Demolition ends China house row

Remember the post of the single house? I'm afraid no more climbing.

The demolition ends a three-year dispute with Wu Ping's family

"The home of a Chinese family who defied property developers in a high-profile campaign has been demolished after a deal was reportedly agreed.

The family of Wu Ping, or Stubborn Nail as Chinese media called her, gave up defending the house - isolated in the middle of a huge construction pit.

Ms Wu's family was the only one of 281 in the area who rejected an initial deal to move from the Chongqing site.

Of the reported new deal, Ms Wu said: "I can't talk about that now."

New law

The dispute had lasted three years and became a cause celebre for many Chinese who have tried to fight property developers.

A night watchman at the building site told AFP news agency: "The stubborn nail has been removed."

The house stands alone in the middle of a building site Enlarge Image

Ms Wu, when told the house in the south-western city had been demolished, said: "Oh well."

A deadline set by a court ordering her to authorise the demolition ran out last Thursday, and it was not clear what steps the authorities would take next.

Her husband, Yang Wu, stayed in the house until the demolition, hanging out banners reading: "The legal private property of citizens cannot be violated."

China's parliament last week passed a landmark law to boost protection of property rights for individuals.

Accusations of illegal land grabs and corruption have dogged China's fast-paced building expansion.

An onlooker on Monday, Wang Qi, told AFP: "It's just like them to destroy the house in the middle of the night."

Source

The coolest nail house in history

Off-beat story from globeandmail.com:

BEIJING — It has been dubbed "the nail house." Sticking out like an upright nail, the house and its owner have stubbornly refused to be hammered down by a property developer who has bulldozed everything around it.

The owner, 51-year-old restaurateur Yang Wu, has become a folk hero in China for defending his property rights and refusing to surrender, even when his home became an isolated island in a vast excavated pit at a construction site.

But with the Chinese Internet rapidly transforming the case into a national media sensation, the government stepped into the fray this weekend, abruptly banning any further reporting or commenting on the nail house.

The publication ban was disclosed yesterday by China Digital Times, a website at the University of California that has close contacts with China's Internet community. It quoted a source saying that all Chinese web media were given an urgent notice on Saturday to delete all feature pages about the nail house, and to block access to all comments on the case.

By yesterday, it reported that the major Chinese websites were complying with the ban.

Before the ban, the nail house had become one of the hottest stories on the Chinese Internet. On one website alone, more than 156,000 people had visited a special blog about it.

The mainstream Chinese media, too, was fascinated with the case. Even the stodgy China Daily, the main English-language propaganda newspaper, splashed the story prominently on page three of its Saturday edition, complete with a photo. The story quoted enthusiasts who called it "the coolest nail house in history."

The developer, in the booming city of Chongqing on the Yangtze River, is planning to build a six-storey shopping mall on the site. With offers of compensation, he has persuaded more than 200 residents to move away. But despite a compensation offer of about $525,000 for his 219-square-metre house, Mr. Yang and his wife have refused to leave until they are given a property of similar size in the same area.

Mr. Yang is a former kung-fu champion who is admired for his defiant attitude and his toughness. Last week, he used two steel pipes to climb up to his home from the 10-metre-deep pit that surrounds it. At the top, he waved a Chinese flag and a banner reading "No violation of legitimate private property."

Brandishing a set of wooden clubs, he shouted to onlookers: "If anyone dares to come up, I'll beat them back down."

The case is being portrayed as the first major test of China's new property law. Earlier this month, the national parliament passed a historic law that safeguards private property rights for the first time.

Thousands of property disputes have erupted in China in recent years. Many cases are similar to the nail-house case: A private developer buys up a site, gains support from local officials and puts pressure on hundreds of local residents to leave.

The Chinese media have been sympathetic to Mr. Yang, with one newspaper saying that he is "fighting for the rights of all property owners in China."

Another newspaper, China Youth Daily, urged the government to support the rights of the homeowner. "If this case of the 'lonely island' persists, it could become a landmark test for Chinese law," it said.

"If the government does not respect people's rights in the case, it will raise suspicions about the entanglement of civil rights, property development and government interests."

China plans to go to the moon

China is planning on committing themselves in going to the moon within a year of 15 from now. This would make them the second country to reach the moon after the US abandoned the Apollo flights. That is if no one beats them to it. New space race?

Article from BBC News:

China confirms Moon probe in 2007

Reaching the moon has long been a goal of China's space programme

China will launch its first lunar probe this year, and expects to be able to land a man on the Moon within 15 years, a senior space official has confirmed.

The Chang'e-1 lunar probe will be launched later this year aboard a Long March 3A rocket.

The probe will provide 3D images of the Moon, survey the lunar landscape, study lunar microwaves and estimate the thickness of the Moon's soil.

China became the third nation to place a human in space in October 2003.

The Moon exploration programme includes a planned lunar fly-by in 2007, a "soft landing" in 2012, return of lunar samples by 2017, and landing an astronaut on the Moon within 15 years.

'Full confidence'

"The goal to land an astronaut on the Moon can surely be achieved in 15 years," said Huang Chunping, a senior space official, while attending the annual full session of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the country's top political advisory body.

Mr Huang gave no date for the launch of the lunar probe, but confirmed it would be later this year.

For the full Moon exploration programme, he admitted that unexpected difficulties could affect the timetable, but said he had "full confidence" in the development of the country's rocket industry.

Mr Huang said that China's next generation carrier rocket, likely to be named Long March 5, would be ready for launch in "seven or eight years," and the vehicles' engines had already been successfully tested.

The long-awaited new rocket would "use non-toxic fuels" and increase the payload capacity of the Long March series from nine tonnes to 25 tonnes, he said.

Space walk

Mr Huang also said China would launch its third manned spaceflight, Shenzhou VII, next year, with three astronauts on board. They will attempt the Chinese programme's first space walk.

The Shenzhou VII launch was planned for this year, but work is still being done on the suits that astronauts will wear during the space walk.

Two of the three astronauts are expected to venture outside the capsule, but no decision has been made on how long the walks would be.

Mr Huang said the timing of the flight will depend on progress on finishing the space suits, and would not be timed for the Summer Olympics, which start in August 2008 in Beijing.