Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Hong Kong fatal boat collision leads to arrests

2 October 2012 Last updated at 12:35 ET

Hong Kong fatal boat collision leads to arrests

The Lamma IV pleasure boat, which partially sank off Hong Kong's Lamma island on Monday night, is recovered on Tuesday

The pleasure boat Lamma IV collided with a ferry and then began to sink, throwing many of those on board into the water

Seven crew members have now been arrested from the two boats that collided in the waters off Hong Kong, leaving 38 people dead.

Those held on suspicion they did not "exercise the care required of them by law" include the captains of the two vessels - a public ferry and a company boat.
Five children are among the dead after the boats collided on Monday evening.
One of the boats half-sank following the accident off Lamma Island.
The accident - the worst maritime accident in Hong Kong for over 40 years - has caused shock in Hong Kong, where thousands of people travel by boat among the territory's islands every day, say correspondents.
Some relatives of those feared lost have gathered at mortuaries to seek news of their loved ones, reported Associated Press news agency.

Analysis

Juliana Liu BBC News, Hong Kong

Unlike mainland China, transport accidents resulting in fatalities are extremely rare in Hong Kong.
This city of more than seven million people prides itself on highly regulated, efficient forms of mass transport by road, underground and by sea.
Hong Kong was founded as a deep-water port more than 150 years ago. Its surrounding waters are home to some of the busiest shipping routes in the world. Its location close to the Pearl River Delta means vessels carrying cargo ply those waters everyday.
In addition to the commercial ships, leisure and fishing boats are common sights, but serious collisions are uncommon.
Thousands of people take regularly scheduled ferries from Hong Kong's main islands to outlying territories such as Lamma Island, which is a very popular area for both tourists and residents.

Busy waters

Dozens of people were thrown into the waters after the pleasure boat Lamma IV, carrying employees of Hong Kong Electric and their family members to watch a firework display, was in collision with the ferry.

It partially sank within minutes of impact, while the ferry - operated by the Hong Kong and Kowloon Ferry (HKKF) company - was able to reach Lamma and disembark its passengers although it was taking on water.
Twenty-eight bodies were recovered overnight, eight more people were declared dead at hospitals, and two more bodies were discovered on Tuesday, the government said.
More than 100 people were injured. The number of people missing is unknown.
At an earlier briefing the head of police, Tsang Wai-hung, said the arrested suspects "responsible for manning the two vessels had not exercised the care required of them by law to ensure the safety of the vessels as well as the people on board".
The crash is Hong Kong's worst maritime accident since 1971, when a ferry sank during a typhoon, leaving 88 people dead.
It occurred during a busy period for passenger travel, at the end of a long holiday weekend to mark the mid-autumn festival that this year coincided with China's National Day on 1 October.
On Tuesday, some relatives of the dead went to the scene to throw paper money into the waters in tribute to those lost, AP said.
'Isolated' accident

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We thought we were going to die. Everyone was trapped inside”

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Read survivors' stories

Hong Kong Electric is owned by Li Ka-shing, Asia's richest man. On Tuesday his son, Victor Li, said the company would make a payment of HK$200,000 (£16,000; $25,800) to the family of each person killed.

His father told reporters on his way to visit a hospital on Tuesday that he was "very sorry", but did not want to say too much, reported AP.
Hong Kong Chief Executive CY Leung dismissed concerns that the accident would damage Hong Kong's reputation as a centre of global maritime trade.
"This is definitely an isolated incident. The marine territory of Hong Kong is safe," he said.
He said an independent committee would be set up to look into the causes of the crash, and suggest measures to prevent similar tragedies in future.
He declared three days of mourning starting on Thursday, and expressed his sympathy with the victims' families.

1. Hong Kong Electric boat departs power plant for firework display in Victoria Harbour
2. Ferry departs Hong Kong island on regular route to Lamma Island
3. Collision occurs north of Lamma Island. Damaged ferry continues to port at Yung Shue Wan. Lamma IV sinks.
Lamma lies some 3km (two miles) south-west of Hong Kong island, and is popular with tourists and expatriates.
Hong Kong is one of the world's busiest shipping channels, but its ferries have a good safety record. (Xavier Sherrrod)

China firm sues Obama over blocked US wind farm deal

Is an armed conflict looming in East Asia?

As Japan and China exchange rhetoric over disputed territories, we explore the possibility of military engagement.

Inside Story Last Modified: 17 Aug 2012 15:54

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Japan has deported 7 of the 14 Chinese activists who were arrested on Wednesday for landing on an island in the centre of a regional territorial dispute.

"All of China's neighbours don't want a war and cannot afford one in the region. But on the other hand nationalism is rising and for China territorial integrity sits at the very heart of China's national psyche…and the East China Sea is a channel of its [economic] lifeblood."
- Andrew Leung, an economist

As the activists were being questioned on Japan's Okinawa island, some media reports suggested that their deportation might defuse the tension between Asia's biggest economies.

At the heart of the territorial dispute is a chain of islands under Japanese control that is also claimed by Taiwan.

The islands - known as Senkaku in Japan, Diaoyu in China and Diaoyutai on Taiwan - are close to strategic shipping lanes and are thought to have oil deposits.

Japan is also locked in another territorial dispute with its former colony South Korea. Both claim sovereignty over another island chain, known as Takeshima by the Japanese and Dokdo by the Koreans.
All these disagreements are linked to Japan's 20th century military expansion across Asia.

"The Japanese-South Korean dispute is cyclical… It's not likely to lead to an armed clash [but] it does raise tensions between two US allies in the region. The US has a very strict, neutral position on the sovereignty issue of Dokdo/Takeshima but it [dispute] does complicate matters…"
- Bruce Klingner, a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation

Also adding to the anger of Japan's neighbours was the way two Japanese cabinet ministers decided the mark the anniversary of the end of World War II in the Pacific.
They ignored the Japanese prime minister's call and visited the controversial Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo, a move that always anger China and South Korea.

To both Beijing and Seoul the gesture amounts to an official veneration of the 14 convicted war criminals laid to rest there, along with the two million war dead.

Inside Story asks: Could these territorial disputes in Asia lead to armed conflict?

Joining the discussion with presenter Ghida Fakhry are guests: Andrew Leung, an economist and political commentator; Bruce Klingner, a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative US think tank; and Brett Bull, a freelance reporter who worked in Japan for 10 years.

"A lot of this is due to the fact that Japan was made to look somewhat cowardly in 2010 when it had to hand over the Chinese ship captain who was in the boat collision in the dispute over the Senkaku islands… Japan wants to be strong and they need to protect themselves in the region."
Brett Bull, a freelance reporter

Source:

Al Jazeera

Is an armed conflict looming in East Asia?

As Japan and China exchange rhetoric over disputed territories, we explore the possibility of military engagement.

Inside Story Last Modified: 17 Aug 2012 15:54

Feedback

Japan has deported 7 of the 14 Chinese activists who were arrested on Wednesday for landing on an island in the centre of a regional territorial dispute.

Source:

Al Jazeera

3 October 2012 Last updated at 06:02 ET

China firm sues Obama over blocked US wind farm deal

The Chinese suit says the US president acted in an unlawful manner

A Chinese-owned firm in the US is suing President Barack Obama after he blocked a wind farm deal on national security grounds.

Ralls Corp, a private firm, acquired four wind farm projects near a US naval facility in Oregon earlier this year.
Mr Obama signed the order blocking the deal last week. The lawsuit alleges the US government overstepped its authority.
It is the first foreign investment to be blocked in the US for 22 years.
The block on the wind farms comes just weeks ahead of November's US presidential election.
China's state-run news agency Xinhua said "China-bashing" in order "to woo some blue-collar voters" was the reason for the decision.

Analysis

Martin Patience BBC News, Beijing

Mr Obama has been criticised by the Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, for not taking a tough enough line with China over trade and investment practices.
Indeed, Mr Romney has said he will label China as a "currency manipulator" if he is elected.
US politicians have long alleged that China keeps its currency artificially low giving its exports an unfair advantage and, in turn, costing the US jobs. That is denied by Beijing.
But many Chinese officials are now used to the four-year election cycle when increasingly China has become the whipping boy.
One official who worked at the Chinese embassy in Washington told me that the heated rhetoric is not taken too seriously in Beijing.
While the US election is being followed in China, the focus here is the country's own once-in-a-decade leadership transition, which will get under way next month.

The move forced Ralls Corp to divest its stake in the projects, which were located near restricted airspace used by the Naval Weapons Systems Training Facility.

Ralls Corp's complaint, filed on Monday, alleged that the US president had "acted in an unlawful and unauthorised manner".
The firm, owned by two Chinese nationals, said in its suit that Mr Obama failed to adhere to the law to treat Ralls Corp on equal terms. The court documents were made public on Tuesday.
Issuing the order last week, the White House said: "There is credible evidence that leads me to believe that Ralls Corporation... might take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States."
'No threat' However, the company said in its suit that Mr Obama had not produced evidence to support that.
The military has said it uses the Oregon base to test unmanned drones and other equipment for electronic warfare. The aircraft fly as low as 200ft (60m) at speeds of as much as 300mph (500km/h).
Ralls Corp is owned by two executives from Sany Group, China's largest engineering machine producer.
Responding to Mr Obama's decision last week, a representative of Sany Group told Chinese state media that the deal posed no threat to US security.
Zhou Qing, a company legal officer, told Xinhua on 29 September that Mr Obama's move was more likely a campaigning ploy or to protect the US wind farm industry.
China's trade advantage over the US has become a focus of Mr Obama's battle for re-election against Republican contender Mitt Romney.

In mid-September a new survey by the Pew Research Center showed that while most Americans saw US relations with China as "generally good", they also saw China as posing the greatest danger to the US.
The majority of those surveyed viewed China as a competitor of the US, rather than as an enemy or partner.
But at the same time, about 52% viewed China's rise as a world power to be a major threat to the US. At least 26% also saw China as posing the greatest danger to the US, over Iran and North Korea.
Last month, the Obama administration filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization against Chinese subsidies for its car industry. (Xavier Sherrod)

China services PMI falls to lowest in nearly two years

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's normally robust services sector weakened sharply in September to its lowest point since November 2010, as slow growth in manufacturing finally began to feed through to the rest of the economy, an official survey showed on Wednesday.

The official purchasing managers' index (PMI) for the sector fell to 53.7 in September from 56.3 in August, weighed by weakened construction services and transport as well as lackluster new orders overall, according to the latest survey from the National Bureau of Statistics.

TOKYO—Japan's territorial dispute with China appears to be spilling onto the stage of global finance meetings.
Several big Chinese banks say they've canceled participation in the high-profile annual meeting of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to be held in Tokyo next week as well as in the constellation of events taking place alongside. Some of the banks say they've also pulled out of another big financial-industry conference scheduled to take place in the western Japanese city of Osaka at the end of the month.
Most of the banks haven't given a reason for their last-minute no-shows. But the withdrawals come amid an escalating tit-for-tat between China and Japan, whose government recently purchased a set of islands in the East China Sea that are also claimed by China and Taiwan. China has shown its displeasure by canceling some diplomatic events and sending patrol boats into what Japan considers its territorial waters—with one group going through Tuesday. Some Japanese companies have reported falling demand for their goods in China and unusually strict inspections as well as processing delays at Chinese ports.
An official at one bank said the island dispute was likely the reason for the pullout from the meetings.
"Quite frankly, it's Japan-China relations," said an official at the Tokyo branch of the Agricultural Bank of China Ltd., 601288.SH +0.41%explaining why the bank was pulling out of both IMF-related events and the Osaka conference, which is sponsored by the Belgium-based Society for Worldwide International Financial Telecommunication, or Swift, a group set up by financial institutions to handle transactions. The bank is still sponsoring and participating in a meeting of the Institute of International Finance—a global association of financial institutions—that is taking place in Tokyo at the same time as the IMF meeting, another official said.

Growth Worries Flare in Europe, Asia

Factory output in Europe and Asia wilted again in September, flagging a return to recession for the euro zone and a seventh straight quarter of slowing growth in China, business surveys showed on Monday.
The data showed companies across the world have yet to feel the benefit of aggressive monetary stimulus launched by the world's major central banks over the last two months.
While hinting the downturn will not now get much worse in China and some large European countries, the latest purchasing managers indexes (PMIs) showed the global economy concluded the third quarter in largely downbeat style.

Indonesia digs hole for itself with new mining laws

JAKARTA – One evening in late September, Peter Wesser and his club of veteran minerals explorers met at Jakarta's Hotel Kristal to swap stories and exchange news. Beer and roast beef were on the menu - on the agenda was trying to figure out how to stay in business.
For decades explorers have enjoyed a place on the cutting edge of the country's mining boom as they scoured the earth for fresh mineral deposits, a process that can take years and cost hundreds of millions of dollars before payback.
But now they complain that new rules aimed at boosting state revenue from natural resources have slashed investment in mineral prospecting and could threaten the entire $93 billion sector.
"Exploration is by nature optimistic," said Wesser, 73, an Indonesian, born to Dutch parents, with decades of mining experience. "The government doesn't understand the importance of exploration ... Mining without exploration is an industry that goes downhill."
The explorers are not the only ones struggling with the impact of the regulations that have caused industry-wide uncertainty in Indonesia, compounding the effects of a global commodities downturn.
Small miners in particular have been hit, leading to mine closures and lay-offs in regions such as Sulawesi island, with some resorting to bribing central government officials to continue to export, according to interviews with four mining executives.

Philippines, Muslim guerrillas say they're close to forging preliminary peace accord

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippine government and Muslim rebels have resumed talks on resolving final differences in a preliminary peace accord they hope to conclude soon, in what is expected to be a major breakthrough toward ending a decades-long rebellion.
Government negotiators met with representatives of the 11,000-strong Moro Islamic Liberation Front in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on Tuesday to attempt to seal what they call a "framework agreement" on major issues, including the extent of power, revenues and territory to be granted to a Muslim-administered region. It would be the most significant progress in years of negotiations on ending a rebellion that has left more than 120,000 people dead and held back development in the southern Philippines.
Western governments have long worried that rebel strongholds could become breeding grounds for al-Qaida-affiliated extremists.
Rebel negotiator Mohagher Iqbal said at the talks' resumption that they are "now on the home stretch and the smell of success is reinforced every day."
Iqbal warned that if the negotiations are not concluded soon, opponents might endanger a final deal. A breakaway rebel group has opposed the talks, and some Christian politicians, wary of losing land and power to minority Muslims, have been accused in the past of undermining the negotiations.
"If we cannot conclude it soon successfully, now that we are at the brink of the exercise, we will be in trouble," Iqbal said. "The greatest source of risk comes from spoilers, leaders, and parties who believe that these ... negotiations threaten their power and interests."

Government negotiator Marvic Leonen said that "to state that what we hope to be able to do again in the next few days is historical is definitely an understatement."
"We are on the brink of layering the written predicates that can frame the process of building trust as we usher in an era of peace, of hope and of recovery," Leonen said. But he added that both sides "must always remain guarded in our optimism" because of the challenges in implementing the political solution contained in the agreement.
The Moro rebel group has been fighting for self-rule for minority Muslims in the predominantly Roman Catholic nation's south. It dropped a demand for a separate Muslim state and now seeks an expansion of an existing Muslim autonomous region and more powers and resources to rehabilitate the violent, poverty-wracked area.
The initial accord is to contain general agreements on key issues. A transition commission would be established to flesh out the details of the preliminary pact and draft a law creating a new Muslim-administered region by 2015 and pave the way for the signing of a final peace deal the following year, when President Benigno Aquino III's term ends, according to Iqbal.
Iqbal earlier told The Associated Press that his group would not lay down its weapons until a final accord is concluded, adding that insurgents could form a political party and run in democratic elections to get a chance at leading the autonomous region for which they have been fighting.
In 2008, the planned signing of a preliminary pact was scuttled when opponents went to the Supreme Court, which declared the agreement unconstitutional, prompting three rebel commanders to attack Christian communities in the south. The attacks and an ensuing military offensive killed more than 100 people and displaced about 750,000 villagers before a cease-fire ended the violence. (christina h)

LVHS IR/GSI Blog: East Asia and Oceania (2nd)

Wednesday, October 3, 2012