The Star Online: Metro: Central
The Star Online: Metro: Central |
| Posted: 15 May 2014 09:00 AM PDT HANOI: A 1,000-strong mob stormed a Taiwanese steel mill in Vietnam overnight, killing a Chinese worker and injuring 141 others, Taiwan's ambassador and police said, the first deadly incident in a wave of unruly anti-China protests prompted by Beijing's deployment of an oil rig in disputed seas. The unrest is emerging as a major challenge for Vietnam's authoritarian and secretive leadership, and is hurting the country's reputation as a safe investment destination. It risks inflaming an already dangerous standoff between patrol ships from both countries in the South China Sea close to the rig, which Hanoi is demanding Beijing withdraw. Companies from Taiwan, many of which employ Chinese nationals, are bearing the brunt of the protests and violence – the most serious in years to hit the tightly controlled nation of 90 million people. In his first remarks on the crisis, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said peaceful protests over the last few days were "legitimate", but that anyone involved in violence should be punished severely. Nervous Chinese expatriates were fleeing by land and air. Immigration police said 600 Chinese crossed into Cambodia over the land border in southern Vietnam on Wednesday, and more arrived yesterday. The riot took place at a mill in Ha Tinh province in central Vietnam, about 350km south of Hanoi. It followed an anti-China protest by workers at the complex, operated by the Formosa Plastics Group, one of the biggest foreign investors in Vietnam, according to Ambassador Huang Chih-peng and police. Huang said rioters lit fires at several buildings and hunted down the Chinese workers, but did not target the Taiwanese management. He said the head of the provincial government and its security chief were at the mill during the riot but did not "order tough enough action." He said one Chinese citizen was killed and another died of natural causes during the unrest, adding that around 90 others were injured. Ha Tinh's deputy police chief, Bui Dinh Quang, said the situation was "stable" on Thursday and none of the injured, which he put at 141, had life-threatening injuries. Anti-Chinese sentiment is never far from the surface in Vietnam, but it has surged since Beijing deployed an oil rig into disputed waters about 240km off the Vietnamese coast on May 1, close to the Paracel Islands. The government protested the move as a violation of Vietnam's sovereignty and sent a flotilla of boats, which continue to bump and collide with Chinese vessels guarding the rig. — AP |
| Ruling party defends promo clip Posted: 15 May 2014 09:00 AM PDT SINGAPORE: Singapore's ruling party has defended a promotional video produced by its youth wing that went viral after being lambasted online for its amateurish quality and for sounding "robotic". The five-minute YouTube video clip, titled "Re-ignite the Passion of Servant Leadership", featured youth leaders of the long-ruling People's Action Party (PAP) espousing a series of motivational messages for other party members. Some appeared to be reading from a script placed on either side of the camera. One segment featured a woman and a man clad in the all-white party uniform and holding miniature toy guitars, as others around them took turns to complete a sentence: "We must empower our members... to make a positive impact... to those around us". In a statement, the PAP said the effort by members of the Young PAP was "genuine and sincere". "We did not expect that our humble (raw and unpolished) in-house production would go viral like this," it said in a Facebook post on Wednesday. It said the video represented the Young PAP's "spirit of activism – to serve our nation and to care for our fellow Singaporeans". Online, the video continued to draw a steady stream of derision yesterday. "And here kids, you find yourself a bunch of brainwashed young adults. They even sound like robots. Amazing," wrote local celebrity comedian Hirzi Zulkiflie on the Must Be Singapore Facebook page, which had shared the video. "Sad to see youth talking like parrots, reading script and with bad diction/pronunciation," wrote another Facebook user. — AFP |
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