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News » Society » Reform seen as party stays clear of Mao |
- Reform seen as party stays clear of Mao
- The Chinese Communist Party has dropped its strongest hint yet that it will move in the direction of reform, removing a once standard reference to late leader Mao Zedong in statements ahead of a generational leadership transition.
- Film shown at Tokyo festival despite Diaoyus row
- A banner day to honor forebears
- Mo's Nobel may pull in 200m yuan by year's end
- Determination to resolve Taiwan issue, reunite nation unshakeable
- Nursing home fire kills dozen
- Police probe doctors in human egg case
- Developer in trouble for destroying heritage site
- Villagers lose savings as cooperatives shut down
- Cambodia deports 'picture vandal'
- China’s Take on U.S. Foreign Policy Debate
- Film industry booms in Q3: Huayi Brothers revenue up 70pc
- China Bans Foreign Ships From Rivers as Local Operators Struggle
- China army ‘reshuffle’ before party congress
- China’s Doldrums Put Pressure on U.S. Exporters
- Have You Heard…
- Kindergarten teacher detained for hitting children in N. China
- Villagers find deposits in loan co-ops vaporize
- China to revise prison, lawyers laws
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| A banner day to honor forebears Posted: 23 Oct 2012 10:41 AM PDT Nearly 10,000 people from China and overseas hold a grand ceremony dedicated to the Yellow Emperor (who reigned from 2696–2598 BC) at the mausoleum of China's originator in Huangling County in northwestern Shaanxi Province yesterday. It was the Double Ninth Festival or the annual Senior's Day - the ninth day of the ninth month in the Chinese Lunar Calendar - seen as an auspicious day to show respect to seniors and ancestors. It is customary to climb a high mountain, drink chrysanthemum wine and for families to reunite to eat symbolic cake, a custom that could date back 2,000 years. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Mo's Nobel may pull in 200m yuan by year's end Posted: 23 Oct 2012 10:28 AM PDT FOR Chinese writer Mo Yan, the laurel of the Nobel Prize may be literary gold. For others, it's a chance to make a fortune. Mo, the latest winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature who saw his new book just hit the market, might become the richest writer in China, media reports said. It's estimated that Mo prize could generate 200 million yuan (US$32.3 million) just this year, according to China Economic Weekly magazine. Guo Jingming, 24, topped the Rich List of Chinese Writers in 2011, with a royalty income of 24.5 million yuan. "It's like a movie star winning an Oscar," Tang Juan, a marketing director with a publishing company based in Beijing, told the magazine. The company, Beijing Genuine & Profound Cultural Development Co, is the only publisher in China with the right to publish all of Mo's books. The company staff worked around clock to publish Mo's new book, "Our Assassin Jing Ke," ahead of schedule soon after Mo's prize was announced. Apart from the Nobel Prize award of about 7.5 million yuan, copyright royalties will contribute a large share of Mo's income. All Mo's books have been sold out so fast both online and in bookstores that many readers have to reserve them and wait for the books to be printed. Insiders said Mo may get more than 10 percent of the books' sales, which could earn him 110 million yuan. Also, more of Mo's books are expected to be adapted to movies and plays. About 20 movie companies have already made inquiries of the writer and agencies. "Now we do not need to do much promotion and other publishers and movie companies will come to us," Tang said. Tang said the publisher studied Mo's works for years before signing the writer. "We considered the possibility that Mo wins the Nobel prize. But it never occurred to us that the win would come that fast," she said. |
| Determination to resolve Taiwan issue, reunite nation unshakeable Posted: 23 Oct 2012 10:05 AM PDT A CHINESE mainland official yesterday expressed the determination to solve the Taiwan issue and to realize national reunification. Wang Yi, head of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, or China's Cabinet, said realizing the reunification of the two sides of the Taiwan Strait is a major historic mission of the Communist Party of China. The CPC has made unremitting efforts and positive and important progress over the past six decades and more, Wang said. "We have the firm determination, full confidence and patience needed in solving the Taiwan issue," he said. "Our determination rests with the complete unification of the nation." He said that the core of solving the Taiwan issue is to realize national reunification. This, Wang said, has a great bearing on national sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as the prospects and destiny of China. "We are duty-bound to shoulder and fulfil this historic responsibility, and should be sturdy to oppose and resist acts of 'Taiwan independence' in all their forms," Wang said. "We will unswervingly overcome any difficulties and challenges." "Our confidence derives from the rising strength of the mainland and development of cross-Strait relations," he said. The mainland's principles and policies towards Taiwan, which have been tested through practice, have become more and more in accord with the facts on the island and demands of its people. Principles and policies "These principles and policies have gained more understanding and recognition from Taiwan society, and all these will promote the two sides to march forward from exchanges to harmony, and from harmony to reunification," said Wang, who is also the director of the Taiwan Work Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee. "Our patience is based on the objective analysis of Taiwan-related issues," said Wang. He added that Taiwan-related issues are complicated as they involve politics, economy, law, international relations and national sentiments. The mainland is clear-minded that the divergence and misunderstanding between the two sides has been tough due to years of isolation, said Wang, adding patience is needed to solve issues with persistence and sincerity. The mainland and Taiwan restored regular talks in June 2008, when Chen Yunlin, president of the mainland-based Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits met with Chiang Pin-kung, then chairman of the Taiwan-based Straits Exchange Foundation, for the first time after a lull of nine years. Chen and Jiang held eight rounds of talks and witnessed the signing of 18 pacts, including the landmark Cross-Strait Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement signed in 2010. "These pacts have settled a large number of practical problems emerging in the exchanges of the two sides and have promoted the institutionalization and standardization of cross-Strait exchanges," said Wang. |
| Posted: 23 Oct 2012 10:05 AM PDT Police in Taiwan said a nursing home resident confessed to an early morning fire that ripped through the facility yesterday, killing 12 people and injuring 60, many of them too weak to get out of their beds to escape. Police did not identify the suspect, but Taiwan television stations reported that he set the 3am fire because he was unhappy about his own protracted illness. The reports also said the man was found naked, hiding in a storage facility at the Hsinying Hospital, after burning his own clothes. The nursing home is on the second floor of the hospital in the southern city of Tainan. Hospital security video broadcast on TV showed nurses working frantically to save patients, wheeling their beds into nearby corridors and performing CPR on stricken victims outside the hospital. Hospital official Tsai Ming-shih said that the victims died of smoke inhalation, and most of them were bedridden and too frail to run for their lives. Tsai said the fire was extinguished about 40 minutes after it broke out and rescuers safely evacuated about 100 patients. Prosecutor Tseng Chao-kai said police were questioning the suspect. The government-owned Central News Agency said the suspect confessed to setting the fire. The nursing home was operated by outsiders commissioned by the hospital. Most of its patients were in serious condition and attached to nasal-gastric, urinal or respiratory tubes. Some of them had mental illnesses. Nursing homes are a relatively new phenomenon in Taiwan, where Confucian values dictate that family members care for elderly relatives themselves, rather than consigning them to institutions. Taiwan yesterday marked "Day for the Elderly," and officials handed out packets of money to citizens 80 years of age and older. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Police probe doctors in human egg case Posted: 23 Oct 2012 09:24 AM PDT SHENZHEN City police have begun investigating some of the doctors involved in an illegal human egg trading facility that allegedly sold human eggs for 200,000 yuan (US$31,746) each. The local health watchdog said it had collected information about the doctors and presented the evidence to local police, according to yesterday's Southern Metropolis Daily. Shenzhen health officials announced last Thursday that they had raided the illegal human egg trading facility inside an abandoned nursing home, where agents collected eggs from young women and later sold them. The nursing home had been divided into several sections and was equipped with modern medical facilities worth more than 10 million yuan. Unlicensed doctors collected eggs, fertilized them and transplanted them into women customers with fertility problems. Officials said the case was very "serious" as it involved not only unlicensed medical practice but also illegal check on fetus' gender and surrogate pregnancy, which is banned in China. Officials of the Shenzhen Health Supervision Agency said they found many doctors' names and telephone numbers in the surgery record at the unlicensed facility. However, the names all turned out to be fake and they have passed on the information to local police. There were also names and contacts of many doctors in the telephone address book of Zhang Xiaohua, who was in charge of the facility. The list included a leading doctor in the anesthesiology department of Shenzhen Sun Yat-sen Cardiovascular Hospital. Zhang used his cell phone to send the doctor's name and surgery schedule to a patient on July 15, the newspaper reported. The doctor's number in Zhang's phone was the same as the phone number the former publicized online. However, the doctor denied any links to the unlicensed facility, telling the newspaper his speciality was anesthesia for heart surgery not illegal human egg collection. "With my current income, professional position and busy schedule, it is impossible to do such an illegal thing," he said. "The losses far outweigh the gains if the crime came to light." He suggested that both his name and phone number can be googled. The doctor believed that the illegal facility was simply using his name to cheat infertile couples, making them believe that the surgery was being done by well-known doctors from big hospitals. |
| Developer in trouble for destroying heritage site Posted: 23 Oct 2012 09:24 AM PDT A DEVELOPER in central China's Henan Province is facing severe punishment after destroying a 4,000-year-old cultural heritage site for a construction project, ignoring warnings from local authorities, officials said yesterday. A 1 meter deep ground level of the Longshan Cultural site of Shang and Zhou dynasties (c. 16th century-256 BC) in Zhengzhou City was damaged by bulldozers, said Xin Yingjun, director of the excavation department of the city's cultural heritage bureau. Debris of ancient pottery jars, bowls and goblets have been found in the earth dug out by bulldozers and experts were evaluating the age of the cultural relics, Xin said. "We have to launch a rescue excavation now on the deeper part of the site that has been submerged by groundwater because of the developer's illegal work," he said. The Henan Lihao Real Estate Co planned to build an apartment building for senior citizens on 12,000 square meters of land in the city. However, before construction was due to start, experts and officials with the bureau found a 93-meter-long, 26-meter-wide and 2.3-meter-deep cultural heritage site full of cultural relics and asked the developer to postpone the construction in September. "The developer agreed to wait until the end of the excavation work, but launched the digging during the National Day holiday early this month," he added. Zhengzhou is one of the eight Great Ancient Capitals of China. It was home to the capital of the Shang Dynasty (c. 16th century-11th century BC) and is full of cultural relics in the earth, officals said. |
| Villagers lose savings as cooperatives shut down Posted: 23 Oct 2012 09:23 AM PDT THOUSANDS of villagers in a coastal county in east China's Jiangsu Province were astonished to find that their savings, worth about 110 million yuan (US$17.6 million), in local financial cooperatives had vanished. Four privately-owned but government-supervised financial cooperatives in Guannan County were shut down a week ago after their managers fled, leaving 2,500 depositors in the lurch. A local official named Liang Gongzhu said the four cooperatives lent the money illegally to an entrepreneur surnamed Wang to earn high interest on the deposits. But Wang went bankrupt and the lenders could not return the money to their clients, China National Radio reported yesterday. According to Chinese law, rural financial cooperatives can only lend money to villagers to assist in agricultural activities. Local agricultural and commercial departments are supposed to supervise these private institutions. But local officials say the law does not specify which government agency is supposed to oversee the operation of rural financial cooperatives. Besides, local governments had little connection with the cooperatives and found it hard to supervise their business. "They (people who run cooperatives) told me they were approved by agricultural and commercial departments, and I felt reassured," a villager Sun Yuhua said. He had deposited more than 40,000 yuan of savings with one of the cooperatives. Some suspects have surrendered to police but Wang is still at large, the report said. |
| Cambodia deports 'picture vandal' Posted: 23 Oct 2012 09:44 AM PDT A Cambodian court orders the deportation of a Chinese factory supervisor found guilty of desecrating pictures of former king Norodom Sihanouk. |
| China’s Take on U.S. Foreign Policy Debate Posted: 23 Oct 2012 09:10 AM PDT  Source: Wall Street Journal by Josh Chin BEIJING—China's online community watched Monday night's foreign policy debate between U.S. President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney with a mix of fascination and bemusement, with some drawing parallels and contrasts with Beijing's coming leadership transition. "China's both an adversary, but also a potential partner, in the international community if it's following the rules," he said. "So my attitude coming into office was that we are going to insist that China plays by the same rules as everybody else." Meanwhile, Mr. Romney renewed his pledge to label China a currency manipulator on his first day of office, a move aimed at some U.S. lawmakers and business leaders who say Beijing keeps its currency artificially low to help its export sector. Still, he credited China with "making some progress" on the issue, an apparent reference to the Chinese yuan's strengthening against the U.S. dollar in recent years. "They need to make more," he said. But Mr. Romney also left room for cooperation. "We can be a partner with China. We don't have to be an adversary in any way, shape or form," he said. "We can work with them, we can collaborate with them, if they're willing to be responsible." Experts said Mr. Romney struck a more moderate tone on China than in past speeches and debates, when both contenders accused each other of softness toward China. "As [the] challenger, he had to demonstrate that he has the balanced judgment to be commander in chief," said Susan Shirk, an expert on U.S.-China relations at the University of California, San Diego. "And one way he did that was by expressing his desire to cooperate with China, his empathy with China's peaceful aspirations, before reciting his by now well-worn line about declaring China a currency manipulator." Zhu Feng, an expert on U.S.-China relations at Peking University in Beijing, said that despite Mr. Romney's currency-manipulation call, the two sides appeared to basically agree on China policy. "They both claimed they wanted to focus more on urging China to play fair on economic and trade issues," Mr. Zhu said. "That's something they really care more about now than human rights or security." He said he didn't expect much official reaction from Mr. Obama's use of the word "adversary" to describe China, saying it reflect broad attitudes in Washington toward Beijing.  At a daily media briefing on Tuesday, China Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said healthy U.S.-China relations are "beneficial to the peace, stability and prosperity of the region and the world. Any U.S. party should objectively view China's development and do more good things that will benefit China-U.S. cooperation and mutual trust with a responsible attitude." The debate wasn't broadcast in China, which keeps a tight leash on its media, though it received brief and neutral coverage on the national noon television show. Still, online streams were available to China's growing ranks of savvy Internet users. Chinese people interested in following the debates sought out social-media sites such as the Twitter-like microblogging service Sina Weibo, where bilingual users offer real-time analysis, and video sites such as Youku, YOKU +0.61%where subtitled snippets from the debates drew steady traffic. With most of the debate focused on issues besides China, many online commentators focused on the process of the election itself. China next month will begin a much more predictable once-a-decade leadership transition that is all but certain to result in the elevation of Vice President Xi Jinping to succeed President Hu Jintao. "If you official Chinese media would pay half as much attention to China's elections as you do the American one, there would be hope for China," one anonymous Weibo user wrote in response to a post by the Communist Party mouthpiece People's Daily noting the start of Tuesday's debate. "It's a shame we can't see the U.S. presidential debates broadcast live," said another user. "Actually, I don't care so much about who would be the president. I just want to learn more about the election itself. Over here, it was decided who would be next a long time ago, so there's nothing to watch." Some chalked up China rhetoric as part of broader U.S. economic security in the face of the sluggish recovery there. "What I don't quite understand why they spend so long debating international issues in a country where 70% of people probably wouldn't be able to locate China on the map," said another user. "Is it because they're not capable of solving their domestic problems and are looking for easier overseas target instead?" "To summarize the debate on China: liar, cheater, manipulator," wrote another user in a post that was later deleted. Other users focused on the demeanor of Messrs. Obama and Romney, which offered a contrast to the staid, button-down appearance China's leaders strike at home. "Obama sounds like a commander delivering a speech to soldiers and Romney sounds like some office drone giving a PowerPoint presentation," said one user. Chinese interest in this year's U.S. elections appears much stronger than it was in 2008—a shift some analysts attribute to an increased interest among Chinese people in democracy. More than a third of Chinese people said they were paying close attention to this election, up from 17% during the 2008 contest, according to a Pew Research Center survey released earlier this year. The only other countries that showed rising interest in the U.S. election were Turkey and Pakistan, which both edged up 1%. Pew also found that 52% of Chinese people said they liked American-style democracy, up from 48% in 2007. James Bell, director of international survey research at Pew, said Chinese people who said they like American ideas about democracy were more likely to say they are closely following the election. Confidence in Mr. Obama was also a factor: 55% of Chinese people who said they have some or a lot of confidence in the U.S. president said they were following the election closely, versus 30% among those who don't, according to Mr. Bell. Pew found that confidence among Chinese people in Mr. Obama's leadership slipping to 38% in 2012, down from a high of 62% in 2009. The Pew survey didn't measure Chinese opinions of Mr. Romney. Mr. Obama appears to enjoy significant support among China's urban elites. In an unscientific poll that had attracted roughly 4,000 votes on Weibo by the end of Monday's debate, Mr. Obama was beating Mr. Romney 7-to-1. Sina Weibo tends to attract users who are highly educated and live in urban areas.   |
| Film industry booms in Q3: Huayi Brothers revenue up 70pc Posted: 23 Oct 2012 09:05 AM PDT  Source: Morning Whistle By Kang Xiaoxiao Huayi Brothers Media Group Corp (300027.SZ) announced on October 19 its third quarter operating revenue was 259 million yuan ($41.4 million), up 71.72 percent from revenue in the same period last year. Although the company said its blockbuster "Painted Skin 2" lost 660 million yuan due to piracy, the movie still pulled in 700 million yuan in box office receipts. Over the National Day holiday, "Taichi O" was the highest earner, reported China Daily. The two films respectively brought investment of 52.6 million and 22.3 million yuan, becoming the main driving force for the revenue growth of Huayi Brothers. Considering "Taichi O" was launched on September 27, it will continue to bring in profit for Huayi Brothers in the fourth quarter. Other Chinese film companies also performed well in the third quarter. Huace Film & TV (300133.SZ) published its third quarter financial report on the same day. Total revenue in the first nine months of 2012 was 485 million yuan, increasing by 80.03 percent year-on-year; while net profit increased by 30.21 percent in the first 9 months to 160 million yuan. Enlight Media (300251.SZ) also announced on October 11 its revenue in the first three quarters of 2012 reached 208 million yuan, increasing by 82.5 percent compared to revenue in the same period last year.   |
| China Bans Foreign Ships From Rivers as Local Operators Struggle Posted: 23 Oct 2012 09:12 AM PDT  Source: Bloomberg News China will ban foreign vessels from sailing on domestic waterways including the Yangtze River, the world's busiest for freight, as local operators struggle to make money amid a global shipping glut. The new rules are designed to help promote a "healthy" domestic shipping sector and to ensure safety standards, according to the statement. The government also this month announced tax and financial support for local shipping companies after China Cosco Holdings Co. (1919) and China Shipping Container Lines Co., the nation's largest listed operators, both posted wider first-half losses. Shippers will be able to seek exemptions from the transport ministry for using foreign ships if there is a capacity shortage, according to the statement. Otherwise, companies found to be using overseas vessels on rivers will face penalties including fines of as much as 1 million yuan ($160,000), it said. About 1.5 billion tons of cargo were shipped along the Yangtze in 2010, China Daily said in May 2011, citing the Changjiang (Yangtze River) Administration of Navigational Affairs. That's more than three times the amount carried on the Mississippi River, it said. The river runs 6,300 kilometers (3,915 miles) to Shanghai from Tibet. China Cosco, the nation's largest operator of container and dry-bulk ships, has forecast a nine-month loss as rising capacity in the global fleet and slowing trade saps cargo rates. For instance, The Baltic Dry Index (BDIY), a benchmark for commodity- shipping costs, has plunged 53 percent in the past year.   |
| China army ‘reshuffle’ before party congress Posted: 23 Oct 2012 09:14 AM PDT  Source: AFP BEIJING — China has appointed a new air force chief and reshuffled other top military leaders ahead of the ruling Communist Party's once-in-a-decade leadership transition next month, state media said. He replaced Xu Qiliang, another general who has been tipped to become vice-chairman of China's Central Military Commission, which governs the armed forces. Wang Guanzhong, formerly head of the Central Military Commission's general office, has taken Ma's previous post as deputy chief of staff for China's People's Liberation Army, the reports said. Other promotions detailed in the reports include the appointment of Zhu Fuxi as military chief in the southwestern Chengdu military zone, which includes most of Tibet. China has increased investment in its 2.3-million-strong army as part of a modernisation drive, previously saying that military spending would top $100 billion in 2012, up 11.2 percent from last year. The reshuffle comes ahead of the ruling Communist Party's pivotal congress next month, which will see the announcement of a new crop of leaders for the next 10 years. Top military figures are thought to have influenced internal party debates over the selection of the new leadership.   |
| China’s Doldrums Put Pressure on U.S. Exporters Posted: 23 Oct 2012 09:18 AM PDT  Source: New York Times By Nelson D. Schwartz As China's economy cools, American exporters are increasingly feeling the chill. Job reductions are hitting industries like mining, heavy machinery and scrap metal that prospered as China boomed, illustrating some of the risks to the broader American economy if growth continues to slow in what is now the world's second-largest economy. Last week the Chinese government announced that gross domestic product grew at an annual rate of 7.4 percent in the third quarter, the slowest pace in more than three years. Even as the presidential candidates try to outdo each other in promising to get tough on Chinese exports to protect American jobs, experts say the more immediate threat to American workers may actually be the slowing of sales to China, which has bid up the price of much of what the United States sent overseas in recent years. In fact, in the presidential debate on Monday evening, President Obama noted that exports to China had doubled during his term, even as both he and Mitt Romney again vowed to crack down on Chinese trade abuses. Over all, China's growth is expected to decelerate to 7.7 percent this year from last year's breakneck 9.3 percent pace, adding to fears of a global slowdown, especially with much of Europe in recession and the economic recovery in the United States stubbornly anemic. Already, softening demand has clipped American exports. "There's definitely been an effect from slowing exports to China on U.S. exports," said Dean Maki, chief United States economist at Barclays. According to his analysis, the drop in exports to China alone is responsible for shaving 0.1 to 0.2 percentage point off the growth rate for the American economy, which expanded at an annualized rate of 1.3 percent in the second quarter. The recent slowdown in export growth has probably contributed to the loss of 38,000 jobs in the American manufacturing sector since July, while the overall job market has improved and unemployment has fallen. The decline has been striking because exports, along with manufacturing, have been relative bright spots since the recession's end. Wall Street will be looking for further signals about Chinese demand Tuesday, as export-dependent giants like 3M and DuPont report results and discuss their business outlook. Earlier, Alcoa, the first such major company to report third-quarter earnings, slightly lowered its estimate for global growth in aluminum demand because of slowing sales in China for products like trucks, trailers and aluminum cans this month. On Monday, Caterpillar became the latest company to confirm that after a long boom, business in China is down. "I don't think there's any doubt that things got overheated in China," said Ed Rapp, Caterpillar's chief financial officer. "Our long-term view is still positive but things have slowed considerably in China in 2012." The American outlook for growth and jobs will depend on many factors. A pickup in economic activity in Europe or the United States, for example, could help compensate for any weakness in China, the source of roughly 10 percent of the world's economic output in 2012. And the United States still brings in far more than it sends to China, importing nearly $4 in goods for every $1 it exports. Nevertheless, the rapid growth rate there benefited many large American exporters and made China the third-largest buyer of American goods after Canada and Mexico. In 2011, China imported $103.9 billion in American products, or 7 percent of worldwide American exports. What's more, Chinese demand growth has obviously been cooling. In the first half of 2012, exports to China rose 7 percent from the comparable period a year earlier, according to Commerce Department data, down from a 20 percent annual increase in 2011 and a 36 percent jump in 2010. Five industries — machinery, computers and electronics, chemicals, transportation equipment, and waste and scrap — accounted for 62 percent of exports to China in August, according to Census Bureau data. But the impact is felt beyond those categories. That's because Chinese demand pumped up prices globally for commodities like coal, paper and many kinds of metal. For example, Thompson Creek Metals does not sell directly to China, but the company was forced to lay off more than 100 miners at its molybdenum mine in central Idaho earlier this month. Weaker demand from China for the specialty metal has helped drive down prices by 30 percent from where they were a year ago, crimping profit margins at the mine. China is the world's leading consumer of molybdenum, which is used to strengthen steel and prevent corrosion, said Kevin Loughrey, Thompson Creek's chief executive. "China has fueled a lot of the growth in demand for natural resources over the last several years," he said. "And it's a fungible market. It's like a balloon that you push in one place and it comes out somewhere else." For Cummins, the impact is more direct. China is its fifth-largest market, accounting for 8 percent of the company's $18 billion in revenues last year. And sales there have fallen significantly, dropping 29 percent in the first half of the year from the same period in 2011, on sinking demand for excavators and trucks. The job cuts will trim about 3 percent of Cummins's global work force of 45,000 but it is not clear how many of those cuts will fall in the United States. With $3.5 billion in revenues last year, Schnitzer Steel Industries is far smaller than Cummins, but it, too, considers China a key market. Scrap metal gathered in the junkyards of Schnitzer and other recyclers across the United States provides the raw material for stainless steel consumer goods made in China, as well as for the iron and steel bars undergirding construction there. Now, with local construction stalling, and demand for its consumer products weakening in Europe, China needs far less scrap. Exports of steel and iron scrap — among the top products exported to China from the United States — are down 53 percent this year from the comparable period in 2011, according to the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, a trade group. Prices are down roughly 30 percent as a result, said Joel Denbo, chief at Tennessee Valley Recycling in Decatur, Ala. Mr. Denbo's family founded the company 105 years ago, and he's struggling to avoid layoffs among his work force of 175. He has already let 15 contractors go and eliminated overtime in a bid to keep the company profitable. "People are asking me, 'Boss, what do we do?' " he said. "We don't want to lose a single man or woman." Exports of recycled paper from the United States — which comes back from Asia in the form of cardboard boxes — are also off sharply, putting pressure on local recycling and waste pickup companies, as prices for their products slip. "China is such a large market for paper, particularly in North America, that you can't hide from that," said Joe Fusco, vice president of Casella Waste Systems in Rutland, Vt., which serves rural New England, upstate New York and part of Pennsylvania. In August, Casella announced it would eliminate several dozen jobs as part of a broader cost-cutting effort. "You're constantly looking for pennies, hoping it adds up to millions," he said. "It's a lot different when you get $50 a ton than $100 a ton."   |
| Posted: 23 Oct 2012 09:01 AM PDT Have You Heard…   |
| Kindergarten teacher detained for hitting children in N. China Posted: 23 Oct 2012 03:45 AM PDT A female teacher in a kindergarten in north China's Shanxi Province has been detained by police after she smacked children, authorities said today. Li Zhuqing, who slapped a five-year-old girl in the face and other children at the Sky Montessori Kindergarten in Yingze District of the capital Taiyuan, is under a 15-day administrative detention, said a spokesman with the district. The kindergarten, with 43 children, was ordered to close down. The girl's father called the police after he found his daughter had swollen eyes and bruises on October 15. According to the father, the girl was punished because she was slow at arithmetics. A surveillance camera recorded the girl being hit repeatedly for more than ten minutes. The video of the abuse was released by local media. Authorities in Taiyuan started a one-month inspection of all kindergartens yesterday, vowing to shut down those with serious problems. |
| Villagers find deposits in loan co-ops vaporize Posted: 23 Oct 2012 01:07 AM PDT Thousands of villagers in a costal county in Jiangsu Province were astonished to find their savings deposits, about 110 million yuan (US$17.6 million), in local financial cooperatives vanished. Four private-owned but government-supervised financial cooperatives in Guannan County were shut down a week ago after their managers fled, leaving 2,500 depositors helpless. A local official named Liang Gongzhu said the four cooperatives lent the money illegally to an entrepreneur surnamed Wang to earn high interest on the deposits. But Wang went bankrupt and the lenders could not return money to their customers, China National Radio reported today. According to the Chinese law, rural financial cooperatives can only lend money to villagers to assist their agricultural activities. Local agricultural and commercial departments are supposed to supervise these private institutions. But local officials said the law did not specify a government agency to oversee the operation of rural financial cooperatives. Some suspects have surrendered to police but Wang is still on the run, the report said. |
| China to revise prison, lawyers laws Posted: 22 Oct 2012 08:38 PM PDT CHINA'S top legislature today discussed amendments to seven laws that would be changed to fit the amended Criminal Procedure Law. The opening session of the bimonthly meeting of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress deliberated a draft resolution covering revisions to 18 areas of unconformity in the Prison Law, Lawyers Law and other related bills with the Criminal Procedure Law, which was amended in March and will take effect next January. The draft revision clarifies lawyers' rights in litigations, guaranteeing their right to meet suspects and defendants with due documents such as practicing certificates, credentials from law offices, authorization letters or official letters of legal assistance. As the right has been enshrined in the amended Criminal Procedure Law, the draft says meetings between lawyers and suspects or defendants will not be monitored. According to the agenda, lawmakers at the session will continue deliberations of the draft mental health law and a draft revision to the Law on Securities Investment Funds following readings at previous sessions. They will also debate a draft decision to slightly amend seven laws, including the Prison Law, as well as a draft amendment to the Postal Law, for the first time. Today's meeting heard reports from legislators and representatives from the State Council, or China's Cabinet, on the above-mentioned draft laws or amendments. Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, entrusted by the State Council, gave an explanation on two treaties signed between China and other countries while submitting them to the session for ratification. One was the China-Tajikistan-Afghanistan treaty on the definition of the tri-junction point of the national boundaries while the other is the China-Thailand treaty on the transfer of sentenced persons. |
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