China signs 16 agreements with Sri Lanka

Updated: 2012-09-18 08:05

By Zhu Zhe in Colombo, Sri Lanka ( China Daily)

'Asia's miracle' embraces investment and friendship from Beijing
China signed 16 agreements with Sri Lanka on Monday, ranging from visa exemption and marine development to economic and technology cooperation, and promised to expand investment and increase imports from the South Asian country.
Experts said the expanded cooperation demonstrates deepened political trust, and will help make Sri Lanka "Asia's miracle" in terms of economic growth.
The two countries have agreed that holders of diplomatic and service passports of the other country will be exempt from visa requirements. Cooperation on marine development and management, and economic and technological cooperation, will be boosted.
Other agreements include favorable loans offered by Chinese banks to some major infrastructure projects in Sri Lanka and cooperation on telecommunication and railway system renovation. No details of these agreements have been revealed.
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse and visitor Wu Bangguo, China's top legislator, witnessed the signing ceremony of the agreements.
Wu arrived in Colombo on Saturday to start the first ever visit by the chairman of China's National People's Congress Standing Committee.
Wu is also the highest-ranking Chinese official to visit Sri Lanka since the island nation ended longtime civil war with the separatist Tamil Tiger guerrillas three years ago.
During a meeting with Rajapakse on Monday, Wu said China will continue to adopt various measures to increase imports from Sri Lanka and will encourage more Chinese enterprises to invest in the country.
He proposed the two countries maintain and expand cooperation in infrastructure construction and will expand collaboration in new sectors such as marine scientific research, climate change, disaster prevention and relief, animal husbandry, agriculture product processing, bio-energy and tourism.
Commenting on concerns that China is attempting to increase its influence over South Asia by expanding cooperation with Sri Lanka, Sun Shihai, president of the Chinese Association for South Asian Studies, said Chinese assistance to Sri Lanka does not negatively affect a third party.
He said that with the development of globalization, China and South Asian countries will engage in more communication and cooperation, which will have global benefits.
Rajapakse said Sri Lanka is now devoted to becoming "Asia's miracle" and there is a great need for infrastructure construction and the training of professionals. He said the country welcomes Chinese investment and would like to offer favorable policies for big infrastructure projects such as the railway, ports and power generation stations.
Since the Sri Lankan military defeated the Tamil Tiger rebels three years ago, the country has undergone rapid development. It recorded a strong GDP growth of 8 percent in 2010 and 8.3 percent in 2011, according to official figures.
The Sino-Sri Lankan bilateral trade volume reached $3.14 billion in 2011 - up 49.8 percent year-on-year, according to China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
China also remains involved in almost all the large-scale projects under construction in Sri Lanka. Some of the biggest projects financed by China include a $1.3 billion coal power plant on the northwestern shore and a host of other investments in the south including a $1.2 billion port and a $209 million airport, according to figures from the Chinese government.
China has also pledged $760 million to improve the country's road network and is heavily involved in highway construction.
Hu Shisheng, an expert on South Asian studies with the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said Sino-Sri Lankan cooperation has a broad spectrum, and the visa exemption policy shows the deepened political trust between the two countries.
After the civil war, Sri Lanka urgently needs to rebuild its infrastructure, which offers great opportunities for China, while China also seeks to increase overseas investment, so both countries have a strong will to cooperate, Hu said.
Sirimal Abeyratne, head of the economics department in the University of Colombo, said he is upbeat about the benefits of Wu's visit not just on political grounds but also on economic cooperation.
Abeyratne said the Sri Lankan government should work toward the expansion of trade between the two countries and not simply depend on loans in order to make the economic growth of the country sustainable. He noted that Sri Lanka's exports to China correspond to 1 percent of the island's total trade.
"Trade between the two countries is still at an early stage but is very important given the size and depth of China's market. Relations need to expand beyond investment and loans. Then it would be enormously beneficial for Sri Lanka," he told Xinhua News Agency.
Zhou Wa in Beijing contributed to this story.

Contact the writer at zhuzhe@chinadaily.com.cn

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2012-09/18/content_15764212.htm

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Huge flood peak passes Three Gorges Dam

September 4, 2012

A flood peak whose scale was not seen in the same period in two decades smoothly passed the Three Gorges Dam on Monday evening.

The Three Gorges Dam [file photo]

Water flow reached 51,500 cubic meters per second at about 8 p.m. after heavy downpours hit the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, where the dam is located, said Xiao Ge, an official at the dam's communication center.

The flood peak, the highest in the same period since 1992 but lower than the biggest flood peak in nine years that had passed the dam in July, raised the water level in the dam to 155 meters on Monday.

The water level is expected to be pushed further to 160 meters in three days, Xiao said.

So far, the flood has not affected the navigation passing the dam's ship dock, the dam's operators said.

The world's largest water hydropower project, the Three Gorges Project consists of a dam, a five-tier ship dock and a total of 32 hydropower turbo-generators.

The project generates electricity, controls flooding by providing storage space and adjusts shipping capacity on the river. Built to tame annual Yangtze floods and generate power, the dam is capable of holding 22 billion cubic meters of water.

http://www.china.org.cn/environment/2012-09/04/content_26419531.htm

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Typhoon Bolaven kills 48 in DPRK

Typhoon Bolaven kills 48 in DPRK

September 3, 2012

Typhoon Bolaven caused severe damage to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), leaving 48 people dead and 21,180 homeless, the official news agency KCNA reported on Monday.

As of Sunday, it was confirmed that Typhoon Bolaven, which swept the country last Tuesday and Wednesday with strong wind and heavy rain, has destroyed 6,700 houses across the country, the KCNA said.

The typhoon damaged at least 50,000 hectares of crops and 45,320 hectares of rice paddies. More than 16,730 trees fell down, 880 industrial and public buildings were ruined, and tens of educational and medical service buildings were destroyed, according to the KCNA.

Bolaven, the strongest storm to hit the Korean Peninsula in almost a decade, left 25 people dead or missing and 222 homeless in South Korea, according to the state disaster authority. 

http://www.china.org.cn/environment/2012-09/03/content_26421493.htm

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Post flood Pattaya braces for drought

Post flood Pattaya braces for drought

• Published: 3/09/2012 at 03:31 PM
• Online news: Regional
• Affiliated by

Whilst most media stories have been about flooding, and whether the disaster of 2011 will be repeated, water experts in Pattaya and Rayong are warning about inadequate supplies in 2013. They say that preventive measures now are essential if the Eastern Seaboard is to avoid a crisis in time for next year’s high season.

Jaroeon Worapansopak, executive vice president of East Water plc, said, “If there is no rainfall for 10 consecutive months next year we will definitely face a drought.”  There were serious droughts in the Pattaya and Rayong areas in 2005 and again in 2007 when the water authority was sometimes forced to disconnect supplies even to facilities in the middle of the city.

The problem now is that increasing amounts of water are needed by the industrial plants in Map Ta Phut and Rayong which have undergone tremendous growth, much of it controversial, in the last five years.  The industrial water demand has climbed by almost 30 percent since 2005 and is expected to continue growing more.  Meanwhile the water levels at Klong Yai, Dok Krai and Nong Palai reservoirs are at only 49.9 percent of capacity.

Nationwide, 40 per cent of stored water is used by the agricultural  sector, 38 per cent by the industrial sector, leaving only 12 perc ent for residential consumption and 10 per cent for sustaining the environment.  So far this year, rainfall has been only average, although the supply has increased owing to the installation of pumps at some reservoirs.  Additionally, Pattaya as a tourist resort now hosts a much larger number of visitors than previously which places further burdens on water supplies.

Various measures to prevent shortages already under way include cloud seeding, pumping from one area to another, reusing water, seeking new water resources, digging more trenches in existing reservoirs and desalination.  But an official at the Pattaya water office told Pattaya Today, “It all comes down to rainfall.  Other measures are not all that significant in this area.  We need torrential downpours every day now right through to the end of the rainy season.”

Water shortages in Pattaya itself, which have not been a problem in recent years, are dreaded by the tourist industry for obvious reasons.  The Federation of Thai Industries estimates that a recurrence of the 2005 drought would result in losses of 300 billion baht for the industrial, agricultural and tourism sectors.  It estimates that demand for water in Thailand now is rising at eight per cent annually.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/regional/310619/after-flood-pattaya-braces-for-drought

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BURMA

Human Rights Abuses Rife in Karen State: Report

By CHARLIE CAMPBELL / THE IRRAWADDY| August 28, 2012 |

 

 

  

A group of Karen refugees by the Thai-Burmese border town of Mae Sot. (Photo: Reuters)

Almost one-third of families in Karen State surveyed for a new report experienced human rights violations despite government promises that Burma is moving towards reform.
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) released Bitter Wounds and Lost Dreams: Human Rights Under Assault in Karen State, Burma on Tuesday which details accounts of evictions, labor, physical abuse, torture and rape committed by government troops last year.
The PHR survey also indicated that people who lived near a mine, pipeline, hydroelectric dam or other economic development project promoted by the Burmese government were significantly more likely to have experienced a human rights violation.
“Despite many positive changes underway in Rangoon, the international community must not forget about ethnic minority groups in Burma’s rural and border areas,” said PHR Burma Project Director Bill Davis.
“This survey demonstrates that even with political reforms and discussions of a ceasefire, human rights violations by the Burmese army remain a constant threat for too many families in Karen State.”
PHR says the report provides a snapshot of ongoing abuses against Karen people and communities in the country’s mountainous eastern region bordering Thailand, where the army has been battling insurgent groups for decades.
Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia division, praised PHR for finally showing strong survey data of the continued abuses.
“It shows that the Burma Army has not changed the way it operates in ethnic minority areas,” he told The Irrawaddy on Tuesday. “It is essentially a predatory ‘live-off-the-land’ army that is committing major human rights abuses whether it is fighting the KNU [Karen National Union] or there is a ceasefire in effect.
“And the projects which are being brought into these areas under the protection of the army are also contributing to these abuses.”
Such reports have come to no surprise to activists with various sources citing similar more recent incidents despite the signing of a ceasefire between the government and ethnic rebel KNU on Jan. 12.
The Free Burma Rangers reported that government soldiers from Light Infantry Division 66 fired at civilians at a road crossing at Wa Baw Day, Toungoo District, Karen State, on June 23.
“Of the four villagers, two villagers were from Hee Daw Kaw Village and two were from Thay Ko Der Village,” said the report. “They were carrying rice from Kler La when they were shot at by the Burma Army, but lost all of their rice while escaping.”
Civilians living near government projects were almost eight times more likely to have been forced to work for the army and over six times more likely to be have been uprooted or had restrictions placed on their travel, according to the PHR survey.
“Displaced villagers not familiar with or not aware of the changing security situation, particularly regarding new development projects which may be protected by heightened security measures, are exposed to increased physical security risks,” said a separate corroborating report by the Karen Human Rights Group.
“Prior to the ceasefire … the Tatmadaw [Burmese armed forces] operated a shoot-on-sight policy in certain areas of Karen State that have been deemed off-limits by government troops. Villagers were detained or shot if inside or attempting to access land that was previously used for livelihoods activities but which had been declared off limits by local security forces.
“As of the first week of March, the Tatmadaw had not yet been abandoned this policy and Tatmadaw troops on patrol in Papun District fired on four villagers, two of whom were serving as home guards at the time, killing one and injuring two of them.”
PHR’s research team trained 22 surveyors from five local partner organizations to survey 665 households in 88 villages in Karen State in January 2012. The survey, conducted in two local languages, consisted of 93 questions covering human rights abuses, health indicators, food availability, and access to health care between January 2011 and January 2012.
“The correlation between development projects and human rights violations should send a sobering message to those in the US government that an influx of investment without strict accountability for abusers will worsen the human rights situation in Burma,” said PHR Washington Director and Chief Policy Officer Hans Hogrefe.

http://www.irrawaddy.org/archives/12704

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Thai Company Talk about Dawei 27Auguest 2012

By - Kwekalu

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