Shanghai government responsible for deadly stampede: China tourism body

China's National Tourism Administrator said Shanghai authorities had failed to take precautions to prevent the deadly stampede that killed more than three dozen people on New Year's Eve.

SHANGHAI: China's National Tourism Administrator says the Shanghai government is responsible for the deadly stampede that killed more than three dozen people on New Year's Eve.

In a document published on its website, the agency said the city's authorities had failed in taking precautions to prevent the incident from happening.

The comments come nearly a week after the tragedy took place and authorities have so far provided little explanation for what happened at Shanghai's iconic riverfront.

Authorities said they understood from family members that they had wanted to go to the stampede site to mourn the dead.

Hence, additional barricades were put up and the entire area cordoned off to maintain order and prevent overcrowding - the very same measures that should have been in place that fateful night to prevent the tragedy from happening.

Earlier, emotions ran high as anguished parents went to the incident site to grieve their children on the traditional Chinese seventh day of mourning. Most of the dead were students in their twenties.

"In terms of public safety, Shanghai is known to be better than other cities. It's really unexpected that something like this has happened," said a member of the public.

China's National Tourism Administration said the Shanghai government is responsible for the public's safety even though no event was planned for that night.

Earlier on, officials had said they did not bring in extra reinforcements that night because there was no countdown celebration on the riverfront.

Quoting the law in a document published online, the tourism administration said that when incidents of such nature occur, the government is obliged to be prepared, vigilant and responsive.

Authorities in Shanghai have yet to respond and have also not provided further details on their investigation into the incident.

Meantime, there was controlled grieving on-site as police blocked off public access to where the mishap allegedly took place. Mourners, who are next-of-kin of the victims, are heavily escorted away from the public's eye.

When asked, officials said it is unclear how long the cordons will stay, providing little comfort to families who lost their loved ones on New Year's Eve.

Source: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/

Slow progress in AirAsia crash search

Recovery teams made patchy progress on Tuesday (Jan 6) in the search for bodies from the wreckage of AirAsia Flight 8501, finding the remains of just two more victims on the tenth day of operations.

Indonesia has ordered the suspension of aviation officials involved in the departure of the flight. It says the flight operated by AirAsia Indonesia was flying on an unauthorised schedule when it crashed.

The airline, a unit of Malaysia-based AirAsia, has been suspended from flying the Surabaya-Singapore route -- although Singapore officials said they had given permission for the flight at their end. Indonesia's transport ministry also promised action against any domestic airlines violating their flying permits in the country, which has a patchy aviation safety record.

The Indonesian meteorological agency BMKG has said weather was the "triggering factor" of the crash, with ice likely damaging the plane's engines. The initial report by BMKG into the likely cause referred to infra-red satellite pictures that showed the plane was passing through clouds with temperatures of minus 80 to minus 85 degrees Celsius.

But it remained unclear why other planes on similar routes were unaffected by the weather, and other analysts said there was not enough information to explain the disaster until the flight recorders were recovered.

In Surabaya, which was home to a number of the victims, a crisis centre has been up for identifying bodies and wakes have been held as they are returned to relatives.

Eric Edi Santo lost his aunt and five other family members, but so far only two of their bodies have been found. He was holding out hope for the others. "They died so tragically, at least I want them to have a proper burial," he said.

Source: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/

Thousands in NYC see off slain police officer

Widow Pei Xia Chen holds a photo of slain New York Police Department officer Wenjian Liu as his casket departs his funeral in the Brooklyn borough of New York January 4, 2015.

NEW YORK - Tens of thousands of law enforcement officers from across the country gathered on Sunday for the funeral of the second of two New York City policemen killed last month in an ambush that galvanized critics of Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Family members, politicians, police brass and other mourners filed solemnly into a Brooklyn funeral home on a gray morning to honor Wenjian Liu, believed to be the New York Police Department's first Chinese-American officer killed in the line of duty.

A sea of blue uniformed police officers stood in silence outside. Police Commissioner Bill Bratton, who shook hands with many of the rank and file before entering the building, had urged them to do nothing during the services to steal from the "valor, honor and attention" that rightfully belonged to the slain officer.

At last week's funeral for Liu's partner, Rafael Ramos, some of the uniformed police officers assembled outside the church showed their disdain for Mayor de Blasio by turning their backs when he began his eulogy.

"A hero's funeral is about grieving, not grievance," Bratton wrote in a memo to officers.

The murder of Liu, 32, and Ramos, 40, triggered a backlash in support of law enforcement, following nationwide demonstrations last year over the use of force by police against blacks and other minorities.

The deaths of unarmed black men in Ferguson, Missouri, and New York City, in encounters with white officers rekindled a national debate over racial relations and law enforcement.

The tenor of that debate shifted when Liu and Ramos were shot as they sat in their squad car in Brooklyn by a killer who said he wanted to avenge the deaths of the two unarmed black men.

In New York, the murders frayed already strained relations between the police force and de Blasio. The head of the largest police union said the mayor contributed to the political climate that led to the killing of Liu and Ramos.

Source: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/

China offers loans to Latin America, Caribbean

All members of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States can apply for commercial loans from China, which were initially proposed by President Xi Jinping on a visit to Brazil last year, a senior diplomat said on Monday.

The remarks by Zhu Qingqiao, Director-General of the Department of Latin American and Caribbean Affairs under the Foreign Ministry, suggested CELAC members without diplomatic ties with China can also have access to the loans.

Around a dozen CELAC members, including Paraguay and Haiti, have no formal diplomatic relationships with Beijing.

China and the CELAC will map out an overall plan guiding China-CELAC cooperation, including in the financial sector, during the first China-CELAC ministerial forum, which is set to be held in Beijing on Thursday and Friday, Zhu said at a press conference in Beijing.

More than 40 ministerial-level delegates, including 20 foreign ministers from the CELAC countries, have confirmed their attendance at the meeting, Zhu said.

The forum was established in July, 2014 after a meeting between Xi and leaders from China, Latin America and the Caribbean in Brasilia. It was the first collective meeting of China's president and leaders of Latin American and Caribbean countries.

In Brasilia, Xi proposed the creation of a $20 billion fund to finance infrastructure projects in Latin American and the Caribbean, and offered to extend a credit line of up to $10 billion to nations of CELAC via the Bank of China.

Su Zhenxing, a senior research fellow on Latin American studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said countries without diplomatic relationships with Beijing are not excluded as they have maintained trade links with China for a long period, albeit small in size, and China is fostering cooperation with the whole CELAC.

CELAC, established in December 2011, is the largest regional political cooperation in the Western Hemisphere and consist of 33 countries except the United States and Canada.

The forum in Beijing showed the group’s willingness to strengthen cooperation with China, especially in the economic sector, said Su.

The meeting is expected to formulate operational rules for the forum and provide guidance in cooperation areas, he added.

China is the second largest trading partner and third largest investment source for Latin America. Trade between Latin America, the Caribbean and China has seen a significant increase in recent years, reaching $261.6 billion in 2013.

Xi is scheduled to attend the forum’s opening ceremony on Thursday morning, along with Costa Rica President Luis Guillermo Solis, Ecuador President Rafael Correa Delgado, Bahamas Prime Minister Perry Christie and Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro Moros.

Source: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/

Controversy erupts after college blames victims

A screenshot of the website of Modern College of Northwest University shows a notice that says the Shanghai tragedy proves its holiday policies are "absolutely correct".

BEIJING - A college in Northwest China has been lambasted for issuing a controversial statement about the fatal New Year's Eve stampede in Shanghai, which left 36 people dead.

The Modern College of Northwest University in Xi'an City, capital of Shaanxi province, said on Friday that the tragedy proved that its holiday policies were "utterly correct".

In late December, the college reportedly banned its students from celebrating Christmas and instead on Christmas Eve made them watch traditional cultural films, which invited a storm of criticism.

Its official microblog account said that Chinese traditional festivals and culture were fading away as more people embraced Western traditions.

In an editorial titled "Shanghai stampede tragedy proves our holiday management utterly correct", posted on its website, the college said that if such a stampede occurred on Christmas Eve in Xi'an, the value of the college's holiday management would be "more self-evident".

It continued to bash public holidays by saying that the youth had become "overly infatuated" with Western holidays after decades of westernization in China, and that the stampede was a result of loose in college and university management.

The post has become a hot topic on the Internet, with some angry netizens calling the college "shameless" for justifying its value through the tragedy.

"It looks to me that the college is taking pleasure in others' misfortune," read one comment.

"In their logic, 2014 saw many plane crashes and I never took a flight, so that proves me 'utterly correct'?" said another netizen.

Others are more tolerant, saying that even though the wording might be a little rough, in essence the article made sense.

The college, perhaps in reaction to the media frenzy over its post, changed the title to "Deeply grieving the loss of our compatriots in the Shanghai stampede tragedy", but the content of the post remains unchanged.

Tan Kejian, a research fellow with the School of Sociology under the Shanxi Academy of Social Sciences, said the college's attitude toward holiday celebrations was negative and should not be adopted.

"You should not stop eating because of having hiccups," Tan said, quoting an old Chinese saying.

Instead of banning celebrations, authorities should ramp up preventive measures to avoid similar disasters, he added.

Tens of thousands of people assembled in Shanghai's historic riverfront walk, in the Pudong financial area, on Wednesday night to ring in the New Year. Most of those that lost their lives were young people.

Source: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/

Ferguson: mass arrests at protest in California despite relative calm in Missouri

In Los Angeles and Oakland, demonstrators took to the streets for a third night to show solidarity with the family of Michael Brown.

A relative calm fell on Ferguson, Missouri, on Wednesday following two nights of violent protests after a grand jury declined to bring charges against a white police officer in the shooting death of unarmed, black teen Michael Brown, but in California tensions remained high as nearly 200 protesters were arrested.

In Los Angeles and Oakland, demonstrators took to the streets for a third night since the grand jury decision in a show of solidarity with the family of the dead Missouri teen. Protesters blocked roads and even clashed with police, the LA Times reported.

During the demonstrations in Los Angeles on Wednesday, nearly 150 people were arrested in connection to the Ferguson shooting protest for failure to disperse, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) commander Andrew Smith told the Los Angeles Times on Thursday. This is up from 130 arrests reported earlier.

“When they will no longer comply with our requests and when it becomes dangerous, when they start running in and out of cars and put the public at risk, then we have to take action,” LAPD Chief Charlie Beck said, according to the LA Times. Police arrested about 145 people; they face misdemeanor charges and $500 bail, Beck told the paper.

The arrests were precipitated by several hours of marching through LA in the afternoon and early evening. A crowd of between 200 and 300 people marched for hours through the city streets, blocking traffic as they crossed intersections and occasionally pounding on cars. They were stopped by a phalanx of police in riot gear near the Central Library in downtown LA. Officers corralled a group of demonstrators who refused to disperse and made a mass arrest.

In northern California, demonstrations in Oakland devolved into unrest and vandalism for a third night.

Oakland police spokeswoman Johnna Watson said 33 demonstrators were arrested after a march by about 100 people through the city streets, blocking traffic. She said that later, small groups began moving through the streets, with some smashed windows and vandalized property.

By midnight, most of the protesters had dispersed save for a very small group that police were monitoring, Watson said.

Since the grand jury decision on Monday, the LAPD and California Highway Patrol have made more than 330 arrests over the past three nights of protests. Demonstrations held in other California cities on Wednesday remained peaceful.

In Chicago, three demonstrators were arrested during a protest organized by a group called the Revolutionary Communist Party, the Chicago Tribune reported. During the protest, demonstrators chanted and carried signs that read, Justice for Mike Brown. They also called for the a boycott of Black Friday, and asked the public to instead, recognize the day as “Black lives Matter” Friday.

In Ferguson, just two arrests were made on Wednesday evening, down from 44 the night before and 80 arrests in the immediate aftermath of the grand jury decision was announced, a spokesman for St Louis County police said. A small group of protesters gathered outside the Ferguson Police Department, as snow fell on the city.

Solidarity protests continued for a third night in other cities, including Atlanta, Denver and San Diego, though they remained largely calm and peaceful.

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/