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and works on paper from the collections of Peter Brant and Heiner Friedrich are on view in the first extensive U.S. presentation of Andy Warhol's monumental final cycle The Last Supper (1986). In 1984, gallerist Alexandre Iolas commissioned Warhol to create a group of works based on Leonardo Da Vinci's Last Supper (1495-97) for an exhibition space in the Palazzo Stelline in Milan, located across the street from Santa Maria delle Grazie, home of Leonardo's masterpiece. Warhol exceeded the demands of the commission and produced nearly 100 variations on the theme. Indeed, the extent of the series indicates an almost obsessive investment in the subject matter, which takes on an added significance in light of the revelation of the secret religious life revealed after Warhol's death, which occurred only a month after the opening of the Milan exhibition in January 1987. The cycle also refers to the artist's use of Leonardo's Mona Lisa 20 years earlier, and to his series begun during the mid-1980s based on Renaissance and Modernist masterworks.
most subjects, Warhol approached The Last Supper through mediations of the original, working from a cheap black and white photograph of a widely circulated 19th-century engraving and a schematic outline drawing found in a 1913 Cyclopedia of Painters and Painting. The former served as model for the silkscreens, the latter for the so-called handdrawn paintings, which were made by tracing the simplified contours of the encyclopedia illustration as they were projected onto the canvas. While Warhol had practiced silkscreening since the early 1960s and throughout the '70s, he took up tracing only in 1983 during his collaborations with artists Francesco Clemente and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Some compositions appropriate Leonardo's entire pictorial design, while others explore details of individual figures and groups, singularly or in repetition, differing in orientation, scale, and color. This varied handling denies the visual unity of Leonardo's exemplary demonstration of one-point perspective as well as the painting's spiritual content by favoring a visual multiplicity and by including references to popular culture. Advertising logos for Wise Potato Chips, Dove Soap, and General Electric (a feature of Warhol's pictures that can be traced back to his Campbell's soup cans of the early 1960s) are superimposed on the figures of Christ and the Apostles, creating a hybrid of the sacred and profane, high art and commercial design. The seemingly heretical irreverence for these distinctions reflects the inevitable transformation of a deeply religious work into a cliché whose spiritual message has become muted through repetition. As Warhol's final series, The Last Supper serves as a powerful reiteration of the principles that informed his entire artistic enterprise. Andy Warhol's final series of paintings,"The Last Supper," which was made in late 1986 and is now on view at the Guggenheim Museum SoHo, was a commission. The idea was hatched by the late Paris dealer, Alexander Iolas, who arranged for the work to be paid for by the Milan bank Credito-Valtellinese. The pictures were hung in the bank's new premises, just across the street from the Church of Santa Maria della Grazie, where Leonardo da Vinci's noble, dilapidated original can be seen. Warhol, as was his way, used commercial reproductions as his source material. The works have since been acquired by two heavy hitters of the art world, collector Peter Brant and Heiner Friedrich, the art dealer who was a progenitor of the Dia Center for the Arts. The paintings have been lent to the Guggenheim for what museum director Thomas Krens, another heavy hitter, describes as "an extended period of time." Big guns are firing here, or misfiring. "The Last Supper" suite is an anthology of Warhol riffs. The painting appears whole, as a double-silkscreened image, washed in the medicine-bottle hues he loved -- green, blue, yellow, rose-red -- and in details, executed by Warhol in deft outline. The show includes two big versions of the painting, Christ 112 Times, in which he repeated the image (as he had done from the very beginning of his post-commercial career, when he made paintings of repeated dollar bills). The sculptor George Segal later said of these paintings, "We were amused by that because this Japanese girl Yayoi Kusama was already at the Green Gallery with her repetitions of penises. So such ideas were in the air � when the dust finally settled, the one who said it best would be the one with the most conviction to deal with the idea." There is a black-light Last Supper, a camouflage Last Supper, a couple of almost unreadably Minimalist Last Suppers (one black on dense umber, one yellowy white on white), and various Last Suppers incorporating commercial logos for the likes of Camel \and Wise potato chips. The work is fastidiously hung in two long narrow galleries, lined with pillars (a few are painted gold) and with pale blond floorboards. It's a pretty lame show. I am an intense admirer of (much of) Warhol's work, but so insipid did I find this work, so lifeless, that it became interesting. So off does the work seem that it sheds light on that enigma: Warhol when he's on. Andy Warhol, I have always felt, was a kind of folk artist. Perhaps most artists in our times are essentially self-taught, but Warhol had an uncanny ability to pick images out of the cultural slipstream around him, and carpenter seductive, easy and all-too-available content together with cool, Minimalist form. Sometimes Warhol used "high" art as his raw material, most famously the Mona Lisa. The Mona Lisa is so over-known, so familiar from T-shirts, cartoons, ads, that -- like Rodin's Thinker, say, or van Gogh's Sunflowers -- it floats in the culture as an emblem, an advertisement for art, quite independently of its existence as a painting. Even Warhol's de Chiricos -- first shown in New York by Marisa del Re -- have a buzz, because de Chirico's surfaces are already sterile, like glazed biscuits, and he was such a faker of his own work that the Warhol versions have an acid bite. In his second bout with Leonardo, though, Andy Warhol does not come out a winner. It's not hard to see why. The Last Supper is, of course, a famous painting, but -- unlike Elvis, Liz, the Coke bottle, the Mona Lisa -- it is not an image you can get quickly, being long, narrow and very, very busy. Even when a detail is plucked out, as in Christ 112 Times, it is not a punchy "known" detail like, say, the hands of Michelangelo's God and Adam touching in the Sistine Chapel � and a zillion ads. Warhol's Christ seems wishy-washy, religiose -- an icon nobody quite knows. The Guggenheim press release, incidentally, notes of The Last Supper that "Warhol considered the project crucially important to his life and work. " It adds that "Although it is not widely known, Warhol was raised and remained a devout Catholic during his life ." I do not know where the writer acquired his first bit of information but the second is -- to say the least -- arguable. Warhol's life was incredibly widely publicized, and his religion along with it. His church going is a leitmotif in his published diaries. Bob Colacello's biography, a big seller, was actually called Holy Terror. But what effect, if any, did Warhol's religion have on the making of these pieces? Walking around the galleries, it was tempting to believe that perhaps it was the artist's beliefs that damped down the energy, that removed the dry sulfurous crackle of the best work and -- paradoxically -- made The Last Supper so spiritless. I found this possibility so intriguing that I returned to The Andy Warhol Diaries to check out the period in question. Now, granted the diaries were trimmed down from 20,000 pages and that the artist is not always forthcoming -- or truthful -- in what remains. But from the evidence, his Last Supper commission does not appear as some grand climacteric. Warhol's record of 1986 starts with some art biz as usual. He presents Sly Stallone with one of his ad-inspired paintings, Be Somebody with a Body (He would re-use this motif in one of The Last Suppers in this show). Arnold Schwarzenegger dithered over whether or not he wanted to commission a wedding portrait of Maria Shriver. Warhol went to the 75th birthday of the Oreo cookie and got truly excited at the notion of getting booked to paint the iconic treat. "When the cameras were on I ate the cookies and said, 'Miss Oreo needs her portrait done' he told his amanuensis Pat Hackett. "So I hope the bigwigs get the hint. Oh, it would be so good to do." Warhol first mentions his Last Supper show briefly in a November entry, then moves briskly on to a discussion about doing paintings of mineral water bottles for Michel Roux, creator of the Absolut campaign. Warhol arrived in Milan on January 21, 1987. He noted, "My Last Supper show was closing down that day and my other show was opening, so there was lots of publicity. " That is the second and last mention of the work. It was in Milan, too, that Warhol felt the first twinge of the gallbladder problem that would result in his death. He pretended, even to his diary, that it was the flu. Back in New York, there was an Italian shoe manufacturer who wanted his portrait done, and there were curtains to be done for the New York City Ballet. But Warhol died early on the morning of Sunday, Feb. 22. Was The Last Supper series Andy Warhol's last completed suite of paintings? Absolutely. Was it a deeply felt final coda? I don't think so. |
4/22/2008
The Last Supper... Andy Warhol's...Χρόνια Πολλά...
China Human Rights Fact Sheet
The PRC detains individuals for exercising their rights to freedom of association, freedom of religion and freedom of expression, including the right to impart and receive information, and other basic rights. The total number of persons in China detained without charge, sentenced administratively to reeducation or reform camps, or held by other means, solely for peacefully exercising these rights is unknown. However, that figure is estimated to be far in excess of the approximately 3,000 individuals that the PRC currently acknowledges imprisoning for "counter-revolutionary" or political crimes. Many of those detained are held under circumstances that constitute clear violations of due process. Such violations include lengthy detention without charge or trial and depriving defendants of access to legal counsel.
Restrictions on Independent Organizing: Although the Chinese Constitution guarantees freedom of association and assembly, national regulations severely limit association and give the authorities absolute discretion to deny applications for public gatherings or demonstrations. In practice, only organizations that are approved by the authorities are permitted to exist, and any organization that is not registered is considered "illegal." In this manner, independent advocacy on labor, human rights, environmental, development or political issues is effectively outlawed. The CCP-controlled labor union and women and youth organizations are the only permitted avenues for organizing in these areas. Unofficial labor groups have been a particular target for suppression. In December 1994, the Beijing Intermediate People's Court imposed severe sentences of between 15 and 20 years' imprisonment on three prisoners of conscience, convicted of "leading counter-revolutionary organizations." The sentences, based on the defendants' alleged formation of non-government-approved organizations, were the harshest delivered to political dissidents in recent years.
On 4 June, 1994, the fifth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown, China promulgated new implementing regulations for the 1993 State Security Law. The repressive new measures threaten the few legal means of operation left to democracy and human rights activists, independent religious adherents and other independent voices, by criminalizing: contact with and funding from foreign organizations defined as "hostile"; the publication or dissemination of "written or verbal speeches" or "using religion" to carry out activities "which endanger state security;" and the creation of "national disputes." The regulations also give state security officials virtually unlimited power to detain individuals, confiscate property and determine what constitutes a "hostile" organization.
Restrictions on Free Speech and the Media: Although the PRC's 1982 Constitution guarantees citizens freedom of expression and of the press, its preamble mandates adherence to "four basic principles"-- the CCP's leadership, socialism, dictatorship of the proletariat and Marxism-Leninism Mao Zedong Thought. In practice, the PRC employs a wide range of controls that violate the right to free expression and interfere with independent media. These include severe restrictions on contact between foreign news media and Chinese viewed by the government as critical of the regime. An extensive censorship bureaucracy licenses all media outlets and publishing houses and must approve all books before publication.
The primary mechanism of control over the news media and publishing is self-censorship. Chinese journalists, editors and publishers are expected to make the information they disseminate conform to CCP Propaganda Department guidelines. For example, news coverage is required to be "80% positive and 20% negative." Sanctions for infringements range from official criticism of the coverage to the demotion, firing or imprisonment of the individuals responsible and the closing or banning of the offending publication.
Dissidents who make their opinions known to the foreign media are often subject to threats, detention, harassment, intensive surveillance or imprisonment. During 1994, at least 20 Chinese writers, journalists, editors and publishers were persecuted in connection with their work. Also during the year, foreign correspondents from the British Broadcasting Corporation, Newsweek, Reuters, United Press International, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, U.S. television networks (NBC, CBS) and other foreign media outfits were detained and interrogated by PRC police regarding their work as journalists, including the interviewing of Chinese dissidents and students and filming in Tiananmen Square. Police also banned broadcasts of CNN in Beijing hotels for five days surrounding the fifth anniversary of the 4 June 1989 military crackdown on democracy demonstrators.
Suppression of Religious Freedom: The PRC prohibits all religious activities outside establishments registered under the official branches of four state-recognized religions (Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity and Islam), established by the PRC government during the 1950s, through which Chinese and Tibetan religious adherents are required to practice their faith. Individuals conducting or participating in public worship without government authorization, including Catholics loyal to the Vatican and Protestants who worship in house churches, have been arrested, detained, placed under close police surveillance or internal exile, fined and, in some cases, tortured. PRC police have also confiscated religious literature and church property, and human rights organizations have documented the closure of hundreds of house churches since 1989.
China's laws restricting contact with foreign coreligionists, prohibiting parents from exposing children under the age of 18 to religion, and outlawing nongovernment-controlled churches violate the UN Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief. In January 1994, the PRC government increased restrictions on religious practice by foreigners in China through State Council Decrees 144 and 145. Decree 144 states that foreign nationals may bring in religious materials only "for their own use," and bans materials deemed "harmful to the public interest." The decree also prohibits evangelizing, establishing religious schools and other missionary activities. Decree 145 gives authorities substantial leeway in restricting religious activities deemed harmful to "national unity" or "social stability," and limits the practice of religion by foreign nationals to state-sanctioned places of worship
Torture and Ill-Treatment of Prisoners
Torture of detainees is endemic in Chinese detention centers and prisons. Although China became party to the UN Convention Against Torture in 1988, the government has not taken effective measures to diminish the risk of prisoners being tortured or ill-treated. Despite strong evidence of torture in several cases of death in custody, state prosecutors have refused to release autopsy results to families or to initiate investigations. In many detention centers, beatings, inadequate food and poor hygiene appear to be a routine part of the process of eliciting confessions and compliance from detainees. Such treatment is applied to ordinary prisoners as well as political detainees.
According to prisoner reports, methods commonly used by guards include: beatings using electric batons; rubber truncheons on hands and feet; long periods in handcuffs and/or leg irons, often tightened so as to cause pain; restriction of food to starvation levels; and long periods in solitary confinement. Furthermore, corrupt authorities at detention centers, prisons and labor camps have extorted large sums of money from families of detainees for the state's provision of "daily supplies" and "medical expenses."
Despite continuing efforts by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, the International Committee of the Red Cross and other humanitarian organizations, PRC officials have not agreed to allow open and unannounced visits to prisoners. PRC authorities acknowledge that there are some 1.2 million prisoners and detainees in China.
Lack of Judicial Independance and Due Process
Few legal safeguards exist in China to ensure fair trials, and the judicial system is controlled at every level by CCP political-legal committees that may determine the outcome of cases before the court hears evidence presented at trial. Legal scholars within China have called for an end to this widespread practice of "verdict first, trial second." With the political-legal committees exercising extensive control, detainees are highly unlikely to receive fair, impartial hearings that are free from official manipulation.
China's Criminal Procedure Law provides for detainees to have access to lawyers no later than one week before trial. However, even this minimal protection is not always observed. Prisoners typically cannot call witnesses for the defense or question witnesses against them. In politically sensitive cases, lawyers have been instructed that they may enter a not-guilty plea only if they get approval from the judicial administration. Even in death-penalty cases, appeals are usually cursory, and defendants may have only several days to file an appeal.
Arbitrary Detention: In addition to judicial convictions, PRC authorities consistently use administrative procedures to detain hundreds of thousands of Chinese and Tibetans each year.
Individuals sentenced administratively by police are not charged or brought before a judge, thereby denying them access to a lawyer and the right to defend themselves. The majority of these individuals are ordinary people, but democracy and human rights activists, independent religious adherents and worker-rights advocates are also frequently detained in this way.
The most common forms of administrative detention are:
1) "reeducation through labor," under which police, without trial, can send individuals to labor camps for up to four years; and
2) "shelter and investigation," under which police can detain people without charge or trial for up to three months, a time limit that is routinely ignored.
The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has determined that the practice of "reeducation through labor" is "inherently arbitrary" when intended for "political and cultural rehabilitation." According to PRC government sources, 100,000 people are sent to "reeducation through labor" camps and one million are "sheltered" each year.
Conditional Releases with Continued Deprivation of Rights: The PRC infrequently has released political prisoners of conscience before the completion of their sentences, predominantly as a result of international pressure. However, those released have been forced into exile, subjected to continuing police surveillance and harassment or, in some cases, detained again for alleged violations of the restrictive conditions of parole or new "crimes" of free expression. Many former prisoners of conscience are not granted the identity cards necessary to gain employment or travel without express official permission.
Death Penalty
During the past two years, there has been a dramatic increase in the use of the death penalty in China. This growth in the number of death sentences and executions is partly due to anti-crime campaigns launched by the government. Defendants can be put to death for criminal offenses, including nonviolent property crimes such as theft, embezzlement and forgery. In 1993, 77% of all executions worldwide were carried out in China. On a single day, 9 January 1993, 356 death sentences were handed down by Chinese courts; 62 executions took place that day. During that year alone, 2,564 people were sentenced to death. At least 1,419 of them are known to have been executed. The total number of death sentences and executions is believed to be higher. Defendants do not always have access to lawyers, and when a lawyer is available, he or she usually has no more than one or two days to prepare a defense. Death sentences have been imposed based on forced confessions and are often decided in advance of the trial by "adjudication committees," thereby circumventing defendants' rights to a fair and public hearing and presumption of innocence.
Tibet
In Tibet, hundreds of Tibetans have been incarcerated for peacefully expressing their political and religious beliefs. Conditions in prisons are reported to be dismal, with numerous accounts of torture and ill-treatment. In particular, PRC law enforcement officials have perpetrated violent acts against Tibetan women in detention centers and prisons. Buddhist nuns and lay women have been subject to torture or violent, degrading and inhuman treatment, including assault, rape and sexual abuse. In June 1994, one Tibetan nun died while in custody, reportedly as a result of a beating by guards. PRC authorities also have severely restricted religious practice; out of the 6,000 Buddhist monasteries that were destroyed by the PRC since its 1949 invasion of Tibet, only a few hundred have been rebuilt.
PRC policies, including population transfers of hundreds of thousands of Chinese into Tibet, threaten to make Tibetans a minority in their own land and to destroy Tibetans' distinct national, religious and cultural identityWomen
The Chinese Constitution and other laws provide equal rights for men and women in all spheres of life, including ownership of property, inheritance and educational opportunities. Equality between the sexes has been a part of the CCP's agenda from its early days, and women's rights are perceived to be in a separate category from human rights. Therefore, women's organizations in China, even though they remain under CCP control, are able to advocate effectively on some issues involving abuses of women's human rights. However, when women's rights or interests conflict with Party or government policy, the latter takes precedence. This means, for example, that abuses related to the family planning policy are not reported in the media or discussed publicly. Information about other issues, such as the extent of domestic violence, trafficking in women or abuses directed at lesbians, is effectively prevented by the CCP's injunction that most news should be positive. Thus, the controls on freedom of expression and association, which so affect democracy and human rights activists, have a strong impact on women's human rights as well.
Violence Against Women: According to some researchers, spousal abuse is far too common and, in many parts of the country, still socially acceptable. However, comprehensive statistics about the extent of domestic violence are not available or have not been made public. The official All-China Women's Federation (ACWF) has been studying this problem and seeking solutions.
Few battered women have the opportunity to escape abuse, because shelters and other resources are not available. Women are under considerable social pressure to keep families together regardless of the circumstances. Legal action is not taken against batterers unless the victim initiates it, and if she withdraws her testimony, the proceedings are ended.
Abduction and Trafficking of Women: Trafficking and sale of women as brides or into prostitution is a serious problem in certain parts of China, and Chinese women have been sold into brothels in Southeast Asia. The PRC government has enacted various laws to combat the sale of women, but the statistics released by the government do not reliably indicate the scale of the problem. PRC officials stated that there were 15,000 cases of kidnapping and trafficking in women and children in 1993. Yet according to one estimate, 10,000 women were abducted and sold in 1992 in Sichuan Province alone.
Until recently, the authorities have not prosecuted men who purchase women as wives; thus, the trade has continued unabated. Official action to rescue victims of trafficking is generally initiated only if a complaint is made by the woman or her family. Local officials often turn a blind eye, even formally registering marriages into which the woman has been sold.
Discrimination in Employment and Education: The PRC ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women in 1980 and enacted the Law on the Protection of Women's Rights and Interests in 1992. However, open discrimination against women in China has continued to grow during the period of reform of the last 15 years.
According to PRC government surveys, women's salaries have been found to average 77% of men's, and most women employed in industry work in low-skill and low-paying jobs. An estimated 70 to 80% of workers laid off as a result of downsizing in factories have been women, and, although women make up 38% of the work force, they are 60% of the unemployed. At job fairs, employers openly advertise positions for men only, and university campus recruiters often state that they will not hire women. Employers justify such discrimination by saying that they cannot afford the benefits they are required to provide for pregnant women, nursing mothers and infants.
The proportion of women to men declines at each educational tier, with women comprising some 25% of undergraduates in universities. Institutions of higher education that have a large proportion of female applicants, such as foreign language institutes, have been known to require higher entrance exam grades from women.
Although China has a law mandating compulsory primary education, increasing numbers of rural girls are not being sent to school. Rural parents often do not want to "waste" money on school fees for girls who will "belong" to another family when they marry. According to official statistics, about 70% of illiterates in China are female.
Violations Resulting from Family Planning Policy: The Chinese Constitution mandates the duty of couples to practice family planning. Since 1979, the central government has attempted to implement a family planning policy in China and Tibet that the government states is "intended to control population quantity and improve its quality." Central to this initiative is the "one child per couple" policy. Central authorities have verbally condemned the use of physical force in implementing the one-child policy; however, its implementation is left to local laws and regulations.
To enforce compliance, local authorities employ incentives such as medical, educational and housing benefits, and punishments including fines, confiscation of property, salary cuts or even dismissal. Officials also may refuse to issue residence cards to "out of plan" children, thereby denying them education and other state benefits.
Methods employed to ensure compliance have also included the forced use of contraceptives, primarily the I.U.D., and forced abortion for pregnant women who already have one child. In Zheijang Province, for example, the family planning ordinance states that "fertile couples must use reliable birth control according to the provisions. In case of pregnancies in default of the plan, measures must be taken to terminate them." As an official "minority", Tibetans are legally allowed to have more than one child. However, there have been reports of forced abortions and sterilizations of Tibetan women who have had only one child. There are also reports of widespread sterilization of certain categories of women, including those suffering from mental illness, retardation and communicable or hereditary diseases. Under previous local regulations superseded by the 1994 Maternal and Infant Health Care Law, such sterilization was mandatory in certain provinces. Under the new law, certain categories of people still may be prevented from bearing children.
Violations Against Female Children: The one-child policy, in conjunction with the traditional preference for male children, has led to a resurgence of practices like female infanticide, concealment of female births and abandonment of female infants. Female children whose births are not registered do not have any legal existence and therefore may have difficulty going to school or receiving medical care or other state services. The overwhelming majority of children in orphanages are female and/or mentally or physically handicapped.
The one-child policy has also contributed to the practice of prenatal sex identification resulting in the abortion of female fetuses. Although the government has outlawed the use of ultrasound machines for this purpose, physicians continue the practice, especially in rural areas. Thus, while the average worldwide ratio of male to female newborns is 105/100, Chinese government statistics show that the ratio in the PRC is 114/100 and may be higher in some areas.
Torture and Ill-Treatment of Prisoners
Torture of detainees is endemic in Chinese detention centers and prisons. Although China became party to the UN Convention Against Torture in 1988, the government has not taken effective measures to diminish the risk of prisoners being tortured or ill-treated. Despite strong evidence of torture in several cases of death in custody, state prosecutors have refused to release autopsy results to families or to initiate investigations. In many detention centers, beatings, inadequate food and poor hygiene appear to be a routine part of the process of eliciting confessions and compliance from detainees. Such treatment is applied to ordinary prisoners as well as political detainees.
According to prisoner reports, methods commonly used by guards include: beatings using electric batons; rubber truncheons on hands and feet; long periods in handcuffs and/or leg irons, often tightened so as to cause pain; restriction of food to starvation levels; and long periods in solitary confinement. Furthermore, corrupt authorities at detention centers, prisons and labor camps have extorted large sums of money from families of detainees for the state's provision of "daily supplies" and "medical expenses."
Despite continuing efforts by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, the International Committee of the Red Cross and other humanitarian organizations, PRC officials have not agreed to allow open and unannounced visits to prisoners. PRC authorities acknowledge that there are some 1.2 million prisoners and detainees in China.
Lack of Judicial Independance and Due Process
Few legal safeguards exist in China to ensure fair trials, and the judicial system is controlled at every level by CCP political-legal committees that may determine the outcome of cases before the court hears evidence presented at trial. Legal scholars within China have called for an end to this widespread practice of "verdict first, trial second." With the political-legal committees exercising extensive control, detainees are highly unlikely to receive fair, impartial hearings that are free from official manipulation.
China's Criminal Procedure Law provides for detainees to have access to lawyers no later than one week before trial. However, even this minimal protection is not always observed. Prisoners typically cannot call witnesses for the defense or question witnesses against them. In politically sensitive cases, lawyers have been instructed that they may enter a not-guilty plea only if they get approval from the judicial administration. Even in death-penalty cases, appeals are usually cursory, and defendants may have only several days to file an appeal.
Arbitrary Detention: In addition to judicial convictions, PRC authorities consistently use administrative procedures to detain hundreds of thousands of Chinese and Tibetans each year.
Individuals sentenced administratively by police are not charged or brought before a judge, thereby denying them access to a lawyer and the right to defend themselves. The majority of these individuals are ordinary people, but democracy and human rights activists, independent religious adherents and worker-rights advocates are also frequently detained in this way.
The most common forms of administrative detention are:
1) "reeducation through labor," under which police, without trial, can send individuals to labor camps for up to four years; and
2) "shelter and investigation," under which police can detain people without charge or trial for up to three months, a time limit that is routinely ignored.
The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has determined that the practice of "reeducation through labor" is "inherently arbitrary" when intended for "political and cultural rehabilitation." According to PRC government sources, 100,000 people are sent to "reeducation through labor" camps and one million are "sheltered" each year.
Conditional Releases with Continued Deprivation of Rights: The PRC infrequently has released political prisoners of conscience before the completion of their sentences, predominantly as a result of international pressure. However, those released have been forced into exile, subjected to continuing police surveillance and harassment or, in some cases, detained again for alleged violations of the restrictive conditions of parole or new "crimes" of free expression. Many former prisoners of conscience are not granted the identity cards necessary to gain employment or travel without express official permission.
Nepal authorizes deadly force to stop Olympic torch protests
From Associated Press - A major Buddhist temple in Japan was vandalized early Sunday, days after temple officials halted plans to host the upcoming Olympic torch relay because of sympathies with Tibetan protesters, police said.
Spray-painted graffiti — consisting of white circular patterns and lines — was found Sunday morning in six spots in the main hall at Zenkoji Temple, a national treasure in the city of Nagano, Japanese broadcaster NHK reported.
Nagano police were investigating the incident as property destruction and whether it was related to the decision to pull out of the Olympic torch relay.
A police spokesman said he could not provide further details. He refused to give his name because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the media.
Zenkoji had been slated to be the starting point for Japan’s leg of the Olympic torch relay on April 26. Temple officials, however, withdrew on Friday, citing security concerns and sympathy for Tibetan protesters facing a Chinese crackdown.
“Zenkoji is a Buddhist temple. Naturally, we are concerned about Tibet,” Zenkoji official Shinsho Wakaomi said at a televised news conference Friday.
“The principle of the Olympic charter is to overcome the differences of race, religion, gender and ideology, but the current situation has raised a question about it,” he said.
Since the torch relay started in Greece on March 24, it has been a magnet for critics of China’s human rights record and its crackdown in Tibet on sometimes-violent demonstrations against Chinese rule. Protesters disrupted the torch’s stops in London, Paris and San Francisco.
The Olympic flame arrived Sunday in Malaysia and was scheduled to head to Indonesia and Australia before Japan.
The grounds at Zenkoji, built in the 7th century, are open 24 hours a day. A monk patrolling the area around 11 p.m. Saturday did not see any graffiti at the time, Kyodo news agency reported.
City officials in Nagano, host of the 1998 Winter Olympic Games, are still considering alternate sites for the torch relay start.
About 80 runners, including Olympic gold medal swimmer Kosuke Kitajima and gold medal female wrestler Saori Yoshida, are scheduled to carry the torch along Nagano’s five-hour, 11.5-mile route.
Olympic torch makes Latin American stop
From Associated Press - The Olympic torch dodged China foes in Europe and played hide-and-seek with crowds in San Francisco. Now the flame is making its only Latin American stop on a five-continent tour amid cloak-and-dagger secrecy after recent turmoil.
Handlers let no one publicly view the arrival of the flame in Buenos Aires, on its latest leg en route to Beijing. The lantern bearing the flame departed San Francisco and arrived at its second and final stopover in the Americas late Thursday on its 84,000-mile journey.
Argentina is billing Friday’s Olympic torch run as an easygoing street fiesta launched by a tango orchestra. But officials are worried enough about anti-China protests to mobilize thousands of police after protesters warned of a Buenos Aires “surprise.”
The torch was met by major demonstrations in San Francisco, London and Paris this week on its relay around the world. Thousands of protesters angry at China’s human rights record, its harsh rule in Tibet and its friendly ties with Sudan scuffled with police and attempted to block the torch’s passage.
Taken to its hideaway after the long flight from San Francisco, the flame is to emerge Friday afternoon for a nearly three-hour crossing of 8 1/2 miles of streets. Among 80 invited torchbearers, soccer great Diego Maradona remained in doubt, but former tennis star Gabriela Sabatini confirmed she’ll be the last runner.
Asked where the torch was being sheltered overnight, local security officials said even they did not know.
“That’s a state secret,” quipped a city sports organizer, Francisco Irarrazabal, one of the few to briefly glimpse the flame on the airport runway.
Turning more serious, he said security concerns were so tight after Paris and San Francisco that the Chinese delegation had requested that a planned photo opportunity on the airport tarmac with news agency photographers be hastily scrapped.
Meanwhile, Liu Qi, head of the Beijing organizing committee, met Friday with senior International Olympics Committee officials and tried to reassure them of further security steps in the wake of the protest-filled relays in San Francisco, Paris and London.
The organizing committee “today did underline to us that they have taken steps to make sure any risk, if there is any, is mitigated and we’re very confident and comfortable with that,” IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies said.
Organizers in Argentina bravely boast of hopes of holding a warm South American-styled street fiesta. But the weather could bedevil the flame: forecasts call for plunging temperatures and afternoon rain storms in the early southern hemisphere autumn. Organizers assured that the aluminum torch, fired by propane, wouldn’t go out in a storm - but could be put on a bus in event of heavy rain.
Buenos Aires organizers are anxious to show a brighter face than the city did during ugly 2002 street riots that marked a chaotic descent into a huge debt default of a past economic meltdown. Mayor Mauricio Macri urged protesters to stay away and not make “politics” of a sporting relay.
Authorities are deploying 1,300 federal police, 1,500 naval police and some 3,000 traffic police and volunteers - enough to ensure security “without going to the extreme that nobody will be able to see the torch,” Irarrazabal said.
Activists were already preparing protests. One, Jorge Carcavallo, unfurled a giant banner along the torch route reading “Free Tibet.”
Falun Gong member Axel Borgia said the spiritual movement banned by China would protest as well, but he wouldn’t give details. “The Olympic Games and crimes against humanity cannot coexist in China,” Borgia said.
Surprisingly, the torch relay has generated little of the attention garnered on other stops. Flame-snuffing incidents in Paris and protesters by climbers on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco were buried deep inside most newspapers.
One capital shopkeeper, Thomas Briega, said he was paying attention to the relay and hoped the torch would get through Buenos Aires unscathed after the chaos elsewhere.
“I hope to God nothing bad happens,” he said.
Also on Friday, the chairman of Japan’s National Public Safety Commission said Japan will not accept Chinese security guards when the city of Nagano hosts the torch relay on April 26.
“We should not violate the principle that Japanese police will maintain security,” Shinya Izumi said at a press conference. “I do not accept the idea that they will run in Japan as they did in other countries.”
The Chinese runners, who wear bright blue tracksuits, ran to protect the torch in London and Paris, where chaotic torch protests interrupted the relay. Beijing has said only that the unit’s mission was to guard the flame.
Members of the unit were picked from special police units of the People’s Armed Police, China’s internal security force.
In Kenya, Nobel Peace laureate Wangari Maathai said Friday that she has pulled out of the torch relay’s Tanzania leg.
“From the very beginning I thought the torch will be a symbol of unity, peace and harmony, but as it moved around the world it has become a symbol of disunity. Then I decided to pull out completely,” Maathai, an environmentalist who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, told The Associated Press on Friday.
Performers from Beijing...in Hollywood
Nearly 600 performers from Beijing on Saturday staged a large parade for nearly two hours in Hollywood in an effort to showcase traditional Chinese culture to the American public and promote the 2008 summer Olympics, which will be held in the Chinese capital next year.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa poses for a photo with young girls from
The event, jointly sponsored by Beijing and Los Angeles municipal governments, attracted thousands of local residents and����tourists, who gathered along Hollywood Boulevard to watch various culturally rich programs by those in colorful classic costumes.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, while inaugurating the event, said that it was a great honor for Los Angeles that Beijing chose it as the only U.S. city to hold such a gala.
Villaraigosa, who visited China by leading a trade and business delegation several months ago, said the two cities signed friendship agreement last year and face great prospects in fields like trade and tourism cooperation, noting that Los Angles has����become the only foreign city with a tourism office in Beijing.
Besides more that 580 performers, aged from 7 to 70, from all walks of life in Beijing, some 200 schoolchildren and high school students from Los Angeles participated in the parade.
Los Angeles is the only U.S. city where the parade has been shown, after those Beijing performers staged similar annul parade in Paris, London and Sydney in the past three years, organizers said.
The Hollywood Boulevard parade was presented to Los Angeles, which has hosted two Olympic games separately in 1932 and 1984, to announce "Beijing Welcomes You" to encourage visitors to attend the 2008 Olympics, said Yu Debin, deputy director of the Beijing Tourism Administration.
The official said the event also served as an opportunity for those Chinese performers to share their traditional folk culture with the American public.Olympic flame arrives in Malaysia
The Olympic flame has arrived in Malaysia ahead of a relay in which it will be guarded by about 1,000 police watching for possible protesters over China's Tibet crackdown and human rights record.
The flame, stored in a special container, arrived from Bangkok at about 2am (0400 AEST) on Sunday on a plane dedicated to carry it to all 19 international destinations on the torch relay before it lands in Beijing for the Olympic Games' opening ceremony in August.
A Buddhist group held special prayers on Sunday at a temple in Kuala Lumpur to call for a trouble-free run of the torch on Monday and a peaceful Olympics.
Some 300 Chinese students studying in Malaysia greeted the flame at the airport along with representatives from the National Sports Council and the police, a statement from Olympic Council of Malaysia said.
The flame was taken to a luxury hotel in downtown Kuala Lumpur ahead of Monday's relay run starting at nearby Independence Square.
Its 16km route will highlight various landmarks, including the top of the Kuala Lumpur Tower, a telecommunications installation that provides a scenic aerial view of the city. The torch relay will end at the iconic Petronas Twin Towers in central Kuala Lumpur.
Protests in other cities have triggered an unprecedented security detail for the Malaysian leg.
Some 1,000 policemen and commandos will be deployed along the route even though police have not received reports of any planned protests, said a police spokesman.
Roads will be closed to traffic along the route.
Some of the 80 people nominated to carry the torch include Olympic badminton medallists Rashid Sidek, Cheah Soon Kit and Yap Kim Hock, women's world squash champion Nicol David, bowler Shalin Zulkifli and swimmer Lim Keng Liat.
Growing criticism of China's human rights record has turned the Olympics into one of the most contentious in recent history.
China's recent crackdown in Tibet - which put down sometimes violent demonstrations against Beijing's rule over the Himalayan region - has triggered protests and attempted disruptions of the torch relay in several cities, notably Paris and London.
Police "are fully aware of the challenges that this torch has faced in other situations, and they have been organising themselves to face any of these challenges," said M Jegathesan, vice-president of the Olympic Council Malaysia.
On Friday, about 30 Falun Gong practitioners demonstrated in Kuala Lumpur, calling for an end to alleged Chinese human rights abuses ahead of the Beijing Olympics.
China has banned the Falun Gong spiritual movement as a dangerous cult. It is not banned in MalaysiaOlympic flame arrives in Malaysia
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) -- The Olympic flame arrived in Malaysia on Sunday ahead of a relay in which it will be guarded by 1,000 police watching for protests against China's Tibet crackdown and human rights record.
The flame arrived from Bangkok on a plane dedicated to carry it to all 19 international destinations on the torch relay before it lands in Beijing for the Olympic Games' opening ceremony in August.
A Buddhist group held special prayers Sunday at a temple in Kuala Lumpur to call for a trouble-free run of the torch Monday and a peaceful Olympics.
Some 300 Chinese students studying in Malaysia greeted the flame at the airport along with representatives from the National Sports Council and the police, a statement from Olympic Council of Malaysia said.
"Malaysia takes this opportunity to reiterate that the Beijing Olympics should not be politicized and remains confident that the Olympics will be successfully held in August 2008," Foreign Minister Rais Yatim said in a statement.
The flame was taken to a luxury hotel in downtown Kuala Lumpur ahead of Monday's relay run starting at nearby Independence Square.
Its 10-mile route will highlight various landmarks, including the top of the Kuala Lumpur Tower, a telecommunications installation that provides a scenic aerial view of the city.
Protests in other cities have triggered an unprecedented security detail for the Malaysian leg.
Some 1,000 policemen and commandos will be deployed along the route even though police have not received reports of any planned protests, said a police spokesman, who declined to be named citing protocol. The relay through Bangkok on Saturday was unmarred by demonstrations.
Growing criticism of China's human rights record has turned the Olympics into one of the most contentious in recent history.
China's recent crackdown in Tibet - which forcefully put down sometimes-violent demonstrations against Beijing's rule over the Himalayan region - has triggered protests and attempted disruptions of the torch relay in Paris, London and San Francisco.
On Friday, about 30 Falun Gong practitioners demonstrated in Kuala Lumpur, calling for an end to alleged Chinese human rights abuses ahead of the Beijing Olympics. China has banned the Falun Gong spiritual movement as a dangerous cult.
In Japan Sunday, a major Japanese Buddhist temple with graffiti, days after it withdrew a plan to host the torch relay in Nagano, police said. Nagano police were investigating the incident and trying to determine whether it was related to the temple's decision to pull out of the event.
Zenkoji Temple was slated as the starting point for the Japan leg of the Olympic torch relay on Saturday. The temple, however, changed its mind Friday, citing security concerns and sympathy for Tibetan protesters facing a Chinese crackdown.
© 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy.
 |
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- The Olympic flame arrived in Malaysia on Sunday ahead of a relay in which it will be guarded by 1,000 police watching for protests against China's Tibet crackdown and human rights record.
The flame arrived from Bangkok on a plane dedicated to carry it to all 19 international destinations on the torch relay before it lands in Beijing for the Olympic Games' opening ceremony in August.
A Buddhist group held special prayers Sunday at a temple in Kuala Lumpur to call for a trouble-free run of the torch Monday and a peaceful Olympics.
Some 300 Chinese students studying in Malaysia greeted the flame at the airport along with representatives from the National Sports Council and the police, a statement from Olympic Council of Malaysia said.
"Malaysia takes this opportunity to reiterate that the Beijing Olympics should not be politicized and remains confident that the Olympics will be successfully held in August 2008," Foreign Minister Rais Yatim said in a statement.
The flame was taken to a luxury hotel in downtown Kuala Lumpur ahead of Monday's relay run starting at nearby Independence Square.
Its 10-mile route will highlight various landmarks, including the top of the Kuala Lumpur Tower, a telecommunications installation that provides a scenic aerial view of the city.
Protests in other cities have triggered an unprecedented security detail for the Malaysian leg.
Some 1,000 policemen and commandos will be deployed along the route even though police have not received reports of any planned protests, said a police spokesman, who declined to be named citing protocol. The relay through Bangkok on Saturday was unmarred by demonstrations.
Growing criticism of China's human rights record has turned the Olympics into one of the most contentious in recent history.
China's recent crackdown in Tibet _ which forcefully put down sometimes-violent demonstrations against Beijing's rule over the Himalayan region _ has triggered protests and attempted disruptions of the torch relay in Paris, London and San Francisco.
On Friday, about 30 Falun Gong practitioners demonstrated in Kuala Lumpur, calling for an end to alleged Chinese human rights abuses ahead of the Beijing Olympics. China has banned the Falun Gong spiritual movement as a dangerous cult.
In Japan Sunday, a major Japanese Buddhist temple with graffiti, days after it withdrew a plan to host the torch relay in Nagano, police said. Nagano police were investigating the incident and trying to determine whether it was related to the temple's decision to pull out of the event.
Zenkoji Temple was slated as the starting point for the Japan leg of the Olympic torch relay on Saturday. The temple, however, changed its mind Friday, citing security concerns and sympathy for Tibetan protesters facing a Chinese crackdown.
© 2008 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Olympic flame arrives in Malaysia
Olympic flame arrives in Malaysia
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia: The Olympic flame arrived in Malaysia on Sunday ahead of a relay in which it will be guarded by 1,000 police watching for protests against China.
The flame arrived from Bangkok on a plane dedicated to carry it to all 19 international destinations on the torch relay before it lands in Beijing for the Olympic Games' opening ceremony in August.
A Buddhist group held special prayers Sunday at a temple in Kuala Lumpur to call for a trouble-free run of the torch Monday and a peaceful Olympics.
Some 300 Chinese students studying in Malaysia greeted the flame at the airport along with representatives from the National Sports Council and the police, a statement from Olympic Council of Malaysia said.
"Malaysia takes this opportunity to reiterate that the Beijing Olympics should not be politicized and remains confident that the Olympics will be successfully held in August 2008," Foreign Minister Rais Yatim said in a statement.
The flame was taken to a luxury hotel in downtown Kuala Lumpur ahead of Monday's relay run starting at nearby Independence Square.
Its 10-mile route will highlight various landmarks, including the top of the Kuala Lumpur Tower, a telecommunications installation that provides a scenic aerial view of the city.
Protests in other cities have triggered an unprecedented security detail for the Malaysian leg.
Some 1,000 policemen and commandos will be deployed along the route even though police have not received reports of any planned protests, said a police spokesman, who declined to be named citing protocol. The relay through Bangkok on Saturday was unmarred by demonstrations.
Growing criticism of China's human rights record has turned the Olympics into one of the most contentious in recent history.
China's recent crackdown in Tibet — which forcefully put down sometimes-violent demonstrations against Beijing's rule over the Himalayan region — has triggered protests and attempted disruptions of the torch relay in Paris, London and San Francisco.
On Friday, about 30 Falun Gong practitioners demonstrated in Kuala Lumpur, calling for an end to alleged Chinese human rights abuses ahead of the Beijing Olympics. China has banned the Falun Gong spiritual movement as a dangerous cult.
In Japan Sunday, a major Japanese Buddhist temple with graffiti, days after it withdrew a plan to host the torch relay in Nagano, police said. Nagano police were investigating the incident and trying to determine whether it was related to the temple's decision to pull out of the event.
Zenkoji Temple was slated as the starting point for the Japan leg of the Olympic torch relay on Saturday. The temple, however, changed its mind Friday, citing security concerns and sympathy for Tibetan protesters facing a Chinese crackdown
4/21/2008
Toxic...China...
I am not sure how much people understand the problem that is being posed by China’s cavalier attitude to product and environmental safety. If you think the toys your children are playing with are the only threat for toxicity you are wrong. Hidden problems exist.
Exactly what do you think is being done with the millions of tons of toys being recalled from lead and other heavy metal contaminants? I can tell you it will be one of two things. First, the toys will get distributed into countries with no standards for toxicity. Second, the products will be recycled. Now that may sound like a good option, but truthfully, it is not. The recycle process will separate and segregate the various parts for reprocessing. Metal pins and rods will get melted down and reformed. The plastic will get be reground and put back into the raw material supply chain.
The lead in these parts will not disappear by reheating and remolding into a new product.
On the plastic side, it is possible some of the regrind will be used for seemingly inert products, like dimensional plastic lumber. But others will be sold to plastic producers who will make who knows what with them. Most likely a lot of it will get molded into black plastic parts. Why black? Because black is the only color that will mask ALL other colors. I know this because I’m a plastic manufacturer. Internally, we reuse our scrap by regrinding and introducing small amounts back into the production process on certain parts. When making black parts we’ll increase the use of regrind. Because we are selective on the parts we will use our regrind on, we don’t use as much scrap as we make and sell it on the open market. So trust me, this is happening in China too.
The potential for toxicity is still very high and will require even more diligence on companies who are purchasing the finished products to test for heavy metal additives. There are lead test kits that home-owners can purchase, but what about all the other heavy metals such as Arsenic, Beryllium, Cadmium, Hexavalent Chromium, and Mercury.
Again this goes back to survival strategy. How will China’s disregard for human and environmental safety affect your personal survival, let alone the human species? This is something each of us needs to address on an individual level before contamination spirals out of control.
CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS
CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS
Posted by wmmbb in Environment.trackback
China is now emitting more CO2 than the United States. In 2005 China’s emissions were 2% below the US, and in 2006 they were greater by 8%. Kyoto did not hold the Chinese to any targets. They argue that did not cause the problem of global warming, so they should not be held to account for it.
Shuozhou, China: Morning commuters pass under the cooling towers of the Shengtou Power Plant , Shanxi Province. The Shengtou plant is one of the country’s largest coal burning power plants.
Photograph: Qilai Shen/EPA via The Guardian.
Tough and pure nonsense, I contend. To continue to pour out carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, with it multiple environmental implications is sheer negligence. It is now, and it was ten or twenty years ago. Unless the coal industry, regardless of country can sort out the environmental impacts it has little future. They should have been investing and researching alternative energy sources. The nanny state, in the persons of American, Australian and Chinese governments is going to the rescue of incompetent and negligent industries. In this instance governments and industries have to rely more on environmental signals rather than market signals.
Tested positive for performance enhancing drugs.
JuiceWhat was first an Olympic problem and then an American problem has now become a Chinese problem. Four athletes who won gold medals in central China's Henan provincial games last month have tested positive for performance enhancing drugs. These athletes earned their medals in wrestling and weightlifting (no surprise) but their names and the specifics of the drugs used have not been released. Of the 274 athletes competing in the provincial games, 78 were subject to random drug testing, said national news source Xinhua. This bust comes on the heels of a massive August raid in which Chinese authorities seized 450 doses of EPO, testosterone and steroids from an athletic training school in north China's Liaoning province where the staff of the school were caught injecting students with the drugs. The students at the school, the type of school Yao Ming attended for basketball, ranged from ages 15-18 and all have Olympic potential. China, in preparation for the Beijing Olympic games, has been aggressively fighting the war against performance-enhancing drugs to assure that it does not face embarrassment as the world's host. So, as this news from China surfaces, it becomes clear that doping is officially a global problem and not an American one. Other than the NBA, there seems to be a steroid abuse problem in every sport in the world from pitchers in Arizona to wrestlers in China. American cyclists rely on testosterone boosts to win. Baseball, it's safe to assume that half those guys are on something. Football players all look juiced. And even soccer players, playing "the world game" (I hate that), have faced steroid allegations in the past few years. And with Olympic athletes, it's gotten to the point that you have to start assuming they are all taking drugs. Every U.S. track star I've ever heard of except Maurice Greene-- Carl Lewis, Flo-Jo, Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery, Justin Gatlin--all used steroids during their Olympic careers. Clearly, these athletes are not isolated cases of steroid use, but rather they are small parts of a systematic cheat ring in sports. Nowadays, it would be naive to assume an athlete won an event without 'roids. Drug use, as we can see from the raid in China, has become the norm in athlete development all around the world. And therefore, I think the 2008 Olympics should serve as a test of which country has the best athletes, but rather, the first test of which nation makes the best drugs.
How the world’s priorities have changed over China
How the world’s priorities have changed over China: not so long ago the US Congress was earnestly debating China’s human-rights record. Today all anyone cares about is that China’s economic wheels keep turning, so it goes on filling its shelves with our goods. Far from worrying about China’s repressive regime, foreign politicians are mainly concerned that it keep a lid on the discontent caused by widespread official corruption. That’s why the outside world got a graphic glimpse of the rioting recently in Hunan last week. The crackdown on the 20,000 or so demonstrators was incredibly vicious, yet remarkably, a BBC TV reporter was allowed to film it. You can be sure that was no accident. Hu Jintao’s regime is the most media savvy in China’s history: it wanted to show the world that, fine words about justice aside, it has the situation well under control, even if it means sending in a couple of thousand baton-wielding troops and declaring martial law.
It’s a pity China wasn’t as tough on curbing the terrible price exacted by the steep economic growth. Once sleepy rural towns are now boxed in by factories and power plants belch acrid smoke. Even with a face mask it’s hard to breathe when you go outside. The sky is black - cars always drive with their headlights on; the soil is chemically contaminated (vegetables that grow there are covered with ugly black patches); and people are getting sick from skin infections, breathing disorders and cancers. Drinking water is the biggest worry: 90% of China’s water is now seriously polluted.
Europeans also make things worse by sending China all their supermarket packaging and plastic bags. Britain alone dumps around two million tonnes of waste in China every year. What can’t be recycled is melted down in acid baths, or burned, creating noxious fumes and appalling health problems for the locals.
However, China’s main problem is that most of its growth is fuelled by coal. Within a few months, its emission of greenhouse gases will exceed that of America: in 25 years, if left unchecked, it will be twice that of all developed nations put together. Yet China’s leaders remain reluctant to take any steps to stem it, fearing that to curb growth would be to invite social unrest which is crazy since pollution itself is now a prime cause of public anger. Two years ago, there was rioting when four million people had their water cut off following a chemical spill in the Songhua River. Other such accidents, albeit on a lesser scale, occur every other day, and it’s local politicians and businessmen, putting careers and profits before environmental safety, who are blamed for them.
Chinas leaders used to blame the West for global warming, pointing out China has contributed less than 8% of CO2 emissions since 1850. But now they’ve signalled that they’re ready to engage in international negotiations on global warming. Beijing might well commit itself to binding caps on emissions (thereby robbing the US of its key excuse for not doing likewise). Better still, it aims to raise energy efficiency by 20% in four years - mainly by greater reliance on renewable sources and cut-backs in iron and steel production. This is ambitious as these targets far exceed those set by Western countries. Still, there’s an encouraging precedent. In the Sixties, Tokyo and Osaka were as polluted as China’s cities are now, but thanks to tough policies, Japan is now more energy-efficient than any other country. Let’s hope, for the world’s sake, that its neighbour can pull off the same trick.
 Severe environmental degradation has accompanied China's rapid economic growth and industrialization since the early 1980s, with serious pollution from factories now a major problem across the country. |
Beijing (AFP)
A town in southwest China is wrestling with a serious pollution problem after a thermometer factory contaminated its vegetable fields and rivers with mercury, local media said Monday. The residents of Dongyang town in Chongqing municipality may face the loss of 20 hectares (49.3 acres) of farmland because the mercury has seeped into the soil, the Chongqing Evening Post said.
Farmers had for a long time used the water from nearby rivers, which are contaminated by the factory pollution, to irrigate their vegetables, corn and melons, the report said.
The factory, which closed on Sunday after filing for bankruptcy, had a section that produced mercury and droplets of the chemical can still be seen around the grounds of the complex, according to the report.
The plant had once directly discharged into one of the rivers, poisoning all the fish in fish farms nearby, it said.
Mercury is listed by the World Health Organization as a possible carcinogen that has many other severe health side effects for humans if exposed to high levels.
Experts from the local environmental protection department and a local agriculture college have confirmed soil and vegetables contain mercury levels exceeding safe limits, but it was not clear by how much, the report said.
Severe environmental degradation has accompanied China's rapid economic growth and industrialization since the early 1980s, with serious pollution from factories now a major problem across the country.