'Shamed' US goes quiet on rights, says watchdog
scmp - Thursday, September 29, 2005
BARADAN KUPPUSAMY in Kuala Lumpur
The United States has dropped its push for major trading partner Malaysia to improve its human rights record, shamed by its own recent record at Guantanamo Bay, a US-based rights group claimed yesterday.
The Human Rights Watch report condemns Malaysia's beating and torturing of political opponents and suspected Islamic militants who are held without trial for long periods, sometimes at the behest of the US.
"With what we're doing in Guantanamo, we're on thin ice to push on this," the report quoted a senior State Department official as telling Human Rights Watch.
Malaysia's parliamentary affairs minister Mohamed Nazri confirmed the statement.
"They no longer object ... they get upset and say we are not co-operating against terrorism if we release detainees," Mr Nazri said.
"We don't want to upset them."
Both Washington and Britain, once prominent critics of Malaysia's use of its Internal Security Act (ISA), have made preventive detention a pillar of their own crackdown on Islamic militants, the report said.
Britain's 2005 Prevention of Terrorism Act also gives encouragement to Malaysia, it added.
This silence is taken by Malaysia as a green light to continue detaining people indefinitely without charge, it said, citing witnesses' allegations of ill-treatment of more than 25 people in Malaysia's Kamunting detention centre in December last year.
The report, released on Tuesday, came a day after Malaysia extended the imprisonment of six suspected militants, detained since June 2001, for another two years.
They are being held under the ISA, which allows for an indefinite extension of a two-year detention period by the government.
"Such detention without trial for long periods of time is a recipe for disaster," the report said calling for the immediate repeal of the 45-year-old legislation.
"Malaysia's policy amounts to the executive branch presuming the guilt of people without charge or trial," said Brad Adams, executive director of Human Rights Watch's Asia Division in an e-mail statement.
"The presumption of innocence does not exist for ISA detainees."
Up to now 112 people are held without trial, including 74 suspected Islamic militants, 22 alleged currency counterfeiters and 13 for allegedly forging documents.
Among them are B.S.A Tahir, accused of helping Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan sell nuclear secrets to Libya, Iran and North Korea, and Noralwizah Lee Abdullah, wife of al-Qaeda's Asian leader Hambali, whose real name is Riduan Isamaludin.
Additional reporting by Reuters
BARADAN KUPPUSAMY in Kuala Lumpur
The United States has dropped its push for major trading partner Malaysia to improve its human rights record, shamed by its own recent record at Guantanamo Bay, a US-based rights group claimed yesterday.
The Human Rights Watch report condemns Malaysia's beating and torturing of political opponents and suspected Islamic militants who are held without trial for long periods, sometimes at the behest of the US.
"With what we're doing in Guantanamo, we're on thin ice to push on this," the report quoted a senior State Department official as telling Human Rights Watch.
Malaysia's parliamentary affairs minister Mohamed Nazri confirmed the statement.
"They no longer object ... they get upset and say we are not co-operating against terrorism if we release detainees," Mr Nazri said.
"We don't want to upset them."
Both Washington and Britain, once prominent critics of Malaysia's use of its Internal Security Act (ISA), have made preventive detention a pillar of their own crackdown on Islamic militants, the report said.
Britain's 2005 Prevention of Terrorism Act also gives encouragement to Malaysia, it added.
This silence is taken by Malaysia as a green light to continue detaining people indefinitely without charge, it said, citing witnesses' allegations of ill-treatment of more than 25 people in Malaysia's Kamunting detention centre in December last year.
The report, released on Tuesday, came a day after Malaysia extended the imprisonment of six suspected militants, detained since June 2001, for another two years.
They are being held under the ISA, which allows for an indefinite extension of a two-year detention period by the government.
"Such detention without trial for long periods of time is a recipe for disaster," the report said calling for the immediate repeal of the 45-year-old legislation.
"Malaysia's policy amounts to the executive branch presuming the guilt of people without charge or trial," said Brad Adams, executive director of Human Rights Watch's Asia Division in an e-mail statement.
"The presumption of innocence does not exist for ISA detainees."
Up to now 112 people are held without trial, including 74 suspected Islamic militants, 22 alleged currency counterfeiters and 13 for allegedly forging documents.
Among them are B.S.A Tahir, accused of helping Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan sell nuclear secrets to Libya, Iran and North Korea, and Noralwizah Lee Abdullah, wife of al-Qaeda's Asian leader Hambali, whose real name is Riduan Isamaludin.
Additional reporting by Reuters
Bizarre twist to baby-sales racket
scmp - Wednesday, September 28, 2005
BARADAN KUPPUSAMY in Kuala Lumpur
Criminal syndicates are cashing in on the baby business, in some cases forcing poor foreigners to get pregnant and selling their babies.
Syndicate members watch over the pregnant women, paying all their medical bills until the babies are born, said Nawawi Ismail, deputy head of the Criminal Investigation Department.
They then sell each baby for between M$20,000 ($41,000) and M$50,000.
Boys fetch higher prices, and younger infants command a higher price than older babies.
Police said the syndicates were also smuggling pregnant women from Indonesia into the east Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak and hiding them until they gave birth.
Mr Nawawi, speaking at a forum organised by Unicef on reducing harm and exploitation of children, said police last year arrested members of a gang that had held 30 pregnant women at a flat in Sarawak. "After the babies are born the mothers are paid off and sent back," said Mr Nawawi.
"The babies by virtue of birth are Malaysian citizens and are sold to childless couples."
Describing baby-selling as a new "growth industry", Mr Nawawi said the rise of such syndicates was also being driven by an increase in the population of foreign workers in Malaysia.
Most babies were sold within Malaysia, he said.
In some cases migrant workers were forced into the act, while others were willing to participate for a share of the profits. Police had rescued 35 babies and arrested 47 people since 2002, but many cases went undetected.
"Organised criminal syndicates are attracted by the easy money, what with high demand for babies and ready access to poor foreigners as baby factories," he said.
Police, who last week freed eight Indonesian workers held captive as sex slaves, have formed a special unit to combat the gangs.
The eight women were forced to have paid sex with men to get them pregnant.
The women, including two who were heavily pregnant, were rescued by police in a raid on a block of flats in a Kuala Lumpur suburb on Thursday, a newspaper reported.
A 30-year-old suspect, believed to be one of the syndicate's ringleaders, was arrested. Mr Nawawi said the discovery that the eight were forced to work as prostitutes and denied contraception showed the gangs were using a "new modus operandi".
Welfare ministry officials said a shortage of babies and a long and demanding legal adoption process were fuelling the illegal trade.
Malaysia's human rights commission, Suhakam, said the fact that baby-selling had shifted from an operation run by individuals into one involving syndicates indicated the lucrative nature of the business.
BARADAN KUPPUSAMY in Kuala Lumpur
Criminal syndicates are cashing in on the baby business, in some cases forcing poor foreigners to get pregnant and selling their babies.
Syndicate members watch over the pregnant women, paying all their medical bills until the babies are born, said Nawawi Ismail, deputy head of the Criminal Investigation Department.
They then sell each baby for between M$20,000 ($41,000) and M$50,000.
Boys fetch higher prices, and younger infants command a higher price than older babies.
Police said the syndicates were also smuggling pregnant women from Indonesia into the east Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak and hiding them until they gave birth.
Mr Nawawi, speaking at a forum organised by Unicef on reducing harm and exploitation of children, said police last year arrested members of a gang that had held 30 pregnant women at a flat in Sarawak. "After the babies are born the mothers are paid off and sent back," said Mr Nawawi.
"The babies by virtue of birth are Malaysian citizens and are sold to childless couples."
Describing baby-selling as a new "growth industry", Mr Nawawi said the rise of such syndicates was also being driven by an increase in the population of foreign workers in Malaysia.
Most babies were sold within Malaysia, he said.
In some cases migrant workers were forced into the act, while others were willing to participate for a share of the profits. Police had rescued 35 babies and arrested 47 people since 2002, but many cases went undetected.
"Organised criminal syndicates are attracted by the easy money, what with high demand for babies and ready access to poor foreigners as baby factories," he said.
Police, who last week freed eight Indonesian workers held captive as sex slaves, have formed a special unit to combat the gangs.
The eight women were forced to have paid sex with men to get them pregnant.
The women, including two who were heavily pregnant, were rescued by police in a raid on a block of flats in a Kuala Lumpur suburb on Thursday, a newspaper reported.
A 30-year-old suspect, believed to be one of the syndicate's ringleaders, was arrested. Mr Nawawi said the discovery that the eight were forced to work as prostitutes and denied contraception showed the gangs were using a "new modus operandi".
Welfare ministry officials said a shortage of babies and a long and demanding legal adoption process were fuelling the illegal trade.
Malaysia's human rights commission, Suhakam, said the fact that baby-selling had shifted from an operation run by individuals into one involving syndicates indicated the lucrative nature of the business.
Lift the veil and reveal the truth
scmp - Wednesday, September 28, 2005
In the 1980s, when I was a Beijing-based correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, I had occasion to interview an official in Shanghai. How much of China's trade, I asked, passed through Shanghai? The official responded: "I don't think that figure has appeared in the newspapers."
That official was keeping himself from running afoul of China's many laws on state secrets. In fact, then - and even now - anything that has not appeared in the official press can be considered a state secret, no matter how innocuous.
Well, things are improving, we are told. Earlier this month, Beijing announced that, from now on, the number of people killed in natural disasters will no longer be considered a state secret.
And why this relaxation? According to Shen Yongshe, spokesman for the National Administration for the Protection of State Secrets: "Declassification of these figures and materials will facilitate our disaster relief work and also ensure the people's right to know.
"Declassification of such information is conducive to boosting our disaster prevention and relief work," he said. The decision marks a major step by the government towards "administering according to law" and "building a transparent government," he added.
Well, it may be a major step, but many more such steps are needed for China to become a normal country. The prevalence of state secrets is holding back the mainland's development and making it more difficult for the country to tackle its problems.
Thus, for example, an Aids activist, Wan Yanhai , was arrested for disclosing details about China's HIV problem. Data about infectious diseases, it turned out, could not be disclosed because they were state secrets.
That is also why, two years ago, when the deadly Sars virus emerged, Chinese officials were caught lying to the world. By keeping details of Sars a secret, they allowed the disease to spread to Hong Kong and, from here, to other parts of the world.
Because of its obsession with state secrets, Beijing hurts not only itself but the rest of the world, as well. If reliable information on infectious diseases is not available, then doctors and researchers will not be able to fight them effectively.
Beijing's decision that casualties of natural disasters should no longer be considered state secrets is a welcome one. But it should move quickly to declassify other areas as well, so that the country can move ahead. For example, one wonders why the number of war dead and wounded needs to remain classified.
Currently, things such as the number of drug addicts, HIV/Aids sufferers, people executed each year, the seriousness of the unemployment problem, the frequency and seriousness of public protests, can all be considered state secrets.
In addition, the strategy and overall plan for land-use development, environmental quality reports, data on public-health disasters caused by environmental pollution, information on serious accidents and industrial illnesses, unemployment and poverty of workers, and accusations against party leaders can all come under the rubric of state secrets.
But these are all issues that need to be confronted. Sweeping them under the carpet does not solve the problem and does not help China.
Besides, the prevalence of secrets lends itself to abuse. Officials often make use of the charge of disclosing state secrets to veil their own mistakes from prying eyes.
After Deng Xiaoping came to power in the late 1970s, he repeatedly called on people to seek truth from facts, to be practical, to recognise reality and to overcome problems. However, if facts are covered up, if they are stamped "state secrets", then it no longer becomes possible to seek truth from facts, because the truth is not available.
Frank Ching is a Hong Kong-based writer and commentator.
In the 1980s, when I was a Beijing-based correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, I had occasion to interview an official in Shanghai. How much of China's trade, I asked, passed through Shanghai? The official responded: "I don't think that figure has appeared in the newspapers."
That official was keeping himself from running afoul of China's many laws on state secrets. In fact, then - and even now - anything that has not appeared in the official press can be considered a state secret, no matter how innocuous.
Well, things are improving, we are told. Earlier this month, Beijing announced that, from now on, the number of people killed in natural disasters will no longer be considered a state secret.
And why this relaxation? According to Shen Yongshe, spokesman for the National Administration for the Protection of State Secrets: "Declassification of these figures and materials will facilitate our disaster relief work and also ensure the people's right to know.
"Declassification of such information is conducive to boosting our disaster prevention and relief work," he said. The decision marks a major step by the government towards "administering according to law" and "building a transparent government," he added.
Well, it may be a major step, but many more such steps are needed for China to become a normal country. The prevalence of state secrets is holding back the mainland's development and making it more difficult for the country to tackle its problems.
Thus, for example, an Aids activist, Wan Yanhai , was arrested for disclosing details about China's HIV problem. Data about infectious diseases, it turned out, could not be disclosed because they were state secrets.
That is also why, two years ago, when the deadly Sars virus emerged, Chinese officials were caught lying to the world. By keeping details of Sars a secret, they allowed the disease to spread to Hong Kong and, from here, to other parts of the world.
Because of its obsession with state secrets, Beijing hurts not only itself but the rest of the world, as well. If reliable information on infectious diseases is not available, then doctors and researchers will not be able to fight them effectively.
Beijing's decision that casualties of natural disasters should no longer be considered state secrets is a welcome one. But it should move quickly to declassify other areas as well, so that the country can move ahead. For example, one wonders why the number of war dead and wounded needs to remain classified.
Currently, things such as the number of drug addicts, HIV/Aids sufferers, people executed each year, the seriousness of the unemployment problem, the frequency and seriousness of public protests, can all be considered state secrets.
In addition, the strategy and overall plan for land-use development, environmental quality reports, data on public-health disasters caused by environmental pollution, information on serious accidents and industrial illnesses, unemployment and poverty of workers, and accusations against party leaders can all come under the rubric of state secrets.
But these are all issues that need to be confronted. Sweeping them under the carpet does not solve the problem and does not help China.
Besides, the prevalence of secrets lends itself to abuse. Officials often make use of the charge of disclosing state secrets to veil their own mistakes from prying eyes.
After Deng Xiaoping came to power in the late 1970s, he repeatedly called on people to seek truth from facts, to be practical, to recognise reality and to overcome problems. However, if facts are covered up, if they are stamped "state secrets", then it no longer becomes possible to seek truth from facts, because the truth is not available.
Frank Ching is a Hong Kong-based writer and commentator.
Asking the right questions
scmp - Tuesday, September 27, 2005
In 1961, political philosopher Franz Fanon, among the most important theorists of Third World revolution, wrote: "The fundamental duel ... between capitalism and socialism is already losing some of its importance. What counts today, the question which is looming ... is the need for a redistribution of wealth. Humanity must reply to this question, or be shaken to pieces by it."
It would have been appropriate for this question to top the heads-of-state summit at the United Nations two weeks ago. For most part, it was eclipsed by UN reform, oil-for-food scandals and Iran.
However, President Hu Jintao did raise it, by connecting several interrelated issues. First, he stressed the UN's role "can only be strengthened and must not be weakened", adding: "We should all oppose acts of encroachment on other countries' sovereignty, forceful interference in a country's internal affairs, and wilful use or threat of military force."
China's "peaceful rise" is consistent with this approach. If successful, it may be an example to many. By stressing the importance of the UN's role, Mr Hu's view was welcomed by many nations concerned by the American agenda of reducing its influence. If multilateralism can make a comeback over unilateralism, Fanon's question may be answered.
Mr Hu suggested that "we should work actively to establish and improve a multilateral trading system that is open, fair and non-discriminatory". Ironically, many protesters at the upcoming World Trade Organisation ministerial meeting in Hong Kong in December may, in substance, be calling for a similar agenda. Either agriculture is subsidised for everyone or for no one. You cannot have discretionary rules for certain nations and not others.
The president suggested that developing nations should shoulder more responsibility by using their own advantages to promote co-ordinated and balanced development, almost echoing Fanon.
Mr Hu proposed specific initiatives regarding worldwide energy dialogue for ensured security and market stability. Given rising oil prices, some US companies and their patrons may not be enthused by the idea. Nevertheless, without a "state visit" this year, Mr Hu could speak unabashedly at the UN. He did, by questioning the Washington Consensus approach to development, most visibly through "shock therapy" models. He said: "Uniformity, if imposed on [developing nations], can only take away their vitality and cause them to become rigid and decline."
In a way, Mr Hu may be boldly suggesting a re-engineering of values as an alternative to the Washington way. Fanon also advised: "The Third World ought not to be content to define itself in the terms of values which have preceded it. On the contrary, the underdeveloped countries ought to do their utmost to find their own particular values and methods, and a style which shall be peculiar to them."
The China model to transitional reform may be held up as an argument for other countries seeking independent paths to economic, social and political development.
Of most critical importance, Mr Hu stressed, was that "we must abandon the cold war mentality ... and build a fair and effective collective security mechanism aimed at preventing war and conflict".
Interestingly, Fanon wrote: "The cold war must be ended, for it leads nowhere. The plans for nuclearising the world must stop, and large-scale investments and technical aid must be given to underdeveloped regions. The fate of the world depends on the answer that is given to this question."
While the UN summit was convened in New York ostensibly to address this question, did it provide an answer? Will this December's WTO meeting in Hong Kong provide an answer? At least Mr Hu stood up and asked the question. Others should start asking, too.
Laurence Brahm is a political economist and lawyer based in Beijing
In 1961, political philosopher Franz Fanon, among the most important theorists of Third World revolution, wrote: "The fundamental duel ... between capitalism and socialism is already losing some of its importance. What counts today, the question which is looming ... is the need for a redistribution of wealth. Humanity must reply to this question, or be shaken to pieces by it."
It would have been appropriate for this question to top the heads-of-state summit at the United Nations two weeks ago. For most part, it was eclipsed by UN reform, oil-for-food scandals and Iran.
However, President Hu Jintao did raise it, by connecting several interrelated issues. First, he stressed the UN's role "can only be strengthened and must not be weakened", adding: "We should all oppose acts of encroachment on other countries' sovereignty, forceful interference in a country's internal affairs, and wilful use or threat of military force."
China's "peaceful rise" is consistent with this approach. If successful, it may be an example to many. By stressing the importance of the UN's role, Mr Hu's view was welcomed by many nations concerned by the American agenda of reducing its influence. If multilateralism can make a comeback over unilateralism, Fanon's question may be answered.
Mr Hu suggested that "we should work actively to establish and improve a multilateral trading system that is open, fair and non-discriminatory". Ironically, many protesters at the upcoming World Trade Organisation ministerial meeting in Hong Kong in December may, in substance, be calling for a similar agenda. Either agriculture is subsidised for everyone or for no one. You cannot have discretionary rules for certain nations and not others.
The president suggested that developing nations should shoulder more responsibility by using their own advantages to promote co-ordinated and balanced development, almost echoing Fanon.
Mr Hu proposed specific initiatives regarding worldwide energy dialogue for ensured security and market stability. Given rising oil prices, some US companies and their patrons may not be enthused by the idea. Nevertheless, without a "state visit" this year, Mr Hu could speak unabashedly at the UN. He did, by questioning the Washington Consensus approach to development, most visibly through "shock therapy" models. He said: "Uniformity, if imposed on [developing nations], can only take away their vitality and cause them to become rigid and decline."
In a way, Mr Hu may be boldly suggesting a re-engineering of values as an alternative to the Washington way. Fanon also advised: "The Third World ought not to be content to define itself in the terms of values which have preceded it. On the contrary, the underdeveloped countries ought to do their utmost to find their own particular values and methods, and a style which shall be peculiar to them."
The China model to transitional reform may be held up as an argument for other countries seeking independent paths to economic, social and political development.
Of most critical importance, Mr Hu stressed, was that "we must abandon the cold war mentality ... and build a fair and effective collective security mechanism aimed at preventing war and conflict".
Interestingly, Fanon wrote: "The cold war must be ended, for it leads nowhere. The plans for nuclearising the world must stop, and large-scale investments and technical aid must be given to underdeveloped regions. The fate of the world depends on the answer that is given to this question."
While the UN summit was convened in New York ostensibly to address this question, did it provide an answer? Will this December's WTO meeting in Hong Kong provide an answer? At least Mr Hu stood up and asked the question. Others should start asking, too.
Laurence Brahm is a political economist and lawyer based in Beijing
A narrowing of minds
scmp - Tuesday, September 27, 2005
MERLE GOLDMAN
Is China's political environment loosening up, or is the government cracking down? It is hard to tell: President Hu Jintao sometimes seems to be going both ways simultaneously.
For example, he has decided to honour the memory of his mentor, former general secretary Hu Yaobang , in order to burnish his own aura as a reformer. But, in many ways, Hu Jintao's tenure as the head of the fourth generation of communist leaders differs sharply from that of his mentor.
Hu Yaobang was a founder of the Communist Youth League, which was regarded as a relatively liberal institution in China. In the 1980s he promoted political reforms and rehabilitated virtually all the victims of Mao Zedong's purges. By contrast, Mr Hu has narrowed the public space for political discourse that had opened up during the latter years of his predecessor, Jiang Zemin , when market pressure was forcing media outlets to be more daring.
Since taking over, Mr Hu has arrested a number of outspoken journalists in an effort to rein in the media. His government has also detained an array of public intellectuals who have been critical of its policies.
Mr Hu's tightening of controls over political discourse and the media intensified with the publication in September last year of a list of "Top 50 Public Intellectuals" in Southern Weekly. The list, dominated by intellectuals who in the 1990s had called for freedom of speech and political participation, appeared with the statement: "This is the time when China is facing the most problems in its unprecedented transformation, and when it most needs public intellectuals to be on the scene and to speak out."
On November 23 last year, an article in the Shanghai party committee's orthodox Liberation Daily attacked the concept of public intellectuals, claiming that their "independence drives a wedge" between intellectuals and the party, and between intellectuals and the masses.
The Hu administration has tried to draw public attention to the growing gap between rich and poor. But its reaction to the book A Survey of Chinese Peasants, about the plight of farmers in the poor province of Anhui , was a telling reminder that public intellectuals are not welcome to contribute to that effort. The book was banned one month after its publication.
The Hu government has also tightened controls over the media. Reports on public demonstrations against corrupt officials and illegal property confiscations have been banned. Those who dare to protest are silenced.
Despite the regime's vast means of censorship, its embrace of new communications technologies, like the internet, makes it increasingly difficult for the party to maintain effective control over people's views.
Moreover, persecution of political dissenters does not now reach far beyond the accused to involve their associates. While scores have lost their positions and others have been imprisoned, most are briefly detained and then allowed to go.
Yet, by comparison with the late 1990s, the space for political discourse has undeniably narrowed, crushing expectations that the country would continue on a liberalising course. Mr Hu may have made a genuflection to his more liberal mentor, but in the two decades since the elder Hu's downfall, China has become a politically far less open society.
Merle Goldman is an associate of the Fairbank Centre for East Asian Studies at Harvard.
MERLE GOLDMAN
Is China's political environment loosening up, or is the government cracking down? It is hard to tell: President Hu Jintao sometimes seems to be going both ways simultaneously.
For example, he has decided to honour the memory of his mentor, former general secretary Hu Yaobang , in order to burnish his own aura as a reformer. But, in many ways, Hu Jintao's tenure as the head of the fourth generation of communist leaders differs sharply from that of his mentor.
Hu Yaobang was a founder of the Communist Youth League, which was regarded as a relatively liberal institution in China. In the 1980s he promoted political reforms and rehabilitated virtually all the victims of Mao Zedong's purges. By contrast, Mr Hu has narrowed the public space for political discourse that had opened up during the latter years of his predecessor, Jiang Zemin , when market pressure was forcing media outlets to be more daring.
Since taking over, Mr Hu has arrested a number of outspoken journalists in an effort to rein in the media. His government has also detained an array of public intellectuals who have been critical of its policies.
Mr Hu's tightening of controls over political discourse and the media intensified with the publication in September last year of a list of "Top 50 Public Intellectuals" in Southern Weekly. The list, dominated by intellectuals who in the 1990s had called for freedom of speech and political participation, appeared with the statement: "This is the time when China is facing the most problems in its unprecedented transformation, and when it most needs public intellectuals to be on the scene and to speak out."
On November 23 last year, an article in the Shanghai party committee's orthodox Liberation Daily attacked the concept of public intellectuals, claiming that their "independence drives a wedge" between intellectuals and the party, and between intellectuals and the masses.
The Hu administration has tried to draw public attention to the growing gap between rich and poor. But its reaction to the book A Survey of Chinese Peasants, about the plight of farmers in the poor province of Anhui , was a telling reminder that public intellectuals are not welcome to contribute to that effort. The book was banned one month after its publication.
The Hu government has also tightened controls over the media. Reports on public demonstrations against corrupt officials and illegal property confiscations have been banned. Those who dare to protest are silenced.
Despite the regime's vast means of censorship, its embrace of new communications technologies, like the internet, makes it increasingly difficult for the party to maintain effective control over people's views.
Moreover, persecution of political dissenters does not now reach far beyond the accused to involve their associates. While scores have lost their positions and others have been imprisoned, most are briefly detained and then allowed to go.
Yet, by comparison with the late 1990s, the space for political discourse has undeniably narrowed, crushing expectations that the country would continue on a liberalising course. Mr Hu may have made a genuflection to his more liberal mentor, but in the two decades since the elder Hu's downfall, China has become a politically far less open society.
Merle Goldman is an associate of the Fairbank Centre for East Asian Studies at Harvard.
Staff exodus brewing at Disneyland, warns union
scmp - Friday, September 23, 2005
CHEUNG CHI-FAI
An employee exodus is brewing at Hong Kong Disneyland, with staff complaining about poor working conditions at the theme park, a labour union says.
Describing the working atmosphere as "desperate", unionists said 12 security officers and seven employees from one department had left in the past two weeks.
But Disney said its employee retention rate was very strong, adding it would continue to provide long-term careers to its 5,000 staff.
"We will listen to employees' views," a spokeswoman said.
She added there was "absolutely no question" on manpower, and Disney was confident it could deliver optimum service to visitors during the "golden week" National Day holiday next month.
Michael Wu Siu-ieng, of the Hong Kong Association of Travel Agents, said nearly all Disneyland tickets reserved for overseas and mainland tourists had been sold.
The Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions and concern group Disney Hunter - which protested yesterday outside the theme park - said they had received about 40 complaints over the past month, mostly concerning staff shortages, working hours, the duration of breaks and rest-room facilities at the park. Some staff say they have been denied full 15-minute breaks after every four hours of work.
"A cast member has to spend half the recess time walking to the rest room, and still has to entertain picture requests on the way," said Elaine Hui Sio-ieng, of the union.
Staff had also complained about the shift system, saying shifts had been cancelled 15 minutes before they were due to start, while others had to work a 6am shift after finishing work at midnight.
Sophie So Lok-yee, of Disney Hunter, said one trainee who had worked for less than six months was so frustrated that he paid the cost of his air ticket for his training in the US so he could leave.
Ms Hui said the groups were identifying core staff members to form a union.
Disney said direct dialogue with staff was more important.
The confederation will discuss labour rights with Hong Kong Disneyland group managing director Don Robinson next month.
Employee complaints
- Breaks too short and staff room facilities are inadequate. Employees must share a few chairs, a fridge and microwave. Staff rooms are far from workplace. Cast members must spend half of break going back and forth
- Manpower is inadequate and working hours too long - between 10 and 13 hours. Shift confusion. Frequent roster changes, short notice for cancelling shift, and late shift followed by morning one
- The 45-minute lunch period is unpaid; staff at catering outlets are not provided free meals
Poor shuttle services and little transport allowance - Poor morale as management fails to address grievances
Hong Kong Disneyland says prefers no union
scmp - Friday, September 23, 2005
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Updated at 4.14pm:
The newly-opened Hong Kong Disneyland said on Friday it prefers that its 5,000 workers not unionise as activists described tough work conditions at the park such as long hours, harsh turnarounds and lack of breaks.
Disneyland, which opened two weeks ago, said in a statement it respects the rights of workers to seek union representation, but that it thinks it’s more effective for labor and management to “work and communicate directly with each other.”
The statement came as activists detailed strenuous work conditions at the park and an organiser said it’s exploring the option of setting up a union with park workers.
Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions Organising Secretary Elaine Hui said the park was unresponsive to workers and that they need the leverage of a union to protect themselves.
“In the long run, if they want to discuss their treatment with the company, they need to rely on the power of a union to get the right to dialogue under equal circumstances,” she said, noting Disneylands in the US and France have unions.
However, Ms Hui said a stumbling block to unionising is concern that the park may retaliate against workers who join the union.
As the union dilemma is debated, activists said Disneyland workers complain they work up to 13 hours a day and must make quick turnarounds, with some leaving work late in the evening and due back early in the morning the next day.
The long hours are aggravated by the long travel time to and from the park, which is located on Hong Kong’s outlying Lantau island, the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions and Disney Hunter, a Disneyland watchdog group, said in a statement issued on Thursday.
The activists urged Disneyland, which opened Sept. 12, to arrange bus services for workers covering more areas.
They also said the workers’ 45-minute lunch break should be lengthened to an hour and that 15-minute breaks every four hours aren’t enforced because of staff shortages.
“Disney’s goal is to pursue dreams and bring happiness to the masses, but its labor policy is entirely opposite to such a goal, disappointing its eager workers and the masses,” the activists said in their statement.
Hong Kong Disneyland spokeswoman Esther Wong said on Friday the park won’t comment on the allegations in detail, but that some of them are inaccurate.
Ms Wong said labor-management relations are good and that staff retention has been strong.
But she said the park will listen to worker feedback.
“Our cast members are a very important component,” she said, using Disney’s terminology for its workers.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Updated at 4.14pm:
The newly-opened Hong Kong Disneyland said on Friday it prefers that its 5,000 workers not unionise as activists described tough work conditions at the park such as long hours, harsh turnarounds and lack of breaks.
Disneyland, which opened two weeks ago, said in a statement it respects the rights of workers to seek union representation, but that it thinks it’s more effective for labor and management to “work and communicate directly with each other.”
The statement came as activists detailed strenuous work conditions at the park and an organiser said it’s exploring the option of setting up a union with park workers.
Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions Organising Secretary Elaine Hui said the park was unresponsive to workers and that they need the leverage of a union to protect themselves.
“In the long run, if they want to discuss their treatment with the company, they need to rely on the power of a union to get the right to dialogue under equal circumstances,” she said, noting Disneylands in the US and France have unions.
However, Ms Hui said a stumbling block to unionising is concern that the park may retaliate against workers who join the union.
As the union dilemma is debated, activists said Disneyland workers complain they work up to 13 hours a day and must make quick turnarounds, with some leaving work late in the evening and due back early in the morning the next day.
The long hours are aggravated by the long travel time to and from the park, which is located on Hong Kong’s outlying Lantau island, the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions and Disney Hunter, a Disneyland watchdog group, said in a statement issued on Thursday.
The activists urged Disneyland, which opened Sept. 12, to arrange bus services for workers covering more areas.
They also said the workers’ 45-minute lunch break should be lengthened to an hour and that 15-minute breaks every four hours aren’t enforced because of staff shortages.
“Disney’s goal is to pursue dreams and bring happiness to the masses, but its labor policy is entirely opposite to such a goal, disappointing its eager workers and the masses,” the activists said in their statement.
Hong Kong Disneyland spokeswoman Esther Wong said on Friday the park won’t comment on the allegations in detail, but that some of them are inaccurate.
Ms Wong said labor-management relations are good and that staff retention has been strong.
But she said the park will listen to worker feedback.
“Our cast members are a very important component,” she said, using Disney’s terminology for its workers.
Islam is forever, court tells convert
scmp - Wednesday, September 21, 2005
BARADAN KUPPUSAMY in Kuala Lumpur
In a society where Malays are declared Muslim at birth, Lina Joy had to fight to be officially recognised as a Christian.
But a superior court ruled on Monday that Malays cannot renounce Islam, ending her hopes to practice her new religion openly.
Two Muslim judges in a three-member panel ruled that Azalina Jailani, who changed her name to Lina Joy after converting to Christianity in 1998, could not renounce Islam and had to have the permission of Islamic authorities before she could do so. But lawyers say such permission is never granted and not provided for in law.
The third judge, a Hindu, held that Ms Lina could renounce Islam by declaring that she was not a Muslim. Judge Sri Ram said religious freedom was guaranteed in Malaysia and that there should be no need for her to seek permission.
Ms Lina went to court to force the National Registration Department to replace the word "Islam" in her identity card with the word "Christian" so that she could be married in a civil ceremony to her Christian husband.
Monday's ruling affects about 15,000 Malaysians who want to be able to live openly as Christians.
"The decision leaves many Malay converts in a perpetual state of limbo," said a Muslim lawyer who has represented apostates in court, but did not want to be named.
The constitution defines a Malay as a person who professes Islam, speaks the Malay language and practises Malay culture. Constitutionally, when Malays renounce Islam they cease to be Malay.
"We are deeply disappointed ... we had a lot of hope riding on this decision," said another Malay Christian and mother of three children. "We Malays are non-persons in our own country because we are Christians."
Although the constitution guarantees freedom of religion, converts live in hiding because Muslims consider apostasy as the ultimate crime.
Malaysia's sharia court punishes apostates with forced rehabilitation or jail terms and the Koran promises death and damnation for any Muslim who helps another Muslim to renounce Islam.
Many converts are former students who changed faith while overseas. Others are married to Christians and want to be recognised as Christians along with their children, but are prevented from doing so by the Islamic authorities.
"We are discriminated and virtually live underground lives," said a 48-year-old Malay Christian woman. "Our parents, siblings and friends all shun us like lepers."
Legal experts said political will was needed to recognise and resolve the dilemma of Malay apostates. "The problem can be resolved by amending the constitution and creating a new `non-Muslim Malay' category," said an academic.
BARADAN KUPPUSAMY in Kuala Lumpur
In a society where Malays are declared Muslim at birth, Lina Joy had to fight to be officially recognised as a Christian.
But a superior court ruled on Monday that Malays cannot renounce Islam, ending her hopes to practice her new religion openly.
Two Muslim judges in a three-member panel ruled that Azalina Jailani, who changed her name to Lina Joy after converting to Christianity in 1998, could not renounce Islam and had to have the permission of Islamic authorities before she could do so. But lawyers say such permission is never granted and not provided for in law.
The third judge, a Hindu, held that Ms Lina could renounce Islam by declaring that she was not a Muslim. Judge Sri Ram said religious freedom was guaranteed in Malaysia and that there should be no need for her to seek permission.
Ms Lina went to court to force the National Registration Department to replace the word "Islam" in her identity card with the word "Christian" so that she could be married in a civil ceremony to her Christian husband.
Monday's ruling affects about 15,000 Malaysians who want to be able to live openly as Christians.
"The decision leaves many Malay converts in a perpetual state of limbo," said a Muslim lawyer who has represented apostates in court, but did not want to be named.
The constitution defines a Malay as a person who professes Islam, speaks the Malay language and practises Malay culture. Constitutionally, when Malays renounce Islam they cease to be Malay.
"We are deeply disappointed ... we had a lot of hope riding on this decision," said another Malay Christian and mother of three children. "We Malays are non-persons in our own country because we are Christians."
Although the constitution guarantees freedom of religion, converts live in hiding because Muslims consider apostasy as the ultimate crime.
Malaysia's sharia court punishes apostates with forced rehabilitation or jail terms and the Koran promises death and damnation for any Muslim who helps another Muslim to renounce Islam.
Many converts are former students who changed faith while overseas. Others are married to Christians and want to be recognised as Christians along with their children, but are prevented from doing so by the Islamic authorities.
"We are discriminated and virtually live underground lives," said a 48-year-old Malay Christian woman. "Our parents, siblings and friends all shun us like lepers."
Legal experts said political will was needed to recognise and resolve the dilemma of Malay apostates. "The problem can be resolved by amending the constitution and creating a new `non-Muslim Malay' category," said an academic.
Inequality biggest obstacle to poverty reduction: World Bank
scmp - Wednesday, September 21, 2005
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Manila
Inequality had become one of the biggest obstacles to poverty reduction and development in Asia where more than 60 per cent of the population lived on less than US$2 (HK$15.60) a day, the World Bank said on Wednesday.
The World Bank's country director for the Philippines, Joachim von Amsberg, said high levels of inequality of income, assets and opportunities effectively excluded many from social and economic development.
"Which is certainly the case of the Philippines," Mr Von Amsberg said, commenting on the release of the Bank's World Development Report for next year.
The bank cited in its report a 1996 study that showed in Indonesia just 10 families controlled 57.7 per cent of the country's then stock market capitalisation, followed closely by the Philippines at 52.5 per cent.
In Thailand the top 10 families had 46.2 per cent of the market, Hong Kong 32.1 per cent, South Korea 26.8 per cent, Singapore 26.6 per cent, Malaysia 24.8 per cent, Taiwan 18.4 per cent and Japan just 2.4 per cent.
According to a recent study by the Manila-based Asian Development Bank some 1.9 billion people in Asia, or 60 per cent of the population in the region, live on less than US$2 a day.
Mr Von Amsberg said the richest 5 per cent of households in the Philippines accounted for nearly a third of national income, while the poorest 25 per cent accounted for only 6 per cent.
He said between 1990 and 2000 Indonesia and Thailand cut their poverty incidence by about 11 and nine percentage points, respectively, while in the Philippines, poverty fell only by about five percentage points.
"High inequality and modest economic growth have translated into slow progress on poverty reduction in the Philippines," he said.
Mr Von Amsberg said the report highlighted the need for governments, especially in poor countries like the Philippines, to implement "equity enhancing policies" which would include better public education and improved access to health-care services; ownership of assets such as land, with secure property rights; access to credit and effective participation in public decision making."
He said social indicators in the Philippines showed disparity among regions and among the rich and poor.
In the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, in the south, only two out of 10 students who entered grade one completed secondary education, compared with 4.9 out of 10 in the country as a whole.
"In education, it is the children from poor families who do not go to school and who drop out the earliest," he said. "In health, for example, infant and mortality rates for babies below five years, are 2.3 and 2.7 times higher for households in the poorest groups.
"These striking differences highlight the continuing differences in living standards and access to health care. Poor families would usually forgo health care, or borrow money at usurious rates, sell the few assets they have, or pull children out of school, to afford health services they need for catastrophic illnesses."
He said the report highlights how high inequality in wealth and opportunity, both within and among nations, contributed to the persistence of extreme deprivation, often for a large proportion of the population.
"This wastes human potential and growing evidence shows that this can slow the pace or sustainability of economic growth."
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Manila
Inequality had become one of the biggest obstacles to poverty reduction and development in Asia where more than 60 per cent of the population lived on less than US$2 (HK$15.60) a day, the World Bank said on Wednesday.
The World Bank's country director for the Philippines, Joachim von Amsberg, said high levels of inequality of income, assets and opportunities effectively excluded many from social and economic development.
"Which is certainly the case of the Philippines," Mr Von Amsberg said, commenting on the release of the Bank's World Development Report for next year.
The bank cited in its report a 1996 study that showed in Indonesia just 10 families controlled 57.7 per cent of the country's then stock market capitalisation, followed closely by the Philippines at 52.5 per cent.
In Thailand the top 10 families had 46.2 per cent of the market, Hong Kong 32.1 per cent, South Korea 26.8 per cent, Singapore 26.6 per cent, Malaysia 24.8 per cent, Taiwan 18.4 per cent and Japan just 2.4 per cent.
According to a recent study by the Manila-based Asian Development Bank some 1.9 billion people in Asia, or 60 per cent of the population in the region, live on less than US$2 a day.
Mr Von Amsberg said the richest 5 per cent of households in the Philippines accounted for nearly a third of national income, while the poorest 25 per cent accounted for only 6 per cent.
He said between 1990 and 2000 Indonesia and Thailand cut their poverty incidence by about 11 and nine percentage points, respectively, while in the Philippines, poverty fell only by about five percentage points.
"High inequality and modest economic growth have translated into slow progress on poverty reduction in the Philippines," he said.
Mr Von Amsberg said the report highlighted the need for governments, especially in poor countries like the Philippines, to implement "equity enhancing policies" which would include better public education and improved access to health-care services; ownership of assets such as land, with secure property rights; access to credit and effective participation in public decision making."
He said social indicators in the Philippines showed disparity among regions and among the rich and poor.
In the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, in the south, only two out of 10 students who entered grade one completed secondary education, compared with 4.9 out of 10 in the country as a whole.
"In education, it is the children from poor families who do not go to school and who drop out the earliest," he said. "In health, for example, infant and mortality rates for babies below five years, are 2.3 and 2.7 times higher for households in the poorest groups.
"These striking differences highlight the continuing differences in living standards and access to health care. Poor families would usually forgo health care, or borrow money at usurious rates, sell the few assets they have, or pull children out of school, to afford health services they need for catastrophic illnesses."
He said the report highlights how high inequality in wealth and opportunity, both within and among nations, contributed to the persistence of extreme deprivation, often for a large proportion of the population.
"This wastes human potential and growing evidence shows that this can slow the pace or sustainability of economic growth."
Lack of women sees brothers sharing a wife
scmp - Friday, September 16, 2005
S.N.M. ABDI in Calcutta
Draupadi, heroine of the Hindu epic, Mahabharata, was married to the five Pandava brothers. The highs and lows of her relations with five warrior husbands lend the famous epic a special charm.
But today, a new breed of Draupadis is mushrooming across India's richest province, Punjab, where several brothers can share a wife. Sociologists have even coined a new term for it - fraternal polyandry - and the practice is widespread in prosperous Punjab.
There are only 793 women for every 1,000 men - the lowest female-male ratio among Indian states - due to rampant female abortion and infanticide.
The federal government's National Commission for Women has expressed concern about the degrading treatment of women involved in fraternal polyandry.
Last month commission chairwoman Girija Vyas said: "Just imagine the mental, physical and moral trauma of the women forced to have sex regularly with up to seven brothers. It's rapidly spreading in Punjab. And what's worse, Punjabi society seems to tolerate it."
Gurpreet, a 32-year-old woman in Punjab's Mansa district, says: "Two years ago I got married to the eldest of three brothers. After I had a son, my husband forced me to enter into a physical relationship with his younger brothers, one of whom is only 16.
"My husband says there are no girls left in the village to marry. So I must compromise with the situation, which I have against my wishes. I don't have a choice."
Polyandry is illegal under the Indian Penal Code and Hindu Marriage Act, but authorities say it is almost impossible to crack down because such marriages are never officially formalised.
S.N.M. ABDI in Calcutta
Draupadi, heroine of the Hindu epic, Mahabharata, was married to the five Pandava brothers. The highs and lows of her relations with five warrior husbands lend the famous epic a special charm.
But today, a new breed of Draupadis is mushrooming across India's richest province, Punjab, where several brothers can share a wife. Sociologists have even coined a new term for it - fraternal polyandry - and the practice is widespread in prosperous Punjab.
There are only 793 women for every 1,000 men - the lowest female-male ratio among Indian states - due to rampant female abortion and infanticide.
The federal government's National Commission for Women has expressed concern about the degrading treatment of women involved in fraternal polyandry.
Last month commission chairwoman Girija Vyas said: "Just imagine the mental, physical and moral trauma of the women forced to have sex regularly with up to seven brothers. It's rapidly spreading in Punjab. And what's worse, Punjabi society seems to tolerate it."
Gurpreet, a 32-year-old woman in Punjab's Mansa district, says: "Two years ago I got married to the eldest of three brothers. After I had a son, my husband forced me to enter into a physical relationship with his younger brothers, one of whom is only 16.
"My husband says there are no girls left in the village to marry. So I must compromise with the situation, which I have against my wishes. I don't have a choice."
Polyandry is illegal under the Indian Penal Code and Hindu Marriage Act, but authorities say it is almost impossible to crack down because such marriages are never officially formalised.
7,000 forcibly sterilised in eastern China
scmp - Monday, September 12, 2005
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in New York
Updated at 11.17am:
At least 7,000 people in eastern China were forcibly sterilised earlier this year by officials under pressure to limit the growth of the country’s massive population, Time reports in its Monday edition.
Quoting lawyers who spoke to local family-planning officials, the magazine said that between March and July, 7,000 people underwent forced abortions and sterilisations in Yinan county in the eastern province of Shandong.
“They told me they were doing this for my own good. But they have ruined my life,” Time quoted one woman who it said had endured forced sterilisation as saying.
The magazine said that officials in Linyi denied any improper programme.
It further reported that the lawyers alleged that several villagers were beaten to death while under detention for trying to help family members avoid sterilisation.
In March, the report said, distraught peasants had complained to a local legal activist, Chen Guangcheng, of the forced sterilisations and the detention of family members.
Many people in his village, he told Time, had been imprisoned for defying the sterilisation order.
Chen, the report said, was placed under house arrest by mid-August after he filed a class action against Linyi officials accusing them of contravening national family-planning law.
“I know I’m at risk, but I cannot give up, because people are depending on me,” Chen told the magazine.
China’s population reached 1.3 billion earlier this year and the demographic explosion is putting pressure on already insufficient natural resources and jobs.
It is expected to increase by about 10 million people annually to reach a peak of 1.46 billion in the mid-2030s, state media quoted population experts as saying last year.
Beijing introduced its controversial one-child policy more than 25 years ago and state officials have credited the programme with delaying by four years the point at which the country’s population hit the 1.3 billion mark.
But Time said that officials in the provinces have resorted to forced sterilisations and late-term abortions to keep the population in check.
The report said that career advancement for local leaders, especially in rural areas, often depends on keeping birthrates low.
Last year, Linyi officials were criticised for having the highest rate of extra births in Shandong, Time quoted local lawyers as saying.
“The dressing-down galvanised what appears to be one of the most brutal mass sterilisation and abortion campaigns in years,” the magazine said.
The magazine said that Linyi’s family-planning officials in March started trawling villages, looking to force women pregnant with illegal children to abort, and to sterilize those who already had the maximum allotment of children under the local family-planning policy.
“All these things are either exaggerated, distorted or not based on facts,” the magazine quoted an official surnamed Yao at the Linyi municipal family-planning commission as saying.
A member of the State Family Planning Commission’s secretariat in Beijing told the magazine that an investigation was under way.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in New York
Updated at 11.17am:
At least 7,000 people in eastern China were forcibly sterilised earlier this year by officials under pressure to limit the growth of the country’s massive population, Time reports in its Monday edition.
Quoting lawyers who spoke to local family-planning officials, the magazine said that between March and July, 7,000 people underwent forced abortions and sterilisations in Yinan county in the eastern province of Shandong.
“They told me they were doing this for my own good. But they have ruined my life,” Time quoted one woman who it said had endured forced sterilisation as saying.
The magazine said that officials in Linyi denied any improper programme.
It further reported that the lawyers alleged that several villagers were beaten to death while under detention for trying to help family members avoid sterilisation.
In March, the report said, distraught peasants had complained to a local legal activist, Chen Guangcheng, of the forced sterilisations and the detention of family members.
Many people in his village, he told Time, had been imprisoned for defying the sterilisation order.
Chen, the report said, was placed under house arrest by mid-August after he filed a class action against Linyi officials accusing them of contravening national family-planning law.
“I know I’m at risk, but I cannot give up, because people are depending on me,” Chen told the magazine.
China’s population reached 1.3 billion earlier this year and the demographic explosion is putting pressure on already insufficient natural resources and jobs.
It is expected to increase by about 10 million people annually to reach a peak of 1.46 billion in the mid-2030s, state media quoted population experts as saying last year.
Beijing introduced its controversial one-child policy more than 25 years ago and state officials have credited the programme with delaying by four years the point at which the country’s population hit the 1.3 billion mark.
But Time said that officials in the provinces have resorted to forced sterilisations and late-term abortions to keep the population in check.
The report said that career advancement for local leaders, especially in rural areas, often depends on keeping birthrates low.
Last year, Linyi officials were criticised for having the highest rate of extra births in Shandong, Time quoted local lawyers as saying.
“The dressing-down galvanised what appears to be one of the most brutal mass sterilisation and abortion campaigns in years,” the magazine said.
The magazine said that Linyi’s family-planning officials in March started trawling villages, looking to force women pregnant with illegal children to abort, and to sterilize those who already had the maximum allotment of children under the local family-planning policy.
“All these things are either exaggerated, distorted or not based on facts,” the magazine quoted an official surnamed Yao at the Linyi municipal family-planning commission as saying.
A member of the State Family Planning Commission’s secretariat in Beijing told the magazine that an investigation was under way.
Show you're committed to the cause, Beijing
scmp - Friday, September 9, 2005
CÉSAR CHELALA
The Chinese government has long maintained that it should be allowed to adopt its own approach to dealing with human rights. During a recent visit to Beijing, UN rights envoy Louise Arbour called attention to the serious human rights situation in China, and the need for improvements under international human rights standards.
There are at least three areas where the human rights situation in mainland China needs special attention: trafficking of women and children, freedom of religion and HIV/Aids. In China and other countries, millions of women and children continue to be smuggled across borders, ending up as beggars, doing forced labour or working as prostitutes.
Through a series of policies and regulations, Beijing sharply limits freedom of religious belief. Although Article 36 of the constitution says that all Chinese citizens enjoy freedom of religious belief, it only applies to the five religions officially recognised in China - Buddhism, Islam, Taoism, Catholicism and Protestantism. Those outside state control become outlaws.
The situation is particularly serious in Tibet and Xinjiang . In Tibet, the Chinese government exerts strict control over the number of monasteries and monks, and pays informants to keep an eye on their activities. Rebellious monks are subjected to detention and torture. At the same time, Beijing claims the right to vet all reincarnations.
In July, the Chinese-appointed chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Region stated that Beijing will choose the next Dalai Lama, a clear interference with Tibetan religious beliefs.
Although the United States has not condemned China's record at this year's annual session of the UN Human Rights Commission, it was nonetheless critical of the persecution of religious leaders and its continuing abuse of prisoners.
China's repressive policies are also evident in the case of the 8 million Muslim Uygur people in Xinjiang, who have fought relentlessly to protect their cultural identity despite the arrival of more than 1 million Han Chinese settlers in the past decade.
Chinese officials exert tight control over all Uygur activities, determining who can be a cleric, what version of the Koran is accepted and the number and other aspects of religious gatherings. Violation leads to punishment, including detention in the mainland's discredited re-education through labour programme.
Beijing, which claims Uygur extremists have advocated the violent overthrow of Chinese rule, has successfully portrayed Uygurs as a serious terrorist threat. Although a minority has resorted to violent means, protests are essentially peaceful.
Another area of concern has been the control and harassment of Aids activists. China faces an HIV/Aids epidemic. It is estimated that by 2010, more than 10 million Chinese may become infected. Although Beijing has acknowledged the seriousness of the situation, on-governmental organisations are harassed and censored ecause they are not under direct control.
It is time for the government to demonstrate its commitment to fighting the spread of HIV through a series of policies involving grass-roots activists and organisations, while at the same time eliminating discrimination.
These three issues are where Chinese authorities could really show their commitment to human rights. A first step should be to ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and adhere strictly to its principles.
Cesar Chelala, an international public-health consultant, is a winner of an Overseas Press Club of America award for an article on human rights.
CÉSAR CHELALA
The Chinese government has long maintained that it should be allowed to adopt its own approach to dealing with human rights. During a recent visit to Beijing, UN rights envoy Louise Arbour called attention to the serious human rights situation in China, and the need for improvements under international human rights standards.
There are at least three areas where the human rights situation in mainland China needs special attention: trafficking of women and children, freedom of religion and HIV/Aids. In China and other countries, millions of women and children continue to be smuggled across borders, ending up as beggars, doing forced labour or working as prostitutes.
Through a series of policies and regulations, Beijing sharply limits freedom of religious belief. Although Article 36 of the constitution says that all Chinese citizens enjoy freedom of religious belief, it only applies to the five religions officially recognised in China - Buddhism, Islam, Taoism, Catholicism and Protestantism. Those outside state control become outlaws.
The situation is particularly serious in Tibet and Xinjiang . In Tibet, the Chinese government exerts strict control over the number of monasteries and monks, and pays informants to keep an eye on their activities. Rebellious monks are subjected to detention and torture. At the same time, Beijing claims the right to vet all reincarnations.
In July, the Chinese-appointed chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Region stated that Beijing will choose the next Dalai Lama, a clear interference with Tibetan religious beliefs.
Although the United States has not condemned China's record at this year's annual session of the UN Human Rights Commission, it was nonetheless critical of the persecution of religious leaders and its continuing abuse of prisoners.
China's repressive policies are also evident in the case of the 8 million Muslim Uygur people in Xinjiang, who have fought relentlessly to protect their cultural identity despite the arrival of more than 1 million Han Chinese settlers in the past decade.
Chinese officials exert tight control over all Uygur activities, determining who can be a cleric, what version of the Koran is accepted and the number and other aspects of religious gatherings. Violation leads to punishment, including detention in the mainland's discredited re-education through labour programme.
Beijing, which claims Uygur extremists have advocated the violent overthrow of Chinese rule, has successfully portrayed Uygurs as a serious terrorist threat. Although a minority has resorted to violent means, protests are essentially peaceful.
Another area of concern has been the control and harassment of Aids activists. China faces an HIV/Aids epidemic. It is estimated that by 2010, more than 10 million Chinese may become infected. Although Beijing has acknowledged the seriousness of the situation, on-governmental organisations are harassed and censored ecause they are not under direct control.
It is time for the government to demonstrate its commitment to fighting the spread of HIV through a series of policies involving grass-roots activists and organisations, while at the same time eliminating discrimination.
These three issues are where Chinese authorities could really show their commitment to human rights. A first step should be to ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and adhere strictly to its principles.
Cesar Chelala, an international public-health consultant, is a winner of an Overseas Press Club of America award for an article on human rights.
Robert Kuok still at the top of Southeast Asia's rich list
scmp - Friday, September 9, 2005
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Singapore
Malaysian tycoon Robert Kuok, whose vast empire includes media, hotel and mining properties, is Southeast Asia's richest person with estimated wealth of US$5.3 billion, Forbes magazine said yesterday.
Malaysians and Singaporeans dominate the list. Mr Kuok also topped last year's inaugural Forbes roster of the region's wealthiest.
The 82-year-old Mr Kuok increased his estimated wealth by US$1.2 billion over the past year as he reaped huge returns from investments of more than US$5 billion in China's booming economy, the publication said.
Collectively, the region's wealthiest 40 individuals were worth more than US$62 billion, up US$15 billion from last year.
Malaysia's Ananda Krishnan, who owns cable-television operator Astro and telephone company Maxis, remained second with a net worth of US$5.1 billion.
Third-ranked was Singaporean hotelier Kwek Leng Beng, worth some US$4 billion.
Fourth on the list was another Singaporean, 77-year-old property tycoon Ng Teng Fong, whose wealth was estimated at US$3.2 billion, followed by Thailand's Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi, who made it to the top 10 list for the first time with a net worth of US$3 billion. The 60-year-old Thai businessman made his fortune in whisky and owned properties in New York and Bangkok, Forbes said.
Singaporean banker Lee Seng Wee was ranked the sixth wealthiest individual with a fortune of US$2.7 billion, followed by Malaysia's casino king Lim Goh Tong on US$2.6 billion.
Quek Leng Chan, a cousin of Mr Kwek, was eighth with a net worth of US$2.4 billion. The crown jewel of Mr Quek's empire is the Hong Leong Group Malaysia.
Singaporean banker Wee Cho Yaw slipped to joint eighth with Mr Quek, while Indonesia's R. Budi Hartono, who owns clove cigarette maker Djarum, was 10th with a net worth of US$2.3 billion.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Singapore
Malaysian tycoon Robert Kuok, whose vast empire includes media, hotel and mining properties, is Southeast Asia's richest person with estimated wealth of US$5.3 billion, Forbes magazine said yesterday.
Malaysians and Singaporeans dominate the list. Mr Kuok also topped last year's inaugural Forbes roster of the region's wealthiest.
The 82-year-old Mr Kuok increased his estimated wealth by US$1.2 billion over the past year as he reaped huge returns from investments of more than US$5 billion in China's booming economy, the publication said.
Collectively, the region's wealthiest 40 individuals were worth more than US$62 billion, up US$15 billion from last year.
Malaysia's Ananda Krishnan, who owns cable-television operator Astro and telephone company Maxis, remained second with a net worth of US$5.1 billion.
Third-ranked was Singaporean hotelier Kwek Leng Beng, worth some US$4 billion.
Fourth on the list was another Singaporean, 77-year-old property tycoon Ng Teng Fong, whose wealth was estimated at US$3.2 billion, followed by Thailand's Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi, who made it to the top 10 list for the first time with a net worth of US$3 billion. The 60-year-old Thai businessman made his fortune in whisky and owned properties in New York and Bangkok, Forbes said.
Singaporean banker Lee Seng Wee was ranked the sixth wealthiest individual with a fortune of US$2.7 billion, followed by Malaysia's casino king Lim Goh Tong on US$2.6 billion.
Quek Leng Chan, a cousin of Mr Kwek, was eighth with a net worth of US$2.4 billion. The crown jewel of Mr Quek's empire is the Hong Leong Group Malaysia.
Singaporean banker Wee Cho Yaw slipped to joint eighth with Mr Quek, while Indonesia's R. Budi Hartono, who owns clove cigarette maker Djarum, was 10th with a net worth of US$2.3 billion.
Beijing reviews key human rights treaty
scmp - Tuesday, September 6, 2005
SHI JIANGTAO in Beijing
A senior Communist Party leader said yesterday that Beijing is reviewing a key international human rights treaty, prompting speculation about mainland ratification of the sensitive International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights after years of delay.
"The Chinese government is actively considering major issues involved in the covenant and will start the legal process of ratification once the conditions are mature," Politburo Standing Committee member Luo Gan said yesterday at the opening ceremony of the biennial congress of the World Jurist Association at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
Mr Luo told more than 1,500 delegates from 60 countries and regions that Beijing had made great progress in protecting citizens' freedom and rights, citing the 21 international human rights conventions the country has acceded to.
Beijing signed the civil and political rights covenant in 1998 and its sister pact, the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, a year earlier.
While the economic treaty was ratified in 2001 by the National People's Congress, the civil and political one has been shelved due to concerns over sensitive issues like freedom of expression, religion and association, according to analysts.
Rao Geping , from Peking University, said the move towards ratification of the covenant, corresponding to the mainland's economic development, showed human rights had become part of mainlanders' lives.
"Although we still have some problems, we have seen a relatively fast improvement in human rights," Professor Rao said.
Xu Zhiyong , a legal expert at the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, said the move was "an encouraging sign". If ratified, the human rights accord, along with other international conventions, would oblige Beijing to improve rights and the mainland's legislative situation.
Professor Rao said he expected the mainland authorities to express reservations about provisions in the covenant deemed not applicable on the mainland, a practice also followed by other countries.
The right to set up or join trade unions and the limits on the imposition of the death penalty were likely to top the list of Beijing's reservations, say analysts.
Human rights groups said it would be a good step forward if Beijing ratified the covenant.
"It would be important symbolically and important also in a practical way if Beijing actually honours its commitments," said Bruce Van Voorhis, spokesman for the Asian Human Rights Commission.
Law Yuk-kai, director of the Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor, said while participating countries went unpunished for contravening the covenant, it would have a moral effect on China.
"In the end it depends on the government and whether it has the commitment," he said. "But even if it's just moral forces, it would still have a big effect because the government doesn't want to lose face."
Additional reporting by Elaine Wu
SHI JIANGTAO in Beijing
A senior Communist Party leader said yesterday that Beijing is reviewing a key international human rights treaty, prompting speculation about mainland ratification of the sensitive International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights after years of delay.
"The Chinese government is actively considering major issues involved in the covenant and will start the legal process of ratification once the conditions are mature," Politburo Standing Committee member Luo Gan said yesterday at the opening ceremony of the biennial congress of the World Jurist Association at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
Mr Luo told more than 1,500 delegates from 60 countries and regions that Beijing had made great progress in protecting citizens' freedom and rights, citing the 21 international human rights conventions the country has acceded to.
Beijing signed the civil and political rights covenant in 1998 and its sister pact, the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, a year earlier.
While the economic treaty was ratified in 2001 by the National People's Congress, the civil and political one has been shelved due to concerns over sensitive issues like freedom of expression, religion and association, according to analysts.
Rao Geping , from Peking University, said the move towards ratification of the covenant, corresponding to the mainland's economic development, showed human rights had become part of mainlanders' lives.
"Although we still have some problems, we have seen a relatively fast improvement in human rights," Professor Rao said.
Xu Zhiyong , a legal expert at the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, said the move was "an encouraging sign". If ratified, the human rights accord, along with other international conventions, would oblige Beijing to improve rights and the mainland's legislative situation.
Professor Rao said he expected the mainland authorities to express reservations about provisions in the covenant deemed not applicable on the mainland, a practice also followed by other countries.
The right to set up or join trade unions and the limits on the imposition of the death penalty were likely to top the list of Beijing's reservations, say analysts.
Human rights groups said it would be a good step forward if Beijing ratified the covenant.
"It would be important symbolically and important also in a practical way if Beijing actually honours its commitments," said Bruce Van Voorhis, spokesman for the Asian Human Rights Commission.
Law Yuk-kai, director of the Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor, said while participating countries went unpunished for contravening the covenant, it would have a moral effect on China.
"In the end it depends on the government and whether it has the commitment," he said. "But even if it's just moral forces, it would still have a big effect because the government doesn't want to lose face."
Additional reporting by Elaine Wu
Moves afoot to mark June 4 `spark'
Communist Party chief Hu Jintao has decided to rehabilitate a predecessor, whose death sparked the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, two well-placed independent sources said, a move that may burnish Hu's dented reformist credentials.
Benjamin Kang Lim
HK Std. - Monday, September 05, 2005
Communist Party chief Hu Jintao has decided to rehabilitate a predecessor, whose death sparked the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, two well-placed independent sources said, a move that may burnish Hu's dented reformist credentials.
The central government has not publicly commemorated the birth or death of Hu Yaobang since he died on April 15, 1989, lest publicity reignite the democratic spark snuffed out on June 4 that year when the army crushed the student-led demonstrations.
State media rarely mention his name.
Hu Jintao decided recently that the party will officially mark the 90th anniversary of Hu Yaobang's birth on November 20 at the Great Hall of the People, said a source close to the family and a second source with knowledge of the commemorations.
But the party will not overturn its verdict that the Tiananmen protests were "counter-revolutionary," or subversive, said the sources, who did not want to be named.
The two Hus are not related. But Hu Jintao cut his teeth in the Communist Youth League founded by Hu Yaobang. The Youth League is known as the Communist Party's "helping hand and reserve army" and boasts 72 million members.
Some of the nine members of the party's all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee, which Hu Jintao heads, will attend the commemoration, said the sources.
"Hu Jintao wants to play the Hu Yaobang card and inherit his political resources," one source said.
It is one of Hu Jintao's boldest political moves since taking the party helm in 2002 and is likely to win plaudits from some liberal intellectuals.
His image has been tarnished by a series of crackdowns on liberal intellectuals, the media, the Internet and non-governmental organizations to avert the sort of popular protests that toppled authoritarian regimes in ex- Soviet Ukraine and Georgia.
As part of commemorations of Hu Yaobang's anniversary, a three-volume biography of the late leader written by former aides will be published in China this year after a two-year delay, the sources said.
Modest official commemorative events will also be held in Hunan province, where Hu Yaobang was born, and Jiangxi, where he was buried.
The second source said private commemorations of Hu's birth anniversary will be neither encouraged nor banned. But police are likely to prevent high-profile commemorations by pro- democracy activists, analysts said.
They said the fact that the death in January of Zhao Ziyang, who was toppled as party chief in 1989 and held under house arrest for 15 years, passed without incident may have emboldened the leaders to rehabilitate Hu Yaobang, thinking it would not trigger protests. Hu Yaobang resigned as party chief in 1987 over a wave of student unrest after party hardliners accused him of allowing "bourgeois liberalism" - Western values - to spread unchecked. But he retained his seat in the party's elite Politburo.
Hu Yaobang was popular among ordinary Chinese for rehabilitating millions, including landlords, rich farmers and intellectuals purged during the 1957 anti-rightist movement.
He gave victims of the chaotic 1966-76 Cultural Revolution their lives back and reopened schools suspended for a decade.
A diminutive man with the common touch, he liked to shock - once proposing that the Chinese stop using chopsticks and adopt knives and forks instead.
His remains were cremated in Beijing and flown to Jiangxi for burial 18 months after his death.
REUTERS
Benjamin Kang Lim
HK Std. - Monday, September 05, 2005
Communist Party chief Hu Jintao has decided to rehabilitate a predecessor, whose death sparked the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, two well-placed independent sources said, a move that may burnish Hu's dented reformist credentials.
The central government has not publicly commemorated the birth or death of Hu Yaobang since he died on April 15, 1989, lest publicity reignite the democratic spark snuffed out on June 4 that year when the army crushed the student-led demonstrations.
State media rarely mention his name.
Hu Jintao decided recently that the party will officially mark the 90th anniversary of Hu Yaobang's birth on November 20 at the Great Hall of the People, said a source close to the family and a second source with knowledge of the commemorations.
But the party will not overturn its verdict that the Tiananmen protests were "counter-revolutionary," or subversive, said the sources, who did not want to be named.
The two Hus are not related. But Hu Jintao cut his teeth in the Communist Youth League founded by Hu Yaobang. The Youth League is known as the Communist Party's "helping hand and reserve army" and boasts 72 million members.
Some of the nine members of the party's all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee, which Hu Jintao heads, will attend the commemoration, said the sources.
"Hu Jintao wants to play the Hu Yaobang card and inherit his political resources," one source said.
It is one of Hu Jintao's boldest political moves since taking the party helm in 2002 and is likely to win plaudits from some liberal intellectuals.
His image has been tarnished by a series of crackdowns on liberal intellectuals, the media, the Internet and non-governmental organizations to avert the sort of popular protests that toppled authoritarian regimes in ex- Soviet Ukraine and Georgia.
As part of commemorations of Hu Yaobang's anniversary, a three-volume biography of the late leader written by former aides will be published in China this year after a two-year delay, the sources said.
Modest official commemorative events will also be held in Hunan province, where Hu Yaobang was born, and Jiangxi, where he was buried.
The second source said private commemorations of Hu's birth anniversary will be neither encouraged nor banned. But police are likely to prevent high-profile commemorations by pro- democracy activists, analysts said.
They said the fact that the death in January of Zhao Ziyang, who was toppled as party chief in 1989 and held under house arrest for 15 years, passed without incident may have emboldened the leaders to rehabilitate Hu Yaobang, thinking it would not trigger protests. Hu Yaobang resigned as party chief in 1987 over a wave of student unrest after party hardliners accused him of allowing "bourgeois liberalism" - Western values - to spread unchecked. But he retained his seat in the party's elite Politburo.
Hu Yaobang was popular among ordinary Chinese for rehabilitating millions, including landlords, rich farmers and intellectuals purged during the 1957 anti-rightist movement.
He gave victims of the chaotic 1966-76 Cultural Revolution their lives back and reopened schools suspended for a decade.
A diminutive man with the common touch, he liked to shock - once proposing that the Chinese stop using chopsticks and adopt knives and forks instead.
His remains were cremated in Beijing and flown to Jiangxi for burial 18 months after his death.
REUTERS
Asia the world's top arms importer
AsiaTimes - Sep 2, 2005
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - Arms merchants from industrialized nations are increasingly finding Asia, which has replaced the Near East as the world's top conventional-weapons market, the place to go, according to a new report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS).
Led by purchases by China and India, the world's most populous region accounted for nearly 50% of the total value of all new arms-transfer agreements with developing nations from 2001 through 2004, according to the report. India led the rankings in 2004 by signing US$5.7 billion in new arms deals that year, according to the report, the latest in an annual series.
It also found the United States and Russia continue to dominate all other arms suppliers by a significant margin in selling to developing countries.
US and Russian companies last year signed agreements worth almost $7 billion and $6 billion, respectively, in conventional weapons for developing countries. Their combined total accounted for nearly 60% of the $21.8 billion in all such sales to developing countries for 2004.
Britain ranked third in the value of new arms agreements in 2004, while Israel made its first appearance in the top five of the arms-selling list, with sales worth $1.2 billion for the year. The big advance by Israel was due to a one-off deal for India's purchase of an airborne radar system, called "Phalcon".
Israel has grown steadily as an arms supplier in recent years, but has promised Washington that it would stop selling military and dual-use high-technology equipment to China, which has been a lucrative market for the Israelis over the past decade.
In actual arms deliveries for 2004, the US dominated the market with nearly $18.6 billion worth of transfers - or 53.4% of all deliveries to developing countries - far ahead of Russia, the number two supplier, with $4.6 billion in deliveries, or France, which made $4.4 billion worth of arms transfers.
The report, "Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 1997-2004", is produced each year by CRS expert Richard Grimmett and widely considered to be one of the most authoritative sources on the conventional arms trade because it's based on classified information as well as public data.
One of its major findings is that the nearly $22 billion in new arms agreements signed between developed and developing countries last year marks a sharp increase over the previous year, when the total came to $15.1 billion. Last year's sales were indeed the highest since 2000, according to the report. Actual arms deliveries during the year were also the highest since 2000.
Conventional arms sales to developing countries have generally accounted for between 55% and 72% of all arms globally. For the period 2001-2004, according to the report, developing countries received 57.3% of all arms transfers. During the same period, they accounted for about 63.2% of the value of all actual arms deliveries.
While the Near East has historically been the largest arms market in the developing world - accounting for 49.2% of the value of all developing-country arms agreements in 1997-2000 - Asia took its place in 2001-2004, accounting for some $35 billion in new arms during the period, according to the report.
The change is due, in part, to the leveling off of major arms purchases by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states in the aftermath of the first Gulf War in the early 1990s.
Nonetheless, Saudi Arabia ranked second behind India among developing-country recipients in 2004, with $2.9 billion worth of new agreements, while Egypt, Oman and Israel ranked fourth, fifth and sixth, respectively, behind China, the number three buyer, with $2.2 billion in new sales agreements.
For the eight-year period 1997-2004, the report found that India was the leader, with $15.7 billion worth of new deals, followed by China ($15.3 billion), the United Arab Emirates ($15 billion), Egypt ($12.8 billion), Saudi Arabia, ($10.5 billion), Israel ($9.8 billion) and South Korea ($8.2 billion).
But that statistic hid the emergence of China as a major arms buyer over the past three years. Ranked number seven in the 1997-2000 period, when the UAE and India led the lists, China jumped to the top spot in 2001-2004, buying $10.4 billion worth of weaponry, most of it from Russia, which has been India's most important supplier as well.
Indeed, Russia's share of Asia's arms market is more than twice that of the US and appears to be growing. While Washington was the supplier in nearly two-thirds of all new arms agreements in the Near East in 2001-2004, it accounted for only about 21% of the Asia market in the same period.
Russia, on the other hand, sold 48.1% of all conventional arms sold to Asian clients in 2001-2004, up from 37% in 1997-2000.
Grimmett noted in his report that Russia has made "important efforts, in recent years, to provide more flexible and creative financing and payment options for prospective arms clients", including licensed production agreements that have paid off with both China and India that "should provide it with sustained business during this decade".
Aside from those two countries, the report found that Moscow appears focused on Southeast Asia, where it has had "some success in securing arms agreements with Malaysia, Vietnam and Indonesia".
In terms of actual arms deliveries, the Near East is still the developing world's leader. Similarly, the US was the leader in arms supplies to Asia from 1997-2000, accounting for 35.4% of all deliveries to the region. But it slipped to second place in the 2001-2004 period, with 30.6%, behind Russia's 45%.
While some nations in Latin America, and to a significantly lesser extent in Africa, have expressed interest in modernizing their military forces, according to the report, they have been constrained by over-stretched treasuries, a factor that could be strengthened by the recent spike in oil prices for all but oil exporters.
Still, arms purchases by Latin American countries grew from $3.3 billion in 1997-2000 to $4.7 billion in 2001-2004.
(Inter Press Service)
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - Arms merchants from industrialized nations are increasingly finding Asia, which has replaced the Near East as the world's top conventional-weapons market, the place to go, according to a new report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS).
Led by purchases by China and India, the world's most populous region accounted for nearly 50% of the total value of all new arms-transfer agreements with developing nations from 2001 through 2004, according to the report. India led the rankings in 2004 by signing US$5.7 billion in new arms deals that year, according to the report, the latest in an annual series.
It also found the United States and Russia continue to dominate all other arms suppliers by a significant margin in selling to developing countries.
US and Russian companies last year signed agreements worth almost $7 billion and $6 billion, respectively, in conventional weapons for developing countries. Their combined total accounted for nearly 60% of the $21.8 billion in all such sales to developing countries for 2004.
Britain ranked third in the value of new arms agreements in 2004, while Israel made its first appearance in the top five of the arms-selling list, with sales worth $1.2 billion for the year. The big advance by Israel was due to a one-off deal for India's purchase of an airborne radar system, called "Phalcon".
Israel has grown steadily as an arms supplier in recent years, but has promised Washington that it would stop selling military and dual-use high-technology equipment to China, which has been a lucrative market for the Israelis over the past decade.
In actual arms deliveries for 2004, the US dominated the market with nearly $18.6 billion worth of transfers - or 53.4% of all deliveries to developing countries - far ahead of Russia, the number two supplier, with $4.6 billion in deliveries, or France, which made $4.4 billion worth of arms transfers.
The report, "Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 1997-2004", is produced each year by CRS expert Richard Grimmett and widely considered to be one of the most authoritative sources on the conventional arms trade because it's based on classified information as well as public data.
One of its major findings is that the nearly $22 billion in new arms agreements signed between developed and developing countries last year marks a sharp increase over the previous year, when the total came to $15.1 billion. Last year's sales were indeed the highest since 2000, according to the report. Actual arms deliveries during the year were also the highest since 2000.
Conventional arms sales to developing countries have generally accounted for between 55% and 72% of all arms globally. For the period 2001-2004, according to the report, developing countries received 57.3% of all arms transfers. During the same period, they accounted for about 63.2% of the value of all actual arms deliveries.
While the Near East has historically been the largest arms market in the developing world - accounting for 49.2% of the value of all developing-country arms agreements in 1997-2000 - Asia took its place in 2001-2004, accounting for some $35 billion in new arms during the period, according to the report.
The change is due, in part, to the leveling off of major arms purchases by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states in the aftermath of the first Gulf War in the early 1990s.
Nonetheless, Saudi Arabia ranked second behind India among developing-country recipients in 2004, with $2.9 billion worth of new agreements, while Egypt, Oman and Israel ranked fourth, fifth and sixth, respectively, behind China, the number three buyer, with $2.2 billion in new sales agreements.
For the eight-year period 1997-2004, the report found that India was the leader, with $15.7 billion worth of new deals, followed by China ($15.3 billion), the United Arab Emirates ($15 billion), Egypt ($12.8 billion), Saudi Arabia, ($10.5 billion), Israel ($9.8 billion) and South Korea ($8.2 billion).
But that statistic hid the emergence of China as a major arms buyer over the past three years. Ranked number seven in the 1997-2000 period, when the UAE and India led the lists, China jumped to the top spot in 2001-2004, buying $10.4 billion worth of weaponry, most of it from Russia, which has been India's most important supplier as well.
Indeed, Russia's share of Asia's arms market is more than twice that of the US and appears to be growing. While Washington was the supplier in nearly two-thirds of all new arms agreements in the Near East in 2001-2004, it accounted for only about 21% of the Asia market in the same period.
Russia, on the other hand, sold 48.1% of all conventional arms sold to Asian clients in 2001-2004, up from 37% in 1997-2000.
Grimmett noted in his report that Russia has made "important efforts, in recent years, to provide more flexible and creative financing and payment options for prospective arms clients", including licensed production agreements that have paid off with both China and India that "should provide it with sustained business during this decade".
Aside from those two countries, the report found that Moscow appears focused on Southeast Asia, where it has had "some success in securing arms agreements with Malaysia, Vietnam and Indonesia".
In terms of actual arms deliveries, the Near East is still the developing world's leader. Similarly, the US was the leader in arms supplies to Asia from 1997-2000, accounting for 35.4% of all deliveries to the region. But it slipped to second place in the 2001-2004 period, with 30.6%, behind Russia's 45%.
While some nations in Latin America, and to a significantly lesser extent in Africa, have expressed interest in modernizing their military forces, according to the report, they have been constrained by over-stretched treasuries, a factor that could be strengthened by the recent spike in oil prices for all but oil exporters.
Still, arms purchases by Latin American countries grew from $3.3 billion in 1997-2000 to $4.7 billion in 2001-2004.
(Inter Press Service)
Beijing, UN sign legal reform pact
scmp - Thursday, September 1, 2005
ASSOCIATED PRESS in Beijing
Beijing has signed an accord with the UN human rights agency to collaborate on reforming the mainland's legal system in preparation for adopting a key UN treaty on civil and political rights, a UN statement said.
The agreement was signed by Assistant Foreign Minister Shen Guofang and visiting UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour, and represented a step forward in Ms Arbour's efforts to persuade Beijing to embrace the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
The top UN human rights watchdog would assist Beijing in finding "alternative penalty measures to imprisonment, help the country revise its Criminal Procedure Law, its lawyers' law, and any other related laws and regulations", the statement said. The UN would also help China teach human rights in primary and secondary schools, universities and in training programmes for public servants.
The statement gave no target date for Beijing's ratification of the covenant.
Human rights groups accuse Beijing of suppressing independent religious groups, harassing labour and political activists and enforcing a birth-control policy that limits most urban couples to one child. Beijing says it has worked hard to ensure basic human rights by reforming its economy, which has improved the overall standard of living for its people.
The US embassy in Beijing yesterday said it was concerned over reports that mainland police had raided the offices of a human rights group and were harassing political activists during Ms Arbour's visit.
Hou Wenzhuo , founder of the Empowerment and Rights Institute, said police were stationed outside her home and office yesterday and had told her not to meet anyone for the next several days.
"They were polite and calm, but firm," she said by phone. Ms Hou said she was not under arrest and could go out to eat and run errands. But meeting Ms Arbour "seems impossible", she said.
At least two other activists - Liu Di , an internet writer who was imprisoned for a year in 2002-2003, and Liu Xiaobo, a pro-democracy activist - were also under surveillance because of Ms Arbour's visit, the international group Reporters Without Borders said.
Ms Hou's group helps farmers and others with complaints against the central government. It is supported by the US-based National Endowment for Democracy.
Hou said police on Monday looked at the group's files and computers.
A US embassy spokeswoman, commenting on reports of the raid, said: "If borne out, these reports would represent a clear violation of internationally accepted human rights norms.
"We urge the Chinese government to implement its constitutional guarantees and to bring its human rights practices into compliance with international standards."
ASSOCIATED PRESS in Beijing
Beijing has signed an accord with the UN human rights agency to collaborate on reforming the mainland's legal system in preparation for adopting a key UN treaty on civil and political rights, a UN statement said.
The agreement was signed by Assistant Foreign Minister Shen Guofang and visiting UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour, and represented a step forward in Ms Arbour's efforts to persuade Beijing to embrace the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
The top UN human rights watchdog would assist Beijing in finding "alternative penalty measures to imprisonment, help the country revise its Criminal Procedure Law, its lawyers' law, and any other related laws and regulations", the statement said. The UN would also help China teach human rights in primary and secondary schools, universities and in training programmes for public servants.
The statement gave no target date for Beijing's ratification of the covenant.
Human rights groups accuse Beijing of suppressing independent religious groups, harassing labour and political activists and enforcing a birth-control policy that limits most urban couples to one child. Beijing says it has worked hard to ensure basic human rights by reforming its economy, which has improved the overall standard of living for its people.
The US embassy in Beijing yesterday said it was concerned over reports that mainland police had raided the offices of a human rights group and were harassing political activists during Ms Arbour's visit.
Hou Wenzhuo , founder of the Empowerment and Rights Institute, said police were stationed outside her home and office yesterday and had told her not to meet anyone for the next several days.
"They were polite and calm, but firm," she said by phone. Ms Hou said she was not under arrest and could go out to eat and run errands. But meeting Ms Arbour "seems impossible", she said.
At least two other activists - Liu Di , an internet writer who was imprisoned for a year in 2002-2003, and Liu Xiaobo, a pro-democracy activist - were also under surveillance because of Ms Arbour's visit, the international group Reporters Without Borders said.
Ms Hou's group helps farmers and others with complaints against the central government. It is supported by the US-based National Endowment for Democracy.
Hou said police on Monday looked at the group's files and computers.
A US embassy spokeswoman, commenting on reports of the raid, said: "If borne out, these reports would represent a clear violation of internationally accepted human rights norms.
"We urge the Chinese government to implement its constitutional guarantees and to bring its human rights practices into compliance with international standards."
Bank report paints picture of Asia in poverty
scmp - Wednesday, August 31, 2005
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Manila
Asia is making giant steps in fighting poverty but 1.85 billion or 57 per cent of its people still live on less than US$2 a day, mostly in India and China, an Asian Development Bank report said yesterday.
The number of people living in extreme poverty - less than $1 a day - was estimated at 621 million or 19.3 per cent of the population, down from 688 million in 2002.
Job generation had lagged behind the region's impressive economic growth, the ADB added.
"Much of the region's overall success in recent years is the result of a dramatic reduction in poverty in [China]," it said in its annual Key Indicators publication.
The data is based on 2003 figures, which the ADB says is the most recent year for which sufficient data is available.
The percentage of the Asia-Pacific population who were living on US$1 a day in 2003 could fall to between 2.9 and 6.7 per cent of the population by 2015 if growth remained strong, the ADB said.
The proportion living on US$2 a day in 2003 could fall to between 28.6 and 35.9 per cent by 2015 under similar circumstances, ADB projections showed.
"Even under the most favourable scenario ... there would still be one billion Asians who would live on less than US$2 a day [by 2015]," the ADB said.
"Although Asian governments are making significant progress in the fight against poverty ... reducing poverty remains a central challenge facing the region," the ADB's chief economist Ifzal Ali said.
The report said that despite the impressive region-wide reduction in poverty, large disparities still remain among countries.
About 93 per cent of the 621 million people who earned less than $1 a day in 2003 lived in India (327 million), China (173 million), and other South Asian countries apart from India (77 million).
"Although the percentage of South Asia's population living under extreme poverty declined to 29 per cent in 2003 from 41.3 per cent in 1990, relatively rapid population growth in South Asia meant the number of extremely poor fell by only about 45 million," it said.
It said 13.4 per cent of China's population lives on US$1 a day but this could fall to between 0.1 and 2.6 per cent of the population by 2015 if growth rates remained strong.
India had 30.7 per cent of its population living on US$1 a day in 2003 but under present growth rates, this would fall to between 6.8 and 11.3 per cent of its population by 2015, the ADB said.
The bank said many were poor simply because they did not earn enough for their work, adding that "improving labour market opportunities for workers is the key for reducing poverty and improving living standards for the majority of Asia's workers and families".
It said Asian countries would not just have to find more jobs for those entering the labour force, they would have to improve productivity and earnings.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Manila
Asia is making giant steps in fighting poverty but 1.85 billion or 57 per cent of its people still live on less than US$2 a day, mostly in India and China, an Asian Development Bank report said yesterday.
The number of people living in extreme poverty - less than $1 a day - was estimated at 621 million or 19.3 per cent of the population, down from 688 million in 2002.
Job generation had lagged behind the region's impressive economic growth, the ADB added.
"Much of the region's overall success in recent years is the result of a dramatic reduction in poverty in [China]," it said in its annual Key Indicators publication.
The data is based on 2003 figures, which the ADB says is the most recent year for which sufficient data is available.
The percentage of the Asia-Pacific population who were living on US$1 a day in 2003 could fall to between 2.9 and 6.7 per cent of the population by 2015 if growth remained strong, the ADB said.
The proportion living on US$2 a day in 2003 could fall to between 28.6 and 35.9 per cent by 2015 under similar circumstances, ADB projections showed.
"Even under the most favourable scenario ... there would still be one billion Asians who would live on less than US$2 a day [by 2015]," the ADB said.
"Although Asian governments are making significant progress in the fight against poverty ... reducing poverty remains a central challenge facing the region," the ADB's chief economist Ifzal Ali said.
The report said that despite the impressive region-wide reduction in poverty, large disparities still remain among countries.
About 93 per cent of the 621 million people who earned less than $1 a day in 2003 lived in India (327 million), China (173 million), and other South Asian countries apart from India (77 million).
"Although the percentage of South Asia's population living under extreme poverty declined to 29 per cent in 2003 from 41.3 per cent in 1990, relatively rapid population growth in South Asia meant the number of extremely poor fell by only about 45 million," it said.
It said 13.4 per cent of China's population lives on US$1 a day but this could fall to between 0.1 and 2.6 per cent of the population by 2015 if growth rates remained strong.
India had 30.7 per cent of its population living on US$1 a day in 2003 but under present growth rates, this would fall to between 6.8 and 11.3 per cent of its population by 2015, the ADB said.
The bank said many were poor simply because they did not earn enough for their work, adding that "improving labour market opportunities for workers is the key for reducing poverty and improving living standards for the majority of Asia's workers and families".
It said Asian countries would not just have to find more jobs for those entering the labour force, they would have to improve productivity and earnings.
Police form special squad to harass family of top dissident
scmp - Wednesday, August 31, 2005
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Beijing
Updated at 1.47pm:
China has stepped up its harassment of the family of a prominent exiled Muslim Uighur dissident, forming a special police squad to investigate them, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported on Wednesday.
The unit, known as "the number 307 office," was established in the wake of Rebiya Kadeer's release from a Chinese jail and subsequent exile in the United States earlier this year, it said.
Kadeer, a top advocate for the rights of China's Muslim Uighur minority in the Xinjiang region, was set free on medical parole after being jailed for six years for leaking "state secrets".
Uighur separatists have been fighting to re-establish an independent state called East Turkestan in Xinjiang since it became part of China in 1955.
The US-based radio station said police in Urumqi, capital of the Muslim-majority Xinjiang, and one of Kadeer's sons confirmed the new unit.
Police from it require members of the Kadeer family to give them advance notice if they wish to leave Urumqi, Alim Abdiriyim, managing director of his family's Akida Trading Co. and one of Kadeer's sons, told RFA.
This week police detained two of Kadeer's cousins for a day to press them to hand over their passports, he said.
"This is the most devastating pressure. They will not harass us openly. We have not done anything wrong or illegal for them to openly harass us," he said.
"There is only one government in China, and if one loses the support of this government, then individuals are afraid to deal with us."
Earlier this month, China accused Kadeer of plotting with "terrorist groups" to disrupt the 50th anniversary next month of the takeover of Xinjiang.
"The Chinese government wants to silence my voice before the international community with such unsubstantiated charges," Kadeer said in Washington.
The Uighur, who have an ethnic identity that is distinct from the Chinese, accuse the ruling Chinese of political, religious and cultural repression in the name of counter-terrorism efforts.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Beijing
Updated at 1.47pm:
China has stepped up its harassment of the family of a prominent exiled Muslim Uighur dissident, forming a special police squad to investigate them, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported on Wednesday.
The unit, known as "the number 307 office," was established in the wake of Rebiya Kadeer's release from a Chinese jail and subsequent exile in the United States earlier this year, it said.
Kadeer, a top advocate for the rights of China's Muslim Uighur minority in the Xinjiang region, was set free on medical parole after being jailed for six years for leaking "state secrets".
Uighur separatists have been fighting to re-establish an independent state called East Turkestan in Xinjiang since it became part of China in 1955.
The US-based radio station said police in Urumqi, capital of the Muslim-majority Xinjiang, and one of Kadeer's sons confirmed the new unit.
Police from it require members of the Kadeer family to give them advance notice if they wish to leave Urumqi, Alim Abdiriyim, managing director of his family's Akida Trading Co. and one of Kadeer's sons, told RFA.
This week police detained two of Kadeer's cousins for a day to press them to hand over their passports, he said.
"This is the most devastating pressure. They will not harass us openly. We have not done anything wrong or illegal for them to openly harass us," he said.
"There is only one government in China, and if one loses the support of this government, then individuals are afraid to deal with us."
Earlier this month, China accused Kadeer of plotting with "terrorist groups" to disrupt the 50th anniversary next month of the takeover of Xinjiang.
"The Chinese government wants to silence my voice before the international community with such unsubstantiated charges," Kadeer said in Washington.
The Uighur, who have an ethnic identity that is distinct from the Chinese, accuse the ruling Chinese of political, religious and cultural repression in the name of counter-terrorism efforts.
Back off on human rights, Beijing says
scmp - Wednesday, August 31, 2005
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Beijing
Beijing insisted yesterday that it should be allowed to handle human rights issues in its own way, as the United Nations pressed Beijing and other Asia-Pacific nations to ratify relevant international agreements.
The central government is regularly criticised by rights groups for its deprivation of civil liberties. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour is in Beijing to urge it to make the reforms necessary for China to ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
But Tang Jiaxuan , a state councillor and former foreign minister, told the Asia-Pacific Human Rights Symposium in the capital that every country should be allowed to deal with the matter in its own way.
"Every country should choose its own way to promote and protect human rights in line with its national conditions. There is no uniform standard with regard to national human rights action plans, institutions or education," he said.
Mr Tang's comments came as high-profile rights activists were placed under 24-hour police surveillance after signing an open letter to Ms Arbour drawing attention to the rights situation in China.
"These violations contradict the government's public pledges to protect the human rights of Chinese citizens," the activists said in an e-mail sent to news agencies.
Mr Tang linked human rights issues to poverty, saying it must be addressed first since economic development would stem abuses.
"For the people of many countries in our region, poverty and backwardness remain the biggest hurdle to surmount before they can enjoy human rights fully," he said.
"Under such circumstances, we have no other choice but to make the realisation of the right to development and the promotion of economic, social and cultural rights our most pressing task.
"We should focus on development, using it to address relevant difficulties and problems in this process so that our people will be able to enjoy fundamental human rights at a higher level."
Ms Arbour, who is in China on a five-day mission to check up on its compliance with UN recommendations on improving the nation's rights record, urged China and other nations to quickly ratify relevant human rights agreements.
"Only three of the 52 [countries in the Asia-Pacific region ] have ratified all seven core human rights treaties, with 12 more having ratified six," she said.
"Implementation of rights requires that those rights be entrenched in law. The process begins with the ratification of human rights treaties. I therefore urge all member states present who have not yet done so to ratify these core instruments."
Activists highlight a lack of religious and media freedoms, the forced repatriation of North Korean refugees and the suppression of protests over rising social problems as key issues of concern.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Beijing
Beijing insisted yesterday that it should be allowed to handle human rights issues in its own way, as the United Nations pressed Beijing and other Asia-Pacific nations to ratify relevant international agreements.
The central government is regularly criticised by rights groups for its deprivation of civil liberties. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour is in Beijing to urge it to make the reforms necessary for China to ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
But Tang Jiaxuan , a state councillor and former foreign minister, told the Asia-Pacific Human Rights Symposium in the capital that every country should be allowed to deal with the matter in its own way.
"Every country should choose its own way to promote and protect human rights in line with its national conditions. There is no uniform standard with regard to national human rights action plans, institutions or education," he said.
Mr Tang's comments came as high-profile rights activists were placed under 24-hour police surveillance after signing an open letter to Ms Arbour drawing attention to the rights situation in China.
"These violations contradict the government's public pledges to protect the human rights of Chinese citizens," the activists said in an e-mail sent to news agencies.
Mr Tang linked human rights issues to poverty, saying it must be addressed first since economic development would stem abuses.
"For the people of many countries in our region, poverty and backwardness remain the biggest hurdle to surmount before they can enjoy human rights fully," he said.
"Under such circumstances, we have no other choice but to make the realisation of the right to development and the promotion of economic, social and cultural rights our most pressing task.
"We should focus on development, using it to address relevant difficulties and problems in this process so that our people will be able to enjoy fundamental human rights at a higher level."
Ms Arbour, who is in China on a five-day mission to check up on its compliance with UN recommendations on improving the nation's rights record, urged China and other nations to quickly ratify relevant human rights agreements.
"Only three of the 52 [countries in the Asia-Pacific region ] have ratified all seven core human rights treaties, with 12 more having ratified six," she said.
"Implementation of rights requires that those rights be entrenched in law. The process begins with the ratification of human rights treaties. I therefore urge all member states present who have not yet done so to ratify these core instruments."
Activists highlight a lack of religious and media freedoms, the forced repatriation of North Korean refugees and the suppression of protests over rising social problems as key issues of concern.
