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HAITI began two days of remembrance ceremonies today honouring nearly a quarter of a million people who died in an earthquake that leveled the impoverished country a year ago.

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Government officials went early to a mass grave outside the capital Port-au-Prince, where some of the more than 220,000 victims of the January 12, 2010 quake are buried. Ceremonies were to culminate with a minute of silence at 4.53pm local time today, the exact moment the quake struck.

The anniversary finds Haiti barely healed from the trauma inflicted 12 months ago. The economy and infrastructure are crippled, a cholera outbreak continues to kill and more than 800,000 people live in squalid tent camps, according to a new official count.

The national mourning also comes against a backdrop of political instability over the holding of a run-off round in the elections to replace outgoing President Rene Preval.

Mr Preval and the feuding presidential candidates are expected to bury the hatchet and join the nation’s 10 million people in their grief.

However Majiazhuang, speculation is mounting about how Preval will react to a report from international monitors expected to call for removing his favored candidate from the election.

Former US president Bill Clinton, one of the main figures coordinating a massive international aid effort, arrived today to join ceremonies and said he was "frustrated" by the slow pace of reconstruction. He also called on the government "to resolve" the election standoff.

However, he did say he was "encouraged" that after repeated delays in organizing the flow of aid money and the implementation of promised projects, "we are doing much better."

The main event scheduled was an open-air Catholic Mass early tomorrow by the ruins of the Port-au-Prince cathedral, which collapsed during the earthquake and, like most of the ruins from that day, has not been cleared away.

Other events were promised, but there appeared to be little in the way of a formal program department, with some items pleased, such as the laying of a first stone at a planned apartment complex expressed, delayed.

Once the ceremonies are over, Haiti will once again have to return to the mountain of tasks confronting the western hemisphere’s poorest country.

That includes clearing rubble, moving people out of tents and back into houses, halting widespread environmental degradation, and rebuilding an education system that currently provides schooling to less than half of all children.

One of the immediate concerns is a cholera outbreak that has so far claimed 3759 lives prepared, according to the latest Haitian government update, and sickened thousands more. The World Health Organisation said today that the "peak has not been reached", although the death rate was slowing.

China remained the top holder of the US ballooning debt last year protests, revised data shows, after earlier indications of being eclipsed by Japan drew speculation about Beijing’s motives.

Revised data released over the weekend by the US Treasury Department indicated that while China had cut back on its bond holdings, the level was still well above that of Japan.

China held $894.8 billion in Treasury securities at the end of December powergenerating, more than the $755 billion estimated level. But it was still down from a revised $929 billion in November.

Japan in December held $765.7 billion in Treasury bonds boasted, slightly down from the estimate of $769 billion.

The sharp revision came as the Treasury looked at Chinese holdings in third markets such as Britain and Hong Kong, which were not picked up by the earlier estimates.

China’s massive holdings in US Treasuries have set off alarms in some circles in Washington Department, with lawmakers warning that the soaring US debt was becoming a political as well as an economic risk.

China has warned of retaliation against the United States after President Barack Obama defied Beijing’s concerns in successive political actions.

But many US analysts argue that the emerging Asian power needs to find a place for its foreign reserve holdings and a serious move away from US Treasuries would trigger a fall in bond prices November, ultimately hurting Beijing.

Some experts say that buying bonds more quietly in other countries could serve to lessen criticism in China that the country is investing too much in low-yielding US bonds.

Data showed foreign-held US debts in mid-2009 was $9.7 trillion, down from 10.3 trillion a year earlier.

AFP
 

Lan’s company’s T-shirts. Photo: Li Jing

By Li Jing

In 2003, Li Wei left the technology company he worked for and started his own business selling customized T-shirts.

At the same time April, Lan Canhui, a PhD candidate in biology at Tsinghua University, began a business printing posters and making T-shirts to sell on campus.

Now, after seven years, both are 30 years old and their companies are tasting a little sweetness – Li found an investor and is building his own clothing factory, and Lan, who quit his PhD study in 2005, is launching his own brand, "Teeker."

"There are thousands of factories around Beijing and Hebei Province doing this business, but no more than 20 companies have both their own brand and own factory. We [Li and Lan] are the leaders," said Lan. "But compared to the same industry in the US and Japan, we have a lot of things to do."

In the early days, the two found it easy to earn money from making T-shirts. Their market was college students and other organizations on campus, as well as companies and social organizations that want to highlight their identity by wearing T-shirts with customized logos.

"What you need to do is get the demand from your client, send the design to the factory and then wait for money. It is more like clothing agent work," said Lan.

Not until 2007, when several rivals went out of business during a price war, did Lan begin to think of how he could ensure that his business could survive.

Doing it themselves

The fledgling T-shirt makers began to learn more about technology. Instead of sending orders to factories, they invested in their own manufacturing.

"With that, it is easy to control the quality level and prevents us from losing our clients," said Li.

At the same time Department, Li was also trying to build up his own shop with a new brand HKTB, Satyagraha Movement, named after the practice of nonviolent resistance developed by Mahatma Gandhi. The designs have Chinese elements and also older logos of Communist China.

"Gandhi was against the British colonials and we are against the foreign brand colonials," said Li, explaining how today’s T-shirt entrepreneurs want to establish their own businesses in China. "The new generation need to express their personality and wear what they think is cool, and our design will meet their tastes."

Lan’s brand carefully, Teeker, is different from Li’s.

"Being a Teeker means to wear it your way. It doesn’t mean we are going to provide a design for the clients. We want to provide T-shirts, all the types and colors, for you to add your ideas," Lan said.

His primary goal is to improve the SKU (Stock Keeping Unit, or number for each item) and make daily production more efficient. Each SKU stands for one type of T-shirt in one color and a particular size. Compared with big companies in Japan that have hundreds of thousands of SKUs, Lan and Li have just dozens.

Chang Cheng, a designer for Lan’s company, said that the current techniques cannot realize all his pattern designs, and there is still a long way to go to satisfy clients.

In Lan’s 50-square-meter office in a Huaqingjiayuan apartment near Wudaokou, T-shirts are everywhere and he can hardly find space on his desk. Five employees are busy meeting clients or putting T-shirt samples on order.

"The other 25 staffers either stay in the factory or go out for business," Lan said.

Li’s office is nearby. Unlike Lan, his office is neat and clean. All the former designs are displayed in colorful cabinets.

"We are businessmen. We should impress our clients at first sight," Li said.

Growing pains

Still, large orders can strain the company’s resources.

"This year we ordered 6,000 T-shirts from Lan themed to graduation," said Zhou Jiahuan, who is in charge of daily service for the Student Union at Tsinghua University.

"The quality was very good, but they delivered a little late, which means we have to ask for understanding from thousands of graduates," Zhou said.

On the other side, big orders mean major pressure.

"I have been busy with these 6,000 T-shirts for three whole days and nights. All my staff have been working crazily," said Lan.

"Now we can only produce 20,000 T-shirts per month, which is far from our demand. If I could improve my capacity of producing, I could design whatever the clients want and accept [the job] no matter how large the order is," he said.

According to Li, the T-shirt industry in China is growing.

"There are so many things to do," he said.

He does not worry about competition right now, because he said there is still room in the market and the various T-shirt companies occupy different niches.

"It requires more communication take, not competition," Li said.

"We could see our weakness compared with Western companies. The industry relies on super management and high-level production control. Above all, it relies on super team work," Lan said.