August 22:
The South China Morning Post reports that the number of villagers suffering from lead and cadmium poisoning in Shaanxi has been drastically underreported. In Fengxiang, Shaanxi toxic waste from the Dongling Lead and Zinc smelter has poisoned at least 850 children. Now the confirmation that adults are also sick has reinforced the villagers’ contention that the emergency is larger than authorities admit. Local authorities extend free testing to all children under 14 following days of protests that culminated in hundreds storming the smelter but hospitals still refuse to test adults and older children. Some 400 of the worst-affected smelter employees and their families have been denied tests, the South China Morning Post reports.
[Editor’s Note: In Zhentou, Hunan toxic waste from heavy-metal processing has given at least 500 villagers cadmium or indium poisoning. Five have died since May. High concentrations of cadmium - which seeps into water and soil when toxic waste is released untreated - can cause lung and nervous system failure, and are associated with cancer.]
August 24:
Shanghai Bell and the Asia Trans Gas joint venture have signed a $26 million contract to build a telecommunication infrastructure for guarding a gas pipeline from Uzbekistan to China, Russia’s Regnum news reports. By the end of the summer the pipeline surveillance system is expected to include video- monitoring, conferencing, and emergency warning. The construction of the pipeline is part of the larger Central Asian gas pipeline project.
August 25:
President Hu Jintao has completed his first visit to Xinjiang since deadly race riots early last month. Hu thanked public security personnel who put down the riots and made visits to the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps and Xinjiang University. Meanwhile reports surfaced that tensions continued to run high in the Xinjiang capital. Scores of armed police patrolling urban areas of Urumqi around the clock reportedly told the Ming Pao “that the degree of tension was not lower than in the early stage of the ‘5 July’ riots.” The Hong Kong newspaper also reports that Wang Lequan, the hard-line secretary of the CPC Committee of the Xinjiang Autonomous Region for 15 years, will resign. Top successor candidates include Nie Weiguo, regional deputy secretary, and Zhang Qingli, secretary of the CPC Committee of the Tibet, who once worked in Xinjiang.
[Editor’s Note: Shandong Governor Jiang Daming and China National Petroleum Corporation Chairman Jiang Jiemin will also be brought to help govern Xinjiang. Like Wang, both Nie and Jiang were born in Shandong and they can communicate easily with the large number of Xinjiang cadres with a Shandong origin Wang amassed.]
August 31:
A Chinese firm will prospect for black-shale uranium deposits in Uzbekistan’s Navoiy Region. Beijing and Tashkent approved the Uz-China Uran $4.6 million joint venture including a subsidiary of China Guangdong Nuclear Power Co. as part of a bilateral uranium cooperation agreement, Uzbekistan’s Gazeta website reports.
The Dalai Lama – Tibet’s spiritual leader – has told CNN that he is visiting Taiwan to comfort victims of Typhoon Morakot and will not meet Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou, to avoid politicizing the trip. The Dalai Lama arrived in southern Taiwan on Monday to meet and pray with survivors of the disaster. China's state-run Xinhua news agency said Beijing maintained "resolute opposition" to the visit, which it said "is bound to have a negative influence on the relations between the mainland and Taiwan." For his part, when asked about the growing closeness of Taiwan and mainland China the Dali Lama said that “This is good. I think it reduces fear here."
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