Aug. 26
INDIA:
Mumbai gang-rape: In Parliament, anger and demand for punishment
The gang-rape of a young photographer in Mumbai was raised in Parliament today
with senior BJP leader Sushma Swaraj demanding the death sentence for the 5 men
arrested for the barbarous attack which has triggered outrage across the
country.
Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said that he wanted to assure Parliament that
the arrested men will be prosecuted quickly. The Maharashtra government has
promised a fast-track trial for the case, as requested in a moving appeal
issued on Sunday evening by the photographer' family.
"Hang them, and the incidents will stop," said Ms Swaraj. "On one hand, women
in India are winning gold medals, on the other side we have such crimes against
them," she said. "Let's not just make laws, let's implement them," she urged,
referring to tougher laws introduced earlier this year after a 23-year-old
medical student was fatally gang-raped on a moving bus in Delhi. The new laws
provide for increased punishment for sex offenders, who face the death penalty
if a victim dies, and a broader definition of sexual assault.
The survivor of last week's attack in the heart of Mumbai at a deserted textile
mill is recovering in hospital. She was on assignment with a male colleague,
who was tied up with belts to prevent him from defending her.
The survivor said over the weekend that she is keen to return to work. "Rape is
not the end of life," she said.
Police arrested the 5th suspect Sunday in Delhi after rounding up the other 4
in Mumbai.
"We will file a comprehensive charge sheet soon," said Mumbai's police
commissioner, Satyapal Singh, assuring that police had the evidence to
prosecute the suspects, including the victim's testimony and medical samples
taken at the hospital after the assault.
(source: NDTV)
CHINA:
China's computerised organ transplant system is step forward
The unrivalled use of the death penalty, and a reliance on organs harvested
from executed prisoners to sustain a loosely regulated and corrupt transplant
industry, have done nothing for China's international image. This distasteful
nexus between legal killing and life-saving transplants has faced a use-by date
ever since the Supreme Court introduced new rules in 2007 that reduced the
number of executions, making the present transplant system unsustainable.
It is good to see at last that national health officials are moving to cut
reliance on it from September 1. They are introducing a computerised system to
match organs to patients most in need among the 165 hospitals allowed to carry
out transplants, similar to the United Network for Organ Sharing in the US.
According to a transplant surgeon at a military hospital, reliance on death-row
inmates might end within 2 years.
Until now, hospitals have had to source organs through their own channels. They
have been reluctant to share with each other and have allocated them to
patients in an opaque and arbitrary manner, giving rise to corruption and
abuses. The surgeon said that under the new system all donated organs -
including those harvested from prisoners - would enter a sharing network.
Professionally trained co-ordinators will allocate them to those most in need.
China now conducts more than 10,000 transplants each year, but a severe
shortage of organs means that 4 out of 5 patients die while waiting for a
suitable match. 65 % of transplants use organs from deceased donors - mostly
executed prisoners. A few years ago Guangdong joined 10 other provinces in
launching a voluntary organ donation programme. But overcoming cultural
inhibitions against organ donation remains a daunting task. The computerised
register needs to be backed up with a national education campaign on the
benefits of donation. This includes not only saving and enhancing the quality
of more lives but improving the nation's image and contributing to reform of
the health care system.
(source: South China Morning Post)
********************
Bo Xilai 'could face death penalty' as trial ends following fall out of Neil
Heywood murder
Prosecutors in China have demanded a heavy sentence for ousted top politician
Bo Xilai as his divisive, dramatic trial ended on Monday.
Lawyers claim his "whimsical" challenge to charges of bribery, graft and abuse
of power flew in the face of the evidence.
Rising political star Bo's career was stopped short last year by a murder
scandal in which his wife, Gu Kailai, was convicted of poisoning a British
businessman and family friend Neil Heywood.
Bo, who was Communist Party chief of the southwestern metropolis of Chongqing,
mounted an unexpectedly feisty defence at his trial, denouncing his wife's
testimony against him as the ravings of a mad woman.
The trial ended today and the court said the verdict would come at a later
date. It did not provide details, but it could be announced within the next few
weeks.
Bo has repeatedly said he is not guilty of any of the charges, although he has
admitted to making some bad decisions and to shaming his country by his
handling of former Chongqing police chief, Wang Lijun, who first told Bo that
Gu had probably murdered Heywood.
Wang fled to the U.S. consulate in the nearby city of Chengdu in February last
year after confronting Bo with evidence that Gu was involved in the murder.
Wang was also jailed last year for covering up the crime.
Summing up the evidence, the state's prosecutor said Bo should not be shown
leniency as he had recanted admissions of guilt provided ahead of the trial.
"Over the past few days of the trial, the accused Bo Xilai has not only flatly
denied a vast amount of conclusive evidence and facts of his crimes, he has
also repudiated his pre-trial written testimony and materials," the court cited
the prosecutor as saying.
"We take this opportunity to remind Bo Xilai: the facts of the crimes are
objective, and can't be shifted around on your whim," it said, without saying
which of the 4 prosecutors had made the remarks.
The trial has heard many salacious allegations against Bo, with transcripts,
although probably edited, being carried on the court's official microblog. The
prosecution has alleged that Bo took more than 20 million yuan ($3.27 million)
in bribes from 2 businessmen, embezzled another 5 million yuan from a
government building project, and abused his power in trying to cover up Gu's
crime.
Details have been presented of a villa on the French Riviera bought for the Bo
family by businessman Xu Ming, who also paid for foreign trips by Bo and Gu's
only son, Bo Guagua, offering a glimpse into the lifestyles of China's elite
politicians.
Bo said that he had initially admitted to Communist Party anti-corruption
investigators that he received bribes as he had been "under psychological
pressure".
Bo also said he been framed by one of the men accused of bribing him,
businessman Tang Xiaolin, who he called a "mad dog".
The prosecutor said Bo's lack of contrition would count against him.
"The severeness of the accused's crimes, and that he refused to admit guilt,
don't match the circumstances of leniency, and (he) must be severely punished
in accordance with the law."
Bo said he had offered his confession about accepting bribes from Tang because
he wanted to "cooperate, to get the understanding" of the party, which at the
time was leading the investigation into him.
"At the time, I had a spark of hope, I hoped to keep my party membership, to
keep my political life," Bo said, according to the court's transcript.
There was no mention in the transcript of Bo's previous assertion of being put
under pressure to confess.
Bo also provided a new explanation for why Wang - who has accused Bo of
punching him upon the news of Gu's involvement in Heywood's murder - fled to
the U.S. consulate.
"He was secretly in love with Gu Kailai," Bo said, adding that Gu had rejected
the former police chief. "He muscled in on my home, on my feelings, which is
the real reason for his defection."
Despite Bo's gutsy defence, a guilty verdict is a foregone conclusion as
China's courts are controlled by the Communist Party. State media, which speaks
for the party, has already all but condemned him.
Bo could theoretically be given the death penalty for the charges, although
many observers say that is unlikely as the party will not want to make a martyr
of a man whose left-leaning social welfare policies won much popular support.
(source: DailyMirror)
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