China confirms death of all 8 Chinese police officers in Haiti quake

by Xian Wan, BBC News, for the BBC's Biodun Iginla

www.chinaview.cn 2010-01-17 09:16:27

Print

Chinese peacekeeping police salute to a vehicle carrying the last body of their buried colleague in Port-au-Prince, capital of Haiti, on Jan. 16, 2010. The bodies of all eight Chinese police officers who were buried during the Haiti quake had been found as of early Sunday morning Beijing time, the Ministry of Public Security said. (Xinhua/Yuan Man) Photo Gallery>>>

    BEIJING, Jan. 17  -- The bodies of all eight Chinese police officers buried under a collapsed building in the Haiti quake had been found as of early Sunday morning Beijing time, the Ministry of Public Security said.     The first body was found at 4:30 p.m. Jan. 16 Beijing time after more than 80 hours of search and rescue work, and the other seven were retrieved from 10:42 p.m. to 3:56 a.m. Jan. 17 under the joint efforts of the Chinese rescue team, the Chinese peacekeeping force in Haiti and several foreign rescue teams, the ministry's emergency response work team announced Sunday.
    Of the victims, four were officers of China's peacekeeping force in Haiti and the rest were in a team sent by the ministry to Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, for peacekeeping consultations, according to the ministry.
    The eight were meeting UN officials in the headquarters of the UN Stabilization Mission in Port-au-Prince when the quake struck at about 4:50 p.m. Tuesday local time.
    The team arrived in the Caribbean city Tuesday afternoon. The victims were: Zhu Xiaoping, 48, director of the ministry's equipment and finance department; Guo Baoshan, 60, deputy director of the ministry's international cooperation department; Wang Shulin, 58, and Li Xiaoming, 35, both researchers at the ministry.
    The four peacekeepers were: Zhao Huayu, 38; Li Qin, 47; Zhong Jianqin, 35; and He Zhihong, 35.
    They were all men except for He.
    According to the ministry, the bodies will be transferred back to China as soon as possible.
    "The eight comrades who sacrificed their lives during the Haiti quake are outstanding representatives of the 2 million Chinese police force members... They are the models for public security departments across the country to learn from," said a statement of the ministry.
    A total of 142 Chinese police peacekeepers are deployed in Haiti.
    A Chinese rescue team of more than 60 people left Beijing Wednesday evening along with 10 tons of food, equipment and medicines.

Liu Xiangyang (L), deputy chief of the National Earthquake Disaster Emergency Rescue Team, salutes to a Chinese victim in Port-au-Prince, capital of Haiti, on Jan. 16, 2010. The bodies of all eight Chinese police officers who were buried during the Haiti quake had been found as of early Sunday morning Beijing time, the Ministry of Public Security said. (Xinhua/Yuan Man) Photo Gallery>>>

Second body of buried Chinese peacekeeping police in Haiti found

Economist warns against China bashing from Washington over trade

by Xian Wan and Biodun Iginla, BBC News and the Economist. Xian Wan reported from Beijing

www.chinaview.cn 2010-01-18 00:45:53

Print

BEIJING, Jan. 17  -- The United States needs to face up to its own imbalances rather than engage in more China bashing over trade, said world-renowned economist Stephen Roach.     "The West, especially the United States, needs to take a long hard look in the mirror and face up to its own imbalances. Hypocrisy is not a recipe for global statesmanship," wrote Roach in Singapore's leading financial daily Business Times this week.     As U.S. congress and the White House look toward the mid-term elections of 2010, Washington could well up the ante on China bashing -- moving from a rhetorical assault to widespread trade sanctions, predicted Roach, chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia.     He noted that the United States has already imposed trade sanctions on Chinese exports of tyres, coated paper product and steel piping and grating in recent month.     Roach argued that the expected salvo from Washington was apparently built on hypocrisy as the United States itself should also be held accountable for the global economic imbalances.     Meaningful progress on global rebalancing could not occur without progress by both China and the United States and that China has a more optimistic prospect of achieving rebalancing, he said.     "There is good reason to believe that China ... is about to take dramatic steps in rebalancing its domestic economy in a fashion that would provide a sustained and meaningful reduction in its current account surplus."     China viewed the recent crisis and recession as an unmistakable wake-up call, which left the country with little choice other than to shift the sources of its GDP growth from external to internal markets, he said.     However, it was hard to be sanguine about the outlook for America's saving and current account imbalance.     "The United States, with its massive shortfall in domestic saving, has come to rely heavily on surplus saving from abroad to fund economic growth. And it must run massive current account deficits in order to attract that capital," he said.     All nations need to be accountable for the role they need to play in driving a long overdue global rebalancing, said Roach. "It would be the height of folly to try and force China into a counter-productive approach, especially since it appears to be taking its own rebalancing agenda very seriously."

Editor: Mu Xuequan

State Department confirms 16 Americans Dead in Haiti Quake

by Melissa Gruz, BBC News, covering the Obama Administration for the BBC's Biodun Iginla

Sunday, January 17, 2010

• Print
• ShareThis

 Reuters

Jan. 17: Rescuers carry an American woman out of the remains of a supermarket in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

Jan. 17: Rescuers carry an American woman out of the remains of a supermarket in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Sixteen Americans are confirmed dead in the wake of Tuesday's devastating earthquake in Haiti, the U.S. State Department said Sunday.
The victims include 15 private American citizens and one U.S. government employee, the department said.
The U.S. Embassy in Haiti, meanwhile, has reported that at least 70 Americans remain unaccounted for.
An embassy spokesman told NewsCORE on Sunday that up to 400 people have been sleeping inside the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince each night.
The spokesman added that 2,000 US citizens have been evacuated.
Approximately half of the houses used by U.S. Embassy staff in Port-au-Prince have been destroyed.
U.S. officials said Sunday that the international urban search and rescue teams have rescued 62 individuals so far — mostly Haitians. As of Sunday morning, the teams had performed 29 live rescues, including rescuing people trapped inside a collapsed food market.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon calls Haiti the worst humanitarian crisis in decades

 by Biodun Iginla, BBC News, New York

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Sunday that Haiti was the worst humanitarian crisis in decades as he surveyed the devastated quake-hit capital for himself.
  
After an emotional reunion in Port-au-Prince with Michele Montas, a Haitian who until late last year was his spokeswoman, Ban was to meet President Rene Preval and receive a helicopter tour of the disaster zone.

17/01/2010 - HAITI EARTHQUAKE Interview with Anna Nelson from the International Committee of the Red Cross 17/01/2010 - HAITI EARTHQUAKE Exodus from the capital 17/01/2010 - HAITI EARTHQUAKE Special correspondent Melissa Bell reports live from Port-au-Prince

  
"I am going to Haiti with a very heavy heart to express solidarity and full support of the UN to the people of Haiti," Ban told journalists accompanying him on the day-long trip.
  
Tuesday's 7.0-magnitude quake has killed tens of thousands of Haitians and was also the worst ever disaster to befall the UN with 40 staffers confirmed dead and nearly 330 others still unaccounted for.
  
"We have to prepare for the worst," Ban said as he flew out of Newark, referring to UN employees still missing after the disaster that flattened much of Port-au-Prince and nearby towns in western Haiti.

Where to find the latest information on the quake International relief starts to arrive in Haiti Twitter tells the story of a quake's devastation Haiti's plight elicits global pledges of aid Images of the Haitian nightmare Haiti, a cursed land Funds for quake victims mobilised via telecoms, the Web

  
Ban said the three top priorities were: to save as many people as possible, to bring emergency humanitarian aid in the form of water, food and medication, and to coordinate the massive aid effort.
  
The UN has noted that at least local government structures remained after the 2004 tsunami hit Indonesia's Aceh province, but in the Haiti town of Leogane, for example, all public services were lost in the earthquake.
  
Between 20,000 and 30,000 people are thought to have died in that town alone, an indication of the horrific scale of the catastrophe beyond Port-au-Prince.
  
Ban will assess the Caribbean nation's needs and attempt to boost the shattered morale of the Brazilian-led United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, MINUSTAH.
  
On the eve of his departure, Ban grimly confirmed that MINUSTAH civilian chief Hedi Annabi, his Brazilian deputy Luiz Carlos da Costa and acting police commissioner, Doug Coates of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, were the latest confirmed fatalities.
  
"The United Nations was his life and he ranked amongst its most dedicated and committed sons," the UN boss said of Annabi, a veteran Tunisian UN troubleshooter.
  
Annabi was meeting with a visiting Chinese police delegation when the quake flattened MINUSTAH's main headquarters building in Port-au-Prince's Christopher Hotel building.
  
Ban has sent Edmond Mulet, a top UN peacekeeping official and Annabi's predecessor, to Port-au-Prince to take charge of MINUSTAH in an interim capacity.
  
Accompanying Ban in Haiti were UN Development Program head Helen Clark, top UN peacekeeper Alain Leroy, UN humanitarian chief John Holmes and Susana Malcorra, who is in charge of the world body's field support operations.
  
Holmes on Friday appealed for 562 million dollars from the world community to help three million quake victims in the western hemisphere's poorest country for a period of six months.
  
The money is to be used for urgently needed food, water and sanitation, medical supplies, tents and blankets, logistics and education.
  
Ban last toured Haiti with former US president Bill Clinton in March 2009 to urge the international community to aid the island nation after it was battered by hurricanes the previous year.
  
Clinton and fellow former president George W. Bush, named by the White House as special coordinators of aid to Haiti, launched an appeal Saturday to raise tens of millions of dollars for the stricken country.
  
Ban returns to the United Nations headquarters in New York on Monday for a Security Council meeting to discuss coordination of the massive international relief effort under way in Haiti.
 

• Aid trickles slowly into areas outside the capital
• UN mission chief in Haiti confirmed dead in earthquake
• Thousands flee capital as aid distribution stalls

• Print
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Y! Buzz
• Delicious
• Comment

EU Says Haiti Envoy Died in Earthquake

• Sign in to Recommend
• Twitter
• Sign In to E-Mail
• Print

By Natalie de Vallieres and Biodun Iginla, BBC News. Natalie de Vallieres reported from Brussels.

Published: January 17, 2010

Filed at 12:27 p.m. ET
BRUSSELS  -- The European Commission says its envoy to Haiti died in the country's devastating earthquake.
EU Foreign Affairs chief Catherine Ashton said Sunday she received confirmation of the death of Pilar Juarez on Saturday night.
Juarez was 53. Ashton calls her death ''a tragic loss for Ms. Juarez' family and friends, but also for all her colleagues.''
She says in a statement she contacted Juarez' family to express her condolences and those of European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.
She said two Haitians working for the EU delegation in Port-Au-Prince remain missing.
Ashton also expressed her condolences to the United Nations which lost many workers, including the head of its Haitian UN mission, Hedi Annabi.

Sign in to Recommend 

CIA bomber video shows militant links: Holbrooke

by Sunita Kureishi, BBC News, for the BBC's Biodun Iginla

 

KABUL

Sun Jan 17, 2010 10:27am EST

KABUL  - A video of a Pakistani Taliban leader with the bomber who killed CIA agents in Afghanistan could indicate cross-border links between Afghan, Pakistani and al Qaeda militants, the U.S. regional envoy said on Sunday.
Special Representative Richard Holbrooke told Reuters in an interview in Kabul that "shadowy but unmistakable" links between groups exposed by the video helped explain why the United States and its allies were fighting in Afghanistan.
The video released this month showed the Jordanian suicide bomber posing with Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud, before carrying out the December 30 attack which killed seven CIA employees, the deadliest strike on the agency in decades.
"When people say to us, 'why are you fighting in Afghanistan when the goal is to destroy al Qaeda and they are in Pakistan?', I think this incident highlights the explanation for what we are doing, because there are some shadowy but unmistakable connections here," he said.
The bombing took place at a CIA base in Khost, eastern Afghanistan, where Washington says its main enemies are militants loyal to Jalaluddin Haqqani, a Taliban-allied commander who shelters across the border in Pakistan's North Waziristan province.
The video could show "the very close links between the Haqqani group, Mehsud, al Qaeda, and it underlines the rationale for our strategy," he said. "That was a horrifying tape."
"They've all claimed credit for it," he said of the various militant groups with some possible hand in the CIA attack.
PRESSURE ON PAKISTAN
Pakistan's military has launched offensives against Mehsud's Pakistani Taliban, but has yet to take on Haqqani's Afghan militants on its soil. Washington is keen to persuade Islamabad that militants on both sides of the frontier are cooperating with each other, and none should be protected.
Before coming to Afghanistan, Holbrooke visited Pakistan, where he spoke to senior military and political leaders about the security situation in the border areas.
Asked whether he had put more pressure on Islamabad to do more in border regions to rout insurgents, Holbrooke said Pakistan's military was stretched "very thin."
"I think they are well aware of the fact that the presence on their soil of the Afghan Taliban and its leadership is not in their own security interests. They know how important this is. They are our allies," he added.
Islamabad has been asking for additional military assistance to fight insurgents and for the transfer of U.S. military know-how for drones and other equipment, requests that have so far been met with reluctance by the Pentagon.
"This is an immensely complicated issue and when you talk about it too much, you work against the national interests of the United States and anyone who opposes the terrorists who are still out there," said Holbrooke when asked about this.
Over the past year, the United States has increased the number of drone attacks in the border regions, a military tactic which has met with a public backlash in Pakistan and which experts say has hurt President Asif Ali Zardari.
Several U.S. senators visiting Pakistan over the past two weeks have spoken out in favor of the drone strikes, angering Islamabad. President Barack Obama's administration is reluctant to talk publicly about the policy for fear of inflaming tensions at a time when it wants closer ties with Pakistan.
"I am limited in what I can talk about on this subject , but sometimes policies ... have costs and benefits," he said, asked how the drone attacks had affected U.S.-Pakistani ties.
"They have to be weighed very carefully against the national interest and against the realities. On this issue, I am not going to add fuel to the fire."

Google denies leaving China, seeks negotiations

Xian Wan, BBC News,  for the BBC's Biodun Iginla

SHANGHAI

Sun Jan 17, 2010 3:49am EST

Related News

• Q+A: How will Google case impact foreign investors in China?
  
  3:49am EST
  
  
  

< 1 / 3 >

View Full Size

SHANGHAI  - Google Inc enters a second week of high stakes brinkmanship with China's government, amid speculation the firm has decided to pull out of the world's biggest Internet market over cyber-spying concerns.

Technology  |  Media  |  China

Google, the world's most popular search engine, said last week it was thinking about quitting China after suffering a sophisticated cyber-attack on its network that resulted in theft of its intellectual property.
The company has said it is no longer willing to filter content on its Chinese language google.cn engine, and will try to negotiate a legal unfiltered search engine, or exit the market.
Most of the filters on google.cn were still in place on Sunday, though controls over some searches, including the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, appear to have been loosened.
The Google announcement captured the attention of China's 384 million netizens, the world's largest Internet market by users, with blogs and local media quoting unnamed insiders as saying Google has already decided to close its offices in China.
Google has denied that, saying the company is still in the process of scanning its internal networks since the cyber-attack in mid-December. Google also said it would hold talks with the Chinese government over the next few weeks.
China has tried to play down Google's threat to leave, saying there were many ways to resolve the issue, but insisting all foreign companies, Google included, must abide by Chinese laws.
Washington said it is issuing a diplomatic note to China formally requesting an explanation for the attacks.
The Google issue risks becoming another irritant in China's relationship with the United States, already strained by arguments over the Chinese currency's exchange rate, trade protectionism and U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.
Washington has long been worried about Beijing's cyber-spying program. A congressional advisory panel said in November the Chinese government appeared increasingly to be penetrating U.S. computers to gather useful data for its military.
When Google introduced its google.cn website in 2006 with the decision to self-censor searches, it said the move would benefit the Chinese people by expanding access to information.
"We think we have made a reasonable decision, though we cannot be sure it will ultimately be proven to be the best one," a top level Google spokesman told the U.S. Committee on International Relations in 2006.
Google's move to publicly denounce censorship and accuse Chinese hackers of launching an attack that resulted in the theft of its intellectual property was seen as a bold move.
"We have never seen a company take on the Chinese government in such a public and confrontational manner," said James McGregor, senior counselor to public affairs consultancy Apco Worldwide.
But it may backfire as signs emerge the firm has already damaged its prospects in China regardless of whether it carries out its threat to quit the country.
JPMorgan analyst Dick Wei said he thinks Google's relationship with the Chinese government is already strained and if the firm decides to stay, it could be subject to tighter regulations.
UBS analyst Wang Jinjin also believes Google's relationship with advertisers has been damaged as a result of the threat and that they will choose Baidu Inc over the firm.
On Saturday, Yahoo was dragged into the growing row after its Chinese partner Alibaba Group slammed its statements supporting Google.
Playing down the concerns raised by Google, rival Microsoft Corp said it had no plan to pull out of China.
Microsoft has high hopes for its Bing Internet search engine in China, which has only a small share of the market but could benefit if Google, the No. 2 player behind dominating local rival Baidu Inc, pulls out.