hello pezz, today's report:
(i) back in hk, chasing private equity exit settlement debt (final payment of nine, delayed by 2 months) via promise of legal letter and loging of same letter with regulatory authority with power over the disposition of shares in said private equity's industry sector (broadcast media)
(ii) raining cats and dogs today, sky dark grey as snow zone winter's early evening, putting me in an if-ish mood
(iii) waiting to make phone call to coal sorce on 'final' coal sourcing settlement - not happy about situations not under control with capital C, bold font, triple underlined, but still, must suffer it, because coal is seller's market; luckily the end customr must suffer in turn
(iv) regarding the earth quake, see attached article from South China Morning Post scmp.com
The Chen I-wan referred to is my English-Jewish-Chinese brother yuantsungchen.com , fighting prime evil in 3D space.
Chugs, TJ
More claims quake body ignored warnings
SICHUAN EARTHQUAKE
Raymond Li
May 29, 2008
The mainland's earthquake watchdog, the China Earthquake Administration (CEA), has come under renewed pressure to address accusations it lied about alerts ahead of the May 12 quake in Sichuan.
Amid internet and overseas reports that the administration failed to respond to quake warnings that could have saved thousands of lives, Lin Musen, director of the CEA's China Earthquake Network Centre, said the agency had not received any warnings of tremors or abnormal natural signs ahead of the magnitude-8 tremor.
Administration officials say there is no accurate or practical method of predicting earthquakes.
However, Chen I-wan, an adviser to the Committee of Natural Hazard Prediction of China Geophysics Society, said the earthquake administration lied about pre-quake alerts to dodge responsibility.
Mr Chen said that as recently as May 2 his committee had sent an earthquake prediction report to the CEA via registered mail - the third report since 2006 - warning of a possible earthquake of 6-7 magnitude affecting areas between Lanzhou in Gansu province and the border between Sichuan, Gansu and Qinghai before April 2009.
Citing documents leaked from the CEA, Mr Chen said Gansu's Longnan earthquake bureau had mailed the CEA on April 18 warning that a quake of about a 7-magnitude would hit Yutian county, an area bordering Xinjiang and Tibet , between April 20 and May 18.
Deputy director of the Longnan earthquake bureau, Zhao Weiguo, confirmed that he had sent the prediction to the CEA. He added that he received a phone call from Sun Shihong, chief forecaster from China Earthquake Networks Centre, one day after the Sichuan quake.
He said: "It's a pity your prediction missed the exact location, but it is of great importance."
But Mr Zhao argued that he could have done a much better job if they had the resources to set up more earthquake monitors.
Mr Chen alleged that the CEA had been hijacked by an elite group of quake academics who had betrayed a long-standing government policy on early warnings that recognised grassroots input into seismic research.
Mr Chen added that many mainland scientists studying earthquake forecasting were ignored as a result of an overwhelming pessimism among the authorities about the field's potential.
Celebrated mainland earthquake scientist Geng Qingguo, who has developed a forecasting theory linking drought to seismic activity, has been shunned by the CEA even though he had successfully predicted earthquakes and other natural disasters.
Mr Zhao from the Longnan earthquake administration said: "The pessimistic view of earthquake forecasting among CEA officials is killing off grass-roots efforts against earthquakes like a tumour."
The CEA head office in Beijing did not respond to requests for comment.
He said his administration had seven earthquake monitoring stations at its peak, but a lack of funds had cut that back to one.
"The ability to predict an earthquake is no longer an issue of science, but a political commitment," Mr Zhao said. "But we must meticulously pursue the cause for the sake of thousands of lives." |
