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Showing posts with label World News. Show all posts
Showing posts with label World News. Show all posts
Saturday, May 17, 2014
AP | by CHRIS BRUMMITT
HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Vietnam's prime minister ordered an end Saturday to all "illegal protests" in the country after a week of violent demonstrations against China's deployment of an oil rig in a disputed section of the South China Sea.
Last weekend, Vietnam's government took the unusual step of allowing anti-China street protests — a move widely seen as way for the authoritarian state to show its displeasure with Beijing for positioning the oil rig on May 1 in strategic waters claimed by both countries.
In a text message to millions of people on Saturday, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said the Ministry of Public Security and provincial governments had been ordered to "conduct concerted and determined measures not to allow illegal protests that cause security and social order disturbances."
All protests are technically illegal in Vietnam.
The message appears to represent a shift in government policy regarding the anti-China protests. On Thursday, Dung sent a text message calling for heightened patriotism.
Nationalist and dissident groups, which are also demanding basic democratic reforms that challenge Vietnam's Communist Party, have called for large protests on Sunday in front of the Chinese Embassy in Hanoi and in Ho Chi Minh City in southern Vietnam.
The public mood in Vietnam is currently anti-Beijing, and breaking up the rallies might reinforce dissident claims that the government is kowtowing to China. In the past, authorities have allowed small anti-China protests to take place for a limited period, and harassed journalists covering them.
The public unrest this past week was the most serious to hit Vietnam in years. Dozens of factories close to Ho Chi Minh City were trashed following peaceful anti-China protests by workers. In central Vietnam, a 1,000-strong mob stormed a steel mill, killing one Chinese worker and wounding hundreds more. Hundreds of Chinese and Taiwanese people have fled the country by land and air.
There has been no reported violence or major demonstrations since Thursday.
Earlier this month, Vietnam's government sent a flotilla to confront Chinese vessels protecting the oil rig, setting off a tense standoff. The government also has whipped up patriotic fervor via state media, undoubtedly swelling the numbers of protesters, while also trying to rally international support for its cause. The streets protests last weekend were the largest in years in Vietnam.
The government has condemned the violence, which it said was carried out by "extremists."
In a phone conversation Saturday with his Vietnamese counterpart, Chinese Public Security Minister Guo Shengkun urged Vietnam to protect Chinese companies and nationals, according to a statement posted on the ministry's website. Guo also demanded that Vietnam severely punish those involved in the violence.
In 2011, Chinese vessels cut a supply cable to a Vietnamese oil exploration vessel in the South China Sea, angering Vietnam's government. Vietnam allowed protests for a while before gradually cracking down on them after they became a forum for anti-government activists.
___
Associated Press writer Didi Tang in Beijing contributed to this report.
Foxconn’s six manufacturing sites in Vietnam won’t be assembling iPhones and iPads this weekend — or anything else, for that matter.
The Taiwan-based electronics supplier, which manufactures gadgets for Apple, Microsoft, Cisco, and others, is suspending operations in Vietnam for at least three days due to violent anti-China protests, reports the Financial Times.
China’s contentious oil drilling near the Paracel Islands spurred the protests in Vietnam. China controls the chain of islands in the South China Sea, but Vietnam and Taiwan have also claimed them as their own.
The protestors have targeted hundreds of business, many without ties to China. Taiwanese, South Korean, Japanese, and Malaysian plants have sustained damage, and at least two people have been killed — though the actual total is likely much higher.
“Employees at our manufacturing sites in Vietnam will take three days of leave from May 17 for safety reasons,” Foxconn said in a statement Friday.
Foxconn expanded into Vietnam in 2007. It currently has six manufacturing units in the country that normally make computers, smartphones, and components.
By HAU DINH
ABOARD VIETNAMESE COAST GUARD
SHIP 4033 (AP) — Each day the Vietnamese ships tried to get close to the
rig. And each day they were driven back by the much larger Chinese
ships.
But before they
sped away, laboring engines spewing black smoke, the Vietnamese
delivered a message: "Attention! Attention! We are warning you about
your provocative act," blasted out a recording from a loudspeaker in
Vietnamese, Chinese and English. "We demand you respect Vietnam's
sovereignty. Please immediately halt your activities and leave
Vietnamese waters."
Occasionally
colliding with or firing water cannons at each other, Vietnamese and
Chinese ships have been shadow boxing in a sun-dazzled patch of the
South China Sea since May 1, when Beijing parked a hulking, $1 billion
deep sea oil rig, drawing a furious response from Vietnam.
Vietnam,
ten times smaller than its northern neighbor and dependent on it
economically, needs all the help it can get in the dispute. Its leaders
believe international opinion is on their side. This week they invited
foreign journalists to get a closer look at the standoff, the most
serious escalation between the countries in years over their overlapping
claims.
Vietnam is determined
to defend what it regards as its sovereign territory against China,
which insists that most of the South China Sea — including the Paracel
Islands it took from U.S.-backed South Vietnam in 1974 — belongs to it.
But Hanoi lacks options in dealing with Beijing, as China uses it
burgeoning economic and military might to press its claims in the seas.
Vietnam
has accused Chinese vessels of deliberately and dangerously ramming its
ships. TV footage recorded last week from a Vietnamese ship showed a
Chinese vessel smashing into the stern of the Vietnamese ship then
backing up and ramming it again, damaging its side. The Chinese Ministry
of Foreign Affairs on Friday released three photographs purportedly
showing a Vietnamese vessel ramming a Chinese maritime ship. The media
onboard this week did not witness any ramming.
"It is not that we want to
be in confrontation with the Chinese, but it's our duty to carry out
daily patrols in Vietnamese territory," said Col. Le Trung Thanh, the
skipper of the Vietnamese coast guard ship 4033. "We want to get close
to the rig to persuade them that their actions are illegal and they must
leave Vietnam's water unconditionally."
That
seems unlikely, however many patrol boats Hanoi sends to the area, or
pleads its case to the world. For China, a withdrawal would signal
weakness.
Beijing has said it
plans to keep the rig until August. While most analysts think neither
side has any interest in an armed conflict, the longer the confrontation
lasts, the greater the risk of an unplanned incident that could lead to
a shooting match.
In
1974, China ousted the South Vietnam navy from the Paracel Islands,
close to where the rig is currently deployed, killing 75 South
Vietnamese sailors. The two countries fought a brief but bloody border
war in 1979. In 1988, 64 Vietnamese sailors were killed in another
skirmish in the nearby Spratly Islands, where territorial spats between
China and the Philippines have recently heated up.
Beijing
has accused Hanoi of not doing enough to stop the violence. On Friday,
it criticized Vietnam for organizing the media trip.
"It
is clear that the aim of the Vietnamese side is to escalate the
situation and create tension, or in other words, to generate media hype
and put up a show in front of the international audience," said Ouyang
Yujing, the director general of the Chinese Foreign Ministry's
Department of Ocean and Boundary Affairs.
Vietnam's
Communist Party has been trying to leverage its links with the party in
China to quietly resolve their differences, mindful of the economic
importance of good relations. Just last month, one of the coast guard
ships stationed close to the rig took part in joint fishery patrols with
Chinese vessels in the Gulf of Tonkin, said Vietnam's coast guard Col.
Dinh Quoc Ruan.
Unlike in the Paracels, the two countries settled their maritime border in the Gulf of Tonkin in 2000.
Crew members boarded each other's boats to share fruit with each other and take photos, Ruan said.
"I'm
not surprised when the Chinese switched from being friends to being
opposed so quickly," he said. "Being friends with China is not so easy."
___
Associated Press writers Chris Brummitt in Hanoi, Vietnam, and Jack Chang in Beijing contributed to this report.
May
16 (Reuters) - The spilling of blood and burning of factories by
anti-Chinese rioters sweeping across Vietnam reinforces Beijing's
message to other countries claiming territory in the South China Sea:
resistance is costly and ultimately futile.
But a region in which anti-Chinese sentiment grows and where sovereignty disputes disrupt trade and economic growth will burn Beijing as well. Over the long term, a commitment to peaceful dispute resolution in accordance with international law, including some concessions on historic claims, would serve China better than its current path.
China made the provocative first move in this latest incident by deploying a massive oil rig to the contested Paracel Islands. There was no doubt that Vietnam would respond, and China prepared by sending an armada of 80 ships - including seven naval vessels along with the rig. The two countries' maritime forces are now locked in a standoff with aggressive and dangerous maneuvers, water canons and collisions at sea.
Deploying the oil rig allows Beijing to show that Vietnam is in a lose-lose situation when faced with Chinese aggression. If Hanoi ignores the Chinese move, it allows "new facts on the water" that will bolster China's legal claims down the road. If it resists, its coast guard and navy will be dragged into a long and costly contest against a stronger force. And if the dispute continues to spark violent protests at home by angry Vietnamese nationalists, investment and international confidence gets disrupted for Vietnam - not China.
China does not want open conflict with its neighbors, but when it comes to territorial disputes, the Chinese government has decided it can play hardball with little risk. It can push just enough to advance its own claims, but avoid serious conflict or war by deescalating before things get out of hand.
Beyond the oil rig, Chinese actions in this vein include new construction on contested reefs and shoals occupied by China; patrols and ceremonies on islands claimed by other nations like Malaysia; unilateral fishing bans imposed on other nations while China tolerates illegal fishing and harvesting of coral by Chinese fishermen; and many more. At the same time, China continues to participate in negotiations on a Code of Conduct among the countries it bullies, intended to prevent conflict and prohibit exactly this kind of behavior.
For Chinese leaders committed to defending what they view to be Chinese territory, this aggressive path makes sense for two reasons. First, it teaches the smaller maritime nations of Southeast Asia that they're better off accommodating Chinese claims than resisting them. In essence, China is saying "we can do this the easy way or the hard way."
Second, China knows that its most important claims - like the nine-dash line covering most of the South China Sea - are not well-founded under contemporary international law. By taking aggressive steps now, Beijing can establish a track record of presence and activity that will position China better if it ever needs to clarify claims in accordance with international law, as called for by the United States and other nations.
But this strategy is bold, not wise. Beijing's actions carry significant risk, and mask a tension between China's short and long-term goals. Sailors or airmen in tense standoffs could miscalculate and spark an incident that demands military escalation. Countries like Vietnam could also decide to take a stand and choose to fight rather than give in to Chinese pressure. Yet that decision would be calamitous: the last time China and Vietnam went to war, in 1979, about 60,000 people were killed. China would not benefit from such conflict in Asia, especially if it took the blame for derailing Asia's long run of peace and progress.
Even if it avoids war, China can overplay this hand to such a degree that Southeast Asian nations defy history and join together to resist domination by a resurgent Middle Kingdom. The 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are far from forming an alliance and have no tradition of such banding together, but ASEAN has grown stronger and is welcoming a greater U.S. role in the region, in part because of China's assertiveness.
For now, Beijing's refrain seems to be from the Rolling Stones: "don't play with me 'cause you're playing with fire." Chinese leaders think the fire will only burn their rivals. They are wrong.
(Vikram J. Singh is Vice President for National Security and International Policy at the Center for American Progress. The opinions expressed are his own.)
By Vikram J. Singh
But a region in which anti-Chinese sentiment grows and where sovereignty disputes disrupt trade and economic growth will burn Beijing as well. Over the long term, a commitment to peaceful dispute resolution in accordance with international law, including some concessions on historic claims, would serve China better than its current path.
China made the provocative first move in this latest incident by deploying a massive oil rig to the contested Paracel Islands. There was no doubt that Vietnam would respond, and China prepared by sending an armada of 80 ships - including seven naval vessels along with the rig. The two countries' maritime forces are now locked in a standoff with aggressive and dangerous maneuvers, water canons and collisions at sea.
Deploying the oil rig allows Beijing to show that Vietnam is in a lose-lose situation when faced with Chinese aggression. If Hanoi ignores the Chinese move, it allows "new facts on the water" that will bolster China's legal claims down the road. If it resists, its coast guard and navy will be dragged into a long and costly contest against a stronger force. And if the dispute continues to spark violent protests at home by angry Vietnamese nationalists, investment and international confidence gets disrupted for Vietnam - not China.
China does not want open conflict with its neighbors, but when it comes to territorial disputes, the Chinese government has decided it can play hardball with little risk. It can push just enough to advance its own claims, but avoid serious conflict or war by deescalating before things get out of hand.
Beyond the oil rig, Chinese actions in this vein include new construction on contested reefs and shoals occupied by China; patrols and ceremonies on islands claimed by other nations like Malaysia; unilateral fishing bans imposed on other nations while China tolerates illegal fishing and harvesting of coral by Chinese fishermen; and many more. At the same time, China continues to participate in negotiations on a Code of Conduct among the countries it bullies, intended to prevent conflict and prohibit exactly this kind of behavior.
For Chinese leaders committed to defending what they view to be Chinese territory, this aggressive path makes sense for two reasons. First, it teaches the smaller maritime nations of Southeast Asia that they're better off accommodating Chinese claims than resisting them. In essence, China is saying "we can do this the easy way or the hard way."
Second, China knows that its most important claims - like the nine-dash line covering most of the South China Sea - are not well-founded under contemporary international law. By taking aggressive steps now, Beijing can establish a track record of presence and activity that will position China better if it ever needs to clarify claims in accordance with international law, as called for by the United States and other nations.
But this strategy is bold, not wise. Beijing's actions carry significant risk, and mask a tension between China's short and long-term goals. Sailors or airmen in tense standoffs could miscalculate and spark an incident that demands military escalation. Countries like Vietnam could also decide to take a stand and choose to fight rather than give in to Chinese pressure. Yet that decision would be calamitous: the last time China and Vietnam went to war, in 1979, about 60,000 people were killed. China would not benefit from such conflict in Asia, especially if it took the blame for derailing Asia's long run of peace and progress.
Even if it avoids war, China can overplay this hand to such a degree that Southeast Asian nations defy history and join together to resist domination by a resurgent Middle Kingdom. The 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are far from forming an alliance and have no tradition of such banding together, but ASEAN has grown stronger and is welcoming a greater U.S. role in the region, in part because of China's assertiveness.
For now, Beijing's refrain seems to be from the Rolling Stones: "don't play with me 'cause you're playing with fire." Chinese leaders think the fire will only burn their rivals. They are wrong.
(Vikram J. Singh is Vice President for National Security and International Policy at the Center for American Progress. The opinions expressed are his own.)
By Vikram J. Singh
Friday, May 16, 2014
Photograph by AFP via Getty Images
Commuters
drive past as riot police stand guard outside a burning factory
building in the Vietnamese southern province of Binh Duong on May 14
By Bruce Einhorn - May 15, 2014
The latest round in the territorial dispute between China and Vietnam has had its first casualties. Anti-Chinese demonstrations have swept Vietnam since the two countries’ ships attacked one another in the South China Sea last week, and yesterday Vietnamese protesters targeted a steel mill in the central province of Ha Tinh, leaving at least one Chinese person dead and 90 injured. The mob went after the factory even though its owner, the Formosa Plastics Group (1301:TT), is not even from mainland China. It’s Taiwanese. But no matter: Hailing from a Chinese-speaking place and employing Chinese workers are crimes enough.
The Vietnamese government has only itself to blame for this disaster. After a Chinese state-owned company started drilling for oil in waters that Vietnam claims as its exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea, the leaders in Hanoi couldn’t figure out a way to respond, according to Jonathan London, a City University of Hong Kong professor and Vietnam expert. One easy option was to encourage a nationalistic fervor among Vietnamese. “The Vietnamese ‘street’ is extremely upset by these most recent developments,” he said Friday. “Vietnamese cyberspace is on fire.”
Sure enough, nationalist fervor quickly got out of hand. “The riots appear to be the result of carelessly planned small-scale protests initiated by state-run or state-invested foreign ventures which then quickly exploded,” London writes on his blog today. Making things worse, the leadership in Hanoi hasn’t been able to agree on a strategy. With the leadership paralyzed about what to do, “the absence of a clear, coherent voice from Hanoi is doing great harm,” he argues. “Instead of communicating with the world with the confidence it should, Hanoi is on the brink of a public-relations meltdown that would make even Malaysian aviation officials blush.”
China is trying to take the moral high ground, saying Vietnam’s government is at fault for the escalation of tensions. China has accused its neighbor of creating a media circus by arranging for reporters to cover the confrontation at sea between Vietnamese and Chinese ships. “This was all done for show in an attempt to present a false picture and deceive the public,” said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying, who called on the government in Hanoi “to immediately take effective steps to stop and punish these crimes, and to ensure the safety of Chinese citizens and institutions in Vietnam.”
Besides, the official Xinhua news agency reported, Vietnam has no reason to be upset in the first place. The oil rig is drilling just 17 nautical miles from Zhongjian Island, part of the Paracel Island chain that China claims for itself. The drilling activites are “completely within the country’s territorial waters,” Xinhua reported on Sunday.
No matter which side wins control of the disputed area, Vietnam seems certain to be the economic loser from this fight. Even factories untouched by the protesters have closed temporarily. For instance, most of the Vietnamese suppliers to Li & Fung (494:HK), the huge Hong Kong company that is the world’s biggest supplier of clothes and toys, are closed. Its chief executive, Bruce Rockowitz, said today after a shareholder meeting in Hong Kong that the shutdown in production could last a week. Yue Yuen Industrial (551:HK), the Hong Kong supplier of athletic shoes to Nike (NKE) and Adidas (ADS:GR), has shut its factories in Vietnam, which last year accounted for one-third of Yue Yuen’s total production.
Moreover, even if the situation suddenly calms down, the anti-Chinese pogroms could hurt the Vietnamese economy for years to come. The country is supposed to be an inexpensive alternative to China, where wages are on the rise and low-cost manufacturers are struggling. For owners of factories in such Chinese cities as Shenzhen and Dongguan, it’s time to move. And many of them are ethnic Chinese, not just from the mainland but also from Hong Kong and Taiwan.
So attacking Chinese people already in Vietnam is not only nasty and xenophobic; it’s also stupid. These are just the people Vietnam needs to be attracting, not frightening away. The people making decisions about where to put their money are human, after all, and not surprisingly, they don’t feel too comfortable in countries where mobs go on the rampage against them.
The Chinese know this very well, as China is paying the price for ethnic violence of its own from 2012. Angry about Japanese claims to disputed islands in the East China Sea, Chinese mobs attacked Japanese factories, Japanese cars, even Japanese restaurants. The riots increased Japanese executives’ concern about their safety in the country and accelerated a shift in investment away from China and toward Southeast Asia.
Japanese direct investment in China plunged 32 percent last year, to $9.1 billion, according to the Japan External Trade Organization (Jetro). Meanwhile, Japanese investment in the Asean 5 (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam) more than doubled, jumping from $9 billion in 2012 to $19.85 billion last year.
While China is too big for Japanese companies to ignore, Southeast Asia has become more attractive, with 75 percent of 3,471 companies surveyed by Jetro saying they’re considering an expansion in Asean countries, up from 56 percent in 2011. The percentage considering an expansion in China dropped to 57 percent, down from 68 percent two years earlier.
Vietnam’s protesters have already shown they can’t distinguish between Taiwanese and mainland Chinese. Given the country’s reliance on Japan, the Vietnamese government better make sure the country’s superpatriots at least know the difference between Chinese and Japanese.
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
By ERIC TALMADGE and CHRISTOPHER BODEEN
March 18, 2014 5:12 AM TOKYO (AP) — Finding the missing Malaysian jetliner would be a coup for any of the more than two dozen countries out there looking. But for China and the United States, it's a lot more than that — it has been a chance for the two rival powers in the Pacific to show off what they can do in a real-life humanitarian mission across one of the world's most hotly contested regions.
The hunt has major ramifications
for Beijing, which has been rapidly improving its military while
aggressively challenging neighbors over territorial disputes. Washington
is looking to prove it's still the top dog to allies worried about how
seriously it takes the threat China poses to the Pacific status quo.
So far, neither country has come up with anything significant. But they have been vigorously waving their flags.
China
has the most at stake and has been taking an unusually high-profile
role. Almost immediately after Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared
March 8, China dispatched its largest-ever rescue flotilla to the
initial search area in the South China Sea, which Beijing considers its
own backyard.
Beijing sent
four warships and five coast guard and civilian patrol service vessels,
along with helicopters and fixed-wing surveillance aircraft. Among the
warships are two of China's largest and most advanced amphibious docking
ships. The 20,000-ton vessels are equipped with helicopters and a range
of small boats, including up to four hovercrafts.
"On
the one hand, China is simply doing its duty in orchestration with
other countries," said Ni Lexiong, a military expert at Shanghai's
University of Political Science and Law. "On the other hand, this
operation offers an opportunity to assess the Chinese navy's willpower,
efficiency and ability to carry out operations far from home, especially
in comparison with the U.S."
Fresh off a massive relief effort
after Typhoon Haiyan devastated the Philippines — which China barely
got involved in — the U.S. was once again quick to respond. Within days,
the Navy had two destroyers in the South China Sea participating in the
search, the USS Kidd and the USS Pinckney. Both are both based in San
Diego but were training in the area when the jet disappeared.
Since
the flight was bound for Beijing and two-thirds of the passengers were
Chinese, the public expects the government and military to pull out all
the stops. With more Chinese traveling abroad than ever — 100 million
last year, more than double the figure for 2009 — they are increasingly
reliant on their government to assist and protect them when overseas,
and they are looking for proof that it can fulfill that role.
National prestige is also a huge factor.
National prestige is also a huge factor.
Though
the U.S. remains the dominant power in the Pacific, China deeply craves
that role. Sizable chunks of its defense spending, which has grown
significantly over the past two decades to $131 billion, have been
devoted to boosting its ability to project force for both military and
humanitarian missions.
China's
Achilles' heel is its relative lack of experience, not having fought in
a major conflict since the end of the Korean War in 1953. Its leaders
have been trying to compensate with more realistic training scenarios,
including joint maritime search and rescue exercises with other nations.
Given
new clues from radar and satellite data that the missing Boeing 777
turned west and flew on for several more hours, the search has shifted
to a vast swath of land and sea stretching from the southern Indian
Ocean up to Kazakhstan. That's an area that neither China nor the U.S.
has traditionally put much emphasis on, and has forced both to rethink
their strategies.
The U.S.
Navy decided that long-range naval aircraft were a more efficient way to
search such a vast area, so will be relying on P-3 and P-8 planes,
while the two destroyers go back to normal duties.
The
mission is one of the first on the international stage for the P-8
Poseidon, one of the newest additions to the Navy's air capabilities.
The Navy touts the aircraft as the world's most advanced anti-submarine
and anti-surface ship reconnaissance plane and says it can cover 15,000
square miles (38,850 square kilometers) in a nine-hour flight.
China,
meanwhile, has sent most of its ships involved in the search toward
Singapore, where they will split into two groups, one traveling north
and the other south. They will be searching two huge blocks of ocean off
the coast of Sumatra and near the Andaman Islands — a total area of
300,000 square kilometers (186,000 square miles), or roughly three times
the area they searched in the South China Sea.
A
big problem for China is its bad blood with virtually all of its
neighbors, many of whom are key players in the search. China has
territorial disputes with India, Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam, and
many other countries in the region are wary of its efforts to exert
more control over Pacific shipping lanes that could impact their freedom
of trade.
Chinese
officials haven't done themselves any favors by criticizing Malaysia's
leadership in the search effort. Some saw that as an attempt to shift
public attention away from its own shortcomings, and Beijing's weak
military-to-military relationship with Malaysia probably exacerbated the
issue.
"Some
people say China is trying to use the mission as a way to show off its
presence, but that also means they are stepping up their efforts and
capabilities in disaster relief," said Kyouji Yanagisawa, a former
Japanese Cabinet adviser on national security. "This is a search
operation and I think it could be an opportunity to cultivate trust
among participating countries, rather than conflict."
Sunday, February 23, 2014
by Yahoo! New
Freetown (AFP) - Sierra Leone
said on Saturday it had discovered a diamond worth $6.2 million,
declaring it one of the most precious finds of the past decade.
The
stone, dug up last week in the eastern district of Kono, was measured
at 153 carats, making it significantly bigger than the largest find of
2013, a 125-carat diamond unearthed in the same area, the state-run
National Minerals Agency said.
"This
153.44-carat diamond is one of the finest diamonds to be found in
Sierra Leone in the last 10 years," the agency said in a statement.
It
was graded as D+ on the D-to-Z diamond colour scale, meaning that it
has almost no yellow tint caused by nitrogen impurities, and the agency
said it "could only be matched or surpassed by fancy diamonds such as
blue or pink in terms of price".
"The diamond is a cleavage in terms of shape and the clarity is of very high quality," the statement added.
"In
other words, this is a premium stone as a result of its colour and
clarity, and had it been an octahedron-shaped stone, it could have
almost doubled the price of $6 million."
Sierra
Leone remains one of the world's poorest countries after a brutal
11-year civil war which ended in 2002 -- a conflict that left the world
with images of feared rebel leaders armed from the sale of "blood
diamonds" recruiting drugged-up child soldiers and hacking the limbs off
thousands of civilians.
But
the country's mineral riches -- which include gold, bauxite, titanium
ore and magnetite iron-ore, as well as diamonds -- have attracted
massive investments.
Small-scale
artisanal mining has sustained the country's eastern region since
diamonds were discovered in 1930, and it was here that the 968.9-carat
Star of Sierra Leone -- the largest alluvial diamond ever found -- was
mined in 1972.
Thursday, December 5, 2013
...... fined $54,200 for flounting one-child policy, sues for basic rights.
By Sui-Lee Wee
Liu's desperation prompted a fruitless attempt to sell her kidney and her eight-year-old boy's plea to sell his instead.
Their dilemma has now triggered a rare legal battle against the police for denying the boy a "hukou" - household registration - due to strict family planning laws.
The case will be heard in a Beijing court on Friday.
Liu's inability to pay the fine has left her son, Xiaojie, without an official identity. Family planning officials in Beijing told Liu in 2011 she would not be able to obtain a "hukou" if she did not pay up.
"When I saw (the fine), I thought this was inconceivable," a tearful Liu, 41, told Reuters. "I had no idea I would be fined so much. If I had known, I would never have given birth."
Liu's ordeal underscores the punitive nature of China's family planning policy, beyond the more well-known stories of forced abortions and sterilizations, and highlights the plight of an estimated 13 million undocumented children, known as "black children".
In China, "black" implies something illegal, outside of the mainstream or unofficial. Liu asked for her and her son to be identified by pseudonyms to avoid drawing attention.
Beijing gives local governments a wide mandate to enforce the one-child policy. Even as China relaxes the rules, allowing millions of families to have a second child, government encroachment into family matters will continue. Family planning officials will still require families to apply for licenses to have children, leaving room for possible abuse.
Ma Jiantang, head of the National Bureau of Statistics, said in 2011 that in most of these cases, authorities denied children documentation because the families could not pay the family planning fines, media quoted him as saying.
In July, a 16-year-old girl in southwestern Sichuan was granted a "hukou" after she tried to kill herself by swallowing poison, media said.
"China is a country in which one is unable to move without documentation," said Yang Zhizhu, a former Beijing-based law professor, who lost his job in 2010 after he and his wife had a second daughter.
"Without a 'hukou', one cannot go to school, join the army, take an exam, get married, open a bank account or take a plane or train."
"YOU'RE LIKE A PUPPY"
On Tuesday, a group of 10 lawyers and academics sent letters to four government agencies, including the State Council, China's cabinet, and the ministry of public security, urging them to review requirements to file for a "hukou" and scrap the need for fines to be paid first.
"Without this document, you're just like a puppy or a kitten, raised at home," said Huang Yizhi, Liu's lawyer.
"This is related to a person's most fundamental right, but because she didn't pay the social support fee, the police refused to give him (Xiaojie) a hukou. I think this condition is certainly unreasonable and illegal."
The fine, known as the "social support fee", is meant to go towards the government budget to compensate for resources and public services the child would use, according to state news agency Xinhua.
But there is mounting anger at the lack of transparency as to where the fees, which amounted to more than 16.5 billion yuan ($2.7 billion) in 2012, end up, according to Wu Youshui, a lawyer based in the eastern province of Zhejiang.
Wu said local officials had told him the fines were often either returned to village and township governments as rewards, or kept by county family planning commission officials "for their own expenses".
"The less developed the area, the more dependent the government is on birth-control fines, because they have very little tax revenue," he said. "Some village and township officials have told me explicitly: 'This is how we make money.'"
Liu's legal nightmare started in 2011 when she sought out the police and family planning officials to apply for a "hukou" for Xiaojie. According to family planning officials, Liu's son is considered her third child. She had been married and divorced twice - she has a 20-year-old daughter from her first marriage and her second husband also had a son.
Liu works in the warehouse department of an air-conditioning company, earning 2,000 yuan ($330) a month. Her two ex-husbands have died and she has tried to persuade officials that she should not be fined on account of her ex-husband's child.
TRIED TO SELL HER KIDNEY IN DESPERATION
On Friday, Liu goes to court. Police and local family planning officials could not be reached for comment.
Liu said she was so desperate at one point that she tried to sell a kidney. She looked on the Internet, but was told by some would-be buyers she was too old. So Xiaojie came up with another idea.
"I went to the Family Planning Commission and said: 'My mother wants to sell her kidney'," he said in their apartment on the southern outskirts of Beijing. "I said: 'I wouldn't let my mother sell it, I'll sell my own kidney'."
Xiaojie attends a primary school close to his house which has not asked for his "hukou", though he will need it to register for high school and university.
Liu said she sought out a deputy director of the Family Planning Commission in the district of Fangshan, where she lives. He told her that her fine was the "lowest" possible.
Liu looked on the Internet for help and saw that a group of lawyers was demanding disclosure of the use of family planning fines. She got in touch with Huang, who took her case on for free. But neither Huang nor Liu is hopeful.
"After all, the court and the police are all in the same area," Huang said. "Although there should be no relationship between an independent judiciary and the administration, in reality, there is a definite link, so it's difficult to say what the result will be. I'm not very optimistic." The two-year battle has taken its toll on Liu. She said she cried every day.
"If the law is fair, I think this problem will be solved," Liu said. "But who among us dares to believe in the law now? If this doesn't work, I will appeal. If I don't succeed, I will have destroyed my son's whole life."
($1 = 6.1 yuan)
(Additional reporting by Hui Li and Beijing Newsroom; Editing by Nick Macfie)
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