China says it will reduce number of executions

I can’t see China giving up on the death penalty anytime soon because of the booming organ trade they have going. Ten thousand executed prisoners represent big money, although we know now that the military relies heavily on organs from political prisoners like the Falun Gong to curb their expenses. (more) Everybody knows that the cadres have a hard time to stick to the rule of law. This is nothing more than window-dressing.

Globe and Mail by Scott McDonald (AP) BEIJING — China – the world's leading executioner of prisoners – should reduce the number of death sentences it carries out but cannot abolish capital punishment altogether, the country's top legal bodies say.

In a joint statement released late Sunday, the Supreme People's Court, Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of Justice and the country's top prosecutor also said condemned prisoners should not be paraded through the streets and suspects should not be tortured.

China is believed to carry out more court-ordered executions than all other nations combined. Amnesty International says China executed at least 1,770 people in 2005 — about 80 per cent of the world's total.

The true number is thought to be many times higher. London-based Amnesty has cited a senior member of China's national legislature as saying some 10,000 people are executed each year.

“Our country still cannot abolish the death penalty but should gradually reduce its application,” the statement said. “But where there is a possibility someone should not be executed, then without exception the person should not be killed.”

Along with crimes such as murder, rape, and drug smuggling, the death sentence also has been imposed in nonviolent cases such as tax evasion and corruption.

China sought to tighten the rules over the application of the death penalty following a series of high-profile cases involving wrongful convictions and torture. Rules enacted last year restored a requirement that all executions first be approved by the Supreme People's Court, something that had been waived amid the ongoing “strike hard” anti-crime campaign.

In one 2005 case, a woman believed murdered in the 1980s in the central province of Hunan reappeared, 16 years after the man convicted of killing her was executed. At the time of the execution, the court said the defendant had confessed.

Chinese police often are accused of torturing suspects into making confessions, and the document said it was wrong to use statements or confessions obtained through torture or threats “as the basis for a case.”

Officials were obligated to “ensure crime suspects and defendants can fully exercise their rights to defence and other procedural rights,” the statement said.

The document said police must be more thorough and obey the laws in identifying and collecting evidence.

It also required officials to ensure that condemned persons were not paraded through the streets or presented before crowds at anti-crime rallies, practices that once were common but are now usually only found in rural areas.

Amnesty International: The human cost of an economic ‘miracle’

Take a look at this enlightening Amnesty International report to see how China’s migrants are treated – many of them are the labourers working so hard to transform Beijing into a super Olympic City.

Amnesty International: People's Republic of China

Internal migrants: Discrimination and abuse

The human cost of an economic ‘miracle’

Tens of millions of migrants are denied rights to adequate health care and housing, and are excluded from the wide array of state benefits available to permanent urban residents.(4) They experience discrimination in the workplace, and are routinely exposed to some of the most exploitative conditions of work. Internal migrants’ insecure legal status, social isolation, sense of cultural inferiority and relative lack of knowledge of their rights leaves them particularly vulnerable, enabling employers to deny their rights with impunity. The children of internal migrants do not have equal access to free, compulsory, education, and many of them have to be left behind in the countryside. (more)

WANTED: Bibles for Beijing

The Communist Party’s latest tactic of putting bibles in every hotel room prior to the 2008 Beijing Olympics serves only to trick the free world into thinking that the regime tolerates and welcomes religion, when in fact the reality is quite the opposite

Vancouver Sun: March 10, 2007 BEIJING -- Beijing hotels may be asked to provide Bibles for foreign visitors during next year's Olympic Games, Xinhua news agency said Friday.

Liu Bainian, vice-president of the China Patriotic Catholic Association, said Bibles would help meet the religious needs of some of the 500,000 tourists expected during the Games.

The church has already decided to provide Bibles in several languages for more than 10,000 athletes competing at the Olympics.

To meet a shortfall of Bibles, Liu said authorities should ask Chinese believers to donate their own Bibles to the hotels on the understanding that they would get them back after the Aug. 8-24 Olympics concluded. The Beijing Diocese estimates that there are 60,000 Catholics in the capital and 10 million nationwide.

The real China threat

Peaceful development my foot...

The world's free-market democracies appear indifferent to China's role as enabler to murderous regimes. So it is left to international civil society to challenge Beijing and teach China's leaders that there can be no path to peaceful development that does not lead to respect for human rights. That is the lesson to be taught by human rights groups that plan on branding the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing as the Genocide Olympics.

Boston Globe Editorials / Op-Ed: March 7, 2007 - After China's recent announcement of an 18 percent increase in its official military budget for 2007, Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte requested that China be more transparent about its true levels of defense spending and its intentions. The coincidence of China's announcement and Negroponte's visit risks giving the impression that China is becoming the dangerous military adversary that ultra-conservatives have long foretold.

The reality is quite different. There are reasons to worry about China's expanding role on the world stage, but they have less to do with military power than with China's economic influence and the regime's disdain for human rights -- both at home and abroad.

To be sure, Chinese leaders remain as neurotic as ever about Taiwan. They complained to Negroponte about the Bush administration's plan to sell 400 missiles to Taiwan. He had to assure his hosts that the missile deal in no way alters America's commitment to a longstanding one-China policy.

Beyond their touchiness about Taiwan, Chinese leaders are also squabbling with neighbors about islands and undersea resources in the East China Sea and the South China Sea. But there is no hint these disputes over resources might become a cause for war with historical foes such as Vietnam or Japan.

A spokesman for the National People's Congress repeated a formulaic assurance Monday when he said, "China is committed to following the path of peaceful development." For his part, Negroponte drew a crucial distinction, saying, "It's not so much the budget and the increases as it is understanding these things through dialogue and contacts." This was a tactful way of saying that Washington's need for transparency is less about China's capabilities than it is about its strategic intentions.

Negroponte's poised reaction to China's military budget reflects an understanding that China long ago ceased being a revolutionary power. Few countries have a greater stake in preserving the current world order, rooted in a globalized economy with its free flows of goods, services, and capital.

The major threat from Beijing comes rather from its pursuit of energy resources, trade, and profits at the expense of human rights. China, as a preeminent investor in Sudan's oil reserves, has been financing that regime's genocidal crimes in Darfur. Beijing also acts as the principal ally of Burma's military dictatorship and as a ruthless overlord in Tibet.

The world's free-market democracies appear indifferent to China's role as enabler to murderous regimes. So it is left to international civil society to challenge Beijing and teach China's leaders that there can be no path to peaceful development that does not lead to respect for human rights. That is the lesson to be taught by human rights groups that plan on branding the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing as the Genocide Olympics.

Washington Post: China plans sharp rise in military spending

China, Taiwan Tensions Threaten To Politicize Olympic Games

The cadres are showing signs of frustration with Taiwan over the Olympics -- to what extent -- remains to be seen.

Excerpt: Escalating tensions between China and Taiwan threaten to cast a dark shadow on the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. From the route the Olympic torch takes to under which name and flag Taiwan athletes march into the stadium for the Games, everything suddenly seems in doubt.

Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian's announcement on Sunday to pursue full independence from China and to change the country's name from the current Republic of China to Taiwan was labelled a "threat to peace and stability in the region" by China.

The communist leadership in Beijing has threatened "non-peaceful means" against Taiwan if the island seeks independence or if the possibility of "peaceful reunification" is exhausted. (more)

China: National People’s Congress Should Adopt Human Rights Reforms

Human Rights Watch sends an open letter to Premier Wen Jiaboa highlighting sensitive areas of improvement...

(New York, March 7, 2007) – China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) should adopt reforms in 10 areas to strengthen human rights protections, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao today. The congress, which meets annually and is attended by more than 3,000 delegates, is meeting through March 15.

“Chinese leaders have committed themselves to promoting social justice, ensuring freedom of expression, and building the rule of law, but only concrete reforms will bring real change,” said Sophie Richardson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. (more)

Canada ranked high for protecting human rights

... but not high enough.

CJNEws Excerpt: Despite Canada’s high score, there is room for improvement, Neuer stated. UN Watch looked at the 19 worst human rights abusers as determined by Freedom House, an independent democracy advocacy organization, and examined Canada’s speeches and votes at the HRC and the General Assembly. Canada either voted positively (gaining a point) or made statements concerning the rights abusers in only six cases. “However, there were so many worst of the worst countries – 13 of the 19 – for which Canada took no action at all.”

Canada was silent on China’s “violations of civil, political and religious rights,” on “Fidel Castro’s [Cuba] police state,” “Saudi Arabia’s refusal to allow women to vote or drive a car” and “its state-sponsored schoolbooks that teach children to hate Christians and other non-Muslims” and repression in Zimbabwe.

“There are many times Canada can speak out,” Neuer said. “It’s important to the victims. It has a potential impact to put governments on notice that the world is watching.” (more)

Christians jailed for walking near Olympic hotel

Who was it that said the Olympics would make everything better in Communist China by 2008 (and with any luck - afterwards)? Something went wrong because it's quite the opposite that is happening nowadays.

Persecution ramping up as 2008 Games in Beijing approach

WorldNetDaily.com February 22, 2007 - A Christian house church leader in China and his mother are facing a criminal prosecution that appears to be part of that government's campaign to eliminate messages that are contrary to the official publicity releases as the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing approach.

According to reports from Voice of the Martyrs, a Christian organization that works in support of persecuted Christians around the world, house church leader Hua Huiqi has been formally arrested and his 76-year-old mother arrested a second time for the offense of walking near a construction site for a hotel being built in preparation for the Olympics.

China house church leader Hui Huiqi

VOM said Hua was arrested by the Beijing Public Security Bureau Chaoyang Branch and his mother arrested by Beijing Security Bureau Chongwen Branch. They had been injured in January when seven police officers attacked them while they were walking near the hotel construction site in Beijing.

"We are deeply concerned about Brother Hua and his elderly, ill mother. They are faithful Christians seeking only to serve the Lord in accordance with their conscience," said Todd Nettleton, a spokesman for Voice of the Martyrs.

"We encourage Christians around the world to pray for their family, and we strongly urge the Chinese government to release them immediately," he said.

China Aid Association officials told VOM that Hua has been very active in trying to help persecuted Christians and others who are oppressed by local officials who travel to Beijing trying to obtain justice from the central government.

He and his mother were attacked, and while on the ground, kicked. Then later they were taken to a police station for questioning, according to reports. "When Hua asked the police to release his sick mother and explain the legal ground for the detention, he was beaten repeatedly. While the temperature in Beijing was in the 20s, cold water was poured on him. He was later taken to a detention center," the organization said.

"The Chinese government says they ensure freedom of religion, but this case clearly shows the truth," Nettleton said. Police from the Olympic Sports Stadium Police Station also threatened to arrest Hua's brother, officials reported.

Authorities in China told CAA that Hua was under criminal detention on the charge of "intervening public affair," essentially damaging public and private property at the construction site.

The arrest notice for China house church leader Hui Huiqi

"The charge against Brother Hua is totally baseless and it's clearly revenge to Hua's Christian ministry to the oppressed," said Bob Fu, who works with Hua. "Hua's case should be seen as a litmus test on whether China is sincere to improve its worsening human rights record before the 2008 Beijing Olympics."

Co-workers told CAA that they believe the aggressive actions in the arrest of Hua and his mother could be because of instructions from high government officials to send a message to those who present a message during the Olympics that does not fit the government's formal statements.

CAA said letters of concern can be sent to: Premier Wen Jiabao, PRC, PO Box 1741, The State Council, Beijing, PRC (zip code 100017). The telephone contact is: +86-10-66012399.

"The detention of innocent peaceful Christians like Mr. Hua and his mom is certainly contradictory to the Chinese government's human rights commitment for 2008 Beijing Olympics," said Fu.

A number of human rights organizations ¨C both faith-based and secular ¨C have raised concerns about China's human rights record, and its preparations for the 2008 Games, which were awarded to Beijing in a vote by the International Olympic Committee in 2001.

Human Rights Watch said Chinese police have cracked down on "subversive Internet users" who have been censored in their efforts to post information that contradicts the government's public relations statements.

"Chinese authorities reinforced repression against Internet users, Tibetans, members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement, foreign scholars, the Muslim Uigur minority, democrats, foreign journalists and delinquents, all 'in the name of the Chinese Olympics,'" the organization said.

There are estimates several thousand Chinese are executed each year for their "crimes." WND recently reported on an assessment of China's human rights situation that alleges the government keeps members of the Falun Gong religious sect in detention camps, and then executes them as their organs are needed for that nation's transplant industry.

Also, at the current time, hundreds of thousands of Chinese are being evicted from their homes just so that the redevelopment projects in preparation for the Games can continue, the HRC said.

"The IOC has invested the Chinese regime with a task it will carry out zealously: host safe Olympics. This means arrests of dissidents, social 'cleansing,' and censorship against 'critical' elements," the group said.

"The Olympic movement was discredited in 1936, when it allowed the Nazis to make the Games a spectacle to glorify the Third Reich. In 1980, in Moscow, the IOC suffered a terrible defeat when more than 50 countries boycotted the Olympics," the group said. The 2008 Games should not be allowed to advance the restrictions China imposes, it said.

VOM is a non-profit, interdenominational ministry working worldwide to help Christians who are persecuted for their faith, and to educate the world about that persecution. Its headquarters are in Bartlesville, Okla., and it has 30 affiliated international offices.

It was launched by the late Richard and Sabina Wurmbrand, who started smuggling Russian Gospels into Russia in 1947, just months before Richard was abducted and imprisoned in Romania where he was tortured for his refusal to recant Christianity.

He eventually was released in 1964 and the next year he testified about the persecution of Christians before the U.S. Senate's Internal Security Subcommittee, stripping to the waist to show the deep torture wound scars on his body.

The group that later was renamed The Voice of the Martyrs was organized in 1967, when his book, "Tortured for Christ," was released

Who needs Kyoto while China pollutes?

A brilliant piece by Neil Reynolds. It says it all.

"Were Canada to eliminate all of its GHG emissions, China's increases would replace them - every last ounce - in 18 months. Were Canada to eliminate 10 per cent of its emissions, China's increases would replace them all in 60 days. As noble as self-sacrifice can occasionally be, it must have - somewhere - a rational purpose."

Who needs Kyoto while China pollutes?

2007 Telegraph-Journal (New Brunswick): 22 Feb 2007 - China pollutes deliberately, strategically. The World Health Organization says that seven of the 10 most polluted big cities in the world are in China.

Beijing's ambient air holds 360 micrograms of particulate pollutants per cubic metre - compared with zero readings (for all practical purposes) in London and Los Angeles. Two-thirds of China's 350 biggest cities pump sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide into the atmosphere in vast quantities in routine violation of China's clean-air laws. (The Americans have tracked these mobile pollutants 16,000 kilometres away, at the Donner Summit near Lake Tahoe, as they pass by.) China's biggest lakes are all seriously polluted. So vast are the diversions of water from it, the Yellow River runs dry every year, failing to reach the ocean in one instance (1997) for 226 days.

China's own environmental protection agency reported last year that pollution costs the country 10 per cent of its US$2.2 trillion economy - $200 billion a year. The World Bank has gone further, calculating the cost of the premature deaths of thousands of Chinese killed each year by pollution. Economic losses from pollution-induced mortality and morbidity, the bank found, equals as much as three per cent of China's gross dometic product - $60 billion a year. By contrast, the country spends roughly one per cent of its GDP to fix environmental messes which, according once again to China's EPA, have multiplied - on average - by 250 significant environmental "accidents" a year for the last decade.

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are another thing altogether. China reportedly builds a coal-fired power plant every week, and expects to maintain this pace for years. Few of these plants are equipped with pollution-control technology. Not that it matters. Writing last year in Foreign Affairs magazine on the limitations of the Kyoto Protocol, U.S. environmental bureaucrat Ruth Greenspan Bell says that pollution-cutting technology often goes unused in China - even when provided to the country free. "Evidence from China demonstrates," she writes, "that plants equipped with superior pollution equipment do not run these controls when doing so proves inconvenient." When might it prove inconvenient? Whenever, Ms Bell suggests, no one is watching.

Ms Bell held management positions in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for 20 years and is now a resident scholar with Resources for the Future, a Washington-based think tank. She supports reductions in GHG emissions but warns people not to expect too much from Kyoto. "There are 900 environmental treaties on the books," she observes. "Unfortunately, few have achieved any reduction in pollution." This cautionary note reflects the judgment of another Kyoto scepto-enthusiast, British Prime Minister Tony Blair: "The truth is that no country is going to cut its growth or consumption [to deal with] a long-term environmental problem." Ms Bell says this impediment will be even greater in China than elsewhere - because the government owns or controls so many industries that environment enforcers find themselves working "with hopelessly divided allegiances." These enforcers, she says, have no capacity for independent regulatory action.

Implicit in these observations is the fact that environmental advances occur when rich countries, acting unilaterally and independently, invest large amounts of money, privately and publicly, either to preserve environmental legacies or to restore them. China will turn environmentalist, too - someday.

Economists have calculated that countries begin to clamp down on sulfur dioxide when per-capita GDP reaches $9,000 a year, on particulate pollution when per-capita GDP reaches $15,000 a year - a variation on the "Kuznets Curve" which holds that you have to get dirty before you get rich and you have to get rich before you get clean. China will get much dirtier. Its per-capita GDP reached $1,000 last year.

The producer of 18 per cent of the world's GHG emissions, China is gaining fast on Europe (22 per cent) and the United States (21 per cent). The International Energy Agency says that China will expand GHG emissions by 120 per cent in the next 20 years, averaging six per cent a year, far surpassing Europe and the U.S.

For a small-population country such as Canada, with two per cent of global emissions, the awkward question that compels awkward answers is this: Why bother with Kyoto? What difference will it make?

Canada produces 160 million tons a year of the world's eight billions tons of carbon dioxide emissions. Were Canada to eliminate all of its GHG emissions, China's increases would replace them - every last ounce - in 18 months. Were Canada to eliminate 10 per cent of its emissions, China's increases would replace them all in 60 days. As noble as self-sacrifice can occasionally be, it must have - somewhere - a rational purpose.

Neil Reynolds, a former editor

nreynolds@xplornet.com

Exploit China's Desire for Successful Olympics, Rights Advocates Urge US

I'm starting to believe that it's a blessing in disguise to have China host the Olympics--how else could we beam the spotlight on their abysmal human rights track record for the world to see?

(CNSNews.com) - By Payton Hoegh - As the 2008 Olympics approach, human rights and religious freedom advocates are urging the U.S. government to "exploit the need" China has to host a successful event and step up the pressure on Beijing to improve its record.

"A smooth and successful Olympics is paramount to China," Sharon Hom of Human Rights in China told a statutory panel on Capitol Hill Wednesday.

Yet despite the fact that the games are only 18 months away, she said the communist regime's repression has been getting worse.

Hom joined representatives of four major religions and others in testifying before the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, which advises the executive and legislative branches on efforts to counter religious persecution around the world.

Since Beijing in 2001 won the hosting rights to the 2008 summer games, human rights groups have called on the international community to exert pressure on the government to improve its record.

Some groups, such as Reporters without Borders, advocate boycotting the Olympics, while others hope to use the event to pressure Beijing into reforming.

Critics point to the Olympic Charter, which states, "Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the joy found in effort, the educational value of good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles."

Under pressure from the International Olympic Committee (OIC), China promised during its host city bid that if the event came to Beijing, the nation would reform its human rights policies.

"[In] allowing Beijing to host the Games, [the OIC] will help the development of human rights," Vice President of the Beijing Bid Committee, Liu Jingmin, said at the time.

Beijing's then Mayor Liu Qi also promised social progress and improved human rights policies in the event the city won its bid.

Analysts who spoke Wednesday supported the idea that China's position as host nation could be used as a lever.

Hom advised the panel to use the event, along with China's desire to be a recognized and respected power in world politics, to press for improvement on religious freedom and human rights.

"Exploit this need" for a successful Olympics, she urged the panel, adding that in the lead-up to the Olympics, the struggle will get harder although there would be "windows of opportunity."

Michael Green of the Center for Strategic and International Studies stressed that the issue of human rights in China is sometimes pushed to the background and that it was important that "we bring these issues to light."

"The last thing we want to do is let China think we are willing to compromise on issues involving human rights," he said.

Arrest, torture

Commission Chair Felice Gaer invited officials from five organizations to give evidence and to help the U.S. as it decides how to "most effectively advance freedom of religion and related rights" in China.

Representatives of the Protestant, Catholic, (Tibetan) Buddhist and (Uighur) Islamic faiths echoed the analysts' call for Washington to intervene.

The constitution of the atheistic nation grants its people freedom of religion, but the government monitors each of the nation's five major religions and allows only government-sanctioned religious practices.

Members of churches that do not register with the state authorities or are refused registration because they are considered "evil cults" are under constant threat of arrest and attack.

The representatives submitted reports on behalf of their respective religious group telling the commission of specific instances of government repression, including reports of religious leaders being arrested, tortured, and detained for months or years under frivolous charges.

The China Aid Association (CAA) released a report documenting the level of persecution against Protestant house churches and giving the known number of arrests, attacks, and churches destroyed.

It said China detained at least 600 Christians and destroyed numerous churches in 2006.

"Zhejiang and Henan province should be put on notice [as] having the worst religious persecution record," said Rev. Bob Fu of CAA. "It is morally imperative for any conscientious foreign investors in Henan to address this serious issue."

Joseph Kung of the Catholic Cardinal Kung Foundation told the panel of the latest instance of Catholic bishops being arrested, and he called on the commission to help locate them.

"Religious persecution in China is not ancient history" Kung said, adding that it "should be one of the top priorities of the U.S." in the coming year.

Bhuchung Tsering of the International Campaign for Tibet voiced concerned that Beijing may use the games to legitimize its control over Tibet. China has occupied the Himalayan region since 1950 and is accused of repressing the Buddhist religion there.

The commission is a panel reporting directly to the president and Congress which examines the religious rights policies of nations and advises the government on how to deal with those that are of "particular concern."

China is one of eight "countries of particular concern" the administration lists as especially oppressive. The others are Saudi Arabia, Iran, Burma, North Korea, Sudan, Eritrea and Uzbekistan.

Green and harmonious Olympics--not quite

After reading this article, I am appalled to see how far China, the great pretender, is willing to go to boost its image. And it's a very costly facelift at that! But things are not always what they seem. They can brag all they want about being so great, nevertheless a new report on organ harvesting of prisorners should serve as an eye opener to us all. However, China has it right on one count -that is- they should worry about human rights activitists in the leadup to the Olympics. Intervention from rights activists, trouble as the Communist officials would call it, could easily be avoided if they'd only stop brutalizing their own people. Another Olympic-size headache for China is the environment. Superficial measures won’t resolve the core of the problem. And saying things are allright don't make it so.

Freedom of the press is certainly not a done deal either. Journalism is the third most dangerous profession in China. Regardless of the new regulations to protect journos, a journalist was brutally murdered outside a mining company office January 11. What new laws? Even Hu Jintao felt he had to apologize for that one. Look here for Reporters Without Borders' annual report for 2007.

Send a letter to the IOC and let them know that China has broken its promise of improving their human rights record before the Games--and it's even worst than ever!

Sydney Morning Herald, Australia: Faster, higher and on target

Unlike Athens, Beijing is forging ahead with Olympic Games preparations. There's just the small matter of chronic pollution, writes Jacquelin Magnay.

Hard-hatted Henry Zhang stood atop the towering birds' nest that has come to signify the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games and cast his eyes over the surrounding Olympic Green, not so much lush as huge brown mounds of construction dust. "I felt very proud and very scared at the same time," says Zhang, the deputy general manager of the national stadium, of that moment last year.

Zhang has overseen the construction of the Olympic stadium, now 70 per cent complete, which is really three tiers of seating that can stand alone without the cosmetic envelope of the huge steel that wraps around it like string.

"To be honest we have never had this experience of building such an external steel structure and it was a very big challenge for us, but since last September we feel very, very confident that we can finish it on schedule and with quality," Zhang says, noting with a hearty laugh that when the supporting pylons were removed nothing fell down.

Zhang's thoughts about his eye-popping 91,000-seat stadium that will convert to a football stadium after the Games mirrors the entire ambitious Beijing Olympic project. It is bold, it is out there and it is very risky.

China's authorities have chosen the August 2008 Games to exhibit the new China: a more open, vibrant, energetic, high-tech country that is breathtaking in its transformation. Authorities have moved villages, invested many billions of dollars and searched the highest peaks for inspiration.

The Olympic torch and flag, for instance, will be taken by climbers to the top of Mount Everest. And the pictures of this moment will be beamed live by Chinese television around the world.

The logistics of this exercise are mind-boggling - how to keep the torch alight in such a low-oxygen, high-altitude environment; how to carry satellite dishes and broadcast equipment to beam the moment; how to select a skilled Chinese climber for this privilege; and how to keep the team safe.

"We want to put the Olympic flag on top of the world. The training has already started," says Wang Wei, the executive vice-president of the Beijing Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG).

The funding of some of the Olympic venues has broken new ground and illustrated how Communist China has opened to the world. Authorities looked outside of the state's revenue and won private investment in the stadium. Three companies, Citic Group, the Beijing Urban Construction Group and the US Golden State pension fund, have funded the total cost (which has not been revealed) in return for a 42 per cent stake over the next 30 years.

Several hundred metres away the Australian-designed spectacular aquatic centre, "the water cube", features translucent walls and ceilings of "bubbles", and can change colour. The 1.02 billion yuan ($169 million) cost of this construction was totally funded by contributions from 80,000 expatriate Chinese who will have their names recorded on a wall nearby. "They had a very strong will to contribute," says the centre's executive deputy general manager, Zhao Zhixiong.

While there is tremendous enthusiasm and a seriousness of attitude, the Chinese political leaders and the Olympic organisers face enormous challenges to control aspects that can bring the Games undone, such as the Falun Gong, which is campaigning among supporters to disrupt the Olympics, human rights protesters or the acutely uncomfortable, choking air pollution.

Beijing organisers are worried China's image will suffer if the pictures beamed around the world show athletes whingeing about being unable to breathe or if the Great Wall of China is cocooned in a thick blanket of smog.

The high pollution levels are of such concern that many Australian training camps will not be held on the Chinese mainland and many teams will delay their entry into Beijing until the last possible moment.

The Beijing Municipal Authority has been open about the problem and since 1998 has spent 119.1 billion yuan to find a solution, closing coking factories, halving the production of the Capital Steelworks factory, and embarking on a widespread public transport system that by 2012 will mean any Beijing citizen will be just five minutes walk from a train station. All of the industrial burners have had to change to cleaner fuels and the city's 9000 construction sites have been covered to prevent dust storms.

Their efforts are paying off, with the number of clean air days (judged by whether the pollution has exceeded Beijing's five-point standard test) at 241 last year, up from 101 days nine years ago. But the number of worst pollution days also rose - to 20.

The vice-director of the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau, Du Shaozhong, acknowledges the rapid urbanisation was an issue and says the next 12 months are critical.

"We try our best and we invest a lot of money [in] Beijing's air-pollution control, but the air and water quality still has a lot to improve," Du says, describing this year as "a crucial year for Beijing to realise an Olympic green environment and the Beijing municipality will try our best to increase the air and water quality".

Compounding the problem is the sale of nearly 1000 new cars a day to Beijing citizens, all of which require the highest quality emission standards. Sales of cars, mobile phones and real estate underpinned the country's eighth consecutive year of double-digit growth, figures released last week show.

By August next year, it is expected there will be 3.5 million cars in Beijing.

Wang says all factories can be temporarily shut during the Games if need be. And there will be a concerted push for people to leave their cars at home. Beijing residents are being educated via television, billboards and slogans about "Olympic etiquette".

"When not to give a big shout, when to keep quiet, to cheer both sides, to be nice hosts," says Wang.

Ticket prices were kept low (from 30 yuan to 1000 yuan for competitions; 200 to 5000 yuan for the ceremonies) to encourage local participation. Unlike the West, which uses sport to tackle obesity, the Chinese want to use the Olympics to help people relax. The Games will also be about exhibiting China's athletic prowess and the Chinese Olympic Committee dearly wants to knock off the United States from the top of the medal tally, especially in front of the 80 heads of state who have indicated they will be there.

But that triumph must come without any taint of drugs following the loss of face at the 1998 World Swimming Championships in Perth where several athletes were caught with the hormone-boosting EPO (erythropoietin). Late last year one of the provincial sports schools was raided and a large cache of performance-enhancing drugs seized, but for the first time, the authorities revealed that the raid took place.

The International Olympic Committee has stressed that China must be transparent and allow journalists to do their work without interference.

The Communist Party responded and has relaxed restrictions on journalists until after the Games so that they can report more freely and move about the provinces more easily. No longer will journalists have to seek permission from the state to interview an athlete. Wang says the organisers do not fear the human rights questions either, because human rights at the moment is "the best in the history of China" . He is confident that with less than 550 days until the opening ceremony Beijing and China will be ready for the world's inspection.

"Journalists will see the reality of China, they can ask about how happy they [the people] feel about now and the future and for the most part it will be positive [response]. Every country has its pros and cons and we want to do our best for the people to know more about China and the reality of China," he says.

"We want to showcase Beijing and showcase China and we understand the international community doesn't know Beijing or China as it really is and this is our opportunity for the world to focus on us. We understand the bar is high, our own expectations are high, but we want a distinct Olympic Games with Chinese features."

The writer travelled as a guest of BOCOG.

THE SPENDING

Budget for the Beijing Games organising committee: $US2 billion ($2.5 billion)

Ticket revenue: $US140 million

Product licensing 4000 items: $US50 million

IOC sponsors: $US1 billion

Volunteers: 220,000 registered for 70,000 positions

2006 SPENDING

$US1 billion in public facilities,

transport and infrastructure around Olympic venues

$US1 billion to improve urban environment

$US1 billion on underground subway

$US133 million to improve air quality

$US38.5 million to modernise industry

Source: Beijing Finance Bureau, BOCOG

Chinese army harvesting parts from Falun Gong inmates

China is indulging in human rights violations again. When will the butchery stop? If this insanity keeps up, it will be surprising if anyone will even bother to show up at the 2008 Olympics. Why support an evil dictatorship? Read the Matas/Kilgour report here.

OTTAWA (AFP) - China's military is reportedly harvesting organs from prison inmates, mostly Falungong practitioners, for large scale transplants including for foreign recipients, a study said.

Canada's former Secretary of State for the Asia Pacific region David Kilgour and human rights lawyer David Matas released a report Wednesday into such transplants after interviewing organ recipients in 30 countries.

They also interviewed Canadian hospital staff who subsequently cared for hundreds of patients after they underwent dubious transplant surgeries in China.

"The involvement of the People's Liberation Army in these transplants is widespread," Kilgour told a press conference.

Like many civilian hospitals in rural China, military hospitals turned to selling organs to make up for government funding cuts in the 1980s, the report states.

But military personnel could operate with much more secrecy, it added.

"Recipients often tell us that even when they receive transplants at civilian hospitals, those conducting the operation are military personnel," the report states.

It is the second report to be released by the pair, who in July published the results of a two-month investigation in which they implicated dozens of hospitals and jails throughout China in the transplant scandal.

Those allegations were vigorously denied by Chinese officials.

Hospitals in Canada's biggest cities, Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto meanwhile confirmed "a substantial number" of Canadians had traveled to China for suspicious organ transplants, Kilgour said.

"We're in the three digits, up over 100 (from Canada each year) and the trend is accelerating," Matas said.

To curb what they called a "disgusting form of evil," the pair publicly asked pharmaceutical firms to stop selling organ anti-rejection drugs to China.

They also urged countries to post travel advisories warning that organs from China may have been harvested from unwilling donors; asked states to cease offering follow-up care to patients who had shady organ transplants in China; and called on foreign doctors to cut ties with their Chinese counterparts suspected of such practices.

States should also enact legislation to ban their citizens from traveling to China for organ transplants from forced donors, although the study's authors admitted such prosecutions would be difficult to prove.

The US-based lobby group "The Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of the Falungong in China" had asked Kilgour and Matas to investigate claims by several of their members.

China banned the spiritual group in 1999 and has vehemently denied the allegations of organ harvesting, accusing the Falungong of spreading rumors in a bid to undermine the country's international relations and "social stability."

Kilgour and Matas admitted that many of the claims were second-hand, but said there was enough evidence to "paint a picture."

They described one man traveling to Shanghai in 2003 for a kidney transplant at the civilian No. 1 People's Hospital and his convalescence at No. 85 hospital of the People's Liberation Army.

Eight kidneys were tested, to find a match. Only the last "from an executed prisoner" was compatible, his military surgeon told him, according to the report.

Wang Xiaohua, a Falungong practitioner who now lives in Montreal, told reporters he "suffered inhumane persecution" at a Chinese labor camp where jailed Falungong practitioners, and not other prisoners, were systematically subjected to blood tests to match their organs with recipients.

In their previous report, Matas and Kilgour interviewed several Falungong members and the former wife of a surgeon who told her he had removed the corneas from some 2,000 anaesthetized Falungong prisoners in northeast China in the two years prior to October 2003.

They said they listened, with the help of certified interpreters, to more than 30 veiled calls made from Canada and the United States to Chinese officials who admitted to the surgeries.

Dozens more Chinese hospitals and jails were implicated in transcripts of new telephone calls, including one to an air force hospital in Chengdu City, in which an official said it would be "no problem" to get organs from young and healthy Falungong practitioners for a transplant.

Open Letter to IOC re: Tibet Shooting

Sign your protest letter to Jacques Rogge here.

Jacques Rogge
President International Olympic Committee
Chateau De Vidy
Case Postale 356
1007 Lausanne, Switzerland
Fax: +41-21-621-6216

jacques.rogge@ioc.olympic.org

info@olympic.org

info@ioc.olympic.org

Dear Mr. Jacques Rogge:

I would like to express my horror about the recent shooting of Tibetan refugees by the Chinese People's Armed Police (PAP). It is high time that the IOC understands that silence on the situation in Tibet will leave a stain on the Olympic movement as a whole.

The shooting, which resulted in the death of Kelsang Namtso, a seventeen-year-old nun, and the injury of 20-year-old Kunsang Namgyal, happened as 71 refugees (excluding two guides) were preparing to cross the glaciated Nangpa La, an 18,753 ft. pass close to Everest base camp on September 30, 2006. Twenty-nine refugees were arrested after continuing to flee, including 14 children - the youngest of which is five years old.

I strongly believe, as history demonstrates, that such outrageous incidents will repeat as long as the Chinese occupation of Tibet is not solved in a peaceful way.

The IOC will become morally bankrupt if it continues to keep quiet on the issue of Tibet and does not use its influence on the Chinese government in the lead-up to the 2008 Olympics to have Beijing resolve the long-standing issue of Tibet.

Therefore, I urge you to immediately make Beijing aware that it is unacceptable to the Olympic movement and the international community for it - the 2008 Olympic host country - to continue to brutally suppress the right of the Tibetan people.

China bans Year of the Pig ads to 'show respect to Muslims'

CCTV is putting up a front and showing tolerance toward the Muslims while they brutally murdered 18 Muslim Uyghurs in the beginning of January--the real number is probably higher. What next? Allow lawyers to practise law or even better, allow Falun Gong to do their Tai Chi freely? Hmmm...

When the Lunar Year of the Pig is fast approaching, China's largest state-owned CCTV recently received an order from the government that prohibits airing of any TV ads that contains images of the pig. This is a measures aims to avoid offending the Muslims in China, in order to "protect the harmony between different religions and ethnic groups". (more)

Christians under Attack in China

Frederick W. Stakelbeck Jr. is bang on in his assessment of religious freedom in China or the lack thereof as he elaborates on recent beatings and arrests.

Front Page Mag Excerpt: But in typical Beijing fashion, Chinese President Hu Jintao’s government has clamped down on religious dissidents, viewing a rise in spirituality as a threat to its authority and power. Corinna-Barbara Francis, an East Asia researcher at Amnesty International, says there's evidence persecution of dissidents has increased. “There's been a serious crackdown on a whole range of human rights defenders in China already," Francis said this month. In particular, China’s approximately 25 million Christians, a group including both Protestants and Roman Catholics, have become the focus of Beijing’s increasing resentment and suspicion

International law notes that freedom of belief is not a right to be granted by the state, but a practice that is to be protected by the state. Beijing continues to follow a policy of telling the world what it wants to hear so that it will get what it wants – so far, that policy has worked perfectly. But in time, the country’s leadership will need to recognize and accept religion as an integral part of Chinese culture; otherwise, it will face a national revolution that even Chairman Mao would find hard to suppress. (more)

Tibetan Youth conclude cycle protest against 2008

The cyclists have shown much determination through this challenging rally which will hopefully have a positive impact on the IOC. Keep up the fight for freedom guys ! Sign here for the boycott.

“Whether the world is listening to what we are doing or not but we will not stop with our struggle. These kind of movement will go on. And through non-violent direct action, we must continue to work for the call for justice and freedom and demand respect for human rights in Tibet”. (more)

No economic development in China: Guy Sorman

After spending some time in China with the peasants, author Guy Sorman exposes his views about China’s economy and greed for power in his new book entitled Year of the Rooster. A must read.

Excerpt: In a scathing attack on the Communist Party, he says the first objective of the Party is to stay in power; the second is to make its members grow rich.

"The Chinese abhor the corruption of the Party cadres and do not view them as custodians of a laudable tradition."

Whether China will see the third revolution, Mr Sorman answers the question in the context of the 2008 Olympic Games to be held in Beijing.

"The Communist Party, dependent as it is on foreign investors, is pinning all its hopes on these Games: if they go off successfully, it will be a consecration of the Party. On the other hand, there is the constant fear of some untoward incident (revolt, epidemic, etc), bringing it into disrepute." (more)

Rights Group Says Conditions in China Worsen as Olympics Near

Beijing was quick to deny Human Rights Watch’s recent report for the year of 2006 by saying that 'Human Rigths Watch's criticism is biased, untrue'. China to this day still considers their human rights condition to be ‘domestic affairs’ and respectfully asks for the rest of the world to bud out. Somebody please tell them that it doesn't work that way.


Now the burning question is: Should EU fill the leadership void on human rights because of this? I think they should especially if Royal wins the French presidency. Look here for more on that topic.


Here are some excerpts from news reports:

BEIJING, Jan. 12 — Human rights conditions in China deteriorated last year even as China sought to portray itself as an increasingly open, modern society ahead of the 2008 Olympics, Human Rights Watch said in a report on Friday. (more)

…..about 100 activists, lawyers, writers and academics subjected to police custody, house arrest, incommunicado confinement, pressure in their jobs and surveillance by plainclothes security forces, a new report by Human Rights Watch said. (more)

China: By pouring investment into countries guilty of widespread rights abuses, China put its own economic and political interests above the rights of mistreated citizens. Among such countries were Sudan and Zimbabwe. (more)

Human Rights Watch said that the fast-paced construction and redesign of Beijing's transportation system ahead of the Olympics had worsened some problems for residents of the capital, with many hundreds of thousands evicted from their family homes with inadequate compensation and no recourse to the legal system. (more)

PBS: China from the Inside

An excellent PBS mini-series will be aired Jan. 10 (?) entitled “China From the Inside”. Don’t miss it.

The documentary explores the factors that make China the pressure cooker that it is and takes a long look at the dominance of the Chinese Communist Party and religious oppression. Look here for a preview and check your local listing here .

Excerpt: The four one-hour episodes of China from the Inside are:

Episode 1: Power and the People

How does the Communist Party exert control over 1.3 billion Chinese? Are village elections a chance for people to take a share in power? Can the Party end the rampant corruption and keep the people's trust? Chinese people, from farmer to Minister, speak frankly about the problems the country faces and the ways forward.

Episode 2: Women of the Country

China's women are argued over at their weddings and have one of the highest suicide rates in the world. Now many are beginning to fight for their rights and their futures. This hour shows discrimination against Xinjiang's Muslim women, various hardships faced by Tibetan women, and the status of some of those who have left the countryside for factory work in the cities.

Episode 3: Shifting Nature

China's environment is in trouble, but solutions often seem as harsh as the problems. A third of the world uses water from China's rivers, but rapid industrialization and climate change have led to bad air, polluted rivers and dire water shortages. One "solution" that has received considerable media attention in the West is the channeling of water in the biggest hydraulic project in world history. While it has benefited nearly half a million people, relocation from dam areas is causing mammoth social upheaval.

Episode 4: Freedom and Justice

Religious worship in China is problematic for Tibetan Buddhists, Catholics separated from Vatican influence, the 40 million adherents of China's unofficial churches, and the Falun Gong. Civic problems include forced evictions, government cover-up of AIDS, corruption and land grabbing. Filmed in Tibetan temples, newspaper offices and a labor camp, this final episode asks: what are the limits of freedom -- and the threats to stability? (more)

China Chokes On A Coal-Fired Boom

Despite all the bad publicity China has created due to its horrendous pollution problem, this has not inspired those folks one bit to reduce its poisonous sulphur emissions; on the contrary they are seriously expanding. The IOC slogan that China is the world's best listener doesn't hold at all.

Excerpt - Free Net Press: A great coal rush is under way across China on a scale not seen anywhere since the 19th century.

Its consequences have been detected half a world away in toxic clouds so big that they can seen from space, drifting across the Pacific to California laden with microscopic particles of chemicals that cause cancer and diseases of the heart and lung.

"People can't tolerate the pollution any longer but officials only care about their political achievements of hitting targets for growth. If this policy isn't stopped, China will become a land where there are only graves, no people."

Yet Beijing has proved unable to compel local leaders to spend money on filters that could cut sulphur emissions from smoke stacks by 95%. Nor will they buy new western technology for power stations, which could operate more cleanly and efficiently.

In the capital itself, however, authoritarian orders will ensure that athletes at the 2008 Olympics breathe freely: the worst coal-burning polluters have moved out and those that remain must shut for the duration of the Games. That pristine image will be a temporary illusion. (more)

Hu Will Bask In Reflected Olympic Glory

How the Olympics can make China’s dictatorship stronger and look better is well captured in this enlightening piece from Forbes. Beijing’s new slogan : The rule of law is upon us -- China embraces the New Year with open mind and more accountable government … Hmm!

Forbes: Unlike almost all previous holders of the Olympics, China will not have adopted the democratic, pluralistic and free-market norms that have characterized the post-Cold War international consensus. Instead, Hu will attempt to demonstrate to the population at large that a one-party state with restricted civil liberties and a heavily protected economy can demand and receive the world's most prestigious sporting competition, thereby strengthening his position at home and abroad. (more)