[Rooters] Relatives of passengers missing in the sinking of a cruise ship on the Yangtze River have accused Chinese police of beating them when they sought more information on the disaster. Sucks to live in a dictatorship...
Scuffles between police and relatives broke out, according to video footage circulated on the Internet which showed police hitting and wrestling family members.
"I saw all of this unfold before my own eyes," Huang Jing, 43, who had family on the ship, told Reuters.
A woman who said her husband Qin Jianping, and father-in-law, Qin Zhengming, were on the ship said: "Why are they using taxpayers' money to bully us? Why are all these police here?" Sucks to live in a dictatorship...
Police were not immediately available for comment. Because they work for a dictatorship...
China's government often seeks to control information in the wake of high-profile disasters, concerned about challenges to its authority and hypersensitive about its image. Authorities at the site of rescue effort said the relatives could visit the area in organized groups but reporters and cameramen could not accompany them.
"I can't rule out that even among Chinese journalists there are people who want to smear the government," Hu Shining, Nanjing's deputy police chief, told the relatives who had walked with reporters in tow to try to get to the river's edge.
Zhan Jiang, a journalism professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University, said China had made progress since it obscured the extent of the SARS epidemic in late 2002, but that CCTV and Xinhua still maintained their monopoly on sensitive stories.
"Other media cannot get access. This is a problem. You can imagine this is a result of the current system of stability maintenance," Zhan said.
A few of the relatives in Shanghai who were part of a news sharing chat group told Reuters they suspected police were pretending to be family members and were posting messages and photos, mainly about government rescue efforts.
"Why would a grief-stricken family member be posting such positive messages about what a great job government officials are doing in Jianli?" said one man whose mother is missing.
#2
By most MSM-NET accounts, this is China's version of the CONCORDIA + SOUTH KOREA FERRY incident(s), etc. - iff this is supposed to be a litmus test of China's first response system + personnel, ITS NOT LOOKING GOOD.
[The Weekly Standard] For the last several days, State Department spokesperson Marie Harf has been at pains to explain why Iran is not violating the interim nuclear agreement, or Joint Plan of Action. For the last few days, the Obama administration has been pushing back against a New York Times article published Monday that quoted an IAEA report documenting how Iran's "stockpile of nuclear fuel increased about 20 percent over the last 18 months."
The administration understands the story is damaging. If Iran is cheating now with sanctions still in place, then it is only logical to assume the Iranians will cheat when sanctions are relieved under the terms of the final deal. However, by campaigning against the Times piece--on Twitter feeds, like Harf's and that of Obama aide Ben Rhodes, in several press conferences, and through former negotiators--all the Obama White House has done is underscore its vulnerability.
#1
Iran is cheating? Who would have been duped except maybe a Harvard-educated law professor. Or maybe it is a case of satisfying ego and legacy at any cost. Either way, it is not good.
#5
Mensans cheered as the steamy emcee
Fairly beamed at the honoree -- me!
As I clutched my award,
Clanged a dissonant chord:
"Wake up! You were dreaming, Marie!"
Posted by: Marie Harf ||
06/05/2015 13:59 Comments ||
Top||
#6
Our foreign policy under Obama could be best described as the Battered Wife Doctrine.
#7
Our foreign policy regarding the Middle East is defined by the President's closest advisor and viper-in-chief, ValJar. Remind me again where she was born and what other languages she speaks?
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Rooters] Relatives of passengers missing in the sinking of a cruise ship on the Yangtze River have accused Chinese police of beating them when they sought more information on the disaster.
