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Milan show rediscovers enigmatic renaissance artist MILAN, Oct 25: When Pope Urban Viii’s nephew stole two Altar paintings from a provincial Church and smuggled them to Rome in 1632, he unwittingly .....more US
urges China to push BEIJING, Oct 25: US Secretary of State Colin Powell urged China today to exert its influence over North Korea to resume stalled talks on scrapping its .....more Ancient
language clings TENCREEK HOLIDAY PARK, ENGLAND, Oct 25: Lisa Simpson, the spiky-haired US cartoon character, may just be the spark that revives an .....more Uphill battle to improve China’s death-trap mines BEIJING, Oct 25: More than 200 Chinese coal miners lost their lives last week in at least five separate accidents,.......more |
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Swedish Gulag survivors get their revenge KIRUNA, SWEDEN, Oct 25: Alice Eriksson calls herself a "Russian grandmother" and seems an unlikely threat to Sweden’s Left party, a vital .....more Singapore
eyes SINGAPORE, Oct 25: A controversial Singapore proposal for a casino resort may include a Las Vegas-style entertainment complex, complete with .....more Indonesia Muslim group plans more nightclub attacks JAKARTA, Oct 25: A militant Indonesian Muslim group plans more raids on clubs selling alcohol this week after . ....more Six pitcairn men guilty of rape, underage sex-media SYDNEY, Oct 25: Six of the seven Pitcairn island men charged with raping and indecently assaulting girls as young ....more |
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Milan show rediscovers enigmatic renaissance artist MILAN, Oct 25: When Pope Urban Viii’s nephew stole two Altar paintings from a provincial Church and smuggled them to Rome in 1632, he unwittingly relegated one of the Italian renaissance’s leading artists to near-obscurity. With the clandestine move from the Central Italian city of Urbino on the back of a Mule, records of any link between the two paintings and their creator, dominican Friar Fra Carnevale, were lost. The pair — among the most important pieces in renaissance art — were for centuries attributed to rival painters. Fra Carnevale, one of the foremost artists in the wealthy city-state of Urbino, was wrongly considered to be the author of a raft of other work and virtually forgotten. A group of US and Italian historians have set out to rectify history’s mistakes, painstakingly reconstructing Fra Carnevale’s life and work and proving he was the author of the so-called Barberini Altar panels. The result of their three-year investigation is an exhibition that gathers, for the first time, the handful of work attributed with certainty to Fra Carnevale, along with dozens of others who have been connected to him over the years. "It was a twist of fate," said Matteo Ceriana, one of the curators of the exhibition which opened in Milan this month. The show includes the Barberini panels — famous for their vivid colour, minute architectural detail and elaborate perspective. "When the Duchy of Urbino ended in the 17th century, it lost some of its roots. The memory of its glorious past became blurred," Ceriana said. At its height under Fra Carnevale’s master, Federico Da Montefeltro, the tiny Duchy of Urbino was one of the leading lights of the Italian renaissance and the home of artists including Piero Della Francesca and Antonio Del Pollaiolo. "There are difficulties in reconstructing his life," Ceriana said of the work carried out between Italy and the United States. "Even now, having finished the exhibition, we are not clear about his early years." The show includes paintings rightly and wrongly ascribed to Fra Carnevale, as well as others on which experts cannot agree. The aim, the organisers say, is to foster debate. Even the authorship of the Barberini panels was not proved with certainty until documents were found describing their transport to Rome from the church of Santa Maria Della Bella in Urbino, matching contemporary sources which ascribed the paintings in the Urbino Church to Fra Carnevale. Ceriana and the team of historians used new techniques in their bid to prove the authorship of Fra Carnevale’s known works, analysing pigments and materials used, and using old-fashioned intuition. "When he arrived at the workshop of (Fra Filippo) Lippi in Florence, he was on the payroll as a helper, and not as an apprentice, which suggests he already had some experience," Ceriana explains. Fra Carnevale most probably did his apprenticeship with artists in Urbino. "We also know he could read, and he spelt Filippo Lippi’s name with a "PH", which suggests he may have known Latin. So he had at least a decent education," said Ceriana. One document shows that Fra Carnevale acted as a witness for a will, together with the stepbrother of Federico Da Montefeltro, showing he was close to top figures in the court. Bartolomeo Di Giovanni Corradini did not become Fra Carnevale until he took his vows around 1449 and named himself after carnival, or the season before lent. He followed in the footsteps of his master Lippi and other contemporary painters, including Fra Angelico. By joining the Church, Fra Carnevale was no longer obliged to work for money, so he produced fewer but more esoteric paintings, indulging his interest in perspective, mathematics and architecture. The two Barberini panels, which are thought to depict two episodes in the life of the Virgin Mary, are rich in architectural detail and packed with hints of biblical episodes and even allusions to classical literature. In the first painting the main event — the birth of the Virgin — is not even in the foreground, but tucked in the side. "The panels were enigmatic from the beginning — they are the work of an intellectual and are meant to be read on many different levels," Ceriana said of the artist’s last works. "While there are no doubts about authorship, there are doubts about the details. For example, why is saint anne portrayed as an odalisque in Greek clothing?" According to Christian tradition, saint Anne was Mary’s mother, or the grandmother of Jesus Christ. "We can now follow his path as a painter and as a man of the cloth," said fellow Curator Keith Christiansen. "But we still do not know what he looked like, or understand why he chose to call himself Carnevale." The show will be transferred to New York’s metropolitan museum in February 2005. (AGENCIES) |
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US urges China to push for more N Korea talks BEIJING, Oct 25: US Secretary of State Colin Powell urged China today to exert its influence over North Korea to resume stalled talks on scrapping its nuclear weapons programmes and pressed Beijing to accept a Taiwan offer of talks. Powell, on the second leg of a trip to revive the six-way talks with reclusive Pyongyang, wants North Korea’s communist neighbour and biggest benefactor to push harder to secure a breakthrough and crown relations with Washington that he described as the best in 30 years. "China has considerable influence with North Korea," Powell said at a news conference after meeting Chinese President Hu Jintao and other top officials. "I hope that as a result of our conversations, both of us will energize the other members of the the six-party framework to resolve the outstanding issues that keep us from setting a date for a meeting," he said. Powell also raised sensitive bilateral issues. On human rights, the two agreed to reastablish talks after what Powell called China’s backsliding last year. On Taiwan, Powell said he pushed China to keep an open mind and seize opportunities to hold talks to reduce tension. China’s position was to complain about US missile defence and submarine sales to Taiwan, which Beijing considers a renegade province. "I particularly encouraged the Chinese leaders who I met with today to do everything they could to get into cross-strait dialogue in a more systematic and deliberate way," Powell said. He also pressed China to free a New York Times researcher arrested passing state secrets to foreigns, but received the pointed response that the detainee was a Chinese citizen. The United States believes North Korea has a small number of nuclear weapons and many analysts say its programmes could become the world’s worst proliferation challenge in the next few years. North Korea has threatened to double its deterrent and blocked a planned September round of the talks, that involve host China, North and South Korea, the United States, Japan and Russia, after three earlier sessions made scant progress. The United States suspects North Korea is stalling in the hope democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry will win the November 2 election and open bilateral talks that might lead to more US concessions. Powell is under pressure to revive the talks because Kerry has criticised the Bush administration for failing to stop Pyongyang’s programmes. He also needs to put the brakes on some senior US officials who would prefer to take to the United Nations the case against the reclusive state that President George W Bush bracketed with Iran and pre-war Iraq in "an axis of evil". Powell’s first trip to the region in 18 months that took him to Japan on Sunday and to South Korea later today, coincided with US-led naval exercises off Japan aimed at curbing North Korean proliferation. Pyongyang has denounced the exercise, which includes forces from Japan, Australia and France, as evidence of a hostile US policy that has stymied the talks. While Powell has dismissed such accusations, he has taken a tough line with North Korea on his three-day swing through three Asian capitals. He rejected North Korea’s preconditions for a new round of talks, called it a "terrorist state" with "no respect whatsoever for human rights" and warned it not to get caught proliferating. The world’s superpower and its most populous country have steadily improved relations during Bush’s four years in office but tensions remain over Taiwan and Beijing’s rights record. Powell sought to reduce tension between Taipei and Beijing by citing a speech by Taiwan President Chen-sui-Bian last month that he said he believed offered an opening for resuming dialogue. Chinese officials said they were unmoved by the speech and voiced concerns about Chen, who Beijing believes wants independence for the island. Many security analysts see the Taiwan Strait as the most dangerous flashpoint in Asia. (AGENCIES) |
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Ancient language clings to life at tip of Britain TENCREEK HOLIDAY PARK, ENGLAND, Oct 25: Lisa Simpson, the spiky-haired US cartoon character, may just be the spark that revives an ancient language and fuels a tiny political movement at the tip of Britain’s southwest coast. The sister of bad-boy bart and daughter of bumbling Homer will appear in a special episode of "The Simpsons" shouting out support for the independence of Cornwall in the nearly dead language of ancient Cornish as an alternative broadcast to British Queen Elizabeth’s traditional Christmas address. Matthew Clarke, Lisa Simpson’s translator and a member of the Cornish language fellowship, told that news of the Christmas special has ignited more than the usual mocking interest in a language which some say was the Lingua Franca of such British legends as King Arthur and Boadicea. "Before you got a lot of people writing on the Cornish language as a bit of a joke," he said. Clarke said the way much of the media viewed Cornish changed almost overnight when the press discovered it would feature in a cartoon series that is famed for lampooning American life and gained international currency poking fun at other stereotypes in Australia, Britain, Canada, France, and elsewhere. Clarke said the number of people using the web site he runs, www.Cornish-language.Org, doubled after news got out on the Simpsons’ Christmas special. "To have that connection with Cornish, everyone who spoke to me treated it in a serious way which has never happened before." That was a big boost for a language which predates English in the British Isles, almost died out in the 19th century, and today has only some 200 fluent speakers. Pitcairn is the last British territory in the south Pacific, a dot in the ocean 2,160 km southeast of Tahiti. Pitcairn, with an area of just 5 sq km, has no safe harbour, is too rocky for an airstrip, has no paved roads, no sewage treatment system and no landline telephones. Visitors must fly to an outlying Tahitian island and then travel by boat for 36 hours to get there, ending their journey in a longboat, riding the surf that crashes on to the island. Britain built a makeshift court inside Pitcairn’s community hall and shipped in judges, lawyers and police for the trial. The charges against the men, which date back more than 40 years, followed a report by a British policewoman stationed on the island in 1999. The Pitcairn men are challenging Britain’s right to prosecute them, arguing that British sovereignty ended when the Mutineers sank the bounty off the island in 1790. The men have been granted the right to challenge British sovereignty. They will present their case to the privy council, the highest court of appeal for Britain’s overseas territories. The case is set down for 2005 and, if the appeal is upheld, the verdicts would be overturned. Many islanders fear that if the seven are jailed then the Pitcairn community, population 47, could not survive. Many of the men operate the island’s only boats, which are lifelines to the outside world, ferrying in essential supplies. Cornish, related to Welsh and Breton — spoken in parts of France’s Brittany — is part of a larger language family that includes Irish and Scots Gaelic. It has little official status, is barely taught in Cornish schools and is struggling to make its voice heard above the dominant sound of English. Cornwall has no political autonomy, unlike Wales and Scotland. All today’s Cornish speakers have learnt it since the elodic-sounding language began a revival last century, and around 3,000 people claim some knowledge of it — less than half a percent of Cornwall’s population. That compares to the roughly 20 percent of Welsh who speak their native tongue, a mandatory subject in Welsh schools and a language with the same official status in Wales as English. "There are 6,000 languages in the world. In 100 years’ time it is thought 75 percent of them may die out," said Ken George, a member of the Cornish language board, who is fighting to prevent it going the way of Latin and other dead tongues. "In Europe one sees straight away that people tend to be multi-lingual. In parts of England it’s regarded as a curiosity," George told at a Cornish language weekend camp outside the seaside Cornish town of Looe. The long decline of Cornish and other Celtic languages began over 1,500 years ago, when Germanic tribes invaded Britain at the end of the Roman occupation, pushing back the native tribes and bringing with them languages that eventually became English. The legendary King Arthur and his Knights of the round table probably would have spoken Cornish. Celtic Queen Boadicea spoke an early version of the language that would eventually become Cornish, Welsh and Breton. (AGENCIES) |
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Uphill battle to improve China’s death-trap mines BEIJING, Oct 25: More than 200 Chinese coal miners lost their lives last week in at least five separate accidents, prompting President Hu Jintao to call for answers and the Government to demand stronger enforcement of safety rules. But analysts say between the high price of coal and China’s insatiable energy demand it will take more than high-level concern to clean up the world’s deadliest mining industry. Rescuers are still struggling to pull bodies from deep inside the daping mine in Henan province, where a gas explosion last Wednesday trapped nearly 150 miners. There is scant hope of finding anyone alive. After the blast the Government issued an emergency notice calling for stronger enforcement of safety standards, but analysts say that will be tough in the face of huge demand for coal. "It is in the short-term interests of mine owners and even local officials to cut corners in the interests of increasing output," said tim wright, a professor of Chinese studies at Britain’s Sheffield university. More than 4,000 people have been killed in coal mine accidents this year, but wright said the numbers were likely higher, with many accidents going unreported. "The costs if there is an accident are substantial, which is why mine owners go to considerable lengths to cover things up," he said. In an accident last week at the desheng coal mine in northern Hubei province, the pit owner hampered rescue work by telling officials only six miners were trapped, when in fact there were 29, state media reported. They are still missing. China’s coal industry, which provides the main fuel for the world’s seventh-biggest economy, has expanded with little regulation to keep up with booming demand and as village enterprises spring up to compete with state-owned giants. Experts say the problem is a combination of difficult conditions to begin with, with deep pits and high levels of gases, and it is exacerbated by poor management and the proliferation of illegal mines. "The Government tried to shut down the small, unlicensed mines which are the biggest offenders. But the moment they were shut down and the inspectors left, they started operating again," said Michael Komesaroff, a consultant specialising in mines at Australia’s urandaline investments. "By the time the Government went to punish them, the country was desperate for coal and they were encouraged to produce again. So you have a series of mixed messages," he said. Komesaroff says little will change until a culture of accountability in mining develops, a point echoed by the international labour organisation, which says trying to regulate thousands of mines across the country will have limited effect. "The leadership commitment is very clear. The laws and regulations are very important. But also they should help managers and workers to develop their own safety management approaches," said Tsuyoshi Kawakami, a health and safety specialist at the Ilo. As families of victims of the daping tragedy crowded outside the mine and rescuers covered bodies with green canvas sheets, Kawakami was in neighbouring hunan province conducting safety training for small mines and trying to convince managers that improving health and safety was good for production. "There are very great risks (from accidents) to their own business," he said. Some of the profits from higher coal prices are starting to go to investment in safety, but experts say Chinese mines remain death traps. "The price of coal is at its highest point in many years. Coal operators are making money for the first time in many, many years," Komesaroff said. "At the end of the line, the weakest link is the miner." (AGENCIES) |
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Swedish Gulag survivors get their revenge KIRUNA, SWEDEN, Oct 25: Alice Eriksson calls herself a "Russian grandmother" and seems an unlikely threat to Sweden’s Left party, a vital partner for the country’s ruling social democrats. But the 79-year-old’s story of emigration to Stalin’s Russia and life in the Gulags has brought to its knees a party on which Sweden’s minority Government — facing a strong challenge from the Centre-right in 2006 elections — depends in Parliament. In 1933, Eriksson’s father ernst, a miner, fled poverty and unemployment in northern Sweden to help build a Soviet workers’ paradise, along with about 1,500 other Swedes, with the blessing of the Swedish communist party to which he belonged. The dream went sour for him, his wife and two daughters. Arrested in 1938 by Stalin’s secret police, he was accused of spying and executed. As a daughter of an "enemy of the people", Alice Eriksson was arrested in 1942 and sentenced to 10 years in the labour camps, where she remained until 1953. On their return to Sweden Gulag survivors were denounced as traitors and liars by the forerunners of today’s Left party. Many had to flee Kiruna to other parts of Sweden. Their "crime" was to tell the truth about the "communist paradise". In their hometown of Kiruna, a party stronghold, many communists would not speak to Eriksson’s sister Astrid who managed to return in 1956. Eriksson herself was not harassed. She returned to Sweden in 1992 after the fall of the iron curtain. The story of the Kiruna Swedes was silenced until a television documentary shown this month revealed that Left party leader Lars Ohly censored an apology to them about their persecution. A letter they were sent in 2000, edited by Ohly, promised only a detailed historical study of their case. Seeing support for the party slump in the polls, Ohly told in an interview: "I feel deeply that we were wrong. The decision we made worsened the trauma these people suffered." The party has been thrown into internal turmoil over parts of the documentary that showed ohly describing himself as a communist and praising Fidel Castro’s Cuba. "Communist ideology is a like a religion," said Alice Eriksson, speaking in Swedish and Russian at her neat two-room apartment in Kiruna. "I think it is ridiculous that here in Sweden someone can still call himself a Communist." Social democrat dissidents founded the local Communist party in 1917, the year of Russia’s Bolshevik revolution. "Communist" was dropped from the name in 1990 and it was renamed the Left party. But the last portraits of Lenin were not taken down from all party offices until 1999 and there is now a debate about whether it should allow Communists to join. "When I call myself a Communist I mean there is a tradition within the working class movement that is worth defending," Ohly told , outlining a party programme calling for the abolition of class differences in society and opposition to European Union membership. A priest’s son and former train conductor, Ohly became head of the party in 2003 after Fiery feminist Gudrun Schuman quit over allegations of tax fraud. Asa Lindeborg, an historian at Uppsala university, said Olhy came from a generation that had been "taught not to criticise the Soviet Union in the same way liberals were taught not to criticise the United States". Ohly compared the current fuss to senator Joseph Mccarthy’s witch-hunt of Communists in the United States in the 1950s. There have been calls on the party to break with its past and get rid of its controversial leader. Prime Minister Goran Persson said the social democrats would scale down their cooperation with the Left party after the 2006 elections — assuming he wins a third consecutive term — if ohly insists on calling himself a Communist. Ohly dismissed this, predicting persson would come "cap in hand, begging for the Left’s support". Columnist Johannes Aman at Dagens Nyheter newspaper said the Left was unlikely to lose its appeal as "an anti-party for voters wanting to take a critical stance on society. The storm will die down". Just in case, up north in Kiruna the leader of the local Left party branch took Alice Eriksson a bunch of flowers and proposed erecting a memorial for Kiruna’s Gulag victims. "I do not need their apology," said Eriksson bitterly. "I got one from the KGB." (AGENCIES) |
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Singapore eyes Vegas-style casino project SINGAPORE, Oct 25: A controversial Singapore proposal for a casino resort may include a Las Vegas-style entertainment complex, complete with water-theme park, theatres and art galleries, the Government said today. Casino operators are lining up to invest ahead of a decision expected around January. Critics, including Christian and Muslim leaders, say the proposal for a resort-style casino would fuel crime and inflict social ills in one of Asia’s safest societies. The casino itself will account for only 30-40 percent of revenue for the whole entertainment complex, Trade and Industry Minister Lim Hng Kiang told residents at a community event yesterday. His office confirmed the statement today. He said the Government was in talks with potential developers and may soon call for private-sector tenders but would discuss with them ways to minimise the social ills. Lim said Singapore was also investigating how countries such as the United States prevent people from gambling beyond their means. "We are studying such rules. So when we get the proposals and we are able to study all these factors, then I think the Government will make a decision," he said. Singapore is collecting public feedback on whether to build a casino to tap the growing affluence of Asian travellers and plug revenues lost to illegal gambling dens and to countries where casinos are legal, such as Cambodia and the Philippines. Terry Lanni, Chief Executive of US casino operator MGM Mirage, said last week that Singapore’s Government could formally begin consideration of operators for a license in December or January, and that MGM would be interested to invest. He added that MGM might be willing to set up a local unit, which would issue shares on Singapore’s stock exchange. Singaporeans already spend about 180 million a year in neighbouring Malaysia’s casinos, operated by genting BHD, which bar Muslims. About 140 million of singaporean money is spent in Indonesia’s Batam island casinos and about 400 million on casino cruises. The innovation group, a US consultancy that compiled the data, said "floating casinos" and illegal gambling in Asia are worth about 4.2 billion alone. Some estimates put the value of Asia’s legal gambling industry at about 14 billion. But critics say Singapore is flirting with a social disaster and public debate simmers over a proposal to restrict local access, possibly by introducing a membership system, in the hope of heading off widespread gambling addiction. A survey by the Straits Times newspaper last month showed public opinion in Singapore evenly split over the idea, with 53 percent of the country behind it and 46 percent disapproving. Advocates say casinos would also accelerate efforts to remould Singapore’s 95 billion economy into a services hub as China’s rapid economic growth erodes the city’s traditional manufacturing base and fast-growing cities such as Bangkok vie for tourist dollars. Las Vegas sands inc., which opened a lavish Vegas-style new casino in Macau in May, has said it would pump in as much as US 2 billion to operate a Singapore casino. Hong Kong billionaire Stanley Ho’s gambling empire has also shown interest in a Singapore casino project, along with harrah’s entertainment inc., the no. 2 US casino company, and Vienna-based Casinos Austria International Ltd. (AGENCIES) |
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Indonesia Muslim group plans more nightclub attacks JAKARTA, Oct 25: A militant Indonesian Muslim group plans more raids on clubs selling alcohol this week after trashing a nightspot frequented by foreigners over the weekend, a spokesman for the organisation said today. No foreigners were inside the club in south Jakarta when a mob attacked it on Friday night after it had closed. Doors and windows were broken. Allawi Usman of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) said some nightspots were violating Government regulations on operating during the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. The protesters have demanded bars stop serving alcohol during Ramadan, which began in mid-October and runs for one month. "The authorities have turned a blind eye, so we need to act," said Usman. The US embassy in Jakarta has warned Americans in the world’s most populous Muslim nation to take precautions against attacks on nightspots during Ramadan. Usman said about 400 members would conduct a "sweep" of cafes and restaurants in east Jakarta tomorrow, followed by west and central Jakarta in the weeks ahead. Mobs have attacked other cafes in Jakarta in the past week, although in at least one case they ended up clashing with residents whose income depends on the establishments. Police have taken little action. The Vandalism is unhelpful for new President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who has promised better law and order. Authorities in Jakarta have allowed some nightspots to open during Ramadan but limited their business hours. Jakarta police have promised legal action against the mobs,although no arrests have been reported. The front is known for raids on Jakarta nightspots. It is one of many small militant groups that sprang up after the 1998 downfall of President Suharto, who suppressed the voice of conservative Islam. Most Indonesian Muslims are moderate. (AGENCIES) |
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Six pitcairn men guilty of rape, underage sex-media SYDNEY, Oct 25: Six of the seven Pitcairn island men charged with raping and indecently assaulting girls as young as 12 were found guilty by a British court on the remote south Pacific island, a British official said today. The men, descendants of 18th century bounty mutineers, had argued that under-age sex was a tradition dating back to 1790 when mutineers arrived on the island with their Tahitian women. But their victims, now adults who testified via video from New Zealand, said they were treated as "sex things" as girls and raped at will under banyan trees or in garden sheds on pitcairn. The men will be sentenced later this week but will not be sent to jail until 2005 at the earliest due to legal wrangling over whether Britain has jurisdiction over the island. "Six of the seven have been found guilty," said British High Commission spokesman Bryan Nicolson in Wellington, New Zealand. "Steve Christian, the Mayor, has been found guilty of five rapes and a number of sexual assaults," Nicolson told . Christian, 53, is a descendant of Fletcher Christian, who led the bounty mutiny. Christian was the "leader of the pack" on the island and believed he had a right to have sex with young girls, the prosecution told the court during the trial, held inside Pitcairn’s community hall. (AGENCIES) Explosion echoes across central Baghdad BAGHDAD, Oct 25: A loud explosion echoed across central Baghdad today and sirens could be heard as emergency vehicles raced to the scene, witnesses said. They said the blast occurred in the Jadriya area on the east bank of the Tigris river. There was no immediate word on the exact target of the explosion or on any casualties. (AGENCIES) China rules out Hong Kong democracy referendum HONG KONG, Oct 25: China has rejected calls from Hong Kong’s pro-democracy lawmakers for a public referendum on whether local residents should be allowed full, direct democracy from 2007. The comments, carried by China’s official Xinhua news agency late yesterday, came after Hong Kong’s Government last week said it was impractical to hold a democracy referendum. "The official said the liaison office agrees with the (Hong Kong) Government’s decision and the remarks," Xinhua said in an interview with what it said was a leading official in China’s liaison office in Hong Kong. The official was not identified. Hong Kong, a former British colony, returned to Chinese rule in 1997. It was promised a high degree of autonomy over its own affairs after the handover, but Beijing has increasingly stamped its authority over the city’s political future in recent months in response to growing calls for more democracy. In April, China’s Parliament ruled out direct elections in the city any time soon. Currently, Beijing handpicks the city’s leader and half of its 60 legislators are appointed by professional and business groups which are largely pro-China. Analysts say Beijing fears losing control of the territory and worries that demands for more voting rights could spread to neighbouring mainland China. Last week, pro-democracy legislator Fernando Cheung proposed holding a referendum on whether local residents want to directly elect their next leader in 2007 and all members of the next legislature in 2008. Other democrats have since joined the call. But some moderate pro-democracy legislators who met senior Chinese officials last week said they were told that a referendum "would smack of a challenge to Beijing." Today, the China daily quoted Hong Kong cabinet member Bernard Chan as saying that the term "referendum" was extremely sensitive for Beijing, which fears some pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong may harbour ambitions for independence and want to split off like Taiwan. Beijing considers Taiwan a renegade province and has threatened to attack it if its formally declares statehood. (AGENCIES) S Korea’s Roh reviews options after capital ruling SEOUL, Oct 25: South Korea still needs to find a way to ease congestion in Seoul and develop the regions but the Government will not challenge a constitutional court ruling on moving the capital, President Roh-moo-Hyun said on Monday. The court ruled on Thursday a 2003 Parliamentary law on relocating the capital to the south of Seoul was unlawful, and a constitutional amendment and referendum would be needed before such a plan could go ahead. In a speech read to Parliament by Prime Minister Lee-hae-Chan, Roh said no one would challenge the court’s opinion but diluting the power concentrated in the Seoul region remained a key national problem that needed solving. (AGENCIES) Tunisian leader Ben Ali wins new five-year term TUNIS, Oct 25: Tunisian President Zine-al-Abidine ben ali extended his 17 years in power by winning 94 per cent of votes in an election several opposition parties criticised as unfair and a sham, according to preliminary results today. With all 26 constituencies counted, the former Army General secured another five-year term with 94.4 percent of the votes cast in yesterday’s nationwide poll, the interior ministry said. Final results were due later today. The remainder of the votes were split between small opposition parties’ candidates Mohamed Bouchiha, Mounir Beji and Mohamed Ali Halouani. It was the second Presidential election open to multi-party politics since Independence from France in 1956 and voter turnout exceeded 90 percent, the preliminary results showed. Ben Ali, 68, came to power in 1987 after the peaceful removal of President-for-life Habib Bourguiba, the father of modern Tunisia, after he was declared senile and unfit to rule. He has since won three Presidential elections with more than 99 percent of the vote, all criticised by rights groups. Opposition parties and rights campaigners attacked Sunday’s Presidential and legislative polls as a farce to disguise a police state which keeps control by beating dissidents, jailing hundreds of political prisoners and censoring the media. Diplomats said they would consider a slight dip in support for the President to indicate that Tunisia, which draws millions of tourists from Europe, was showing signs of opening the democratic tap slightly. (AGENCIES) |
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