New Culture View
May 26, 2009

North Korea's underground nuclear test yesterday caused a 4.5 magnitude earthquake. The shock wave was powerful enough to travel through about two hundred kilometers to reach the other side of the border.

According to the Changchun-based New Culture View, many residents in Yanbian, a border city in Jilin Province right next door to North Korea, felt the tremble yesterday morning. Students having class at some local schools were evacuated to open spaces until the alarm was lifted. In Huichun, another city in Jilin, some kindergartens cancelled classes for the rest of the day, until the local government instructed them not to do so.

In a related article, military expert [Wei Guoan] expressed concern over possible radiation pollution the nuke test may have brought to the underground water in Northeast China. Wei also questioned the maturity of North Korea's nuclear technology, pointing out that the Korean peninsula and its people would have been put in jeopardy had the test failed.

Daily Sunshine
May 26, 2009

To the south of the country, Shenzhen-based Daily Sunshine reports that a boat carrying eighteen illegal immigrants of multiple nationalities who tried to land on Hong Kong were caught by Shenzhen border patrol police on May 22.

The immigrants, which included women and children, were from Bangladesh, Ghana, India, and Pakistan, and each had paid 3,000 to 6,000 yuan to a multinational immigration organization. Eight members of the organization, including five Chinese citizens and three aliens, were also on board and are now under police custody.

The top headline on the front page ponders the possibility that the government might start to levy a property tax on house owners.

The document released yesterday by the State Council concerns economic reforms and indicates that the government is researching the viability of imposing an "environment tax" and a "property tax." Share prices of real estate developer stocks fell at the news.