Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!daemon From: chengpi@ecf.toronto.edu (CHENG) Newsgroups: ut.chinese Subject: news digest Message-ID: <89Oct21.123419edt.20555@ecf.toronto.edu> Date: 21 Oct 89 16:34:17 GMT Sender: Distribution: ut Lines: 235 Approved: nobody@csri.toronto.edu Original-To: utchinese * C h i n a N e w s D i g e s t * (ND Canada Service) -- Oct. 20 (I), 1989 Table of Contents # of Lines 1) Headline News ...................................................... 50 2) Earthquake hit rural area in Northern China ........................ 43 3) East Germany's hard-line leader stripped of power .................. 59 4) Hungary approves Multiparty System ................................. 40 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Headline News ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- (1) The Chinese governmet threatened the Norwagian government that if any government officials attend the peace prize ceremony for Dalai in Dec., they will break economic relationship with Norway. The Norway President replied to that by saying that they do not have intention to break their tradition. [From: simone@nyspi.bitnet (J. Yang)] [Source: World Journal] (2) The Chinese government is taking actions to further restrict students in China going abroad. A document circulating among Chinese officials claims that students, after graduation, must work as many as 7 years before they can go abroad. According to Chinese officals that it is not a regulation but a principle which to be controled by individual unit. [From: simone@nyspi.bitnet (J. Yang)] [Source: The New York Times] (3) It is reported that the Guangdong provice governor Yie Xianpeng has refused the central governmet's requirement which forces people to buy the government bond. The London Finance Times also reports that Yie told the reporters that he would not allow political ideology to interfere with business management in Guangdong. Yie has refused to take a position in Beijing. [From: simone@nyspi.bitnet (J. Yang)] [Source: World Journal] (4) Those once ingored political books now become hot again in China.In the "National Book Market", those books are merchandized everyday by a many units and individuals. it shows that under the pressure of enforced political study, people are looking for self protection. [From: simone@nyspi.bitnet (J. Yang)] [Source: World Journal] (5) The official newspaper "The Farmer's Daily" strongly critisized religion worshiping. The artice blamed religion as source of the lose of ideology in rural area and said feudalist religions are still poisoning farmers. The article also urged the farmers to stop praying lord but turn to study Party chief Jiang's 9/29 speech. [From: simone@nyspi.bitnet (J. Yang)] [Source: The Farmer Daily] ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Earthquake hit rural area in Northern China ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: yawei@aqua.bacs.indiana.edu (G. Ya) [Source: Associated Press, 10/19/89] BEIJING - A series of major earthquakes shook a largely rural area of northern China before dawn Thursday. The temblors killed at least 18 people and flattened about 8,000 homes. Officials of the State Seismo-logical Bureau said the quakes injured at least 28 people. They struck less than 24 hours after the devastating quake in northern California. The temblors - registering between 5.0 and 6.0 on the Richter scale - hit an area along the Shanxi-Hebei provincial border. At least one was felt in Beijing, the official Xinhua News Agency quoted the bureau as saying. The stricken area is a flat and dusty region about 135 miles west of the capital where farmers grow wheat and other grains and many live in one-story unfired clay-brick homes with dirt floors that easily collapse in major quakes. Shanxi is also China's major coal-producing province and the stark brown land is pocked with coal mines. The first quake, measuring 5.7, shook areas of Shanxi and Hebei provinces late Wednesday. It was felt in the capital, but there were no reports of damage and the bureau said there was no need to take safety measures in the city. There were at least four other quakes registering 5 or above in the next six hours, including one of 6.0 magnitude. Such tremors are capable of doing major damage in a populated area. Bureau officials said at least 300 small quakes were recorded, but there were no major aftershocks after dawn. The officials said there was still relatively little information about the extent of the damage. Xinhua said the casualty figures of 18 dead and 28 injured were "preliminary." The stricken area is not open to foreign reporters and efforts to reach it by telephone were not successful. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. East Germany's hard-line leader stripped of power ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: yawei@aqua.bacs.indiana.edu (G. Ya) [From: Associated Press, 10/18/89] BERLIN - East German leader Erich Honecker was stripped of power Wednes- day, ending 18 years of his rule, as the government grapples with growing public demands for a freer society. State news media said the Communist Party hierarchy replaced its 77-year- old leader with Egon Krenz, a Honecker protege. Krenz is the youngest member of the ruling Politburo. Honecker, who directed the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961, also will be relieved of his largely ceremonial post as head of state and as chief of the military, the government-run news agency ADN said. ADN said Krenz, 52, in charge of security issues and government-run youth groups, already had taken over as the party chief. It said he will be recommended for the posts as military chief and head of state. The latter two posts require the approval of the nation's Parliament, and that is guaranteed by the strong central control of the government. Krenz, who was in charge of security issues and government-run youth groups, is considered a Communist hard-liner like Honecker. However, he signaled a softer stance when he reportedly urged police to stop their harsh crackdown on the thousands of people who have been staging protests in recent weeks. Two other key members of the ruling Politburo lost their positions. Politburo member Joachim Herrmann, 60, who was in charge of the nation's media, and Guenter Mittag, 63, the architect of East Germany's economic policy, "were relieved of their functions," ADN reported. ADN said both men had also lost their posts on the Communist Party's 163- member Central Committee and 21-member Politburo, and Mittag will be relieved of his duties as deputy head of state. The move was an apparent attempt to placate growing public demands for a freer press and economic reforms. The change in leadership comes as East Germany is still reeling from the exodus in recent months of tens of thousands of its citizens seeking better wages and more freedoms in the West. The flight has been followed by public dissent unprecedented under in this Communist country. In Washington, President Bush said Krenz's rise to power was unlikely to signal fundamental change. "Whether that reflects a change in East-West relations, I don't think so," Bush said. "Mr. Krentz has been very much in accord with the policies of Honecker. So it's too early to say." But his administration challenged the new party leadership to make an effort in that direction. In Bonn, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl welcomed the leadership change and said he hoped Krenz would "make the way free" for a better life for East Germans. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Hungary approves Multiparty System ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: yawei@aqua.bacs.indiana.edu (G. Ya) [Source: Associated Press, 10/18/89] BUDAPEST - Parliament Wednesday overwhelmingly approved constitutional amendments. The changes transform Communist Hungary into a multiparty democracy. Among the 94 changes passed by the 380-member Parliament were amendments eliminating all references to the leading role of the newly dissolved Communist Party. Justice Minister Kalman Kulcsar said they effectively end one-party rule in the East bloc nation. The country's formal name also was changed from People's Republic of Hungary to Republic of Hungary to re-flect a break with the Communist past. Another change in the 1949 Constitution abolishes the 21-person collective presidency and replaces it with the office of the president. The powers of president, will be assumed by Parliament Speaker Matyas Szueros until elections are held next year. The president also is commander-in-chief of the armed forces and wields other authority. One amendment states that "political parties may be freely established and may freely function providing that they respect the Constitution and the laws." Another declares that the "leading role of the Marxist-Leninist party of the working class ... has been outdated. Instead the necessary legal framework of a multiparty system must be stated." The historic voting came on the heels of another landmark decision - the dissolution last week of the Communist Party and its replacement by the Hungarian Socialist Party. Unlike its monolithic, Marxist-Leninist predecessor, the new party created last week professes commitment to multiparty democracy and market forces in the economy. The moves are the latest in Hungary's moves in the past year to break with its past by establishing democratic economic and social reforms. ============================================================================= +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Executive Editor: Deming Tang E_mail: Tang@ALISUVAX.bitnet | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ ============================================================================= News Transmission chi@vlsi.uwaterloo.ca (or) -------------------- --------------------- Local Editor: Bo Chi chi@vlsi.waterloo.edu .