Authorities in Sichuan Province plan to spend 5 billion yuan (US$732 million) to settle 470,000 Tibetan herders in permanent houses, state media said, as part of efforts to promote the development of ethnic Tibetan areas.
Rioting broke out in ethnic Tibetan areas of Sichuan earlier this year after Lhasa was hit by violent protests against Chinese rule.
Over the next four years, the Sichuan government will build brick houses and villages including elementary schools, clinics, offices and “other public service infrastructure” for the Tibetan nomads, Xinhua news agency said in a report yesterday.
Of 533,000 herders in the province, 219,000 have no fixed residences and 254,000 are living in shanty homes, it said.
Provincial authorities also decided at a meeting on Friday to invite companies to design and make special tents and other goods to modernize the living standards of the herders, Xinhua said.
The agency did not detail how authorities would choose the locations of the villages or if the Tibetan families would face compulsory resettlement.
It said similar projects were carried out for Tibetan nomads in the Tibet Autonomous Region and Qinghai and Gansu provinces.
The Chinese government has announced a range of projects in recent months to promote the economic development of ethnic Tibetan areas.
Last month, Xinhua said the central government would spend US$3.1 billion by 2013 on a series of industrial schemes in Tibet, including 10 mining projects and five industrial zones.
Authorities in Lhasa began building a huge new district last November to help the city accommodate an influx of tourists and migrants that is scheduled to be finished next year. The Liuwu New District will “divert the city’s growing population and protect cultural relics,” state media said.
Critics among exiled Tibetans and Western rights activists say the development of Tibetan areas threatens traditional Tibetan culture and has allowed an influx of Han Chinese migrants.
MASS POISONING
In other news from China, the number of people sickened by contaminated water in Guangxi Province has risen to 450, more than double the previously reported figure, Xinhua said yesterday.
The residents of two villages began showing symptoms of poisoning last week, including swelling of the face and eyes, vomiting and blurred eyesight, Xinhua said.
Last week local officials had said 200 people became ill after drinking water contaminated by industrial waste from Jinhai Metallurgy Chemical, a branch of the state-owned Liuzhou China Tin Co. The factory has been closed since the contamination was detected.
Tests on all 647 people in the two villages showed that four have been diagnosed with arsenic poisoning, Xinhua said. A total of 55 people, 23 children and 32 seniors, remain hospitalized under observation. The remaining victims were given outpatient treatment and are recovering, the report said.
“The villagers were slightly poisoned. They can be cured in nine to 15 days with timely treatment,” Ge Xianmin, head of the regional disease prevention and control institute, was cited as saying.
Authorities in the nearby Hechi said torrential rains from a recent typhoon caused wastewater from the company to overflow into nearby ponds and wells.
Indonesia yesterday began enforcing its newly ratified penal code, replacing a Dutch-era criminal law that had governed the country for more than 80 years and marking a major shift in its legal landscape. Since proclaiming independence in 1945, the Southeast Asian country had continued to operate under a colonial framework widely criticized as outdated and misaligned with Indonesia’s social values. Efforts to revise the code stalled for decades as lawmakers debated how to balance human rights, religious norms and local traditions in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation. The 345-page Indonesian Penal Code, known as the KUHP, was passed in 2022. It
US President Donald Trump on Friday said Washington was “locked and loaded” to respond if Iran killed protesters, prompting Tehran to warn that intervention would destabilize the region. Protesters and security forces on Thursday clashed in several Iranian cities, with six people reported killed, the first deaths since the unrest escalated. Shopkeepers in Tehran on Sunday last week went on strike over high prices and economic stagnation, actions that have since spread into a protest movement that has swept into other parts of the country. If Iran “violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to
Auschwitz survivor Eva Schloss, the stepsister of teenage diarist Anne Frank and a tireless educator about the horrors of the Holocaust, has died. She was 96. The Anne Frank Trust UK, of which Schloss was honorary president, said she died on Saturday in London, where she lived. Britain’s King Charles III said he was “privileged and proud” to have known Schloss, who cofounded the charitable trust to help young people challenge prejudice. “The horrors that she endured as a young woman are impossible to comprehend and yet she devoted the rest of her life to overcoming hatred and prejudice, promoting kindness, courage, understanding
‘DISRESPECTFUL’: Katie Miller, the wife of Trump’s most influential adviser, drew ire by posting an image of Greenland in the colors of the US flag, captioning it ‘SOON’ US President Donald Trump on Sunday doubled down on his claim that Greenland should become part of the US, despite calls by the Danish prime minister to stop “threatening” the territory. Washington’s military intervention in Venezuela has reignited fears for Greenland, which Trump has repeatedly said he wants to annex, given its strategic location in the arctic. While aboard Air Force One en route to Washington, Trump reiterated the goal. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it,” he said in response to a reporter’s question. “We’ll worry about Greenland in
RSS