December 28:
A string of robberies and three Uighurs’ murder of two Han Chinese in Taiyuan, Shanxi has provoked the Han community and led to online death threats against Uighurs, Japan’s Kyodo News Service reports. Taiyuan police are already on high alert and the situation in Xinjiang remains very tense. The Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Hong Kong reports that Uighurs are particularly agitated because Internet access has been cut off since interethnic riots rocked Urumqi nearly seven months ago. Over the October 1st National Day holiday, Xinjiang authorities had announced a resumption of service but it has still not materialized.
January 2:
Hong Kong Police and the territory’s legislature, The Legislative Council, have launched an investigation into accusations that plainclothes mainland officers dragged protesters and journalists into the mainland during a protest at the border last week. Mainland police detained four protesters and two journalists from Hong Kong’s Ming Pao daily for three hours after a protest at the Lo Wu immigration control point in support of jailed dissident Liu Xiaobo. Lawmakers condemned Hong Kong police for failing to stop mainland public security officers from dragging protesters across into the Shenzhen side of the border bridge. The Ming Pao and the Apple Daily, which published photographs of the incident, were both contacted by Hong Kong police, the South China Morning Post reports.
January 4:
China has expanded its anti-piracy mission in the Gulf region according to a statement released on China's Ministry of National Defense website. China's naval escort route in the pirate prone Gulf of Aden was further extended 50 nautical miles eastward. Deputy transport minister, Xu Zuyuan, also said China has reissued a notice requiring Chinese shipping enterprises and crews to enhance precautionary efforts against pirates, China’s official Global Times reports. Last week a band of Somali pirates split a $4 million ransom to release a Chinese cargo ship, the De Xin Hai, and its 25 sailors after two months in captivity, AP reports. By contrast, the official Xinhua News Agency said the ship and crew were under the protection of a Chinese naval fleet after an “early morning rescue.”
January 5:
According to a study conducted by Wuhan University, Chinese college students spend more than $100 million every year for ghost-written academic papers; a number that has grown five-fold in the past three years. Chinese academics and students often buy and sell papers to swell publications lists or earn needed cash. Others mass-produce scientific papers in order to get grant funding. Chinese universities require academic publication for degrees and promotions but lack a standardized or enforceable academic code of conduct. There are signs a crackdown might be coming: two lecturers were sacked last month for falsifying 70 papers in two years, the BBC reports. In the meantime, while China ranks second behind the U.S. by number of academic papers published, academic fraud continues to undermine China’s innovative potential.
[Editor’s Note: Many American academic institutions including the University of California, Los Angeles require students submit their work to an online system called Turn-It-In. The system compares each paper with all others within the database and online sources. This system has contributed mightily to the identification and elimination of academic fraud in U.S. universities.]
January 6:
China's largest gas supplier, Australian natural gas company Woodside, has announced the end of a $40.4 billion agreement with state-run PetroChina singed in 2007. The agreement would have seen Woodside supply 2 to 3 million tons of liquefied natural gas per year to China over a 20 years period. It was unclear which side initiated the termination. China has suffered severe gas shortages since November and PetroChina was forced to purchase 65,000 tons of gas at market prices this month to cope with peak demand. Given China’s state-subsidized fuel prices, this purchase instantly cost the company more than 60 million yuan, Shanghai Securities News reports. It only produces around 70-80 billion tons of natural gas a year, an insufficient sum to meet domestic demand of 100-120 billion tons. The Global Times reports that to diversify gas supplies China has secured contracts with Russia's Gazprom, has helped fund the massive 1,833-kilometer pipeline that opened last month connecting Xinjiang with Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, and has pushed forward with gas pipelines from Burma.
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