Leftist Latin American bloc to begin using its own currency, the “Sucre”

Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez, left, accompanied by Cuba’s President Raul Castro, gestures upon his arrival to Havana, Friday, Dec. 11, 2009. Chavez is on a three-day official visit to Cuba. (AP Photo/Prensa Latina, Ismael Francisco)

Associated Press | Dec 12, 2009

by Andrea Rodriguez

HAVANA – Members of a leftist bloc of nine Latin American nations said Saturday they plan to use a new currency dubbed the “sucre” for trade among themselves starting in January.

No sucres will be printed or coined, but the virtual currency will be used to manage debts between governments while reducing reliance on the U.S. dollar and on Washington in general.

Cuba already signed an agreement on Saturday to pay for a shipment of Venezuelan rice in sucres, according to Rogelio Sierra, the island’s deputy foreign minister. He declined to say what the shipment was worth.

That agreement was made even as ever cash-strapped Cuba has fallen behind on its debt to nations and multinational corporations amid the global recession.

The Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas trade group is holding a two-day summit starting Sunday in the Cuban capital.

The group was formed by Venezuela’s self-described socialist president, Hugo Chavez, as an alternative to U.S.-backed free-trade consortiums. Member nations are Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Honduras, Ecuador, Bolivia, Antigua and Barbuda, San Vincent and the Grenadines, and Dominica.

Honduras remains part of the bloc despite a June coup that toppled leftist President Manuel Zelaya. Zelaya’s deposed foreign minister is attending the summit, but the acting government in Honduras will almost certainly not abide by any agreements made.

Chavez was greeted Friday as he arrived in Cuba by President Raul Castro. Cuba and Venezuela signed “agreements of cooperation” on 285 bilateral projects in 2010 totaling nearly US$3.2 billion, according to Venezuelan Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez. He provided no details on what those agreements entail, however.

On Saturday, Raul Castro said the cooperation between the countries will allow them to “alleviate the negative impact of the current world economic crisis.”

Leftist presidents Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua and Evo Morales of Bolivia are expected to attend the summit.

Hugo Chavez ‘doubts’ brutality of Idi Amin

Fresh from defending Carlos the Jackal, Hugo Chavez managed to upset Ugandans on Sunday by claiming that Idi Amin was not as brutal as everyone made him out to be.

Telegraph | Nov 26, 2009

“We thought he was a cannibal,” the Venezuelan leader said, referring to Amin, whose regime was notorious for torturing and killing suspected opponents in the 1970s. “I have doubts. … I don’t know, maybe he was a great nationalist, a patriot.”

Mary Karoro Okurut, spokeswoman for the ruling National Resistance Movement, said Amin was not worthy of such consideration.

“Anybody who says that Amin was good has something wrong with him,” she said on Sunday. “Amin was brutal. He killed many Ugandans and made many run into exile. There is something wrong with whoever praises Amin.”

There is no exact figure for the number of people killed during Amin’s 1971-1979 regime but estimates range up to 500,000 people.

Ugandan officials did not say whether they would take any formal diplomatic action. Venezuela has no embassy in Uganda.

On Saturday Mr Chavez described Carlos the Jackal, real name Ilich Sanchez Ramirez, who is serving a life sentence in France, as a “revolutionary fighter”.

China admits it runs illegal black jails to torture citizens who file complaints

A magazine run by the Chinese government has revealed the existence of a network of secret detention centres or “black jails” in Beijing where inmates are often beaten or tortured.

The Liaowang report said that the number of people employed by local governments to abduct citizens can reach over 10,000

The victims of the jails are usually ordinary Chinese who have travelled to Beijing to lodge a complaint, or petition.

Telegraph | Nov 26, 2009

By Malcolm Moore in Shanghai

Until now, the Communist Party has strenuously denied running black jails, despite a growing number of testimonies and evidence from former inmates.

However, a report in Liaowang (Outlook), a magazine which is written for elite government officials and published by the official Xinhua news agency, laid the system bare.

The victims of the jails are usually ordinary Chinese who have travelled to Beijing to lodge a complaint, or petition, with the central government that their local officials have ignored.

Every day, hundreds of petitioners arrive in Beijing from across China, only to be hunted down by plain-clothes policemen or even private security firms sent by their home province to “retrieve” them.

Since local governments are judged on the number of grievances that arrive in Beijing, officials are often determined not to let the petitioners file their claims. The Liaowang report said that the number of people employed by local governments to abduct citizens “can reach over 10,000″.

“In Beijing, a monstruous business network has emerged to feed, house, transport, man-hunt, detain and retrieve petitioners,” said the magazine. It added that there are at least 73 black jails in the capital, often in unused homes or psychiatric wards. Private security firms demand fees of 100 yuan (Pounds9) to 200 yuan per person they abduct.

Liaowang said the system “seriously damaged the government’s image”.

Inside the black jails, all mobile phones and identification cards are confiscated, and many inmates are beaten, sexually-abused, intimidated and robbed, according to Human Rights Watch, which interviewed 38 former detainees for a report which it published just two weeks ago.

At the time, the Foreign ministry angrily rejected the accusations from the NGO. “There are no black jails in China,” said Qin Gang, a spokesman.

In the report, one 46-year-old former detainee from Jiangsu province, who spent more than a month in a black jail, said: “They are inhuman…two people dragged me by the hair and put me into the car.

My two hands were tied up and I couldn’t move. Then [after arriving back in Jiangsu] they put me inside a room where there were two women who stripped me of my clothes [and] beat my head [and] used their feet to stomp my body.” At the beginning of November, a guard at a black jail pleaded guilty to raping a 20-year-old woman from Anhui province in front of a dozen witnesses. However, the court dismissed the charges against the “guesthouse” and two provincial liaison officials, according to the official China Daily newspaper.

For some activists, the state-sanctioned articles in Liaowang signalled a possible willingness by the Communist party to confront the problem.

“They have categorically denied there are even black jails. This is the first time an official, high-level magazine acknowledges that they exist. This is fairly significant,” said Wang Songlian at Chinese Human Rights Defenders.

Lawyer: Khmer Rouge Chief “Enjoyed” Murder of 16,000 Men, Women and Children

In this photo released by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, Kaing Guek Eav, the former chief of the Khmer Rouge’s notorious S-21 prison, now known as Tuol Sleng genocide museum, is seen in the courtroom of the U.N.-backed tribunal, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2009. Also known as Duch, Kaing Guek Eav is charged with crimes against humanity, war crimes, murder and torture, and is the first of five defendants scheduled for long-delayed trials by the tribunal. AP

As Genocide Trial Winds Down, Prosecution Accuses Prison Chief of Downplaying his Role in “Awful Reality”

AP | Nov 23, 2009

The genocide trial of a prison chief for Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge entered its final stage Monday, as closing arguments began in the historic effort to assign responsibility for the deaths of 1.7 million people three decades ago.

The defendant, Kaing Guek Eav, commanded S-21 prison which punished those accused of disloyalty to the xenophobic communist group. He oversaw the torture and execution of about 16,000 men, women and children during its 1975-79 rule.

If the U.N.-assisted tribunal rules him guilty, the former schoolteacher faces a maximum penalty of life in prison, as Cambodia has no death penalty.

One of the lawyers for the victims evoked the specter of the Nazi death camps of World War II in recalling the Khmer Rouge’s atrocities.

Pierre-Olivier Sur said the parents and grandparents of people of his generation had repeatedly said that “the death camps were over and would never happen again.”

“The death camps and the mass graves have survived,” he declared, referring to Khmer Rouge prisons and the infamous “killing fields,” where they dumped their victims. He called for the tribunal to not let crimes against humanity go unpunished.

As much as one-sixth of Cambodia’s population perished from execution, overwork, disease and malnutrition as a result of the Khmer Rouge’s radical policies — including the mass evacuation of towns and cities, and the ruthless persecution of alleged rivals.

With some of the handful of S-21 survivors and family members of the dead looking on, another of the victims’ lawyers charged that Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch (pronounced DOIK), pursued his role with zeal and had no empathy for his victims despite his expressions of remorse.

“Look at them, Duch. Look at these men and women who you wanted to smash, and whose parents and loved ones and children you smashed,” said lawyer Philippe Canonne.

“You can smash insects and animals but you can’t smash human beings, because one day they will come back, one way or another, or their successors to demand a reckoning,” he said.

As he watched the proceedings, Duch showed no emotion. He is expected to give his final statement as early as Wednesday, a day after the prosecution begins its summation. He is charged with crimes against humanity, war crimes, murder and torture.

The closing arguments will conclude Friday, while a verdict and sentence are expected early next year. Under an innovative arrangement, the victims — known as the ‘civil parties’ — were represented at the trial, and their lawyers made Monday’s presentations.

In his testimony, Duch has accepted responsibility for his role in overseeing the prison and asked for forgiveness from victims’ families. He also told the court that he was ready to accept heavy punishment for his actions.

Despite that, said lawyer Karim Khan, the impression he gave at the trial is of a man trying to downplay his part in the activities at S-21 prison, which is in Phnom Penh and is now a genocide museum.

“The accused has sought to evade or minimize his role and the reality, the awful reality, that was S-21 and the regime that operated there and the fate and the suffering that befell so many civil parties,” Khan said.

Another lawyer for victims, Kong Pisey, dismissed earlier assertions by Duch that he acted out of fear of being punished by his superiors. He portrayed Duch instead as someone who put everything he had into his job.

“He was not only proud of his job and convinced of the party line to identify and eradicate the enemy without any sense of guilt,” Kong Pisey said. “Moreover, he enjoyed the power as a power-hungry man who performed more than 100 percent without any empathy for his victims.”

Duch is the only accused Khmer Rouge leader to acknowledge responsibility for his actions. Four other senior Khmer Rouge leaders are in custody awaiting trial.

He has denied personally killing or torturing the S-21 prisoners, and said he felt compelled by fear for his own life to follow the orders of senior Khmer Rouge leaders.

Francois Roux, Duch’s lawyer, described his client as “nervous and anxious” about taking the stand for one last time and refused to detail what Duch would say. But he said that his client was hopeful the judges would take into consideration the fact he has admitted his guilt and apologized to his victims.

“At this moment it’s very important to give credit to Duch for his guilty plea. Duch has recognized his responsibility,” Roux said Sunday. “He has asked forgiveness from his victims.”

The trial opened March 30. Some Cambodians have expressed frustration over how long it is taking, fearing the other aging defendants may die before they can be tried.

Fidel Castro’s brother using new tactics to crush dissent since taking power

Cuban repression has continued under Raúl Castro, says watchdog

Fidel Castro’s brother has used new tactics to crush dissent since taking over power, according to Human Rights Watch

More than 40 cases in which individuals were jailed for “dangerousness”, including such things as handing out copies of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

guardian.co.uk | Nov 18, 2009

by Rory Carroll

Cardinal Bertone, Vatican Secretary of State and one of the highest-ranking officials in the Catholic Church, heartily congratulates Raul Castro as the new hereditary Communist dictator of Cuba. Feb 26, 2009

The Cuban president, Raúl Castro, has crushed dissent and continued repression in the country since taking over from his brother Fidel, according to a Human Rights Watch report published today.

The government has extended use of an “Orwellian” law that allows the state to punish people before they commit a crime on suspicion they may do so, a tactic designed to cow actual and potential opponents, it said.

The report, New Castro, Same Cuba, paints a near-dystopian image of an island where those who step out of line risk being beaten and jailed in horrific conditions which verge on torture.
Nick Steinberg and Daniel Wilkinson of Human Rights Watch Link to this audio

Since taking over from Fidel in July 2006 Raúl has kept up repression and kept scores of political prisoners locked up, it said. “Raúl Castro’s government has used draconian laws and sham trials to incarcerate scores more who have dared to exercise their fundamental freedoms,” said the report.

The New York-based group said its report was based on a clandestine fact-finding mission in June and July that conducted dozens of in-depth interviews in seven of Cuba’s 14 provinces. It spoke to human rights activists, journalists, clerics, trade unionists and former political prisoners and their relatives.

The report was scathing about the international community’s policies towards Cuba. The decades-old US economic embargo gave Havana a pretext to crack down on dissenters as US-backed saboteurs, it said, and should be abandoned.

The EU and Canada preached human rights but failed to pressure Havana for compliance, it added. “Worse still, Latin American governments across the political spectrum have been reluctant to criticise Cuba, and in some cases have openly embraced the Castro government. [This] silence … perpetuates a climate of impunity that allows repression to continue.”

There was no immediate response from the Cuban government. In the past it has accused Human Rights Watch of being a pro-US mercenary group.

When an intestinal illness forced Fidel to step aside there were cautious hopes for greater openness and tolerance after almost half a century of communist one-party rule. Raúl, a veteran defence minister, did not promise such change but did call for honest debate about the island’s severe economic problems.

In fact, according to the report, he tightened repression with greater use of a provision in the criminal code which allows people to be convicted for “dangerousness”, defined as behaviour which contradicts socialist norms.

“The most Orwellian of Cuba’s laws, it captures the essence of the Cuban government’s repressive mindset, which views anyone who acts out of step with the government as a potential threat and thus worthy of punishment,” the report said. It documented more than 40 cases in which individuals were jailed for “dangerousness”, including such things as handing out copies of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, staging rallies, writing articles critical of the government, and trying to organise independent unions.

The report suspected there were many more cases. “We found that failing to attend pro-government rallies, not belonging to official party organisations, and being unemployed are all considered signs of ‘antisocial’ behaviour, and may lead to ‘official warnings’ and even incarceration in Raúl Castro’s Cuba.”

Jails were overcrowded, unhygienic and unhealthy, leading to extensive malnutrition and illness, the report said, and political prisoners were routinely subjected to extended solitary confinement, beatings, restrictions of visits and the denial of medical care. “Taken together, these forms of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment may rise to the level of torture.”

Fear permeated the lives of dissidents. “Some stop voicing their opinions and abandon their activities altogether; others continue to exercise their rights, but live in constant dread of being punished.”

Human Rights Watch acknowledged advances in education and healthcare for the general population but lamented that they were not matched by respect for civil and political rights.

Most ordinary Cubans tend to complain more about food shortages and making ends meet with monthly wages of £20. Students and academics in Havana recently told the Guardian there was more open debate than before but also frustration that economic reforms had stalled.

One European diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the mood had lightened despite the repression. “As Fidel’s power wanes, people are less scared. There is a perception you can speak more freely. But we haven’t seen the turnaround we had hoped for.”

Brian Latell, an analyst at the Institute for Cuban and Cuban American Studies, said that apart from an apparent suspension of the death sentence, human rights had not improved. “Raúl’s imperatives for remaining in power are no different from what Fidel’s always were. That is to say, no organised or potentially threatening opposition of any kind is tolerated. And there is virtually no disagreement about that within the top ruling circle of gerontocrats surrounding the Castro brothers.”
Washington-Havana relations: A slight thaw, but chill remains

In the last year the US has taken incremental steps toward easing the decades-long embargo against Cuba, lifting restrictions on family travel and holding talks aimed at restarting a direct postal service.

The improvement is due in part to President Barack Obama’s desire to engage with US adversaries. In addition, America’s prime anti-Castro force – the ageing Cuban exile population in Florida – has seen a steady decline in its power and been replaced by a new generation of Cuban-Americans that lack strident anti-Castro animosity.

Meanwhile, the deterioration of the Cuban economy following the collapse of the Soviet Union has led the regime to rethink relations with the US, 90 miles to the north.

US-Cuba hostilities peaked with the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961, when US-backed Cuban-exile fighters sought to overthrow the Castro regime. In July 1963 the US enacted a comprehensive set of sanctions that largely remain in effect today, including strict embargoes on trade and financial transactions.

Although Obama has eased some restrictions, he has pledged to maintain the embargo to keep pressure on Raúl Castro, Fidel’s brother and successor.

In September a US diplomat made a six-day trip to the island, meeting top officials and opposition figures, the highest-level visit in years.

In June, in a move symbolic of the thaw, the US shut off an electronic billboard outside the office looking after its interests in Havana. It had irked the Castro government with pro-Democracy news and messages. The Cuban government had taken down anti-US billboards surrounding the building earlier in the year.

Pro-Castro mob attacks spouse of top Cuban blogger

Government supporters surround Reinaldo Escobar, background, the husband of Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez, in Havana, Friday, Nov. 20, 2009. Escobar was punched, slapped and shouted down by a pro-government mob in downtown Havana. (AP Photo/Javier Galeano)

AP | Nov 20, 2009

By WILL WEISSERT

HAVANA — The husband of an acclaimed dissident Cuban blogger was punched and shouted down by a pro-government mob Friday after he challenged the presumed state agents who earlier roughed up his wife to a street corner debate.

As he promised earlier on his blog, Reinaldo Escobar went to the intersection of Havana’s 23rd and G avenues for the proposed discussion. On Thursday, Escobar’s wife posted President Barack Obama’s responses to her written questions on Cuba-U.S. relations on her “Generacion Y” blog.

Escobar was waiting with at least two companions when he got into an argument with another man. What appeared to a prearranged group of government supporters then moved in, screaming obscenities. They hit him and slapped him in the head and pulled his hair and shirt, but never knocked him down.

Soon, Escobar and the others were surrounded by men thought to be state security agents who protected them as they walked about two blocks. All around, Cubans pushed and screamed “Fidel! Fidel! Fidel!” and “Get out worm!” slang for Cuban-American exiles.

At one point, a band organized as part of a nearby street festival joined the mob, marching through flower beds on the median of a boulevard. The music added an odd soundtrack to a tense situation.

After about 10 minutes, Escobar and the others were placed in unmarked cars and driven away.

Ahead of Escobar’s arrival Friday, Cuba’s Young Communists Union organized a street book fair on the same corner, blocking off traffic.

It was unclear if the security agents who came Friday where the same ones who presumably assaulted his wife, Yoani Sanchez, two weeks earlier. After the incident, Escobar challenged the alleged assailants to a verbal duel.

Sanchez answered the phone at the couple’s apartment moments after Friday’s bedlam, but hung up without confirming where her husband was taken. Pro-government “acts of repudiation” against dissidents happen a few times a year. Usually, state security gives opposition activists a ride home after a few minutes to keep things from getting too violent.

“This street is Fidel’s!” the mob shouted. They eventually chanted the name of the current president, Raul Castro, who replaced Fidel in February of 2008.

A government press agent came to the aid of an Associated Press Television cameraman after a member of the mob shoved him from behind and grabbed his camera. The culprit later apologized, then was led away by another group of men.

For about 10 minutes after Escobar was gone, the crowd continued to chant “Fidel! Fidel!” for international news cameras. Then it dispersed quietly.

On Nov. 6, Sanchez was walking to a nonviolence march when two men in plainclothes forced her into an unmarked sedan, pulled her hair and kicked her. The incident occurred at the same street corner where Escobar was hit and slapped Friday, and Sanchez says state security agents were involved.

The confrontation was so violent, Sanchez said she thought the men might kill her, but instead they dropped her off near her apartment.

She vowed on her blog to keep writing caustic, often witty criticism of the struggles of daily life on an island where there is no freedom of speech or assembly — and people endure shortages of even basic food.

On Thursday, she posted the U.S. president’s answers to her written questions but, like nearly all sites critical of the Cuban government, access is blocked on the island.

In the posted responses, Obama said he isn’t interested in “talking for the sake of talking” with Raul Castro and indicated he won’t visit the island until the communist government changes its ways.

Escobar has his own blog, which is also blocked on the island.

Cuba tolerates no official opposition to its single-party communist system and dismisses nearly everyone who criticizes its government publicly as paid mercenaries of Washington.

Earlier this year, Time magazine named Sanchez — whose blog gets about 1 million hits a month — one of the world’s 100 most influential people. Twice this year, she has been denied permission to leave Cuba to collect international journalism prizes.

Congress examines China’s coercive one-child policy

“Abort it! Kill it! Terminate it! You cannot give birth to him or her!” is just one example of the several banners in the streets of China

BP | Nov 16, 2009

by Cindy Ortiz

WASHINGTON (BP)–Congress heard testimony Nov. 10 regarding China’s one-child policy, which employs widespread forced abortions and sterilization as population control methods, ahead of President Obama’s trip to the communist nation.

Witnesses before the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission noted that pregnancies in China must be authorized by the government. The hearing occurred two days before Obama left for Asia Nov. 12 to meet with Chinese officials.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of China’s one-child policy, which was implemented to curb the birth rate of the world’s most populous country. It limits women to one child, although exceptions are made, especially in some rural areas for couples whose first child is a girl. The policy has been enforced somewhat differently recently, the commission was told.

A measure codifying the policy, the Law of Population and Family Planning of the People’s Republic of China, went into effect in 2002. The family planning officials “illegally” enforce the law through forced abortions and sterilizations, lawyer Jiang Tianyong said at the hearing. Jiang has been persecuted for defending human rights activists.

In its 2009 report issued in October, the Congressional-Executive Commission on China said, “‘Termination of pregnancy’ is explicitly required if a pregnancy does not conform with provincial population planning regulations in Anhui, Hebei, Heilongjiang, Hubei, Hunan, Jilin, Liaoning and Ningxia provinces.”

All couples are required to apply for a birth permit before a pregnancy. If a couple has an unauthorized pregnancy, it must be terminated. After having the limited number of children — one in most areas — a spouse must be sterilized. Refusal results in forced sterilization. If the couple has more than one child, the woman will be forced to have an abortion, Harry Wu, director of Laogai Research Foundation, said at the hearing.

Families that abide by the law and get abortions receive a “One Child Parent Glory” certificate, something the government is using to “beautify” the policy, Annie Jing Zhang of Women’s Rights in China told the commission.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom issued a letter to Obama Nov. 10 regarding his trip to China. “The letter makes the point that you cannot engage in China … without having very serious and candid dialogue about protection of human rights,” USCIRF Chairman Leonard Leo said at a news conference before the hearing.

Rep. Chris Smith, R.-N.J., who chaired the commission hearing, said, “I believe the Chinese government would respond to the president if he were to take the lead in speaking up in defense of human rights in China.”

Jiang appealed to Obama to speak to Chinese officials about reinstating his law license, which was revoked along with those of other attorneys earlier this year for defending human rights cases.

Smith criticized the Obama administration for its restoration of federal money for a United Nations agency that supports China’s coercive family planning policy.

“It is outrageous that the Obama administration lavishly funds — to the tune of $50 million — organizations, including the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), that partner with China’s National Population Planning Commission,” Smith said.

The Chinese leadership, however, thinks the policy is a great accomplishment, because China’s fertility level (1.7 live births per woman) is lower than replacement level, said Nicholas Eberstadt, a political economist at the American Enterprise Institute. Exclusive of immigration, 2.1 births per woman is the fertility level that ensures a non-declining population.

China’s low birth rate means an age and gender crisis loom within the next two decades.

According to the most recent Chinese population survey, there are 120 males for every 100 females, Eberstadt testified. An ordinary human population ratio would consist of 105 males to 100 females, meaning — by Chinese government estimates — that by the year 2020 there will be 24 million more men than women. The result will be dim marriage prospects, contributing even more to the lack of child births.

The dearth of children also means China eventually will lose its comparative labor advantage to competing countries such as India and Bangladesh. Population projections show that by 2030, India will become the world’s most populous country, with 1.53 billion citizens compared to China’s 1.45 billion. On top of that, China’s shrinking working-age population will have to shoulder an increasing workload (financial and otherwise) of caring for a massively elderly population.

Chinese demographers also predict that in 2025 there will be a generation of only children in China, Eberstadt said. These children will have no siblings, aunts, uncles or cousins.

“It’s as if we’re all going to be privileged to watch a sort of science-fiction movie that will be playing out on our watch. We have never seen anything like this before,” said Eberstadt.

At the age of 35, Feng Junhua was in her ninth month of pregnancy when she was forced to have an abortion by family planning officials in June in Guan county of Shandong province. The injection that aborted the child caused hemorrhaging and killed Feng, according to the CECC report.

“We believe this is the worst women’s rights violation in the history of the world. Forced abortion … is a crime against humanity,” Smith said.

Families or women who refuse to have an abortion are charged a hefty fine or get their homes destroyed by the government.

“They went to their home, took their valuables, their beds … their tractors, their TV, their clothing. Those that don’t have anything left, [they] took … their children,” Jing Zhang of Women’s Rights in China said at the hearing. “The same method that was used in [the 1989] Tiananmen Square massacre now is being repeated in various, different villages.”

More than 500 Chinese women commit suicide every day, according to worldhealthcare.org, Smith said. The suicide rate for women is three times higher than that of men.

“I don’t think that this suicide rate is unconnected to the forced abortion in China,” Reggie Littlejohn, an expert on the policy for Human Rights Without Frontiers, said at the news conference before the hearing.

“Abort it! Kill it! Terminate it! You cannot give birth to him or her!” is just one example of the several banners in the streets of China that the Family Planning Commission uses to promote the policy, Wu said in his written testimony.

CNN reporter detained in Shanghai over Obama-Mao T-shirt

A worker dries shirts bearing an image of U.S. President Barack Obama’s face over that of China’s late Chairman Mao Zedong at a shirt printing factory located on the outskirts of Beijing October 30, 2009. CHINA/USA REUTERS/David Gray/Files

AFP | Nov 17, 2009

WASHINGTON — A CNN correspondent said Monday she was detained byChinese security guards in Shanghai for two hours for displaying a T-shirt on camera depicting US President Barack Obama as Mao Zedong.

Emily Chang, a Beijing-based correspondent for the US television network, said in a blog post on CNN.com that she hunted down the shirt after hearing they had been banned amid fears they “may offend the American president.”

The shirt shows Obama, who is making his first visit to China as president, in a Red Army uniform staring into the distance in a pose made famous by the former Chinese leader.

The front of the shirt says “Serve the People” in Chinese, Chang said. “Oba-Mao” is written on the back in English.

Chang said she held the shirt up to the camera while filming a story in a Shanghai market.

“Two security guards happened to pass by at the moment I announced to the camera: ‘This is the T-shirt everybody is talking about,’” she said.

“And that was it. They scrambled towards us and tried to pry the shirt out of my hands,” Chang said. “I didn’t give in.

“There was a bit of yelling and quite a scuffle,” she said, adding that CNN “had everything on tape.”

“We ended up being detained for two hours in the cold, maze of a market,” she said. “A crowd gathered round. More security and then police showed up.

“They wanted our press cards, our passports, but most of all, they wanted the shirt,” she said. “Finally, they let us go. Phew!”

Chang refused to surrender the offending shirt and joked that a number of jealous White House and CNN colleagues had tried to “bribe” her for it.

Obama in China: Not an opera, more of an awkward meeting with your banker

President Barack Obama (2nd R) attends a State Dinner Reception with China’s National People’s Congress Chairman Wu Bangguo (L) and Chinese President Hu Jintao (2nd L) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, November 17, 2009. REUTERS/Jim Young

seattletimes.nwsource.com | Nov 17, 2009

by Jon Talton

Top of the News: More than ever, expectations are low for President Obama’s trip to China. With China (and even the EU) pulling out of the great recession faster than America, and with China holding trillions in American debt, what is there to talk about?

Plenty, of course. And wouldn’t you love to be a fly on the wall if the president brings up China’s currency manipulation, intellectual property, protectionism — especially in sustainable energy — and its looming environmental crash. Instead, from reports I’ve read, he’s explaining to our Chinese lenders “in detail” how health care legislation would affect the budget deficit. That’s what happens when you’re the debtor. A new world order.

Better numbers from China don’t translate into a restart of the great American consumer engine. And Chinese policies help stifle American exports. West Coast ports are still suffering — although Seattle and Tacoma are not as vulnerable as the mega-port of LA-Long Beach. China and Asia are still buying Washington wheat. Still, Obama’s warning to Asia that it can’t count on American consumers as it has in the past may be the most important, and undercovered, aspect of this trip.

Chinese dissidents rounded up ahead of Obama visit

Obama arrives in Shanghai on Sunday and moves onto Beijing the next day for a four-day maiden presidential trip

AFP | Nov 14, 2009

BEIJING — China has detained several dissidents and campaigners ahead of US President Barack Obama’s much-anticipated first visit to the country, their relatives and close contacts told AFP Saturday.

Obama arrives in Shanghai on Sunday and moves onto Beijing the next day for a four-day maiden presidential trip during which he has been urged to raise human rights with the Asian giant’s top leadership.

But as the visit drew close, the head of an activist group for parents whose children were sickened by tainted milk in China had been detained, his wife told AFP.

“Zhao Lianhai was criminally detained for ‘provoking an incident’,” Li Xuemei said in a text, without giving further details.

According to activist group Human Rights in China, Zhao was handcuffed and taken away late Friday night by police officers who searched his house and took away computers, a video recorder, a camera and an address book.

When Zhao refused to go with them, as the summons did not state a cause, the police officers filled in “provoking an incident” in the summons, the group said. Police in Beijing would not comment on the case.

Zhao has campaigned relentlessly for parents whose children suffered from drinking milk tainted with the melamine chemical, which killed six children and sickened nearly 300,000 others in a scandal that erupted in September 2008.

Qi Zhiyong, a dissident who lost a leg during the crackdown on the 1989 Tiananmen democracy protests, said he had also been detained for trying to organise a human rights seminar on November 9 in a Beijing park.

In a text sent to AFP, Qi said he and fellow organisers had planned for the seminar to last until the end of Obama’s visit.

He had also applied to police to protest the US President’s visit, “to press him to pay attention to human rights in China, people’s livelihoods and the relatives of jailed people, as he comes only to talk about climate change.”

Qi said he was being held in the Beijing suburbs and had been charged with unlawful assembly and disturbing the social order.

He added that Li Jinping, who every year tries to organise commemorations of deposed former leader Zhao Ziyang, who opposed the use of force to quell the 1989 protests, had also been detained.

Yang Qiuyu, a housing rights activist, and more than 30 other petitioners had also been taken away, Qi said.