Haves' & Have Nots'

[nais98]

The young sports outrage over Frances version of the "Right to Reject" It can be done.................

3 million' protest in France

28/03/2006 15:36  - (SA)  
Paris - A French union leader claimed three million people had taken to the streets of France on Tuesday against the government's youth jobs law, describing it as a "historic figure."

The biggest demonstration was to start from the Place d'Italie in Paris early afternoon, with thousands of police on high alert for fresh outbreaks of trouble.

Previous marches in the capital have ended in running battles between police and rioters. On Thursday gangs of youths from Paris's high-immigration suburbs smashed windows, set fire to cars and mugged demonstrating students on the Invalides esplanade.

Visiting a police station near the route of Tuesday's march, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy told officers their task was "first to protect the demonstrators, second to arrest as many hooligans as possible, and third to protect passers-by and shops. Whatever the provocation, do not yield to it."

Trade unions and student groups vowed a "black Tuesday" in their three-week campaign against the First Employment Contract (CPE), which makes it easier to hire and fire young people, but disruption to transport was lighter than feared.

In Paris 70% of city metro trains and buses were running normally and more than half of suburban commuter trains. Nationwide two out of three TGV high-speed trains were operating and half of other rail services, according to the state-owned SNCF.

The civil aviation authority DGAC said that a third of flights from French airports were cancelled, but most of these were domestic services. Paris airports were reporting delays of around half an hour on some flights.

Around the country, public transport was affected in around 70 towns and cities, while the airport in the southwestern town of Pau was closed. Schools, post-offices, banks, government offices and unemployment bureaus were all disrupted, and no newspapers were published.

Meanwhile unions turned down an invitation from Villepin to attend afternoon talks on the contested contract, which was voted through parliament two weeks ago and is awaiting approval by constitutional experts before passing into law.

Unions and student groups are demanding withdrawal of the CPE, but the prime minister is offering only "adjustments" on its two most contentious aspects: a two-year trial period, and the free hand given to employers during that period to sack under 26-year-olds without explanation.

The government insists the contract is a vital tool for fighting youth unemployment, which can reach more than 50% in the poor city suburbs hit by last year's riots, but opponents say it is a breach of hard-won labour rights.

Villepin reiterated his refusal to withdraw the CPE on Tuesday, telling UMP deputies he was open only modifications introduced outside the framework of the law.

But there were clear signs of division inside UMP ranks, with Sarkozy - who heads the party and is Villepin's rival for leadership of the political right - urging suspension of the contract pending more talks with unions and employers.

An Ipsos poll for Le Monde newspaper gave some comfort to the prime minister, who has staked his political career on getting the CPE into law.

Over 3 Mil-------Link

[nais98]

Withdraw new French jobs law, urges UNI

      UNI has urged the French government to withdraw its controversial new jobs contract for young people and get into immediate negotiations over the issue with the trade unions.
      Three million trade unionists and students marched across France (March 28) in protest at the First Job Contract (CPE) and a day of action halted many services.
      The CPE allows employers to fire young workers under the age of 26 at will in the first two years of employment.
      UNI has written to both French President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin urging the withdrawal of the law and a start to dialogue.
      Members of M de Villepin's own ruling party have criticised him for introducing the CPE law without prior consultations and his main rival on the right, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, has broken ranks to call for the suspension of the law to allow negotiations.
      "With three million people taking to the streets up and down the country, popular opposition to the harsh labour reforms of Prime Minister de Villepin is on the rise," UNI General Secretary Philip Jennings told NBC News Network in an interview. "In the face of such opposition the Prime Minister should withdraw this rotten legislation".
      UNI has supported the actions and endorsed the call by French unions to withdraw the law and for immediate negotiations to take place on job creation measures.
      The Villepin law will remove job protection from under 26 year olds in firms employing more than 20 staff. For the first two years they can be dismissed without notice and without reason.
      "We reject this Wal-Martisation of employment practices. With people taking to the streets in the UK and Germany and tens of thousands assembling in Strasbourg recently to change a European Law that would have wrecked wage bargaining in Europe, the people are saying that they reject the race to the bottom," Philip Jennings told NBC viewers.
      He went on to say that "with stock markets on the rise, profits on the rise, CEO pay on the rise and the share of wages in national economic wealth in decline, working people are saying that enough is enough and they are prepared to fight for jobs and justice at the workplace".
      The French government has already relaxed protections for workers small companies, employing less than 20 people. "The situation is very serious," Cyril Saragaglia, CGT Commerce, told UNI Gaming representatives at a meeting in Nyon. "We can see the trend".

      Text of UNI's letter to:
      President Jacques Chirac, Elysee Palace
      Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin

      March 29 2006

      First Job Contract:
      On behalf of 15 million workers worldwide, UNI global union is urging the French government to withdraw its divisive First Job Contract (CPE) and enter into immediate negotiations with the French trade unions. On March 28 three million French citizens clearly expressed their rejection of the government's move to create a new, insecure category of employment and their condemnation of such a profound break with French traditions without prior (and thorough) negotiations.
      The French government - as well as global unions like UNI - have been in the forefront of opposing the Wal-Martisation of the world, a race to the bottom driven by multinational companies and endorsed by too many of the world's governments. Yet the CPE is a further step along that road to creating insecurity for workers.
      UNI urges you both to consider the impact of this divisive law on the French people and the wider implications of France adopting what has been an Anglo-Saxon obsession with "labour flexibility", another term for insecure and fearful employment and unbridled powers to employers.
      Tackling youth employment is a very important task. It is best achieved with the full involvement of French trade unions and a united country.
      Union Network International is the global union for skills and services. We have more than 900 affiliated unions around the world – including 28 in France. We have a total affiliated membership of 15 million people globally.
      Yours sincerely

      Philip Jennings, General Secretary, UNI global union, Avenue Reverdil 8-10, CH-1260 Nyon, Switzerland +41 22 365 2100

[nais98]

BBC NEWS
Rebellious French unmoved by Chirac
By Caroline Wyatt
BBC Paris correspondent

As President Jacques Chirac addressed his rebellious nation on TV on Friday night, hundreds of French students had already gathered at Place de la Bastille in Paris, to listen on radios or mobile phones.

When their president said that he would not withdraw the new youth jobs law, despite weeks of protest, they booed and jeered.

Yet President Chirac did make some significant concessions - effectively backing down on two key points.

He said that the controversial two-year trial period for the under-26s would be reduced to one year instead, and that firms would have to justify any sacking.

   I don't think people are going to calm down now - I think it's going to be even worse
Emilie Barbette
Student
But the French president's assurance that he understood the students' fears about job insecurity and their future fell on stony ground.

Student Camille Brack said she was disappointed.

"We just want the law to be taken back. To reduce the training period is not a big concession. They're just doing it so people are not going to be even angrier, but that's not the situation at all."

Protests to continue

Her friend Emilie Barbette is studying English at Paris University. She, too, thinks Mr Chirac has done nothing to alleviate her fears.

"I don't think people are going to calm down now," she told the BBC.

"I think it's going to be even worse. There will be another demonstration next Tuesday and I think that's just the beginning."

French trade union leaders agreed, saying they would go ahead with next Tuesday's protests, as the government clearly was not listening to the French people.

They called Mr Chirac's tactics surreal and grotesque, saying he had failed to address the very real fears of the young over employment in the future in France.

While the president tried to remind the French public that this law was all about reducing unemployment, which is running at around 22% of the under-26s, few seemed to agree that this law is the answer, even within the centre-right UMP, his own political party.

Stalemate

Mr Chirac's attempt to please everyone - and to steer a middle course - has ended up pleasing no-one.

It leaves his government looking weak and indecisive - exactly what his Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin had wanted to avoid.

And it will upset those who want real reform to France's economy: business people who had hoped that after 10 years as president, Mr Chirac might use what is likely to be his final year in power as a chance to push through change and liberalise France's labour market to help it to compete and bring down stubbornly high unemployment, which has led to increasing frustration among the young and those effectively excluded from work.

Yet at the same time Mr Chirac's address has done little to quell the anger on the streets of France.

The government remains on the one side, and the students and trade unions on the other, in exactly the same increasingly fractious stalemate as they were before.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/4867078.stm

Published: 2006/04/01 03:09:18 GMT

© BBC MMVI

[nais98]

4pm update
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hundreds of thousands march in France

Associated Press
Tuesday April 4, 2006

SocietyGuardian.co.uk

Hundreds of thousands of protesters marched through French cities today, in what union organisers hope will be one of the biggest shows of strength yet against a controversial new job law.
A nationwide strike shut down the Eiffel Tower for the second time in a week and delayed air and rail traffic.
Students barricaded schools in protest against the legislation, which would make it easier to sack young workers.
Despite mounting demonstrations, the French president, Jacques Chirac, signed the new law off on Sunday, saying France needed it to keep up with the world economy.

He offered modifications, but students and unions rejected them. They said they wanted the law withdrawn, not softened.

"What Chirac has done is not enough," said Rebecca Konforti, 18, who was among a group of students who occupied their school in southern Paris. Police estimated that at least 100,000 people had hit French streets by midday. The demonstrators included buoyant students parading through Marseille, and marchers in cities ranging from Nantes in the west to Saint-Etienne in the south-east.

The organisers of the demonstrations said they hoped that the combined turnout for a total of 150 marches would pass the million mark.

Last week up to 3 million people took part in the country's biggest protests in decades. Rioters threw pieces of concrete, bottles and petrol bombs in clashes with the police, who used tear gas and water cannons to disperse the crowds.

Today the protests reached the French Indian Ocean island of Réunion, where 2,000 people marched.

Some 60 students lobbed eggs and other objects at police in the northern city of Lille. At least one person was detained.

An afternoon march through Paris promised to be the biggest of the demonstrations, and the city deployed 4,000 police to prevent a repetition of the violence that marred previous protests.

Police actively looked to thwart troublemakers. At Paris's Saint-Lazare station, armed riot officers pulled over passengers disembarking from the city's suburbs, searched their bags and checked identities.

Tourists, meanwhile, stood bewildered before pickets and closed gates at the Eiffel Tower. Parisian commuters squeezed onto limited subway trains.

Rubbish bins in some Paris neighbourhoods stood overflowing after not being emptied by striking sanitation workers.

The Irish budget airline, Ryanair, cancelled all its flights in and out of France. And the British budget airline Jet2.com used its website to attack the strikers as "lazy frogs" who should "get back to work".

The Jet2.com chief executive, Philip Meeson, later described the jibe as "a bit of fun". He said: "After all, the French call us 'les rosbifs'."

France's prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, devised the disputed "first job contract" as a bid to boost the country's economy and stem chronic youth unemployment.

He maintains it would encourage job creation by allowing employers to dismiss workers under 26 during their first two years on a job without giving a reason.

Critics say it threatens France's hallmark labour protections, and the crisis has severely damaged Mr de Villepin's political reputation.

Now that the law has been signed, protesters have less room for manoeuvre.

The government is hoping the protests will die down after today's demonstrations, and is considering talks between more moderate trade unions and the French interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy.

Mr Sarkozy, a leading presidential hopeful, is the only senior government official unscathed by the crisis. Previously, his political ambitions were considered to have been severely damaged by riots in France last November.

Signs of a possible breakthrough in the current dispute began to emerge today as union leaders suggested they could hold talks with the government.

Bernard Accoyer, parliamentary leader of the governing UMP party, told reporters he had invited union leaders to talks starting tomorrow. Two union leaders, the CFDT union chief, François Chérèque, and the CGT union chief, Bernard Thibault, suggested they would attend. But both said they hoped the law would eventually be rejected.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

[nais98]

From Monsters and Critics.com

Europe News
More protests likely as unions reject jobs law compromise
By DPA
Apr 6, 2006, 19:00 GMT



Paris - France faced the prospects of more nationwide protests and strikes as trade and student union leaders reacted with hostility Thursday to French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin\'s call for compromise on a contested youth labour law.

Responding by press statement to the prime minister\'s comments at a Paris news conference, the head of the FO trade union, Jean-Claude Mailly, said Villepin was \'beyond time and reality\' and restated the demand by unions that the First Job Contract (CPE) be rescinded.

\'The CPE is not amendable. It must die,\' Mailly said.

Earlier Thursday, Villepin said he was prepared to compromise on the CPE but stopped well short of saying he would give in to demands to repeal it.

\'I am pragmatic,\' Villepin told journalists in Paris. \'One must remain open. I am ready to listen to all the proposals on the table.\'

He noted that the government\'s most immediate priority was \'to end the crisis\' that has seen millions of people protest throughout France and hundreds of secondary schools and most of France\'s universities shut down or disrupted.

However, he said that there would be no end to the crisis unless the problem of youth unemployment was addressed.

\'The means of ending (the crisis) must satisfy an essential necessity: to find efficient solutions to help the young who encounter the greatest difficulties in finding a job,\' Villepin said. \'That is why we created the First Job Contract.\'

Youth unemployment in France stands at 23 per cent, the highest in Europe, and it is at least twice that in the country\'s poor suburban ghettoes.
As Villepin spoke, negotiations were continuing between leaders of the majority UMP party and trade and student unions as well as representatives of French employers on the fate of the CPE.

Following his talks with UMP parliamentarians, the head of the UNEF student union, Bruno Julliard, issued a call for continued and more intense protests by university students.

\'We were listened to but they showed no sign of willingness to begin a procedure to repeal the CPE,\' Julliard said.

On Wednesday, union leaders had demanded that Parliament pass a law repealing the CPE by April 17, the start of the parliamentary Easter break, or they would call for new nationwide protests and strikes.

The CPE allows employers to fire without cause newly hired workers under the age of 26 for a period of two years. Last Friday, President Jacques Chirac proposed lowering the trial period to one year and obliging employers to tell young workers the reason they were being laid off.

Villepin also put an end to rumours that he would resign because of the crisis and his growing unpopularity.

\'I will lead the battle (against unemployment) to the end,\' he said.

On Thursday, secondary school and university students continued their campaign of civil disobedience against the CPE, blocking roads and factories and disrupting rail service in several Paris train station.

Hundreds of students and trade union members blocked the entrances to Airbus factories in southern France and stopped a convoy transporting parts of Airbus A380 superjumbo aircraft for assembly to a factory in the city of Blagnac.

In addition, students blocked roads in Nantes, Rennes, Lorient and Quimper in the west of the country, as well as in Grenoble and Chambery in the southeast.

Domestic and international rail service in three railway station in Paris was disrupted Wednesday after students occupied the tracks, prompting railway personnel to cut off electricity to the rails.


© 2006 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur

 

[nais98]

Victory for protesters as Chirac backs down

By CHRISTINE OLLIVIER
11apr06
FRENCH President Jacques Chirac announced late yesterday that his government was abandoning a youth jobs plan that has sparked million-strong protests and replacing it with new employment measures for young people.

"The President of the republic has decided to replace Article 8 of the law on equal opportunities with measures in favour of the professional insertion of young people in difficulty," the President's statement said. It said Mr Chirac's decision was "based on a proposal from the Prime Minister, after hearing the leaders and heads of the parliamentary groups of the parliamentary majority".

The announcement followed a meeting with Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and leaders of the ruling Union for a Popular Movement on the fate of the controversial First Employment Contract.

Mr de Villepin said he regretted a lack of public understanding about the jobs measure. A visibly sombre Mr Villepin, speaking moments after Mr Chirac ordered the measure replaced, said he had hoped to act quickly to reduce soaring youth joblessness.

"This was not understood by everyone, I'm sorry to say," he said.

Unions and student groups - which had been demanding the measure's complete withdrawal - were to meet last night to decide what further action to take.

Several unions indicated earlier yesterday they would be satisfied with the measure being replaced.

"If there is a new text in which the CPE does not appear, that will mean it has been withdrawn, that is what counts," said Francois Chereque, head of the CFDT union.

The decision is an attempt by Mr Chirac to put an end to a months-long protest movement that has seen millions of people protesting.

Unions warned the Government last week that if the CPE was not rescinded by April 17 they would call for more nationwide protests. - AFP/DPA

Link

Power of the people, INDEED[/size]

[nais98]

Bloody end to Nepal protest
By Sanjoy Majumder
BBC News, Kathmandu

Saturday morning in Kathmandu and Nepal's capital city bustles with activity before a daytime curfew is imposed from noon.

People queue up outside shops stocking up on food - bread, milk and vegetables and other essential provisions.

But already there are signs that the protests we have witnessed for the past two days are far from over.

Kalanki is a hilly suburb south-west of the capital, an area which witnessed some of the worst violence.

It was here that three protesters were shot dead by police only two days ago.

The mood on Saturday, however, is peaceful and groups of people begin arriving at a key intersection.

   Nobody is happy with what the king said. We want democracy and freedom
Maya Regni
housewife

Riot police watch from a distance as the crowd occasionally breaks into chants.

Most people are discussing the king's speech delivered on Friday in which he invited the country's principle political parties to name a new prime minister.

For the protesters, it amounted to very little.

"He is only offering us what he had snatched from us in 2005," says Baldev Pokhara, a teacher.

"He should listen to the people. Let us decide whether he has a role to play or not."

Maya Regni, a housewife, agrees.

"Nobody is happy with what the king said. We want democracy and freedom," she says.

"So many people have died. What for? So that the king can continue to live in his palace and appoint and dismiss prime ministers at will?"

Breaking through

For the past two days, the protesters have been kept confined to the ring road which circumnavigates the city, with only a few instances of people breaking through.

But the mood shifts dramatically on Saturday, when groups of protesters break through the police ranks and start moving towards the city centre.

One group of several thousand protesters began marching from the south towards the royal palace.

They pushed and jostled past the initial ring of policemen and broke into a trot, cheering, clapping and whistling.

"We want democracy, we want a republic," they chanted.

   The once peaceful lanes of Ason is littered with shoes and slippers - and spent cartridges of rubber bullets and tear gas canisters.

Most of them are young men in their teens and 20s but there are also quite a few women.

They carry party flags and broken of branches of small trees, symbolising victory.

"Gyane," they roared using the diminutive form of the king's name, "leave the country."

They are stopped some four kilometres from the palace as police and soldiers plead with them to go back.

Finally the crowd relents and pushes along a side street.

The mood is decidedly celebratory and the heavily armed security forces, some of them standing behind rolls of chicken wire, can only watch.

Baton charge

But elsewhere the mood turns ugly.

South-east of the palace is Ason, a historical market-square leading into narrow lanes lined with ancient, wooden buildings.

As we arrive there, riot police in full battle gear several rows deep take up positions, blocking the way to the palace.

On the other end are hundreds of protesters, chanting and pushing forward.

Suddenly the police charge into the crowd, striking them with their batons.

Several shots ring out as tear-gas canisters and rubber bullets are fired into the crowd.

Many of them fall down, unable to scramble back through the narrow lanes.

Several of them are beaten badly.

I saw one young boy beaten on the head with a baton.

Minutes later some people lift him and carry him towards the medical teams which had also taken up position.

One person holds on to his head, where blood is streaming out of an open wound.

With the protest broken up, the police head back.

The once peaceful lanes of Ason is littered with shoes and slippers - and spent cartridges of rubber bullets and tear-gas canisters.

For now at least, the security forces are not willing to relent in the face of public pressure.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/4933936.stm

Published: 2006/04/22 12:25:10 GMT

© BBC MMVI

[nais98]

Nepalis hold victory rally

There has been a carnival atmosphere on the streets of Kathmandu as thousands of people staged a lively victory rally. The festivities followed the king's very public climbdown. His pledge to reinstate parliament met a key opposition demand.

But while many Nepalis partied, others continued to protest - angry at the monarch who some want stripped of his powers. King Gyanendra's concession has shattered the loose alliance between the opposition and Nepal's Maoists.

Despite the desires of some demonstrators, Maoists are pursuing their rebellion. They claim the royal turnaround is nothing but a sham.

The seven-party opposition however has welcomed the deal and promptly called off more than two weeks of protests. It has also picked a man to head a new government - veteran former Prime Minister GP Koirala. Nepal's parliament has been dissolved since 2002. Its lower house is now set to reconvene on Friday.

In spite of the celebrations, the people have paid a price for their victory, with police action during the protests claiming at least 14 lives.

Power of the people, INDEED!

euronews.net
The Video

[nais98]

Millions in China to greet new year without power

By Chris Buckley1 hour, 43 minutes ago

Trains and planes are starting to return to normal across China, but millions are likely to spend the biggest holiday of the year without power and water in what for some is the coldest winter in a century.

The freezing weather in the run-up to the Lunar New Year break, which begins on Wednesday and offers the only chance for poor migrant workers to visit loved ones, has killed scores of people and left millions stranded.

Whole cities have had their power and water cut off for over a week and so far 11 electricians have been killed trying to reconnect lines or break ice encasing poles and cables.

Kaili, with a population of half a million in the subtropical southern province of Guizhou, was cut off for several days by thick ice and hail.

On the road from the provincial capital Guiyang, many areas are still covered in thick ice with pine trees wilting or broken under the weight. Local television has shown downed powerlines and towers.

Kaili and other larger county capitals are receiving electricity, but officials and locals say many villagers in the countryside remain without power and there could be many days if not weeks before it is restored.

Traveling through the countryside at night, hamlets were in thick darkness with only candles providing flickering light.

"The situation has been improving with all the outside assistance, but fixing supplies to smaller towns and villages will take a long time," said engineer Zhang Xuejiang.

"Once a tower is down, it takes a lot of work to bring in a new one, especially with roads like they are."

But for many locals, the biggest headache is skyrocketing prices with pork, rice, vegetables and other staples doubling in price, or going even higher.

Army and civilian trucks are bringing in diesel generators and boxes of blankets and food.

"The electricity is back on now, but the problems certainly aren't all over," said a vendor called Xu Song. "Food is so expensive."

He said he knew that leaders in Beijing were working to fix the problems. "But we're very poor and out of the way. Anything always takes a long time."

Another headache for residents, with telephone connections either ruptured or weak, has been trying to trace family members working as migrant workers elsewhere and planning to return for the holiday, also knows as the Spring Festival.

Zhang Dehua, waiting for his son at Kaili station, had called him on a borrowed phone a couple of days ago but hadn't heard of him since.

"I was hoping he would be on that train but I don't think he was," he said forlornly. "I will just have to wait for the next one and maybe the next one."

About 80,000 commuters were still stranded at the railway station in Guangzhou, capital of the booming southern province of Guangdong, but the figure was down from a peak of 800,000 last week, Xinhua news agency said.

China has largely avoided unrest ahead of holiday, which heralds the Year of the Rat, due in part to the deployment of soldiers and police throughout the country.

The China Meteorological Administration said on Monday the weather was the coldest in 100 years in central Hubei and Hunan provinces but it expected milder conditions ahead.

(Writing by Nick Macfie; Editing by David Fox)
LINK

[nais98]

Exile group says 30 killed in Tibet

By AUDRA ANG, Associated Press Writer 7 minutes ago

China ordered tourists out of Tibet's capital Saturday while troops on foot and in armored vehicles patrolled the streets and confined government workers to their offices, a day after riots that a Tibetan exile group said left at least 30 protesters dead.

The demonstrations against Chinese rule of Tibet are the largest and most violent in the region in nearly two decades. They have spread to other areas of China as well as neighboring Nepal and India.

In the western province of Gansu, police fired tear gas Saturday to disperse Buddhist monks and others staging a second day of protests in sympathy with anti-Chinese demonstrations in Lhasa, local residents said.

The protests led by Buddhist monks began Monday in Tibet on the anniversary of a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule. They turned violent on Friday when demonstrators burned cars and shops. Witnesses said they heard gunshots on Friday and more shooting on Saturday night.

The eruption of violence comes just two weeks before China's Olympic celebrations kick off with the start of the torch relay, which passes through Tibet. China is gambling that its crackdown will not bring an international outcry over human rights violations that could lead to boycotts of the Olympics.

Beijing's hosting of the Olympics in August has already brought scrutiny of China's human rights record and its pollution problems.

But so far, the international community has reacted to the crackdown in Tibet only by calling for Chinese restraint without any threats of an Olympic boycott or other sanctions.

China's official Xinhua News Agency reported at least 10 were killed Friday when demonstrators rampaged in Lhasa, setting fire to shops and cars.

"The victims are all innocent civilians, and they have been burnt to death," Xinhua quoted an official with the regional government as saying.

The Dalai Lama's exiled Tibetan government in India said it had confirmed Chinese authorities killed at least 30 Tibetan protesters but added the toll could be as high as 100. There was no confirmation of the death toll from Chinese officials and the numbers could not be independently verified.

China maintains rigid control over Tibet, foreigners need special travel permits to get there and journalists rarely get access except under highly controlled circumstances.

Streets in Lhasa were mostly empty Saturday as a curfew remained in place, witnesses said.

China's governor in Tibet vowed to punish the rioters, while law enforcement authorities urged protesters to turn themselves in by Tuesday or face unspecified punishment

Tourists reached by phone or those who arrived Saturday in Nepal described soldiers standing in lines sealing off streets where there was rioting on Friday. Armored vehicles and trucks ferrying soldiers were seen on the streets.

"There are military blockades blocking off whole portions of the city, and the entire city is basically closed down," said a 23-year-old Western student who arrived in Lhasa on Saturday. "All the restaurants are closed, all the hotels are closed."

Plooij Frans, a Dutch tourist who left the capital Saturday morning by plane and arrived in the Nepali capital of Katmandu, said he saw about 140 trucks of soldiers drive into the city within 24 hours.

"They came down on Tibetan people really hard," said Frans, who said his group could not return to their hotel Friday and had to stay near the airport. "Every corner there were tanks. It would have been impossible to hold any protest today."

Government workers in Lhasa said Chinese authorities have been prevented from leaving their buildings.

"We've been here since yesterday. No one has been allowed to leave or come in," said a woman who works for Lhasa's Work Safety Bureau, located near the Potala Palace, the former residence of the Dalai Lama. "Armored vehicles have been driving past," she said. "Men wearing camouflage uniforms and holding batons are patrolling the streets.

Tourists were told to stay in their hotels and make plans to leave, but government staff were required to work.

Some shops were closed, said a woman who answered the telephone at the Lhasa Hotel.

"There's no conflict today. The streets look pretty quiet," said the woman who refused to give her name for fear of retribution.

Xinhua reported Saturday that Lhasa was calm, with little traffic on the roads.

"Burned cars, motorcycles and bicycles remained scattered on the main streets, and the air is tinged with smoke," the report said.

In the western Chinese province of Gansu, several hundred monks marched out of historic Labrang monastery and into the town of Xiahe in the morning, gathering hundreds of other Tibetans with them as they went, residents said.

The crowd attacked government buildings, smashing windows in the county police headquarters, before police fired tear gas to put an end to the protest, residents said. A London-based Tibetan activist group, Free Tibet Campaign, said 20 people were arrested, citing unidentified sources in Xiahe.

"Many windows in shops and houses were smashed," said an employee at a hotel, who did not want either his or the hotel's name used for fear of retaliation. He said he did not see any Tibetans arrested or injured but said some police were hurt.

Pockets of dissent were also springing up outside China.

In Australia, media reported that police used batons and pepper spray to quell a demonstration outside the Chinese consulate in Sydney. The Australian Associated Press reported that dozens of demonstrators were at the scene and five were arrested.

Dozens of protesters in India launched a new march just days after more than 100 Tibetan exiles were arrested by authorities during a similar rally.

And in Katmandu, police broke up a protest by Tibetans and arrested 20.

___

Associated Press writers Anita Chang in Beijing, Ashwini Bhatia in Dehra, India, and Binaj Gurubacharya in Katmandu, Nepal, contributed to this story.

___

On the Net:

International Campaign for Tibet: http://www.savetibet.org

Chinese official news agency: http://www.xinhuanet.com

LINK

[nais98]

US steps up radio broadcasts in crisis-hit Tibet

Mon Mar 17, 7:29 PM ET

The United States said Monday it would increase radio broadcasts to Tibet as China clamped down on media coverage of the bloody protests in the Himalayan territory.

"The violent crackdown by Chinese authorities in Tibet compels us to increase our broadcasts," said James Glassman, chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors.

The board is an independent federal agency which supervises all US government-supported, non-military international broadcasting, including the Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Asia (RFA).

At present RFA broadcasts eight hours daily to Tibet via shortwave radio. VOA broadcasts four hours daily, also via shortwave.

Each will expand radio programs by two additional hours daily, the broadcasting board said in a statement.

VOA also will double its weekly Tibetan-language television programming from one to two hours via the AsiaSat 3 satellite.

"Our audience clearly will benefit from these trustworthy sources of news and information, which differ sharply from Chinese government sanctioned broadcasts," Glassman said.

RFA's Tibetan service "is working around the clock to bring authoritative, breaking news to the Tibetan people," RFA President Libby Liu said.

"These additional hours will greatly enhance our capacity to deliver this news, including live updates, to people on the ground," she said.

At least 10 reporters from Hong Kong were expelled Monday from Tibet on the heels of China's worst crackdown in Tibet in years.

China is facing mounting global pressure amid exiles' claims that hundreds of people may have died in the crackdown even though Beijing denied using deadly force.

Foreign journalists in China have also demanded that the government allow access to report on the events in Tibet.

With Tibet's media tightly controlled, VOA and RFA are key sources of information in a society where word of mouth is the top way to share news, the broadcasting board said.

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China's executions policy

Wed, Nov 11, 2009

THE START of a crackdown by Chinese security forces in troubled western Xinjiang province has been heralded by an announcement by the authorities that they have executed nine people for their roles in unrest there in July. Turkic Muslim Uighur separatists are blamed for inciting the July riots in Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital, in which crowds attacked ethnic Han Chinese and were themselves attacked by Han rioters two days later. Some 197 people, mostly Han, were allegedly killed and 1,600 injured. Now eight of the nine executed are reported to have been Uighur.

Meanwhile, in a report last month, Human Rights Watch claimed some 43 Uighur men and teenage boys remained unaccounted for after being detained – along with hundreds of others – in police sweeps following the July crisis. The group called on the Chinese government to account for all detainees and allow independent investigations into the protests.

An official spokesman in the People’s Daily describes the latest crackdown as “a thorough ‘strike hard and punish’ campaign to further consolidate the fruits of maintaining stability and eliminate security dangers”. But another heavy-handed campaign by Beijing against the Uighur will do nothing but create martyrs in a resentful community which sees the Han as planters brought in to prop up Chinese rule. It, and the executions, will play into the hands of separatists. China continues to execute more people every year than any other country in the world. While Amnesty International estimates it carried out at least 1,718 in 2008, a US-based NGO, the Dui Hua Foundation, puts the figure much higher at between 5,000 and 6,000, based on figures obtained from local Chinese officials.

The announcements, coming in the run-up to President Barack Obama’s first trip to China next week, will add to the clamour of voices demanding that he speak up forcefully on human rights during his visit. In truth Beijing appears to be moving backwards in this regard – since his election, the Chinese government has disbarred human-rights lawyers, rolled back key legal reforms, imprisoned critics and further tightened internet and press censorship. It has tried to impose new filtering software on computers sold in China. It has executed Tibetans suspected of taking part in March 2008 protests as well as the Uighurs. US economic interests will dominate the Obama visit but the president should also remind Beijing of its human rights obligations under international law.

© 2009 The Irish Times

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Execution Video 2009

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State of Emergency Declared on the Pine Ridge Reservation

A State of Emergency has been declared on the Pine Ridge Lakota “Sioux” Indian Reservation.
People have died. Many more people are at risk of freezing to death.
Another cold front is coming in, yet where is the national media coverage?