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2015年2月11日星期三

31 top officials convicted of taking bribes

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Thirty-one senior officials have been found guilty as of Monday of taking bribes since China launched a campaign to clean up government in late 2012, according to court rulings listed by China's anti-graft body.

The average bribe was 14 million yuan ($2.3 million). A wage-earner making 70,000 yuan a year in Beijing would have to work 200 years to make that much money.

The officials took a total of 440 million yuan in bribes. Six of them were ministerial-level officials, and the rest were at or above bureau level.

Former railways minister Liu Zhijun topped the list, taking 65 million yuan in bribes. He was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve.

The court found that from 1986 to 2011, Liu took advantage of his positions as an official of local railway bureaus, as well as the former ministry of railways, and helped 11 people win promotions, project deals and cargo transportation contracts.

Fifty-three officials at vice-minister level or above have been investigated since late 2012, according to the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.

The most recent case was decided on Monday with a senior political adviser from the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region sentenced to 15 years in prison for taking 10.95 million yuan in bribes.

Li Daqiu, who held a vice-minister level post, seemed to be always successful in his career before he was investigated. He started work at age 18 as deputy Party chief of a village in Guangxi and worked as a Party chief at various levels throughout his 42 years in officialdom until he was promoted to vice-chairman of the Guangxi Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

Li used his position to benefit 17 companies and individuals for 10 years from 2003, accepting 10.95 million yuan in bribes while he was Party chief in Hezhou and as vice-chairman of the region's political advisory body.

Yan Jirong, a professor with the School of Government at Peking University, said the court verdicts listed by the anti-graft body shows the central government's determination to deal with corruption and zero tolerance of officials misusing public power.

Officials in top positions have the power to decide the fate of major projects or industries and they are prone to corruption, Yan said.

"China hasn't established efficient procedures to supervise government power, which is often being misused by 'heads' at different levels of government organs to gain personal benefits," he said.

Investigations are continuing into 77 cases in Hainan province and 33 in Tianjin municipality involving top leaders at various levels. The anti-graft body in Shandong province has investigated 16 cases related to corrupt officials at bureau level.

Yan believes it is hard to curb corruption when the government role is not yet clearly defined in economic development, consequently it gives more space for the top officials to gain benefit with public power.

"With China's further reform in its economic development, there is an urgent need to set up more efficient market mechanisms to avoid too much government interference in the economy and build real transparency in every major decision-making step by the authorities," he said.

zhang_yi@chinadaily.com.cn

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Ministry bans teachers from accepting gifts

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Teachers are not permitted to accept gifts or money from their students, according to a clean-governance regulation issued by the Ministry of Education on Monday.

The regulation forbids teachers from attending banquets or entertainment, such as sightseeing tours, paid for by students, and also bans teachers from promoting books, newspapers or insurance to their students.

The rules are aimed to fight corruption in schools and ensure equity among all students, according to the regulation.

Those who break the rules will be strictly punished, the regulation said.

The ministry has publicized two telephone numbers to which whistle-blowers can report suspected violations of the rules.

Anti-graft watchdog gets tough in cleanup

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The top anti-graft watchdog is taking a series of measures, including punishing its own officials who are easily bribed, strengthening discipline and consolidating its role, amid the ongoing clean-governance campaign.

The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China said anti-graft authorities nationwide should "keep their hands clean" before investigating others.

The commission made the remarks on Thursday while announcing the launch of a campaign to fight corrupt activities at disciplinary authorities' training centers.

It said it will keep a close watch on misbehavior by officials, including the staging of lavish banquets at public expense, entertainment activities and extravagant receptions at training centers.

The commission and provincial anti-graft departments were due to take a thorough look at their training centers before Monday. All corrupt activities at these centers must be ended and any officials responsible for such behavior punished before Sept 10.

Anti-graft authorities have also brought down several disciplinary officials in an effort to tackle corruption.

In the latest case on Wednesday, Yang Senlin, executive vice-secretary of the Shanxi provincial commission for discipline inspection, was investigated by the commission for suspected grave violations of discipline and law.

The commission gave no further details of the case. Reports said Yang used to be a colleague of Jin Daoming, who worked as head of the Shanxi anti-graft watchdog from August 2006 to February 2011.

Jin was investigated by the commission on Feb 27 while serving as vice-director of the Shanxi provincial People's Congress.

At least nine disciplinary officials have been investigated this year. Four are incumbent or former leaders of Shanxi province and two are senior provincial-level officials.

In March, to improve supervision, the commission set up a new office to handle corruption cases involving disciplinary officials.

On May 4, Wei Jian, director of the commission's No 4 disciplinary inspection office, was investigated on allegations of graft. The commission had never previously publicly announced corruption investigations involving its own staff members at director level.

In January, President Xi Jinping urged disciplinary officials to strengthen self-regulation when he attended the commission's annual conference.

Zhou Shuzhen, a professor of clean-governance research at Renmin University of China, said many corrupt officials offered bribes to disciplinary officials, meaning they were unable to investigate corruption cases independently and fairly.

The commission could gain the public's trust by showing its firm determination to punish corrupt disciplinary officials, she said.

anbaijie@chinadaily.com.cn

A ticket home

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A migrant worker from Changde, Hunan province, shows the train tickets he bought for the Spring Festival holiday on Monday. It's the first time the railway operator has lowered the threshold for migrant workers to book group tickets. PHOTO BY LIANG XU / XINHUA

180 economic fugitives back in China to face trial_0

180 economic fugitives back in China to face trial

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Two economic fugitives (second and fourth) are repatriated on Aug 3 from Cambodia after fleeing overseas with illicit assets. [Photo/China Daily] Authorities in China have succeeded in getting extradited or persuading 180 economic fugitives to return to China and face trial since launching a campaign called "Fox Hunt" in July.

US, Canada, Australia top spots for fugitive Chinese officials

Australia to help in returning fugitives

The number of the fugitives being repatriated during the first 100 days of the "Fox Hunt" is more than that of the whole year of 2013. The returned suspects include many alleged corrupt officials who fled to more than 40 countries and regions, including the US, Canada, Australia and Southeast Asian nations.

Among the fugitives, 104 were hunted down by the police and 76 were persuaded to return. Forty four are suspected to be involved with ill-gotten assets over 10 million yuan ($1.6 million).

China's Public Security Ministry initiated a six-month operation called "Fox Hunt" to target economic fugitives, especially corrupt officials, who fled abroad with their illicit assets. A special unit was set up by the ministry to oversee the operation. It comprises experienced police officers from the Economic Crimes Investigation Bureau and local public security departments.

According to the ministry, some corrupt Chinese officials have fled to the US, Canada, Australia and Southeast Asian countries in recent years, transferring assets worth many billions of dollars overseas through money laundering and underground sources.

Police in Australia and China recently pledged to cooperate on the extradition of Chinese economic fugitives, including many corrupt officials, in an effort to tackle the difficulties over the return of suspects due to a lack of bilateral extradition treaties.

Four of China's top governmental departments released a statement this month urging fugitive economic criminals to surrender themselves to justice.

The announcement is another move to reinforce the "Fox Hunt 2014" campaign.

Economic fugitives involved in criminal cases which have been listed or investigated can turn themselves in to the police, the procuratorate, the courts directly or through China's embassies and consulates before December 1, 2014.

Fugitives who have confessed their crime and returned to China voluntarily shall be given a lighter or mitigated punishment by law. Among them, those who actively retrieve and compensate the economic losses of the victims may get an even lighter sentence with lesser offenders receiving exemption from punishment.

More corrupt Chinese officials are likely to be repatriated by an anti-corruption and transparency mechanism being worked on by 21 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) economies.

US senior official for APEC Robert Wang said at the Foreign Press Center in Washington that the goal of the current work in the Anti-Corruption and Transparency network is to increase the possibility or probability that illegally obtained funds or criminals that go across international borders will be returned and will be treated according to the rule of law in whichever country they came from.

2015年2月10日星期二

Cross-border traffickers get harsh sentences

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Members of a cross-border child-trafficking ring stand trial at a court in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, on Friday. Their leader, Huang Qingheng (left) was sentenced to death. Fei Wenbin / for China Daily

The leader of a group that sold more than 20 Vietnamese infants in China was sentenced to death on Friday, sending a strong signal that China will crack down on cross-border human trafficking, authorities said.

The other 23 traffickers, of whom one is a Vietnamese citizen and eight others have supposed Vietnamese citizenship that has not been confirmed, received sentences ranging from one year and 10 months to life imprisonment, with confiscation of personal property or fines for the crime of trafficking children, according to a statement released by the intermediate court of Fangchenggang in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region on Friday.

The group sold 23 infants aged 10 days to several months to Chinese families starting in 2010 to July 2011.

The traffickers illegally carried the infants over the border to Dongxing, in Guangxi. From there, the children were sold to families in Shantou and Jieyang, both in Guangdong province. The gang also transported pregnant Vietnamese women to Guangdong, where they gave birth, and then sold the newborns.

Eleven of the kidnapped children were rescued in the crackdown and returned to Vietnam in May 2013. Chinese police are cooperating with their Vietnamese counterparts to track down the children's birth parents.

"The trial will play a big role in warning other traffickers to stop," said Huang Qiong, a publicity official for the court in Fangchenggang.

It took more than a year to arrive at sentences in the cross-border trafficking case, much longer than other trafficking cases because it had confronted more obstacles during the investigation, Huang said.

The large number of suspects and infants required a multinational investigation. In addition, the leader received a sentence of capital punishment, requiring a longer processing period.

But the outcome of dismantling the trafficking rings and rescuing the infants made it worth all the hard work, Huang said.

Chen Shiqu, director of anti-human-trafficking office of the Ministry of Public Security's criminal investigation arm, said the trial sent a strong signal that human trafficking won't be tolerated.

The main members got more severe sentences, and the ringleader, Huang Qingheng, who claimed to be a Vietnamese citizen, was sentenced to death.

"To protect women and children, the traffickers should be punished harshly," Chen said.

Since 2004, China has had a cooperation plan in place with its Southeastern Asian neighbors, including Thailand, to fight cross-border human trafficking.

"The joint efforts will never let up, and we will rescue victims and protect our people," Chen said.

Contact the writers at zhengjinran@chinadaily.com.cn and suqiulan@chinadaily.com.cn

Shaanxi doctor in court over child trafficking

Police break up baby trafficking ring

World's first wearable air purifier to meet public

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A tech team in China's Chongqing municipality has claimed it has invented the world's first wearable air purifier, a tech blog said.

The new equipment looks like a headset, with an attached air outlet below the nose. The team leader Xu Zongyan said smog masks make people breathe hard and may pose risks of secondary pollution, let alone its inaesthetic aspect.

"Thus we reduce face coverage to the absolute minimum," he added.

The device can remove as much as 99.9 percent of PM 2.5, the main pollutant in the air and 90 percent of formaldehyde, according to the team. Its filter cartridge needn't to be replaced, as it is washable.

The constant air volume offered by the device reaches three cubic meters per hour, twice the amount of air inhaled by an average breath.

While its battery enables the euipment to work for six hours, the team said it is trying to prolong this time to ten hours.

With a high precision sensor, the device can be used to test air quality and users can check real-time data on an app.

What's more, the device is able to perform intelligent management via controlling household air purifiers and conditioners.

The team is currently seeking investment for mass production, the blog said.

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