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News » Society » Four killed in China school crush |
- Four killed in China school crush
- More mainlanders to visit Taiwan as individual tourists
- 4 kills in Hubei elementary school stampede
- China's aircraft carrier anchors in military port
- The Comfort of Cyclical Complementarity
- VIDEO: Briton to star in Chinese sitcom
- Residency for maids case opens in Hong Kong court
- Many student notebooks found to have carcinogen
- Employers scramble as labor force shrinks
- Tap water back on after threat from big gas leak
- Ikea stores halt sales in 24 markets
- Navy takes delivery of new type of stealth ship
- Japan's speculation on Diaoyu buoys rejected
- China launches new stealth frigate
- Have You Heard…
- Pfizer Seeks Alliances in China
- Sinopec’s U.S. Shale Deal Struck at Two-Thirds’ Discount
- Iran said to deploy aging foreign tankers, avoiding sanctions
- Chinese transport "workhorses" extending military’s reach
- Bird flu `epidemic' sparks chicken cull
| Four killed in China school crush Posted: 26 Feb 2013 08:41 PM PST Four children have been killed in an early morning stampede at a school in Hubei province, Chinese media report. |
| More mainlanders to visit Taiwan as individual tourists Posted: 26 Feb 2013 07:56 PM PST AUTHORITIES on both sides of the Taiwan Strait will allow more residents of mainland cities to visit the island as individual tourists in 2013, a mainland spokeswoman said today. Expanding the list of eligible cities will be done in an active, yet prudent and step-by-step manner, Fan Liqing, spokeswoman for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, said at a regular press conference. |
| 4 kills in Hubei elementary school stampede Posted: 26 Feb 2013 07:29 PM PST FOUR students were killed in a stampede accident in an elementary school in central China's Hubei Province this morning. |
| China's aircraft carrier anchors in military port Posted: 26 Feb 2013 05:50 PM PST CHINA'S first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, anchored for the first time in a military port in Qingdao, eastern Shandong province on Wednesday morning. |
| The Comfort of Cyclical Complementarity Posted: 26 Feb 2013 11:29 AM PST Let me step away from historical issues and return to my primary interest: ancient Chinese thought in modern American life. I went to a funeral on Saturday, a sad occasion. The deceased was the sister of a friend. She was my age, born in 1957, a late-hippie-era free-spirit. The service, set in a Baptist church, was focused on celebrating her life and included poems and songs that captured her and the moment we found ourselves in. They played "Turn! Turn! Turn!" by the Byrds which, for someone of my age, was familiar and apt. For me it was especially fitting, since I am in the midst of reading the Daodejing with my students, and there is a notable resonance between that song and a couple of parts of that text. "Turn! Turn! Turn!" was written by Pete Seeger in 1959. He adapted a Bible passage, Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8 into a song and it became an anthem of its time. The Byrds cover of it (embedded below) is its paradigmatic expression. The first lines from the Bible verse capture the sense of the song:
The sense of what I will call cyclical complementarity - the natural ebb and flow of polar tendencies - is prominent in the DDJ, and Daoism more generally. This excerpt from passage 29 gets at it: For things sometimes lead and sometimes follow, sometimes sigh and sometimes storm, sometimes strengthen and sometimes weaken, sometimes kill and sometimes die. (Hinton) And Passage 2 also revolves on this same notion: All beneath heaven knows beauty is beauty only because there's ugliness, and knows good is good only because there's evil. Being and nonbeing give birth to one another, difficult and easy complete one another, long and short measure one another, high and low fill one another, music and noise harmonize one another, before and after follow one another... (Hinton) In the song, and the Bible, a certain comfort inheres in cyclical complementarity: death is as natural and inevitable as the passing of the seasons, the movement from night to day. We can't hold on to our bodily form forever, so we should accept its disappearance. Of course, Ecclesiastes ultimately invokes God as the grand designer of the movements of heaven and nature: He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end. We worldly mortals can perceive the patterns of God's work but we cannot understand His will or purposes in regard to any particular thing. We can know that death, in general, is unavoidable, but we cannot know why a specific person dies at a specific time. Daoism does not bring God into it, but also seems to find comfort in cyclical complementarity. We cannot know why a particular person lives and dies in precisely the way he or she does, but we can gain a measure of solace in the balance and reliability of it all. Zhuangzi suggests as much: Life and death are inevitable. Heaven gives them the constancy of day and night. And we can't alter any of it - it belongs to the very nature of things. If we honor heaven as our father and love it that deeply, imagine honoring something that transcends heaven. If we honor a ruler or a sovereign and offer up our lives for him, imagine honoring something truer than any ruler. (Hinton, 85) That "something" that transcends heaven and is "truer than any ruler" is Dao, in all its fullness and complexity and vastness. Daoism offers a kind of liberation: if we simply accept the movement of Dao, the inexorable complementary shift from one polarity to another - life to death, joy to sorrow, day to night - and back again (not that there is reincarnation in Daoism; just cosmic extension and repetition), then we can escape our fears and anxieties. If we are experiencing something bad now, something good will come around eventually. If we face an ultimate demise, we know that we are simply experiencing what all things in Dao experience: a shift toward nonbeing in the midst of being. I think it is easier for Americans to embrace the Christian story: that sense of an all-knowing and loving God making sure that, as we move from life to death we are cared for. Daoism requires a greater faith, in a sense; a faith that transformation from one form to another, or from form to formlessness, is its own reward. |
| VIDEO: Briton to star in Chinese sitcom Posted: 26 Feb 2013 10:00 AM PST Despite having no acting experience 24-year-old Richard Heathcote beats off competition to land a role in a new Chinese sitcom 'Ciao Britain' |
| Residency for maids case opens in Hong Kong court Posted: 26 Feb 2013 08:45 AM PST A HEARING to decide whether the hundreds of thousands of domestic workers making a living in Hong Kong can seek residency began in the city's top court yesterday. The case, brought by Filipina maid Evangeline Banao Vallejos, could also reopen the controversial issue of whether children born in Hong Kong to parents from China's mainland have the right to stay. Vallejos won a High Court ruling in 2011 granting her the right to request permanent residency status. The government appealed last March, successfully arguing that the authorities had discretionary power to decide who was eligible for residency and that restrictions on maids were not unconstitutional or discriminatory. Hong Kong's 300,000 foreign maids receive a minimum wage of HK$3,920 (US$505) a month and benefits such as one guaranteed day off a week, but rights groups say they face discrimination and a lack of legal protection from abusive employers. Campaigners argue they should not be treated any differently from other foreigners who flock to the city to seek work and who can apply for permanent residency after seven years. The hearing in the Court of Final Appeal is expected to last up to three days. Government officials have warned that making domestic helpers eligible for permanent residency could open the floodgates to hundreds of thousands of residency requests. The case could potentially reopen the issue of whether the children of Chinese mainland parents can stay in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong government has said the case should be referred to the central government for its reinterpretation of the Basic Law, which sets out the city's status and rights. Mainland parents If happens, the central government would also need to decide on the status of children born to mainland parents who weren't permanent residents at the time of their birth, according to Basic Law expert Professor Lin Feng. In 1999 the Court of Final Appeal ruled that children of people who have right of abode also have that right, even if their parents were not permanent residents at the time of their birth. Hong Kong asked the central government to "reinterpret" the Basic Law after claiming an extra 1.6 million people from the mainland could obtain the right of abode, causing a severe social and economic strain on the densely populated city. The central government subsequently ruled that children born outside Hong Kong were only eligible if at least one parent was already a permanent resident. However, in 2001 the Court of Final Appeal ruled that children born in Hong Kong to mainland parents had right of abode regardless of whether their parents were legal residents. |
| Many student notebooks found to have carcinogen Posted: 26 Feb 2013 08:04 AM PST MANY student homework exercise notebooks sold in Beijing were found to contain chemicals that can lead to cancer in large amounts, a newspaper reported. Beijing-based Legal Evening News bought six common brands in the local market and found five contained fluorescent agents, which are bleaching chemicals that can be carcinogenic. The report didn't disclose the brands. But most parents interviewed were more concerned about the paper being white, smooth and even on the ends, and within their budget, than whether it was environmentally friendly, the paper said. Few were interested in the one brand that was tested as safe because it was considered ugly, yellow and expensive. "Its price is twice as much as that of an ordinary one. Sellers told me it is environmentally friendly, but who could see it?" a parent asked. A seller said the safe brand costs him more so he charges more. "I don't know about fluorescent agents," he said. The findings are not unusual, said Gong Yan, deputy professor with Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology, who did the tests. "Manufacturers now use more recycled paper in their production. In order to improve the look of paper and cut costs, they eliminate the brightening process but just add fluorescent agents," he said. Dong Jinshi, deputy general secretary with Beijing Society for Environmental Sciences, said the chemical substances accumulate in human bodies, reducing immunity and, in large amounts, triggering cancer. Lengthy exposure can pose risks to children's sight and skin, he added. China still lacks national regulations on the content of fluorescent agents in students' exercise books, Dong said. |
| Employers scramble as labor force shrinks Posted: 26 Feb 2013 08:03 AM PST CHINESE low-cost manufacturers are trying various ways to retain workers and attract new ones after the Lunar New Year holiday. Factory workers, mostly rural migrants, usually go home for the traditional holiday. But many take advantage of the break to find better jobs. The labor shortage comes as the economic recovery looks like it will worsen the problem. Also, China's labor force between the age of 15 and 59 shrank by 3.5 million last year. It is the first time the country has recorded an absolute drop in the working-age population in "a considerable period of time," Ma Jiantang, National Bureau of Statistics director, said last month. Companies have raised salaries or offered financial incentives in an attempt to retain workers. "Although the whole industry is still mired in gloom, we still plan to raise the workers' salary by 10 percent this year," said Tian Chengjie, vice president of Silverman Holdings Ltd, a textile company in Zibo of eastern Shandong Province. In a bid to get workers back, some companies chose to pay year-end bonuses after the holiday. Some promised a reward of 1,000 yuan (US$160) for each year of their service. Some companies promised rewards of hundreds of yuan if staff members brought along new workers. Some even offered hundreds of yuan to workers' parents. However, for many employees higher pay is not enough. Increasingly, migrants, especially the younger generation, demand respect and good working conditions. Executives at Orans Co Ltd, in Taizhou in Zhejiang Province, lined up at its factory gates and bowed when staff returned to work on Monday, the first day after the Lantern Festival. The respect the executives showed won praise from netizens. "This should not be seen as a mere show. You can only make fortunes by showing respect to the labor force," wrote a netizen under the name of "Yunjianwei" on Weibo. Many employees have chosen to work near their hometowns in the central and western regions as many companies have relocated there in response to the country's industrial restructuring in coastal areas. Wan Zhong, president of Wanjia Shengshi Human Resources Co Ltd in Jinan, capital of Shandong, said, "The labor shortage could prompt low-cost manufacturers to accelerate industrial restructuring and upgrading as well as offer workers better conditions." |
| Tap water back on after threat from big gas leak Posted: 26 Feb 2013 08:02 AM PST TAP water supplies resumed at 11:30am yesterday in Yongxiu County in east China's Jiangxi Province after a large gasoline leak near its water intake at a river, local authorities said. The Yongxiu County Tap Water Company resumed supplies as water quality at the intake on the Liaohe River met the standards after the pollution, the Yongxiu County government said. Tap water for 60,000 people stopped on Monday after an oily substance was reported floating at the intake. An initial investigation found that people trying to steal gasoline dug holes in a pipeline upstream, causing the leak, said the Jiangxi subsidiary of China Petrochemical Corporation or Sinopec. The pipeline has been shut and the leak sealed, officials said. The substance that leaked from the pipeline was 93-octane gasoline, officials said. The leak lasted for 12 to 18 hours, with 2 tons of gasoline leaking per hour, according to an initial investigation. Local environmental authorities sent straw, oil-absorbing felt and suction strands to Wucheng County to prevent the polluted water from flowing into Poyang Lake, China's largest freshwater lake. Wucheng is located at the intersection of five rivers in the province and is beside Poyang Lake. Neighboring Duchang County had water supplies cut at 11pm on Monday over fears that the drinking water had been polluted. After tests showed no signs of pollution, water supplies resumed in Duchang at 9am yesterday. |
| Ikea stores halt sales in 24 markets Posted: 26 Feb 2013 08:00 AM PST IKEA has expanded to 24 the number of markets where it has halted sales of meatballs over fears that they could contain horsemeat, it said yesterday. Meatballs have now been pulled from stores in Hong Kong, Thailand and the Dominican Republic in addition to the host of European countries announced on Monday, said spokeswoman Ylva Magnusson. She said a German laboratory was currently testing meatballs for traces of horsemeat, with results expected tomorrow. Stores in Sweden, Denmark, France and Romania withdrew meatballs from sale as a precaution. Ikea said there was no horsemeat in the meatballs served in its stores in the United States. |
| Navy takes delivery of new type of stealth ship Posted: 26 Feb 2013 08:00 AM PST China's navy has taken delivery of a new type of stealth frigate that is expected to bolster the country's maritime defenses. The Type 056 stealth frigate was delivered to the navy on Monday afternoon at a ceremony in Shanghai. Navy commander Wu Shengli emphasized the importance of mastering its equipment and capabilities amid ongoing maritime disputes, according to a report in the PLA Daily newspaper yesterday. Last month, state media reported the armed forces had been instructed to raise their fighting ability in 2013 and "focus closely on the objective of being able to fight and win battle." President Hu Jintao said in November at a Party congress that China should become a "maritime power." Yesterday's report did not specify the ship's size, but said it possesses "good stealth performance and electromagnetic compatibility" and needed a third the number of crew members as its predecessor, the Type 053. The report said the new ship symbolized the start of a transformation in China's naval defense strength and more of the ships are in production. The vessels will mainly be used for escort missions and anti-submarine operations, it added. Meanwhile, the People's Liberation Army plans to carry out 40 military exercises this year to hone its combat skills and help troops ready themselves for battle with an emphasis on China's "core security-related interests," Xinhua news agency reported. It said the PLA would strengthen "live-ammunition and confrontation exercises" in 2013. |
| Japan's speculation on Diaoyu buoys rejected Posted: 26 Feb 2013 08:00 AM PST Chinese buoys placed near the Diaoyu Islands are intended to monitor ocean conditions and should not be "played up," a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said yesterday. Japan had speculated that the buoys were intended to detect the movement of submarines. Hua Chunying said they were set there to carry out maritime weather observations. "I think it does not deserve to be disputed or played up," she said. |
| China launches new stealth frigate Posted: 26 Feb 2013 09:15 AM PST China's navy takes delivery of the first of a new kind of stealth frigate, as tension continues with neighbouring countries over maritime borders. |
| Posted: 26 Feb 2013 08:44 AM PST Have You Heard…   |
| Pfizer Seeks Alliances in China Posted: 26 Feb 2013 08:49 AM PST  Source: Wall Street Journal by Kathy Chu HONG KONG—New York-based Pfizer Inc., the world's largest drug company, plans to forge more alliances in China as pharmaceutical companies combat shrinking margins in one of the world's fastest-growing health-care markets. Foreign drug makers are increasingly turning to local partners to expand their access in China, among Asia's most promising pharmaceutical markets. They are also facing a big wave of patent expirations globally. Pfizer already has a joint venture in the world's second-largest economy with Zhejiang Hisun Pharmaceuticals to develop generic drugs, which dominate China's pharmaceutical sales. Pfizer also has a minority investment in Shanghai Pharmaceuticals Holding Co., one of China's largest drug distributors, and its animal health division has a JV with China's Jilin Guoyuan Animal Health Co. for animal vaccines. Meanwhile, Merck & Co.., the world's second-largest drug company, recently formed a joint venture with China's Simcere Pharmaceutical Group to develop and sell drugs. "You can expect to see more momentum going forward," said Jin Wang, a Shanghai-based partner at McKinsey & Co. "Both multinationals and locals are excited by the growth potential in this market, and they are all facing limitations in terms of their portfolio and capabilities, so they're teaming up."  As local companies become fiercer competitors, joining with them is also appealing because of their in-depth knowledge of the China market, according to Mr. Wu. The heightened competition can benefit consumers by improving the overall quality and safety of the drugs offered in China, Ms. Wang says. More than 260 million of the country's citizens suffer from a chronic disease, according to data from China's Ministry of Health. With a rapidly aging population of 1.3 billion consumers, China's health-care spending is expected to triple to $1 trillion by 2020, McKinsey estimates. Even so, China's per-capita spending on medicine remains one of the lowest in the world, making it a top growth target for drug makers who are seeing sales flatten out in the West as patent protection ends on top selling drugs, including Pfizer's Lipitor cholesterol-reduction drug. Yet China remains one of the most challenging emerging markets for foreign drug makers because of pricing pressure and uneven access to health-care providers. The Chinese government has made affordable health care a priority, spending $125 billion over the past three years to extend insurance coverage to 95% of the population while also improving access to hospitals and clinics. It has also ordered price cuts on drugs four times since 2011, crimping domestic and foreign drug makers' profits. The latest round of price cuts took effect this year and will cut the margins for drugs made by multinationals including Pfizer, Swiss drug maker Novartis AG and U.K.-based GlaxoSmithKline by up to 20%. Mr. Wu declined to comment on the impact to Pfizer of the government's price cuts. Price cuts, however, can be dangerous if they affect the quality of the drugs sold in the country, he says. "My sense is that the government realizes there must be a balance" between price and quality, he said. Pfizer doesn't break out its revenue in China, but increasingly, the company has been counting on emerging markets such as China and India for growth. In 2012, nearly $12 billion of Pfizer's $59 billion in revenue came from emerging markets. The U.S. still comprises the biggest chunk of its revenue at $23.1 billion. The same year, Pfizer led foreign and domestic companies in sales of drugs to Chinese hospitals, a $70.9 billion market, according to industry data provider IMS Health. But its growth in emerging markets hasn't always been smooth: Pfizer last year paid $60 million to resolve investigations by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department into bribes two subsidiaries paid to doctors and other health-care professionals in markets including China, Bulgaria, Croatia and Russia. Pfizer has said it voluntarily disclosed the potential violations to the U.S. government, and while the actions were "disappointing," the company said it holds itself to high standards of conduct in its business operations. Foreign drug makers have long focused on sales in China's largest cities, but are increasingly expanding their reach. As the Chinese government works to improve health care in rural areas, Pfizer says it is working on getting more of its drugs into the thousands of county hospitals in the country. The challenge, according to Mr. Wu, is navigating each county's access and reimbursement policies. With China expected to become the world's second-largest market for pharmaceuticals in the world by 2015, "it definitely remains one of the most important markets for Pfizer," says Mr. Wu. "The company has a big commitment to China."   |
| Sinopec’s U.S. Shale Deal Struck at Two-Thirds’ Discount Posted: 26 Feb 2013 08:53 AM PST  Source: Bloomberg News By Joe Carroll & Benjamin Haas China Petrochemical Corp.'s $1.02 billion deal with Chesapeake Energy Corp. (CHK) gives the second- largest Chinese energy producer a stake in a shale oilfield for less than one-third of its estimated value. The deal involves drilling rights across an area twice the size of New York City with wells that Chesapeake said were pumping the equivalent of 34,000 barrels of crude a day in the final three months of 2012. Sinopec will exercise more control over drilling decisions and costs than Chesapeake partners have on similar ventures because the Chinese company isn't handing over a lump sum to cover future drilling costs, said Mark Hanson, an analyst at Morningstar Investment Services in Chicago. "This is the first joint-venture deal Chesapeake has ever done without a drilling carry," Hanson said in a telephone interview yesterday. For Chesapeake, "this looks pretty underwhelming," he said. Chesapeake Rises Chesapeake rose 1.6 percent to $19.42 at 9:59 a.m. in New York trading after yesterday posting a 6.8 percent decline, the largest drop in more than three months. China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. (600028), the listed unit of the Sinopec Group, fell 1.3 percent to HK$8.69 in Hong Kong. The shares are little changed in the past 12 months, compared with a 5.2 percent gain in the benchmark Hang Seng index. Chesapeake, which has lost 22 percent of its market value in the past year, last week announced its biggest annual loss since 2009. Chesapeake agreed to sell more than $12 billion in oilfields and pipelines since the beginning of 2012 to plug a cash-flow deficit aggravated by low prices for natural gas, which accounts for about 80 percent of the company's output. Chesapeake failed to meet its asset-sales target last year and the prices received haven't matched the company's projections. Chinese companies may pursue more U.S. energy investments after Cnooc Ltd. (883), a unit of China's largest offshore oil producer, this month won approval from the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment to buy Nexen Inc. (NXY) for $15.1 billion. Chinese companies are buying stakes in North American exploration projects to gain expertise in penetrating unconventional formations such as shale amid a renaissance in U.S. oil production. In Talks Sinopec Chairman Fu Chengyu said in May his company had held talks with Chesapeake and others about investing in shale assets. Fu was seen sitting in a front-row seat at Chesapeake Energy Arena in Oklahoma City in June 2012 watching the Oklahoma City Thunder take on the Miami Heat in an NBA final, according to The Deal. The Thunder is partly owned by Chesapeake Chief Executive Officer Aubrey McClendon. "While Chesapeake has many quality assets, Chinese oil companies care more about their drilling and shale-fracking technology," Laban Yu, a Hong Kong-based analyst at Jefferies Group Inc. (JEF), said in a telephone interview. "The reason Chinese oil companies have gone after Chesapeake in the past year was also because they wanted to apply the technology to tap the world's No. 1 shale gas reserves in China." Cnooc has invested $1.65 billion with Chesapeake since 2010. Auctioning Fields In the Sinopec deal, the per-acre price lags the $4,425 and $2,750 SandRidge Energy Inc. (SD) received in successive Mississippi Lime deals in 2011, said Michael Kelly, an analyst at Global Hunter Securities LLC in Houston. Neither of the SandRidge sales included producing wells, he said. Chesapeake is selling some of its most-promising Mississippi Lime acreage, Hanson said. Unlike the SandRidge transactions in the same formation in 2011, the land involved in Chesapeake's sale already has been heavily drilled and assessed as "the heart of the Mississippi Lime," he said. "This is the good stuff they're parting with," Hanson said. "But they need money so there's nothing you can do about it." Prior to today's announcement, Chesapeake's total holdings in the Mississippi Lime amounted to about 2 million acres. Asset Sales Chesapeake is aiming to raise $4 billion to $7 billion this year from asset sales, according to a presentation published on the company's website yesterday. "Chesapeake is not getting a very competitive price for its assets in this transaction," James Sullivan, an analyst at Alembic Global Advisors in New York, said in a note to clients. Chesapeake reported on Feb. 21 that Mississippi Lime production tripled during the fourth quarter from a year earlier. Net proved reserves were equivalent to about 140 million barrels of oil as of Dec. 31, the company said today. McClendon agreed last month to leave the company he co- founded in 1989, citing "philosophical differences" with the board that he didn't detail. McClendon's dismissal, which takes effect April 1, wasn't related to an internal inquiry that found no wrongdoing in his use of stakes in company-owned wells to obtain more than $800 million in personal loans, the board said.   |
| Iran said to deploy aging foreign tankers, avoiding sanctions Posted: 26 Feb 2013 08:57 AM PST  Source: Reuters By Jonathan Saul (Reuters) – Iran is using old tankers, saved from the scrapyard by foreign middlemen, to ship out oil to China in ways that avoid Western sanctions, say officials involved with sanctions who showed Reuters corroborating documents. Officials showed Reuters shipping documents to support their allegation that eight ships, each of which can carry close to a day's worth of Iran's pre-sanctions exports, have loaded Iranian oil at sea. Publicly available tracking and other data are consistent with those documents and allegations. "The tankers have been used for Iranian crude," one official said. "They are part of Iran's sanctions-busting strategy." Dimitris Cambis, the Greek businessman who last year bought the ships – eight very large crude carriers, or VLCCs – to carry Middle East crude to Asia, flatly denied doing any business with Tehran or running clandestine shipments of its oil to China. Cambis said he had not been involved in shipping before but had bought the tankers as part of a new venture he runs from the United Arab Emirates. He denied trading with Iran – though he has contacts there from his previous work in the oil industry. He denied his vessels have loaded oil from Iran while at anchor in the Gulf. Known as ship-to-ship transfers, or STS, such movements are hard to track as crews can switch off tracking beacons or not update their recorded positions for periods to conceal that one vessel has come alongside another. Cambis also explained a stop in Iran by one of his tankers – recorded in publicly available tracking data – as having been only for an emergency repair, not to load an oil cargo. "There is no Iranian vessel that has done any STS with us," Cambis told Reuters in Athens in response to the officials' allegations of taking oil from Iranian tankers owned by Tehran shipping group NITC. "We have nothing to do with NITC." The officials involved with sanctions dispute his account and showed documents detailing several ship-to-ship loadings. They said all eight of the tankers were involved in Iran trade. In one instance in early December, according to the shipping documents shown to Reuters by the officials, an NITC tanker named Marigold loaded Iranian crude onto the Leycothea, one of Cambis's eight ships, while both were at anchor off the UAE emirate of Sharjah. Public tracking showed Cambis's tanker made a call about a month later to Zhanjiang oil terminal in China. Loading at sea lets vessels pick up a cargo without visiting the country of origin of the crude. Officials allege the tankers are also used as offshore storage for Iranian oil which can then be transferred onward to other ships, concealing its origins. Officials in Iran, which rejects Western allegations it is seeking nuclear weapons, did not respond to requests for comment. MUDDYING WATERS Experts on sanctions law said that by operating outside the European Union, ship-owners had no clear obligation to observe rules barring EU companies from buying Iranian oil, though banks and insurers with EU or U.S. business ties are giving a wide berth to firms they suspect of dealing with Iran, given U.S. and EU efforts to penalize such firms within their own jurisdiction. "Such ships would be used to delete traces of a trade taking place," a London-based ship broker said. While Iran has its own substantial tanker fleet, capable of carrying over 72 million barrels, the 2 million barrels that each of the eight tankers can move would be a useful addition to its capacity, analysts said – particularly as their foreign ownership and management could help conceal the Iranian origin of the oil, making it easier to obtain insurance, finance and other ship services that are affected by EU and U.S. sanctions. Cambis said that between August and November he bought the eight ships: Leycothea, Glaros, Nereyda, Ocean Nymph, Seagull, Zap, Ocean Performer and Ulysses I. The first five are now managed by his firm, Sambouk Shipping, in Sharjah and he is in the process of transferring management of the remaining three. In other movements indicated by the shipping documents, the Nereyda was also involved in a separate ship-to-ship transfer with NITC's Rainbow in the Gulf in November, while the Glaros took an offshore transfer from the Marigold there in December. The Nereyda was later recorded arriving at a terminal in China in December. The Glaros appears to have remained in the Gulf since that December transfer, according to tracking data. Asked about publicly available ship tracking data showing that the Glaros stopped at Iran's Larak Island oil terminal on October 20 last year, Cambis provided what he said was an affidavit by the ship's master describing an emergency repair carried out by Iranian divers when the tanker was headed to Saudi Arabia. The master, named as I. Bonoutas, could not be reached for comment. Cambis denied loading any oil in Iran. After its stop at Larak, Glaros's next recorded visits, according to ship tracking data, were at Chinese ports between November 24 to December 1. The eight tankers, built up to 20 years ago, can carry about 16 million barrels of oil among them, shipping databases show. Iranian crude exports declined to an average of 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2012, down about 1 million bpd from 2011 levels, data from the International Energy Agency showed. NITC BLACKLISTED The eight tankers were bought last year for a total of about $204 million, ship trading sources said – reflecting prices only 3-4 percent above their worth as raw metal. The purchases have been the object of considerable discussion among ship brokers – not least because they would more typically have been broken up. A ship dealer based in London said, however: "They can carry on trading for as long as people are willing to employ them. "There's really not much that any authorities can do." NITC has been blacklisted by the West and the EU has imposed an outright ban on providing ship insurance that would benefit Iran. The exit from Iran of top providers of ship certification, vital for port access, and the removal of Iranian vessels from international registries have added to operational challenges. While NITC has expanded its fleet in recent months, experts say access to additional foreign tankers would give Tehran more flexibility in maintaining exports. "The key word for the Iranians is resistance as in the Supreme Leader's declaration of a resistance economy," said Scott Lucas, a specialist on Iran at Birmingham University. "This is not an economy which is going to produce growth but it is one which is going to try and avoid a domestic collapse."   |
| Chinese transport "workhorses" extending military’s reach Posted: 26 Feb 2013 09:01 AM PST  Source: Reuters By David Lague (Reuters) – China is expanding its long-neglected fleet of supply ships and heavy-lift aircraft, bolstering its military prowess in support of missions to enforce claims over disputed territory and to defend Chinese interests abroad. Over time, the air and sea support will give the world's second-largest navy greater geographical reach and will enhance the PLA's capacity to assist troops on distant battlefields, potentially including Taiwan if Beijing were to launch a military assault to take control of the self-governing island. China's state-owned shipyards last year launched two 23,000-tonne type 903 replenishment ships, according to reports and photographs published on Chinese military affairs websites and blogs, with further orders in the pipeline. Defense analysts say the state-of-the-art ships are undergoing sea trials and should be commissioned into the Chinese navy later this year. China also confirmed last month that the PLA had conducted the first test flight of its Y-20 heavy lift aircraft from the Yanliang airbase near Xi'an in Shaanxi Province. State-run television showed footage of the four-engine Y-20, the biggest aircraft built in China, taking off and landing. The Y-20, built by AVIC Xi'an Aircraft Industry (Group) Co Ltd, would have a 66-tonne payload, according to official media reports. AMBITIOUS GLOBAL POWER The impending delivery of these support ships and aircraft is further evidence China intends to become a more ambitious global military power in a decisive break with its traditional security priorities of expanding or defending its extensive land borders. "They are beginning to develop their capacity for power projection, there is no question about that," says Li Nan, an expert on the Chinese military and a professor at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. Steep increases in military outlays over three decades have allowed China to build an advanced navy that now ranks second to the United States fleet in terms of raw numbers. The Chinese navy now has about 80 major surface warships including its first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning. It also deploys more than 50 submarines, about 50 landing ships and more than 80 missile attack boats, according to Pentagon estimates of PLA military strength. However, construction of support and replenishment vessels in Chinese shipyards has lagged far behind the output of combatants. China has only five major supply ships to support a fleet that is conducting increasingly intense patrolling and exercises around disputed territory in the South China Sea and East China Sea. These vessels are also called upon to support the Chinese navy on a growing number of deployments far into the Indian and Pacific oceans. By comparison, the U.S. navy has 34 big replenishment ships to support about 140 major surface warships, according to Pentagon figures. The Chinese navy's extended missions include regular deployments of naval task forces to the Gulf of Aden and waters off the horn of Africa as part of United Nations authorized anti-piracy operations. LOGISTICS CAPACITY STRETCHED These operations have stretched the logistics capacity of the China's navy with its three most capable supply ships on almost permanent duty, according to details of the deployments announced by the Chinese military. However, these deployments have provided an opportunity for the ships and crews to practice and refine the ongoing resupply of warships, highly skilled maneuvers that are essential to keeping warships at sea for long periods, naval experts say. China's defense ministry said that the frigate Mianyang, destroyer Harbin and the supply ship Weishanhu sailed on February 16 from Qingdao on the 14th of these anti-piracy deployments. While extra supply ships will extend the range and endurance of Chinese fleets, Beijing's strategic objectives still remain relatively limited outside the nearby seas where it is locked in territorial disputes with some of its neighbors. "They are focusing on securing sea lanes, counter piracy and evacuating Chinese nationals in times of crisis," says Li. China's expanding military transport capability is unlikely to have an immediate impact on its tense standoff with Japan over disputed islands in the East China Sea that are close to logistics bases on the Chinese mainland, naval analysts say. "Support ships will not change the nature of operations in the East China Sea but will have an impact on the ability of the Chinese navy to conduct operations at sea, if the support ships are used to grow its professionalism and seamanship," says Alessio Patalano, a Japanese military expert at King's College in London. LEANER, MOBILE FORCE For China's top brass, the first test flight of the Y-20 was an important milestone as the PLA continues its transformation from a predominantly mass, ground army to a leaner, more mobile force. "These aircraft are vital if you need to move a lot of people and a lot of equipment some place very, very fast," says Reuben Johnson, a Kiev-based military analyst and correspondent for Jane's Information Group, who has studied the Y-20 program. Reports in the official Chinese media said the Y-20 could land and take off from restricted airstrips and had the capacity to carry most PLA combat and support vehicles. Chinese military planners have drawn lessons from the importance of heavy-lift aircraft in recent U.S. and other Western military operations where the capacity to shift troops and supplies to distant battlefields or trouble spots has delivered an overwhelming advantage, military analysts say. The U.S. military has a fleet of more than 300 heavy lift Galaxy and Globemaster aircraft in service along with more than 400 smaller-capacity transport aircraft. Many of these aircraft can operate from short, uneven landing strips in remote and rugged terrain. The PLA's air-lift capacity is much smaller. It currently operates about 20 Russian-built Il-76 transport aircraft. The Il-76 has a 50-tonne payload compared with the Globemaster's 77 tonnes and 118 tonnes for the Galaxy. Additional Il-76 aircraft are reportedly on order from Russia but production bottlenecks are holding up deliveries, according to Russian military experts. If China can introduce a sizeable fleet of Y-20 aircraft over the next decade, it will sharply enhance the PLA's capacity to land troops and equipment on distant battlefields. Military experts say this capability would be particularly important in an invasion of Taiwan should Beijing decide to use force to establish control there. Some analysts predict the Chinese military will order hundreds of Y-20s benefiting the group's listed unit, AVIC Aircraft Co Ltd, in coming decades if the aircraft can deliver acceptable performance. They expect the PLA will also use the Y-20 as the basic airframe for its proposed fleet of in-flight refueling tankers and airborne early warning aircraft.   |
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