“We do not require the aid,” he said, according to the official transcript of
the session.

“It is a peanut in our total development exercises [expenditure].” He said the
Indian government wanted to “voluntarily” give it up.

According to a leaked memo, the foreign minister, Nirumpama Rao, proposed “not
to avail [of] any further DFID [British] assistance with effect from 1st
April 2011,” because of the “negative publicity of Indian poverty promoted
by DFID”.

But officials at DFID, Britain’s Department for International Development,
told the Indians that cancelling the programme would cause “grave political
embarrassment” to Britain, according to sources in Delhi.

DFID has sent more than £1 billion of UK taxpayers’ money to India in the last
five years and is planning to spend a further £600 million on Indian aid by
2015.

“They said that British ministers had spent political capital justifying the
aid to their electorate,” one source told The Sunday Telegraph.

“They said it would be highly embarrassing if the Centre [the government of
India] then pulled the plug.”

Amid steep reductions in most British government spending, the NHS and aid
have been the only two budgets protected from cuts.

Britain currently pays India around £280 million a year, six times the amount
given by the second-largest bilateral donor, the United States. Almost
three-quarters of all foreign bilateral aid going to India comes from
Britain. France, chosen as favourite to land the warplane deal, gives around
£19 million a year.

Controversial British projects have included giving the city of Bhopal
£118,000 to help fit its municipal buses and dustcarts with GPS satellite
tracking systems. Bhopal’s buses got satellite tracking before most of
Britain’s did.

In India, meanwhile, government audit reports found £70 million had
disappeared from one DFID-funded project alone.

Hundreds of thousands of pounds was spent on delivering more than 7,000
televisions to schools — most of which did not have electricity. Few of the
televisions ever arrived. A further £44,000 of British aid was allegedly
siphoned off by one project official to finance a movie directed by her son.

Most aid donors to India have wound down their programmes as it has become
officially a “middle-income country,” according to the World Bank.

However, Britain has reallocated its aid spending to focus on India at the
expense of some far poorer countries, including the African state of
Burundi, which is having its British bilateral aid stopped altogether from
next year.

The decision comes even though India has a £6 billion space programme, nuclear
weapons and has started a substantial foreign aid programme of its own. It
now gives out only slightly less in bilateral aid to other countries than it
receives from Western donors.

Supporters of British aid say that India still contains about a third of the
world’s poor, with 450 million people living on less than 80p a day. DFID
says its programmes — which are now focused on the country’s three poorest
states - save at least 17,000 lives a year and have lifted 2.3 million
people out of poverty since 2005.

The junior development minister, Alan Duncan, said last week that cutting off
British aid to India “would mean that hundreds of thousands, if not
millions, of people, will die who otherwise could live.”

However, Mr Mukherjee told the parliament last August that foreign aid from
all sources amounted to only 0.4 per cent of India’s gross domestic product.
From its own resources, the Indian government has more than doubled spending
on health and education since 2003.

Last year, it announced a 17 per cent rise in spending on anti-poverty
programmes. Though massive inequalities remain, India has achieved
substantial reductions in poverty, from 60 per cent to 42 per cent of the
population in the last thirty years.

Emma Boon, campaign director of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “It is
incredible that ministers have defended the aid we send to India, insisting
it is vital, when now we learn that even the Indian government doesn’t want
it.”

As long ago as 2005, MPs on the international development select committee
found that India “seems to have become increasingly tired of being cast in
the role of aid recipient.” In their most recent report on the programme,
last year, they said that British aid to the country should “change
fundamentally,” with different sources of funding. The report praised a
number of DFID projects, but questioned others.

As well as the Indian government, many other Indians are sceptical about
British aid. Malini Mehra, director of an Indian anti-poverty pressure
group, the Centre for Social Markets, said aid was “entirely irrelevant” to
the country’s real problems, which she said were the selfishness of India’s
rich and the unresponsiveness of its institutions.

“DFID are not able to translate the investments they make on the ground into
actual changes in the kind of structures that hold back progress,” Ms Mehra
said.

“Unless we arouse that level of indignation and intolerance of the situation,
aid will make no difference whatsoever.”

Mr Mitchell last night defended British aid, saying: “Our completely revamped
programme is in India’s and Britain’s national interest and is a small part
of a much wider relationship between our two countries.

“We are changing our approach in India. We will target aid at three of India’s
poorest states, rather than central Government.

“We will invest more in the private sector, with our programme having some of
the characteristics of a sovereign wealth fund. We will not be in India
forever, but now is not the time to quit.”

DFID declined to comment on why it had asked the Indian government to continue
with a programme it wanted to end.

New Delhi, Feb 5 (IANS) India should now have an aggressive clean energy solution policy, scaling up development of green technologies for its energy security and export these to developing countries in Africa and Latin America, says United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) Director General Kandeh K. Yumkella.

“India should be aggressive on energy efficiency. If energy is used differently, if energy demand is managed properly, you don’t need to build as many power plants as you need today,” Yumkella, who was in India, told IANS in an interview.

“If you promote the three principles of access, efficiency and increase in the share of renewable energy, India can be one of the global leaders in the energy revolution going forward in the next two decades,” he added.

The Indian government has started doing its bit. It is today among the top five countries in wind energy. The ministry of new and renewable energy has set an ambitious target of 20,000 MW of solar power by 2020. The government is also promoting biomass plants that can produce one to two MW of power to change the energy mix.

Yumkella, who was in New Delhi to attend the “Delhi Sustainable Development Summit”, said companies and funds would be interested to invest in green infrastructure in India, if the government frames promotional policies for the sector.

“There are two sources for funds. We have almost three trillion dollars in cash in a number of companies, funds around the world, which are hesitant to invest because of the global financial crisis. I believe with well-defined policies countries like India with a huge market can attract a huge amount of that cash,” Yumkella said.

Clean energy investments in India reached $10.3 billion in 2011, about 52 percent higher than the $6.8 billion invested in 2010. This was the highest growth figure of any significant economy in the world and had been put down to improving cost-competitiveness of wind and solar, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF).

Yumkella suggested that India should export its green technology solutions to developing countries in Africa and Latin America.

“India has some good programmes like to use waste, biomass to generate electricity and others. These can be scaled up and this would become useful to the rest of the world.

“I should add that your Prime Minister in particular has been a chief driver of South- South corporation. As I speak, my agency is working with Indian firms and taking these energy solutions to Africa.”

Industry experts say India with its technology base should accelerate the development of green technologies. Otherwise, it would just be a captive market for developed countries’ green industry and its costly technologies.

Agrees Yumkella. “It’s a win-win business model where Western companies are making money here which is helping their bottom line in their home base.”

Yumkella also praised India for the role it played in the recently concluded United Nations climate change talks in Durban, South Africa.

“India has been a solid voice in all these negotiations and representing the interest and views of developing countries to grow and to create jobs. India’s voice has that balanced view for sustainable energy.”

(Rohit Vaid can be contacted at rohit.v@ians.in and biz@ians.in)

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP)—India skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni won the toss and
sent Australia in to bat in the Tri-Series opener on Sunday.

Australia had a setback earlier in the day when veteran paceman Brett Lee
was ruled out for up to six weeks after it was confirmed he’d broken a bone in
his right foot. Captain Michael Clarke returns to lead the Australian team after
missing the two T20 matches. Matthew Wade will make his ODI debut as
wicketkeeper, replacing Brad Haddin who is being rested.

Sachin Tendulkar returns for World Cup champion India, which heads into the
opening one-dayer on a high after its first win of the Australian tour on
Friday. The Indians beat Australia by eight wickets to level the Twenty20 series
after a 4-0 whitewash in the test series.

Tendulkar will continue his quest for a 100th international century. He
scored his 99th international hundred in March during India’s World Cup winning
campaign.

India is resting veteran big-hitting opener Virender Sehwag for the
Melbourne Cricket Ground match, giving Rohit Sharma an opportunity.

Sri Lanka joins the competition Wednesday, against India at Perth. The top
two teams qualify for the best-of-three finals series starting March 4.

———

Lineups:

Australia: David Warner, Matthew Wade, Ricky Ponting, Michael Clarke
(captain), Mike Hussey, David Hussey, Dan Christian, Ryan Harris, Mitchell
Starc, Clint McKay, Xavier Doherty.

India: Gautam Gambhir, Sachin Tendulkar, Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina, Rohit
Sharma, Mahendra Singh Dhoni (captain), Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin,
Rahul Sharma, Vinay Kumar, Pravin Kumar.

Umpires: Nigel Llong, England, and Bruce Oxenford, Australia.

TV Umpire: Paul Reiffel, Australia. Match Referee: Andy Pycroft, Zimbabwe.

India’s Supreme Court decided yesterday to cancel 122 controversial mobile phone licenses ending nearly three years of uncertainty but opening up a new round of skepticism about India as a destination for foreign investment.

At issue are the licenses for “2G” spectrum allocated by A. Raja, who was India’s telecom minister until November 2010. He resigned under intense public criticism and allegations by India’s top auditing agencies that he designed the allocation process to favor certain companies, who bought the spectrum at bargain prices. Raja was arrested last February and is in custody awaiting trial.

The “2G scam,” as it’s known in the local press, really started to raise public ire after the 2010 auction of 3G spectrum. That process was different – it was an open auction and generated much more money for a much smaller number of licenses. Pointing to the discrepancy, Raja’s critics concluded that the bizarre process for 2G spectrum (bidders, for example, were given only 45 minutes notice to submit their documents) must have been improper. The auditor’s report concurred and put a staggering estimate on the imputed loss of revenue to India’s exchequer – nearly $34 billion. The Supreme Court has now gone a step further, in a judgment that calls the 2G allocation “illegal”  and “wholly arbitrary, capricious and contrary to public interest apart from being violative of the doctrine of equality”.

Until now, the fate of the all those licenses has been in doubt. Many of the original buyers quickly sold their licenses to big foreign telecom firms, which used the 2G licenses to enter India’s huge mobile phone market. They have been selling service to millions of subscribers all this time (the ruling gives them four more months), assuming that they would be able to continue doing so – perhaps by eventually having to pay some additional figure for the underpriced sum. When the scandal first emerged, cancelling the licenses altogether seemed like a principled but impractical solution — the government certainly had the power to doing so would have upset not only foreign investors and ordinary consumers but also the many friends of the Congress Party in the Indian telecom industry. The government decided to do nothing, and yesterday, the Supreme Court took that stand instead.

The outcome may be the worst case possible for those worried about wobbly investor confidence in India. First, it sends a signal to companies dealing with India’s powerful ministries and bureaucrats that following the letter of India’s regulations is not enough. The companies involved in the 2G allocation followed the rules set by the sitting telecom minister — however arbitrary that process might have seemed. Telenor’s CEO told Reuters,

“We met every inch of that regulation of that license. We have brought competition to the Indian market … just to see a ruling that has significant retroactive consequences. It is an action that we have never seen in any country before.”

Despite economic liberalization in many sectors, India’s rules regarding foreign ownership of companies, imports, exports and taxes remain extremely complex. They have helped put India 132nd out of 183 economies in the World Bank’s latest ease of doing business rankings, and this latest development isn’t likely to move India up.

Second, the judgment gives India’s telecom regulators a do-over: it can hold an auction for 2G spectrum, which would allow it to raise much more revenue than it did the first time around —leaving the details of the new auction to the same telecom regulators and bureaucrats who failed to rein in Raja. Privately, telecom companies say they are increasingly frustrated with India’s regulators, who seem more concerned with maximizing revenue than protecting consumers or developing the industry. Publicly, they go along with whatever the government demands — India will soon surpass China as the world’s largest mobile phone market, and every company in the industry wants to be there. They may be reaching a breaking point. Industry executives — foreign and Indian — have recently banded together to complain to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the current telecom minister, Kapil Sibal, about rules that they say would upend the 3G mobile market. When the 3G spectrum licenses were issued, regulators stipulated that they would allow “inter-circle roaming” — so companies could offer their customers service nationwide. Now, regulators have changed their minds, deciding those expensive 3G licenses don’t include roaming after all.

This isn’t the only industry that has become wary of India’s tantalizing but not-quite-free market potential. After the Indian government decided (after a politically disastrous round of flip-flopping) not to allow Wal-Mart and other “multi-brand” retailers to own 100% of their Indian ventures, it made a concession. “Single-brand” retailers, like IKEA, were welcome to do so. But with a catch: they would have to deal with rules requiring at least 30% local sourcing. Here’s what IKEA’s spokeswoman told the Wall Street Journal:

“India is still a very interesting potential retail market for the IKEA Group, but we need to understand what the guidelines will mean for us. We have found that the conditions applied to local sourcing from [small and midsize enterprises] might be difficult for us to live up to.”

Finally — in case there was any doubt — the Indian government has made it abundantly clear that the political fallout of the Supreme Court judgment is far more important to it than the opinions of foreign telecom companies. The Congress Party is extremely vulnerable on the issue of corruption in state elections this year and national polls in 2014, and at a press conference today, Sibal’s main talking point was that his government is not to blame. He claimed that it was only following the rules set by an earlier government and that the only villain in the story is Raja, who “did not pay heed to the good advice of both Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the Finance Ministry.” Sibal did not mention that Singh and Congress Party President Sonia Gandhi rewarded Raja with a second term as telecom minister in 2009. Having hung up on the mobile phone industry, Singh’s government is now hoping that voters will still take their call.

Beijing (China Daily/ANN) - China will continue its policy of opening-up to the outside world and encourage its enterprises to participate in equal competition in that process, Vice Premier Li Keqiang said on Friday.

He said the world’s second-largest economy will implement a “proactive” strategy to promote further opening-up, and allow the market to play a bigger role in the economy as reforms have just entered a critical zone where “no progress means retreat”.

“Financial and other types of enterprises should seek opportunities and participate in competition on an equal basis during the opening-up,” Li said, adding that both Chinese and foreign companies will benefit from such equal competition.

Analysts said China could further open up its economy on the three fronts of trade, investment and finance.

“The basis of China’s strategic development is still to expand domestic demand, as the country is undergoing accelerating industrialization and urbanization,” Li said.

“China will continue to make more efforts to encourage domestic enterprises to go overseas,” said Wang Haifeng, director of international economy at Institute for International Economic Research, a think tank under the National Development and Reform Commission.

Zhang Yongjun, researcher at the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, said Li’s speech implied that the government probably will put more attention on facilitating enterprises that are heading for overseas markets and becoming multinational groups so they can more closely connect with the world.

The debt crisis in the West has led to a contracted value of Western enterprises and it could provide a good opportunity for Chinese firms to expand their international presence.

Vice-Premier Li said that the ongoing changes in the world economic landscape amid global turmoil have provided huge potential for China to develop into an open economy, and enterprises will play a key role in that process.

He made the remarks at a ceremony marking the 100th anniversary of Bank of China (BOC) in Beijing.

He said BOC is a symbol of China’s opening-up, and financial institutions should play a greater role in supporting the real economy - which produces goods and services - and facilitating more successful Chinese enterprises to explore the international market. “The real economy and the sustainable growth of the financial sector are mutually dependent.”

“The history of BOC illustrates that the real economy is the solid foundation of the development of financial institutions, especially the commercial lenders,” said Xiao Gang, board chairman of BOC.

“Now we are facing great business opportunities as enterprises go abroad. We will take root in China’s economy and the demand of domestic clients, while establishing a large international banking group carrying cross-border advantages,” he said.

Premier Wen Jiabao also sent a letter to BOC to mark the anniversary. He encouraged the bank to keep improving its service to make more contribution to the country’s economic development.

As one of the four biggest State-owned commercial lenders in China, BOC is the only Chinese bank that has operated continuously for 100 years.

In early November, it was selected as a systemically important global financial institution by the 20 Group executive body of the Financial Stability Board - the first time that a commercial lender from an emerging market has joined the “too big to fail” club.

The market leader of the cross-border yuan settlement business announced earlier that the amount of such settlements it processed in 2011 exceeded 1.7 trillion yuan, among which its mainland operations accounted for about 780 billion yuan (US$123 billion).

BOC (Hong Kong) Ltd has handled business of more than 550 billion yuan ($87 billion) as a participating bank, and the other overseas institutions processed more than 430 billion yuan ($68 billion).

BOC (Hong Kong) Ltd and its branch in Macao were appointed by the central bank as the only yuan-clearing bank in the two special administrative regions.

“The Bank of China and its subsidiary BOC (Hong Kong) will continue to play their vital roles in the yuan internationalization process,” said Linus Yip, chief strategist at First Shanghai Securities Ltd.

“As the central government will continue to support Hong Kong as the testing ground for yuan internationalization, BOC (Hong Kong) can leverage its unique advantages to consolidate its leading role in the offshore yuan businesses in the city. BOC (Hong Kong) still possess competitive edges in this regard.”

China’s chokehold on the rare earths vital for everything from iPods to missiles is widely expected to end soon, thanks in large part to a contentious new plant in Malaysia.

Australian miner Lynas won a license Wednesday to begin processing rare earths imported from Australia at the plant — which is nearly completed — despite fierce resistance over environmental and radiation concerns.

Analysts said the Lynas Advanced Materials Plant (LAMP) in eastern Pahang state will be at the vanguard of a world output surge that will break a Chinese stranglehold that has crimped supply and sent prices soaring in recent years.

The plant will be able to process an initial 11,000 tonnes of rare earths per year — about a third of current world demand excluding China — once output begins in the middle of the year, and eventually 22,000 tonnes annually, Lynas says.

That, plus other new sources and increased output by existing producers, will lead to a 10-fold increase in non-Chinese output to 60,000 tonnes by 2016, said Dudley Kingsnorth, a rare earths expert with Industrial Minerals Company of Australia.

The result being a world surplus as in that year demand outside China should be about 55,000 tonnes, he added.

“A ten-fold increase in five years is a huge increase for rare earths,” said Kingsnorth, who added the Lynas facility is the first new plant of its kind outside China in a quarter of a century.

China, with its rich reserves and greater ability to face down public environmental concerns, has come to dominate the market, currently meeting about 95 percent of world demand.

But its imposition of export quotas and other production restrictions aimed at tightening its control on the valuable resources have sent prices rocketing and fuelled a world push to find other sources.

Growing demand means the world simply must explore and develop these new sources, Lynas chief operating officer Eric Noyrez told AFP in an interview on the plant construction site, a three-hour drive from the capital Kuala Lumpur.

“Certainly, the sustainable supply of rare earths is a key component of the economy in any country. It’s just like if the food industry suddenly had no vitamins. It probably would be in a very bad shape,” Noyrez said.

But the controversy in Malaysia over the plant has illustrated the continued challenges in increasing output of rare earths, 17 elements critical to everything from a range of consumer goods to missiles.

Malaysia’s government sees LAMP as part of a drive to bring high-tech industries to rural areas, but residents fear radioactive waste could pose a health threat.

“People are worried it may leak radioactive material into the environment and end up on their dinner table,” said Tan Bun Teet, a local retiree and chairman of Save Malaysia, Stop Lynas, a pressure group formed by local residents.

He said the group planned to file a court challenge.

Local resident Sharimila Vino said health fears outweigh any employment or economic gains and that some residents were moving away from the area.

“I’m planning to get pregnant in five years. I’m thinking to myself, is it safe? What if something happens to me, to my baby?” said the 35-year-old.

Opponents point to a similar rare earths plant built by Japan’s Mitsubishi Corp in the 1980s in Malaysia’s northern Perak state. It was shut in 1992 over protests from residents who blamed it for birth defects in nearby populations.

Opponents accuse Lynas — which won a 10-year tax break for the project — of choosing Malaysia to avoid controversy at home.

Lynas, which will process rare earths from its Mount Weld mine in Australia, denies that, citing economic factors.

With elections expected this year, Malaysia’s government has scrutinised the process closely, causing Lynas to fall months behind schedule and costs to soar.

Malaysian authorities say they still could revoke the licence if Lynas fails to come up with a long-term plan for managing waste. Lynas insists it will do so.

But activists also worry a rare earth supply surge could send prices falling. Plants like LAMP would shut, leaving locals with toxic dump sites, they say.

John Mothersole, a senior economist who tracks the rare earths market for IHS Global Insight, said that scenario was probably unlikely, but admitted it would take time before the market finds balance.

“I think this is a market that is searching for an equilibrium. The (project) in Malaysia is the first step of this process,” he said.

BEIJING (Reuters) - China has a stake in helping euro zone countries get through their debt crisis, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said in comments published on Sunday, pointing to Europe’s importance as a market and hinting at more possible support for beleaguered exporters.

Wen’s remarks, reported by the official Xinhua news agency, built on comments he made during German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s recent visit to China, when he said Beijing was considering increasing its participation in rescue funds to address the European debt crisis.

This time, Wen urged skeptical Chinese citizens to understand that supporting Europe was in their own benefit

“Now Europe is facing a debt crisis and we must consider relations with Europe strategically to protect our national interests,” Wen said while visiting the export-dependent southern Chinese province of Guangdong on Saturday, said Xinhua.

China, with its $3.2 trillion worth foreign exchange reserves, is often seen as a potential source for funds needed to bail out some European governments.

The Chinese premier’s latest comments on the euro crisis again did not include any specific commitments to European economies. But he stressed the stake that China holds in defusing the euro crisis.

“On the one hand, our biggest export market is Europe,” said Wen. “On the other hand, Europe is our biggest source for importing technology. From this perspective, helping to stabilize European markets in fact amounts to helping ourselves. We must make all quarters of society understand this point.”

At a joint media briefing in Beijing with Merkel on Thursday, Wen said China was studying how it might lend Europe further support.

“China is also considering increasing its participation in the solution of the European debt crisis through the channels of the EFSF and ESM,” Wen said at that briefing.

The ESM, a 500-billion-euro ($650 billion) permanent bailout fund due to become operational in July, is expected to replace the EFSF, a temporary fund that has been used to bail out Ireland and Portugal and will help in the second Greek package.

China has repeatedly said it supports a stable euro, and according to most estimates, China has about a quarter of its foreign exchange reserves in euro assets.

But Beijing has consistently been reluctant to make specific promises about any contributions to the rescue funds.

China’s exports to advanced economies, including Europe, have been hit by their continued woes, and Wen said his country’s manufacturers would have to adapt and open up new markets. He also hinted that more support might come.

“Import and export policy must maintain overall stability,” said Wen in a discussion with Guangdong manufacturers, according to Xinhua.

“If there must be adjustments, it should be more in the form of encouragement than restrictions,” said Wen.

(Reporting by Chris Buckley; Editing by Nick Macfie)

BEIJING (Reuters) - Three Tibetans in southwestern China have set themselves ablaze in protest against Chinese rule, Radio Free Asia reported, the latest in a series of self-immolations over the past year.

The three set themselves on fire on Friday in Seda county, known as Serthar in Tibetan, in Sichuan province, calling for freedom for Tibet and the return of exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, the U.S.-funded Radio Free Asia broadcast and online news service said on Saturday, citing three sources, one of whom is in exile.

One person died at the scene, while the other two — Tsaptsai Tsering, 60, and Kyarel, 30 — were seriously injured, it said, citing unidentified sources. It said it could not identify the dead person.

Seda was among the three sites of violent clashes between security forces and demonstrators in Sichuan in late January that marked the bloodiest spate of Tibetan-linked violence in China since early 2008. Riots and protests erupted then in Tibet’s capital, Lhasa, and spread to other restive regions in China’s western border regions including Sichuan, Qinghai and Gansu provinces.

Calls to officials in Seda county were unanswered on Sunday.

If the latest incident is confirmed, at least 13 of the 19 Tibetans who have self-immolated in the past 11 months — most of whom were Buddhist monks and nuns — are believed to have died.

For the Chinese government, the self-immolations are a small but destabilizing challenge to its regional policies, which it says have lifted Tibetans out of poverty and servitude.

China has branded the immolators as terrorists and blamed Tibetan separatist forces for fomenting hatred among the people.

Security forces have clamped down on the Tibet Autonomous Region and other Tibetan areas of China, setting up road blocks and cutting off some communications, making it impossible for journalists and others to independently verify conflicting accounts.

Tibetan advocacy groups say as many as seven Tibetans were shot dead and dozens wounded during the protests in January. China’s official Xinhua news agency reported that police fired in self-defense on “mobs” that stormed police stations.

China has ruled what it calls the Tibet Autonomous Region since Communist troops marched in 1950. It rejects criticism that it is eroding Tibetan culture and faith, saying its rule has ended serfdom and brought development to a backward region.

On Saturday, U.S. Senator John McCain warned China’s Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Zhijun that “the Arab Spring is coming to China” and highlighted the number of Tibetans burning themselves to death in China.

(Reporting by Sui-Lee Wee, Editing by Jonathan Thatcher)

February 5, 2012 by ABS-CBN
Anthony Taberna and Julius Babao investigate two separate cases of bribery in a government office and in a parking area this Monday (Feb 6) in “XXX.”

A tipster revealed that aside from the legitimate encoder who evaluates official transactions done in the Land Transportation Office (LTO) in Calamba, Laguna, a security guard was also seen evaluating transactions on his own computer. On top of this, there were also employees who are allegedly asking bribe from helpless clients.

In Quiapo, Manila, on the other hand, collectors who introduce themselves as staff of the barangay, double the parking fee from P20, as reflected in the receipt, to P40.

Meanwhile, a mother asks help from Pinky Webb to reclaim her child allegedly kidnapped by her live-in partner. After she gave birth to the baby, her live-in partner took the child to the doctor for a check up but never returned. She was surprised to learn one day that the child she gave birth to is no longer hers and now belongs to a different woman.

“XXX” was adjudged Best Public Service Program by the Golden Dove Awards and Outstanding Crime/Investigative Program by the Golden Screen TV Awards last year.

Don’t miss “XXX” this Monday (Feb 6) after “Bandila” on ABS-CBN. You can also watch it at DZMM TeleRadyo (SkyCable ch 26) the same day at 9:15 PM.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The administration of the Vatican City State is rejecting accusations of corruption in the Holy See’s awarding of contracts.

Last month, an Italian news program reported that a top Vatican official had unsuccessfully begged the pope not to be transferred to Washington after exposing alleged corruption that cost the Holy See millions of euros in terms of higher contract prices.

Archbishop Carlo Maria was the No. 2 administrator until named as envoy to Washington last fall. The Vatican’s governship, which oversees outlays for contracts and financial investments, vigorously denied in a statement Saturday accusations Vigano made in letters to Pope Benedict XVI and to the Vatican secretary of state. It said Vigano’s assertions were the “fruit of erroneous evaluations or based on unproven fears.”