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Bill Savadove

Police in Kunming  identify bomb bag
Kunming  police tripled the reward yesterday for information on two deliberate blasts on public buses that killed two people and injured 14 on Monday. They also identified  a bag that contained one of the bombs.
Police raised the cash reward to 300,000 yuan (HK$343,395) and appealed for members of the public to come forward, state media said.
Speaking a day earlier, a city official said initial investigations had not found  a link between the blasts and terrorism targeting the upcoming Olympics.
Authorities posted a photo of a bag like the one used in the crime. It advertises a brand of Puer tea produced by a Yunnan  company called Landsuntea in English.
The company, based in the city of Puer , was set up in 1996 to market the famed local product, according to its website.
Police asked passengers who took the two buses on the No54 route and members of the public to come forward.  There has been speculation about the targeting of the route since the number 54, when the numbers are pronounced singly,  sounds a little like 'I die' in Putonghua.
A notice urged passengers who took the bus with the number plate AS2035 between 6am and 7.10am on Monday, and the bus with the plate AS1822 from 6.36 to 8.10am to contact the police, as well as anyone who might have seen a similar bag.
The first explosion occurred on a bus at the Panjiawan stop on West Renmin Road at 7.10am.
The second was nearby, at the junction of Changyuan Road and West Renmin Road, at 8.05am.
Critics have asked why city officials did not order all buses to stop operating after the first blast so other buses could be checked.
Du Min, head of the Kunming public security bureau and the city's vice-mayor, earlier defended the  police, saying it was difficult to check the thousands of buses in operation.
Xinhua quoted an expert yesterday as saying the  bombings did not appear to be an attack by an organised terrorist group.
'This is more like a one-time, premeditated, planned terrorist crime, not a terrorist group's elaborate plot for a terrorist attack,' Yin Xingchen   of the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences said.
Disgruntled individuals on the mainland have occasionally set off bombs, typically out of revenge for perceived wrongs.
In May, a Shanghai bus caught fire after someone  lit a can of petrol,  but the motive was never disclosed.
The bombings have spooked  Kunming commuters. 'Sitting on a public bus, I'm trembling with fear that this kind of incident happened on the buses we take. We prefer to spend a little money and take a taxi,' a resident told local media.
A psychologist was quoted by the Yunnan Legal Daily as saying the government could reassure citizens by disclosing information.
'The government can only take what it understands to be the true situation and announce it to the public. Only that will reduce the spontaneous, groundless conjecture,' psychologist Huang Rong   said.



Reward tripled for clues to bus blasts