Norwegian Embassy mourns victims
July 29, 2011 Filed under Commerce & consulates
Norwegian embassy in Beijing flew their national flag at half-mast to mourn the attack. Photos provided by The Mirror
By Chu Meng
The Royal Norwegian Embassy in Beijing, the Norwegian Consulates in Shanghai and Guangzhou, and the Norwegian Honorary Consulate in Hong Kong flew their national flag at half-mast to after the shocking attacks that killed 76 people last Friday in Oslo and Utoya Island.
A three-day half-mast condolence began in Norway’s embassy at No. 1 East Street in Sanlitun in Beijing at 4 pm last Saturday.
Yang Lei, press officer at the Norwegian Embassy in Beijing, said they had called off all routine visits or cultural events in Beijing. The attacks are the worst in the country since World War II.
76 people dead from the shocking attack.
“The ambassador is paying close attention to the progress of events back in Norway in order to share core information with Norwegians in China. We are also fully prepared to facilitate Norwegians here who want to go back home at present. But we have also notified them that it currently might not be a good time to do so,” Yang said.
Until yesterday, bunches of flowers, candles and cards could be seen in front of the gate of the embassy.
“Each day, many Norwegian students from international schools, employees and tourists in Beijing and from surrounding cities like Tianjin come here to show their condolences to the death. Some of them present flowers in tears, light candles and sing the national anthem,” he said.
Ambassador Svein Ole Saether expressed his thoughts in a letter to media shortly after the events: “Our priority is to help save lives and to care for the wounded and those who have lost their loved ones. Our thoughts and sympathy go out to the families of the victims.”
Flowers are laid and tears are shed for the deceased.
Sven Karlsen, a Norwegian who has worked in Beijing for two years, said, “It is extremely inhuman. And they were still university students and children.”
According to the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao sent a letter of condolence on July 23 to Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg regarding the attack. Wen condemned the attacks, expressed condolences to the victims and extended sympathy to the bereaved families.
Reuters cited Norway’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jonas Gahr Store, as saying on Tuesday: “Let me be clear: this is a deliberate attack on the Norwegian government and the new generation of Norwegian politicians. We will not be intimidated or threatened by these attacks. The aim of such attacks is to spread fear and panic. We will not let that happen,” said Store.
Back in Norway, the government and the police have launched a full scale criminal investigation in order to bring the perpetrators to justice.
China, the Philippines mourn hostage crisis victims
August 31, 2010 Filed under Commerce & consulates
Buddhist monks pray after a hostage stand-off that resulted in the death of nine hostages and the gunman on August 24 in Manila. CFP Photo
Leaders of China and the Philippines have expressed deep sorrow over the hostage crisis that ended in the deaths of nine tourists from Hong Kong.
A working team sent by the Chinese government is now in Manila to deal with the aftermath.
Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao expressed their condolences on Tuesday to the families of the Hong Kong tourists killed during Monday’s hostage crisis in the Philippines.
In a joint letter to Donald Tsang Yam-kuen, chief executive of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), Hu and Wen expressed their deep sorrow for the families of those killed and consolation for the injured.
“We are in grave shock and grief on hearing that eight Hong Kong compatriots fell and many others were injured in the Manila hostage incident,” the letter said. One of the injured later died in the hospital.
“We hereby express our grave condolences and our deep sympathy to the families of the Hong Kong compatriots, and we hope the injured will recover soon,” the letter said.
Philippine President Benigno Aquino III has declared August 25 a day of national mourning for the victims of the hostage crisis.
Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, during a telephone conversation with his Philippine counterpart Alberto Romulo, said the Chinese government was shocked about the incident, deplored the slaying of the Hong Kong tourists and strongly condemned brutality against innocent tourists.
The Chinese government demanded the Philippine government launch a thorough investigation into the incident and inform the Chinese side of related details as soon as possible, he said.
(Xinhua)
775 Srebrenica victims buried to mark 15th anniversary
A mourner by the coffins of 775 newly identified victims of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre Photo: REUTERS
(Telegraph)-More than 750 newly identified victims killed during the Srebrenica massacre have been buried to mark the 15th anniversary of the atrocity.
The 775 coffins were laid to rest at the Potocari cemetery, outside Srebrenica.
An army led by Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladic seized Srebrenica on July 11, 1995, and went on a week-long killing spree as UN troops protecting the town stepped aside.
Around 8,000 Muslims were killed in what is now seen as Europe’s worst atrocity since World War Two. Those who tried to escape were hunted down and killed. Mladic remains at large.
After the massacre, Serbs dumped the victims’ bodies into mass graves. They were later dug out with bulldozers and moved to smaller graves in an attempt to cover up the crime.
More than 3,700 victims have been buried in the special memorial graveyard after being unearthed from hundreds of mass graves and identified.
Authorities are still finding human remains in unmarked graves, such as the one located in June in the nearby Zalazje village, where forensic experts have so far found the remains of six victims.
The UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague has indicted Mladic and his political chief Radovan Karadzic for genocide in Srebrenica. Karadzic is on trial but denies all counts of the indictment, including Srebrenica.
Mladic is believed to be hiding in Serbia. Failure to arrest him has hindered Serbia’s progress towards EU membership.
‘They were wiped out. It’s our Katyn trauma all over again’
The daughter of the late Polish president and his twin brother look on as his coffin arrives at a military airport in Warsaw. Photograph: Alik Keplicz/AP
(Guardian)-Waclaw Oszajca was struggling to come to terms with the full scale of his country’s worst postwar tragedy. But as he clicked through portraits of the 96 victims of the Smolensk air crash on a news website a very personal story unfolded.
The voice of the 53-year old Jesuit priest and one of Poland’s most respected theologians fell to a whisper as he pointed out the faces of friends, including a priest, a military chaplain, government aides and a historian.
“These were some of our best,” said Oszajca, who yesterday took a train from his home in Lublin to Warsaw, to pay tribute to them on national radio. “They were wiped out in seconds. Young, old, women, men, leftwing, rightwing. It’s our Katyn trauma all over again,” he said.
The 1940 Soviet massacre of Poland’s officer corps in the forests of Katyn remains one of the most harrowing events in 20th-century Polish history. In the bitterest of ironies the ill-fated delegation had been travelling to Katyn to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the massacre when its plane crashed in Smolensk, close to where the atrocities took place.
Yesterday’s newspapers were already calling the tragedy the “second Katyn”. Special editions were dominated by pictures of the late president, Lech Kaczynski, and his economist wife Maria.
In life, Kaczynski had often – like his surviving identical twin Jaroslaw – been a divisive figure.
95 dead after Brazil floods cause heaviest rain in Rio de Janeiro in decades
A fallen tree blocks the street at the Laranjeiras neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro
(Telegraph)-Mudslides swept away shacks in Rio’s hillside slums, turning the city’s main lake and the sea brown during the round-the-clock heavy rains.
Morning flights in and out of the city of six million people – which will host the 2014 soccer World Cup and the 2016 Olympics – were canceled or seriously delayed and many neighborhoods were cut off from power and transport.
Most victims died in more than 180 mudslides, authorities said. A spokesman for Rio’s fire service said at least 40 injured people were taken to hospitals as the search went on for others reported missing.
“The situation is critical. Roads are flooded and blocked,” Mayor Eduardo Paes said. “We recommend people stay at home.”
Paes told reporters at least 26 people had died in the Rio metropolitan area. The fire service said a total of 89 people were killed across the state.
The mayor said 10,000 houses remained at risk, mostly in the slums where about a fifth of Rio’s people live, often in precarious shacks that are highly vulnerable to heavy rains.
The downpour, which began late on Monday, is the worst Rio has recorded in 30 years.
The southern hemisphere summer has been particularly hot and rainy in Rio this year.
In January, at least 76 people died in flooding and mudslides in Brazil’s most-populous states of Rio, Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais. Then, dozens of people were killed in a landslide at a beach resort between Rio and the port city of Santos.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva canceled an event on Tuesday where he was due to inaugurate public works projects.
“No one could cope with the rain that we are seeing, which is the worst in Rio’s history,” he said.
Law to compensate victims of official brutality
November 3, 2009 Filed under News
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By Zhao Hongyi
The government is preparing to regulate its compensation practices after the People’s Congress, the country’s legislative body, passed the Law the People’s Republic of China on State Compensation October 27 in Beijing.
The newly approved law requires the government to award monetary compensation for injuries and deaths caused by public servants.
An inmate subject was “abused to death” earlier this year in Yunnan Province. The local police said he died while playing hide-and-seek (duo mao mao) with the other inmates: the absurdity of the claim sparked the fury of many netizens.
An investigation proved the man had been abused. His attackers were sentenced and imprisoned, local police and their co-conspirators were criticized and the man’s family was compensated.
The new law further defines state compensation. Concerning the use of force on inmates, the new law shows relatively little tolerance. It states that jailed suspects and prisoners have the right to seek government compensation for wrongful injury and death.
Abuse is still a reality in some of the country’s prison systems, either at the hands of police or other detainees.
Detained suspects who are found to be not guilty are also required to be compensated.
It also allows convicted prisoners the ability to subtract their days in jail from the ultimate duration of their sentence. Those who would serve less than one year in prison after the subtraction will be allowed to carry out their sentence in detention rather than be transferred to prison.
The new law also rolls medical care and recovery costs into the compensation package. Victims have the rights to claim for these costs and wages, which are set to the national average, but may not exceed five times the previous year’s income.
Government compensation offices must submit the application within seven days, and the financial authorities must disburse the money within 15 days. Victims would be compensated within 22 days if entitled.
The new law also includes compensation for mental anguish, but the amount of compensation must be awarded by a judge on a case-by-case basis.
“Thenew law shows the government is serious about respecting human rights,” Professor Ma Huaide, from the China University of Political Science and Law, said. “It requires policy executors to pay more attention to their acons, especially the police.”
“This time, the law changed the former state compensation from emphasizing illegal practices used by public servants to how the victims of those actions should be compensated,” he said.
