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News » Society » China banks under pressure as loans turn sour |
- China banks under pressure as loans turn sour
- Bird flu `epidemic' sparks chicken cull
- Fiery end for 36 in bus collision
- At least 36 people died in a fiery collision between a methanol tanker and a double-decker sleeper bus in the mainland's worst traffic accident in more than a year.
- More cities vent fury on islands
- Delivery industry’s wings keep growing
- Sinopec Posts Lowest Half-Year Profit Since 2008 on Refining
- Construction Bank Posts Better-Than-Expected Quarterly Profit
- Have You Heard…
- Expressway horror as crashes claim 47 lives
- Tycoon under investigation in loans case
- Yanyu takes the pain out of homework
- Crackdown on violence at rehabs
- Taiwan warning that typhoon will return
- Typhoons to bring gales, storms to China's coasts
- 36 die in Yan'an road accident
| China banks under pressure as loans turn sour Posted: 26 Aug 2012 07:27 AM PDT China banks under pressure as loans turn sour |
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| Delivery industry’s wings keep growing Posted: 26 Aug 2012 01:00 PM PDT  Source: By Zhong Nan (China Daily) Despite the weak economic outlook in Europe and the US, China remains a dynamic market that provides greater opportunities for its burgeoning express delivery industry both in the international and domestic arena. Foreign express companies are gearing up to take advantage of the huge opportunities coming up in the nation's domestic market. Thanks to the e-commerce boom, the value of the nation's express delivery market more than doubled to $13 billion (10.5 billion euros) in the five years to 2011. The industry is expected to continue growing over the next four years with annual sales of $22.5 billion by 2015, the China Express Service Association says. With such growth opportunities, the competition for market share will intensify. International companies such as United Parcel Service Inc, FedEx Corp and Deutsche Post DHL have all been consolidating their presence by applying new tactics to collect more mail or parcels from Chinese consumers. At the same time, big Chinese express service companies have been working hard to gain a greater share of the domestic market. Against tough international competition they have shown a willingness to bare their knuckles for a tough fight.  The rise of local private firms such as SF Express (Group) Co, YTO Express Co Ltd and Shentong Express Co Ltd even threatens China Postal Express & Logistics Co Ltd, the largest company in the domestic postal market. The domestic market share of this State-owned enterprise, which operates Express Mail Service, has fallen from the nearly 60 percent it enjoyed in 2006 to less than a third last year. With an eager eye on expanding in China, FedEx, the operator of the world's largest cargo airline, and UPS, the world's largest package delivery company, are both seeking permits from the State Post Bureau of China to operate a domestic express business in China this year. FedEx wants to operate innercity express businesses in eight large cities, including Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hangzhou, and the State Postal Bureau has given UPS the green light do so in five cities, including Xi'an and Shanghai. In the meantime, FedEx Express, a subsidiary of FedEx Corp, is seeking more business opportunities in China-Europe air routes and the country's western regions. The US company launched operations using a Boeing 777 freighter in Shanghai and Guangzhou last month, each city having five 777F flights a week, Tuesday to Saturday, connecting Shanghai and Guangzhou to the FedEx hub in Cologne, Germany. It is the first time that FedEx has launched a 777F direct flight from its Asia-Pacific hub at Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport to Europe, which provides more capacity for the company's international express services from China to Europe. The Statistical Office of the European Union said China is the continent's second-largest trading partner. In the first quarter of this year the value of foreign trade between the two was 105.6 billion euros. China has become Europe's second-largest export market. Eddy Chan, head of FedEx Express China, believes FedEx will also find new market growth in the country's west, as more companies move their manufacturing bases from the coastal cities to western provinces. There is a growing demand for fast and efficient international express services in the second- and third-tier cities in the region. "As coastal cities shed basic manufacturing to concentrate on higher-value activities and inland cities begin to grow economically, there will be increased need for efficient transport and logistics services." The transformation will not happen overnight, he says, and the government needs to continue its focus on putting in place the right policy framework and investing in hard infrastructure such as roads, airports and railways. The nation's investment in infrastructure will continue to underpin strong growth in the logistics industry. But private companies are also chipping in large sums with an eye on long-term profits. One of those is DHL of Germany, which is bankrolling a number of strategies to retain and grow its market share in China. The company opened its biggest express hub in Asia, the $175 million DHL Express North Asia hub at Shanghai Pudong International Airport this year. It can process up to 20,000 documents or 20,000 parcels an hour. DHL has also announced plans to invest another $132 million to add eight freight aircraft to service high-demand routes between Shanghai and North Asia, Europe and the US by 2014. The planned flights will be operated by its partners and equity-held airlines: Polar Air, Aerologic and DHL Air UK. Frank Appel, CEO of Deutsche Post DHL, says the current instability of the world economy will heavily affect the express environment. He predicts an increasing demand for express delivery and logistics services, that logistics services will need to be outsourced, and that new trade routes will be needed. "The new Pudong hub would strengthen DHL's Asia Pacific network and its aviation strategy that cements our position in terms of connections, convenience and cost-effectiveness," Appel says. Besides buying the aircraft, DHL is setting up an integrated logistics center in the Qianhai area, a zone of South China's Shenzhen city, to create a regional shipping hub and distribution center. The area will be used as a pilot for financial sector reforms after an array of steps taken by the government to boost the international use of the renminbi, China's currency. Appel says that with Chinese economies fast integrating and free trade agreements reducing barriers to international commerce, logistics companies need capabilities that "are ahead of the curve and offer simplicity, speed and service". "We basically believe that the perspective for the next decade or even two is still unlimited in China." Last year DHL's sales in China reached 4.2 billion euros, representing half of its Asia-Pacific revenue and 10 percent of its global income. The company now expects China to account for a third of its revenue by 2017. As some international companies step up their activities by setting up more air routes or cargo hubs, others have found that e-commerce is another exciting area to develop in China. With two major hubs established in China and an extensive network already in place, UPS is well positioned to capture the next growth wave. E-commerce is the fastest-growing form of retail trade in the world, and many logistics enterprises in China are focusing on that area. In China, UPS has been driving the development of e-commerce and has formed partnerships with small and medium enterprises as well as AliExpress, e-commerce giant Alibaba Group's online wholesale platform. UPS devised a solution that gives Alibaba's customers two-day guaranteed express shipping service options and enables them to manage their shipping and tracking processes online by integrating its shipping technology into the AliExpress system. The increasing demand in the US, Europe and elsewhere for more sophisticated express delivery services is reflected in China, where more and more customers are calling for time-definite shipping, later cut-off times and earlier delivery. "With China's rapid economic development and a rising middle class with enormous spending power, the country is transforming itself into a market driven by consumption. An increasing number of individual customers and the popularity of e-commerce will provide us with more chances of development," says Lim Tze Hsien, vice-president, strategy and operations, UPS China. In anticipation of the increases in the nation's online transactions, UPS has expanded its business networks across the country with 33 fully controlled locations in China, including Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hangzhou, and has extended services to an additional 330 cities and counties. UPS owns and operates two large hubs in China. Located in South China's Guangdong province, the US company's Shenzhen Intra-Asia Hub provides services for customers doing business with emerging Asia. Its Shanghai international hub links Asia to the rest of the world. UPS operates 190 flights a week with destinations to the US, Europe, Asia and major Chinese cities. UPS says China is always one of the most important markets and that the company will continue to invest here. In addition to cashing in on e-commerce, the company is developing its business in the increasingly important healthcare logistics sector. Even though the four biggest express and logistics companies in the world, UPS, FedEx, DHL and TNT Express NV, entered the China market during the 1980s, none has been able to dominate the market for its services. The main reason international companies in China have failed to match the successes they have achieved elsewhere is that Chinese express companies can still offer services at relatively lower prices because of their low management and labor overheads. That means, too, that is easy for almost anyone to set up an express delivery business. Da Wa, secretary-general of the China Express Service Association, says that even though Chinese companies account for more than 94 percent of the domestic market share, foreign companies have prepared well to set up their business networks in China in different ways. With steady government support, a growing middle class and an internationalizing currency, the future demand of this industry is seen as highly attractive. Da says foreign companies' advantages are in company size, branding, capital, management, technology and the quantity of aircraft, which domestic companies can learn from. "Surely there is enough room for players from both home and abroad," Da says. "However, their combined abilities to provide services still lag far behind what's needed to meet the demand in China." |
| Sinopec Posts Lowest Half-Year Profit Since 2008 on Refining Posted: 26 Aug 2012 01:06 PM PDT  Source: Bloomberg News By Guo Aibing – Aug 26, 2012 China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. (600028), Asia's biggest refiner, posted its lowest half-yearly profit since 2008 after the sale of fuels at state-controlled prices reduced earnings. The profit slide follows lower earnings for PetroChina Co. (857), China's biggest oil and gas producer, which expects fuel-pricing reforms in the second half to help cut losses from refining. Sinopec and parent China Petrochemical Corp. have announced more than $40 billion in deals to acquire assets globally since 2009 to build up oil and gas output and diversify from refining. "Sinopec somehow did a nice job in cost control because they can process less-expensive, low-grade crude in many refineries," said Gordon Kwan, Hong Kong-based head of energy research at Mirae Asset Securities Ltd. "Further upside in the second half will hinge on the pace of China's domestic fuel- pricing reforms and improvement in its upstream-asset quality. Until then, it is likely Sinopec shares will lag behind rivals PetroChina and Cnooc." Lower Earnings China's three biggest oil companies posted lower earnings in the first half. PetroChina's profit dropped 6 percent to 62 billion yuan, while Cnooc Ltd. (883), China's biggest offshore oil and gas explorer with no exposure to refining, said that net income declined 19 percent. Sinopec stock has declined 12 percent in Hong Kong this year, while the benchmark Hang Seng Index (HSI) gained 7.8 percent. The stock fell 2.6 percent on Aug. 24 to close at HK$7.17. The company posted a loss of 18.5 billion yuan from processing 811 million barrels of oil in the first half. PetroChina, the country's second-largest refiner, incurred a loss of 23.3 billion yuan from refining 489.7 million barrels. Sinopec processed 1.1 percent more crude than a year earlier, when it lost 6.3 billion yuan less from refining. "The loss came purely from the government's policy of capping retail-fuel prices," said Laban Yu, head of Asia oil & gas equity research at Jefferies Hong Kong Ltd. "There is not much Sinopec can do. We believe current low inflation will allow higher refiner margins in the second half and quite possibly a change in the fuel-pricing mechanism." Price Controls The National Development & Reform Commission, China's top economic planner, has indicated it may relax price controls on natural gas and fuels in the second half, PetroChina President Zhou Jiping said at a post-earnings briefing on Aug. 23. Gasoline and diesel prices are set by the NDRC under a system that tracks the 22-day moving average of a basket of crudes, including Brent, Dubai and Indonesia's Cinta. The cycle may be shortened to 10 days, China Petrochemical said March 28. China, the world's second-biggest oil consumer, cut fuel rates three times between May and July, helping truckers and motorists with the lowest pump prices since December 2010, while threatening profit margins at refiners. The nation increased gasoline and diesel prices this month for the first time since March after global crude costs climbed. Brent crude, the benchmark for more than half the world's oil, dropped 20 percent in the second quarter, the biggest decline since the final quarter of 2008. Stimulus Policies China's economy expanded 7.6 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, the least in three years, as Europe's debt crisis and unemployment in the U.S. crimped export growth, and a crackdown on property speculation curbed domestic demand. China is expected to release some stimulus policies in the second half to maintain stable economic growth, Sinopec said. Such policies would spur demand for fuel and chemical products, creating a so-called positive market environment for Sinopec's businesses, it said in the statement. First-half revenue increased 9.3 percent to 1.348 trillion yuan, Sinopec said in the statement. Operating profit dropped 31.4 percent to 40.1 billion yuan. Sinopec plans to produce 163.75 million barrels of crude in the second half, including 9.14 million barrels from overseas, the company said. The refiner has a target of processing 112 million tons of crude in the second half. Sinopec said it boosted first-half crude output 4.3 percent to 163.09 million barrels, and overseas production jumped 82 percent to 11.13 million barrels. Spending reached 51.5 billion yuan in the first six months, with 21.8 billion yuan on exploration and production. |
| Construction Bank Posts Better-Than-Expected Quarterly Profit Posted: 26 Aug 2012 01:02 PM PDT  Source: Bloomberg News China Construction Bank Corp. (939), the nation's second-largest lender by assets, posted a 20 percent gain in quarterly profit as lending and fee income grew and asset quality improved. Construction Bank, which posted profit growth of 10 percent or more for 11 straight quarters through December, may struggle to maintain earnings momentum as the slowing economy pushes borrowers to default. Moves to deregulate interest rates, along with easing liquidity after cuts in reserve ratios and borrowing costs, could also reduce banks' pricing power on loans. "Banks will feel the pain of the margin squeeze once the impact of the monetary policy loosening and the interest rate liberalization fully kick in next year," Wilson Li, a Shenzhen- based analyst at Guotai Junan Securities Co., said before the results were announced. He expects profit growth of all Hong Kong-listed Chinese banks to drop to "single digits" in 2013. Borrowers Disappear About 17 of the 47 business owners reported to have disappeared last year to escape loan repayments were Construction Bank clients, the South China Morning Post reported in May, citing President Zhang Jianguo. The lender is owed about 3 billion yuan by Zhejiang Zhongjiang Holding, which is under debt reorganization after filing for bankruptcy, Financial News reported last month. Total overdue loans as of June 30 were 46.9 billion yuan, up 33 percent from December 31. Shares of Construction Bank have lost 3 percent this year after declining 22 percent in 2011. The benchmark Hang Seng Index lost 14 percent in the same period. China's economy expanded last quarter at the slowest pace in three years as Europe's debt crisis crimped exports and the government's crackdown on property speculation cooled domestic demand. The slowdown may extend into a seventh quarter, with Deutsche Bank AG cutting its growth estimate for the three months through September to 7.5 percent from 7.9 percent. HSBC Holdings Plc on Aug. 24 lowered its outlook for the full year to an 8 percent expansion, down from 8.4 percent. The nation's banks doled out 4.86 trillion yuan of new loans in the first half, an increase of 16 percent from the same period a year earlier. Lending Increase Construction Bank advanced 564.9 billion yuan of new loans in the first six months, taking the outstanding amount to 7.06 trillion yuan. Non-performing loans fell to 70.4 billion yuan at the end of June from 70.7 billion yuan three months earlier, accounting for 1 percent of total advances, according to today's statement. The China Banking Regulatory Commission told lenders last month that lack of funding, high leverage and a peak of maturing loans have increased the risk that some developers' financing chains may collapse, a person with knowledge of the matter said on Aug. 17. For the first six months, Construction Bank's profit rose 14.5 percent to 106.3 billion yuan, after the lender set aside 14.7 billion yuan against soured loans, 6 percent more than the same period a year earlier. Smaller rival Bank of China Co. this week posted a 5.3 percent increase in first-half net income to 34.8 billion yuan. The People's Bank of China cut interest rates for the first time in three years on June 7 and announced a second reduction less than a month later. The central bank also gave lenders permission to pay as much as 1.1 times the officially established deposit rate and give discounts as deep as 30 percent on loans. Construction Bank's net interest income, the difference between what it pays on deposits and receives on loans, rose 16.5 percent in the first half to 169.7 billion yuan as the net interest margin widened to 2.71 percent. Income from fee and commission services, such as bank cards and custodian services, rose 3.3 percent to 49.2 billion yuan. |
| Posted: 26 Aug 2012 12:55 PM PDT Have You Heard…   |
| Expressway horror as crashes claim 47 lives Posted: 26 Aug 2012 09:16 AM PDT Forty-seven people died and four others were injured in two separate expressway collisions in China yesterday. The first accident occurred at around 2:18am in northwest China's Shaanxi Province, when a fully-loaded double-decker sleeper coach rammed into the back of a tanker loaded with highly inflammable methanol, triggering a fire that engulfed both vehicles and left 36 people on the bus dead, including the driver. Only three people survived the accident. Two of them are being treated in hospital for serious burns. The two drivers of the tanker, who were not injured, were taken into police custody as an investigation began. In the other accident, a van carrying 12 people crashed into a heavy-duty truck on an expressway in southwest China's Sichuan Province yesterday afternoon, killing 10 people in the van and injuring the two others. The two injured were sent to a nearby hospital but one died at 3:30pm after rescue efforts failed. The truck was stopped at the roadside for a tire repair when the van rear-ended it, local work safety authorities said. In the Shaanxi accident, the bus, full of sleeping passengers, was heading from Inner Mongolia's capital Hohhot to Shaanxi's capital city of Xi'an when it rear-ended the tanker, which had just returned to the expressway after an early morning rest stop in the station close to Yan'an City in Shaanxi. Both vehicles burst into flames after methanol leaked from the tanker. A staff member at a nearby gas station said he heard the crash. "It sounded like a tire bursting," the man said. He and his colleagues rushed to the scene with extinguishers when they saw fire break out. The fire brigade in Ansai County received an alarm call at about 2:40am and three fire engines and 10 firefighters were sent to the scene, said Wei Chaoyang, director of the fire brigade. "We found that the fire was very big and the methanol that leaked from the tanker was keeping running to the bus and nearby drainage, forming a 'running fire' that hampered our rescue," Wei said. Wang Xianze, one of the three survivors, told reporters that he was sleeping, like the other passengers, when suddenly he felt a blast like a bomb going off. He said he felt a huge shockwave crush against his chest, making it extremely hard to breathe and he was knocked out for about 60 seconds. When he regained consciousness, he jumped out of a window, sustaining injuries to his legs. He had just two minutes to escape before the fire engulfed both vehicles. "After regaining consciousness, I fumbled about feeling my body and head and found I was not injured. So I opened the window by my side and jumped out," he said, adding that the other passengers didn't have enough time to escape. Another survivor, Zhang Shixiong, 42, from Hohhot, said: "I was sleeping when the huge bang woke me up. I got up fast and pulled the passenger beside me, asking him to run as the bus has caught fire. "I was so scared that I kept running out without looking back. As soon as I ran out of the bus, it exploded in another bang." Wei Xuemei, 27, the third survivor, from Sichuan Province, said she was woken up by the sound of people trying to smash open the bus windows. "I tried hard to smash the windows open but it didn't work. Then I ran and escaped the bus by climbing through the bus' burnt iron frame," she said. Yue Jiuxiang, an official with Yan'an City Fire Bureau, said the accident caused so many casualties because the liquid methanol had leaked from the tanker to the bus. The bus was so badly damaged in the crash that passengers were not able to escape from the front door, Yue said. The fire spread extremely fast as the bus was carrying a lot of flammable goods such as quilts and passengers' luggage. The tanker, owned by Mengzhou No. 1 Transport Co Ltd in central Henan Province, was transporting methanol from Shaanxi-based Yulin Energy and Chemical Co Ltd to the eastern province of Shandong, Xinhua news agency reported. The bus belonged to Hohhot Municipal Transport Group. A top-level team has been sent to Yan'an to investigate the accident, the State Administration of Work Safety said. |
| Tycoon under investigation in loans case Posted: 26 Aug 2012 09:00 AM PDT A HIGH-PROFILE entrepreneur in Erdos in the Inner Monglia Autonomous Region is under investigation after collecting a total of 2.6 billion yuan (US$410 million) from private lenders, according to the China Business Journal. Li Pengfei, chairman of Inner Mongolia Xinyuantai Investment (Group) Co Ltd, an industrial conglomerate in the city whose businesses cover thermoelectric power plants, waste-water treatment, toll operations and real estate development, is currently under surveillance at home as the local public security bureau investigate claims of illegal fundraising. The case is said to involve some 1,600 creditors, according to the newspaper. It said Li had been having difficulty in paying interest on loans since April last year, but because of the company's large business portfolio, no action appeared to have been taken until earlier this month. On August 9, more than a hundred investors approached local government officials demanding an investigation into the state of Li's company and its assets. Li's group has 14 subsidiaries, and most of the money raised from private lenders was used to fund the daily operation of those subsidiaries, the newspaper said, citing an unidentified source. |
| Yanyu takes the pain out of homework Posted: 26 Aug 2012 09:00 AM PDT ATTENDING classes is not usually a way to make money, but using what you have learned to do someone else's homework can be quite lucrative. As the end of the summer holiday approaches, Chinese pupils increasingly find themselves bogged down in too many school assignments. But "Yanyu," a college graduate in north China's Hebei Province, is enjoying a business boom. Yanyu, a screen name meaning "misty rain," is a staunch defender of students' freedom during the holiday season. Freedom, however, that comes at a price. "Seventy yuan (US$11) for an exercise book for a senior-high student, 10 yuan for an exam paper and 5 yuan for a short essay," says Yanyu in an advertisement posted online. With a team of three, Yanyu says his ghostwriting services can rake in several thousand yuan for each of them during the summer holidays, as many students come to them for help with their holiday homework. "Schooldays are a vital period in one's life and should not be buried in homework," he says. Yanyu is one of many ghostwriters, mostly college students, profiting from a widespread problem of too much homework and too little time to play. "Half of my summer holiday has been in remedial classes, with piano courses and loads of homework. I find the holiday more tiring than semesters," said Wang Qi, a senior high student in Hebei. Even life in primary school is not easy. Holiday homework for a 11-year-old can include four essays and more than 60 pages of exam papers. However, experts say the real danger suggested by the emergence of homework ghostwriting was that the "fake culture" of the adult world seemed to be filtering down to infect adolescents. "When adults hire ghostwriters to write a thesis or reports, they may not realize that they're setting a very bad example for the children," said Han Xiaoyu, a teacher at Shijiazhuang No. 40 Middle School. Wang Zhongwu, a sociologist at Shandong University, said the phenomenon is due to China's high tolerance for fakery. "The lenient penalties have prompted fakery to spread like cancer cells, severely compromising social credentials," Wang said. "But the impact of homework fakery is worse than counterfeit products or false accounts, as it dirties the soul of our children." |
| Crackdown on violence at rehabs Posted: 26 Aug 2012 09:00 AM PDT STAFF who resort to violence while treating Internet addicts at rehabilitation centers are to be banned from continuing in their jobs. Zhao Jing, director of a national project responsible for training and appraising psychological instructors for teenage Internet addicts, said the center will fail those who resort to violence. Licenses will be revoked by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security if violent conduct is found, Zhao was quoted in yesterday's China Youth Daily as saying. China began to license psychological instructors for teenage Internet addicts in 2010 and now has 1,567. Concerns over Internet addiction have resulted in increasing numbers of treatment centers in the past few years. In 2010, two instructors were jailed after a 15-year-old was beaten to death at a facility in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. |
| Taiwan warning that typhoon will return Posted: 26 Aug 2012 09:00 AM PDT TAIWAN residents were warned yesterday that Typhoon Tembin was likely to return as people struggled to clear mud-filled homes after the storm pounded the south of the island with the heaviest rains in more than a century. The typhoon appeared to be heading back towards Pingtung County where people were still reeling from the flooding sparked by Tembin when it swept across the southern tip of the island on Friday. Tembin weakened to a tropical storm after moving out to sea but it intensified into a typhoon again. "Tembin regained strength and became a typhoon again early this morning. It was moving east-southeasterly," the weather bureau said yesterday. Although the typhoon was still hundreds of kilometers from the island, the bureau predicted downpours in the south and southeast and called on people there to take precautions. On its current track, Tembin was forecast to make landfall again in Pingtung tomorrow morning and move northward off the east coast. "The clean-up has yet been finished even though we've kept working the past three days. And now I heard the typhoon is coming back," the owner of a shop in Hengchun township told the Sanli cable news network. "This typhoon has destroyed much of my hard work over the past 20 years," he said, visibly upset, while other members of the family used mops to remove thick mud from the floor. The storm's unusual movement was affected by Typhoon Bolaven which struck Japan's Okinawa yesterday, about 800 kilometers east of Taiwan. Tembin forced more than 8,000 people to evacuate their homes when the torrential rain struck Pingtung. Weather bureau data indicated the county had received 724 millimeters of rain since last Wednesday, while Hengchun saw more than 600 millimeters of rainfall on Friday alone. Damage to the agriculture sector totalled TW$168 million (US$5.6 million), according to the Council of Agriculture Affairs. Last night, Tembin was around 400 kilometers southwest of the southern Kaohsiung City. With a radius of 180 kilometers, it was packing gusts of up to 126kph and moving east-southeast at 5kph. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Typhoons to bring gales, storms to China's coasts Posted: 26 Aug 2012 03:05 AM PDT TYPHOON Tembin and Bolaven are moving towards China's coasts and will bring gales and storms, the country's meteorological authority has forecast. The year's 14th typhoon, Tembin, was in the northeast of the South China Sea early this morning and will move south and then northeast towards the sea area south of Taiwan at a speed of five to 10 km per hour, the National Meteorological Center said. |
| 36 die in Yan'an road accident Posted: 25 Aug 2012 08:19 PM PDT THE death toll from an expressway collision between a bus and a tanker in northwest China has risen to 36, local police said today. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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