China Plans to End Nomadic Life:
A U.S.-based rights group has hit out at plans by the Chinese government to force three ethnic minority groups to abandon the last traces of their nomadic lifestyles in the next three years.
"The Chinese Government continues to aggressively pursue and expand its national project for displacing nomadic herders off their traditional lands and resettling them in agricultural and urban areas," the Southern Mongolia Human Rights Information Center (SMHRIC) said in an e-mailed statement on Tuesday.
Citing a statement posted on the official website of China's central government, the group said it marked "a major and seemingly final step toward eliminating the remaining population of nomad herders and eradicating the thousands of years-old nomadic way of life in China."
SMHRIC, which campaigns for the rights of ethnic Mongols in China's Inner Mongolia region, said the resettlement policies would affect nomadic herders in the troubled northwestern region of Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, and Tibet.
It said the statement confirmed Beijing's determination "to permanently end the nomadic way of life of these regions."
"The Party Central Committee and the State Council have especially emphasized the socio-economic development of pastoral areas, bringing a remarkable improvement to the herders’ living conditions and mode of production, causing the majority of herders to be resettled in static locations," the government announcement said.
It said China's 12th Five-Year Plan aims to resettle the remaining nomad population of 1.157 million people by 2015.
Broken commitments
SMHRIC said these policies violate China's obligations under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).
According to the Declaration, "indigenous peoples shall not be forcibly removed from their lands or territories."
Experts say that deep-seated cultural ties to the grasslands and traditional nomadic ways of life lay behind a wave of protests that swept across Inner Mongolia in May 2011.
Chinese authorities poured armed police and security forces into Inner Mongolia to contain protests sparked by the death of a herdsman from the Shiliin-Gol (in Chinese, Xilin Meng) region who was run over during clashes with mine company trucks.
Thousands of students were locked in campuses at major schools, colleges, and universities in the regional capital, Hohhot, following demonstrations by hundreds of ethnic minority Mongolians across the region.
Mongolian commentators said the protests reflect a deep and widespread anger over continuing exploitation of the region's grasslands, the heartland of Mongol culture
Environmental destruction
Environmentalists point to large-scale environmental destruction in Inner Mongolian regions where mining is taking place, as well as to more subtle ecological pressures in other areas.
Open-cast, or strip, mining is one of the most environmentally destructive forms of mining, destroying the surface ecosystem over a wide area and releasing pollutants into the air.
Ethnic Mongolians, who make up almost 20 percent of Inner Mongolia's 23 million population, complain of destruction and unfair development policies in the region, which is China's largest producer of coal. The overwhelming majority of the residents are Han Chinese.
Ninety percent of China's 400 million hectares (988 million acres) of grassland now show some degree of environmental degradation, according to official figures, and the government has pointed to over-grazing by nomads as a key contributing factor.
Last year, Beijing rolled out a slew of tax breaks and funding for enterprises in rural areas that implement environmentally friendly programs and technological innovations in the field.
But SMHRIC and other overseas campaigners have said that Chinese authorities and companies are continuing to exploit the grassland in spite of slogans like "grassland protection" and "economic growth."
Reported by Luisetta Mudie.
Jun 5, 2012
Security Tight in Beijing, Urumqi
Security Tight in Beijing, Urumqi:
Security remained tight in some parts of the Chinese capital on Tuesday, a day after the sensitive anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen military crackdown, as authorities continued their clampdown on any attempt at public commemoration of those who died, local residents and security personnel said.
Meanwhile, authorities in the ethnically troubled northwestern region of Xinjiang began to implement tighter security measures ahead of the anniversary of deadly violence in July 2009, when ethnic tensions between Uyghurs and Han Chinese erupted into riots that left 200 people dead, according to the Chinese government’s tally.
Photos posted online in the early hours of Tuesday morning showed a number of attempts at Tiananmen memorial events, some solitary, others in small groups, wearing black and white clothing in mourning for those who died, and lighting candles.
An online rights website said petitioners from Shandong, Tianjin and Jilin provinces lit incense for the souls of the departed at an unknown location in Beijing, in spite of heightened security aimed at preventing such events.
Activists said police across China have detained a string of activists and petitioners and banned Internet posts relating to the politically sensitive anniversary, as well as forcing a number of prominent activists to go "on holiday" to locations outside their hometowns.
A Beijing-based petitioner surnamed Liu said a number of districts on the outskirts of Beijing were now under security lockdown.
"They have sealed off the villages the same way they did in Shoubaozhuang," Liu said, referring to a village that was previously walled off to outsiders in what officials called an experimental effort to curb crime.
"Every village in Daxing district has metal barricades at the entrance to the village...and there are large numbers of those people wearing red armbands."
"There are middle-aged [security volunteers] and some in their sixties and seventies, men and women alike," he said.
A security guard in Beijing's Tongzhou district said the authorities had stepped up patrols around the anniversary of the June 4 crackdown. "It's June 4, but nothing much has happened," the guard said. "We have patrols going around the residential complexes every day, and emergency patrols...today as well."
He said the number of people in each patrol varied. "It would depend on how many residents there are in the compounds," he said. "The main [security focus] is in the residential neighborhoods."
Petitioners in the capital with complaints against official wrongdoing back in their hometowns said police had detained some of their number on Friday.
"They went to the complaints office...in Beijing and they gave [them] their documentary evidence," said a petitioner from Zhejiang whose wife was taken away. "The police asked them what they were doing, and when they said they were in Beijing to file a complaint...they took them to Jiujingzhuang."
"Then, the representatives from Lishui in Beijing came to pick them up and take them back to be detained in Qingtian," the petitioner said.
Xinjiang
Meanwhile, in the Xinjiang region, authorities have revoked temporary residence permits to local people granting permission for people from remote rural areas to remain in the regional capital Urumqi, a government announcement said.
"From June 1, temporary residents permits will cease to be issued across the entire city," the government announced via the Xinjiangwang website.
Residents with a smart ID card containing their personal details on a chip would be allowed to remain in the city for up to 30 days, but would be forced to apply for a new temporary permit after that period, the government report said.
An Urumqi resident surnamed Zhang said authorities in the city were now gearing up for additional security ahead of the third anniversary of ethnic violence in early July.
"The community workers and security guards are already on the streets, and they have set up security tents in areas where there are large numbers of people," Zhang said. "[This will continue] until July 10 without a day's break."
"These are personnel charged with maintaining stability," he added. "All the shops have to take part in the Peaceful Businesses, Peaceful Families campaign."
"Over here, we have the Peaceful Communities, Peaceful Streets activities," Zhang said.
A police officer who answered the phone at the Nancaimen residential complex confirmed the measures.
"Yes, that's about right," he said, when asked to confirm the reports.
Official media say Beijing wants to turn Urumqi into an important exchange platform for leaders and businesses in China and its western and southern neighbors, including Russia, Kazakhstan, and Pakistan.
But some experts believe Beijing's rapid development of Xinjiang, which they say has created more opportunities for Han Chinese than for the local Uyghur population, is leading to additional ethnic tension in the region.
Reported by Qiao Long for RFA's Mandarin service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
Security remained tight in some parts of the Chinese capital on Tuesday, a day after the sensitive anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen military crackdown, as authorities continued their clampdown on any attempt at public commemoration of those who died, local residents and security personnel said.
Meanwhile, authorities in the ethnically troubled northwestern region of Xinjiang began to implement tighter security measures ahead of the anniversary of deadly violence in July 2009, when ethnic tensions between Uyghurs and Han Chinese erupted into riots that left 200 people dead, according to the Chinese government’s tally.
Photos posted online in the early hours of Tuesday morning showed a number of attempts at Tiananmen memorial events, some solitary, others in small groups, wearing black and white clothing in mourning for those who died, and lighting candles.
An online rights website said petitioners from Shandong, Tianjin and Jilin provinces lit incense for the souls of the departed at an unknown location in Beijing, in spite of heightened security aimed at preventing such events.
Activists said police across China have detained a string of activists and petitioners and banned Internet posts relating to the politically sensitive anniversary, as well as forcing a number of prominent activists to go "on holiday" to locations outside their hometowns.
A Beijing-based petitioner surnamed Liu said a number of districts on the outskirts of Beijing were now under security lockdown.
"They have sealed off the villages the same way they did in Shoubaozhuang," Liu said, referring to a village that was previously walled off to outsiders in what officials called an experimental effort to curb crime.
"Every village in Daxing district has metal barricades at the entrance to the village...and there are large numbers of those people wearing red armbands."
"There are middle-aged [security volunteers] and some in their sixties and seventies, men and women alike," he said.
A security guard in Beijing's Tongzhou district said the authorities had stepped up patrols around the anniversary of the June 4 crackdown. "It's June 4, but nothing much has happened," the guard said. "We have patrols going around the residential complexes every day, and emergency patrols...today as well."
He said the number of people in each patrol varied. "It would depend on how many residents there are in the compounds," he said. "The main [security focus] is in the residential neighborhoods."
Petitioners in the capital with complaints against official wrongdoing back in their hometowns said police had detained some of their number on Friday.
"They went to the complaints office...in Beijing and they gave [them] their documentary evidence," said a petitioner from Zhejiang whose wife was taken away. "The police asked them what they were doing, and when they said they were in Beijing to file a complaint...they took them to Jiujingzhuang."
"Then, the representatives from Lishui in Beijing came to pick them up and take them back to be detained in Qingtian," the petitioner said.
Xinjiang
Meanwhile, in the Xinjiang region, authorities have revoked temporary residence permits to local people granting permission for people from remote rural areas to remain in the regional capital Urumqi, a government announcement said.
"From June 1, temporary residents permits will cease to be issued across the entire city," the government announced via the Xinjiangwang website.
Residents with a smart ID card containing their personal details on a chip would be allowed to remain in the city for up to 30 days, but would be forced to apply for a new temporary permit after that period, the government report said.
An Urumqi resident surnamed Zhang said authorities in the city were now gearing up for additional security ahead of the third anniversary of ethnic violence in early July.
"The community workers and security guards are already on the streets, and they have set up security tents in areas where there are large numbers of people," Zhang said. "[This will continue] until July 10 without a day's break."
"These are personnel charged with maintaining stability," he added. "All the shops have to take part in the Peaceful Businesses, Peaceful Families campaign."
"Over here, we have the Peaceful Communities, Peaceful Streets activities," Zhang said.
A police officer who answered the phone at the Nancaimen residential complex confirmed the measures.
"Yes, that's about right," he said, when asked to confirm the reports.
Official media say Beijing wants to turn Urumqi into an important exchange platform for leaders and businesses in China and its western and southern neighbors, including Russia, Kazakhstan, and Pakistan.
But some experts believe Beijing's rapid development of Xinjiang, which they say has created more opportunities for Han Chinese than for the local Uyghur population, is leading to additional ethnic tension in the region.
Reported by Qiao Long for RFA's Mandarin service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
Activists Highlight ‘Blood Sugar’ Dispute
Activists Highlight ‘Blood Sugar’ Dispute:
Cambodian land activists have appealed to local authorities to resolve a land dispute involving a sugar company they say encroached on farmland belonging to more than 1,000 villagers as they highlighted the country’s problem-ridden system of land concessions to mark World Environment Day on Tuesday.
More than 50 activists, from Am Laing commune in central Cambodia’s Kompong Speu province, said the Phnom Penh Sugar Company, owned by casino tycoon and ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) senator Ly Yong Phat, had taken land farmed for years and offered those who cultivated it little compensation.
The land dispute has been dragging on for two years without any signs of an imminent resolution.
Speaking during a public debate organized by the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR), villager Ly Lao said the company, on taking his land, now plans to sue him and several others for “destroyed” company property following protests they held against the alleged land grab.
He said he has already been summoned by the court to testify in the lawsuit against at least 43 villagers on charges of destroying company property during their protests.
“I received a warrant accusing me of destroying the company’s property,” Ly Lao said.
“I have appealed to the lawmakers to help me,” he said.
The debate was attended by parliamentarians from the Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) and Human Rights Party (HRP), but no CPP officials showed up, the activists said.
More than 1,000 villagers say they have been affected by the land grab, having lost around 2,000 hectares (4,940 acres) since the government awarded the sugar company an 8,000 hectare (19,770 acre) concession in 2010.
A villager, who asked to remain anonymous, also charged that the company had illegally seized their land and forced them to move to higher ground, where they are unable to grow crops.
“Please make the company stop taking our land,” the villager said at the debate. “The villagers are eating rice and the company is eating sugar cane. Please give us a way to survive.”
Debate refused
CCHR coordinator Ouch Leng said Phnom Penh Sugar is not interested in resolving the dispute with the villagers and had refused to participate in the debate.
“The company has refused to resolve the case and the local authorities don’t have the power to talk with company representatives,” he said.
He said that villagers had been forced to accept low compensation for their land and that if they refused, the company would file a complaint with the court and the villagers would end up in prison.
Deputy provincial governor Pen Sambo told the debate that the authorities were working to resolve the land conflict “based on the law and the people’s interests.”
HRP lawmaker Ou Chanrith said land conflict in Cambodia is common because it is tied to concessions.
“Land concessions make the villagers the victims and only a few corrupt officials benefit from the deal,” he said.
SRP Member of Parliament Nuth Rumdoul, who attended the debate, said he would write to the Senate and government to demand adequate compensation for the villagers in a bid to resolve the dispute.
Opposition party members have warned European countries not to purchase sugar from the Phnom Penh Sugar Company, calling the product “blood sugar.”
Environment day
The debate over the concession came as more than 300 activists gathered in front of Cambodia’s National Assembly on Tuesday to mark World Environment Day, commemorating the life of recently murdered prominent environmentalist Chut Wutty, who was shot while investigating a logging concession in a protected forest.
The activists, who represented forest, land, and union concerns, honored Chut Wutty—gunned down in April in central Cambodia’s Prey Lang forest—by wearing shirts with his image and the slogan, “To destroy the forest is to destroy yourself.”
They also carried banners and sang songs calling on the public to lend its support in protecting the forest and the indigenous inhabitants who rely on it for their livelihood.
Prey Lang activist Phouk Hong, from northern Cambodia’s Preah Vihear province, said that without protecting the forest from logging by encroaching concessions, the people and wildlife of the country’s forests would be wiped out.
Prey Lang forests in central Cambodia hosts Southeast Asia's largest lowland evergreen forest but it remains unprotected.
“I like the forest and I will protect the forest, which means that I will protect the world,” Phouk Hong said, adding that the activist community would continue to fight against illegal logging despite Chut Wutty’s death.
Rights group Licadho’s senior investigator Am Sam Ath said the government should reexamine its land concession policy.
“I appeal to the government to take the necessary measures to effectively prevent illegal logging in Cambodia,” he said.
“The government must reconsider granting licenses for the sake of the environmental protection.”
After gathering in front of the National Assembly, the group of activists went on to pray at a shrine in front of the Royal Palace, hoping to convince government officials to protect the environment for the younger generation.
Reported by Sonorng Khe and So Chivi for RFA’s Khmer service. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
Cambodian land activists have appealed to local authorities to resolve a land dispute involving a sugar company they say encroached on farmland belonging to more than 1,000 villagers as they highlighted the country’s problem-ridden system of land concessions to mark World Environment Day on Tuesday.
More than 50 activists, from Am Laing commune in central Cambodia’s Kompong Speu province, said the Phnom Penh Sugar Company, owned by casino tycoon and ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) senator Ly Yong Phat, had taken land farmed for years and offered those who cultivated it little compensation.
The land dispute has been dragging on for two years without any signs of an imminent resolution.
Speaking during a public debate organized by the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR), villager Ly Lao said the company, on taking his land, now plans to sue him and several others for “destroyed” company property following protests they held against the alleged land grab.
He said he has already been summoned by the court to testify in the lawsuit against at least 43 villagers on charges of destroying company property during their protests.
“I received a warrant accusing me of destroying the company’s property,” Ly Lao said.
“I have appealed to the lawmakers to help me,” he said.
The debate was attended by parliamentarians from the Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) and Human Rights Party (HRP), but no CPP officials showed up, the activists said.
More than 1,000 villagers say they have been affected by the land grab, having lost around 2,000 hectares (4,940 acres) since the government awarded the sugar company an 8,000 hectare (19,770 acre) concession in 2010.
A villager, who asked to remain anonymous, also charged that the company had illegally seized their land and forced them to move to higher ground, where they are unable to grow crops.
“Please make the company stop taking our land,” the villager said at the debate. “The villagers are eating rice and the company is eating sugar cane. Please give us a way to survive.”
Debate refused
CCHR coordinator Ouch Leng said Phnom Penh Sugar is not interested in resolving the dispute with the villagers and had refused to participate in the debate.
“The company has refused to resolve the case and the local authorities don’t have the power to talk with company representatives,” he said.
He said that villagers had been forced to accept low compensation for their land and that if they refused, the company would file a complaint with the court and the villagers would end up in prison.
Deputy provincial governor Pen Sambo told the debate that the authorities were working to resolve the land conflict “based on the law and the people’s interests.”
HRP lawmaker Ou Chanrith said land conflict in Cambodia is common because it is tied to concessions.
“Land concessions make the villagers the victims and only a few corrupt officials benefit from the deal,” he said.
SRP Member of Parliament Nuth Rumdoul, who attended the debate, said he would write to the Senate and government to demand adequate compensation for the villagers in a bid to resolve the dispute.
Opposition party members have warned European countries not to purchase sugar from the Phnom Penh Sugar Company, calling the product “blood sugar.”
A forest activist is wearing Chut Wutty’s mask to mark the World Environment Day in Phnom Penh, June 5, 2012. Credit: RFA
The debate over the concession came as more than 300 activists gathered in front of Cambodia’s National Assembly on Tuesday to mark World Environment Day, commemorating the life of recently murdered prominent environmentalist Chut Wutty, who was shot while investigating a logging concession in a protected forest.
The activists, who represented forest, land, and union concerns, honored Chut Wutty—gunned down in April in central Cambodia’s Prey Lang forest—by wearing shirts with his image and the slogan, “To destroy the forest is to destroy yourself.”
They also carried banners and sang songs calling on the public to lend its support in protecting the forest and the indigenous inhabitants who rely on it for their livelihood.
Prey Lang activist Phouk Hong, from northern Cambodia’s Preah Vihear province, said that without protecting the forest from logging by encroaching concessions, the people and wildlife of the country’s forests would be wiped out.
Prey Lang forests in central Cambodia hosts Southeast Asia's largest lowland evergreen forest but it remains unprotected.
“I like the forest and I will protect the forest, which means that I will protect the world,” Phouk Hong said, adding that the activist community would continue to fight against illegal logging despite Chut Wutty’s death.
Rights group Licadho’s senior investigator Am Sam Ath said the government should reexamine its land concession policy.
“I appeal to the government to take the necessary measures to effectively prevent illegal logging in Cambodia,” he said.
“The government must reconsider granting licenses for the sake of the environmental protection.”
After gathering in front of the National Assembly, the group of activists went on to pray at a shrine in front of the Royal Palace, hoping to convince government officials to protect the environment for the younger generation.
Reported by Sonorng Khe and So Chivi for RFA’s Khmer service. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
Jun 4, 2012
Men Still Dominate Op-Ed Pages, Study Finds
Men Still Dominate Op-Ed Pages, Study Finds: 
In 2012's fast and flexible media landscape, opinion writing is still overwhelmingly a man's game. Women authored 33 percent of the op-eds in new media publications and 20 percent of the op-eds in traditional media during a 12-week period last year, according to a study released Tuesday by the Op-Ed Project, an organization focused on increasing diversity in public forums.
While the survey calls those results a "major" improvement, Katherine Lanpher, an instructor with the organization, told TPM that "even with a gain, we are seeing that women aren't narrating the world, even though they're half of the world."
The good news, according to the organization's founder and CEO Katie Orenstein, is that compared to 2005 the Washington Post has 9 percent more female op-ed contributions, the New York Times has 5 percent more and the Los Angeles Times has 4 percent more. "This is a problem that is imminently solvable and even rapidly solvable," Orenstein told TPM.
Still, when it comes to the important policy questions of the day, Lanpher said, women "are not present." The issue, she said, is that women submit fewer opinion articles for publication than men. While some might scoff at the thought of distilling a complex policy issue into a 600-world column, Lanpher said the brevity "makes their work stronger because more people find out about it."
"There are women and minorities out there with tons of information ... you just have to get them to do it," she said.
In addition to more women submitting opinion columns, Orenstein said editors could be more proactive in seeking out female contributors.
The survey found that the women who write opinion pieces still tend to focus on so-called "pink" topics, such as gender, food, family and style. One of the figures that blew Lanpher away, she said, was that women only wrote 11 percent of the articles on the economy, according to the survey.
"Those numbers, I hope they wake people up," Lanpher said. "It's a disservice if you only hear from the same people all the time."
The survey evaluated more than 7,000 articles in 10 media outlets from September 15, 2011 to December 7, 2011. The "new media" outlets surveyed include The Huffington Post and Salon; the legacy outlets include The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times; and the organization surveyed the college publications of Columbia, Harvard, Princeton and Yale. The college publications published the highest percentage of op-eds written by women at 38 percent.
Find the full study -- with graphs -- here.
In 2012's fast and flexible media landscape, opinion writing is still overwhelmingly a man's game. Women authored 33 percent of the op-eds in new media publications and 20 percent of the op-eds in traditional media during a 12-week period last year, according to a study released Tuesday by the Op-Ed Project, an organization focused on increasing diversity in public forums.
While the survey calls those results a "major" improvement, Katherine Lanpher, an instructor with the organization, told TPM that "even with a gain, we are seeing that women aren't narrating the world, even though they're half of the world."
The good news, according to the organization's founder and CEO Katie Orenstein, is that compared to 2005 the Washington Post has 9 percent more female op-ed contributions, the New York Times has 5 percent more and the Los Angeles Times has 4 percent more. "This is a problem that is imminently solvable and even rapidly solvable," Orenstein told TPM.
Still, when it comes to the important policy questions of the day, Lanpher said, women "are not present." The issue, she said, is that women submit fewer opinion articles for publication than men. While some might scoff at the thought of distilling a complex policy issue into a 600-world column, Lanpher said the brevity "makes their work stronger because more people find out about it."
"There are women and minorities out there with tons of information ... you just have to get them to do it," she said.
In addition to more women submitting opinion columns, Orenstein said editors could be more proactive in seeking out female contributors.
The survey found that the women who write opinion pieces still tend to focus on so-called "pink" topics, such as gender, food, family and style. One of the figures that blew Lanpher away, she said, was that women only wrote 11 percent of the articles on the economy, according to the survey.
"Those numbers, I hope they wake people up," Lanpher said. "It's a disservice if you only hear from the same people all the time."
The survey evaluated more than 7,000 articles in 10 media outlets from September 15, 2011 to December 7, 2011. The "new media" outlets surveyed include The Huffington Post and Salon; the legacy outlets include The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times; and the organization surveyed the college publications of Columbia, Harvard, Princeton and Yale. The college publications published the highest percentage of op-eds written by women at 38 percent.
Find the full study -- with graphs -- here.
CNN Poll: Obama By 3, Powered By Enthusiasm
CNN Poll: Obama By 3, Powered By Enthusiasm: 
A new national poll from CNN shows President Obama with a 3 point lead over Republican nominee Mitt Romney, down from the 9 percent lead Obama held in the cable network's April polling at the end of the GOP primary process.
But what is sure to be a major factor in a close election -- voter enthusiasm -- tilts toward Obama in the CNN poll. "Although the race for the White House is essentially tied, Obama does have one big advantage: His supporters right now are far more enthusiastic about him," CNN wrote. "More than six in ten Obama voters say they strongly support the president, while only 47% of Romney voters feel that way about their candidate."
On the one hand, those numbers are up from CNN's April poll: a month and half ago, only 35 percent of Romney voters said they were voting for him, versus 63 percent who said they were voting against Obama. Romney's general favorability has also ticked up since he became the nominee and the party faithful have rallied around him, and he continues to do well with independent voters -- Romney takes 51 percent in the CNN poll, against Obama's 39. But Obama builds a lead by pulling more from his own party, and more self-described "moderate" voters.
As has been the case in 2012, CNN pointed to economic conditions as the overwhelming factor in the race:
The TPM Poll Average shows President Obama with a smal 2.1 percent lead in the race so far.
The CNN poll used 895 live telephone interviews with registered voters nationally conducted from May 29th to the 31st. The poll has a sampling error of 3.5 points.
A new national poll from CNN shows President Obama with a 3 point lead over Republican nominee Mitt Romney, down from the 9 percent lead Obama held in the cable network's April polling at the end of the GOP primary process.
But what is sure to be a major factor in a close election -- voter enthusiasm -- tilts toward Obama in the CNN poll. "Although the race for the White House is essentially tied, Obama does have one big advantage: His supporters right now are far more enthusiastic about him," CNN wrote. "More than six in ten Obama voters say they strongly support the president, while only 47% of Romney voters feel that way about their candidate."
On the one hand, those numbers are up from CNN's April poll: a month and half ago, only 35 percent of Romney voters said they were voting for him, versus 63 percent who said they were voting against Obama. Romney's general favorability has also ticked up since he became the nominee and the party faithful have rallied around him, and he continues to do well with independent voters -- Romney takes 51 percent in the CNN poll, against Obama's 39. But Obama builds a lead by pulling more from his own party, and more self-described "moderate" voters.
As has been the case in 2012, CNN pointed to economic conditions as the overwhelming factor in the race:
According to the survey, one in five questioned say neither candidate can fix the economy, with another one in five saying the economy will recover regardless of who wins in November. Among the rest, once again there is no clear advantage - 31% say economic conditions will improve only if Romney wins; 28% think things will get better only if Obama stays in office.
The poll was conducted Tuesday through Thursday, before the release of Friday's of the May unemployment numbers. According to the disappointing report from the Labor Department, the nation's unemployment level edged up to 8.2% last month, with only 69,000 jobs created in May.
The TPM Poll Average shows President Obama with a smal 2.1 percent lead in the race so far.
The CNN poll used 895 live telephone interviews with registered voters nationally conducted from May 29th to the 31st. The poll has a sampling error of 3.5 points.
Two Peas In a Pod: Romney's Transition Leader Is A Smart, Serious Ex-Governor
Two Peas In a Pod: Romney's Transition Leader Is A Smart, Serious Ex-Governor: 
By most accounts, Mike Leavitt, the former Utah governor and Bush administration official tapped by Mitt Romney to run his transition team if he is elected president is the kind of unflappable, low-profile smart guy politicians dream of surrounding themselves with. And though Leavitt is a cool head, his political past includes a few of the awkward gaffes that have sometimes veered Romney himself off course.
In Leavitt, Romney has tapped a kindred spirit: a smart, serious, ex-governor who has tripped himself up on occasion.
But gaffes have by no means been the hallmark of Leavitt's political career. In 2003, when President George W. Bush tapped Leavitt to take over the EPA after Christine Todd Whitman's tumultuous stint, the Washington Post reported he was chosen specifically for his ability to maintain calm waters.
"One senior Republican official called Leavitt a 'bureaucrat's bureaucrat,' who would keep the EPA out of the headlines," according to the Post. A year later, Bush again enlisted Leavitt to be a quiet, competent one-man cleanup crew after a string of bad headlines. Embarrassed by the fallout created by nomination NYPD Commissioner Bernard Kerik to head the Department Of Homeland Security, the president again turned to Leavitt, nominating him to lead the Department of Heath and Human Services amid public outcry that Bush's nominee-selection process was broken. Descriptions of Levitt at that time included "loyalist," "extraordinarily thoughtful" and, once again, quiet.
"He does not have an incendiary personality," former Montana Gov. Marc Racicot (R), Bush's 2004 campaign chair, told the Washington Post upon Leavitt's selection to lead HHS.
Leavitt's ability to be noncontroversial appears central to Romney's decision to place him in his inner circle. Levitt has been "a calming influence at critical times" to Romney, according to Politico. The Romneys trust him in part because he's "100 percent in it for Mitt, no secret agenda for himself," someone in the Romney camp told Politico.
Calm, cool and tempered also sum up Romney, who during the often chaotic Republican primary talked up his ability to keep things serious even when the politics around him veered toward silliness. But Romney, more than any errant staffers, often caused his campaign's most awkward moments, stumbling at precisely the wrong times.
Leavitt knows what this is like. During his 10-year gubernatorial tenure in Utah, Leavitt cruised to reelection and enjoyed wide public support. But he infamously stuck his foot in it when he took what appeared to be a soft line on polygamy. Navigating the issue of polygamy isn't necessary for most governors, but it is a political reality for Utah politicians, and Leavitt illustrated exactly how to get it wrong. In a July 1998 press conference, Leavitt said people who practice polygamy (outlawed by Utah's state Constitution) were "mostly good people." The line predictably drew national attention, even as he tried to staunch the backlash by backing off the statements. He publicly expressed frustration that the story had derailed his legislative priorities.
"After several minutes of questions on the polygamy subject, Leavitt shook his head a little and seemed irritated," the Deseret News reported. "'There are a number of important things going on in this state," he said, 'like freeways, education' and other items."
Romney expressed similar frustration when the media fixated on his own slip-ups and when his opponents' antics steered the primary campaign away from economic issues, where Romney is most comfortable.
Levitt's calm demeanor won't help with one campaign problem, though. Romney's camp has been forced to soothe fears among conservatives terrified that the moderate Leavitt's proximity to Romney signals the former Massachusetts governor won't dismantle Obama's health care law as he's promised. To those already worried that Romney's record as the only other politician to sign a health care reform package like Obama's into law makes him an unconvincing advocate for the national law's destruction, Leavitt's spot in the campaign has done little to soothe their fears.
Romney and Leavitt both know what it's like to be the smart guy in the room who nonetheless stumbles occasionally. Now it looks like the team of quiet men is going through one of the loud fights they both try to shy away from -- this time, together.
By most accounts, Mike Leavitt, the former Utah governor and Bush administration official tapped by Mitt Romney to run his transition team if he is elected president is the kind of unflappable, low-profile smart guy politicians dream of surrounding themselves with. And though Leavitt is a cool head, his political past includes a few of the awkward gaffes that have sometimes veered Romney himself off course.
In Leavitt, Romney has tapped a kindred spirit: a smart, serious, ex-governor who has tripped himself up on occasion.
But gaffes have by no means been the hallmark of Leavitt's political career. In 2003, when President George W. Bush tapped Leavitt to take over the EPA after Christine Todd Whitman's tumultuous stint, the Washington Post reported he was chosen specifically for his ability to maintain calm waters.
"One senior Republican official called Leavitt a 'bureaucrat's bureaucrat,' who would keep the EPA out of the headlines," according to the Post. A year later, Bush again enlisted Leavitt to be a quiet, competent one-man cleanup crew after a string of bad headlines. Embarrassed by the fallout created by nomination NYPD Commissioner Bernard Kerik to head the Department Of Homeland Security, the president again turned to Leavitt, nominating him to lead the Department of Heath and Human Services amid public outcry that Bush's nominee-selection process was broken. Descriptions of Levitt at that time included "loyalist," "extraordinarily thoughtful" and, once again, quiet.
"He does not have an incendiary personality," former Montana Gov. Marc Racicot (R), Bush's 2004 campaign chair, told the Washington Post upon Leavitt's selection to lead HHS.
Leavitt's ability to be noncontroversial appears central to Romney's decision to place him in his inner circle. Levitt has been "a calming influence at critical times" to Romney, according to Politico. The Romneys trust him in part because he's "100 percent in it for Mitt, no secret agenda for himself," someone in the Romney camp told Politico.
Calm, cool and tempered also sum up Romney, who during the often chaotic Republican primary talked up his ability to keep things serious even when the politics around him veered toward silliness. But Romney, more than any errant staffers, often caused his campaign's most awkward moments, stumbling at precisely the wrong times.
Leavitt knows what this is like. During his 10-year gubernatorial tenure in Utah, Leavitt cruised to reelection and enjoyed wide public support. But he infamously stuck his foot in it when he took what appeared to be a soft line on polygamy. Navigating the issue of polygamy isn't necessary for most governors, but it is a political reality for Utah politicians, and Leavitt illustrated exactly how to get it wrong. In a July 1998 press conference, Leavitt said people who practice polygamy (outlawed by Utah's state Constitution) were "mostly good people." The line predictably drew national attention, even as he tried to staunch the backlash by backing off the statements. He publicly expressed frustration that the story had derailed his legislative priorities.
"After several minutes of questions on the polygamy subject, Leavitt shook his head a little and seemed irritated," the Deseret News reported. "'There are a number of important things going on in this state," he said, 'like freeways, education' and other items."
Romney expressed similar frustration when the media fixated on his own slip-ups and when his opponents' antics steered the primary campaign away from economic issues, where Romney is most comfortable.
Levitt's calm demeanor won't help with one campaign problem, though. Romney's camp has been forced to soothe fears among conservatives terrified that the moderate Leavitt's proximity to Romney signals the former Massachusetts governor won't dismantle Obama's health care law as he's promised. To those already worried that Romney's record as the only other politician to sign a health care reform package like Obama's into law makes him an unconvincing advocate for the national law's destruction, Leavitt's spot in the campaign has done little to soothe their fears.
Romney and Leavitt both know what it's like to be the smart guy in the room who nonetheless stumbles occasionally. Now it looks like the team of quiet men is going through one of the loud fights they both try to shy away from -- this time, together.
Zuckerberg Falls Off Top 40 Richest People List
Zuckerberg Falls Off Top 40 Richest People List: Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg has had a tumultuous month. Little more than a week after his company’s IPO made him one of the richest people on the planet, trading issues and a souring market have pulled some of that rug out from under him: the 28-year-old was recently kicked off Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index of the world’s [...]
Apps Aiming for Sharing Within Boundaries
Apps Aiming for Sharing Within Boundaries: In a natural evolution of social networking, more mobile apps are aiming for sharing within boundaries.
Cyberweapon Warning From Kaspersky, a Computer Security Expert
Cyberweapon Warning From Kaspersky, a Computer Security Expert: Eugene Kaspersky says his discovery of the Flame virus adds weight to his warnings of the grave dangers posed by governments that manufacture and release viruses on the Internet.
Walker Recall Battle May Hurt Obama
Walker Recall Battle May Hurt Obama: President Obama’s re-election campaign has always counted on Wisconsin for a victory, but Republicans there may be strengthened by their fight to defend Gov. Scott Walker against a recall effort.
Karzai Family Moves to Protect Its Privilege
Karzai Family Moves to Protect Its Privilege: As Hamid Karzai’s days as Afghanistan’s president draw to a close, his family members are trying to protect their status while secretly fighting among themselves over the fortune they have amassed.
More Protests Loom Since Egypt Election
More Protests Loom Since Egypt Election: Hoping to push Egypt’s military rulers to disqualify Ahmed Shafik from the presidential runoff vote, his electoral rivals are planning further demonstrations.
Netanyahu Vows Crackdown on African Asylum Seekers
Netanyahu Vows Crackdown on African Asylum Seekers: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised to step up efforts to deter, detain and deport illegal migrants to Israel, as tensions mounted over an influx of asylum seekers from Africa.
In Pennsylvania coal country, voters not thrilled with their choices
In Pennsylvania coal country, voters not thrilled with their choices:
This is coal country, even if there’s hardly any coal anymore. The elders can name the coal veins and describe their dimensions. People will still say, “I grew up in the patch.” That means they were raised in a cluster of company houses back in a hollow near the mouth of a mine. The kids would play king-of-the-hill on gobheaps of broken slate and mining waste.
Read full article >>
This is coal country, even if there’s hardly any coal anymore. The elders can name the coal veins and describe their dimensions. People will still say, “I grew up in the patch.” That means they were raised in a cluster of company houses back in a hollow near the mouth of a mine. The kids would play king-of-the-hill on gobheaps of broken slate and mining waste.
Read full article >>
Cyber search engine Shodan exposes industrial control systems to new risks
Cyber search engine Shodan exposes industrial control systems to new risks:
It began as a hobby for a teenage computer programmer named John Matherly, who wondered how much he could learn about devices linked to the Internet.
After tinkering with code for nearly a decade, Matherly eventually developed a way to map and capture the specifications of everything from desktop computers to network printers to Web servers.
Read full article >>
It began as a hobby for a teenage computer programmer named John Matherly, who wondered how much he could learn about devices linked to the Internet.
After tinkering with code for nearly a decade, Matherly eventually developed a way to map and capture the specifications of everything from desktop computers to network printers to Web servers.
Read full article >>
Think tanks getting new generation of leaders
Think tanks getting new generation of leaders:
Think tanks may be known as the ideas industry, but they are equally described as the government in exile, or the revolving door to government.
The latter designation has been more apt for think-tank scholars with political aspirations than for think-tank presidents, whose long tenures go unrivaled.
Read full article >>
Think tanks may be known as the ideas industry, but they are equally described as the government in exile, or the revolving door to government.
The latter designation has been more apt for think-tank scholars with political aspirations than for think-tank presidents, whose long tenures go unrivaled.
Read full article >>
U.S. strike said to target al-Qaeda’s No. 2
U.S. strike said to target al-Qaeda’s No. 2:
U.S. missiles killed more than a dozen people in northwestern Pakistan early Monday in a strike that apparently was aimed at al-Qaeda’s No. 2 leader, the charismatic and influential jihadist known as Abu Yahya al-Libi, U.S. and Pakistani officials said.
Read full article >>
U.S. missiles killed more than a dozen people in northwestern Pakistan early Monday in a strike that apparently was aimed at al-Qaeda’s No. 2 leader, the charismatic and influential jihadist known as Abu Yahya al-Libi, U.S. and Pakistani officials said.
Read full article >>
Investors Hear Call of Asian Telecoms
Investors Hear Call of Asian Telecoms: Asia's telecom companies, which offer healthy dividends and yields, are providing a safe haven for investors.
For Dollar Stores, the Dollars Are Adding Up
For Dollar Stores, the Dollars Are Adding Up: Discount retailers such as Dollar General proved resilient during the downturn. In the lukewarm recovery, they're flourishing.
Google Readies New Local-Ad Assault
Google Readies New Local-Ad Assault: Google is preparing to launch its largest-ever assault on the roughly $20 billion market for local business advertising.
Poll: Solve economic problems first
Poll: Solve economic problems first: Most people want the government to give more priority to solving economic problems than pushing for the passage of a reconciliation law, according to the results of an Abac Poll revealed on Sunday.
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Romney Edges Obama in Battle for Middle-Income Voters
Romney Edges Obama in Battle for Middle-Income Voters: Middle-income voters currently lean toward Mitt Romney, 49% to 45% -- and to the exact degree that upper-income voters also prefer Romney. Obama holds a much wider lead among low-income voters, largely due to his appeal to minorities.
Daily SG: 4 June 2012
Daily SG: 4 June 2012:
Educate Our Youth
- Random Thoughts of A Free Thinker: A Response To A 17 Year Old Cynic
- guanyinmiao’s musings: An Email Reply To Fifth Azure, Author Of “**** You, DPM Teo”
- SG Hard Truth: Pre-U Seminar Reflection : To the Blogger of fifthazure (who criticized DPM Teo Chee Hean) : Outright Rude, Mindless and 没家教
Hougang By-Elections
- Dr Derek da Cunha: “Opposition Central”: When Fact-based Analysis Comes Up Against Wishful Thinking
- New Asia Republic: Upgrading topic in elections – a time-limited weapon
- Yahoo: Summons filed to order PM Lee to court hearing on by-election
- My Singapore News: Vellama Marie Muthu versus the Attorney General
Internet Code of Conduct – See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Write No Evil
- Thoughts of a Cynical Investor: China’s Community Convention = Yaacob’s CoC
- Limpeh Is Foreign Talent: Q&A: Ethics, Privacy & Xiaxue
A Vote for Change
- The Idea Cauldron: a first world paliament
- five stars and a moon: Meet The People Session
Defending Our Lion City
- Senang Diri: Lest we forget: Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) should remember and honour its old warfighters and defence engineers
- Singapore Sojourn: Base-Less Rumours [Thanks Roger]
GIC, Temasek State Funds Investments
- The Balding Blog: Singapore, Inc.: Just When You Thought it Couldn’t Get Any Worse
Daily Disclosure
- Gintai: Filial Piety the best virtue; Lascivious the worst sin!
- New Nation: Generous donors teach Straits Times a lesson about unconditional giving
- Everything Also Complain: $1.99 set meals when 1 cent coins no longer exist
- Singapore Investor: Cost of living in the United Kingdom-Food [Thanks Adrian]
- The Kent Ridge Common: After Sungei Buloh: The Wrong Idea of what ‘Environment’ is
Strangers in a Strange Land
- Diary of A Singaporean Mind: Irresponsible framing of our integration woes….
- Blogging for Myself: Stories around a choked pipe
Internal Security Act
(Info: Internal Security Act (Singapore))
- Journalism.SG: Mightier Than The Pen: Remembering ISA Detentions Of Writers
- Where Bears Roam Free: Hypocrisy of the ‘Marxist Conspirators’ and their supporters
- Article 14: 25th Anniversary of the Marxist Conspiracy: remembering a legal footnote
- Kall Geez: The politics behind the Singapore anti-ISA movement
- Yawningbread: Hundreds turn up at rally against arbitrary detention
Uniquely Singapore
- I Wander: A Glimpse of the Subcontinent in Singapore’s Little India [Thanks Chua]
————————————————————————–
Singapore Daily highlight netizens’ opinions & interesting news about Singapore. Please share with us interesting blog articles or Facebook Notes.
————————————————————————–
Educate Our Youth
- Random Thoughts of A Free Thinker: A Response To A 17 Year Old Cynic
- guanyinmiao’s musings: An Email Reply To Fifth Azure, Author Of “**** You, DPM Teo”
- SG Hard Truth: Pre-U Seminar Reflection : To the Blogger of fifthazure (who criticized DPM Teo Chee Hean) : Outright Rude, Mindless and 没家教
Hougang By-Elections
- Dr Derek da Cunha: “Opposition Central”: When Fact-based Analysis Comes Up Against Wishful Thinking
- New Asia Republic: Upgrading topic in elections – a time-limited weapon
- Yahoo: Summons filed to order PM Lee to court hearing on by-election
- My Singapore News: Vellama Marie Muthu versus the Attorney General
Internet Code of Conduct – See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Write No Evil
- Thoughts of a Cynical Investor: China’s Community Convention = Yaacob’s CoC
- Limpeh Is Foreign Talent: Q&A: Ethics, Privacy & Xiaxue
A Vote for Change
- The Idea Cauldron: a first world paliament
- five stars and a moon: Meet The People Session
Defending Our Lion City
- Senang Diri: Lest we forget: Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) should remember and honour its old warfighters and defence engineers
- Singapore Sojourn: Base-Less Rumours [Thanks Roger]
GIC, Temasek State Funds Investments
- The Balding Blog: Singapore, Inc.: Just When You Thought it Couldn’t Get Any Worse
Daily Disclosure
- Gintai: Filial Piety the best virtue; Lascivious the worst sin!
- New Nation: Generous donors teach Straits Times a lesson about unconditional giving
- Everything Also Complain: $1.99 set meals when 1 cent coins no longer exist
- Singapore Investor: Cost of living in the United Kingdom-Food [Thanks Adrian]
- The Kent Ridge Common: After Sungei Buloh: The Wrong Idea of what ‘Environment’ is
Strangers in a Strange Land
- Diary of A Singaporean Mind: Irresponsible framing of our integration woes….
- Blogging for Myself: Stories around a choked pipe
Internal Security Act
(Info: Internal Security Act (Singapore))
- Journalism.SG: Mightier Than The Pen: Remembering ISA Detentions Of Writers
- Where Bears Roam Free: Hypocrisy of the ‘Marxist Conspirators’ and their supporters
- Article 14: 25th Anniversary of the Marxist Conspiracy: remembering a legal footnote
- Kall Geez: The politics behind the Singapore anti-ISA movement
- Yawningbread: Hundreds turn up at rally against arbitrary detention
Uniquely Singapore
- I Wander: A Glimpse of the Subcontinent in Singapore’s Little India [Thanks Chua]
————————————————————————–
Singapore Daily highlight netizens’ opinions & interesting news about Singapore. Please share with us interesting blog articles or Facebook Notes.
————————————————————————–
Rising Medical Costs a Big Worry for our Elderly Citizens
Rising Medical Costs a Big Worry for our Elderly Citizens: By Raymond Anthony Fernando - Workers Party Member of Parliament, Gerald Giam made a very valid point during the party’s election rally when he mentioned that Medishield had collected 130 million in premiums, but the payouts were so little. I fully agree with Mr Giam’s observation. I have been paying medishield premiums for both myself [...]
Government losing Chinese support, putting reforms at risk
Government losing Chinese support, putting reforms at risk: Reuters/The Malaysian Insider Jun 03, 2012 KUALA LUMPUR, June 3 — Ethnic Chinese voters, upset over policies that favour majority Malays, have become increasingly alienated from Malaysia’s ruling coalition, raising the risk of racial polarisation and a slowdown in the pace of reforms. Support for Prime Minister Najib Razak among Chinese voters plunged to 37 [...]
Mahathir is worried that the truth will be out about all the financial scandals during his 22-year premiership if Pakatan Rakyat forms national government in next polls
Mahathir is worried that the truth will be out about all the financial scandals during his 22-year premiership if Pakatan Rakyat forms national government in next polls: Former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad has been more than his hyper-active self in the past fortnight, not only making preposterous statements about the political situation in the country but doing his utmost to fob off any possibility that the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak might stick to his earlier timetable to hold [...]
The Impact of Growth in International Schools
The Impact of Growth in International Schools: by M. Bakri Musa The government has gone beyond removing quotas, as with granting tax and other incentives, to encourage the growth of international schools. However, growth depends more on market forces, principally the demand which in turn is related to costs. Lower the cost and you expand the market. Reducing red tape, as with [...]
Only way out - change the government
Only way out - change the government:
Immediately after the RPK accusation, then-ACA director general Shafee Yahya at the material time, whose biography by his wife Kalsom Taib entitled ‘The Shafee Yahya Story’ had already thrown light on this incident, came out to strongly deny such allegation. Shafee categorically said that the investigation on Azmin was discontinued not because of any order but because the probe had not uncovered strong elements of corruption to warrant prosecution.
Taib’s assets have been chronicled to the minutest details in recent years in the Internet, particularly in Sarawak Report and the Bruno Manser Fund, an outline of which was summarised in my article onMalaysiakini on April 2, 2011.
Suffice to say that Taib’s fortune, valued at billions of ringgit, is spread far and wide across the globe. These assets, held under scores of family-linked companies, encompass oversea real estates, enterprises at home and abroad, and large areas of Sarawak land dubiously alienated from the ancestral land of the native inhabitants (known as NCR land).
Sabah Chief Minister Musa Aman’s timber corruption allegation came into the limelight when his agent Michael Chia was caught red handed with RM16 million worth of Singapore currency at the Hong Kong International Airport on Aug 14, 2008. When Chia was arrested, he reportedly pleaded with the police to release him on the grounds that the money belonged to Musa Aman and he was only an agent smuggling the money.
With Gani standing in the way, do not expect any new development in MACC’s investigation of Musa Aman timber corruption scandal. And Gani will stay as AG, while BN is still in Putrajaya.
Rafizi (right) has in truth done the nation a great service by diligently and conscientiously exposing improprieties in a major public project failure that led to prosecution of a culprit. So, why should he be punished just because he had to disclose certain banking details in the course of performing his civic duty?
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COMMENT The simultaneous announcement on May 31 by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) on the following three corruption issues has once again brought into sharp focus the severely criticised integrity and independence of the commission:
Let me briefly touch on each of these scandals.
He may ask: If a minister’s spouse and family can legally receive an underserved windfall from the government through the minister’s connection, why can’t I also do the same? Doesn’t this MACC ruling open the floodgate of open corruption by public servants?
The project was a flop as only miserable amount of beef was produced. Meanwhile, the family had splurged tens of million of ringgit from the loan and grant to acquire assets unrelated to the project, such as luxurious condos and commercial premises, premier housing lands, expensive limousine and high-end restaurants, in addition to each of the family members receiving exorbitant monthly salaries.
Apart from Shahrizat having to answer for this apparent corrupt practice, the bigger culprits are the top decision-makers who awarded the project.
Unless satisfactory answers are forthcoming from them, they will be deemed guilty of abuse of power and corruption.- Former minister and current Wanita Umno chief Shahrizat Abdul Jalil, whose husband and children had been landed with a plum multi-million government project (National Feedlot Corporation or NFC) a few years ago under highly dubious circumstances, is finally pronounced innocent of improprieties after many months of swirling controversy.
- Opposition PKR deputy president Azmin Ali’s 17-year-old corruption allegation, abandoned for further investigation then due to lack of corruption evidence, is now re-opened for further investigation with lightning speed upon a blogger highlighting the case in his website.
- No further progress to the age-old investigation into the chief ministers of both Sabah and Sarawak, whose legendary corruption scandals are now world renown due to the long-running and continuous surfacing of stunning evidence in the cyberworld of their improprieties and fabulous unaccounted-for wealth.
As if the above glaring double standard applied by our law enforcers to leaders of the ruling coalition and its opponents is not enough to discredit the the Barisan Nasional (BN) government, Bank Negara (Malaysia’s central bank) also stepped into the fray by summoning the whistle-blower of the NFC scandal for interrogation.
PKR strategic director Rafizi Ramli, who has been diligently exposing the many legal and financial improprieties of the project, was grilled for breach of the Banking and Financial Institutions Act (Bafia) for having disclosed banking details of players in the scandal.
Let me briefly touch on each of these scandals.
The NFC scandal
The exoneration of Shahrizat from wrongdoing immediately triggers off an alarm bell. It begs the question of whether a public servant can from now on openly commit corruption as long as the corrupt government largesse is parked under the name of his wife and children?
He may ask: If a minister’s spouse and family can legally receive an underserved windfall from the government through the minister’s connection, why can’t I also do the same? Doesn’t this MACC ruling open the floodgate of open corruption by public servants? What constitutes an act of corruption?
Apart from the obvious case of receiving or giving a bribe, taking or giving undue favours through wrongful exercise of authority, or even interference of due process with illegitimate motive can also be considered corruption.
It is pertinent to remind ourselves that Anwar Ibrahim was sentenced to six years’ jail under a charge of corruption simply because he was alleged to have interfered with police investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct.
(In this case, it was an obvious miscarriage of justice, as the prosecution evidence of sexual misconduct was exposed in court to be a hoax, prompting the judge to hurriedly expunge all such relevant evidence in order to save the prosecution case from collapsing.)
I mention the Anwar case to demonstrate how far MACC has deviated from the high standard with which our laws define corruption.
Shahrizat’s family was given a pivotal national project to build up the country’s beef production and supply industry, for which they received a RM250 million soft loan and a RM13 million grant, despite being eminently unqualified - having neither the know-how nor the financial capacity to fulfill the mission.
The project was a flop as only miserable amount of beef was produced. Meanwhile, the family had splurged tens of million of ringgit from the loan and grant to acquire assets unrelated to the project, such as luxurious condos and commercial premises, premier housing lands, expensive limousine and high-end restaurants, in addition to each of the family members receiving exorbitant monthly salaries.To any casual observer, this is an obvious case of high corruption, but not our MACC. After passing the ball to the police for months on ground that there was no corruption element, MACC finally relented under public pressure and agreed to investigate.
After a lapse of another few months, MACC finally came out with the current verdict: Shahrizat is not guilty.
How credible is this so-called investigation when the chief accusers, Rafizi and his colleagues, who have constantly exposed new evidences of improprieties were not interviewed even once by MACC to obtain their statements?
Would Shahrizat’s family have been given such a project if she had not been a cabinet colleague of the top decision-makers, considering that the family had no merit of their own whatsoever to qualify for such an undertaking?
Obviously, this is a favour granted to Shahrizat in her position as a key political ally to the top Umno leadership. As a result of this favour (or even a trade-off), the family had enjoyed enormous pecuniary benefits - benefits that Shahrizat cannot possibly dissociate herself from.
If such illegitimate favouritism and financial benefits received by Shahrizat and her family is not corruption, then what is?
Apart from Shahrizat having to answer for this apparent corrupt practice, the bigger culprits are the top decision-makers who awarded the project.
Both Premier Najib Abdul Razak, as chairperson of the high-impact project committee, and Deputy Premier Muhyiddin Yassin as then agriculture minister, who had jointly approved the award of the project, are clearly duty-bound to answer the questions as to why and how they had reached their decision.
As far as we know, MACC has not even commenced investigation in this direction.
MACC has often prided itself as an independent institution which pursues the corrupt without fear or favour. Now is the time to show its mettle.
MACC, are you up to the task of uncovering the truth from Najib and Muhyiddin, who are the obvious potential culprits? If you are not, then please stop the nonsensical claim that you are an independent institution and a fearless corruption buster.
Azmin’s corruption allegation
On May 29, blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin (RPK) on the Malaysia Today website, accused Anwar Ibrahim of influencing the then-Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA, forerunner of MACC) to stop the investigation on allegation of corruption against Azmin Ali back in 1995. As a result, RPK said, the case was buried until he was given the investigation file recently by an ex-ACA officer, hence the current expose.
RPK further claimed that ACA had found enough evidence to arrest and prosecute Azmin then, but had refrained from doing so due to orders to shelve the case. RPK also exhibited part of the file on the website.
Within hours of this RPK posting, MACC swung into immediate action by lodging a police report. The next day, MACC’s Operations Review Panel convened a meeting during which it decided to re-open investigation on the case.
Many Malaysians must have been amazed (or perhaps amused) by the uncharacteristically super efficiency displayed by MACC over this almost ancient allegation against Anwar-Azmin, being already accustomed to its customary lethargy in probing the many BN-linked mega scandals.
But what is the truth of RPK’s allegation?
Immediately after the RPK accusation, then-ACA director general Shafee Yahya at the material time, whose biography by his wife Kalsom Taib entitled ‘The Shafee Yahya Story’ had already thrown light on this incident, came out to strongly deny such allegation. Shafee categorically said that the investigation on Azmin was discontinued not because of any order but because the probe had not uncovered strong elements of corruption to warrant prosecution.Shafee has been recognised as a man of impeccable integrity, whose rectitude and moral courage shone through in his now famous raid on the office of the powerful Economic Planning Unit (EPU) director-general Ali Abul Hassan (a top Mahathir Mohamad confidante) where Shafee uncovered large amount of unaccounted-for cash in Ali’s drawer back in 1998.
For that raid, Shafee incurred the wrath of then-premier Mahathir who angrily rebuked the former and ordered the case against Ali Hassan closed. Several months later, Shafee found his tenure as DG of ACA truncated upon expiry of his service contract.
As we have the highest respect for Shafee’s honesty, we have no question over his version of the story on this Azmin episode.
The question we have is: why has MACC’s operation suddenly switched into such high gear over this apparently archaic and inconsequential allegation as if this is a matter of top national urgency, while it continues to crawl at its usual snail’s space over other BN mega corruption investigations that are a thousand times graver?
Isn’t it obvious that by practicing such awful double standards at this time, MACC has in effect turned itself into a part of the BN propaganda juggernaut to sabotage Pakatan Rakyat’s electoral prospects ahead of the imminent general election?
The scandal-ridden CMs of Sarawak and Sabah
The long reigning warlord-cum-timber baron of Sarawak, Chief Minister extraordinaire Taib Mahmud (since 1981), needs no introduction. His fabulous wealth, derived principally from his ruthless exploitation of Sarawak’s rainforest for personal gain and his monopoly of lucrative government contracts, is too enormous to enumerate.
Taib’s assets have been chronicled to the minutest details in recent years in the Internet, particularly in Sarawak Report and the Bruno Manser Fund, an outline of which was summarised in my article onMalaysiakini on April 2, 2011.Suffice to say that Taib’s fortune, valued at billions of ringgit, is spread far and wide across the globe. These assets, held under scores of family-linked companies, encompass oversea real estates, enterprises at home and abroad, and large areas of Sarawak land dubiously alienated from the ancestral land of the native inhabitants (known as NCR land).
There have of course been many reports lodged against Taib over the past few years, but all to no avail. These reports, well documented with incontrovertible evidence of corruption, seem to have sunk to the bottom of the sea, as MACC has steadfastly refused to divulge its position over the Taib corruption issue, as if the subject is taboo.
It looks set that Taib will continue his high pillage of Sarawak with impunity as he has done for the past three decades. That is, while BN is still in the helm at Putrajaya.
Sabah Chief Minister Musa Aman’s timber corruption allegation came into the limelight when his agent Michael Chia was caught red handed with RM16 million worth of Singapore currency at the Hong Kong International Airport on Aug 14, 2008. When Chia was arrested, he reportedly pleaded with the police to release him on the grounds that the money belonged to Musa Aman and he was only an agent smuggling the money.Subsequently, MACC launched a major investigation into timber corruption in Sabah and found, among others, Musa had corruptly awarded timber concessions worth tens of million of ringgit to his brother, Foreign Minister Hanifah Aman (via nominee companies), according to leaked MACC documents, as reported by Sarawak Report (part of the leaked documents were exhibited in the latter’s website).
Sarawak Report also said that this MACC investigation was, however, blocked by attorney-general Abdul Gani Patail who is also from Sabah, and related by marriage to the Aman family.
Meanwhile, the Hong Kong Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) had been busy investigating into money laundering sourced from Sabah timber corruption, following the arrest of Chia.
It had uncovered the entire network of the multi-billion timber corruption money trail from Sabah via Hong Kong, British Virginia Island to its final destination, Switzerland, where the money is deposited into Musa’s personal account in UBS Zurich.
A flow chart illustrating this complicated network of money flow was passed on to MACC, a copy of which is now with Sarawak Report. This flow chart gives elaborate details of names of account holders, bank account numbers and amounts transacted. The chart together with bank statements showing payers (Sabah timber tycoons) and payees (Musa’s nominees) can be viewed here.
However, these investigations in both Malaysia and Hong Kong have not reached any fruitful conclusion, as inter-country cooperation was blocked, again by Gani, when the latter refused to sign a co-operation agreement, according to Sarawak Report.
However, these investigations in both Malaysia and Hong Kong have not reached any fruitful conclusion, as inter-country cooperation was blocked, again by Gani, when the latter refused to sign a co-operation agreement, according to Sarawak Report.
With Gani standing in the way, do not expect any new development in MACC’s investigation of Musa Aman timber corruption scandal. And Gani will stay as AG, while BN is still in Putrajaya.
Rafizi Ramli - turning a hero into a villain?
The interrogation of Rafizi by Bank Negara for breach of the Bafia reflects very badly on the BN government.
It is a vindictive move to punish the whistleblower, not an act to uphold the law.
Rafizi (right) has in truth done the nation a great service by diligently and conscientiously exposing improprieties in a major public project failure that led to prosecution of a culprit. So, why should he be punished just because he had to disclose certain banking details in the course of performing his civic duty?Section 97 of Bafia is intended to safeguard legitimate confidentiality of account holders, not to shield the illegitimate banking transactions of the corrupt.
So any attempt to use Section 97 against Rafizi is not only morally wrong, but also legally untenable.
Does BN also realise that such a sinister move against Rafizi is tantamount to admitting that its top leadership had a hand in these sordid NFC affairs, otherwise, why should it seek retaliation and intimidation through Bank Negara?
If the leadership of BN has any cow sense, it should cease such abhorrent action forthwith.
Looking over the above narration, doubters of BN’s critics should be satisfied that this BN government is not going to bring the country to where it promises to bring - transformation, greater prosperity, greater unity, etc, etc. BN’s abuse of our institutions to serve its parochial political interests in contemptuous disregard for law and decency has gotten from bad to worse.
One should be convinced by now that the BN leadership has neither the political will nor the capacity to reform or “transform” (coining Najib’s rhetoric), and the result can only be: greater corruption, more abuse of power and worsening social dissension and antagonism.
There is only one way out for the country: change the government.
KIM QUEK is a retired accountant and author of the banned book ‘The March to Putrajaya’.
~ Malaysiakini
Libya's first post-Gaddafi vote 'delayed'
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Four convicted in Denmark over terror plot
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Japanese PM shakes up cabinet
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World markets extend fall on growth fears
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NATO signs Afghan exit route deals
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High Commissioner Guterres warns of massive refugee flow into South Sudan's remote northeast
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THAILAND: Children trafficked to sell flowers and beg
THAILAND: Children trafficked to sell flowers and beg:
 | PAK KRED, 4 June 2012 (IRIN) - In an impoverished town in Thailand, a trafficker offered a desperate woman living near the Burmese border US$160 on the spot, followed by an additional $120 per month for two of her 10 children to sell flowers in the Thai capital, Bangkok. The rent-a-child deal was to last three months, after which the boys would return home to their widowed Burmese mother. |
Hong Kong Holds Tiananmen Vigil
Hong Kong Holds Tiananmen Vigil:
Updated at 3:53 p.m. EST on 2012-06-04
Tens of thousands of people converged on Hong Kong's Victoria Park on Monday to mark the 23rd anniversary of the 1989 military crackdown on student-led protests in Tiananmen Square as Beijing muzzled online talk on commemorating the event, organizers said.
"The candlelight vigil didn't begin formally until 8.00 p.m., but people were coming there as soon as they got off work, and by 6.00 p.m. there was already a football field full," said Fang Zheng, a former student protester who lost both legs in the crackdown on protests that had gripped Beijing by the People's Liberation Army.
"The organizers ... estimated that this year, a total of 180,000 people took part," Fang said. However, police estimated the crowds reached 80,000 at their peak, he added.
Many of those taking part appeared to have come from mainland China.
"I came specially, because I wanted to understand this event," said a participant surnamed Zhang from Shenzhen, just across the internal border with mainland China.
"When I get back, I'm going to tell people about the facts of what happened from start to finish, so that the next generation knows about it too."
Another mainland resident surnamed Yang said she had never seen an event similar to the vigil in China, where the government has detained a string of activists and petitioners and banned Internet posts relating to the politically sensitive anniversary.
"These events took place in Beijing, a long way away from them ... but they are still coming here because of what happened in Tiananmen Square," she said. "It's very moving."
In mainland China, the authorities boosted security in the capital, especially in the vicinity of Tiananmen Square, activists said.
"From May 31 to June 4 ... key personnel must reinforce preventive security measures and step up their efforts to seek out ... any intelligence reports related to the sensitive time of June 4," Beijing's Tongzhou district government said in a statement on its website this week.
Beijing-based rights activist Hu Jia said the notice shows that the government regards itself as being on a war footing with regard to social stability around the anniversary.
"I'm pretty certain that the Beijing state security police headquarters are personally involved in [security arrangements,]" Hu said, adding that he had been forbidden to leave his home since Sunday.
"I don't know how long this will go on for, but it's clearly aimed at the period around June 4," he said. "There are more than 10 officers down there."
Jilin-based retired university professor Sun Wenguang said he was under very close guard after handing out leaflets to passers-by calling for a reappraisal of the official verdict on the events of June 4, 1989 in the city's Zhongshan park.
"It has never been this tight before," he said. "There are eight vehicles and they are keeping an extremely close watch on me today."
"They won't let me go out and buy groceries."
Beijing-based Zhang Xianling, a member of the Tiananmen Mothers group for relatives of those who died or were injured in the crackdown, said she had been refused permission visit her son's grave.
"This is a dictatorial regime which has implemented inhumane measures," she said. "What is so frightening about us commemorating our relative in a normal manner?"
"What right do they have to put us under surveillance and limit our movements? This is totally unreasonable, and it violates our human rights," Zhang said.
But she added: "It has been like this for so many years now."
In the Chinese capital, more than 80 rights campaigners met Saturday, carrying banners and shouting slogans calling for a reassessment of the 1989 protests.
"We shouted 'down with corruption,' and 'protect our rights'," Wang Yongfeng, a Shanghai activist who attended the protest, told Agence France-Presse.
"So many people were killed on June 4. We think the government should fully account for what happened," Wang said, as photographs of the Saturday protest posted online showed demonstrators with large placards reading "Remember our struggle for democracy, freedom, and rights as well as those heroes who met tragedy."
Hong Kong is the only region in China where the Tiananmen crackdown is openly commemorated.
Under the terms of its handover from British rule, Hong Kong has been promised the continuation of existing freedoms of expression and association for 50 years, and former student activist Fang Zheng, who lost both legs during the crackdown, was allowed to enter Hong Kong to attend the vigil last week.
However, the territory has blocked former Tiananmen student leaders from entering the city to attend previous events on the sensitive June 4 anniversary.
Opportunity
Fang Zheng said he welcomed the opportunity to commemorate those who died when People's Liberation Army tanks cleared the Square of hunger-striking students and fellow protesters, amid bloody pitched battles with Beijing residents who tried to prevent them entering the capital.
"I have always wanted to attend the candlelight vigil in Victoria Park with my compatriots," Fang told a news conference on Friday. "They have kept up [this tradition] for so many years now, and they are a breakthrough force amid these dark times."
"Now that I have been allowed through immigration, I am happy to find that Hong Kong's high degree of autonomy still remains," he said.
Sina Weibo user and Hong Kong financial journalist George Chen wrote on his account that many Hong Kong-based netizens had found their tweets on mainland Chinese microblogging services were invisible to anyone but themselves on Monday.
"Why have they singled out Hong Kong netizens? Everyone knows what they're thinking," said Chen's post, which was later removed from Sina Weibo.
Meanwhile, Chinese Internet portal Sina banned the use of candle emoticons on its hugely popular Weibo microblogging service, later also removing a torch linked to the London Olympics which had been pressed into service in its stead by users wishing to commemorate those who died on June 4, 1989, bloggers said.
Keyword searches for the Chinese characters for "candle" returned a message stating that the results were unavailable owing to "relevant policies and laws," while posts using clocks and watches to denote the anniversary were also soon deleted, according to the Shanghaiist blog.
Across the internal border in Hunan province, activist Ouyang Jinghua said police had confiscated political banners from his home that he was planning to display in his home city of Shaoyang.
The banners called for a reappraisal of the official verdict on the 1989 protest movement and subsequent crackdown, and for Premier Wen Jiabao to implement his plans for reforms to the political system.
"Get rid of the single-party dictatorship, and build a democratic society," Ouyang's banner said.
"They came to my home and took all of my banners away," Ouyang said on Sunday. "They said that we couldn't deal with it in this manner ... they said they had no choice, they couldn't give them back to me."
Fujian-based rights activist Wu Linxiang said she and her husband were detained after they unfurled a banner outside their local court building calling for a reappraisal of the June 4 incident.
"A lot of them came and took us away," Wu said. "They replaced the SD card in our camera and they deleted everything stored in our cell phones."
"They told us we had managed to prod through to heaven, and that we would be investigated by the higher-ups."
Petitioners
The Chinese authorities also detained hundreds of petitioners who gathered at central government offices in Beijing to seek redress for rights violations in their localities in a bid to prevent any Tiananmen crackdown commemoration events.
"They brought in a lot of buses and were rounding up petitioners at the Beijing South rail station on Saturday night," Zhou Jinxia, a petitioner from northeast China's Liaoning province, told Agence France-Presse.
"There were between 600 to 1,000 petitioners from all over China. We were processed, we had to register, and then they started sending people back to their hometowns."
The number of people killed when People's Liberation Army (PLA) tanks and troops entered Beijing on the night of June 3-4, 1989 remains a mystery.
Beijing authorities once put the death toll at "nearly 300," but the central government, which labelled the six weeks of pro-democracy protests a “counterrevolutionary uprising,” has not issued an official toll or name list.
The crackdown, which officials styled in a news conference at the time as a necessary way to suppress a counterrevolutionary rebellion, sparked a wave of international condemnation, and for several years China was treated as a near-pariah, as Western governments offered asylum to student leaders fleeing into exile.
The Chinese Red Cross initially reported 2,600 deaths but quickly retracted its statement, while the Tiananmen Mothers, which represents all victims of the crackdown who died or were maimed, says it has confirmed 186 deaths, although not all at the hands of the army.
The United States at the weekend called on China to release any remaining prisoners serving sentences linked to the crackdown.
"We renew our call for China to protect the universal human rights of all its citizens; release those who have been wrongfully detained, prosecuted, incarcerated, forcibly disappeared, or placed under house arrest; and end the ongoing harassment of human rights activists and their families," State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner said in a statement issued on Monday.
"On this the 23rd anniversary of the violent suppression by Chinese authorities of the spring 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations, the United States joins the international community in remembering the tragic loss of innocent lives," the statement said.
China hit out at Washington for interfering in its internal affairs, however.
"The U.S. side has been ignoring the facts and issuing such statements year after year, making baseless accusations against the Chinese government and arbitrarily interfering with China's internal affairs," foreign ministry spokesman Liu Weimin told a regular news conference in Beijing on Monday.
"The Chinese side expresses strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition to such acts," Liu said.
Reported by Wen Yuqing for RFA's Cantonese service and by Xin Yu for the Mandarin service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
Updated at 3:53 p.m. EST on 2012-06-04
Tens of thousands of people converged on Hong Kong's Victoria Park on Monday to mark the 23rd anniversary of the 1989 military crackdown on student-led protests in Tiananmen Square as Beijing muzzled online talk on commemorating the event, organizers said.
"The candlelight vigil didn't begin formally until 8.00 p.m., but people were coming there as soon as they got off work, and by 6.00 p.m. there was already a football field full," said Fang Zheng, a former student protester who lost both legs in the crackdown on protests that had gripped Beijing by the People's Liberation Army.
"The organizers ... estimated that this year, a total of 180,000 people took part," Fang said. However, police estimated the crowds reached 80,000 at their peak, he added.
Many of those taking part appeared to have come from mainland China.
"I came specially, because I wanted to understand this event," said a participant surnamed Zhang from Shenzhen, just across the internal border with mainland China.
"When I get back, I'm going to tell people about the facts of what happened from start to finish, so that the next generation knows about it too."
Another mainland resident surnamed Yang said she had never seen an event similar to the vigil in China, where the government has detained a string of activists and petitioners and banned Internet posts relating to the politically sensitive anniversary.
"These events took place in Beijing, a long way away from them ... but they are still coming here because of what happened in Tiananmen Square," she said. "It's very moving."
In mainland China, the authorities boosted security in the capital, especially in the vicinity of Tiananmen Square, activists said.
"From May 31 to June 4 ... key personnel must reinforce preventive security measures and step up their efforts to seek out ... any intelligence reports related to the sensitive time of June 4," Beijing's Tongzhou district government said in a statement on its website this week.
Beijing-based rights activist Hu Jia said the notice shows that the government regards itself as being on a war footing with regard to social stability around the anniversary.
"I'm pretty certain that the Beijing state security police headquarters are personally involved in [security arrangements,]" Hu said, adding that he had been forbidden to leave his home since Sunday.
"I don't know how long this will go on for, but it's clearly aimed at the period around June 4," he said. "There are more than 10 officers down there."
Jilin-based retired university professor Sun Wenguang said he was under very close guard after handing out leaflets to passers-by calling for a reappraisal of the official verdict on the events of June 4, 1989 in the city's Zhongshan park.
"It has never been this tight before," he said. "There are eight vehicles and they are keeping an extremely close watch on me today."
"They won't let me go out and buy groceries."
Beijing-based Zhang Xianling, a member of the Tiananmen Mothers group for relatives of those who died or were injured in the crackdown, said she had been refused permission visit her son's grave.
"This is a dictatorial regime which has implemented inhumane measures," she said. "What is so frightening about us commemorating our relative in a normal manner?"
"What right do they have to put us under surveillance and limit our movements? This is totally unreasonable, and it violates our human rights," Zhang said.
But she added: "It has been like this for so many years now."
In the Chinese capital, more than 80 rights campaigners met Saturday, carrying banners and shouting slogans calling for a reassessment of the 1989 protests.
"We shouted 'down with corruption,' and 'protect our rights'," Wang Yongfeng, a Shanghai activist who attended the protest, told Agence France-Presse.
"So many people were killed on June 4. We think the government should fully account for what happened," Wang said, as photographs of the Saturday protest posted online showed demonstrators with large placards reading "Remember our struggle for democracy, freedom, and rights as well as those heroes who met tragedy."
Hong Kong is the only region in China where the Tiananmen crackdown is openly commemorated.
Under the terms of its handover from British rule, Hong Kong has been promised the continuation of existing freedoms of expression and association for 50 years, and former student activist Fang Zheng, who lost both legs during the crackdown, was allowed to enter Hong Kong to attend the vigil last week.
However, the territory has blocked former Tiananmen student leaders from entering the city to attend previous events on the sensitive June 4 anniversary.
Opportunity
Fang Zheng said he welcomed the opportunity to commemorate those who died when People's Liberation Army tanks cleared the Square of hunger-striking students and fellow protesters, amid bloody pitched battles with Beijing residents who tried to prevent them entering the capital.
"I have always wanted to attend the candlelight vigil in Victoria Park with my compatriots," Fang told a news conference on Friday. "They have kept up [this tradition] for so many years now, and they are a breakthrough force amid these dark times."
"Now that I have been allowed through immigration, I am happy to find that Hong Kong's high degree of autonomy still remains," he said.
Sina Weibo user and Hong Kong financial journalist George Chen wrote on his account that many Hong Kong-based netizens had found their tweets on mainland Chinese microblogging services were invisible to anyone but themselves on Monday.
"Why have they singled out Hong Kong netizens? Everyone knows what they're thinking," said Chen's post, which was later removed from Sina Weibo.
Meanwhile, Chinese Internet portal Sina banned the use of candle emoticons on its hugely popular Weibo microblogging service, later also removing a torch linked to the London Olympics which had been pressed into service in its stead by users wishing to commemorate those who died on June 4, 1989, bloggers said.
Keyword searches for the Chinese characters for "candle" returned a message stating that the results were unavailable owing to "relevant policies and laws," while posts using clocks and watches to denote the anniversary were also soon deleted, according to the Shanghaiist blog.
Across the internal border in Hunan province, activist Ouyang Jinghua said police had confiscated political banners from his home that he was planning to display in his home city of Shaoyang.
The banners called for a reappraisal of the official verdict on the 1989 protest movement and subsequent crackdown, and for Premier Wen Jiabao to implement his plans for reforms to the political system.
"Get rid of the single-party dictatorship, and build a democratic society," Ouyang's banner said.
"They came to my home and took all of my banners away," Ouyang said on Sunday. "They said that we couldn't deal with it in this manner ... they said they had no choice, they couldn't give them back to me."
Fujian-based rights activist Wu Linxiang said she and her husband were detained after they unfurled a banner outside their local court building calling for a reappraisal of the June 4 incident.
"A lot of them came and took us away," Wu said. "They replaced the SD card in our camera and they deleted everything stored in our cell phones."
"They told us we had managed to prod through to heaven, and that we would be investigated by the higher-ups."
Petitioners
The Chinese authorities also detained hundreds of petitioners who gathered at central government offices in Beijing to seek redress for rights violations in their localities in a bid to prevent any Tiananmen crackdown commemoration events.
"They brought in a lot of buses and were rounding up petitioners at the Beijing South rail station on Saturday night," Zhou Jinxia, a petitioner from northeast China's Liaoning province, told Agence France-Presse.
"There were between 600 to 1,000 petitioners from all over China. We were processed, we had to register, and then they started sending people back to their hometowns."
The number of people killed when People's Liberation Army (PLA) tanks and troops entered Beijing on the night of June 3-4, 1989 remains a mystery.
Beijing authorities once put the death toll at "nearly 300," but the central government, which labelled the six weeks of pro-democracy protests a “counterrevolutionary uprising,” has not issued an official toll or name list.
The crackdown, which officials styled in a news conference at the time as a necessary way to suppress a counterrevolutionary rebellion, sparked a wave of international condemnation, and for several years China was treated as a near-pariah, as Western governments offered asylum to student leaders fleeing into exile.
The Chinese Red Cross initially reported 2,600 deaths but quickly retracted its statement, while the Tiananmen Mothers, which represents all victims of the crackdown who died or were maimed, says it has confirmed 186 deaths, although not all at the hands of the army.
The United States at the weekend called on China to release any remaining prisoners serving sentences linked to the crackdown.
"We renew our call for China to protect the universal human rights of all its citizens; release those who have been wrongfully detained, prosecuted, incarcerated, forcibly disappeared, or placed under house arrest; and end the ongoing harassment of human rights activists and their families," State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner said in a statement issued on Monday.
"On this the 23rd anniversary of the violent suppression by Chinese authorities of the spring 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations, the United States joins the international community in remembering the tragic loss of innocent lives," the statement said.
China hit out at Washington for interfering in its internal affairs, however.
"The U.S. side has been ignoring the facts and issuing such statements year after year, making baseless accusations against the Chinese government and arbitrarily interfering with China's internal affairs," foreign ministry spokesman Liu Weimin told a regular news conference in Beijing on Monday.
"The Chinese side expresses strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition to such acts," Liu said.
Reported by Wen Yuqing for RFA's Cantonese service and by Xin Yu for the Mandarin service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
Tibetan Envoys to China Talks Quit
Tibetan Envoys to China Talks Quit:
Tibet's exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama's envoys to negotiations with Beijing for greater autonomy in the troubled region have resigned, saying they are frustrated by the Chinese leadership's refusal to restart the stalled negotiations.
The ninth round of the secretive talks were held in January 2010 after a 14-month hiatus. There has been no breakthrough in the discussions that have been held since 2002.
Envoys Lodi Gyari and Kelsang Gyaltsen "expressed their utter frustration over the lack of positive response from the Chinese side and submitted their resignations" to Lobsang Sangay, the head of the India-based Tibetan government-in-exile at a May 30-31 meeting.
“Given the deteriorating situation inside Tibet since 2008 leading to the increasing cases of self-immolations by Tibetans, we are compelled to submit our resignations," a statement from the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) said.
The Chinese Communist Party's United Front Work Department, which represents Beijing in the talks, also did not respond positively to proposals for "genuine autonomy" for the Tibetan people presented in 2008 and 2010, the statement added.
"One of the key Chinese interlocutors in the dialogue process even advocated abrogation of minority status as stipulated in the Chinese constitution thereby seeming to remove the basis of autonomy. At this particular time, it is difficult to have substantive dialogue,” the two envoys said in their resignation letter.
The CTA has said it hopes to continue with the negotiations with Beijing.
Sangay, who was elected prime minister of the exile parliament last year after the Dalai Lama stepped down as the political leader of the Tibetan people, "regretfully accepted" the resignations, effective June 1, 2012, the statement said.
Middle-way approach
The exile cabinet urged Beijing to accept the Dalai Lama's "middle-way" approach, which seeks genuine autonomy for Tibetans within China and within the framework of the Chinese constitution, the statement said.
"This is a win-win proposition, which contributes to PRC’s [People's Republic of China's] unity, stability, harmony and its peaceful rise in the world."
A Tibetan task force on the negotiations with Beijing will be expanded and will meet again in December to discuss the Chinese leadership transition with the hope of continuing a dialogue with the new Chinese leaders to peacefully resolve the issue of Tibet, the statement said.
"The Tibetan leadership remains firmly committed to non-violence and the middle-way approach, and strongly believes that the only way to resolve the issue of Tibet is through dialogue. The Tibetan leadership considers substance to be primary and process as secondary, and is ready to engage in meaningful dialogue anywhere and at anytime."
China has ruled Tibet since 1950, and the Chinese government has repeatedly accused exiled Tibetans, including the Dalai Lama, of stoking dissent against its rule. The spiritual leader fled to India in 1959 after a failed uprising.
Tibetans have increasingly criticized Chinese policies which they say are discriminatory and have robbed them of their rights.
Thirty-eight Tibetans have self-immolated so far in a bid to push for an end to Beijing's rule and the return of the exiled Dalai Lama.
Some analysts say Beijing is unlikely to soften its stance against the protesting Tibetans ahead of the once-in-a-decade leadership succession in the ruling Chinese Community Party at the end of the year.
The resignation of the two envoys came amid the transition in Beijing and the Tibetan exile government, they said.
"The transition in China, transition in Dharamsala and the situation in Tibet does not provide the kind of confidence, atmosphere in which the talks can take place," said Mary Beth Markey, president of the Washington-based advocacy group International Campaign for Tibet.
"It's a combination of situations that has made the decision for the envoys to step down," she told RFA.
Asked on the next step, she said, "It is for Dharamsala to study the transition in China and make some determination."
The Dalai Lama has lived in northern India since fleeing his homeland in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule.
Reported by Parameswaran Ponnudurai.
Tibet's exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama's envoys to negotiations with Beijing for greater autonomy in the troubled region have resigned, saying they are frustrated by the Chinese leadership's refusal to restart the stalled negotiations.
The ninth round of the secretive talks were held in January 2010 after a 14-month hiatus. There has been no breakthrough in the discussions that have been held since 2002.
Envoys Lodi Gyari and Kelsang Gyaltsen "expressed their utter frustration over the lack of positive response from the Chinese side and submitted their resignations" to Lobsang Sangay, the head of the India-based Tibetan government-in-exile at a May 30-31 meeting.
“Given the deteriorating situation inside Tibet since 2008 leading to the increasing cases of self-immolations by Tibetans, we are compelled to submit our resignations," a statement from the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) said.
The Chinese Communist Party's United Front Work Department, which represents Beijing in the talks, also did not respond positively to proposals for "genuine autonomy" for the Tibetan people presented in 2008 and 2010, the statement added.
"One of the key Chinese interlocutors in the dialogue process even advocated abrogation of minority status as stipulated in the Chinese constitution thereby seeming to remove the basis of autonomy. At this particular time, it is difficult to have substantive dialogue,” the two envoys said in their resignation letter.
The CTA has said it hopes to continue with the negotiations with Beijing.
Sangay, who was elected prime minister of the exile parliament last year after the Dalai Lama stepped down as the political leader of the Tibetan people, "regretfully accepted" the resignations, effective June 1, 2012, the statement said.
Middle-way approach
The exile cabinet urged Beijing to accept the Dalai Lama's "middle-way" approach, which seeks genuine autonomy for Tibetans within China and within the framework of the Chinese constitution, the statement said.
"This is a win-win proposition, which contributes to PRC’s [People's Republic of China's] unity, stability, harmony and its peaceful rise in the world."
A Tibetan task force on the negotiations with Beijing will be expanded and will meet again in December to discuss the Chinese leadership transition with the hope of continuing a dialogue with the new Chinese leaders to peacefully resolve the issue of Tibet, the statement said.
"The Tibetan leadership remains firmly committed to non-violence and the middle-way approach, and strongly believes that the only way to resolve the issue of Tibet is through dialogue. The Tibetan leadership considers substance to be primary and process as secondary, and is ready to engage in meaningful dialogue anywhere and at anytime."
China has ruled Tibet since 1950, and the Chinese government has repeatedly accused exiled Tibetans, including the Dalai Lama, of stoking dissent against its rule. The spiritual leader fled to India in 1959 after a failed uprising.
Tibetans have increasingly criticized Chinese policies which they say are discriminatory and have robbed them of their rights.
Thirty-eight Tibetans have self-immolated so far in a bid to push for an end to Beijing's rule and the return of the exiled Dalai Lama.
Some analysts say Beijing is unlikely to soften its stance against the protesting Tibetans ahead of the once-in-a-decade leadership succession in the ruling Chinese Community Party at the end of the year.
The resignation of the two envoys came amid the transition in Beijing and the Tibetan exile government, they said.
"The transition in China, transition in Dharamsala and the situation in Tibet does not provide the kind of confidence, atmosphere in which the talks can take place," said Mary Beth Markey, president of the Washington-based advocacy group International Campaign for Tibet.
"It's a combination of situations that has made the decision for the envoys to step down," she told RFA.
Asked on the next step, she said, "It is for Dharamsala to study the transition in China and make some determination."
The Dalai Lama has lived in northern India since fleeing his homeland in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule.
Reported by Parameswaran Ponnudurai.
Death in Detention Draws Denigration
Death in Detention Draws Denigration:
A 12-year-old Uyghur boy has died in police custody under suspicious circumstances after being detained for taking Islamic prayer lessons from an unsanctioned school, drawing condemnation from an overseas rights group.
Mirzahid was arrested on May 20 while studying Islamic prayer and reciting of the Koran along with two other students and their teacher at the teacher’s home in Korla in northwestern China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, according to the boy’s father, who has been living in exile for the past 11 years.
Due to restrictions in the region imposed by Chinese authorities, Uyghurs have been forced to seek alternative ways to obtain a religious education.
Only state-sanctioned religious schools are legal, but have limited openings and difficult entry requirements, hindering access for Uyghurs.
Police informed Mirzahid’s mother that the boy had committed suicide while in detention, though she told her husband that when she went to retrieve his body, it became clear that he had suffered torture, appearing to have been strangled around the neck and beaten repeatedly.
His mother said that she was told by police not to speak of Mirzahid’s death and to quietly bury his body immediately. The boy was interred in the presence of the police and without reciting from the Koran on May 22.
According to a report in the official Chinese media, Mirzahid died as a result of a beating he received before he was detained at the hands of his Koran instructor who was punishing him for failing to recite his prayers in a timely manner.
The case drew strong condemnation from the Germany-based World Uyghur Congress (WUC), which noted that Mirzahid’s death comes against a backdrop of an increased presence of security forces in the region following a clash in Korla between young Uyghurs and police, which left four Uyghurs dead.
“The case is riddled with many violations of fundamental international human rights law, as well as reminiscent of the persecution that Uyghurs face on a day-to-day basis and other deaths in detention of minors, such as that of Noor-ul-Islam Shebaz in November 2011,” the WUC wrote in a statement.
Noor-ul-Islam Sherbaz, then 17, was detained following ethnic disturbances in the regional capital Urumqi in July 2009, and was charged in 2010 for what authorities said was his role in inciting the unrest. He was allegedly given a lethal injection at his prison hospital and immediately buried by authorities, who would not let his family see his body.
‘Barbaric’ case
WUC President Rebiya Kadeer said that while many Uyghur adults are detained, tortured and, in cases, executed or died as a result of their treatment, “the case of Mirzahid is particularly barbaric.”
“Whatever his crime—indeed, precedents suggest that there was unlikely to be a crime—no child should be detained, moreover tortured to death,” she said.
“This incident is a flagrant abuse of the most basic international human rights law.”
Kadeer noted that China has ratified the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and is a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
“China must recognise the competency of the Committee against Torture, and undertake all measures so that this barbaric act does not repeat itself again,” she said.
“China must immediately cease its persecution of Uyghurs and the denial of their right to freedom of religion, especially for children for whom there should be no exception.”
Reported by Joshua Lipes.
A 12-year-old Uyghur boy has died in police custody under suspicious circumstances after being detained for taking Islamic prayer lessons from an unsanctioned school, drawing condemnation from an overseas rights group.
Mirzahid was arrested on May 20 while studying Islamic prayer and reciting of the Koran along with two other students and their teacher at the teacher’s home in Korla in northwestern China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, according to the boy’s father, who has been living in exile for the past 11 years.
Due to restrictions in the region imposed by Chinese authorities, Uyghurs have been forced to seek alternative ways to obtain a religious education.
Only state-sanctioned religious schools are legal, but have limited openings and difficult entry requirements, hindering access for Uyghurs.
Police informed Mirzahid’s mother that the boy had committed suicide while in detention, though she told her husband that when she went to retrieve his body, it became clear that he had suffered torture, appearing to have been strangled around the neck and beaten repeatedly.
His mother said that she was told by police not to speak of Mirzahid’s death and to quietly bury his body immediately. The boy was interred in the presence of the police and without reciting from the Koran on May 22.
According to a report in the official Chinese media, Mirzahid died as a result of a beating he received before he was detained at the hands of his Koran instructor who was punishing him for failing to recite his prayers in a timely manner.
The case drew strong condemnation from the Germany-based World Uyghur Congress (WUC), which noted that Mirzahid’s death comes against a backdrop of an increased presence of security forces in the region following a clash in Korla between young Uyghurs and police, which left four Uyghurs dead.
“The case is riddled with many violations of fundamental international human rights law, as well as reminiscent of the persecution that Uyghurs face on a day-to-day basis and other deaths in detention of minors, such as that of Noor-ul-Islam Shebaz in November 2011,” the WUC wrote in a statement.
Noor-ul-Islam Sherbaz, then 17, was detained following ethnic disturbances in the regional capital Urumqi in July 2009, and was charged in 2010 for what authorities said was his role in inciting the unrest. He was allegedly given a lethal injection at his prison hospital and immediately buried by authorities, who would not let his family see his body.
‘Barbaric’ case
WUC President Rebiya Kadeer said that while many Uyghur adults are detained, tortured and, in cases, executed or died as a result of their treatment, “the case of Mirzahid is particularly barbaric.”
“Whatever his crime—indeed, precedents suggest that there was unlikely to be a crime—no child should be detained, moreover tortured to death,” she said.
“This incident is a flagrant abuse of the most basic international human rights law.”
Kadeer noted that China has ratified the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and is a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
“China must recognise the competency of the Committee against Torture, and undertake all measures so that this barbaric act does not repeat itself again,” she said.
“China must immediately cease its persecution of Uyghurs and the denial of their right to freedom of religion, especially for children for whom there should be no exception.”
Reported by Joshua Lipes.
Another Win for Ruling Party
Another Win for Ruling Party:
Cambodia’s ruling party scored a landslide victory in local elections over the weekend, preliminary results revealed Monday, as opposition parties and election monitors complained of irregularities in the country’s third ever commune-level vote.
Early returns received by the country’s election committee showed a strong victory for Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), sweeping 1,593 of the 1,633 commune chief posts in the country, up one from the previous election in 2007.
The remaining 40 posts went to the opposition—22 for the Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) and 18 for the Human Rights Party (HRP). Both parties said they would have had stronger gains if election conditions had been less biased toward the ruling party.
The SRP refused to accept the preliminary election results due to voter irregularities, saying that intimidation of voters had worsened since the previous election.
“The Sam Rainsy Party does not accept the results of this election because many voters could not vote because, even though political violence in the period ahead of the election declined [compared to previous commune elections], intimidation has increased,” SRP spokesman Yim Sovann said.
Yim Sovann called for reform of the National Election Committee (NEC), saying its members are biased toward the ruling party.
The CPP, which has ruled the country for three decades, easily won the country’s previous two commune-level elections in 2002 and 2007 that were marred by political violence and other problems.
Yim Sovann said that the SRP, which had expected to win at least 150 commune seats, has filed complaints with every polling station but election officials have refused to receive them.
HRP President Kem Sokha said his party would have received more votes if the NEC were not biased toward the ruling party and there were fewer problems with voting conditions.
Election monitors
Thun Saray, director of the Cambodian rights watchdog ADHOC, said the irregularities in the election had marred the results.
“At some polling stations, election officials prevented election monitors from monitoring the vote,” he said.
He said that government authorities had intimidated voters at polling stations and the guarantees against voting twice were not firmly in place.
“There was the presence of authorities at each polling station … and the black ink [used to mark those who had already cast their ballots] was erasable,” Thun Saray said.
Election officials at polling stations were unfamiliar or careless with election procedures and sometimes allowed those without names on voter registration lists to vote, he said.
Monitoring group Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia (Comfrel) held a press conference Monday on problems in the election conditions, saying the country's media is biased toward the ruling party.
The group accused the CPP of illegally using state property, civil servants, and intimidation by the armed forces in their campaign, but said it would decide whether or not to recognize the results after further investigation.
“We have not rejected the whole election results yet,” Comfrel Director Koul Panha said, explaining that the group will not recognize the official results if it finds problems at more than 30 percent of the polling stations.
Comfrel had said previously that it had found at least 100 cases of intimidation, vote-buying, and the destruction of parties’ leaflets and logos during the pre-election campaign period, and that at least 1.5 million voters were unable to cast their ballots due to incorrect voter registration lists.
The NEC said Monday 5.87 million of the country’s 9.2 million eligible voters had cast their votes in an election the committee’s president Im Sousdey called free and fair.
Commune Seats
Sunday’s elections for local governing councils are seen as a key indicator of public opinion ahead of the general election coming up next year.
The commune chief positions are counted among 11,459 commune councilor seats up for grabs nationwide, of which the CPP won 8,283; the SRP, 2,155; and the HRP, 800, according to the preliminary results.
The remaining seats went to the Funcinpec Party and the Norodom Ranarridh Party, which took 160 and 53 commune councilor seats, respectively, but no commune chief slots.
The SRP’s total of 22 commune chiefs represent a loss from the 28 the party won in the previous election, as the party loses ground to the HRP, which was formed just after the 2007 vote.
The two parties have an alliance to challenge the CPP in the 2013 general election.
Five other parties also competed in Sunday’s vote without winning any seats.
Reported by RFA’s Khmer service. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Rachel Vandenbrink.
Cambodia’s ruling party scored a landslide victory in local elections over the weekend, preliminary results revealed Monday, as opposition parties and election monitors complained of irregularities in the country’s third ever commune-level vote.
Early returns received by the country’s election committee showed a strong victory for Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), sweeping 1,593 of the 1,633 commune chief posts in the country, up one from the previous election in 2007.
The remaining 40 posts went to the opposition—22 for the Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) and 18 for the Human Rights Party (HRP). Both parties said they would have had stronger gains if election conditions had been less biased toward the ruling party.
The SRP refused to accept the preliminary election results due to voter irregularities, saying that intimidation of voters had worsened since the previous election.
“The Sam Rainsy Party does not accept the results of this election because many voters could not vote because, even though political violence in the period ahead of the election declined [compared to previous commune elections], intimidation has increased,” SRP spokesman Yim Sovann said.
Yim Sovann called for reform of the National Election Committee (NEC), saying its members are biased toward the ruling party.
The CPP, which has ruled the country for three decades, easily won the country’s previous two commune-level elections in 2002 and 2007 that were marred by political violence and other problems.
Yim Sovann said that the SRP, which had expected to win at least 150 commune seats, has filed complaints with every polling station but election officials have refused to receive them.
HRP President Kem Sokha said his party would have received more votes if the NEC were not biased toward the ruling party and there were fewer problems with voting conditions.
Election monitors
Thun Saray, director of the Cambodian rights watchdog ADHOC, said the irregularities in the election had marred the results.
“At some polling stations, election officials prevented election monitors from monitoring the vote,” he said.
He said that government authorities had intimidated voters at polling stations and the guarantees against voting twice were not firmly in place.
“There was the presence of authorities at each polling station … and the black ink [used to mark those who had already cast their ballots] was erasable,” Thun Saray said.
Election officials at polling stations were unfamiliar or careless with election procedures and sometimes allowed those without names on voter registration lists to vote, he said.
Monitoring group Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia (Comfrel) held a press conference Monday on problems in the election conditions, saying the country's media is biased toward the ruling party.
The group accused the CPP of illegally using state property, civil servants, and intimidation by the armed forces in their campaign, but said it would decide whether or not to recognize the results after further investigation.
“We have not rejected the whole election results yet,” Comfrel Director Koul Panha said, explaining that the group will not recognize the official results if it finds problems at more than 30 percent of the polling stations.
Comfrel had said previously that it had found at least 100 cases of intimidation, vote-buying, and the destruction of parties’ leaflets and logos during the pre-election campaign period, and that at least 1.5 million voters were unable to cast their ballots due to incorrect voter registration lists.
The NEC said Monday 5.87 million of the country’s 9.2 million eligible voters had cast their votes in an election the committee’s president Im Sousdey called free and fair.
Commune Seats
Sunday’s elections for local governing councils are seen as a key indicator of public opinion ahead of the general election coming up next year.
The commune chief positions are counted among 11,459 commune councilor seats up for grabs nationwide, of which the CPP won 8,283; the SRP, 2,155; and the HRP, 800, according to the preliminary results.
The remaining seats went to the Funcinpec Party and the Norodom Ranarridh Party, which took 160 and 53 commune councilor seats, respectively, but no commune chief slots.
The SRP’s total of 22 commune chiefs represent a loss from the 28 the party won in the previous election, as the party loses ground to the HRP, which was formed just after the 2007 vote.
The two parties have an alliance to challenge the CPP in the 2013 general election.
Five other parties also competed in Sunday’s vote without winning any seats.
Reported by RFA’s Khmer service. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Rachel Vandenbrink.
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