AFP
2 August 2010

Three Chinese environmental campaigners were on Monday named among the winners of this year’s Ramon Magsaysay Awards, regarded as Asia’s version of the Nobel prize.

The mayor of the Japanese city of Hiroshima, a Filipino couple who work to educate the poor and a Bangladeshi advocate for the disabled were also honoured by the Ramon Magsaysay Awards Foundation, based in the Philippine capital.

Photographer Huo Daishan received the award for publicising the massive pollution of the Huai River, the third largest in China, despite harassment from local officials and factory owners, the foundation said in a statement.

Pan Yue, a vice-minister of China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection, and Fu Qiping, a village chief in Zhejiang province, received awards for their work on behalf of the environment on opposite sides of the bureaucracy.    more …