A Chinese homeowner has become a national cause celebre for holding up a major property development in southwest China in a three-year battle to protect her house.
Wu Ping's (吳平) modest two-story brick dwelling in Chongqing is now one of the most recognizable homes in China thanks to widely circulated pictures of the structure sitting defiantly in the middle of an excavated construction pit.
A court-set deadline for her to relent passed on Thursday but the 49-year-old Wu, dubbed the "stubborn nail" by Chinese media, vowed to fight on in a case that has highlighted the widespread property disputes in China.
PHOTO: AFP
"I'm not stubborn or unruly, I'm just trying to protect my personal rights as a citizen. I will continue to the end," Wu was quoted as saying in the state-run Legal Daily yesterday.
After accepting compensation offers from the builders of the planned residential complex, 280 households have moved out.
But Wu, who now lives elsewhere because of difficulty accessing her home, has not budged even as bulldozers excavated the site around her.
A legal battle has raged since she rejected the compensation offer as she has maintained that she cannot be forced to move out.
A local court ordered her to allow the structure to be torn down by Thursday, although she continued to refuse and it was not immediately clear what steps authorities would take next.
Property disputes are rife in China, often involving illegal land grabs by developers in collusion the government.
The national parliament passed a landmark law solidifying private property rights this month partly to combat such disputes.
Wu's case has generated wide discussion in the media and Chinese Web blogs.
"If this case of the `lonely island' persists, it could become a landmark test for Chinese law," an editorial in the China Youth Daily said yesterday. "If the government does not respect people's rights in the case, it will raise suspicions about the entanglement of civil rights, property development and government interests."
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
The Philippines yesterday slammed an “irresponsible” Chinese state media report claiming a disputed reef in the South China Sea was under Beijing’s control, saying the “status quo” was unchanged. Tiexian Reef (鐵線礁), also known as Sandy Cay Reef, lies near Thitu Island, or Pagasa, where the Philippines stations troops and maintains a coast guard monitoring base. Chinese state broadcaster CCTV on Saturday said that the China Coast Guard had “implemented maritime control” over Tiexian Reef in the middle of this month. The Philippines and China have been engaged in months of confrontations over the South China Sea, which Beijing claims nearly in its
RSS