NEWS FROM ASIA

ILLEGAL KIDNEY TRANSPLANT RACKETEER AMI KUMAR ARRESTED IN INDIA

[IPS, February 8, 2008]

The arrest of Indian kidney transplant racketeer Amit Kumar alias Santosh Raut has lifted the lid off a huge well-ramified illicit international organ trading ring with operations running into billions of dollars across several countries. Kumar, who was tracked down in a resort in neighbouring Nepal on Thursday, has been absconding from the law since January 24, when the police raided his clinic in a Delhi suburb and arrested his associates. He is thought to have been responsible for some 600 illegal kidney transplants. The global kidney transplant racket is one of the most obnoxious manifestations of North-South inequality and of the repugnant practice of stealing organs from the poorest of the poor in the Third World, usually for patients in rich countries suffering from end-stage organ failure.

India is a major source of organs sold in the illicit international bazaar. Donors are usually induced into selling a kidney -- for as little as 1,000 US dollars to a maximum of 2,000 dollars -- just to survive. The bazaar itself is highly evolved, with extensive cross-border transactions and a hierarchy of preferences and prices. Thus, kidneys from South Asian countries, the Philippines and much of sub-Saharan Africa are sold for as little as 1,000 - 2,000 dollars according to a medical professional who has tracked organ trading, but who insisted on anonymity.

"A Romanian kidney goes for 3,000 dollars," he says. "A kidney from Turkey costs 10,000 dollars plus. Mexico, Brazil and South Africa fall in between. These base prices are marked up by middlemen, and further jacked up by the high fees that unscrupulous doctors charge. The recipient can end up paying anything between 35,000 and 125,000 dollars for kidney donation, including hospital stay and operation charges."

Trade in human organs poses a series of ethical and practical challenges to the medical profession, healthcare regulators, governments and the larger public. But it also opens an opportunity for investigative and oversight agencies to develop innovative methods to track down and bring to justice those who profiteer on the backs of the destitute.

Kumar has been conducting his ghoulish business, since 1994, from numerous facilities spread across India's national capital region. Earlier, he was based in the central Indian city of Nagpur and in the western metropolis of Mumbai. According to the police, multimillionaire Kumar was not a surgeon or physician trained in mainstream modern medicine. He had a degree in the traditional Ayurvedic system of indigenous medicine.

His operation in and around Delhi was run on a massive scale and involved three hospitals, five diagnostic centres and 10 laboratories. Besides he relied on a network of more than 50 accomplices, including doctors and nurses, "spotters" and touts who would lure potential donors with the promise of jobs, and thugs who would force them to part with their kidneys. The kidney donors were typically extremely poor, unemployed people from backward states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, who have become victims of India's neoliberal economic policies and are often in deep debt. The kidney recipients were nationals from several countries, including Canada, Greece and Turkey.

The racket was unearthed thanks to the initiative of an earnest young woman police officer. "But it is inconceivable that it could have been conducted for years without police collusion," says K.S. Subrahmaniam, a scholar and former senior police officer.

Evidence suggests that Kumar evaded arrest last month because he was tipped off by the police. According to one of his chauffeurs, he was arrested some years ago in Delhi with a surgeon who collaborates with him, but was let off upon paying a bribe of Rs 1.8 million (45,000 dollars). What demarcated Kumar's operation from the kidney trade which flourishes in many Indian cities, including relatively prosperous Chennai, is the use of muscle power against the donors. Typically, extreme economic distress compels poor people to sell their body parts. But Kumar's goons would abduct and illegally detain their dirt-poor victims, and drug them or beat them into agreeing to the removal of their kidneys.

"This outrageously criminal angle only highlights the gravity of the failure of the police in enforcing the law of the land," adds Subrahmaniam. Besides flagrant corruption, the kidney scam underscores the dysfunctional state of India's regulatory systems and laws in respect of healthcare and medical ethics. Thus, Kumar could operate his hospitals and clinics in different cities without registering them. "Some recently passed laws do mandate the registration of such facilities in some states," says Dr Subhash Gupta, a gastrointestinal and liver transplant specialist at Delhi's Indraprastha Apollo Hospital. "But there are few inspectors, and the concerned agencies don't bother to implement the mandate."

Professional self-regulatory bodies like the Indian Medical Council concern themselves only with the registration qualifications of physicians formally trained in mainstream medicine. However, an estimated third or more of all self-styled medical professionals or healers in India belong to other streams, including Ayurveda, Unani medicine and homeopathy. They escape the regulatory net altogether. Voluntar organisations like the People's Health Movement and Medico Friends' Circle have long complained of the absence of authoritative medical practice guidelines.

Again, India's state-level food and drug administrations are notoriously weak, ill-equipped and understaffed. They only inspect a minuscule proportion of pharmaceutical factories or chemists for quality. Virtually anyone who calls himself a doctor can prescribe a range of medicines and be reasonably confident that the chemist will sell them. This is true even of drugs that can only be sold on the recommendation of a qualified medical practitioner.

In 1994, India enacted the Transplantation of Human Organs Act (THOA), which illegalised the sale of human organs and facilitates organ donations from the brain-dead (cadaverous transplants). But it came years after illegal transplants had become established. The Act allowed organ donations by close relatives without government clearance. But all other relatives or strangers who wish to donate must be cleared by an expert Authorisation Committee. In practice, such committees are rarely formed before a potentially illegitimate transplant is carried out. THOA also has a big loophole. It dispenses with prior approval if the donor feels "affection" or "attachment towards the recipient." This is so vague as to permit extensive mercantile abuse.

In India, like in most other Third World countries, the donors' consent is typically secured through coercion or under extremely exploitative and unequal conditions. It cannot be remotely termed free or informed.

INDIA ELECTS FIRST WOMAN PRESIDENT

[Reuters, July 22, 2007]

India elected its first female president yesterday, official results showed, in what supporters called a boost for the rights of millions of downtrodden women, despite a bitter campaign marked by scandal. Pratibha Patil, the ruling coalition's 72-year-old nominee for the mainly ceremonial post, easily beat opposition-backed challenger and vice president, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, in a vote by the national Parliament and state politicians.

“This a victory of the people,” Ms Patil said after official results were announced. “I am grateful to the people of India and the men and women of India and this is a victory for the principles which our Indian people uphold.” Ms Patil won about two thirds of the electoral college votes. There had never been any doubt she would win, given support from the ruling coalition.

The governor of the northwestern desert state of Rajasthan, she emerged on the national stage when the Congress-led coalition and its communist allies failed to agree on a joint candidate. “This is a very special moment for us women, and men of course, in our country because for the first time we have a woman being elected president of India,” Congress party leader Sonia Gandhi, India's most powerful politician, said.

Supporters hoped Ms Patil's candidacy would help bring issues that plague women in India, like dowry-related violence, into the public spotlight. A woman is murdered, raped or abused every three minutes on average in India. Her presidency also reflects the growing power of some women in India, where an increasing number are taking part in the workforce and in schools and hold senior positions in corporations. After the results, Ms Patil's supporters took to the streets, singing and dancing as others lit fire crackers and beat large brass drums.

India has had a number of female icons in the past -- most famously Sonia Gandhi's mother-in-law, Indira, who was one of the world's first female prime ministers in 1966.

SCANDAL

But hope Ms Patil's presidency would spark only positive talk about women's influence in India evaporated when it emerged the bank for women she helped established was closed in 2003 because of bad debts and amid accusations of financial irregularities. The employees' union has taken Ms Patil and others to court, claiming loans meant for poor women were instead given to her brother and other relatives and not returned. She was also accused of trying to shield her brother in a murder inquiry.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who has dismissed accusations against her as “mud-slinging,” said her victory was “a vote against the politics of divisiveness.”

“All the allegations against me are motivated and have already been answered,” Ms Patil said last week. Her campaign was marked by other mishaps as well. She managed to offend many minority Muslims, and anger some historians, by saying Indian women first veiled their heads as protection against 16th century Muslim invaders. Then she dismayed modern India by claiming she had experienced a “divine premonition” that she was destined for higher office from a long dead spiritual guru.

Critics also dug up a comment she was said to have made as Maharashtra's health minister in 1975, saying people with hereditary diseases should be sterilised.

Golden Resources Shopping Mall in western Beijing

EMPTY SHOPPING MALLS POINT TO OVERHEATED ECONOMY

[Christian Science Monitor, August 28, 2007]

For a closer look at China's sizzling economy, walk the marble floors of Beijing's latest luxury mall. From its Japanese-style food court selling $4 chocolate éclairs to its glittering floors of branded international fashion, Shin Kong Place is a palace of conspicuous consumption. The only thing missing, on a sizzling summer afternoon, was customers. Sales staff idled at display racks as a trickle of young visitors looped around the frigid mall. Most were content to window-shop, dreaming of the day when they could afford to drop $100 on a tassled tote bag. "These prices are too expensive. People can't afford it," says Xu Tao, a car repairman who was visiting with his girlfriend.

As investors continue to pour money into malls, analysts say the signs of a real estate bubble are growing, as are predictions that some retailers may be heading for trouble. Empty malls are just one indicator of an overheating economy – growing at its fastest clip in over a decade – that is proving hard to cool. To curb rising inflation, led by food prices, China's central bank raised interest rates last week for the fourth time this year. Real estate is also in the spotlight: Property companies were ordered in June not to borrow offshore. But the race to build goes on. "The problems of overheating are already apparent," says Wang Yao, director of the information department for the China General Chamber of Commerce, an industry umbrella group. "The commercial real estate industry is facing problems. After some buildings are finished, nobody wants to rent space."

Too many malls in China

Since 2002, China has built hundreds of malls in towns and cities, each trying to get a slice of a retail pie worth $800 billion last year. Captivated by the promise of a vast consumer class itching to spend, foreign brands have jostled for space at the table only to find a scarcity of customers. As a result, retail occupancy rates in Beijing are currently 8 percent and rising as more malls enter a crowded market.

Mr. Xu, who pulls in $266 a month – below Beijing's $400 average – is typical. He socks away one-fourth of his pay packet, as does Chen Ping, his girlfriend, who makes a similar wage as a store assistant. Asked if he isn't tempted to save less and spend more, he shakes his head. "If we enjoy life now, what about the future? We need to think of our future," he says. The rising cost of living is one reason why many here are reluctant to splurge in fancy malls. Unlike US consumers, many of whom use credit liberally, Chinese workers opt to save, knowing that a feeble welfare system is unlikely to provide for them. As a result, consumption accounts for only 37 percent of China's economic output, about half the rate in the US.

Such stinginess bodes poorly for Beijing's mall developers. When it opened in 2004, Golden Resources Shopping Mall was the world's largest shopping center, with 550,000 square meters of retail space (a new mall in southern China has since taken this title). But it has struggled to generate enough customer traffic and sales to justify an investment of nearly $500 million and is fast being overshadowed by newer, glitzier retailers. An additional 2 million square meters of new retail space will be added this year, according to Mall China Information Center, an industry association.

"The question is not whether people can afford [luxury] products, but how many big malls that a city like Beijing should have. That's the issue. If there's too many malls, some will fail," says Mr. Wang. It's a common problem that points up the inexperience of mall operators and the readiness of China's state-run banks to lend to prestige projects with political backing, say analysts and industry sources. "I think that the issue is not that we've misjudged consumption. It's just been too easy to borrow money and build these things," says Michael Pettis, a finance professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

Just as US home loan woes have left a nasty aftertaste, Mr. Pettis warns that a real estate downturn in China would saddle banks with dud loans to empty malls. In recent years, policymakers have cautioned banks against excessive lending to malls, to little avail.

Exports still rule China's roost

At the same time, authorities have long sought to lessen China's dependence on exports by stimulating domestic spending. But private consumption still lags far behind investment in real estate and factories, fueled by a hoard of savings in state-run banks. New bank loans reached $364 billion in the first seven months of this year, exceeding last year's total lending, state media reported. Property remains a favorite bet: housing in Beijing is fetching 10 percent more than last year. However, industry sources say that many first-time mall operators aren't borrowing money but reinvesting profits from their other businesses. That's one reason why they don't always make the smartest decisions, says Victor Guo, president of the Mall China Information Center. "The developers aren't so professional in China; they don't know how to develop and market their product. The industry is at an early stage," he says.

Golden Resources has adjusted its mix of stores to increase sales turnover, says Fu Yuehong, general manager of New Yansha Group, which operates part of the mall. Weekend crowds swell to 100,000, she says, though it's much quieter on weekdays. One blind spot in China's real estate sector is the focus on well-heeled elites who can afford to pay top dollar for imported luxuries, such as the $6,000 fur-trimmed leather jacket on sale last week at Shin Kong Place. Developers are neglecting the vast ranks of middle-income families in Beijing and provincial cities that aspire to a better lifestyle. The reason may be less economics than vanity. "Every developer wants Louis Vuitton and Prada in their retail space. They don't want a mid-market project," says Anna Kalifa, head of research in Beijing for Jones Lang LaSalle, a real estate company.

11th Panchen Lama, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima.JPG

"LIVING BUDDHAS" HAVE TO APPLY TO THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT FOR REINCARNATION

[Reuters, August 3, 2007]

From next month, Tibetan living Buddhas will have to apply for reincarnation to the Chinese Government. The new rules are "an important move to institutionalise the management of reincarnation of living Buddhas," the Xinhua news agency said. According to the regulations, which take effect on September 1, all reincarnation applications must be submitted to religious affairs officials for approval, Xinhua said.

China is ruled by the Communist Party, which, despite being officially atheist, maintains strict controls over Tibetan Buddhism and all other religions. Living Buddhas are an important element in Tibetan Buddhism, forming a clergy of influential religious figures who are believed to be continuously reincarnated to take up their positions anew. Often there is more than one candidate competing to be recognised as the actual reincarnation, and the authority to decide who is the true claimant carries significant power.

This is especially true in the case of the Panchen Lama, the second-most influential figure in Tibetan Buddhism behind the Dalai Lama. Chinese authorities detained the Dalai Lama's choice as the Panchen Lama in 1995 when the boy was six years old, and he has not been seen in public since. [Pictured: 11th Panchen Lama, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima]. The Chinese Government's choice as the Panchen Lama has, meanwhile, been paraded around the country in recent years to promote China's rule over his homeland.

China sent troops in to "liberate" Tibet in 1951. The Dalai Lama later fled to India in 1959 after a failed uprising and established a government-in-exile in Dharamsala.

RADICAL PAKISTANI CLERIC KILLED

[Reuters, Deutsche Presse-Agentur, July 11, 2007]

Pakistani forces stormed a mosque compound yesterday, killing up to 50 militants including the rebel cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi, an interior ministry official said. "I can confirm Ghazi is dead," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "He was killed in the last stage of fighting." Around 50 Islamist fighters had died earlier in the assault on Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque. Militants mounted a last stand in the basements of the madrasa, where Ghazi had barricaded himself, using women and children as human shields, said a military spokesman, Major-General Waheed Arshad.

The assault came as hundreds of armed supporters of the militants blocked the Himalayan Karakorum Highway that links China with Pakistan's North-West Frontier province. The blockade follows a protest on Monday by 20,000 tribesmen, many armed with rocket launchers and automatic weapons, in the tribal Bajaur region bordering Afghanistan.

With more than two-thirds of the mosque-school complex secured, about 30 children and 24 women had managed to get out. It was unclear how many more women and children remained in the complex, but earlier officials had said hundreds could be inside. Fifty militants had been arrested, General Arshad said. Nearly 30 loud blasts rocked the heart of Islamabad for an hour beginning at 9.30am. There was another series of explosions after midday. There was no sound of gunfire. "It is now the final push," said a security official, who added that troops had failed to find anyone in one basement and were moving on to others.

There were fears the militants might resort to suicide bombs. Officials said on Monday that militants had distributed suicide vests. Heavy loss of life among women and children could have serious repercussions for the President, Pervez Musharraf, who has been under pressure to confront the militants for some time. It was unknown how many people might be left inside, but the Religious Affairs Minister said on Sunday there were between 200 and 500, including women and children. The United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, yesterday appealed for a peaceful resolution to the siege. "I sincerely appeal that this … be resolved peacefully, reflecting the human rights aspect."

The Lal Masjid has been a centre of militancy for years, known for its support for Afghanistan's Taliban and opposition to General Musharraf's backing for the US. Before yesterday's assault began at least 21 people had been killed in the week-long stand-off that followed months of mounting tension between the mosque's hardline clerics and the Government. About 1200 students left the mosque early on in the siege.

The Government has been demanding that Ghazi and his scores of hardcore fighters surrender unconditionally. He has refused, saying he would prefer martyrdom. He said he and the followers of his Taliban-style movement hoped their deaths would spark an Islamist revolution.

Read about Abdul Rashid Ghazi HERE

People's Liberation Army performers celebrate the 80th anniversary of the army's founding at the Great Hall of the People.

CHINESE OFFICIALS WILL BE JUDGED ON ENVIRONMENTAL FRIENDLINESS OF INDUSTRY

[SMH, August 1, 2007]

Amid fears its surging economy is overheating and domestic unrest about environmental damage, China has announced a new promotion system under which local officials' careers will be judged by their performance in meeting environment protection and energy efficiency targets. The State Council, China's cabinet, is working on an "environmental veto system" under which green performance will be "decisive" in determining the futures of government and Communist Party officials, a senior policymaker has told China Daily, the official English-language newspaper.

Because local and provincial officials are judged mainly on their performance in promoting economic growth, adhering to family planning quotas, and sometimes workplace safety targets, there has been little incentive for them to improve energy efficiency or act against polluters. This has left a huge gap between Beijing's rhetoric on green issues and reality. In a related move, the nation's environmental watchdog has sent a list of 30 polluters to leading financial institutions in an attempt to starve them of funds unless they clean up operations.

Pan Yue, the deputy minister of the State Environment Protection Authority, said that under the new "green credit policy" developed by his agency with the People's Bank of China and the national regulator, blacklisted companies would find it harder to get loans. He Bingguang, a deputy director at the National Development and Reform Commission, said tying promotions to environment targets would help keep local governments in step with central government policy.

The environment protection authority has been lobbying for this kind of systemic change. Mr Yue said in June that until local officials were held accountable for pollution, rather than rewarded for "contributing to development", they would continue to collude with developers and entrepreneurs in "bartering public health" for their own profit. Central government inspectors found last month that some local governments had continued to invest heavily in energy-intensive industries, such as cement factories and steel mills, ignoring Beijing's call to cut energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. No provincial government, except for Beijing, succeeded in meeting last year's target of 4 per cent. China's gross domestic product soared 11.5 per cent in the first six months of this year, with the six most energy-hungry sectors growing by 20 per cent.

The Premier, Wen Jiabao, told the State Council last month the country was having "very big difficulties" in meeting its targets of cutting energy consumption per unit of GDP by 20 per cent, and pollutant discharge by 10 per cent, over the five years to 2010. The two new initiatives were welcomed by environment experts, but some warned they could be difficult to implement. Greenpeace said it was significant that the powerful State Council, rather than the environment protection authority, was pushing green assessment of local officials. "The worry is about implementation," said Kevin May of Greenpeace China.

Huang Shengchu, head of the China Coal Information Institute, said it was difficult for local officials to cut energy use without greater investment and many would fail environmental targets. Mr Huang pointed out that despite forcing local officials to make pledges on improving workplace safety, major mining accidents have continued.

Wang Jiannan, from the Chinese Academy for Environmental Planning, said the first 30 blacklisted companies were small- to medium-sized factories, which was a good start. But if larger companies were blacklisted the policy would be more effective.

GRASS-ROOTS CELLPHONE ARMY SCORES VICTORY OVER CHINESE BUREAUROCRACY

[Washington Post, June 28, 2007]

XIAMEN, China -- By the hundreds of thousands, the urgent text messages ricocheted around cellphones in Xiamen, warning of a catastrophe that would spoil the city's beautiful seaside environment and foul its sweet-smelling tropical breezes. By promoting the construction of a giant chemical factory among the suburban palm trees, the local government was "setting off an atomic bomb in all of Xiamen," the massive message sprays charged, predicting that the plant would cause "leukemia and deformed babies" among the 2 million-plus residents of this city on China's southern rim, just opposite Taiwan.

The environmental activists behind the messages might have exaggerated the danger with their florid language, experts said. But their passionate opposition to the chemical plant generated an explosion of public anger that forced a halt in construction, pending further environmental impact studies by authorities in Beijing, and produced large demonstrations June 1 and 2, drawing national publicity.

The delay marked a rare instance of public opinion in China rising from the streets and compelling a change of policy by Communist Party bureaucrats. It was a dramatic illustration of the potential of technology -- particularly cellphones and the Internet -- to challenge the rigorous censorship and political controls through which the party maintains its monopoly on power over China's 1.4 billion people.

"I think this is a great precedent for China," said Zhong Xiaoyong, a Xiamen resident who, in his persona as the blogger Lian Yue, wrote extensively on efforts to stop construction of the factory. Despite efforts by local Public Security Bureau technicians to block the cellphone campaign, thousands of people heeded the alarm during the last days of May. Despite warnings from city hall and a large turnout of uniformed and plainclothes police, they marched in hot, muggy weather through the streets of Xiamen to protest the chemical factory being built on Haicang, an industrial and residential island across a narrow strait from downtown Xiamen.

The demonstrations were largely peaceful, except for pushing against policemen lined up to stop the march, witnesses said. About 8,000 to 10,000 people participated the first day and half that many the second day. But something unprecedented occurred that gave the demonstrators a power even they had not envisioned: Citizen journalists carrying cellphones sent text messages about the action to bloggers in Guangzhou and other cities, who then posted real-time reports for the entire country to see. "The second police defense line has been dispersed," Wen Yunchao, one such witness, typed to a friend in Guangzhou. "There is pushing and shoving. The police wall has broken down."

Chinese tuned in to the blogosphere in great numbers, viewing written accounts and cellphone photographs. Sites carrying the live reports recorded thousands of hits. Some sites were knocked out by security monitors. But by then their reports had bounced to other sites around the country, keeping one step ahead of the censors. Many of those tuned in were traditional newspaper and magazine reporters whose editors were afraid to cover the protests because of warnings from the Xiamen party Propaganda Department.

"The Chinese government controls the traditional press, so the news circulated on the Internet and cellphones," Wen, also a blogger, said later. "This showed that the Chinese people can send out their own news, and the authorities have no way to stop it entirely. This had so much impact. I think virtually every media worker in China was looking at it and keeping up with it." Wen said he and his friends have since concluded that if protesters had been armed with cellphones and computers in 1989, there would have been a different outcome to the notorious Tiananmen Square protest, which ended with intervention by the People's Liberation Army and the killings of hundreds, perhaps thousands, in the streets of Beijing.

Scientist Snubbed, Blogger Steps In

The campaign against the Tenglong Aromatic PX (Xiamen) Co. Ltd. factory had started months earlier. Zhao Yufen, a U.S.-trained chemistry professor at Xiamen University and a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, had organized a petition in which she and 100 other signatories argued against the 300-acre, $1.4 billion factory complex.

The factory, being built by Taiwanese businessman Chen Yu-hao, was to make paraxylene, which is used in plastics, polyester and other synthetic products. Paraxylene can cause eye, ear, nose and throat irritations and, with prolonged exposure, damage to the nervous system. But Zhao's real objection was the danger of an accident. Such an eventuality was not without precedent. A chemical factory exploded in northern China in 2005, sending toxic chemicals into the Songhua River and fouling the water supply in the major city of Harbin.

Zhao also pressed her case with local officials and, in Beijing, with the National Development and Reform Commission. But with economic development as the party watchword, they were not moved. The government, including the State Environmental Protection Administration, had already approved the project, she was told, so there was nothing more to discuss.

He Lifeng, the Xiamen Communist Party secretary, was pushing hard to get the factory built. It would almost double the city's gross domestic product to $26 billion, officials here argued, making the deal a potential milestone on He's career path. Moreover, Chen, the Taiwanese owner, was known as an opponent of Taiwanese independence, thus a businessman to be cultivated. A letter from He cited in the Oriental Weekly magazine, affiliated with the official New China News Agency, urged people in the Xiamen government to disregard the objections. As a result, the Xiamen party Propaganda Bureau made sure the reservations of Zhao and others were not discussed in public.

Instead, local newspapers and television news programs ran story after story on the economic benefits that would come to Xiamen because of the new factory. "They only had positive news about it," recalled Zhong, the blogger known as Lian Yue. "They just said it was a great project. . . . But little by little, the news broke through the blackout."

One reason was Zhong, who used his blog to raise Zhao's questions and spread them among the Xiamen public. Zhong, 37, was making his living mainly by freelancing commentary to newspapers and magazines, and his wife, a lawyer, had steady work in the city. As a result, he was less subject to pressure from the Propaganda Department than his colleagues at Xiamen's newspapers and television stations, who risked losing their salaries, health insurance, housing subsidies and other benefits if they defied orders from the censors. "They were afraid," he said. "As for me, I don't rely on any work unit, so I had less to worry about. If I had been working in a regular job, I couldn't have done it."

Interest Widens, Beijing Takes Notice

As Zhong and other Internet commentators spread the alert, reporters from national magazines started to show up in Xiamen to interview Zhao and report on the hazards. Inspired by the Propaganda Department, local newspapers ran stories about how the outsiders were practicing "yellow journalism" and harming Xiamen's reputation. Several of the national reporters said their editors were contacted by Xiamen's Propaganda Department and warned against running the story. "They thought they could control the national media the same way they controlled the media in Xiamen," one of them recalled, speaking on condition of anonymity out of fear the Xiamen censors could still harm him or his editors.

The cellphone campaign, meanwhile, picked up momentum. Residents of Xiamen, whose gentle hills overlook a sun-splashed bay dotted with islands leading into the Taiwan Strait, have long been proud of their city's natural beauty; they were quick to mobilize against what they were being told was a threat to the environment.

Authorities in Beijing and Fuzhou, the Fujian provincial capital, also started to take notice. President Hu Jintao was about to travel to Germany for a meeting with leaders of the Group of Eight industrialized countries, where China's reputation as a polluter would be a topic of discussion, and this was no time for an embarrassing environmental dispute. As a result, He and his party committee were summoned to Fuzhou on May 29 to review environmental studies carried out when the factory was approved in 2005. Since then, city officials acknowledged, residential neighborhoods had been allowed to rise near the factory site.

A delay was agreed; He visited the construction site May 30 and said nothing would be harmed by taking a second look. But by then the protest momentum had grown too strong to stop. Xiamen residents no longer trusted the government on the factory issue, participants said, and they feared the new study would only confirm earlier authorizations. The protest marches went off as scheduled, ignoring announcements by the Xiamen city government -- including one made while the demonstrators were in the street -- that the factory project was on hold. "Protect our children's health," the banners read.

Xiamen authorities accused the marchers of violating the law. Well-intentioned citizens were being manipulated by troublemakers, the Public Security Bureau warned. Du Mingcong, vice director of the Xiamen People's Congress standing committee, expressed concern that demonstrating in such hot weather could "damage the participants' mental and physical health." But such concern found no echo in Beijing. Pan Yue, deputy director of the State Environmental Protection Administration, said Xiamen should think again about the chemical plant. People's Daily, the Communist Party newspaper, ran a front-page editorial condemning local officials who had disregarded President Hu's admonitions to preserve the environment.

The message was received loud and clear here in Xiamen. Mayor Liu Cigui, speaking to reporters in Hong Kong, agreed that the project might have to be shelved. His spokesman, Shen Canhuang, said the decision had been deferred to the central government. Professor Zhao, meanwhile, warned that the anti-pollution bureaucrats might consider only whether the plant endangers people living in the nearby housing developments. Although she declined a formal interview, saying it would have to be approved by the Propaganda Department, Zhao said in a telephone conversation that the real problem remains whether the plant should be built near Xiamen at all.

"This is for the environmental safety of Xiamen," she said. "Xiamen is special."

HISTORIC VICTORY FOR DALITS IN UTTAR PRADESH, INDIA

[NEW DELHI, May 18 (IPS)] - The Hindi word 'Dalit' has entered the international lexicon in recent years as an evocative reminder of the unique cruelty and injustice of India's caste system. Dalits (meaning the broken) who comprise roughly 15 percent of the country's billion plus population, are the true Wretched of the Indian Earth: dirt poor, discriminated against, disadvantaged in social and educational terms, and demonised as "impure" by virtue of birth, and hence untouchable.

No comparable group barring African slaves during the colonial era has faced the magnitude of oppression and discrimination the Dalits suffer to this day. "And certainly no group has suffered such intense discrimination on grounds of its birth in the lowest order of the social hierarchy for 2,000 years," says Rajiv Bhargava, a political scientist based at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies here.

To be Dalit in India means to live on the margins of society (literally, often outside the village boundary); to face unequal and humiliating treatment at the hands of caste Hindus; to be denied access to community and public resources, including water; to suffer from malnutrition and illiteracy at rates twice higher than the national average; and worst of all, to have to internalise the idea that injustice and discrimination are your fate, your karma, ordained by God.

"However, there is also the opposite side to this victimhood and horrifying story of suffering," says Gopal Guru, a political scientist at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, himself a Dalit. "And that lies in a bitter, hard struggle by the Dalits for dignity, for their constitutional and legal rights, for equality, and for social and political empowerment."

This side of Dalit existence has had increasing exposure to the global and Indian public. Sustained Dalit activism before, during and after the 2001 United Nations-sponsored World Congress against Racism at Durban, South Africa, has put the Dalit issue on the world agenda. However, nothing could be as dramatic an expression of the Dalit struggle for self-emancipation as their political self-organisation, which culminated last week in an unambiguous, emphatic victory for a Dalit-dominated party in the legislature of Uttar Pradesh.

With a population of 170 million, Uttar Pradesh is India's largest state and the world's seventh largest political entity. It now has a government led by Mayawati (51), herself a Dalit and a single woman. Mayawati, who grew up in a slum and had to struggle hard to acquire an education, now heads the ruling Bahujan Samaj Party (party of the broad masses, excluding the elite castes). Even Mayawati's opponents concede this is history in the making. Unlike other Dalits who rose to the top within elite services (such as former president K.R. Narayanan and the present Chief Justice of India, K.G. Balakrishnan), Mayawati has won a mass mandate, through grassroots campaigning which created and expanded her support-base.

The BSP won a clear majority of 206 seats in the 403-member Uttar Pradesh Assembly -- a feat which no other party has accomplished for one-and-a-half decades. This became possible only because many non-Dalits voted for the BSP, besides Dalits who form 21 percent of Uttar Pradesh's population. About one-half of the BSP's aggregate vote, adding up to 30.5 percent of the state's total, came from non-Dalits. Astonishingly (for many Indians too), a significant chunk of Brahmins (priestly caste), who are at the very opposite end of the caste hierarchy from the Dalits, voted for the BSP.

"Clearly, many upper-caste people in Uttar Pradesh voted for the BSP not because they have turned against casteism or suddenly begun respecting equal rights for Dalits," says Bhargava. "They endorsed it out of shrewd social and political calculation. But the fact that they chose to back the BSP and Mayawati instead of the more familiar upper-caste leaders and parties, speaks of the sea-change that has occurred in this highly politicised state, where even the illiterate can hold forth on parties and programs."

Mayawati has, for the first time, built a broad multi-caste multi-class social coalition, which inverts the pyramid long known to Indian politics. The pyramid is dominated by the privileged upper castes, but held up from below by underprivileged and plebeian layers, who alone have the numbers.

For instance, the Indian National Congress, which has ruled India for four-and-a-half decades of its 60 year-long Independent existence, once successfully built a rainbow coalition comprising the upper castes, Dalits and Muslims, which helped it garner the 30 to 40 percent vote that put it into power in the first-past-the-post system. The coalition distributed patronage to the minority groups and co-opted their leaders, but it was always dominated by the upper castes.

Mayawati has done the very opposite in UP. She offered political representation to the upper castes, but incorporated them into her coalition on terms set by the BSP, with its Dalit-focused agenda. In the seven-phase election in UP, spread over five weeks, which concluded on May 11, the BSP fielded as many as 139 upper caste candidates (of a total of 403), including 86 Brahmins. It also gave tickets to 61 Muslims and 110 low or lower-middle castes called the Other Backward Classes (OBCs). Only 93 of its candidates were Dalits.

This Grand Experiment produced spectacular results. Their impact has been all the more dramatic because it was unanticipated by the media. Most opinion polls, conducted before and during the elections, severely underestimated the BSP's likely performance. Not one of them forecast a majority for it. The highest rating anyone gave it was in the range of 152 to 168 seats (maximum), at least 38 seats (or 23 percent) short of achievement.

At any rate, even Mayawati's critics in the media, of whom there are plenty, now recall the statement by former Indian Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, himself a Brahmin, after Mayawati's emergence as a major leader in the 1990s. He said she represents "a miracle of democracy."

But now Maywati has herself pulled off a democratic miracle for the Dalits and for the vast majority of Indians who are underprivileged and disadvantaged. The BSP's victory will not redress the terrible situation of Dalits even in Uttar Pradesh, marked by extremely high indices of deprivation, social backwardness, landlessness, grinding poverty, and lack of access to education. However, it is likely to have a huge political impact on Dalits and other underprivileged groups in the whole country.

It will certainly reinforce an important trend under which political empowerment of a deprived group becomes an instrument for the gradual redresssal of social and educational backwardness through affirmative action.

In India, 15 percent of all government jobs and admissions in educational institutions have been reserved for Dalits since 1950. Another 7 percent are reserved for indigenous tribals (Adivasis). This has indisputably resulted in better social opportunities. Affirmative action has recently been extended to the OBCs too -- in the face of stiff opposition from the upper-caste elite which continues to corner plum jobs and seats in educational institutions. This process, which started in the South, has gradually but inexorably spread to other states.

The "BSP model" will influence Indian politics by highlighting the issues of equity and redistributive justice in this terribly unequal society.

"This will be an antidote to the completely irrational euphoria about GDP growth that has gripped the middle class", says Bhargava. "Growth, typically jobless and inequality-enhancing, has little meaning for the mass of the population. The equity agenda is a healthy and much-needed corrective."

Guru is somewhat sceptical about the BSP's willingness to promote the causes of empowerment of the underprivileged and redistribution of the fruits of growth. But if it does so, he adds, "it will have contributed to India's long-term social transformation."

49 MILLION "PORNOGRAPHIC AND ILLEGAL" ITEMS CONFISCATED IN CHINA

[Reuters, May 23, 2007]

China’s latest crackdown on "pornographic and illegal" books, magazines and DVDs netted 49 million items, state media reported. It said 90 per cent of the confiscated items were pirated. President Hu Jintao (pictured) has been pressing officials to staunch the country's appetite for sexually explicit and politically corrosive entertainment.

China's once puritanical ways have given way in recent decades to a barely concealed boom in pornographic entertainment. People also snap up books and magazines claiming to expose the private lives and misdeeds of Communist Party leaders. The National Office for Cleaning Up Pornography and Fighting Illegal Publications announced the results of the latest crackdown, Xinhua news agency reported.

In the first four months of this year, law officers confiscated 2.75 million pornographic publications and illegal newspapers and magazines, and nearly three million smuggled entertainment discs, the report said. The report did not spell out what the other tens of millions of confiscated items were, though they appeared to be pirate copies of films and music.

It said the campaign had shut down 13,000 shops and stalls, 364 printing plants, and 97 websites. Some 165 people were convicted.