🚀 go-pugleaf

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             * C h i n a   N e w s   D i g e s t *

		    (ND Canada Service)

                       -- Dec. 17 (I), 1989


Table of Contents
                                                                # of Lines
 Headline News ..................................................... 24
 1) Chinese Couple Hijacked Jumbo Jet, Land in Japan ............... 47
 2) Japan Wants To Return To China A Family That Hijacked Jet ...... 30
 3) Sakharov Eulogized In U.S.S.R. As Conscience Of The Nation ..... 60

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Headline News
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(1)   China claims today that Ren Min Bi depreciates 21.2%,  effective from
      December 16, 1989.  The sell price of U.S.  dollar will be 4.734 RMB,
      up from 3.7314 RMB.
                                   From: tang@ssurf.ucsd.edu (Sanyee Tang)
                                 Source: World Journal, 12/15/89

(2)   Bulgaria  Paliament  on  Friday passed an amnesty law  for  political
      prisoners and changed the penal code so that Bulgarians can no longer
      be  prosecuted for "anti-state activity"  and "crimes against  allied
      states."   On  Thursday,   Justice  Minister  Sevtla  Daskalova  told
      parliament that 53 prisoners would be released in the amnesty. It was
      not  immediately clear if other political detainees would  remain  in
      custody.
                                   From: Tang@alisuvax.bitnet (Deming Tang)
                                 Source: Des Moines Register, 12/16/89

(3)   The  East  German government said Friday it will disband the  militia
      that imposted Communist Party control at factories for four  decades.
      The  government  ordered the factory militia to be dissolved by  June
      30,   said the official news agency ADN.  Western estimates  put  the
      force  at  3,000,  with the capacity of mobilizing 400,000  on  short
      notice.
                                   From: Tang@alisuvax.bitnet (Deming Tang)
                                 Source: Des Moines Register, 12/16/89


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1.  Chinese Couple Hijacked Jumbo Jet, Land in Japan
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From: yawei@aqua.bacs.indiana.edu
Source: Associated Press, 12/16/89

    TOKYO  -  A Chinese couple hijacked a China Air jumbo jet carrying  223
people Saturday.  The  plane was forced to touch down in Japan with only 40
minutes  of  fuel left after South Korea refused to let it land,  officials
said.

    The  jet  landed  in the western city of Fukuoka almost 4  hours  after
leaving Beijing.   The  passengers  were freed unharmed, Japanese officials
said.

    The couple,  armed with only a knife and accompanied by a child,   were
seized by police and were being questioned.

    The Boeing 747  was flying from Beijing bound for the U.S.  when it was
taken on its harrowing journey.

    The Japan Broadcasting Corp.  identified the man  as Zhang Zhenhai, the
35-year-old manager of a Beijing cotton factory in China's Hebei  province.
The man said he was fleeing China with his wife and 10-year-old child.

    The  network  said the man fled China because of the June crackdown  by
the  army  on  the  pro-democracy  movement,  in  which  the  man  said  he
participated.

    The  man was seriously injured when he was apparently pushed  from  the
plane after it landed, the network said, and the woman he identified as his
wife was overpowered by crew members.

    Flight 981  was traveling from Beijing to New York with stops scheduled
in Shanghai and San Francisco.

    A  knife-wielding  man  commandeered the aircraft before it  landed  in
Shanghai, an unidentified Japanese Transport Ministry official said.

    The  aircraft headed into South Korean airspace over  the  southernmost
island  of  Cheju.  It sought permission to land in Seoul but was  refused,
according  to  a  South  Korean Defense  Ministry  official,   speaking  on
condition of anonymity.  South Korea and Communist China have no diplomatic
ties, and there are no commercial flights between them.

    Japan  Broadcasting  said the hijackers had sought to land  in  Taiwan,
seat of the Nationalist Chinese government, but were denied permission.

    When  the jet entered South Korea airspace,  South Korean and  Japanese
jet fighters intercepted the plane.  Four  Japanese military jets  escorted
the jet to Fukuoka, said Defense Agency spokesman Hironobu Mizoguchi.

    The jet landed at Fukuoka,  560  miles southwest of Tokyo on the island
of Kyushu, after the pilot said he only had 40 minutes of fuel left.

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2.  Japan Wants To Return To China Family That Hijacked Jet
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From: yawei@aqua.bacs.indiana.edu
Source: Associated Press, 12/16/89

    TOKYO  -  Japan  will seek to return to China a family who  hijacked  a
Chinese jet, an official said Saturday.  The jet was on its way to the U.S.
Saturday with 223 people aboard.

    Tokyo also will  "speedily"  return the Air China Boeing 747, which was
commandeered  by a knife-wielding man who said he had a bomb.  The man  was
pushed from the plane after it landed with only 40 minutes of fuel left.

    "We  will  take  procedures toward returning the hijackers  to  China,"
Deputy  Chief  Cabinet  Secretary Nobuo Ishihara told  a  news  conference.
Ishihara stopped short of saying the family of three,  which included a 10-
year-old boy, would actually be sent back to communist China.

    In  Communist  China  the  family  would  be  certain  to  face   harsh
retribution.

    Japan cannot automatically deport the hijackers if they ask for asylum,
and Ishihara noted the government has not confirmed the family's wishes.

    The  father,   who was identified by police as cotton  factory  foreman
Zhang  Zhenhai,   35,  is being treated for injuries suffered after he  was
shoved  out the back door of the plane by a crew member after  arriving  in
Fukuoka, 560 miles southwest of Tokyo.

    The  Chinese  Embassy in Tokyo asked Japanese government to return  the
plane,   its  passengers and crew,  and the hijackers to China as  soon  as
possible, said Foreign Ministry China Division chief Koreshige Anami.

    Zhang  told  Japanese  police he intended to bring aboard  a  bomb  but
instead left it at a hotel in Beijing,  the Japan Broadcasting Corp.  (NHK)
reported.

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3.  Sakharov Eulogized In U.S.S.R. As Conscience Of The Nation
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From: yawei@aqua.bacs.indiana.edu
Source: Associated Press, 12/16/89

    MOSCOW - Andrei Sakharov,  the scientist who built the Soviet  hydrogen
bomb and became a human rights leader has died at age 68.

    The  1975   Nobel Peace Prize winner died alone in his  study  Thursday
night of an apparent heart attack, said his son-in-law, Yefrem Yankelevich.

    He  risked  his  status as a national scientific hero to challenge  the
government  when  most others were silent.  Sakharov  was  vilified by  the
authorities and banished from Moscow in 1980 for nearly 7 years of internal
exile that sapped his health.

    He  was freed by President Mikhail Gorbachev three years ago and won  a
seat in the Soviet Congress. He used it as a forum to press for reform.

    His death occurred after a long day of trying to organize an opposition
to  the  Communist  Party.  He was preparing a speech  demanding  that  the
Communists' guaranteed hold on power be revoked, Yankelevich said.

    The defiant activist's final words to his family were:  "Tomorrow there
will be battle,"  Yankelevich said.

    Sergei Kovalev, a fellow human rights activist in Moscow, said the body
was found by Sakharov's  wife,  Yelena Bonner,   his partner in their human
rights campaigns at about 11 p.m. Moscow time.

    Sakharov had suffered from angina,  but during a visit to the U.S.   in
1988,  doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital determined he did not need
heart surgery or a pacemaker.

    Born May 21,  1921,  Sakharov first  became known as a great scientist.
He  was  inducted  into the Academy of Sciences in 1953  at  age  32,   the
youngest-ever member. Like his father, he became a physicist.

    In 1948,  he joined physicist Igor Tamm in developing the hydrogen bomb
and for 20  years lived and worked in secrecy,  with many privileges.   But
Sakharov  began  to worry about the morality of developing weapons of  mass
destruction.

    In  1961,   he  urged Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to  stop  nuclear
weapons tests but was told not to meddle in politics. Two years later,  the
Soviet Union agreed to such limits in a treaty with the U.S.

    After  Sakharov formed the Human Rights Committee in 1970,   he  became
better known as a dissident leader.  The  physicist's tireless campaigns on
behalf of disarmament and human rights won him the 1975 Nobel Peace Prize.

    At first,  he avoided the punishments heaped upon other dissidents. But
he  was stripped of his Soviet awards after he criticized the  1979  Soviet
invasion of Afghanistan and then-Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev banished him
in January 1980 to Gorky, 200 miles east of Moscow.

    Sakharov  was  never charged with any crime or put on  trial.   He  was
released in December 1986 and recalled to Moscow by Gorbachev.

    Sakharov  took  a leading role in urging the Soviet  leader  to  follow
through on his policies of economic restructuring and politicial  openness.
perestroika, or restructuring, and glasnost, or openness.

    In June, he told the Soviet Congress he had no regrets.  "I am proud of
this exile in Gorky like a medal I wear."


+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Executive Editor:  Deming Tang       E_mail:   tang@alisuvax.bitnet   |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
==========================================================================
News    Transmission    chi@vlsi.uwaterloo.ca   (or)
--------------------    ---------------------
Local Editor: Bo Chi    chi@vlsi.waterloo.edu    
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Sun Dec 17 12:15:43 EST 1989