kunming log

Text Messages Giving Voice to Chinese

Text Messages Giving Voice to Chinese
Opponents of Chemical Factory Found Way Around Censors

By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, June 28, 2007; Page A01

XIAMEN, China -- By the hundreds of thousands, the urgent text messages ricocheted around cellphones in Xiamen, warning of a catastrophe that would spoil the city's beautiful seaside environment and foul its sweet-smelling tropical breezes.

By promoting the construction of a giant chemical factory among the suburban palm trees, the local government was "setting off an atomic bomb in all of Xiamen," the massive message sprays charged, predicting that the plant would cause "leukemia and deformed babies" among the 2 million-plus residents of this city on China's southern rim, just opposite Taiwan.

Source: Washington Post

posted by Aki @ 6:31 PM