Tag: China

13 Factory Workers Diagnosed with Cancer Assembling Apple’s New iPhone 6 in China

A factory in Shenzhen, China, that assembles iPhones and other Apple products, has reportedly witnessed 13 workers aged between 19 and 24 diagnosed with cancer. Five have died from the disease.

An investigation by the Mail on Sunday found that the factory workers had contracted leukaemia, potentially as a result of exposure to dangerous cleaning chemicals used in the plant.

Apple has previously been accused of dangerous working conditions in its Chinese supply factories, with advocates from China Labour Watch (CLW) all previously campaigning for improved welfare.

Earlier this month, an investigation by CLW and Green America found that one of Apple’s assembly plants in Suqian, China, was responsible for endangering the safety of up to 20,000 workers.

Following similar accusations regarding the welfare of factory workers in 2013, Apple claimed that it no longer used hazardous chemicals, such as benzene and n-hexane.

The California-based company said that it required production facilities to meet the safety standards for the handling of hazardous chemicals as set by the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

“The new report demonstrates that in the 16 months, Apple has not made progress with this supplier to improve conditions for its workers,” CLW said in a statement, referring to the findings of its most recent investigation.

“In spite of Apple’s supplier code of conduct and commitments to prevent these violations, more than a year later, they persist.”

According to the Mail on Sunday report, workers that fall sick with leukaemia in the factories are dismissed and denied continuing medical coverage, resulting in the bankrupting of families unable to afford medical treatment.

Foxconn, the supplier that runs the Shenzhen factory, has said that it is set to meet with members of Labour Action China to find out more about the leukaemia cases. It claims that there is no evidence to link the deaths to dangerous chemicals.

Source: https://sg.news.yahoo.com/iphone-6-factory-china-sees-spate-cancer-deaths-152944956.html

September 16, 2014
Photos of First ‘Chinese ISIS Militant’ Emerge Online

Another picture released by the Iraqi military shows the “Chinese daash” unconcious on the floor.(Iraqi Ministry of Defence)

IRAQ’S Ministry of Defence has claimed to have captured a Chinese national fighting for the extremist Sunni militant group, Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and posted two photos of an East Asian-looking man with a battered face on its Facebook page.

A short message accompanying the photos that were put up on Monday called the man a “Chinese daash” – daash being an acronym for ISIS.

If the indentity of the man and the authenticity of the images are validated, this could be the first confirmed case of a Chinese ISIS fighter, the South China Morning Post reported.

Mr Wu Sike, China’s special envoy to the Middle East, has previously said that an estimated 100 Chinese citizens – mostly Muslim Uighurs from China’s remote western region of Xinjiang – may be fighting for ISIS.

The Chinese embassy in Iraq declined to comment on the photos, while the Iraqi government and Chinese foreign ministry have not responded to interview requests from the Post.

Earlier, the US State Department said some 12,000 foreign jihadists from 50 countries have gone to fight in Syria since the conflict began more than three years ago.

In Austria, the authorities said they suspect about 130 residents – most of them foreign nationals – have allied themselves with Islamist militants fighting abroad.

In Asia, Singapore said in July it is aware of two Singaporeans fighting in Syria with their families.

Malaysia has held 19 ISIS-inspired militants who allegedly planned to bomb pubs, discos and a Malaysian brewery of beer producer Carlsberg. They wanted to establish a hardline Islamic caliphate spanning Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and Singapore, said police.

Three Malaysian women had also reportedly travelled to the Middle East in a so-called “sexual jihad” to act as “comfort women” for ISIS fighters.

Indonesia, the world’s biggest Muslim-majority nation, estimates that 60 of its citizens have joined the fighting.

As many as 150 Australians are also said to be fighting alongside ISIS overseas, including at least one Sydney man and his young son who have posed for photos with a severed head.

ISIS has carried out beheadings, crucifixions and public stonings in areas under its control in Iraq and neighbouring north-eastern Syria, where it has declared an Islamic “caliphate”.

Videos that have emerged since August 19 showing the militants beheading American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff have enraged world leaders, with US President Barack Obama vowing to “degrade and destroy” the group.

Source: http://www.straitstimes.com/news/world/middle-east/story/iraq-claims-have-caught-chinese-isis-jihadist-releases-photos-battered

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September 4, 2014
China Punishes Xinjiang Muslim Officials For Openly Practicing Faith

BEIJING – China has reprimanded 15 Xinjiang officials for violations that include adhering to religious faith, state media said on Tuesday, amid a crackdown on what the government calls illegal religious activities in the unruly western region.

Xinjiang, home to the Muslim Uighur people who speak a Turkic language, has been beset for years by violence that the Chinese government blames on Islamist militants and separatists.

One official in the southern city of Kashgar, where a state-backed imam was killed last month, had “worshipped openly”, the official Xinhua news agency said, behavior which violated rules that state workers not be religious.

“The punishment of expulsion from public office was handed to surnamed Mai who violated the clear regulation that state workers must not have religious faith,” Xinhua said, citing the city’s Uighur mayor, Ainiwaer Tuerxun. Mai had “remained devout and incorrigible, and had a poor attitude,” the report added.

Tensions are running high in Xinjiang, after officials told Muslims to eschew religious customs during the fasting month of Ramadan, which rights groups saw as an bid to repress Uighurs.

Another official was punished, according to Xinhua, for having “ambiguous understanding and attitudes, sluggish action, and ineffective implementation toward counter-terrorism operations”.

Punishments for violations, which included spreading information that was harmful to ethnic unity, ranged from expulsion from government positions to stern warnings.

All of the officials were from Kashgar, an old Silk Road city with a largely Uighur population, though the abbreviated surnames given by Xinhua made their ethnicities unclear.

Hundreds have died in violence in Xinjiang in the past year and a half, prompting a sweeping crackdown by authorities.

Exiled Uighur groups and human rights activists say the government’s repressive policies in Xinjiang, including controls on Islam, have provoked unrest, a claim Beijing denies.

State media reported last week that authorities in Xinjiang’s capital Urumqi closed 27 places used for “underground” preaching and detained 44 illegal imams as part of an operation to “rescue” 82 children from religious schools known as madrassas.

China punishes the study of Islam outside the confines of tightly controlled state mosques and children are prohibited from attending madrassas, prompting many parents who wish to provide a religious education to use underground schools. REUTERS

Source: http://www.todayonline.com/world/china-punishes-xinjiang-official-openly-practicing-faith

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August 19, 2014
Xinjiang City Bans Beards, Hijab and Islamic Clothing on Buses

A city in China’s mainly Muslim Xinjiang region has banned people with large beards or Islamic clothing from travelling on public buses, state media said, prompting outrage from an overseas rights group on Wednesday.

Authorities in Karamay banned people wearing hijabs, niqabs, burkas, or clothing with the Islamic star and crescent symbol from taking local buses, the Karamay Daily reported.

The ban also covers “large beards”, the paper said, adding: “Those who do not cooperate with inspection teams will be handled by police.”

Xinjiang, a resource rich region which abuts central Asia, is the homeland of China’s mostly Muslim Uighur minority and has been hit by a wave of clashes between locals and security forces which have killed hundreds in the past year.

China has blamed several deadly attacks on civilians outside the region in recent months on “terrorists” seeking independence for the region.

Rights groups say restrictions on Uighurs’ religious and cultural freedoms have stoked tensions.

China last month enforced a ban on students and government staff from Ramadan fasting, while officials have also tried to encourage locals in Xinjiang not to wear Islamic veils.

The Karamay restrictions are “a typical discriminatory measure…which add to an increasing confrontation between Uighurs and Beijing,” Dilxat Raxit, a spokesman for the exiled World Uyghur Congress (WUC), said in a statement to AFP.

Chinese state media said Sunday that nearly 100 people including 59 “terrorists” had been killed in an attack in Xinjiang last week.

The report came days after the government-appointed head of the largest mosque in China, in one of the region’s oldest cities, Kashgar, was killed after leading morning prayers.

China announced a year-long terrorism crackdown following a deadly bombing attack in Xinjiang’s capital Urumqi in May, and hundreds of alleged terrorists have been arrested.

Security on public transport has also been tightened.

The Karamay ban applies during a sports competition ending on August 20 the report said.

Authorities in Urumqi last month banned bus passengers from carrying a range of items including cigarette lighters and yogurt, state media said.

Source: https://sg.news.yahoo.com/china-city-bans-people-large-beards-islamic-clothing-054638641.html

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August 7, 2014
China Man offered Himself as Food to Tiger in the Zoo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVScRA991Vk

Chinese zoo keepers managed to save the life of a mentally disturbed man after he announced he wanted to improve the lives of caged tigers at a local zoo by offering them his own body to eat.

Yang Jinhai, 27, had posted several online messages about how optimistic he was about starting a new life after getting a job as a security guard in Chengdu in southwest China’s Sichuan province.

But he quickly found the job boring and monotonous and moved instead to a job in a printing factory where he also then resigned, saying that he felt there was more to life.

After going to the local zoo he wrote how depressing it was to see the ‘noble and magnificent tigers’ living in such humble surroundings, where they were caged and unable to follow their natural instincts to hunt and kill.
He then announced that he had decided to sacrifice himself in order to provide the Bengal tigers with support.

Eyewitness Feng Lin said: ‘He climbed up the outside of the cage and jumped inside expecting, I assume, that the tigers would pounce on him. Instead the two tigers, a male and a female, seemed more nervous than anything else and the female actually ran off.

‘He then tried to antagonise the tigers by pulling faces at them. Eventually he was attacked by the male where he was cut after being scratched and bitten before he could be rescued by zoo keepers who fired a tranquilliser dart at the male tiger.’

They then pulled the man out of the cage.

Yang’s family told local media Mr Jinhai had been depressed for a long time and said that he had been taken to a home where he was given psychiatric counselling to cope with his problems.

Source: Daily Mail

February 18, 2014