A Chinese man suspected of stealing a prototype for the fourth generation iPhone has committed suicide.

Before his death, Sun Danyong told friends he had been beaten up by security staff from his firm, Foxconn, one of Apple’s largest manufacturers.               

Foxconn, a large Taiwanese company which employed Sun in its huge Shenzhen factory, has launched an investigation.

Apple says it is saddened by the death and is waiting for the results of the investigation.

“We require our suppliers to treat all workers with dignity and respect,” Jill Tan, an Apple spokeswoman in Hong Kong, told reporters.

‘Humiliating’

Sun Danyong was 25 when he threw himself off a 12-storey building last week.

As part of his job, he was responsible for shipping iPhone prototypes to Apple.

Such prototypes are a closely guarded secret, as Apple likes to keep its new products and upgrades under wraps until their launch date, to heighten customer anticipation.

On 13 July, Sun reported that he was missing one of the 16 units in his possession.

The company immediately launched an investigation into the disappearance; three days later he had jumped to his death.

Sun’s former classmates have told Chinese newspapers that during the firm’s investigation he was beaten, his house was searched and he was locked up alone in a room.

A local newspaper showed CCTV footage of Sun the day before he died

They say he described what happened in an online chat with them as one of the most humiliating experiences of his life.

Foxconn and the local public security bureau are investigating the allegations, and the firm has expressed its condolences to Sun’s family and set up extra counselling services for employees.

It has also has suspended its chief of security, Gu Qinming.

Mr Gu denies hitting Sun, and a CCTV image of the worker on the day before he died – which was featured on the front page of the local Nanfang Metropolitan Daily on Wednesday – appears to back up Mr Gu’s version of events.

According to a BBC correspondent in Beijing, Chris Hogg, Foxconn has faced allegations in the past that it treats its employees poorly.

It has always denied such claims, and was cleared by Apple of any serious abuses, our correspondent says.

I haven’t seen too much news on the riots that are happening in China but I thought it might be prudent to provide some information about who exactly are the Uigurs in China.

Who are the Uighurs?

The Uighurs are Muslims. Their language is related to Turkish and they regard themselves as culturally and ethnically close to other Central Asian nations.

China maintains a high military presence in the Xinjiang region

The region’s economy has for centuries revolved around agriculture and trade, with towns such as Kashgar thriving as hubs along the Silk Road.

In the early part of the 20th Century, the Uighurs briefly declared independence. The region was brought under the complete control of communist China in 1949.

Officially, Xinjiang is now described by China as an autonomous region, like Tibet to its south.

What are China’s concerns about the Uighurs?

Beijing says Uighur militants have been waging a violent campaign for an independent state by plotting bombings, sabotage and civic unrest.

Since the 9/11 attacks in the US, China has increasingly portrayed its Uighur separatists as auxiliaries of al-Qaeda.

It has accused them of receiving training and indoctrination from Islamist militants in neighbouring Afghanistan.

However, little public evidence has been produced in support of these claims.

More than 20 Uighurs were captured by the US military after its invasion of Afghanistan. Though imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay for six years, they were not charged with any offence. Albania accepted five in 2006, four were allowed to resettle in Bermuda in June, 2009, while the Pacific island nation of Palau has agreed to take the others.

What complaints have been made against the Chinese in Xinjiang?

Activists say the Uighurs’ religious, commercial and cultural activities have been gradually curtailed by the Chinese state.

China is accused of intensifying its crackdown on the Uighurs after street protests in the 1990s – and again, in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics.

Over the past decade, many prominent Uighurs have been imprisoned or have sought asylum abroad after being accused of terrorism.

China is said to have exaggerated the threat from Uighur separatists in order to justify repression in the region.

Beijing has also been accused of seeking to dilute Uighur influence by arranging the mass immigration of Han Chinese, the country’s majority ethnic group, to Xinjiang.

Han Chinese currently account for roughly 40% of Xinjiang’s population, while about 45% are Uighurs.

What is the current situation in Xinjiang?

Over the past decade, major development projects have brought prosperity to Xinjiang’s big cities.

The activities of local and foreign journalists in the region are closely monitored by the Chinese state and there are few independent sources of news from the region.

China has been keen to highlight improvements made to the region’s economy while Uighurs interviewed by the press have avoided criticising Beijing.

However, occasional attacks on Chinese targets suggest Uighur separatism remains a potent – and potentially violent – force.

A protest in July in Urumqi, the region’s capital, turned violent, with about 140 people killed and hundreds injured.

Authorities blamed Xinjiang separatists based outside China for the unrest, while Uighur exiles said police had fired indiscriminately on a peaceful protest calling for an investigation into the deaths of two Uighurs in clashes with Han Chinese at a factory in southern China

Investigators examine the burnt out wreckage of a FedEx cargo plane at Narita International Airport in Narita, east of Tokyo, Monday afternoon, March 23, 2009. The FedEx cargo plane burst into flames after bouncing off a runway in unusually high winds at Tokyo’s main international airport Monday, killing the pilot and copilot and closing a major runway for several hours.

The Tata Nano, the world’s cheapest car, has been launched in India.

Costing just 100,000 rupees ($1,979; £1,366), the Nano will now go on sale across India next month, with deliveries starting in July.

Tata hopes the 10-foot (3-metre) long, five-seater car will be cheap enough to encourage millions of Indians to trade up from their motorcycles.

Tata owner Ratan Tata has described the Nano as a “milestone”. Analysts say it will not make a profit for six years.

We wanted a find a safe way to transport Indian families at an affordable price Tata owner Ratan Tata Nano: ‘Triumph of Indian ingenuity’

Tata’s managing director Ravi Kant said that from the first orders, a ballot would then select the initial 100,000 people to get their Nano.

“I think we are at the gates of offering a new form of transport to the people of India and later, I hope, other markets elsewhere in the world,” Mr Tata added.

“I hope it will provide safe, affordable four-wheel transportation to families who till now have not been able to own a car.”

Environmentalists are warning that the Nano will add to India’s already clogged up roads, and pollution levels will soar. Tata says the Nano will be the least polluting in India.

The International Committee of the Red Cross concluded in a secret report two years ago that the Bush administration’s treatment of prisoners “constituted torture” in violation of the Geneva Conventions. The findings were based on interviews with prisoners once held in the CIA’s secret black sites. The Red Cross said the fourteen prisoners held in the CIA prisons gave remarkably uniform accounts of abuse that included beatings, sleep deprivation, extreme temperatures and, in some cases, waterboarding. The author Mark Danner published parts of the secret Red Cross report in the New York Review of Books. Danner said the Red Cross’s use of the word “torture” has important legal implications. Danner said, “It could not be more important that the ICRC explicitly uses the words ‘torture’ and ‘cruel and degrading.’ The ICRC is the guardian of the Geneva Conventions, and when it uses those words, they have the force of law.”

Read more

‘Criminal record’

Ahead of the talks, China heaped criticism on the US after Sunday’s maritime incident.

The Pentagon said five Chinese ships harassed an unarmed US navy surveillance vessel in a dangerous manner while it was on routine operations in international waters 75 miles (120km) south of Hainan island.

But China called the US complaint “totally inaccurate” and accused it of breaking international law by operating in its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

SOUTH CHINA SEA TENSIONS Territorial claims from China, the Philippines, Taiwan, Brunei, Vietnam and Malaysia overlap in resource-rich sea Hosts some of the world’s busiest shipping lanes China says the US was in its Exclusive Economic Zone – but the two sides disagree on what activities are allowed in an EEZ

The US ship had behaved “like a spy” and China’s action was “totally within our rights”, state media quoted senior naval officials as saying.

“What was the ship doing? Anyone with eyes can see and our navy can see even more clearly,” the China Daily quoted Vice Admiral Jin Mao, former vice-commander of the navy, as saying.

“It’s like a man with a criminal record wandering just outside the gate of a family home. When the host comes out to find out what he is doing there, the man complains that the host had violated his rights.”

The boundaries of China’s EEZ remain disputed, while Beijing and Washington differ on which activities are permitted by law within a nation’s EEZ. China has a key submarine base on Hainan island.

There are also tensions over Tibet, in the wake of Tuesday’s 50th anniversary of the uprising in Lhasa that forced the Dalai Lama into exile.

In a statement, the US State Department said it was “deeply concerned” about the human rights situation in Tibet.

“We urge China to reconsider its policies in Tibet that have created tensions due to their harmful impact on Tibetan religion, culture, and livelihoods.”

China said that the US had confused the facts.

The US had “wrongly accused China for no reason with its gross interference in Chinese internal affairs,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said in a statement.

I remember one of times I went to S. Korea and the captain said “we just got approved to fly over N. Korea…this will reduce our time”.  I was like “what…I don’t mind the extra 45mins in the air, I rather do that than get shot down lol….”

Two airlines in South Korea are to re-route flights after North Korea said it could not guarantee their safety.

Pyongyang’s threat follows its warnings that a US-South Korean military exercise, due to take place next week, could trigger a military clash.

North Korea has long described such exercises as provocative but tensions between the two Koreas are now high.

About 30 international flights a day usually pass through North Korean airspace to and from the South.

South Korea has called on the communist state to immediately withdraw its threat.

“Threatening civilian airliners’ normal operations under international aviation regulations is not only against the international rules but is an act against humanity,” Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Ho-nyeon said.

The BBC’s John Sudworth in Seoul says passenger planes normally leave Seoul for the eastern United States by swinging north over the Sea of Japan to follow the Korean coastline towards Russia and North Alaska.

The two major airlines, Korean Air and Asiana Airlines, have re-routed some 200 flights over the next two weeks, at the cost of four million won ($2,500; £1,800) per flight.

Read more…

Police in the city of Jeonju said the 68-year-old woman has taken, and failed, the written test repeatedly since April 2005.

She failed the exam once again on Monday but has said that she will continue trying.

The woman, identified only by her family name Cha, has repeatedly scored between 30 and 50 marks, below the pass mark of 60 out of 100.

The Korea Times reports that Mrs Cha sells food and household items door to door at apartment complexes.

She currently carries the items in a handcart, but thought that she might need a car for her business.

Police estimate she has spent more than four million won ($4,400) to take the written test, with each test costing 6,000 won, in addition to other expenses.

“I feel sorry every time I see Cha fail. When she passes, I’ll make a commemorative tablet myself and give it to her,” says Park Jung-seok, a traffic police officer.

Mrs Cha has said that she will be back for another attempt. If she passes, then she can begin the practical test.

Wowww I’ve seen many old people working so hard in Korea carry loads of stuff on their backs or pushing carts.  So I hope Mrs. Cha can pass her test, I know that would make life easier for her!  Fighting!