Thousands of villagers in southern China clashed with police during a protest against inadequate compensation for farmland flooded by a dam project, a news report said yesterday.
Hong Kong's Mingpao newspaper reported that about 10,000 villagers repeatedly scrapped with police over a four-day period last week when they tried to petition the local government in Guangxi Province's Yantan Township and to hold demonstrations near the dam.
From June 1 through June 4, villagers carrying banners and shouting slogans surrounded the Yantan No. 2 Hydroelectric Power Station's staff residence and marched to the dam site to demand higher compensation, the newspaper said.
It said several hundred soldiers and armed police were trucked in to help contain the protests and five villagers were injured in clashes. Several people were arrested, the report said, without giving numbers.
The paper said Yantan farmland was flooded several years ago when the dam caused the Red River to overflow its banks.
The report said villagers were enraged when the central government allegedly gave Yantan officials 2.8 million yuan (US$370,000) last year to help compensate residents -- but only a portion of it was distributed.
Villagers claimed that local officials pocketed some of the money.
The Mingpao said that villagers had been sporadically protesting the situation since April, but that last week's demonstrations were the largest yet.
The government has been giving every villager a subsidy of 30 yuan per month regardless of how much land they lost, it said.
A Yantan villager, surnamed Li, said that the situation had calmed down and that local officials were negotiating with the villagers, who were demanding 150 yuan a month.
A magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck off Yilan at 11:05pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter was located at sea, about 32.3km east of Yilan County Hall, at a depth of 72.8km, CWA data showed There were no immediate reports of damage. The intensity of the quake, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, measured 4 in Yilan County area on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale, the data showed. It measured 4 in other parts of eastern, northern and central Taiwan as well as Tainan, and 3 in Kaohsiung and Pingtung County, and 2 in Lienchiang and Penghu counties and 1
FOREIGN INTERFERENCE: Beijing would likely intensify public opinion warfare in next year’s local elections to prevent Lai from getting re-elected, the ‘Yomiuri Shimbun’ said Internal documents from a Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) company indicated that China has been using the technology to intervene in foreign elections, including propaganda targeting Taiwan’s local elections next year and presidential elections in 2028, a Japanese newspaper reported yesterday. The Institute of National Security of Vanderbilt University obtained nearly 400 pages of documents from GoLaxy, a company with ties to the Chinese government, and found evidence that it had apparently deployed sophisticated, AI-driven propaganda campaigns in Hong Kong and Taiwan to shape public opinion, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported. GoLaxy provides insights, situation analysis and public opinion-shaping technology by conducting network surveillance
Taiwan is gearing up to celebrate the New Year at events across the country, headlined by the annual countdown and Taipei 101 fireworks display at midnight. Many of the events are to be livesteamed online. See below for lineups and links: Taipei Taipei’s New Year’s Party 2026 is to begin at 7pm and run until 1am, with the theme “Sailing to the Future.” South Korean girl group KARA is headlining the concert at Taipei City Hall Plaza, with additional performances by Amber An (安心亞), Nick Chou (周湯豪), hip-hop trio Nine One One (玖壹壹), Bii (畢書盡), girl group Genblue (幻藍小熊) and more. The festivities are to
AFTERMATH: The Taipei City Government said it received 39 minor incident reports including gas leaks, water leaks and outages, and a damaged traffic signal A magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck off Taiwan’s northeastern coast late on Saturday, producing only two major aftershocks as of yesterday noon, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The limited aftershocks contrast with last year’s major earthquake in Hualien County, as Saturday’s earthquake occurred at a greater depth in a subduction zone. Saturday’s earthquake struck at 11:05pm, with its hypocenter about 32.3km east of Yilan County Hall, at a depth of 72.8km. Shaking was felt in 17 administrative regions north of Tainan and in eastern Taiwan, reaching intensity level 4 on Taiwan’s seven-tier seismic scale, the CWA said. In Hualien, the
RSS