Six villagers were killed and eight badly hurt when several hundred allegedly hired thugs descended on a village in northern China and clashed with local residents over a land dispute, state press said yesterday.
The incident occurred in the early hours of Saturday morning when five busloads of men ransacked Shengyou village in Hebei Province with hunting rifles, clubs, sharpened pipes and other weapons, Beijing News reported.
The attackers, wearing construction helmets, were mostly young men in their twenties allegedly hired by a local electricity company, it said.
Some 48 villagers were injured and hospitalized, the paper said. Among the dead was a 60-year-old villager who was killed by gunfire several hundred meters from where the clashes took place.
The village has refused to accept land compensation since 2003 from the Hebei Guohua Power Co which hopes to build a power plant on 26 hectares of village land, the paper said.
Parts of the battle, which lasted for about an hour, were videotaped by local villagers, it said.
The clash was not the first in the village.
On April 20 a similar incident took place in which some 20 youths attacked residents in the middle of the night, telling them to move off the land, the paper said.
One of the youths, identified as Zhu Xiaorui, was reportedly captured by the villagers at that time and has been in their custody ever since.
Zhu admitted that he was hired in nearby Beijing and paid 100 yuan (US$12) to come to the village and beat people up.
Officials in Dingzhou prefecture, which has jurisdiction over Shengyou village, have set up a special group to investigate the incident.
According to the paper, the power company is seeking to requisition 116 hectares from 13 villages in the region to build the power plant, with only Shengyou village refusing the compensation package.
It was unclear why so much land was needed for the plant.
The company and local police were not immediately available for comment.
Land requisition by the state has become one of China's sharpest social issues with an increasing number of evicted people in both urban and rural regions accusing governments of illegal land grabs they say are enriching the ruling elite.
In China, all land is owned by the state, giving local officials tremendous powers over land use rights.
Nauru has started selling passports to fund climate action, but is so far struggling to attract new citizens to the low-lying, largely barren island in the Pacific Ocean. Nauru, one of the world’s smallest nations, has a novel plan to fund its fight against climate change by selling so-called “Golden Passports.” Selling for US$105,000 each, Nauru plans to drum up more than US$5 million in the first year of the “climate resilience citizenship” program. Almost six months after the scheme opened in February, Nauru has so far approved just six applications — covering two families and four individuals. Despite the slow start —
MOGAMI-CLASS FRIGATES: The deal is a ‘big step toward elevating national security cooperation with Australia, which is our special strategic partner,’ a Japanese official said Australia is to upgrade its navy with 11 Mogami-class frigates built by Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles said yesterday. Billed as Japan’s biggest defense export deal since World War II, Australia is to pay US$6 billion over the next 10 years to acquire the fleet of stealth frigates. Australia is in the midst of a major military restructure, bolstering its navy with long-range firepower in an effort to deter China. It is striving to expand its fleet of major warships from 11 to 26 over the next decade. “This is clearly the biggest defense-industry agreement that has ever
DEADLY TASTE TEST: Erin Patterson tried to kill her estranged husband three times, police said in one of the major claims not heard during her initial trial Australia’s recently convicted mushroom murderer also tried to poison her husband with bolognese pasta and chicken korma curry, according to testimony aired yesterday after a suppression order lapsed. Home cook Erin Patterson was found guilty last month of murdering her husband’s parents and elderly aunt in 2023, lacing their beef Wellington lunch with lethal death cap mushrooms. A series of potentially damning allegations about Patterson’s behavior in the lead-up to the meal were withheld from the jury to give the mother-of-two a fair trial. Supreme Court Justice Christopher Beale yesterday rejected an application to keep these allegations secret. Patterson tried to kill her
MILITARY’S MAN: Myint Swe was diagnosed with neurological disorders and peripheral neuropathy disease, and had authorized another to perform his duties Myint Swe, who became Myanmar’s acting president under controversial circumstances after the military seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi more than four years ago, died yesterday, the military said. He was 74. He died at a military hospital in the capital, Naypyidaw, in the morning, Myanmar’s military information office said in a statement. Myint Swe’s death came more than a year after he stopped carrying out his presidential duties after he was publicly reported to be ailing. His funeral is to be held at the state level, but the date had not been disclosed, a separate statement from the
RSS