China’s quake calms Olympic controversies

By CHARLES HUTZLER, Associated Press Writer

BEIJING - China’s deadliest earthquake in a generation has jarred Chinese who expected to be reveling in anticipation of the Beijing Olympics. In less dramatic ways, the disaster is shifting perceptions between China and the world, deflating the contentiousness building around the games.
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Newspaper front pages and all-news television around the world have filled with sympathetic coverage since the quake battered a vast, mountainous area, killing tens of thousands. The authoritarian Chinese government’s rapid, full-throttle rescue and the unprecedented flow of news it has allowed have enabled ordinary Chinese and foreigners to share in the immense tragedy.

A haze of pollution hangs over China’s National Stadium, known as the bird’s nest, the main venue for the Beijing Olympics beginning Aug. 8. (By Greg Baker - Associated Press)

More than just knocking bad press about the Beijing games out of the news, the disaster has given China and the world a chance to reassess.

Foreign audiences, especially in the West, are empathizing with the Chinese perhaps more than any at time since democracy demonstrators occupied Tiananmen Square 19 years ago. At the same time, the quake’s devastation has diminished the importance for Chinese of Olympics in August and the accolades from abroad that a spectacular Games was supposed to bring.

“This is a turning point. We’re seeing a reconciliation,” said Wenran Jiang, a Chinese politics expert at the University of Alberta.

People donate money for Sichuan earthquake victims at Shanghai Red Cross office Wednesday May 14, 2008 in Shanghai, China. The government’s high-gear response aimed to reassure Chinese while showing the world it was capable of handling the disaster and was ready for the Aug. 8-24 Olympics in Beijing. Although the government said it welcomed outside aid, officials said it would accept only money and supplies, not foreign personnel.(AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

Foreign leaders are sending condolences and aid, instead of discussing boycotts of the Olympics.

The atmosphere is markedly less rancorous than a few weeks ago when an uprising by Tibetans against China’s rule and rowdy protests overseas against the Olympic torch relay seemed to expose vast differences in the ways Chinese and foreigners viewed the world.

For Chinese, the Olympics was supposed to be a crowning moment, signifying China’s full acceptance by the international community after decades of isolation and then decades of economic catch-up. The government gave it a grandiose buildup, running the torch to all corners of the globe and the top of Mount Everest.

For foreigners, China’s suppression of the Tibet protests brought reminders of the military’s crushing of the 1989 Tiananmen protests, dashing hopes that awarding Beijing the Olympics had inspired tolerance and change.

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Activists press Cambodian lawmakers for anti-corruption law

PHNOM PENH - (AP)  CAMBODIAN social activists presented evidence of widespread support as they pressed lawmakers on Friday to take concrete steps to enact a long-awaited law to combat corruption in the impoverished Southeast Asian country.

Describing themselves as a coalition against corruption, they presented a petition to parliament after collecting more than 1 million thumbprints and signatures from people in support of their anti-graft drive.

Corruption ‘has been occurring almost everywhere and at every hour, and there is no sign that would lead us to believe it will slow down’, said the petition of the Coalition of Civil Society Organisations against Corruption, which comprises more than 40 nonprofit groups.

It said corruption is ‘getting worse gradually’ while legislation needed to fight it has remained mired in draft form for 15 years.

‘Without even starting to enact the law, corruption will surely not decrease, and corrupt individuals will continue quietly sucking away the nation’s wealth,’ the petition said.

The coalition said it has collected 1,098,163 thumbprints and signatures since it began its nationwide campaign last November.

About 100 campaigners hauled the petitions to Parliament in 12 bundles. Security guards prevented them from bringing in all the forms, allowing only 10 activists in to deliver a three-page petition to a parliamentary office.

‘We accepted the petition but not the copies of the thumbprints and signatures. Their quantity is huge, and we do not have space for storing them,’ said Khuon Sodary, chairwoman of the parliamentary committee for human rights and reception of complaints.

The activists claimed symbolic success in making their case on behalf of the public.

Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government has been persistently slammed by foreign aid donors and other critics for failing to tackle corruption. In 2007, Cambodia was ranked 162nd among 179 countries in a survey by Berlin-based Transparency International, a non-governmental group tracking corruption worldwide.

Collapsed buildings show construction flaws

By Elaine Kurtenbach and William Foreman
Associated Press
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DUJIANGYAN, China - Modern apartment buildings and schools crumbled, smoothly paved highways buckled and bridges collapsed - their flimsy construction no match for the awesome forces of nature.

As the death toll soars from the powerful earthquake that ravaged China’s Sichuan province, the scale of the devastation is raising questions about the quality of China’s recent construction boom.

 

“This building is just a piece of junk,” one newly homeless resident of Dujiangyan yelled Wednesday, her body quivering with rage. Her family salvaged clothing and mementos from their wrecked apartment, built when their older home was razed 10 years ago.

“The government tricked us. It told us this building was well constructed. But look at the homes all around us, they’re still standing,” said the woman, who would give only her surname, Chen.

Three decades of high-paced growth have remade China, with stunning showcase metropolises like Beijing and Shanghai as well as formerly tiny county towns that are now small cities with office towers and multi-storey apartment buildings.

But as the widespread devastation from Monday’s quake shows, the pell-mell pace has led some builders to cut corners, especially in outlying areas largely populated by the very young and the very old.

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Philippines: rice prices softening amid Japan offer, bumper crops

MANILA (AFP) - The Philippines, one of the world’s largest rice importers, said Friday prices are softening after Japan offered to sell rice to Manila amid news of bumper world harvests for 2008.
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Large tenders by the Philippines to fill its expected 2008 production gap of up to 2.7 million tonnes have helped drive up prices by 76 percent between December 2007 and April 2008, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation.

A Bangladesh vendor sells rice from his market stall. The Philippines, one of the world’s largest rice importers, said Friday prices are softening after Japan offered to sell rice to Manila amid news of bumper world harvests for 2008.(AFP/File/Farjana Khan Godhuly)

However, the government’s grain procurement arm, the National Food Authority (NFA), has seen prices in the international market ease, NFA spokesman Tom Escarez told AFP.

“Prices spike every time we have a large tender. The market became quiet after the tender for 675,000 tonnes failed and the market realised we were not in a hurry,” he added.

A letter from Tokyo informing Manila that between 40,000 and 60,000 tonnes of Japanese rice is available also apparently helped calm the market, Escarez said.

The official said the two governments are currently negotiating the manner by which the supply will be procured, which he said would most probably be in the form of a soft loan or a negotiated supply contract.

The Philippines also expects some supplies to be offered from Pakistan when the NFA holds its next tender for about 200,000 tonnes early next month, he said.

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Europe against leaders’ presence at Olympics

By Stephen Fidler
Financial Times
May 17, 2008

More Europeans do not want their leaders to attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games than do, with the strongest opposition coming from France and Germany, according to an opinion poll carried out for the Financial Times.

The Financial Times/Harris poll shows that 54 per cent of French people and 55 per cent of Germans oppose their leaders going to the opening on August. 8. Support for attendance in both countries runs at a little less than 30 per cent.
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Opposition is strong in Italy, where 48 per cent oppose attendance and 32 per cent support it, and in Britain, where 43 per cent oppose and 25 per cent favour Gordon Brown’s presence. The view is more balanced in Spain, where 39 per cent oppose and 35 per cent favour José Luis Zapatero going. In Japan, 45 per cent oppose the attendance of Yasuo Fukuda, the prime minister, 10 percentage points more than favour it.

The opinions appear correlated with knowledge about recent protests against China’s rule over Tibet.

In France, 84 per cent of people said they had heard a lot about the protests, while 16 per cent had heard a little. In Germany, 51 per cent had heard a lot and 44 per cent a little. In China, 46 per cent of people had heard a lot about the protests and 50 per cent a little.

According to the poll, a majority of Europeans believes Tibet should not be under Chinese rule, ranging from 53 per cent in Britain to about three-quarters in Germany and Italy.

Sixty-nine per cent of Japanese thought Tibet should not be governed by China.

A majority of Europeans also believes that human rights should be a central feature of foreign policy. But support in Britain (53 per cent) is weaker than in other European countries polled. In France, Italy and Germany, 80 per cent or more of people support the notion and 77 per cent do in Spain.

Backing for that idea is also weaker in Japan, where 56 per cent see human rights as a central plank of foreign policy and in China, where 45 per cent take that view.

The poll was conducted online by Harris Interactive among more than 1,000 adults in each country. Harris does not estimate the poll’s margin of error, arguing that to do so would be misleading.

 

Will Gas Prices Go Down? What Do You Think?

By John E. Carey
Peace and Freedom

Most American newspapers faulted President Bush for his apparent inability to convince Saudi Arabia to supply the U.S. with more oil at a lower price.

But the oil situation and price are not just U.S. issues. When viewed from the Saudi perspective, a request by the President of the United States for more oil at a lower price makes no economic sense.

 The combined populations of China and India makes a number of potential customers eight times that of the U.S. And many of these Indians and Chinese are upwardly mobile which means they use more oil and oil related products each year.

Add to that unforeseen emergencies such as the earthquake in China. China now is thirst for fuel: especially diesel fuel. They will pay whatever it takes to feed tractors, cranes, big rigs and other heavy equipment for the next several months.

And from the Saudi perspective, I’d be asking the President of the United States why the holder of the world’s 5th largest in-ground oil reserves refuses to drill for it’s own oil?

Americans are now paying at the pump for long-term Congressional commitment to a refusal to drill and prohibitively burdensome rules which make it economic suicide for an oil company to build a new refinery. The end result is, the big companies like Exxon Mobile are not drilling in the U.S. to any great extent and not one refinery is being built in the U.S.

Treasury Secretary Paulson told a group on Friday, May 16, 2008, that the flow of dollars for oil from the U.S. and into the coffers of other nations is perhaps the number one problem with the U.S. economy.

The press is largely uncaring or just uninformed on this issue: demonizing the oil companies.

Most American newspapers and media pundits write President Bush off as some stupid jerk on all issues. But he is a Texas oil man as I recall.

This is what he said today before he left the middle east: “Our problem in America gets solved when we aggressively go for domestic exploration. Our problem in America gets solved if we expand our refining capacity, promote nuclear energy and continue our strategy for the advancing of alternative energies as well as conservation.”

“One interesting thing about American politics these days is those who are screaming the loudest for increased production from Saudi Arabia are the very same people who are fighting the fiercest against domestic exploration, against the development of nuclear power and against expanding refining capacity,” said President Bush.

I’m sorry for those who disagree. But if I was a Saudi, I’d charge what the market would bear.

And I wouldn’t give more for less to the U.S. if China and India would pay more for less.

Saudi oil output hike would not solve US problems: Bush

AFP — US President George W. Bush said on Saturday that a hike in oil output by Saudi Arabia would not solve American energy problems.

“It’s not enough, it’s something but it doesn’t solve our problem,” Bush told reporters in Egypt’s Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

Bush said he was “pleased” with a Saudi decision taken on May 10 to increase its oil production by 300,000 barrels per day in response to customers, but said that he was “also realistic” about what the Americans should do.

“Our problem in America gets solved when we aggressively go for domestic exploration. Our problem in America gets solved if we expand our refining capacity, promote nuclear energy and continue our strategy for the advancing of alternative energies as well as conservation,” he said.

“One interesting thing about American politics these days is those who are screaming the loudest for increased production from Saudi Arabia are the very same people who are fighting the fiercest against domestic exploration, against the development of nuclear power and against expanding refining capacity.”

Bush was in Egypt for talks with Palestinian leaders and to address the Middle East World Economic Forum which brings together 1,500 people, including heads of state, business leaders and ministers from 55 countries.

World turns up heat on Myanmar

YANGON (AFP) - Frustrated world leaders tightened the pressure on Myanmar on Saturday, raising the allegation of crimes against humanity over the regime’s slow-moving response to the cyclone disaster.
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US President George W. Bush extended sanctions on Myanmar while British Prime Minister Gordon Brown denounced the junta’s “inhuman” treatment of around two million survivors battling to stay alive two weeks after the storm hit.

People affected by Cyclone Nargis gather for food donation on the outskirts of Yangon. Frustrated world leaders have tightened the pressure on Myanmar, raising the allegation of crimes against humanity over the regime’s slow-moving response to the cyclone disaster.(AFP/Khin Maung Win)

With the toll of dead and missing now 134,000, the pressure appeared to mark a shift in tactics in the face of the junta’s reluctance to allow a full-scale emergency effort, despite fears of more deaths from hunger or disease.

“We have an intolerable situation created by a natural disaster,” Brown, whose country was the colonial power when Myanmar was known as Burma, told the BBC.

“It is being made into a man-made catastrophe by the negligence, the neglect and the inhuman treatment of the Burmese people by a regime that is failing to act and to allow the international community to do what it wants to do.”

Wary of any foreign influence that could weaken its 46 years of iron rule in Myanmar, the junta has insisted on managing the operation itself and kept most international disaster experts away.

But aid groups say the government cannot possibly handle the tragedy by itself, with hundreds of tonnes of supplies and high-tech equipment piling up in warehouses, bottle-necked by logistics and other problems.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu wrote to Brown, Bush and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, calling on the UN Security Council to authorise aid drops over the objections of the generals.

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China Opens Up a Crack In Policy “Due To Earthquake”

By Peter M. Herford
The Washington Times
Saturday, May 17, 2008; Page A17

SHANTOU, China — A small group of doctors and nurses just left for Chengdu loaded down with medicines to help in the aftermath of Monday’s earthquake. This scene of homegrown assistance has been repeated all over China, because every Chinese knows the agonizing details of the story. Shantou is nearly 1,200 miles from the earthquake’s epicenter. The ground here did not shake. But people feel the aftermath. This was a national event like no other in Chinese history because this one is on TV, in newspapers, on radio, and in the minds and hearts of every Chinese.

All media in China are owned by the government, and news coverage has long been controlled by the Communist Party. News is chosen by the propaganda ministry for what the ministry considers to be the benefit of society.

This time, the news flow is different. It is following the natural contours of the tragedy.

Traditionally in China, information about disasters has been suppressed, or the disasters have been played down. Five years ago, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) was not a concern until the World Health Organization convinced new President Hu Jintao that he could not hide a pandemic that threatened the world. As recently as last month, the site of a train wreck with heavy loss of life was sealed off from foreign reporters, and coverage of the event was tempered in the domestic media.

But when the earthquake struck on Monday, we were instantly informed. We soon knew that Premier Wen Jiabao, the national consoler and go-to man during emergencies, headed for Sichuan province immediately, that he was directing the rescue efforts and cheering workers on with a bullhorn. We watched as tens of thousands of People’s Liberation Army troops were mobilized. All of that might have been reported under the old rules — but this time the national and foreign press corps followed rescuers to Chengdu and began an unprecedented stream of reporting. CCTV, the national network, has been broadcasting nonstop, often live from the disaster area. The images are horrific, as are many stories. Foreign reporters, usually barred from such events, have moved entire bureau staffs to Sichuan. Xinhua, the national news agency, has been pouring forth more reports than the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse combined. All have reporters in the field, working around the clock.

What made China decide to give the world an inside view of this tragedy and, more important, give the Chinese people the details of a story that would have been controlled in the past.

Theories abound. Coverage of the riots that began in Tibet this spring was carefully managed in Chinese media. The demonstrations that followed the Olympic torch around the world were invisible in Chinese media, and the country’s image suffered. That experience may have prompted national leaders to show a compassionate face and move quickly to help after the earthquake.

The Burmese junta that continues to stonewall assistance for that country’s even greater natural disaster is a lesson in international shame not lost on the Chinese leadership.

China’s traditional reluctance to admit foreign aid workers has shifted. The government is accepting expert help from its Asian neighbors, including Japan.

The earth is shifting in China in more ways than geologic.

The Internet has opened the flow of information here. The same technology the government has promoted as a way to bring education and intellectual resources to an undereducated population has also been a vehicle for challenging censorship. Today, there are far fewer secrets than in the past. News appears on the Internet within minutes of breaking, and state media are often forced to follow.

Consider the 2005 case of a tainted water supply. The city of Harbin’s 5 million inhabitants were told to drink only bottled water but were not told why. The news that a chemical factory had exploded upstream from the city was suppressed in the local media. Internet messages revealed the pollution in the region’s main river, and, soon, municipal and provincially controlled media outlets had to tell the story.

These shifts have produced a tug of war in the propaganda ministry between traditionalists, who want to maintain control and suppress bad news, and reformers, who — while not advocating unrestricted media — see the need to accept the new realities of the Internet and the blogosphere. The government maintains as much control as it can by blocking the sites from which it fears direct attacks on the government and leadership.

When I came to China five years ago, I could not read The Post online during the annual National People’s Congress. News of the many coal mine accidents that make mining in China the world’s most perilous occupation went unreported by state media. Gradually, those veils have been lifted. I now read about the National People’s Congresses during the meetings. Increasingly, when it comes to such events as the riots in Tibet or the earthquake in Chengdu, the flow of news is at least a trickle. A bright spot in this tragedy is the free flow of information about the disaster. It’s been hard to get here, but I hope it’s harder to turn back.

The writer teaches journalism at Shantou University.

China shows a human face with earthquake rescue mission

By Con Coughlin
The Telegraph

What a difference an earthquake makes. One minute, China is being roundly condemned for its appalling human rights record and its brutal suppression of the Tibetan people; the next, it is being showered with praise for its compassionate and well-disciplined response to the catastrophe in Sichuan.
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Suddenly, all the sourness generated by the manhandling of protesters attempting to disrupt the worldwide procession of the Olympic torch has been set aside. It has been replaced by shock at the heart-rending images of grief-stricken Chinese mothers collapsing after discovering the mangled bodies of their children recovered from the rubble-strewn remains of their school.

 
 China’s Premier Wen Jiabao comforts earthquake survivors in Muyu Township of Qingchuan County, Sichuan province, May 15, 2008 in this picture distributed by China’s official Xinhua News Agency. Picture taken May 15, 2008.
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Far from being a member of the remote and autocratic regime that is normally portrayed as governing the world’s most populous country, Wen Jiabao, China’s personable prime minister, has appeared repeatedly on television lending comfort and support to the survivors, making sure, as Caroline Flint might say, that Beijing is seen to be on the people’s side.
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The efficiency with which the rulers have responded to the massive destruction has been impressive. The 50,000 troops dispatched to Wenchuan, the earthquake’s epicentre, have made an immediate impact in helping to rescue trapped survivors and distributing vital food and medical supplies. The operation has been well-managed, with airports closed to civilian traffic so as not to impede relief flights. Television bulletins broadcast appeals for blood donations, and priority has been given to restoring electricity and clearing roads.

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