GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The new US ambassador to China, Gary Locke, told reporters at his first press conference in Beijing Sunday 14 August that the US is committed to “getting our fiscal house in order”, in response to Chinese criticism in recent days of what official media have called the American “addiction to borrowing”. China reportedly held $1.16 trillion in US debt, government securities, at the end of May, more than any other country. The criticism followed the downgrading of US credit by rating agency Moodie’s earlier this month.
Locke is a third-generation Chinese-American, whose family emigrated from Hong Kong, with roots in southern Guangdong province. He became the first US state governor of Chinese descent in 1996, re-elected to the post in 2000. He has most recently served as US secretary of commerce. He speaks fluent Cantonese.
He and his wife and three children arrived in Beijing 11 August.
Links to other sites: Economic Times of India, New York Times, Politico, Xinhua
Can Switzerland's environmental policies help China achieve a better balance between nature and humanity?
BERN, SWITZERLAND – A David and Goliath meeting on climate policy will take place from 14 to 21 August when a high-level Chinese delegation visits Switzerland to learn how the Swiss have developed their climate policy. China, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, is making environmental protection and climate change a priority in its new five-year plan for 2011 through 2015.
The Swiss Foreign Affairs Department said in a statement 9 August about the visit that “Beijing is especially counting on international cooperation, and has launched an analysis of the different economic and legal instruments existing in certain countries. Hence, in 2010, China extended an invitation to Switzerland, via the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), to participate in the revision of the legal framework on the fight against air pollution and in the development of a draft law on the climate.”
Switzerland will be presenting an overview of “instruments developed to contribute to the implementation of Swiss climate policy, ranging from voluntary measures subscribed to by the economic sector, to the levying of a CO2 tax”, says Bern. The delegation will meet with experts from several federal offices, members of parliament and some private sector companies, with a visit to a company that employs voluntary climate protection measures.
The visiting Chinese team includes representatives from the National Development and Reform Commission, the Environmental Protection and Resources Conservation Committee of the National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China, the Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Science, and representatives of the Academy of Social Sciences.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The price of food rose 14.8 percent in July in China, led by a rise in the price of pork, a staple, which jump nearly 57 percent compared to a year earlier. The higher food prices led to an overall inflation rate increase of 6.6 percent year on year, up from a 6.4 percent y/y increase in June, despite the government’s vow to keep food prices from rising. The government has allowed interest rates to rise five times in nine months, to rein in inflation. Analysts are divided over whether or not its efforts are taking hold and inflating is peaking.
Higher food prices hit low-income workers hardest, with one-third of their income going for food, according to AFP sources.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The AFP reports today 26 July that local journalists in China are being banned from investigating a crash between two high-speed trains that killed 39 and left hundreds of people hurt.
The trains involved in the 23 July collision, were the first generation of China’s high-speed trains designed to travel at a top speed of 250 kilometres per hour.
A first train was stopped by a power outage caused by lightning, and a second train following on the same line crashed into it.
Further details: France 24 (AFP), background information on the crash GenevaLunch
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Chinese authorities say the death toll has risen to 35, with nearly 200 injured people in hospital following a crash in southeastern China between two high-speed trains, each of them carrying 1,500-2,000 people.
A first train was stopped by a power outage caused by lightning, and a second train following on the same line crashed into it. The first train was stopped on a bridge and two of its cars went over, creating major problems for rescue workers. The accident forced the suspension of 21 bullet trains in and out of Fujian Province, on a line with 30 high-speed trains a day.
Details and photos: Xinhua
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A British-Chinese love affair has just started off with a bang, following the opening in Shanghai of the Chinese version of the West End musical “Mamma Mia”, centred around songs by the Swedish pop group Abba, which takes place on a Greek island.
The Friday night opening 8 July drew enthusiastic applause and Chinese media have since been giving the first Western-style major musical in China the thumbs up in reviews. The show runs in Shanghai until November, when it begins touring.
The West End version is now in its 14th year in London.
Links to other sites: China.org, video on CCTV (Chinese television in English)
Nestle in Chinese sweets deal, Lonza goes for American biochem
Update 15:25 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Vevey-based Nestlé has entered into an agreement with the founding family of Hsu Fu Chi, one of China’s main snack and sweets manufacturers, with four large plants and 16,000 employees. In the deal worth CHF1.4 billion, the Swiss company will ultimately control 40 percent of the company, which is listed in Singapore.
The deal will need government approval.
Nestlé intends to acquire 60 percent of Hsu Fu Chi while the Hsu family will own the remaining 40 percent, the Vevey multinational said in a press release Monday 11 July. Hsu Fu Chi’s chairman and chief executive officer, Hsu Chen, will continue to lead the company in the new partnership.
The Swiss company says of the deal that Hsu Fu Chi has a large range of “affordable products”, with a portfolio that “includes sugar confectionery, cereal-based snacks, packaged cakes and the traditional Chinese snack sachima. Hsu Fu Chi’s products are tailored to Chinese consumers’ needs and habits, and complement Nestlé’s existing product portfolio in China, which includes culinary products, soluble coffee, bottled water, milk powder and products for the foodservice industry.”
Bloomberg points out that the Chinese company’s growth rate in 2010 was three times that of Nestle’s worldwide, noting that “Nestle’s Bulcke, 56, has set a goal of getting 45 percent of revenue from developing countries by 2020, compared with about a third now.”
Basel company takeover of US firm to create world’s largest microbial control firm
Basel-based Lonza will become the world’s largest microbial control company in terms of sales, which are estimated at CHF1.6 billion, once its agreement to buy Arch Chemicals, a Connecticut-based US company, goes through. The deal to take over Arch’s outstanding shares of common stock at a price of $47.20 per share in cash will give Arch Chemicals an enterprise value of $1.4 billion (approximately CHF 1.25 billion), the two companies said in a statement released Monday 11 July.
Lonza Group Ltd is one of the world’s largest suppliers to the pharmaceutical, healthcare and life science industries. Arch Chemicals, Inc. is a global biocides company that provides “innovative solutions to destroy or to selectively inhibit the growth of harmful microorganisms”.
Microbial control is the process of inhibiting or preventing the growth of microorganisms, generally by using agents that either kill them or inhibit their growth. Agents that kill or called “cidals” and those that inhibit are “static agents”.
“Currency factors will help Lonza in the case of Arch,” reports the Financial Times. “The group will borrow to finance the deal, benefiting both from ultra low US interest rates and the strength of the franc.”
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A rare cross has created a charming little creature, a donkra, also known as a zonkey, at a wildlife park in Xiamen Haicang, in China, where crowds are pressing against the fences to see the little fellow. He (sex is not yet known) has the striped legs of his mother, a zebra, but the brown top of his father, a donkey. The parents mated of their own accord in the park where the animals roam freely.
The new donkra was born 4 July.
Raw footage from AP:
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The Chinese Communist Party was established 1 July 1921 and today is arguably the most successful Communist Party in the world, but it remains subject to heavy criticism from outside the country over several issues. China is celebrating this week with a series of events for the Party faithful as well as for the public, the culmination of months of planning.
Chinese media are praising the government’s record since the Communists took power in 1949, but also focusing on the problem of corruption and efforts to reduce it. Xinhua, the state news agency, carries an article about the government’s corruption watchdogs, which harks back to the days when the population was closely watched by local officials.
Foreign media are pointing to more negative aspects, with the BBC noting that celebrations are accompanied by the authorities’ “their biggest crackdown against dissidents in almost 20 years”, while Bloomberg attributes a rise in young members to elitism: “added 1.24 million university students as members last year, an 8.2 percent increase from 2009. Founded 90 years ago today to build a socialist Utopia for the laboring classes, the party has become a ticket to elite jobs in government and state-owned businesses that offer security, power and a path to wealth.” An audio tape from NPR‘s Morning Edition in the US to be released at 09:00 Eastern Daylight Time there will recount one official’s efforts to fight corruption.
Even leftist Liberation in France contents itself with an article, far from the front page, about how residents of Chongqing were being asked to learn revolutionary songs, long forgotten, for the celebrations.
Links to other sites: Euronews, Wall St Journal blog
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Five years of Chinese-Russian talks and the promise of a nearly done deal were not enough to put ink on paper and seal what would be “one of the largest energy deals in history” worth billions of dollars, as the Moscow Times puts it. The two appeared so close to agreement that it was to be at the centre of the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, which ended 18 June, and a four-day visit by Chinese President Hu Jintao to Moscow.
Officials from both sides are now saying more talks are needed. Russia’s “Gazprom sold pipeline gas to Europe in the first half of 2011 for an average of $346 per 1,000 cubic meters and may raise the price for long-term contracts to $500 per 1,000 cubic meters by December on the back of high oil prices. China is seeking a discount on the price at which Gazprom sells gas to its European customers”, reports the Moscow Times.
Bloomberg quotes the head of Gazprom, interviewed last week, as saying a deal should still be feasible in 2011.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – It will cost you only about CHF100 to go 300kph in China, on the Beijing-Shanghai route, but you won’t be behind the wheel, you’ll be in a passenger seat on the new high-speed train. The Chinese government 14 June unveiled the price schedule for the trains, which go into operation at the end of June, cutting travel time from the current high-speed train trip of 10 hours to under 5 hours.
China’s railway company will run 126 trains at 300kph every day and 54 trains at 250kph, as well as continuing to run 136 “normal” trains for the 1,318km journey. The fastest trains were originally scheduled to run at 350kph but the government decided to reduce the speed for cost and safety reasons.
Ticket prices in yuan will be RMB555 for second-class seats and RMB1,750 for first-class, for the 4-hour 48-minute journey. By comparison, a regular full-fare airplane ticket costs nearly RMB1,400 and the flight takes one hour, 40 minutes flying time.
Xinhua, the official news agency, issued a puzzling statement based on remarks by Vice Minister of Railways Hu Yadong at a press conference, that “Prices will float according to the market and for the good of passengers.”
China will continue to run 250kph trains, with tickets costing RMB410 to 650 for second and first class, respectively.
The new high-speed lines will also make it possible to “increase cargo transportation capacity by 140,000 tons per day and 50 million tons per year, according to Xinhua.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Seven people from seven countries, a collection of bloggers and journalists, all of them human rights activists in their countries, were presented Thursday 9 June in Geneva, and given an opportunity to tell their stories at a conference, “The Human Voice of Freedom, the Internet and Human Rights”.
The seven are:
- Egypt – Wael Abbas
- Burma – Aung San Thar
- Uganda – Rosebell Kagumire
- Indonesia – Andreas Harsono
- Tunisia – Henda Chennaoui
- China – Wen Yunchao (Bei Fung)
- Korea – Kwon Eun Kyoung
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The United Nations Security Council Wednesday debated a draft resolution that France and the UK presented condemning Syria’s actions against protesters, but the resolution does not appear to have Chinese and Russian support. It stops short of sanctions and military action, but the two have said they fear destabilizing a key Middle Eastern country. The resolution comes on the heels of a bloody weekend, where 120 police and army troops were killed.
Turkey has opened its arms to Syrian refugees fleeing the northern town of Jisr al-Shughur, where the killings took place, as residents fear government reprisals. Xinhua news agency carries a story picked up from Syrian agency Sana that says the Syrian government has begun a “delicate” operation designed to avoid casualties, in the city, following the deaths.
China's Three Gorges dam in 2009
BERN, SWITZERLAND – China and Switzerland signed a letter of understanding Wednesday 1 June for the Alpine nation to provide monitoring services for Chinese dams.
Jiao Yong, China’s vice-minister for Water Resources, and Walter Steinmann, director of the Swiss Federal Energy Office, signed a letter of intent during the six-day meeting in Lucerne of nearly 1,000 of the world’s top specialists in hydraulic dams.
Switzerland has the world’s most dense system of dams, and it has the world’s highest in cement, the Grande-Dixence, 285 metres high. Switzerland relies heavily on hydraulic power, which supplies 55 percent of the country’s electricity, and dams play a crucial role in this system.
China’s construction of the Three Gorges dam on the Yangtze in the past decade drew world attention, but the country’s growing dam system now includes some 26,000 dams that are more than 15 metres high.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A 60-day drought in the lower reaches of the Yangtse River in China is set to continue, the country’s meteorological service said Sunday evening, 29 May. Rainfall in the area since January has been 40-60 percent less than in 2010, and no rain is expected in the next few days. More than 35 million people are affected by the dry weather, which has so far caused economic losses of 15 billion yuan ($2.3 billion), reports Xinhua, which notes that more than 4 million people are having trouble finding drinking water.
“China’s two largest fresh water lakes – Dongting Lake in Hunan and Poyang Lake in Jiangxi – are both drying up dramatically” and the price of vegetables is soaring, with fears that inflation in May will rise sharply as a result of the drought.
Last week the government began released enormous quantities of water, 5bn m3 a day, for irrigation and drinking water, from the Three Gorges dam, cutting back its capacity to generate power. The drought is the worst in 50 years in the region.
The Yangste is Asia’s longest river.
Earlier in May, shipping traffic on the Yangtse became problematic because of the low water level. A 140-mile stretch above Wuhan was closed 12 May to avoid further problems.
Links to other sites: China Post, Guardian, Reuters
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The price of a French crepe on the streets of Shanghai has just gone up 25 percent, thanks to the street vendor cops in China. Benoit and Julien (the names may or may not be real), French foreign students in China, had the bright idea to sell crepes from a street stall. Tiens! The police who chase unlicensed vendors in China in an ongoing and lively cops and robbers kind of game went after the pair. The illegal vendors police, known in China as chengguan, showed up just as les garcons were finishing up a crepe, but in true French fashion they made sure it was cooked properly before handing it to the customer and then fleeing.
ChinaSmack has an extraordinary blow by blow description of what happened. “The two of them looked around them, realized that something was not right, quickly finished the crepe they were working on, spreading on the fruit jam and handing it to the customer, and then hurriedly collected their things.”
The story includes the economic impact of the French pair achieving instant Chinese internet fame: the price of a French crepe rose from RMB4 to 5 (66 Swiss centimes; 77 US cents), with the two young men explaining that demand was outstripping supply, given that they have to spend most of their time in school rather than demonstrating French culinary skills. Mais oui!
Ed. note: my first experience of the chengguan, who are a fact of daily life in China, was in the sports gear area south of the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, where my husband, an avid pingpong player, was comparing prices for paddles. The shops were not interested in bargaining, but people in the numerous street stalls were. In addition to being a pingpong fan, my husband is an economics professor, so buying a paddle was a long process, involving numerous price comparisons. And then suddenly, for no apparent reason, as if a silent antenna was at work. the street vendors rapidly, discreetly closed shop and wheeled off. Seconds later the vendor police arrived and found no one.
The only paddles for sale were in shops, where the price remained stable, and high.
Yves Robert-Charrue. Bank Julius Baer
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Bank Julius Baer has been awarded a license for $100 million for a China fund, six months after it received a Hong Kong license, giving Switzerland’s largest private bank a stronger foothold in the Asian market, Reuters reports Monday 23 May. “The QFII quota, granted by the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE), China’s currency regulator, would allow Julius Baer to buy Chinese stocks and bonds under the Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (QFII) scheme,” according to the news agency.
The QFII quota was awarded seven months after the bank became the 147th bank to be licensed by Hong Kong‘s monetary authority, in October 2010, four years after setting up a representative office in Hong Kong, which then became a full branch late in 2010.
China said in April that it had approved 109 QFII licenses, according to the Wall St Journal.
The bank now considers Asia its second base, and it has said it hopes to open a Shanghai representative office this year.
New CEO for Switzerland named Friday
Yves Robert-Charrue was named chief executive of the bank’s new Region Switzerland Friday 20 May. The single market region will allow to be “the alternative for Swiss-domiciled clients seeking a first-class private banking relationship,” according to Group CEO Boris Collodi.
The 37-year-old Robert-Charrue has, since 2010, been head of the Investment Solutions Group and a member of the executive board.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Chinese government figures released Tuesday 17 May show that the European Union region, which includes Switzerland, has replaced Japan as the top source for imported goods. The figures cover the first four months of 2011, reports Xinhua news agency.
Trade between the two was $170 billion from April to January, a 23 percent increase, while imports from Japan fell sharply in the weeks following the earthquake that hit the country in March. Figures from the European Commission show trade growing strongly between the EU and China in 2010, with EU exports up 38 percent and imports from China up 31 percent. China is the EU’s largest import source and its second largest trading partner, after the US.
Both show trade figures while mentioning trade tensions, particularly over subsidies.
Geneva customs officials destroy 24 Le Corbusier fake LC2,LC3 and LC4 chairs and sofas
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Geneva consumers’ chance to buy cheap fake and illegal designer furniture took a beating 11 May. Twenty-four top designer name chairs and sofas would have had a shop sales value of CHF100,000 if they had been the real thing, but as fakes the copycat Le Corbusier and other name furniture would have been sold in Geneva for closer to CHF15,000 total.
Wednesday, in front of a crowd of journalists, Swiss Customs had a large bulldozer roll back and forth over the pile of confiscated goods until they were a flattened mass of cheap leather, twisted metal and plastic bits.
The counterfeit furniture was imported from China by what authorities say is a Geneva city centre well-known furniture boutique, whose name is not given because the case faces possible litigation. Nearly 80 percent of counterfeits that were seized in Switzerland in 2010 came from China.
The goods were seized 16 March by the Geneva Customs office on suspicion of fraud.
Italian license holder asked for fakes to be destroyed
Gianluca Armento of Cassina talks to reporters
Cassina, an Italian company which holds the exclusive worldwide licence to produce Le Corbusier furniture, was contacted by customs officials about the imports, and it asked that the fakes be destroyed. The importer also faces a fine, the amount of which has not yet been determined; if the shop is discovered to be a repeat offender, it risks being closed.
Customs officials and Cassina managers who were present Wednesday declined to say how much a fine might be: the number of copies, the history for importing fakes of the shop and other factors are part of the calculation.
The most likely scenario, says Cossina’s director, Gianluca Armento, is that his company and the importer will reach a private but legally binding agreement on the fine. The shop has not been caught importing fakes in the past, but is suspected of doing so, one customs officer told GenevaLunch.
Fake designer furniture a growing problem
The public destruction of the goods is designed to send a message to importers, who, according to Armento, are aware of what they are buying, and to consumers, who may not be. The problem of fake designer furniture is growing, with Armento and the customs officials who hosted the media event Wednesday agreeing that it is now an industry of at least €500 million a year.
Swiss customs officials are working closely with several industries, including furniture makers, to be able to better spot likely counterfeit products. Customs seized iimported bulk goods, not counting pharmaceuticals and precious metals, 2,741 times in 2010, compared to 470 in 2007, 1,176 in 2008 and 1,622 in 2009. The value of the goods (calculated as the value of the real product) was CHF4.7 million in 2009 and CHF7.21m in 2010.
Most of the fakes come from Italy, says Armento, but there is a new twist, and the Geneva seizure is a good example: Italian fake designer manufacturers are cutting their own costs by bringing in underpaid Chinese workers or having all but the finish on the furniture done in China. “They’re avoiding paying social costs in Italy and finding manufacturers in China who don’t pay them, so they’re really exploiting Chinese workers. They’ll do anything to lower costs. They just finish the pieces in Italy.”
Copies are illegal – forget what the salesman says
The designer copy business sparked debates in Italy for several years, but Michel Bachar, head of communications for the federal customs office, says there are clearcut intellectual property issues and consumers should not be fooled by sales people who say copies are legal.
They are rife on the Internet, but, Armento points out, it is impossible to judge quality online, and this is the consumer’s greatest protection: the licensed products use better quality materials and the hidden structure conforms to specifications set by the designer.
The 24 pieces of furniture included, for example, copies of the LC2 and LC3 chairs and sofas, and the LC4 chaise longue, designed by Le Corbusier working with Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand, in 1928. They quickly became cult objects as emblems of modern design, and they were often copied.
Le Corbusier designated the license holder
Furniture designer Cassina opened its doors in Italy, near Milan, in 1927. In 1964 the “Cassina I Maestri” (Cassina Masters) collection was born and the company acquired the rights to products designed by Le Corbusier, Jeanneret and Perriand. Le Corbusier himself granted the worldwide exclusive license to Cassina in 1964.
Le Corbusier’s real name was Charles-Edouard Jeanneret. The Swiss designer and architect was from the Swiss town of La-Chaux-de-Fonds, which will celebrate his 125th birthday in 2012.
Consumers should check the quality
Raymond Pfaff, country manager for Cassina, says that consumers shopping for the real thing need to know how to check for quality differences. In the case of the Le Corbusier pieces destroyed Wednesday, the shoddy workmanship of the curved metal joints and the and mediocre thin leather used made it quickly apparent that these were cheap copies.
The value of designer pieces to the owner, says Pfaff, lies not just in the look of the iconic pieces and what they represent in the history of design, but in the fine quality of the materials and their durability, their timelessness.
Diligent customs officials are catching some of the fakes, but it’s a daunting task, says Pfaff, with Italian fakes coming via truck into Switzerland, without any mention these are designer name pieces of furniture, and from The Netherlands if they are shipped to Europe from China.
The non-profit Stop Piracy organization was recognized by the Swiss government in 2009, and the group of 40 organizations that are members, has been working closely with Swiss Customs, training staff to spot counterfeit goods, among other projects.
Geneva, Switzerland (Geneva Lunch) – More than 20 workers in Luojiang, in southern China, were trapped at 07:30 Swiss time Monday 9 May by a landslide that hit a quarry, following heavy rains over the weekend. Luojiang is a small village near to the tourist town of Guilin. Twenty-five monitoring stations around the city measured over 100mm rainfall by Sunday afternoon, according to Xinhua news agency. Guilin was the site in May 2010 of a train crash, also due to a landslide, where 19 people died.
The heavy rains have also been causing havoc in the neighbouring province of Guangdong, where 379 homes, as well as bridges and farmland, have been destroyed in the past week’s severe weather.
Police and rescuers are looking for survivors from the Luojiang landslide. Seven workers’ bodies were found and 15 are missing, with no sign of life, Chinese media report.
Links to other sites: Xinhua, Washington Post
Airlines, tourist reservations in Europe also seeing strong growth
Swiss chalet spying: Brazilians, Indians, Chinese and Americans came in larger numbers in March
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Overnight stays in Swiss hotels, the standard measure of the tourism industry’s health, rose to 3.3 million, a 2.3 percent increase in March 2011 compared to March 2010. The latest figures were released by the Swiss statistical office Monday 9 May.
Foreign tourist stays increased slightly, by 1.1 percent, while Swiss tourist traffic was up 3.9 percent.
The strongest growth came from Asia, with Europe the only region not registering growth. India led the way for Asia, with 5,000 more overnight stays, followed by China with an increase of 4,900.
Brazil had the strongest overall increase, up 5,900 overnight stays, with the US having 4,300 more.
The largest drop was the UK: British tourists spent 30,000 fewer nights in Swiss hotels in March than they did a year earlier: the 16 percent fall was the largest of any one country.
Tourism in general is picking up
It’s the 14th year running that Russia has made the US list for countries that don’t do enough to fight pirated goods, and the 7th year for China. The 2011 list was released by US Trade Representative Ron Kirk in Washington, who called on the many countries on the “Special 301 Report” list to do more to crack down on copyright fraud. He said in a statement that US companies lost $18 billion in 2010 to fake copies, affecting 18 million Americans who work in industries affected by the frauds.
Canada and India are among the countries listed.
Kirk’s office in a statement noted that “America’s two largest trading partners, Canada and China, remain on the Priority Watch List. The report notes the failure of Canadian efforts in 2010 to enact long-awaited copyright legislation and to strengthen border enforcement. It highlights ongoing concerns about the prevalence of piracy and counterfeiting in China, and China’s implementation of ‘indigenous innovation’ and other industrial policies that discriminate against or otherwise disadvantage US exports and US investors.”
Links to other sites: Moscow Times, Scribd, US report, US Trade Representative’s Office
Nursultan Nazarbayev has ruled Kazakhstan, the oil-rich Central Asian nation, for two decades and now the 70-year-old is set to rule for another five years, after winning Sunday’s election, 3 April, by 95.5 percent. Security, with continuing strong economic development, was his platform, but there are growing concerns that not only was the election unchallenged, but there are no apparent successors.
China and Russia remain close allies. Xinhuanet, Chinese news agency, reported as the polls opened that “besides Nazarbayev, who is supported by the largest political party in Kazakhstan — Nur Otan (Fatherland’s Ray of Light), the other three candidates are Zhambyl Akhmetbekov of the Communist People’s Party, Gani Kasymov of the Party of Patriots, and independent Mels Yeleusizov.
“A total of 22 people applied for candidacy, but 18 of them were out of the race either because they had not passed the Kazakh language test or failed to collect enough supporter signatures.” Kazak law requires candidates to have 91,000 signatures.
The Organization for Security and Co-operation (OSCE) in Europe sent 300 foreign observers to the country for the election, in addition to 800 local observers.
It issued a statement Monday 4 April noting that “yesterday’s presidential vote in Kazakhstan revealed similar shortcomings as those noted in previous elections in the country, international observers said in a statement issued today. They noted that reforms necessary for holding genuine democratic elections have yet to materialize. While the election was technically well administered, the absence of opposition candidates and of a vibrant political discourse resulted in a non-competitive environment. A limited field of candidates did not seek to challenge the incumbent.”
Voter turnout is reported by Ria Novosti in Russia to have been about 60 percent, some 6.9 million people out of the country’s total population of 16.4 million.
Links to other sites: Central Asian Newswire, The Globe & Mail, Reuters/Jerusalem Post, OSCE, Xinhua
Female infanticide appears to continue
India’s census results were published Thursday 31 March, showing that the country is now the world’s second most populous, with 17 percent of the world population. India officially has 1.21 billion people, compared to China’s 1.34 billion.
India added 181 million new people, but the Guardian notes that the census commissioner told reporters in India that growth has slowed. “C Chandramouli, the census commissioner, told reporters in Delhi that the new count showed population growth in India had slowed. The 17.6% increase was down from 21.5% recorded in 2001.”
The child sex ratio has worsened in India in the past 10 years, the Times of India points out,”indicating that female feticide and infanticide remain rampant. Provisional data released by the census office for 2011 shows that the child sex ratio (0-6 years) has further declined to 914 girls for every 1,000 boys as compared to 927 in 2001.”
Links to other sites: Guardian, Indian Census Bureau, Times of India
Three Philippine nationals have been executed in China for drug trafficking, despite months of efforts by the Philippine government to have their lives spared. The three were accused of carrying at least 4 kg of heroin into China. They were arrested separately, all of them in 2008. Their own government argues they were most likely duped into smuggling the drugs.
Jaime FlorCruz, a Philippine national who has been in China for more than 30 years, reports that the executions prompted mixed reactions in his native land. He quotes Vice-President Jejomar Binay, “During his visit to Beijing in February, Vice President Binay told CNN that there was no under-the-table deal with China. “We do not condone drug trafficking and we respect China’s laws,” Binay said. “However, we believe these Filipinos were merely victims of trans-national drug syndicates. They were just duped into their crimes.”
Attention is focusing on drug syndicates in the Philippines, which often use Philippines nationals who are anxious to find a job or get rich quickly. More than 70 other Philippines nationals are scheduled for execution in China, on drug-related charges, according to Executed Today.
Links to other sites: Executed Today, Jaime’s China on CNN, GMA News
Source: UNHCR, Geneva, 28 March 2011 (click on image to view larger)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The number of asylum seekers in the world has been halved in the past 10 years, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees says in its 2010 annual asylum report issued early Monday 27 March. Whether this is good news or bad is difficult to judge, concedes the Geneva-based organization’s head.
“The global dynamics of asylum are changing. Asylum claims in the industrialized world are much lower than a decade ago while year-on-year levels are up in only a handful of countries,” notes High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres. “We need to study the root causes to see if the decline is because of fewer push factors in areas of origin, or tighter migration control in countries of asylum.”
He notes that developing countries still host the lion’s share of applications, and asks that other countries continue to support countries like Liberia, Tunisia and Egypt who are hosting large numbers of asylum seekers due to conflicts in neighbouring countries.
The report covers 44 countries that are destinations for asylum seekers.
US remains most popular host country
Switzerland was the 8th most popular country, with 13,800 applicants.
The report states that 358,800 asylum applications were made to industrialized countries last year, a 5 percent fall from 2009, and some 42 percent lower than the decade’s peak in 2001, when almost 620,000 asylum applications were made.
The US is the top destination for asylum seekers, for the fifth year in a row, followed by France, Germany, Sweden and Canada. These five countries accounted for 56 percent of all applications.
US numbers of new applicants were boosted by requests for asylum by more Chinese and Mexicans, while France saw an increase in applicants from Serbia, Russia and Congo. Germany saw an influx from Serbia, notably Kosovo, and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. The UNHCR says the “development is widely attributed to the introduction of visa-free entry to the European Union for nationals of these two countries since December 2009.”
Serbia has highest number of applicants
Serbia was the country with the highest number of applicants, 28,900, which the UNHCR says is almost as high as in 2001, “soon after teh Kosovo crisis”.
Several changes have taken place, including:
- the number of applications from Afghans fell by 9 percent and whereas in the past Norway and the UK were the main destinations, Germany and Sweden have become the top hosts
- Chinese asylum-seekers made up the third-largest asylum group in 2010, partly due to a substantial drop in the number of new applications from Iraq and Somalia
- for the first time since 2005, Iraq was not one of the top two countries of origin of asylum-seekers. It dropped to fourth place, followed by the Russian Federation
- Somalia, which occupied the third spot in 2009, fell to sixth in 2010.
Foreign tobacco companies may have undermined new laws
China will soon take the dramatic step of banning cigarettes in hotels, restaurants, shopping malls and most other indoor public spaces, 1 May, but the huge shift away from public smoking comes with so little in the way of punishment that the sting is missing from the new laws. China has one of the world’s highest smoking rates, over 30 percent of the adult population.
If observers in China are complacently shrugging, the government, which signed a 2005 convention with the World Health Organization, is slowly but surely putting in place several measures to curb smoking, such as raising taxes on cigarettes. Producers of TV shows and films were told at the start of 2011 to curb smoking scenes after a survey showed that 33 percent of teenagers wanted to smoke after seeing people do it on-screen.
Smoking is estimated by the government to have killed 1.2 million Chinese in 2005, but that annual rate could triple by 2030, they fear.
Tobacco accounts for 7 percent of government revenues in China, according to Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald, a possible factor in slowing down the adoption of new no-smoking measures, the newspaper implies, but The New Yorker magazine published an article 25 March that points to efforts made by foreign tobacco manufacturers to seriously undermine the Chinese government’s efforts.
Google is having a bad-air week with France fining it $100,000 for Google Street Views and China purportedly disrupting the company’s G-mail service in some areas.
France’s CNIL, the data privacy watchdog, 21 March handed Google a €100,000 fine for capturing private data from wifi systems while its Google Street Views photographed European sites from 2007 to 2010. The fine is the largest CNIL has ever handed out. Google apologized in May 2010 for the inadvertent data collection, saying it was due to an engineer’s mistake and involved 600 GB of data from 30 countries. The company faces other Street View privacy infringement suits, including charges in Switzerland by the privacy watchdong.
The company announced Monday that problems it was experiencing with its G-mail system are not a fault in the system but the result of hacking in China. The company in January 2010 decided to stop filtering search information at the request of the Chinese government and it has since posted messages saying “According to local laws, regulations and policies, some research results are not shown.” It moved some of its search operations to Hong Kong in July 2010.
The USA-based company has on several occasions accused the Chinese government of hacking its services, information backed up by Internet researchers, mainly in North America, while Chinese media point to Google’s one-third share of the $1 billion market, (2009) compared to Baidu’s two-thirds, as an underlying issue. Google in January threatened to leave China altogether. The company has 700 employees in China.
Links to other sites: BBC, Forbes blog, Huffington Post, Reuters, Xinhua
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland and Chinese experts in a number of areas related to human rights paid visits Thursday 10 March to Biel/Bienne and to French-speaking canton Bern Thursday to examine how minority group issues are dealt with in Switzerland. The two countries have been holding regular “dialogue” meetings since 1991 “with the aim of encouraging an improvement of the human rights situation,” the Swiss Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA)notes in a statement issued Thursday evening.
Both areas are on the language divide in Switzerland and face issues of education, training, political representation and other minority problems. The visit included a presentation on a pilot bilingual education project.
“The discussions focused in particular on issues such as the death penalty, torture, the status and situation of minorities in Switzerland and China, freedom of religion, as well as on issues related to detention in the two countries, to the UN Human Rights Council’s Review Conference and the Universal Periodic Review,” the DFA says.
“The parties agreed to continue a number of cooperation projects, such as an exchange of experts in the field of the administration of punishments as well as on the dimension of human rights in the economy.”
China’s delegation included experts in the fields of human rights, justice, public security, the economy, minorities and religions.
Video, Sendai Airport cars swept away by tsunami
Japanese major quake with 10m waves sets off N Pacific tsunami warning
Reports are streaming in that give a glimpse of the damage done by what appears to be the biggest earthquake to hit Japan in 140 years, reports Reuters. It has been upgraded from 7.8 to 8.9 on the Richter scale, with the epicentre 125km off the coast of , at a depth of 10km, according to the US Geological Survey.
A massive tsunami, with 10 metre waves, has struck the city of Sendai, about 300km north of Tokyo, rolling homes and vehicles but also fires in front of it, across nearby farmland. The aftershocks hit Tokyo hard enough to send people scurrying out of buildings in Tokyo Friday at 14:45,. Sendai is 125km from the epicentre, according to initial geological reports. An oil refinery in Tokya was reported to be on fire and millions of people are without electricity.
Much of the northern Pacific is now subject to a tsunami warning.
Six people are known to have died, but it appears the death toll will rise quickly, say media in Japan.
China earthquake kills 25
A 5.8 earthquake in southern Yunnan province, near the border with Myanmar, has killed at least 25 people, and another 250 are injured, with 150 of them having serious injuries, Chinese authorities report. The earthquake, in Yingjiang County, has left more than 1,000 people homeless and another 5,000 homes have been damaged, according to Xinhua.
There is no news from Myanmar on the earthquake’s impact there.
Links to other sites: CNN, AP/Toronto Star, Japan Meteorological Agency: interactive map, Reuters
Japanese television video, images of Senai hit by massive tsunami
