Thousands of villagers in southern China clashed with police during a protest against inadequate compensation for farmland flooded by a dam project, a news report said yesterday.
Hong Kong's Mingpao newspaper reported that about 10,000 villagers repeatedly scrapped with police over a four-day period last week when they tried to petition the local government in Guangxi Province's Yantan Township and to hold demonstrations near the dam.
From June 1 through June 4, villagers carrying banners and shouting slogans surrounded the Yantan No. 2 Hydroelectric Power Station's staff residence and marched to the dam site to demand higher compensation, the newspaper said.
It said several hundred soldiers and armed police were trucked in to help contain the protests and five villagers were injured in clashes. Several people were arrested, the report said, without giving numbers.
The paper said Yantan farmland was flooded several years ago when the dam caused the Red River to overflow its banks.
The report said villagers were enraged when the central government allegedly gave Yantan officials 2.8 million yuan (US$370,000) last year to help compensate residents -- but only a portion of it was distributed.
Villagers claimed that local officials pocketed some of the money.
The Mingpao said that villagers had been sporadically protesting the situation since April, but that last week's demonstrations were the largest yet.
The government has been giving every villager a subsidy of 30 yuan per month regardless of how much land they lost, it said.
A Yantan villager, surnamed Li, said that the situation had calmed down and that local officials were negotiating with the villagers, who were demanding 150 yuan a month.
ACTION PLAN: Taiwan would expand procurement from the US and encourage more companies to invest in the US to deepen bilateral cooperation, Lai said The government would not impose reciprocal tariffs in retaliation against US levies, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday, as he announced five strategies to address the issue, including pledging to increase Taiwanese companies’ investments in the US. Lai has in the past few days met with administrative and national security officials, as well as representatives from various industries, to explore countermeasures after US President Donald Trump on Wednesday last week announced a 32 percent duty on Taiwanese imports. In a video released yesterday evening, Lai said that Taiwan would not retaliate against the US with higher tariffs and Taiwanese companies’ commitments to
‘SPECIAL CHANNEL’: Taipei’s most important tasks are to stabilize industries affected by Trump’s trade tariffs and keep negotiations with Washington open, a source said National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) arrived in the US for talks with US President Donald Trump’s administration, a source familiar with the matter said on Friday. Wu was leading a delegation for a meeting known as the “special channel,” the Financial Times reported earlier. It marked Trump’s first use of the channel since returning to the White House on Jan. 20. Citing a source familiar with the matter, the Financial Times reported that Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) was also a part of the delegation. The visit came days after China concluded war games around Taiwan and amid Trump’s
Intelligence agents have recorded 510,000 instances of “controversial information” being spread online by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) so far this year, the National Security Bureau (NSB) said in a report yesterday, as it warned of artificial intelligence (AI) being employed to generate destabilizing misinformation. The bureau submitted a written report to the Legislative Yuan in preparation for National Security Bureau Director-General Tsai Ming-yen’s (蔡明彥) appearance before the Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee today. The CCP has been using cognitive warfare to divide Taiwanese society by commenting on controversial issues such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) investments in the
HELPING HAND: The steering committee of the National Stabilization Fund is expected to hold a meeting to discuss how and when to utilize the fund to help buffer the sell-off The TAIEX plunged 2,065.87 points, or 9.7 percent, to close at 19,232.35 yesterday, the highest single-day percentage loss on record, as investors braced for US President Donald Trump’s tariffs after an extended holiday weekend. Amid the pessimistic atmosphere, 945 listed companies led by large-cap stocks — including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and Largan Precision Co (大立光) — fell by the daily maximum of 10 percent at the close, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. The number of listed companies ending limit-down set a new record, the exchange said. The TAIEX plunged by daily maxiumu in just
RSS