The Adventures of CSE Students!

Saturday, April 5, 2008

Sudan's FM lauds China's role in solving Darfur issue
February 25, 2008
Xinhua News

Taken from: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-02/25/content_7662170.htm

Liu Guijin (L), the Chinese government's special representative for Darfur, shakes hands with Sudanese Foreign Minister Deng Alor in Khartoum, capital of Sudan, on Feb. 24, 2008.(Xinhua Photo)Photo Gallery>>>
KHARTOUM, Feb. 24 (Xinhua) -- Sudanese Foreign Minister Deng Alor Sunday said China is very much welcome in helping the country find a solution to the Darfur issue.
China is not directly involved in the Darfur conflict, but as a partner, "China is using its good relations with Sudan to help it solve the Darfur issue," Alor told reporters after a 40-minute meeting with Liu Guijin, the Chinese government's special representative for Darfur.
"There is a perception in the West that China is helping Sudan, whether directly or indirectly, (do something) against the Darfur region. And I think it is the responsibility of our government and China to change that perception," said the top Sudanese diplomat.
"China is not here to help Sudan in a way that will prompt the Darfur conflict to continue. China is here to help Sudan in issues regarding economic developments. China is here to help build Sudan, and China is engaged in business not only in the oil sector, but also other sectors," Alor said.
Commenting on some Western organizations' threat to boycott the Beijing Olympic Games, Alor said, "What they should do is to solve the Darfur issue in a right direction, instead of putting more pressure on China."
Alor expected the Beijing Olympic Games to be a success despite the pressure on China over Darfur.
Liu Guijin(C), the Chinese government's special representative for Darfur, talks with Rodolphe Adada(L), Joint Special Representative of the United Nations (UN) and African Union (AU) for Darfur, in Khartoum, capital of Sudan on Feb. 24, 2008. (Xinhua Photo)Photo Gallery>>>
The minister also reiterated that Sudan is willing to improve relations with Western countries and work with the international community to find a quick solution to the Darfur conflict.
After talks, Liu told reporters that they had had a good discussion on the Darfur issue and its settlement.
China is ready to further cooperation with Sudan, the United Nations, the African Union, regional countries and all parties concerned to find a long-term and proper solution to the Darfur issue, said the Chinese envoy.
Liu said the peacekeeping task conducted by the hybrid U.N. and African Union (AU) force in Darfur has already achieved some progress, which is largely neglected by the Western media.
The envoy said people in Darfur have suffered too long, urging all parties involved in the conflict to find a quick solution.
Liu Guijin (L), the Chinese government's special representative for Darfur, and Sudanese Foreign Minister Deng Alor attend a press conference in Khartoum, capital of Sudan on Feb. 24, 2008. (Xinhua Photo)Photo Gallery>>>
"We need a quick solution. We need the conflict in Darfur to end sooner," he said.
Liu also held consultations with Foreign Ministry Under-Secretary Mutrif Siddig.
After a trip to Britain, Liu arrived here Sunday for a four-day visit, the fourth since his appointment on May 10, 2007.
The former Chinese ambassador to Zimbabwe and South Africa has been engaged in African affairs for more than 25 years. During his previous missions, Liu shuttled between the United States, Britain, Egypt and other countries concerned to seek support for a solution to the Darfur issue.

Comments by Elaine: After reading this article, I find that is a biased view that favours China. As the report is made by the local Xinhua news agency, it is understandable that they publish such pro-China articles. The article states that China is helping Sudan economically and not prompting the Darfur conflict. While, foreign sources have stated that China has supplied Sudan with weapons and aircraft in a bid to obtain natural resources, namely oil. However, some may also say that reports by the foreign media are similarly biased against China and may be classified as “China-bashing”. Therefore, it is important to question both sides of the story on the Darfur Conflict and their respective motives.

Labels: articles, Darfur conflict, posted by elaine

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Tuesday, April 1, 2008

China's Curious Olympic Terror Threat
Monday, Mar. 10, 2008
By Simon Elegant/Beijing

Taken from:
http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1720909,00.html

The dramatic news came in the midst of China's staid and boring annual legislature: a terrorist hijacking plot, perhaps meant to mar the coming Olympic Games, had been stopped. Security forces had thwarted a plot to "create an air disaster," Nur Bekri, chairman of the Xinjiang regional government, told reporters at the ongoing session of the National People's Congress (NPC). Apparently, on Mar. 7, a hijacking attempt by separatists from the Muslim-majority province of Xinjiang had been foiled. Initial reports stated that China Southern flight CZ6901 had made an emergency landing in the northwestern city of Lanzhou at about 12:40 p.m. after an apparent attempt to blow up the aircraft. The plane was en route from the Xinjiang capital Urumqi for Beijing.
The news however has been met with considerable skepticism outside China, particularly since details of the incident remain confusingly murky. According to the English-language China Daily, Bekri declined to give more details, only saying that the authorities are investigating "who the attackers are, where they are from and what their background is... But we can be sure that this was a case intending to create an air crash." Some details began to emerge later of between two and four hijackers, possibly carrying gasoline. But concrete information remained elusive.
Russell Leigh Moses, a China analyst based in Beijing, says that affair clearly provided the authorities with an opportunity to reiterate that the rulers of the People's Republic would brook no resistance to their will in troubled areas like Xinjiang and Tibet. It parallels a growing security crackdown on public interest lawyers, activists and other dissenting voices. Says Moses: "It's not what a lot of people outside China expected from the Games. I think there has been a conscious decision at the highest levels of the party that showing some teeth for deterrence sake is much more domestically viable than marching off into the unknown of reform and relaxation."
The paucity of details and the apparent laxness with which Chinese security officials treated the hijacking incident were particularly curious to Steven Tsang, a China specialist at St. Anthony's College, Oxford University. He noted that among the numerous anomalies in the accounts of the incident, the most glaring was that after stopping in Lanzhou, the airplane had apparently been allowed to continue its scheduled flight to Beijing. "This is more like an air rage incident in which you land and get rid of the troublesome passengers and then continue on to your destination. There's no way any anti-terrorism police would have released the plane and passengers to fly on without extensive interviews of the passengers, forensic examination of the plane and so on." Tsang also noted that it was particularly easy to blame a shadowy Islamic separatists movement in the build-up to the Beijing Olympics, possibly as a deterrent to those or any other groups who might want to disrupt the Games.
Some observers also wondered at the timing of the announcement — coming as it did smack in the middle of the annual session of the NPC, when media attention is focused on the capital. "This is exactly the kind of thing that happens around the time of the National People's Congress," says Russell Leigh Moses of the China Center in Beijing. "Cadres who don't necessarily get noticed a lot normally want to be seen as publicly carrying out the orders of the central government."
Indeed, if there is anything that will get the attention of the central government, it is the threat of terrorism. Chinese officials routinely declare that terrorism is "the greatest threat to the Olympic Games," as Minister of Public Security Zhou Youngkang put it last year. China's security forces exercise iron control and virtually unchecked powers. And yet the paranoia persists, stoked over the weekend by the Xinjiang delegation to the NPC. Bekri was not alone in making his announcement. Xinjiang Party Secretary Wang Lequan joined in the tough talk: "Terrorists, saboteurs and splittists are to be battered resolutely, no matter what ethnic group they are from."
The alleged attempt to blow up an airliner is the latest in a series of incidents relating to Xinjiang that have been made public in recent months. In January, the Chinese authorities said they had broken up a group calling itself East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), killing two and arresting 15 others. Chinese media suggested the group might have ties to al-Qaeda. Last November, Chinese media carried stories detailing death sentences against five ethnic Uighurs, natives of Xinjiang, for allegedly plotting terrorist activities. Chinese authorities say a small group of separatists is attempting to overthrow Chinese rule in the province and establish an independent Uighur state. The Lanzhou incident is bound to increase scrutiny and repression of Uighur dissent — with a Chinese public eager and concerned for a successful Olympics likely to be supportive of any new crackdown.

Comments by Elaine: This article is interesting as it focuses on the current issue of the war against terror. This is an especially glaring issue for China with the upcoming 2008 Olympics. Like the article states it is important to note that this “terror threat” was publicized during the NPC session and could be seen as a political move and also to deter any trouble makers who may want to disrupt the games in August. However, another point of view would be to question why is there Uyghur dissent in the first place? As we have studied in the “transnational issues” topic last year, it is the separatists who want to attain independence for Xinjiang using both violent and peaceful means. It is important to consider the Uyghurs relations with Beijing. Have they deteriorated to the point that the Uyghurs have to resort to terrorist means to get what they want? But then again, not all Uyghurs wish to establish an independent state, some just wish for more autonomy or for assimilation. Thus, we should not take everything at face value and should sometimes question further.

Labels: articles, posted by elaine, Uyghur, war on terror

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Monday, March 31, 2008

Wikipedia defies China's censors
September 10, 2006
David Smith and Jo Revill The Observer,

Taken from:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2006/sep/10/news.china/print

The founder of Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia written by its users, has defied the Chinese government by refusing to bow to censorship of politically sensitive entries.
Jimmy Wales, one of the 100 most influential people in the world according to Time magazine, challenged other internet companies, including Google, to justify their claim that they could do more good than harm by co-operating with Beijing.
Wikipedia, a hugely popular reference tool in the West, has been banned from China since last October. Whereas Google, Microsoft and Yahoo went into the country accepting some restrictions on their online content, Wales believes it must be all or nothing for Wikipedia.
His stand comes as Irrepressible.info, a joint campaign by The Observer and Amnesty International for free speech on the web, continues with the support of more than 37,000 people around the world. The campaign calls on governments to stop persecuting political bloggers and on IT companies to stop complying with these repressive regimes.
'We're really unclear why we would be [banned],' Wales told The Observer. 'We have internal rules about neutrality and deleting personal attacks and things like this. We're far from being a haven for dissidents or a protest site. So our view is that the block is in error and should be removed, but we shall see.'
Wales said censorship was ' antithetical to the philosophy of Wikipedia. We occupy a position in the culture that I wish Google would take up, which is that we stand for the freedom for information, and for us to compromise I think would send very much the wrong signal: that there's no one left on the planet who's willing to say "You know what? We're not going to give up."'
Wikipedia's entry on the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 includes the government's official claim that 200-300 died and the Chinese student associations and Chinese Red Cross's estimate of 2,000-3,000 deaths.
Wales said: 'I think it's an interesting question whether they're prepared to understand the difference between advocating one set of figures or another versus simply reporting on what the controversy is. I can understand that they would be upset - although of course I still don't think they have any moral right to ban anything - if we were pushing one set of figures in contrast to their objections, but if we are reporting both, to me that's exactly what an encyclopaedia should do and they should be comfortable with that.'
Wales will meet senior Chinese officials in an attempt to persuade them to allow the website's 1.3 million articles to appear there uncensored.
'One of the points that I'm trying to push is that if there's a small town in China that has a wonderful local tradition, that won't make its way into Wikipedia because the people of China are not allowed to share their knowledge with the world. I think that's an ironic side-effect and something the people in the censorship department need to have a much bigger awareness of: you're not just preventing information about Falun Gong or whatever you're upset about getting into China, you're preventing the Chinese people speaking to the world.'
The Irrepressible.info website will allow visitors next week to access and distribute censored content.
The campaign
Since Amnesty International launched Irrepressible.info with The Observer on 28 May 2006:
· More than 37,000 people around the world have signed the pledge calling on all governments and companies to ensure the internet is a force for political freedom, not repression. They include Coldplay's Chris Martin, dotcom entrepreneur Martha Lane Fox, Bob Geldof and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
· The House of Commons foreign affairs select committee has condemned Google, Microsoft and Yahoo's co-operation with the Chinese government as 'morally unacceptable'.
· Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, has said that the company compromised its principles by accepting Chinese censorship. He said it was 'a set of rules that we weren't comfortable with.'
· Members of the US Congress have championed the Global Online Freedom Act in a bid to stop major internet companies co-operating with regimes that restrict free expression, including Belarus, China, Cuba, Ethiopia, Iran, Laos, North Korea, Tunisia and Vietnam.
Go to Irrepressible.info to join

Labels: articles, posted by elaine, wikipedia

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Chinese Air Pollution Deadliest in World, Report Says
July 9, 2007
Kevin Holden Platt in Beijing, China for National Geographic News

Taken from: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/pf/80743027.html

China, the world's fastest growing economy, has earned another startling superlative: the highest annual incidence of premature deaths triggered by air pollution in the world, according to a new study.
A World Health Organization (WHO) report estimates that diseases triggered by indoor and outdoor air pollution kill 656,000 Chinese citizens each year, and polluted drinking water kills another 95,600. (Related: "China's Pollution Leaving Mountains High and Dry, Study Finds" [March 8, 2007].)"
Air pollution is estimated to cause approximately two million premature deaths worldwide per year," said Michal Krzyzanowski, an air quality adviser at the WHO Regional Office for Europe. Krzyzanowski worked with WHO to look at costs and casualties of pollution across the globe. He helped the group develop new air quality guidelines that set out global goals to reduce deaths from pollution.
Deadly Air
Damaging air pollutants include sulfur dioxide, particulate matter—a mixture of extremely small particles and water droplets—ozone, and nitrogen dioxide. China accounts for roughly one-third of the global total for these pollutants, according to Krzyzanowski. (See a map of China.)
In neighboring India, air pollution is believed to cause 527,700 fatalities a year. In the United States, premature deaths from toxic air pollutants are estimated at 41,200 annually.
The combustion of fossil fuels—whether to power China's many automobiles, its burgeoning factories, or its expanding megacities—is a primary source of outdoor air pollutants.
The burning of coal or charcoal to heat homes, common throughout China, also produces a range of indoor air pollutants. (Related: "China's Boom Is Bust for Global Environment, Study Warns" [May 16, 2005].)
Air pollution can trigger or worsen a wide spectrum of respiratory and cardiovascular ailments. WHO's air guidelines warn that pregnant women, the elderly, the sick, and young children are especially susceptible to suffering severe effects from high pollution levels.
Suppressed Information?
The total number of Chinese whose lives are cut short by pollution-triggered diseases aligns closely with the figures that were reportedly left out of a recent World Bank study.
China's State Environmental Protection Agency engineered the removal of the statistics, the Financial Times reported, because the government feared the figures could trigger social unrest. The World Bank is perceived as a staunch ally to China. The organization has committed roughly 40 billion U.S. dollars, along with expert advice, to projects ranging from rural poverty alleviation to promoting sustainable development.
Yet Internet access to certain World Bank reports on China is now being blocked in Beijing.
An official at the World Bank's headquarters in Washington, D.C.—speaking anonymously for fear of worsening the controversy—said the World Bank is still holding talks with the Chinese government on the final version of the pollution risk report, which is set to be published soon. "After the [state environmental protection] agency raised questions about our methodology in calculating them, figures on the likely number of deaths per year related to air and water pollution were not included in the draft report—but remain under discussion for the final report," the bank official said.
Reducing Deaths
WHO leaders, meanwhile, say that meeting new targets on clean air, developed in consultation with 80 environmental health experts across the globe, would drastically curtail the number of Chinese pollution deaths.
"The air quality guidelines for the first time address all regions of the world and provide uniform targets for air quality," said WHO's Krzyzanowski.
"These targets are far tougher than the national standards currently applied in many parts of the world—and in some cities would mean reducing current pollution levels by more than three-fold," he added.
Chen Bingheng, a member of the WHO six-country steering committee that developed the new guidelines, said she was recently invited to explain them to leaders of China's environmental protection agency.
Yet Chen, a professor at Fudan University's School of Public Health in Shanghai, added that the guidelines are not legally binding. WHO member states, including China, are free to set their own national standards.
Still, the Chinese capital has a massive incentive to improve air quality for the smog-smothered masses: Beijing pledged to present pristine skies, waterways, and cityscapes during its bid to host the 2008 Olympics.

Labels: air pollution, articles, posted by elaine

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CORRECTED: China says one-child policy helps protect climate
By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent

Taken from: http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USL3047203920070830

VIENNA (Reuters) - China says its one-child policy has helped the fight against global warming by avoiding 300 million births, the equivalent of the population of the United States.
But delegates at U.N. climate change talks in Vienna said on Thursday birth control is unlikely to find favor as a major policy theme, partly because of opposition by the Catholic Church and some developing nations trying to increase their population.
Some scientists say that birth control measures far less draconian than China's are wrongly overlooked in the fight against climate change, when the world population is projected to soar to about 9 billion by 2050 from 6.6 billion now.
"Population is clearly an important factor," said Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, at U.N. talks trying to plan a new deal to combat climate change after 2012.
China, which rejects criticism that it is doing too little to confront climate change, says that its population is now 1.3 billion against 1.6 billion if it had not imposed tough birth control measures in the late 1970s.
The number of births avoided equals the entire population of the United States. Beijing says that fewer people means less demand for energy and lower emissions of heat-trapping gases from burning fossil fuels.
"This is only an illustration of the actions we have taken," said Su Wei, a senior Foreign Ministry official heading China's delegation to the 158-nation talks from Aug 27-31.
He told Reuters that Beijing was not arguing that its policy was a model for others to follow in a global drive to avert ever more chaotic weather patterns, droughts, floods, erosion and rising ocean levels.
But avoiding 300 million births "means we averted 1.3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2005" based on average world per capital emissions of 4.2 tonnes, he said.
GERMANY
A country emitting 1.3 billion tonnes a year would rank just ahead of Germany on a global list of emitters behind only the United States, China, Russia, India and Japan.
Beijing introduced its one-child policy in the late 1970s. The rules vary across the country but usually limit families to one or, at most two, children.
"Population has not been taken seriously enough in the climate debate," said Chris Rapley, incoming head of the Science Museum in London.
He favors a greater drive for education about family planning to avoid unwanted births and slow population growth.
But tougher birth control runs into opposition from the Roman Catholic Church, and from some developing nations which favor rising birth rates and have per capita emissions a fraction of those in rich nations.
Harlan Watson, the chief U.S. negotiator, said that high immigration to the United States makes it harder to slow its rising emissions.
"It's simple arithmetic," he said. "If you look at mid-century, Europe will be at 1990 levels of population while ours will be nearing 60 percent above 1990 levels. So population does matter," he said.

Comments by Elaine: I do agree that population is an important factor that affects the environment in terms of population-resource ratio and the sustainable development of the world. But, for environmental conservation to come at the expense of human rights, as in China’s case, may be too extreme. This may be the case should the UN implement population control policies, such as China’s OCP, on developing countries. Not to mention the political backlash likely to occur if the policies affect dominantly Roman Catholic countries. Therefore, I would say that population control policies, in an attempt to conserve the environment is not the wisest path to take and like all things moderation and balance is key.

Labels: articles, climate change, one child policy, posted by elaine

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