Category: Politics & General News

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China Military Trump Vacationers as Drills Ground Flights

By Clement Tan and Jing Jin

Aug. 8 (Bloomberg) — Shen Zhihong arrived at Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport looking forward to a vacation at the beach only to find his flight delayed indefinitely and his holiday plans at the mercy of the People’s Liberation Army.

The 64-year-old retired professor was among thousands to have their travel obstructed last week when more than 900 flights at Shanghai’s two airports were canceled as the Chinese military staged exercises in the East China Sea. That was the most of any city in the world and more than those of the New York and Chicago metropolitan areas combined, according to Flightstats, a website that compiles airline data.

“We understand and support the needs of national defense,” Shen said as he waited to fly to the port city of Dalian with a group of former colleagues from Fudan University, where he used to teach. “But we hope there will be less and less impact on civilian flights.”

Delays at Chinese airports, ranked the world’s worst, highlight the tensions in a nation home to a swelling middle class and a ruling party with a 65-year monopoly on power that’s intent on strengthening its military. At stake is the growth of a commercial aviation market that trails only the U.S. in size and needs the PLA to cede airspace to China Southern Airlines Co. (1055) and other carriers to increase routes.

“The Western world’s been following a different model where civilians take priority,”said Geoffrey Cheng, head of transportation research at BOCOM International. “The aviation market has been developing in China at the discretion of the military releasing airspace.”

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Chinese Plant in Fatal Blast Described as Dusty Deathtrap

By Clement Tan and Alexandra Ho

Aug. 6 (Bloomberg) — The metal dust produced from polishing wheels at Kunshan Zhongrong Metal Products Co.’s factory was so intense it seeped through Lu Qingmei’s face mask and coated her nose and mouth. After two days, she quit.

“When you go onto the production floor, you’re covered in gray dust in less than half a day,” the 25-year-old said of her stint in February at the Chinese factory, which finishes rims that end up in vehicles made by General Motors Co. (GM) and other carmakers. “It was dirty and tiring to work there.”

The decision to quit may have saved her life. Last week, a fireball ripped through the workshop, killing at least 75 workers and injuring 185 in China’s deadliest industrial disaster in more than a year. Not everyone’s been identified, including Lu’s sister-in-law.

The blast — state media said it was triggered by tiny aluminum and magnesium flakes that caught fire — has prompted China to announce a nationwide overhaul of safety practices, and reignited concern about occupational hazards in the world’s second-largest economy. Combustible dust, which has long bedeviled factories worldwide, was cited in at least four previous explosions that killed 26 people at Chinese industrial sites since 2009.

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Tiananmen Vigil Draws Hong Kong Crowds 25 Years After Crackdown

By Clement Tan and Natasha Khan

June 4 (Bloomberg) — A candlelight vigil in Hong Kong to mark the 25th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown drew at least 100,000 people last night to honor the memories of the student-led pro-democracy protesters.

Visitors to the event at Victoria Park were greeted with loudspeakers broadcasting slogans and banners demanding an end to the rule of the Chinese Communist Party. A human-sized Goddess of Democracy statue stood in the park, where many sat. As night fell, hundreds lit candles and observed a moment of silence at 8:38 p.m. after organizers placed wreaths to commemorate those who lost their lives.

The anniversary has struck a chord with many in Hong Kong amid a city-wide debate about implementing universal suffrage to elect its leader by 2017. A record 180,000 people attended the vigil, Lee Cheuk-yan, chairman of organizer Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, told the crowd. Police estimated turnout at 99,500 people.

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China white spirits rally sours on safety scare

By Clement Tan

HONG KONG, Nov 21 (Reuters) – Shares in Chinese liquor makers have fallen sharply, reversing some this year’s stellar gains, on a contamination scare following reports that a maker of white spirit added more plasticisers to its products than industrial standards allow.

This week’s sell-off of shares, which had outperformed the market until November, followed a report carried by several mainland media outlets, citing tests conducted by an international third-party that claimed Jiugui Liquor exceeded the levels of plasticisers allowed.

Plasticisers are additives that increase the fluidity of a material, but are also toxic chemicals that can cause damage to men’s reproductive health and cause early female puberty when consumed over a long period.

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China’s downturn-proof booze makers hit government wall

By Clement Tan and John Ruwitch

HONG KONG/SHANGHAI (Reuters), Aug 10 —  The makers of China’s fiery liquor baijiu, a pricey, potent drink that is a staple at state dinners, say it inspires poets and can even ward off dementia.

For investors in the largest baijiu makers Kweichow Moutai Co Ltd and Wuliangye Yibin Co Ltd, the appeal is more mundane: the companies paid out huge dividends and raised earnings forecasts when a slowing economy had prompted dozens of Chinese firms to issue profit warnings.

Demand for high-grade liquor at state banquets and premium pricing helped Moutai post an operating profit margin last year that was more than double that of tech giant Apple Inc, the world’s most valuable company, Thomson Reuters data shows.

Moutai is even a partner of the Chinese Olympic Committee, pushing out a commemorative brew for the London 2012 games.

But the stellar first-half results that these companies are expected to report this month may mark the high point if Beijing cracks down on lavish baijiu-drenched banquets.

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Big immigration march in Washington

By Clement Tan and Don Lee

Reporting from Washington — Determined to push a major overhaul of the immigration system to the top of the nation’s political agenda, tens of thousands of people rallied Sunday on the National Mall, challenging Congress to fix laws that they say separate families and hurt the country’s economic and social vitality.

Organizers and supporters of the “March for America” campaign — who demonstrated as House members cast a historic vote on healthcare — want to make an immigration overhaul the next big undertaking in Washington.

“The reality is that immigrants keep jobs in America, they help businesses move forward,” said Angelica Salas, director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, one of hundreds of community, labor and faith-based groups nationwide that joined the march.

The organizing group, Reform Immigration for America, said Sunday’s rally was larger than the massive Washington demonstration in April 2006, when thousands protested around the country over immigrant rights and enforcement practices. On Sunday, the crowd stretched nearly five blocks on the mall.

Although the event had a festive, almost carnival-like feel to it — young and old in T-shirts walking amid white tents and balloons while drummers and musicians played — many participants came bottled up with frustration or sorrow.

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Campaign finance legislation faces tricky issue of foreign corporations

Reporting from Washington – Proposed legislation to block foreign companies from contributing money to U.S. elections could end up affecting well-known companies such as Chrysler, Anheuser-Busch and Citgo, according to legal experts and company representatives.

The legislation is a reaction from key House and Senate Democrats to a Supreme Court decision in January that struck down a portion of the nation’s campaign funding laws, allowing corporations to freely contribute to political campaigns.

The high court’s 5-4 decision in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission seemed to open the way for U.S. subsidiaries of foreign corporations to also contribute to campaigns.

The legislators say they are now considering a broad definition of foreign corporations — companies that are more than 20% owned by non-American entities. That could end up banning thousands of corporations from contributing to political activities.

Chrysler would be affected because the Italian automaker Fiat has a 35% stake. The oil company Citgo Petroleum Corp. was started by an American oilman but has been wholly owned by the Venezuelan state-owned petroleum company since 1990. St. Louis-based Anheuser-Busch, the company that brews Budweiser, was bought by Belgian brewing giant InBev for $54.8 billion in 2008.

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Fierce snowstorm shuts down Washington

Reporting from Washington – A ferocious blizzard, dubbed the “snowpocalypse” and “snowmageddon,” descended Friday on Washington, shutting federal offices early, closing schools and sending residents scurrying to stock up on supplies to carry them through the weekend.

Forecasters predicted 30 inches or more of snow, which would easily break the area’s all-time snowfall record of 28 inches set in 1922. The area has seen more than a foot of snow only 13 times since 1870, according to the National Weather Service.

There were lines that went around the block to get into some grocery stores. Hardware and liquor stores were mobbed, and many shops had already run out of items for their customers.

“I tried to stock up, but the shelves were empty,” said Beth Davies, who went to the Giant supermarket in suburban Silver Spring, Md. “There was only pig feet left” in the meat department.

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Pilot erors blamed in deadly N.Y. crash

Reporting from Washington — A series of pilot errors caused the crash of Continental Connection Flight 3407 near Buffalo, N.Y., last year, killing 50 people, but several common aviation industry practices may have led to the mistakes, the National Transportation Safety Board reported Tuesday.

NTSB Chairwoman Deborah A.P. Hersman said the pilots’ errors showed their “complacency and confusion that resulted in catastrophe.” She said she would press the Federal Aviation Administration and Congress to change procedures.

“History is repeating itself,” Hersman told reporters during a break in an evidentiary hearing Tuesday. “There are things in this accident we’ve seen before. . . .”

“Today is Groundhog Day, and I feel like we are in that movie,” she said, referring to a 1993 film about a weatherman who repeatedly relives the same day. “We have made recommendations time after time after time. They haven’t been heeded by the FAA.”

Safety issues raised by the Buffalo accident, Hersman said, go beyond the mistakes that caused it. She noted that the crash cast a spotlight on the safety gap between major airlines and regional carriers, where lower-paid pilots are more likely to commute long distances, fly fatigued and receive inadequate training.

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Grappling with the Obama Reality

For people like me — young, college-educated and politically independent “millenials” — Barack Obama was and stilll remains the college-professor-we-wished-became-president, who actually became president of the United States. His “Yes, We Can” campaign tagline and exhortation for young ones to enter public service resonated strongly, but much to the surprise of those who know my politics, I was rooting for Hilary Clinton in the Democratic primaries. It wasn’t so much a vote against Obama than a vote for Mrs Clinton. We all know who won.

Sure, there were concerns over baggage from her husband’s presidency, but she also had the experience and the verve to negotiate the murky waters of Congressional politics, an important aspect of legislative strategy. I thought Obama could have done with some more political experience as either Hillary’s vice-president or Secretary of State, which would then prepare him for a run in 2016. After all, he’s much younger than Hillary. If there were anybody more equipped to clean up the mess created by a spoilt brat who didn’t know better and allowed two wily old foxes to hijack his presidency, it was perhaps a strong and smart motherly figure who would be able to stand up to the egos that dot politics. Simply put, America needs to be rehabilitated.

Those same friends thought I was cynical for thinking that, but politics is cynical. You have to fight cynical with cynical and then somehow rise above that. Not many political progressives are capable of that because they usually get lynched by the GOP for their politics, which are easily cast as “limp” and “gutless” and therefore “bad for America” by their more hawkish opponents. Both Obama and Hillary want to rise above that, but I wasn’t sure if Obama had what it takes to move beyond cynical hell. I was enthralled by the idea of an Obama presidency, but I wasn’t too hot about the reality of it.

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