Monday, March 23, 2009
China's Housing Market Bottoms Out
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Severe Food Shortage in North Korea
A never-ending nightmare of depraved criminality and totalitarianism....
Vitit Muntarbhorn, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in North Korea, says food deprivation is still a major human rights issue in North Korea.
Pyongyang last week barred any more American food aid from entering the reclusive nation. Muntarbhorn says the North Korean regime's abuse of its citizens should be addressed by the entire global community. His ABC Radio Australia interview is availablehere.The Great Recession: China May Recover First
More Tibetan Protests in Western China
Hundreds of Tibetans surrounded a police station and government offices in a remote enclave of western China after the apparent suicide of a monk who had been taken into police custody.
Continue here
The protests near the Rabgya Monastery were the largest this year and show how volatile the situation remains despite the deployment of tens of thousands of paramilitary troops.
Official Chinese media reported that six people were arrested and that 89 "surrendered to police" after hundreds "attacked the police station . . . assaulted policemen and government staff," leaving several slightly injured.Mao Making Comeback Amid Economic Crisis
Confirming a recent China Confidential report, a wave of nostalgia for Mao Zedong is sweeping China. Click here for an overview.
Sources in Beijing say the ruling Communist Party is trying to figure out how to stay ahead of the trend, which could encourage social unrest. Analysts say there are factions in the military that would like to use the longing for old-school Communism to their advantage.
EDITOR'S NOTE: China is not the only place where there is growing nostalgia for a strong leader. Click below to view a video tribute to the late Egyptian dictator, Gamal Abdel Nasser, once a Third World icon. The video shows signs of becoming an underground hit in the Arab world.
Could this be the start of an anti-Islamist trend? One hopes that is the case. Although the left-leaning Nasser was an enemy of Israel and a Soviet ally, he was a secular nationalist leader--a pan-Arab pseudo-socialist--and more rational than the missile-mad mullahs and jihadists who nowadays threaten to turn the Middle East into a nuclear hell. One suspects that peace between Israel and Egypt under Nasser may have been possible, despite his unleashing a dynamic that led to the Six-Day War of June 1967--and Egypt's disastrous defeat--and that relations between his regime and the United States could have taken a different, more positive track.
The notion is at least plausible. WIth Arab and Iranian Islamists, however, it is impossible to imagine anything but endless conflict and terrorism--and a potentially catastrophic conflagration capable of engulfing the entire Middle East and even the entire world (including China, which is also plagued by a domestic Islamist threat). Chinese Steel Workers Protest Amid Rising Tensions
Chinese state media reported Sunday that nearly 1,000 steel workers demonstrated in central China to demand payment of their salaries and insurance premiums.
Xinhua news agency said the workers from an iron and steel company in Henan province blocked a major road Saturday to register their dissatisfaction with a restructuring plan drawn up by the company.
The workers, who dispersed Sunday, were requesting the payment of their salaries, medical and pension insurance premiums and compensation for laid-off workers in the city of Linzhou, according to Xinhua.
China Confidential analysts say the Communist Party is increasingly concerned that the global economic crisis--marked by a dramatic decline in manufacturing across the world--will lead to more unemployment and massive social unrest in China.
Click here for a background article about the plight of China's steel workers that focuses on the "imbalance of power" in the country's labor relations.Coca-Cola Still Committed to China Business
As a result of the decision of the China Ministry of Commerce (MOC) to decline approval for the proposed purchase of the Huiyuan Juice business, The Coca-Cola Company said today that it will not be able to proceed with the acquisition.
"We are disappointed, but we also respect the MOC’s decision," said Muhtar Kent, president and CEO of The Coca-Cola Company.
"We put a tremendous effort into providing all the relevant materials to the MOC to ensure that they had all the information available and understood the transaction," Kent said. "We were looking forward to working with the excellent Huiyuan team to stimulate new growth for the Huiyuan brand."
Taking the Long View
He added: "We will now focus all of our energies and expertise on growing our existing brands and continuing to innovate with new brands, including in the juice segment. Our recently opened USD 90 million Global Technology and Innovation Centre in Shanghai will play a key role in bringing this innovation to life. We hold a long-term view of the China market, and are committed to ensuring that Chinese consumers have a wide variety of top quality beverage options available to them."
Coca-Cola recently announced its commitment to invest $2 billion in China over the next three years in new plant and distribution infrastructure, sales and marketing, and R&D. This is in addition to the $1.6 billion already invested in China since the Company’s return in 1979.
"We will also continue our community investments in China," Kent said. "Whether it is working with Project Hope to help build schools and libraries across China, or working with educators to construct technology and multimedia centers for Chinese schools, or partnering with Government authorities to promote environmental education, or the World Wildlife Fund to help conserve and protect China’s precious water resources--we are firmly committed to a sustainable and prosperous future for all of China."
In related news, China's commerce minister said the country still welcomes foreign investment. Click here for the story.China Arrests Tibetan Monks After Attack on Police
Nearly 100 Tibetan monks were arrested or turned themselves in Sunday after hundreds of protesters attacked a police station in a Tibetan area in northwest China, state media reported.
Continue here.
The protest appeared to be in retaliation for the disappearance of a man who was in police custody in Qinghai province, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.
Six people were arrested for alleged involvement in the riot while another 89 people surrendered to police. All but two of them were mo
In related news, the Panchen Lama has cited Buddhist teachings to praise Beijing. Ben Blanchard reports:The Tibetan anointed by Beijing as the region's second-ranking spiritual leader was quoted by Chinese state media on Sunday as saying the teachings of Buddhism justify the Communist Party's rule in his remote homeland.
Continue here.
His comments came two weeks after the exiled Dalai Lama said 50 years under Communism had brought "untold suffering" and turned the region he once ruled as spiritual and temporal leader into a "living hell".Report: Detained US Journalists in Pyongyang
North Korea has probably sent the two American journalists it captured last week to Pyongyang for interrogation.
South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted sources in China Sunday saying that, considering the significance of the case, it is very likely the two will be questioned by North Korea's security and military agencies in the country's capital. South Korean officials did not confirm the report.
The North's official news agency, KCNA, said Saturday the Americans were taken into custody on Tuesday while crossing the North Korea-China border. It said the matter is under investigation.
South Korean media reports said Laura Ling and Euna Lee were detained with their Chinese guide near the Tumen River, along North Korea's border with China.
In Washington, a State Department official said the United States has contacted North Korea about the matter through its mission to the United Nations in New York. The official said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is involved in the case.
The journalists were reported to be working on a story on North Korean refugees, many of whom try to escape the country by crossing the river into China. The two were said to have ignored warnings from North Korean guards to stop filming. Reports say a fourth person escaped arrest.
Ling and Lee were working for an online news organization, Current TV, which was co-founded by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore. The company is based in California.
Monday, 23 March 2009
China’s housing market has probably hit bottom. Falling interest rates, the government’s stimulus package and other measures seem to be reviving demand. Read all about it here.
China's economy may recover first from the global recession. Click here to read Irene Shen's report from Shanghai.
Barbara Demick reports from Beijing:
Gillian Wong reports from Beijing:
Posts
