SHANGHAI – Several Chinese lawyers are suing the cities of Beijing and Tianjin and the surrounding province of Hebei for what they say has been their failure to fulfil responsibilities in battling against smog, which has shrouded the region since Saturday.

Home to seven of China’s 10 smoggiest cities last year, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, also known as Jing-Jin-Ji, is a front line in China’s “war on pollution”, and it has pledged to cut coal use and promote cleaner industries.

But pollution levels have soared this week as a result of rising winter coal use as well as “unfavourable weather conditions”, which have brought concentrations of dangerous breathable particles known as PM2.5 to record levels at some monitoring stations.

Since Saturday, a total of 24 cities have declared pollution”red alerts”, including Beijing, Tianjin and another eight locations in Hebei province.

The lawsuit, posted by lawyer Li Zhongwei on his Twitter-like Weibo microblogging account on Tuesday, accused the region of being “all talk and little action”, adding that the red alerts “proved that local governments had not conscientiously fulfilled their legal obligations to control air pollution”.

The lawyers in the suit said the region had allowed pollution to increase in the interests of “toxic economic growth”, severely endangering the physical and mental health of millions of people.

They called on the three governments to issue a formal apology and pay damages to the complainants.

Cheng Hai, another lawyer behind the suit, told Reuters that governments bore overall responsibility for pollution and needed to be held to account. “We believe that China’s smog is not unavoidable, but is the result of weaknesses in governance,” he said. “Ordinary people think that the previous stage of economic growth led inevitably to smog, but this is completely wrong.” China has promised to provide legal channels that will allow citizens to sue polluters, and special tribunals have been set up across the country to deal with environmental lawsuits.

China’s amended environmental protection law, which went into effect at the beginning of last year, allows individuals to take legal action, but only via non-profit “social organisations” that have been approved by the government. “Our plan is to file the suit and we will receive the verdict within seven days on whether or not it will be accepted, and if it is not accepted, we will take it to the higher courts,” said Cheng.

Chinese chickens are being fed more vitamins and vaccines as jittery farmers ramp up hen-house sterilization in a bid to protect flocks against a virulent strain of airborne bird flu that has led to record culling in nearby South Korea.

While Seoul has ordered the gassing of 20 million birds since the first case of the H5N6 virus was reported on Nov. 18, outbreaks in Japan and three confirmed cases in mainland China in the last two months have stoked fears of regional spread. Hong Kong on Tuesday confirmed its first human bird flu infection of the season.

Fears of the virus’ spread have spooked farmers preparing for the year’s peak meat demand during Lunar New Year celebrations. The last major outbreak in 2013 killed 36 people and caused some $6.5 billion in losses to the agriculture sector.

“We are worried,” said the manager of a state-owned 100,000 bird farm in Shandong province who gave his surname as Tan. “We are stepping up our existing anti-epidemic measures.”

“We feed them (chickens) healthcare products, vitamins and anti-virus medicine,” said Tan, who declined to give his first name as he was not authorised to speak to media. “Previously we fed them (vitamins and medicine) once every three months, but starting from wintertime we feed them once every week,” said Tan, citing outbreaks in other countries as a concern.

IMPORTS BANNED

The measures introduced at Tan’s farm echo those being put in place elsewhere and draw on experiences gained during the damaging 2013 outbreak in China, the world’s no. 3 producer of broiler chickens and the second-biggest poultry consumer.

In recent years, farmers have increased cleaning regimes, animal detention techniques, and built roofs to cover hen pens, among other steps.

Official delegations from Japan, South Korea and China gathered in Beijing last week for a symposium on preventing and controlling bird flu and other diseases in East Asia, according to the website of China’s ministry of agriculture.

China now has bans in place on poultry imports from more than 60 countries, including South Korea and Japan.

The bird flu outbreaks in Japan are the first in nearly two years. Japan started a fresh cull of chickens last weekend after a fifth outbreak since the end of November. More than 780,000 chickens and ducks have been culled in the country since an outbreak of H5N6 virus at a poultry farm in Aomori prefecture on Japan’s most populous island of Honshu on Nov. 28.

Last month, China added five nations – the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Russia and Austria – to its list of banned suppliers of poultry imports as concern grows about the spread of disease. Parts of Europe and Israel have been hit by the H5N8 strain of the virus in recent weeks.

At Beijing Huadu Yukou Poultry Industry Co Ltd, a major chicken breeder based in Pinggu, near the capital, chief veterinary officer Liu Changqing said disease prevention systems have been ramped up and the firm believes its birds will be protected.

“Bird flu is the number one thing that farmers guard against. It spreads so quickly, it can bankrupt you,” Liu warned.

Jakarta – Two Australian tourists accused of stealing a bicycle have been forced to take a “walk of shame” through an Indonesian island with signs round their necks, an official said Tuesday.

“I am thieve (sic). Don’t do what I did,” the signs read.

The tourists, whose identities were not revealed, allegedly stole the bicycle about 10 days ago on Gili Trawangan, a popular tourist destination in central Indonesia.

CCTV recordings showed the two Australians taking a bike from the hotel, said village chief Muhamad Taufik.

The hotel manager reported the case to the authorities who caught the pair the following day, Taufik added.

“We interrogated them, made an agreement, paraded them around the island and forced them to leave Gili,” Taufik told AFP.

The two were the first foreigners this year to undergo a “walk of shame” on the island. A few Indonesians have been forced to take part this year in similar parades for theft.

National laws are in force on the island but it is unclear whether the Australians underwent a formal police investigation.

“The walk of shame parade is a regulation in our village. I don’t know whether the police are charging them now, what matters to me is that they’re now gone,” Taufik said.

Such parades have taken place for years on Gili Trawangan, a tiny island off the coast of Lombok and just east of the major resort island of Bali.