Roundup - 23/12/2009

• Liu Xiaobo has been tried in Beijing. According to information provided by his brother-in-law, Liu Hui, the trial lasted only two hours. Foreign diploma,ats and Liu Xia, Liu Xiaobo’s wife, were barred from entering the courtroom. Liu Xiaobo admitted exercising his right to free speech but denies attempting to subvert state power. Liu was arrested after the release of the Charter 08 document. Charter 08 called for wide ranging political reform including urging the authorities to ‘end the practise of viewing words as crime.’ Liu Xiaobo is the only signatory of the document to be arrested although others have been harassed. Liu Xiaobo previously spent 21 months in jail for his role in the Tiananmen Square demonstrations in 1989. He will likely be sentenced on Christmas day to a term which could be as long as 15 years.

• Beijing has refused to postpone the execution of a British citizen scheduled for Tuesday 29th December. Akmal Shaikh was convicted of carrying four kilograms of heroin into China. According to his defence he was conned by a gang in Poland who convinced him that they could get him a hit single in China. Chinese authorities say they have tried that case legally and that foreign countries have no right to interfere in China’s legal affairs. However, there are still questions over Mr Shaikh’s right to have his psychiatric state taken into account. He is believed to have bipolar disorder, Chinese law states that in cases where someone with psychiatric issues commits a crime, their psychiatric state should be taken into account in sentencing. However, reports say that Mr. Shaikh himself asserted that there was nothing wrong with his mental state. The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office has been stepping up efforts to intervene on Mr Shaikh’s behalf but so far with little effect.

• China’s National people’s Congress is considering proposals to set up a state social security fund. The fund will be there to contribute to social insurance payouts. The new law will aim to provide all Chinese citizens with the right to contribute to state health insurance and pension schemes. Until now these facilities have been available almost exclusively to urban residents. Currently 219 million people have pension schemes and 317 million have basic health insurance. China’s reform of its social services, and in particular its extension to rural citizens is hoped to help social stability by spreading the benefits of China’s economic growth more evenly, and to boost the economy by increasing consumer spending.

• The South Korean Yonhap news agency has reported that 6-nation talks on North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme will begin early next year. An unnamed government source said that the talks ‘must begin before February.’ US Special Nuclear Envoy Stephen Bosworth returned form Pyongyang earlier this month declaring that the US and the DPRK have reached common ground on which to re-launch the talks.