Briefs, November 3, 2012

S Korea starts case to extradite prisoner

South Korea has started a legal process to extradite a Chinese man who claimed responsibility for an arson attack which caused minor damage at Japan's controversial Yasukuni shrine last December, officials said yesterday. Liu Qiang , 38, is currently serving a 10-month jail term for hurling four petrol bombs at Japan's embassy in Seoul in January in an attack which left burn marks on the embassy's outer wall. Tokyo has asked South Korea to hand Liu over for trial, while Beijing wants Seoul to deport him to China. South Korea's Justice ministry officials said they would ask an appeals court to decide whether Liu should be extradited to Japan. The Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said yesterday that Beijing "attaches great importance to this case". AFP

UN rebukes China over Tibet treatment

The UN's most senior human rights official yesterday urged China to address deep-rooted frustrations that have led to desperate forms of protest by Tibetans, including some 60 cases of people setting themselves on fire since March last year. Navi Pillay called on the Chinese authorities to release detainees, allow independent human rights monitors to visit Tibet, and to lift restrictions on media access to the restive Himalayan region. "Social stability in Tibet will never be achieved through heavy security measures and suppression of human rights," Pillay said, in a rare statement critical of China. Her spokesman said the appeal was not issued to coincide with the Communist Party congress opening next week, but that the "time had come to talk publicly" about allegations of violence against Tibetans seeking to exercise their fundamental freedoms. Reuters

China slams UK auction of looted antiques

A Chinese cultural heritage official has hit out at a planned auction in Britain of two antiques it claims were looted from Beijing in the 19th century. London-based auctioneers Bonhams will auction a Qing dynasty jade disc and a jade hanging vase which were "retrieved from the abandoned Summer Palace in Beijing" in 1860, the company said in a statement. An official from China's State Administration of Cultural Heritage slammed the auction as being "against the spirit of international conventions", the state-run China Daily reported. "Cultural relics should be returned to their country of origin." official Tan Ping said. AFP