Current Affairs

From Reuters:

A prominent U.S.-based rights group has said it did not expect China to promote human rights at home despite its new position on the U.N. Human Rights Council.

Human Rights in China (HRIC) said that China should use the opportunity to promote human rights as befits its role as an increasingly important global player, but expressed doubts that the country with the world’s largest population would change.

“While there has been some improvement in the human rights situation in China, over the past 17 years HRIC has documented continued and increasing detentions, arrests and other forms of persecution,” the group said in a statement seen on Wednesday.

“China’s position that countries can differ on human rights due to cultural and historic differences undermines the universality and indivisibility of human rights,” it added.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said on Wednesday that Beijing will honor its commitment to protect human rights.

“As a member of the council, the Chinese government will comprehensively push forward the human rights cause in China and seriously carry out its obligations under relevant international human rights conventions,” Liu said in a statement on the ministry’s Web site (www.fmprc.gov.cn).

China was elected to the council along with Russia, Cuba, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan.

The six counties, identified by New York-based Human Rights Watch as unworthy of membership on the new U.N. body, were on Tuesday among the 47 nations that won seats on the council for its first session, due to open on June 19 in Geneva.

Amnesty International has also urged all the newly elected states to fulfill their obligation “to uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights”.

It seems that is a bit impossible: They have jailed another blogger for the great crime of …. supporting free elections (HT: Free Thoughts):

CHINA sentenced a veteran dissident writer to 12 years in jail for subversion yesterday, after he posted essays on the internet supporting a movement by exiles to hold free elections.

The sentence on Yang Tianshui, 45, is one of the harshest to be handed down to a political dissident since the trials that came after the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown on students demanding greater democracy. It underscores the determination of the ruling Communist Party to brook no opposition and to maintain a tight grip on the internet.

Yang is one of several writers and dissidents to be tried over the content of internet postings. He has no plans to appeal because he regards his trial as illegal. Li Jianqiang, his lawyer, said: “He is most dissatisfied but he had expected such a sentence. He refused to answer questions because he does not recognise the legality of the court.”

If that is the way they have to fulfil their obligations and to push Human Rights, errr, well, …

Anyway, there is another truly amazing sign of equality between all the Chinese citizens:

Chinese want cars. Lots of them. More than 1,000 new cars hit the streets of Beijing every day.

A lot of those cars are compact cars - designed with the average Chinese consumer in mind. After all, the average Chinese car buyer is looking for an engine-powered vehicle to replace his bicycle or the tyranny of the crowded bus.

But some people in this country, where many still struggle on the poverty line, have rather bigger budgets.

By the way, in this blog from TimesOnLine there is not a mention to the jailed Chinese bloggers, although it seems to me it is so an important matter to examine. Global Voices On Line is announcing the launching of a page to track current cases from all the world.

There is someone missing though: Alejandro Fariñas. Even if he has ended his hunger strike (HT: “La Ventanita”), it seems to me it’s necessary to who who is and why has been 56 days on a hunger strike. You can read about him in Babalu’s Blog.

Tags: China, dissidents, freedom of expression, Human Rights, Release Hao Wu, Cuba

New York Times:

The biggest problem, however, is structural: Italy’s thousands of family-owned companies, the secret to its export success in the 70’s and 80’s, appear ill-suited to the demands of globalization. They make products that can be easily replicated in Asia, using cheaper labor.

"Look at these valves," Mr. Bonomi said, plunking down a matched set. "This one is mine; this one was made in China. It doesn’t work as well as mine, but it’s close enough."

The Chinese one costs half as much.

Economists offer plenty of remedies for this situation: Italy needs to move into more sophisticated high technology manufacturing. It must bolster its service economy, starting with the tattered tourist trade, which has also lost ground to China. It must shake up its rigid labor market, the main culprit for its high costs.

Well, I did not comment really this piece of news, because I was too busy. There is one thing in this article that stroke me, when reading it, and it’s this part:

Italian voters ousted Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi last month to a large degree because he did not fix the economy. But then they elected a new center-left government with a parliamentary majority so slim that it may be hobbled before it even takes power.

"I’m not very positive," said Alessandro Profumo, the chief executive of Italy’s leading bank, UniCredit. "We have a lot of issues to manage, and the government needs a larger majority to manage these issues."

It is clear why economic fears dominated Italy’s recent election, and the epithet "sick man of Europe," conjuring images of the tottering Ottoman Empire, has become shorthand here.

Even knowing the bias of NYT (very liberal newspaper) it stroke me really. I mean, perhaps Berlusconi has not done what he should have done to fix the economy. But they are clearly saying that if the new leftist Government cannot fix the economy, it’s just because they do not have the sufficient majority. They are just "curing the Government before the wound it’s done" and that is really stupid. If the center-left Government does make a sound economic policy they can have the support of most of the people. If they do not, then they would be to blame and not the majority.

There is another thing though: Looks like the Italian production has risen (in Italian) this year 6.8% in comparison with last year’s. As Orpheus says in her blog, then the right wing Berlusconi was in power -and every leftist was just worried about the economical statistics-, but now that the center-left has reached it, everything seems OK… well, marvellous, in fact.

But if the information that NYT is giving is right, Prodi&Co. would do very well just worrying about the future and working for it. Ehhh, no, the culprit is the Italian people who has not given them an ample majority….

Tags: Italy, Berlusconi, Prodi, family firms, China

You can see what has happened to this filmmaker and blogger here. He has even been denied a lawyer, after he has been detained with no charges.

You can read Global Voices on Line, specially this article.

Tags: Release Hao Wu, China, freedom of expression

From BBC News:

Zhan Silu is being elevated to become bishop of Mindong Diocese in eastern Fujian province on Sunday without the approval of the Holy See.

In the past fortnight Beijing has appointed two other unapproved bishops, sparking strong Papal criticism.

China has both a state-run Catholic association and an underground church loyal to the Vatican.

The recent appointments have cast a shadow on moves to re-establish diplomatic relations that were severed more than 50 years ago.

You can also read Boston Globe, Miami Herald, Washington Post :

Zhan Silu, also called Vincent Zhan, will become bishop of Mindong Diocese in eastern Fujian province, and he — like two other bishops appointed in China in past weeks — apparently lacks the Holy See’s approval, which bishops even in China’s state-controlled church have regularly sought in recent years.

“I did write to the Vatican to ask for recognition, but I’ve never heard anything back,” Zhan said on Friday. “For me, Vatican approval is important, but I also have to consider local needs.”

Maryland Conservatarian has a comment on this issue:

Catholicism isn’t some franchise license that China can claim ownership of. Ask Henry VIII. The Chinese government can call Zhan a bishop - hell they can call him the Chinese Pope if they’d like. But even saying it a hundred times wouldn’t make it so. This man is NOT a Catholic Bishop unless and until the Pope says he is. In the future, Reuters would do well to assign a reporter that has at least a working knowledge of the Roman Catholic Church…or in the alternative, perhaps has a Catholic friend he can inquire of.

In Spanish Civitas Dei.

Also in Catholic News Agency, who writes about the ordination of another bishop:

The ordination of a new auxiliary bishop for the Diocese of Shenyang came three days after Pope Benedict XVI sharply rebuked China for consecrating two bishops in the past eight days without Vatican approval.

China responded over the weekend by describing the Pope’s criticism as “unfounded” and defending the ordinations as within the bounds of the government, reported the Times.

While Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said in a statement that the Chinese government “is always sincere and has made unremitting efforts in improving its ties with the Vatican,” others in the Church believe the actions are a huge step backward in reconciliation between China and the Vatican. Diplomatic ties were broken 55 years ago.

While Pope Benedict has made normalization of relations a priority, the issue of appointing bishops has become a major stumbling block.

Anyway, what are we going to say of a country in which the women are made to abort and sell their foetus for 2$ to make cosmetics (link in Italian), or who torture this way the dissidents in the concentration camps (link here) who have hearts, kidneys, and corneas removed when they are still alive. And then they have been granted a seat in the Human Rights Commission… (with Cuba and Saudi Arabia)

HT: Free Thoughts.

UPDATE: Rhymes with Right comments on this issue. Go and read the comments.

UPDATE 2: Libero Pensiero (in Italian) also has commented on this issue.

When we finally understand that terrorism and totalitarism are two enemies without any kind of excuse, it will be a great step in the path to reach a minimum respect for life. Find excuses to these ideologies serves to nothing but to their culture of death.

Tags: Catholic Church, China, concentration camps, dissidents, Human Rights, religious freedom, religious persecution