China has charged 48 government and mining officials and 10 journalists with covering up a deadly mine accident to avoid embarrassing Beijing ahead of last year’s Olympics, state media said yesterday.
The mining accident on July 14 last year in Hebei Province near Beijing killed 34 miners and was covered up for 85 days, the China Daily said.
The charges stated that mine bosses and officials in Yuxian County relocated bodies, destroyed evidence and paid journalists 2.6 million yuan (US$380,000) to cover up the disaster, the report said.
“Relatives of the dead were kept quiet thanks to large payments and threats,” the paper said.
The identities of the journalists have not been revealed, the paper said.
Yuxian County is about 80km west of Beijing.
The bribery charges followed an investigation into the cover-up by China’s Cabinet, the State Council, the report said.
It was not immediately clear when the trials would take place, but the paper said one of the 10 journalists was tried in April for taking bribes from Yuxian County officials. The report did not specify the outcome of that trial.
The officials also took out 250,000 yuan in advertisements from the newspaper that employed the journalist and paid 30,000 yuan in subscription fees, it said.
More than 3,200 miners were killed in China’s mines last year, official figures showed, but worker’s rights groups said the number was much bigger because accidents are covered up to avoid costly mine shutdowns and fines.
China’s coal mines are among the most dangerous in the world, with safety often ignored in the quest for profits and a drive to meet surging demand for coal, the source of about 70 percent of China’s energy.
On Nov. 21, 108 miners were killed in a gas explosion at a coal mine in Heilongjiang Province.
Meanwhile, a former senior judge awaiting trial in a massive organized crime crackdown in southwest China hung himself in jail using the drawstring of his underwear, state media said yesterday.
Wu Xiaoqing (烏小青), 57, was found hanging from his detention cell doorway in Chongqing city on Saturday afternoon and pronounced dead several hours later after being rushed to hospital, the Xinhua news agency said.
A former director at Chongqing’s high court, Wu had been charged with accepting 3.5 million yuan in bribes and being unable to explain the source of 5.2 million yuan in his possession, the report said.
Wu’s case was one of a series in a huge mafia crackdown that has rocked Chongqing and implicated up to 200 city officials, including the former head of the city’s judiciary and the deputy chief justice of the high court.
The officials are charged with accepting large sums of money to protect organized crime and illegal gambling rackets. Up to 1,500 alleged mafia figures have been detained, state press reports have said.
He hung himself with the drawstring of his cotton underwear from the door of his cell, which was out of range of a closed circuit camera in the jail, the report said.
His cellmates were napping at the time, it said, while two detention center guards are being investigated over the suicide. Wu left a note, but its contents have not been publicized.
Wu’s suicide adds another chapter to the Chongqing cases that have gripped the nation with lurid tales of sex and corruption in the municipality, which boasts a population of more than 30 million.
So far six people have been sentenced to death and scores of others jailed for up to life in prison.
BLOODSHED: North Koreans take extreme measures to avoid being taken prisoner and sometimes execute their own forces, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Saturday said that Russian and North Korean forces sustained heavy losses in fighting in Russia’s southern Kursk region. Ukrainian and Western assessments say that about 11,000 North Korean troops are deployed in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces occupy swathes of territory after staging a mass cross-border incursion in August last year. In his nightly video address, Zelenskiy quoted a report from Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi as saying that the battles had taken place near the village of Makhnovka, not far from the Ukrainian border. “In battles yesterday and today near just one village, Makhnovka,
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
Some things might go without saying, but just in case... Belgium’s food agency issued a public health warning as the festive season wrapped up on Tuesday: Do not eat your Christmas tree. The unusual message came after the city of Ghent, an environmentalist stronghold in the country’s East Flanders region, raised eyebrows by posting tips for recycling the conifers on the dinner table. Pointing with enthusiasm to examples from Scandinavia, the town Web site suggested needles could be stripped, blanched and dried — for use in making flavored butter, for instance. Asked what they thought of the idea, the reply
US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen on Monday met virtually with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰) and raised concerns about “malicious cyber activity” carried out by Chinese state-sponsored actors, the US Department of the Treasury said in a statement. The department last month reported that an unspecified number of its computers had been compromised by Chinese hackers in what it called a “major incident” following a breach at contractor BeyondTrust, which provides cybersecurity services. US Congressional aides said no date had been set yet for a requested briefing on the breach, the latest in a serious of cyberattacks
RSS