijacked the country's judicial process and adopted a policy of "physical elimination" towards the Maoist insurgency, according to the latest report published by Amnesty International.

Documenting scores of killings and abductions across the country by both soldiers and rebels, the report illustrates how a rural communist insurgency is fast turning into a bloody battle for hearts and minds, transforming picturesque Himalayan hamlets into killing fields.

The Maoists extort money from local businesses. They execute villagers who fail to pay, members of political parties and anyone they believe to be providing information to the security services, Amnesty says, after a two-week visit that ended on Wednesday.

As well as the killings, up to 192 children were reportedly abducted by the Maoists from their homes in western Nepal last month for "training and indoctrination".

But the Amnesty report is damning of a military seemingly out of control, concluding: "[There] is strong evidence to suggest that the security forces are operating a policy of killing all those suspected of being active Maoists or supporters, even if they are unarmed, or have surrendered or been taken into custody."

Charan Prasai, a leading member of the Human Rights Organisation of Nepal, says villagers are being terrorised by both sides. "People are very afraid as they no longer know who they can trust."

Relatives of Rajan Pudasaini and Yadu Mudvari, villagers in Nuwakot district, north of Kathmandu, told Amnesty how the two men were falsely accused of being Maoists and summarily executed by security personnel on January 21.

There are reports of captured Maoists being forced to dig mass graves for rebels already killed and then being summarily executed.

The Amnesty team concluded that "the number and quality of the reports received suggested that there was in operation a policy of physical elimination of the armed opposition at the very least by some security forces units".

Others face the prospect of disappearing without trace into prison cells. Human rights workers have documented more than 250 disappearances since the end of the ceasefire last August.

The Royal Nepal Army denies its soldiers are involved in widespread human rights violations.

Brigadier General B. A. Kumar Sharma, a former head of the army's human rights cell, defended the detention policy, saying: "This is not war, it is terrorism. To combat it we must investigate people."


China-Taiwan trade soars on IT 

Thursday, February 5, 2004
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Taipei

Trade between China and Taiwan in the 11 months to November 2003 rose 23.2 per cent from the year before to US$41.69 billion, driven by the global information technology (IT) industry, trade officials said on Thursday.

The amount was 17.1 per cent of Taiwan's foreign trade, a rise of 15.3 per cent in the year-earlier period, officials from the Board of Foreign Trade (BOFT) said.

"Driven by the mainland's brisk domestic demand and export orders as well as the global upswing of information industry, Taiwan's exports [to China] kept growing," a BOFT official said.

"Given the sustained global economic recovery, indirect trade with the mainland is expected to continue to expand," the official said.

Taiwan registered a trade surplus with China of US$22.13 billion, up 13 per cent from a year earlier.

Exports in the 11-month period rose 19.5 per cent to US$31.91 billion, while imports increased 37.3 per cent to US$9.78 billion.

Despite recent political tensions, trade between the mainland and Taiwan has steadily increased, with China becoming a bigger market for Taiwan's exports.

The US$31.91 billion worth of shipments to China accounted for 24.5 per cent of Taiwan's total exports in the 11 months, compared with the 22.4 per cent a year earlier.

In November alone, the island's China-bound shipments rose 25.5 per cent year-on-year to US$3.53 billion while imports from China surged 54.7 per cent from a year ago to 1.16 billion.

A majority of the cross-strait trade was done indirectly through the conduit of Hong Kong.

Direct trade between Taiwan and the mainland has been cut off since their split in 1949 at the end of a civil war.


Monks jailed 12 years for having Dalai Lama photos 

Friday, February 6, 2004
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Beijing

A court in Sichuan has sentenced three Tibetan monks to 12 years in prison for painting a Tibetan flag and possessing photographs of exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, rights groups said yesterday.

The three are from the Khangmar monastery in Kakhog county - Hongyuan county in Putonghua - in Ngaba prefecture, which borders Tibet.

A report, commissioned by the Australia Tibet Council, Free Tibet Campaign and the International Campaign for Tibet, identified the monks as Choedar Dargye, Gedun Thogphel and Jampa Choephel.

Two other Khangmar monks, Migyur Gyatso and Jamyang Oezer, were awaiting sentencing, the report said. Jamyang Oezer is understood to be ill and in hospital.

Public security officials in Hongyuan county refused to comment and court officials could not immediately be reached.

The sentenced monks apparently held responsible positions at the monastery.

Many Tibetans still display pictures of the Dalai Lama in private, particularly in the Tibetan areas outside the Tibet Autonomous Region. Formerly known as Amdo and Kham, these areas are now incorporated into the provinces of Qinghai, Sichuan, Yunnan and Gansu, the report said.

The US State Department stated in its annual Report on International Religious Freedom, released late last year, that possession of pictures of the Dalai Lama appeared to be on the rise.

According to the State Department report, mainland government officials maintain that possessing or displaying pictures of the Dalai Lama is not illegal. However, it said officials distinguish between political and religious application of the exiled leader's photograph.

While it is acceptable for an individual to possess a photo of the Dalai Lama for the purpose of worshipping him as a religious figure, it is not acceptable if the photo is being used "to advocate separatism".


Cash is king as funding holds key to presidential fortunes 

SCMP - Thursday, February 5, 2004


PETER KAMMERER
American Democratic presidential campaign front-runner John Kerry may have ideological differences with Republican US President George W. Bush, but he shares the same understanding of politics - money talks.

Analysis of Mr Kerry's record as a US senator by the non-partisan Centre for Public Integrity revealed that he had been most active when offered incentives by companies seeking favours. But the Washington-based organisation's spokesman, Bill Allison, also said that there was nothing unusual in the Vietnam war veteran's approach.

Summarising the centre's new book, The Buying Of The President 2004: Who's Really Bankrolling Bush And His Democratic Challengers - And What They Expect In Return, Mr Allison concluded that politicians were alike, no matter what their political stripes.

The presidential election is 270 days from today, but donors have already poured record amounts of money into the Republican and Democratic campaigns. Official figures to January 1 put Mr Bush's total at US$132.7 million - more than five times the US$25.3 million raised by Mr Kerry.

By previous election standards, the Bush war-chest is enormous - even more so considering that, by the start of the year, he'd spent US$33.6 million on campaigning - 30 per cent more than his main Democratic challenger had raised.

Those levels of contributions and spending will balloon as election day nears. Given the president's spending power, Mr Kerry will need all the money he can get if he maintains his position and wins the Democratic presidential nomination at the party's convention in Boston on July 26.

But raising money to win the election is only part of the process of becoming president. Payback time starts when the victor moves into the White House - and that, more than what was said during campaigning, often dictates the direction of the presidency.

Such was the case with Mr Bush, Mr Allison said this week. The biggest corporate donors to the president's 2000 election campaign were involved in oil and gas. Environmental groups have long alleged that these links were the reason the president withdrew the US from the Kyoto Protocol on climate change in 2001. As well, after winning the presidency, Mr Bush began trying to have the tax on dividends from stocks cut. This would benefit, among other investors, executives with big shareholdings.

Mr Allison said that financing a winning candidate did not guarantee concessions for donors - but it didn't hurt. He cited Mr Kerry's lobbying for the firm Liberty Mutual - a major sponsor of the Democratic Party's Boston convention - to get approval to sell insurance in China.

On April 26, 2001, shortly after the mainland released the crew of an American intelligence plane that made an emergency landing on Hainan Island after colliding with a Chinese fighter jet, the Massachusetts senator wrote to the US Trade Representative's Office asking for its help in getting Liberty Mutual's application approved.

"This company donated about US$35,000 to Kerry and it's not entirely crazy to assume that the reason he was willing to help at a particularly bad time in US-China relations may have had something to do with those donations," Mr Allison said.

Mr Kerry also received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the telecommunications industry, for which he has become a vocal lobbyist. "He's someone who has not had a great deal of legislative initiatives attached to his name," Mr Allison said. "But when the telecoms industry needs something, he goes to the senate floor, makes a speech, introduces a bill, writes letters to the Federal Communications Commission and suddenly he's a proactive senator."

Dick Gephardt, who has dropped out of the Democratic presidential contest, was a key proponent of reducing or preventing excise taxes on alcohol. His biggest campaign contributor was brewer Anheuser-Busch.

Under revised electoral funding rules, corporations can't contribute directly to a candidate's campaign, and individuals can donate a maximum of US$2,000. The Federal Election Commission closely monitors and publicly records all donations. Disclosure is a key part of the electoral process.

But Mr Allison said companies could bypass the regulations and financially help a candidate through interest groups known as Political Action Committees.

Often set up by an industry and supposed to be non-partisan, they could lobby a candidate with funding that may end up in the campaign through such means as negative advertising.

"We like to think of it as the new `soft money' and that's an accurate way to put it," he said. "You can still write seven-figure cheques, which was what the reforms were supposed to do away with."

One such group which had given contributions to Mr Gephardt ran advertisements against another Democratic presidential contender, Howard Dean. Mr Dean, the initial front-runner, has raised US$41.3 million - more than other opposition candidates, through an innovative internet campaign.

Just as innovative, though, has been the Bush campaign's use of its corporate connections to garner donations from firms such as the investment bank Merrill Lynch and the credit card giant MBNA.

But although it is too early to say whether Mr Bush will win re-election or if a Democrat such as Mr Kerry will be the next resident of the White House, there is one certainty - their policy statements will be heavily coloured by who helped them into office.


Halliburton to repay US$27m for overbilling of military 

SCMP - Thursday, February 5, 2004
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Washington

Halliburton, the energy giant once run by Vice-President Dick Cheney, is to repay the US government US$27.4 million for possible overcharging of the US military for services in Iraq and Kuwait.

The Washington Post quoted the Defence Department as saying that the money would be reimbursed after the military was overcharged for meals by a Halliburton subsidiary, KBR.

Last week Halliburton said it had repaid the government US$6.3 million following allegations that two employees involved in Iraq had taken kickbacks that resulted in overbilling. The company is also being investigated over allegations it may have overcharged the US military for fuel.

The new amount includes US$16 million that may have been charged for meals never served at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait, and $11.4 million from four other dining facilities in Kuwait and Iraq.

Pentagon spokeswoman Lieutenant Colonel Rose-Ann Lynch said Defence Department auditors were also reviewing charges from 53 other dining facilities that KBR operated through subcontractors in Iraq and Kuwait.

She said the possible overbillings took place over nine months last year and were discovered during the routine evaluation of contract costs submitted for payment. Halliburton said it would suspend billing for food services until it could improve the counting of meals that might have led to the overcharging.

The company said it was working with the US government to improve meal planning and preparation for troops in the Middle East, following an inspection by the Defence Contracting Audit Agency, the Defence Department's main financial watchdog.

The company emphasised, however, that "this is not any sort of `admission' ".

The audit agency is also reviewing whether KBR may have overcharged the government at least US$61 million for fuel imports from Kuwait into Iraq under a separate contract with the US Army. KBR has again denied any wrongdoing.

KBR runs dining facilities for soldiers and civilians under a Defence Department contract it won in 2001 to provide food, shelter and other support to the US military throughout the world. The company has been awarded US$3.8 billion in work under the contract.

KBR has already protested its innocence over the meal charges.

"It is difficult to determine how many people will be at the dinner table in the middle of a war zone and [the number] must be based on estimates," the company said on Monday.

"This is not a neighbourhood restaurant where you can quickly total up all the dinner tabs."


Three Tibetan monks sentenced to 12 years in prison 

SCMP - Thursday, February 5, 2004
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Beijing
Updated at 4.48pm:

China has sentenced three Tibetan monks to 12 years in prison for painting a Tibetan flag and possessing photographs of the exiled spiritual leader Dalai Lama, rights groups said on Thursday.

The three monks are from the Khangmar monastery in Kakhog county - or Hongyuan county in Chinese - in the Ngaba prefecture of southwest China's Sichuan province, which borders Tibet.

A report, commissioned by the Australia Tibet Council, Free Tibet Campaign and the International Campaign for Tibet, identified the monks as Choedar Dargye, Gedun Thogphel and Jampa Choephel.

Two other Khangmar monks, Migyur Gyatso and Jamyang Oezer, are awaiting sentencing. Jamyang Oezer is reportedly ill and in hospital, the report said.

The London-based Tibet Information Network (TIN) earlier said all five Tibetans had been sentenced in late August, along with one other monk, to prison terms of between one and 12 years for distributing material calling for Tibet's independence.

Police confiscated a large number of pictures of the Dalai Lama and a Tibetan flag after they raided the room in the monastery of one of the arrested monks, TIN said.

Local police refused to comment on Thursday. Court officials could not immediately be reached.

The sentenced monks apparently held responsible positions at the monastery.

Photographs obtained by TIN show four of the Khangmar monks in a room with pictures of the Dalai Lama on the wall.

Many Tibetans still display pictures of the Dalai Lama in private, particularly in the Tibetan areas outside the Tibet Autonomous Region, formerly known as Amdo and Kham and now incorporated into the Chinese provinces of Qinghai, Sichuan, Yunnan and Gansu, the report said.

The US State Department stated in its annual Report on International Religious Freedom released late last year that possession of pictures of the Dalai Lama appears to be on the rise, the rights groups said.

According to the same US State Department report, Chinese government officials maintain that possessing or displaying pictures of the Dalai Lama is not illegal.

However, Chinese officials distinguish between political and religious application of the exiled leader's photograph.

Officials maintain that while it is acceptable for an individual to possess a photo of the Dalai Lama for the purpose of worshipping him as a religious figure, it is not acceptable if the photo is being used "to advocate separatism," the report said.

China occupied Tibet in 1951. The Dalai Lama has lived in India since fleeing the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, in 1959 with thousands of supporters after an abortive revolt against Chinese rule.

China regularly accuses the 68-year-old monk of being a "separatist" and objects to his meetings with world leaders.


Spam report details the cost and scope of the problem 

Tuesday, February 3, 2004
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Paris

Spam is here, there and everywhere, spreading viruses, stealing information, jamming computer networks, wasting time and costing internet users huge hidden sums, an OECD report prepared for an OECD-EU hosted workshop on the problem says.

The report provides many facts and figures in an attempt to measure the extent of the problem:

  • An EU study "estimates that the worldwide cost to internet subscribers of spam is in the vicinity of €10 billion (US$12.5 billion) a year".
  • One survey suggested that 65 per cent of internet users spent more than 10 minutes per day killing spam, and 24 per cent said they spent more than 20 minutes per day.
  • One study, assuming that 10 per cent of corporate e-mail is spam and that each employee spends 30 seconds per day killing it, the annual cost to a company with 10,000 staff would be US$675,000.
  • A report in June 2003 from the Radicati Group forecast that e-mail spam would cost companies €20.5 billion in 2003 and US$198 billion annually by 2007. Another study, by Ferris Research, estimated that e-mail spam cost US businesses US$8.9 billion in 2002. The Australian Office for the National Economy has calculated that the total cost of time spent per employee in a company merely in managing spam in the e-mail box is about US$620 per year.
  • Some research suggests that spam adds 10 per cent to costs for internet service providers.
  • A US Federal Trade Commission report in April 2003 found that 66 per cent of spam messages were fraudulent in some way.
  • The US Secret Service has designated the so-called "Nigerian scam", in which the sender offers to pass on windfall sums of money if a percentage payment is made in advance, as an "epidemic", defrauding people of hundreds of millions of dollars per year.
  • Studies by anti-spam companies indicate that in July 2003 spam accounted for half of all e-mail traffic from 8 per cent in 2001, that 4.9 trillion spam shots would be made in 2003.
  • AOL blocked 2.37 billion spam messages per day in April 2003.
  • International Data Corporation estimates that there are about 700 million electronic mailboxes in the world, and the total will be 1.2 billion in 2005. Trade data suggests that about 31 billion e-mail messages were sent on internet in 2002 and that the traffic will exceed 60 billion in 2006.
  • Research suggests that the costs of obtaining one email address is 0.00032 US cents and that the cost of sending is 0.01 to 0.05 cents
  • One study found that 3.5 million messages, at a probable cost of less than US$100 per million, generated 81 sales, each worth US$19 or a total of US$1,500, in the first week, on a take-up rate of only 0.0023 per cent.
  • Estimates indicate that 90 per cent of viruses are sent via e-mail.
  • In 2003 Microsoft launched dozens of lawsuits in the United States and Britain against companies which had sent its customers more than two billion spam e-mails. And EarthLink has begun civil action claiming US$5 million from 100 alleged spammers.
  • An item not mentioned in the report: Real "Spam" was created by US company Hormel Foods in 1926, as a contraction for tinned "Spiced Ham", and became popular with the military and with consumers around the world. Billions of tins have been sold, and it entered into folklore as a staple food in Britain during rationing in World War II, becoming a subject of jokes. A satirical sketch by the British Monty Python comic team in the 1960s about a cafe where every dish was served with spam and more spam, whether the customer wanted it or not, may be the origin of "spam" as meaning omnipresent, unwanted messages.
  • Hormel Foods has begun lawsuits to defend its original "Spam" brand, attacking spam-fighting companies that use "Spam" as part of their names.


  • Indonesian militants 'pose new terror risk' 

    SCMP - Wednesday, February 4, 2004
    MARIANNE KEARNEY in Jakarta

    Jemaah Islamiah, the regional terrorist group blamed for the Bali nightclub bombings, is not the only militant Muslim group in Indonesia willing to commit violence in the name of Islam, a respected international think-tank warned yesterday.

    According to an International Crisis Group (ICG) report, the militant Kompak Mujahidin, which has been fighting in sectarian conflicts in Maluku and Poso, in Sulawesi, is also highly trained and has the ideological inclination and experience to launch deadly attacks.

    "JI is not the only game in town among the organisations that have a radical jihadist bent, it may not even be the most dangerous," said Sidney Jones, the Jakarta director of the ICG and an acknowledged expert on Jemaah Islamiah (JI).

    The ICG said Kompak Mujahidin - which has launched a series of attacks against Christians in Poso since killing around a dozen people last October and threatening to destabilise a 2002 peace accord which had ended two years of sectarian strife - may be the most dangerous of the radical jihadist groups.

    Kompak Mujahidin has been blamed for a bomb blast at a karaoke bar last November that killed four people.

    There are several other militant Islamic groups, the report said. All of them have continued to recruit and, like the masterminds behind the Bali bombing, may take inspiration from Osama bin Laden's edict, which sanctioned attacks on Americans and their allies, warned the report.

    Like the Bali bombers, members of Kompak Mujahidin have trained in international militant camps in Mindanao and Afghanistan and have fought in Maluku, acquiring solid military skills.

    But having lost family members or land during Sulawesi's sectarian conflict of 1999-2001, Kompak Mujahidin recruits could be even more dangerous and highly motivated than JI members, the report said.

    "The people being recruited in the Poso area are usually from thuggish backgrounds, and they are quickly persuaded that dying as a martyr is the way to go. Their ability to recruit suicide martyrs is good," Ms Jones said.

    One source told the ICG that Kompak Mujahidin recruits saw martyrdom as, "the toll road to heaven".

    At the same time a split in JI suggests that a less militant majority faction of JI did not agree with the Bali bombing attack as a legitimate part of their attempt to establish an Islamic state.

    "There was a view that Hambali was wrecking everything, and his strategy was not in line with JI's long-term goals," Ms Jones said.

    Hambali, who is believed to have masterminded the Bali bombing attacks and who allegedly operated as point man for al-Qaeda, is currently being detained by the United States.

    The more radical JI members, such as Hambali, Muhklas, Imam Samudra, and Azahar, may only represent a "minority faction within the organisation", the report said, while the less militant wing of the organisation wanted to focus more on building support for the movement in order to establish an Islamic state by 2025.

    The report also warned that other militant groups were continuing to recruit.


    Hu joins call for peace in Middle East 

    SCMP - Saturday, January 31, 2004
    AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSEA and XINHUA in Cairo

    President Hu Jintao and Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak have called for renewed efforts to find a solution to the crisis between Israel and the Palestinians.

    President Hu, on his first visit to Egypt since becoming head of state last March, stressed what he called "the need to impose peace and security in the Middle East".

    Mr Mubarak called on Israelis and Palestinians to return to the negotiating table.

    The hostility "will not stop while the two parties refuse to start negotiating again. We must work very hard to break the vicious cycle of violence", he said.

    "Getting back to the negotiating table could take some time, but at least it would make it possible to give hope to Palestinian and Israeli citizens that peace is possible, and it could reduce violence."

    Mr Mubarak said the two leaders had agreed on "the need to intensify our efforts to find a solution to the Palestinian question" and for "common action by the quartet [the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the US] and other countries who desired peace, above all China".

    The quartet unveiled the so-called road map last year which envisions a Palestinian state by next year, a freezing of Israeli settlements and an end to violence.

    Mr Mubarak also said Mr Hu had agreed that the opening of talks between Israel and Syria would help in the search for an overall peace settlement.

    Meanwhile, China has established a Sino-Arab co-operation forum to foster closer ties with nations in the Middle East.

    Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing and Secretary-General of the Arab League Amr Moussa, announced the creation of the new body yesterday in Cairo.

    Mr Li said the forum would further enrich the Sino-Arab relationship by expanding co-operation in the fields of politics, trade, science and technology, culture, education and health.

    President Hu said: "We have agreed to reinforce our political, economic and cultural ties."

    Trade between China and Egypt passed the US$1 billion mark for the first time last year.

    China wanted to increase levels of co-operation, notably in the oil, transportation and tourism fields.

    Egypt's official Middle East News Agency said the two nations had signed accords dealing with technology and oil exploration.

    Egypt and China are linked by a so-called strategic partnership signed in 1999.

    President Hu will continue his African tour to Algeria and Gabon.