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Internet clips stir holiday travel outrage in China

by Staff Writers
 Beijing (AFP) Jan 16, 2009
 Video clips posted on the Internet of a Chinese railway employee allegedly ignoring desperate travellers and preparing to sell tickets to scalpers have caused an uproar.

The postings have added to social tensions in China over trying to buy rail tickets for the Lunar New Year, which sees the biggest movement of people in the world, and helped trigger rare intervention from President Hu Jintao.

In the YouTube clips, the stone-faced woman sits behind a counter at the Beijing Railway Station printing and counting lots of tickets and ignoring travellers who ask to buy them.

Angry Internet postings said the woman intended to sell the tickets on the black market, highlighting a major problem in China as scalpers are notorious for taking advantage of huge demand for rail travel during the New Year season.

"This will become a fuse that triggers social unrest, sooner or later," one posting read.

Another one was directed at Hu and Premier Wen Jiabao. "What are Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao doing now? (We) should get them to queue by themselves for a ticket."

In response to the growing anger, Hu ordered a clean-up of the nation's ticketing system on Wednesday and the railway ministry announced a crackdown on scalpers the following day.

"The demand and supply imbalance during the Spring Festival transport season this year is very severe," Hu said.

"The railway ministry should ... work out measures for the convenience and benefits of the people and publicise these measures."

During their press conference, railway ministry officials defended the woman in the clips.

However, they also announced railways staff had been ordered not to carry cash or mobile phones into ticket offices to prevent scalpers from colluding with them, according to the state-run China Daily on Thursday.

Booking clerks have also been banned from buying tickets for others, it added.

The Chinese New Year falls this year on January 26 and the government has predicted around 188 million passengers will travel by train in the 40 days before and after that.

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SINO DAILY
EU chief calls for quick end to France-China rift
 Beijing (AFP) Jan 15, 2009
 The EU's ambassador to China called Thursday for a quick end to a rift between the Asian giant and France, describing the row over the French president meeting the Dalai Lama as unhealthy for Europe.






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