News » Society » Agricultural authorities have culled about 95,000 chickens following an outbreak of the H5N1 bird flu virus in northwest China.
News » Society » Agricultural authorities have culled about 95,000 chickens following an outbreak of the H5N1 bird flu virus in northwest China. |
- Agricultural authorities have culled about 95,000 chickens following an outbreak of the H5N1 bird flu virus in northwest China.
- More powers for patrollers of sea
- China has granted its border patrol police the right to board and expel foreign ships entering disputed waters in the South China Sea.
- `Beijing fueling illegal timber trade'
- Thousands bid farewell to a hero
- Xi says great renewal goal 'closer than ever'
- 7 jailed in 'kidney for iPhone' case
- Health fears over ice cream cone wrapper
- Famine film sparks sad memories
- Singapore strike: Chinese charged
- Female physician hacked to death with axe
- 'Lucky' Liu wins car tag lottery 7 straight months
- Negative feedback used to extort web merchants
- Movie industry gets lost in translation
- Have You Heard…
- GM opens China research centre to focus on "new energy"
- Chinese police plan to board vessels in disputed seas
- Have You Heard…
- Poachers detained for poisoning storks
- Gas outburst kills 5 in SW China mine
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| Thousands bid farewell to a hero Posted: 29 Nov 2012 09:21 AM PST Mourners file past the body of Luo Yang, head of production for China's J-15 fighter jet, at a funeral service in northeast Shenyang City. Luo died of a heart attack on Sunday hours after witnessing the jets taking off and landing during exercises on China's first aircraft carrier. Thousands stood in silence in the Huilonggang Cemetery for Revolutionaries to bid their farewells. "In our mind, Luo is the nation's hero, like a military martyr," said an air force official. "Without the dedicated work of Luo and his peers in the aviation industry, we would not see the country's strong national defense." This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Xi says great renewal goal 'closer than ever' Posted: 29 Nov 2012 09:21 AM PST Party chief Xi Jinping pledged yesterday to continue targeting the goal of the "great renewal of the Chinese nation," as he was visiting "The Road Toward Renewal" exhibition at the National Museum of China with other top Party leaders. Xi examined the exhibits at the museum in Beijing, which houses a large number of items related to Chinese history since the First Opium War (1840-1842). Xi, who replaced Hu Jintao as the Party's general secretary earlier this month, described the exhibition as a retrospective on the Chinese nation, a celebration of its present and a declaration on its future. Citing a line from a poem by Mao Zedong, founder of the New China - "Idle boast the strong pass is a wall of iron," Xi said the Chinese nation had suffered unusual hardship and sacrifice. "But the Chinese people have never given in, have struggled ceaselessly, and have finally taken hold of own destiny and started the great process of building our nation," he said. "It has displayed, in full, the great national spirit with patriotism as the core." Talking about China today, Xi borrowed a line from another of Mao's poems - "But man's world is mutable, seas become mulberry fields," referring to the country's hard-earned finding of a correct road toward rejuvenation and remarkable achievements since the launch of reform and opening up. "It is the road of socialism with Chinese characteristics," he said. Afterward, Xi cited a line by Li Bai, one of the best-known ancient Chinese poets - "I will mount a long wind some day and break the heavy waves." It indicates that, after more than 170 years of struggle since the Opium War, the nation has bright prospects, is closer than ever to reaching its goal of great renewal, and is more confident and capable of reaching that goal. Xi stopped in front of some exhibits on major historical events in the 19th century, including charts illustrating how the West had occupied China's territories and items and pictures on the 1911 Revolution that overthrew the feudalistic regime of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). He also studied the first Chinese version of the Communist Manifesto, material relating to the founding of the Party in 1921, the first national flag of the People's Republic of China, and photos on the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Party Central Committee at which Deng Xiaoping launched the epoch-making reform and opening up drive. |
| 7 jailed in 'kidney for iPhone' case Posted: 29 Nov 2012 09:02 AM PST A SURGEON and six others were jailed yesterday over their involvement in the case of a teenager who sold a kidney to buy an iPhone and iPad. Seven of nine defendants were sentenced for intentional injury and two others, though found guilty, were exempt from criminal punishment because of their minor roles. He Wei, who organized the illegal transaction in April 2011, was sentenced to five years' imprisonment by the Beihu District People's Court in Chenzhou City. Song Zhongyu, the transplant surgeon, was sentenced to three years with a reprieve of five years. The other five were given jail terms ranging from one to four years. Wang, a 17-year-old high school student from Anhui Province, agreed to sell one of his kidneys after he found the group through an online chatroom. His kidney was transplanted to a recipient in Chenzhou on April 28, 2011. Wang was given 22,000 yuan (US$3,529) and he bought an iPhone and an iPad with the money. But he later suffered renal failure and told his mother what had happened. He earned 56,360 yuan and Song was given 52,000 yuan for the transaction. The other seven defendants all received a share of the proceeds. Of the nine defendants, five were prosecuted as main culprits and four others, including two nurses, a surgical assistant and an anesthesiologist, were tried as accessories, the court said. The court added that the nine defendants had paid compensation worth more than 1.47 million yuan to Wang. The compensation and forgiveness from the teenager and his family led to leniency in sentencing. Human organ trade and organ donations from living donors, except for close family members such as spouses and blood relatives, are illegal in China. An underground trade in human organs is booming in the country where there is a huge demand for transplants. Ministry of Health statistics show that about 1.5 million people in China need transplants, but only 10,000 operations are performed each year. Medical experts have long urged the establishment of a transparent system for organ donation and distribution in order to boost the number of donors. "China should not only crackdown on the underground organ trade but also speed up in establishing a scientific and comprehensive system for organ transplants and donations," said Xia Xueluan, a sociology professor at Peking University. Vice Health Minister Huang Jiefu has said China is considering an organ transplant system that incorporates measures, including offering donors compensation, to encourage donations. |
| Health fears over ice cream cone wrapper Posted: 29 Nov 2012 08:49 AM PST AN ice cream cone paper sleeve used by the Iceason chain was found to have an excessive level of fluorescent agents, a bleaching chemical that can lead to cancer in large amounts, according to test results released yesterday. The wrapper came from the Zhaojiabang Road branch of Shanghai Iceason Food Co Ltd and was made in April by a paper production firm in the northern city of Tianjin. At Shanghai Iceason, an official surnamed Liu said she had to report to her bosses before she could comment on the test results. Two smaller companies - Shanghai Qingfangxi Qiye Catering Corp Ltd, a producer of matcha, a green tea, and Shanghai Weiyou Catering Management Corp Ltd, a baking company - were also found to have packaging with excessive fluorescent agents. The city's Consumer Rights Protection Commission said it conducted tests on the plastic and paper packaging of 100 food products bought from local supermarkets and catering companies. Another firm, Shanghai Changfa Corp Ltd, had plastic packaging with evaporation residue containing a toxic heavy metal. Fluorescent substances do not decompose easily and may be absorbed by food, affecting people's immune systems, according to doctors. Some companies reuse printed paper to cut costs or add fluorescent whitening agents to substandard packaging, the commission said. In August, the Beijing-based International Food Packaging Association said it found some famous brands had packaging with excessive fluorescent agents. On the list were Lipton milk tea powder, Master Kong beef instant noodle, Kraft's banana and milk taste biscuit, Nissin's shrimp meat instant noodle and Jinmailang beef instant noodle. In May 2011, the Shanghai Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision's Qingpu District branch seized 80,000 popcorn buckets that had illegal fluorescent brighteners. Fluorescent agents should comprise less than 5 square centimeters per 100 square centimeters of food packaging, according to a national standard. The commission said consumers should check paper packaging and avoid those with a strong smell or which looked too white. |
| Famine film sparks sad memories Posted: 29 Nov 2012 08:49 AM PST Moviegoers packed cinemas across China yesterday for the first public screenings of a film that explores a painful topic for the nation - famine. "Back To 1942," directed by Feng Xiaogang, focuses on a drought which killed 3 million people in central China's Henan Province. The morning showings left some members of the audience, many of whom were elderly, visibly upset. "The movie is very heavy and truthful, it reminds me of many scenes from my life," said 75-year-old Chen Mingya in Zhengzhou, Henan's capital. The film tells the story of refugees who fled their hometowns in search of food, a situation made worse by the Japanese invasion and a dysfunctional Nationalist government. Many starved to death on the grueling journey to nearby Shaanxi Province. "People lost their dignity," said Feng's wife Xu Fan, who plays a farmer who sold herself for a handful of millet to feed her children. The younger generation may be unfamiliar with the period, but it had left a scar in the memories of the middle-aged and elderly, Feng said. "Our nation is characterized by tremendous sufferings in history. To know where we come from helps us understand where we should go," Feng said in Shanghai. "Hunger can make people do crazy things," said Yu Baoyou, a 51-year-old resident of Henan's Zhumadian. Yu recalled how villagers jumped into floodwater to catch dead cattle and rotten vegetables after a dam burst in 1975 killed more than 26,000 people and left many others without food. Weakened by wars Historians say China's huge population but uneven distribution of resources meant food allocation by central government was essential when drought and floods cut supplies to some regions. "Mass famine broke out when the regulating hand of government was weakened by wars or political upheaval," said Gu Xiaoming, a history professor at Fudan University. Gu said China also suffered from a scarcity of food in recent decades as a result of backward agricultural production. Cao Bin, a college student born in east China's Zhejiang Province, said that one legacy of the era was his grandparents' sanctification of dining and frugality with food. "For grandma, it's like blasphemy to say you want to skip a meal simply because you're not hungry," he said. "Grandma often says she feels secure only when she is stuffed, even after so many years living in affluence." Sociologists say discussions about hunger are still important today. As urban Chinese begin to fret about obesity-related diseases such as diabetes, there are still rural areas where impoverished farmers can only afford instant noodles on special occasions such as their children's birthdays. Zhang Youde, a sociology professor at the Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, said: "Though China's coastal regions are no longer plagued by hunger, there are still many people who are not fed decently in central and western parts of the country." Only this week, children at a primary school in Hunan Province were found to have been getting only a small piece of bread and some milk for lunch, triggering a public outcry. "China still has a long way to go in the battle against poverty and starvation, and should always remember the bitter lesson of its hunger history," Zhang said. |
| Singapore strike: Chinese charged Posted: 29 Nov 2012 08:47 AM PST FOUR Chinese bus drivers have been charged in Singapore with inciting a strike that highlighted tensions about an influx of immigrants and the treatment of foreign workers in the wealthy financial center. The walkout by 171 Chinese drivers at the beginning of the week, over pay disparities and dormitory conditions, was the first major strike in tightly regulated Singapore in more than 25 years. It was mostly over by Wednesday. Singapore, an ethnic Chinese-majority island with no minimum wage, prohibits workers in public transport and other essential services from taking industrial action without giving 14 days' notice. The four drivers from China were arrested for the offence of instigating or inciting an illegal strike, police said. They were formally charged yesterday, according to media reports which said court documents allege that one of the drivers, He Junling, incited his colleagues in an online message titled "The insults and humiliation suffered by Singapore drivers." If convicted, the men face a maximum fine of S$2,000 (US$1,600) and up to a year in prison. The Chinese Embassy said it was very concerned about the arrest of the Chinese citizens and was arranging consular visits to meet the men, Xinhua news agency reported. It also urged all the relevant parties to "be unbiased and calm and not to make things worse." Chinese drivers did not report for work on Monday over a recent pay rise that saw their fellow workers from Malaysia getting a larger increase. Some 88 of them continued to stay away from work on Tuesday. They had all resumed their duties by Wednesday after Singapore authorities and the Chinese Embassy stepped in to urge them to go back to work. In a statement, China's Commerce Ministry said it was "paying very close attention to this labor dispute." The ministry said it "hopes related parties will properly handle and respond positively to the reasonable demands of Chinese drivers to be paid the same wages for doing the same work and be treated fairly, and protect the legal rights of Chinese workers." Acting Manpower Minister Tan Chuan Jin said he expected bus, train and taxi operator SMRT Corp Ltd, controlled by state investor Temasek Holdings Pte Ltd, to address the grievances but that there was "zero tolerance for such unlawful action" by the Chinese drivers. |
| Female physician hacked to death with axe Posted: 29 Nov 2012 08:30 AM PST A FEMALE doctor was hacked to death with an axe in a hospital in north China's Tianjin Municipality yesterday. Kang Hongqian, around 40 years old, was attacked around 1:30pm by an axe-wielding man in her clinic on the second floor of the No. 1 Hospital affiliated with the Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, police said. The middle-aged attacker, whose identity had not been confirmed by late yesterday, was injured when he jumped out of the building to flee after the attack. He was in custody. Kang, on duty when she was killed, was a chief doctor with the department of acupuncture at the hospital. Police are investigating the cause of the attack. Online posts said the victim "was a quite nice person and was responsible in dealing with patients." The doctor's picture was posted on Weibo.com. The attack is likely to further erode relations between doctors and patients in China. Mistrust has grown between overworked and relatively poorly paid Chinese doctors and their patients, who are faced with high medical bills and are not satisfied with brief consultations. In the eastern city of Hefei in Anhui Province, a man stabbed five doctors and nurses on November 13. One head nurse who was hacked on her neck died. The man was caught by the police. It was reported that the man held grudges because the hospital stopped treating him because he cannot afford to pay the medical bill. In September, a man armed with four knives injured four people at a hospital in Shenzhen before he was seized by police. In one of the most notorious cases, a teenager stabbed a doctor to death and injured three others at a hospital in Harbin, capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province in March. The man convicted in the case, sentenced to life in prison last month, said he attacked the medical workers because he believed they denied him treatment because he is poor. After the case, some hospitals started to require nurses and doctors to wear protective gear and posted more guards. A survey of nearly 6,000 physicians in 3,300 hospitals in China by consulting firm McKinsey & Co said 59 percent of doctors claimed to have been verbally assaulted by a patient or family member and 6 percent said they have been physically assaulted by patients. |
| 'Lucky' Liu wins car tag lottery 7 straight months Posted: 29 Nov 2012 08:24 AM PST
A record 1.26 million Beijing dwellers competed for fewer than 20,000 car tags through a lottery system this month. The lottery is used to relieve traffic congestion. Frustrated would-be car buyers were surprised to find that Liu Xuemei was so lucky. In May, Liu won two license plates, the paper said. "It's so extraordinary," a Beijing resident surnamed He said, adding that he entered the monthly lottery 18 times without success. He had planned to change the lottery number the authority randomly allocates to applicants, but was told everyone could get only one number and couldn't change it. Records show the name Liu Xuemei has eight different numbers. It wasn't clear whether they were the same person. According to People's Daily, Liu Xuemei, in her 30s, is director of the vehicle and driver management department with the Ministry of Public Security. She is in charge of drafting related rules and issuing vehicle licenses. Many netizens suspect she was the one who won eight car plates due to her affiliation to the authority. Liu denied any wrongdoing yesterday on the microblog of the publicity and education office of the ministry's traffic administration. "I can understand it if it's just a white lie. But if somebody has a malicious purpose, I will resort to laws to protect myself," she wrote. Tian Xiaowan, who said he is a Beijing lawyer, said he wrote to the Beijing Transport Commission to ask for details of Liu's lottery wins. |
| Negative feedback used to extort web merchants Posted: 29 Nov 2012 08:19 AM PST SEVEN online blackmailers who used negative reviews to target sellers on taobao.com, China's biggest e-commerce website, have been arrested, police said yesterday in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang Province. The suspects, arrested on extortion charges, made negative comments on their online shopping experience and demanded money to change their reviews. Online sellers' business is greatly affected by comments left by customers. It was the first time that Hangzhou-based Taobao and police launched a joint crackdown on so-called professional critics, according to local news portal www.zjol.com.cn. Taobao sellers started complaining to the site in June, saying they were threatened with more bad ratings if they didn't send money and products to the "critics." Hangzhou police traced the suspects to the cities of Changsha, Guilin, Chongqing, Shenzhen and Shijiazhuang. After months of work, police caught seven, including a woman, they said yesterday. Official data show 65,000 malicious online buyers have been punished by the site and 100,000 deals rejected due to suspected fraud and other reasons. Racketeering-involved complaints on the site have dropped 90 percent since police began the crackdown, officials said. Police said more offenders are expected to be apprehended. Blackmailers can face up to three years in prison if convicted. |
| Movie industry gets lost in translation Posted: 29 Nov 2012 08:37 AM PST  Source: By Zhang Yuchen (China Daily) Chinese audiences are demanding a greater number of dubbed foreign films at their local cinemas, but the domestic industry faces unpredecented problems, as Zhang Yuchen reports from Beijing. The group had found plenty of movies, but they were all foreign films being screened in their original formats. Zhong, a major in Sino-US financial relations, didn't really understand the question. As far as she is concerned, it's "natural" to watch English-language films in English, without Chinese dubbing. However, Zhong's puzzlement is hardly surprising. In China, it's rare to find international movies dubbed in Chinese after 7 pm. Although many cinemas arrange a few daytime screenings of dubbed films, there are dozens of showings in the original language every day. Since 2001, Shanghai Dubbing Studio, established in 1957, has dubbed only around 20 films from other regions in Chinese annually. "As a cultural phenomenon, films dubbed in Chinese have suffered financial and talent problems in recent years, but that's not the whole picture," said Yang Heping, director of the dubbing center at China Film Group Corp. The golden age Born in the 1990s, Zhong missed out on the "Golden Age" of Chinese-dubbed movies. During the mid-1980s, the reform and opening-up policy saw the country import around 1,300 movies from all around the world. All were dubbed in Chinese, with the lines delivered by famous "voice actors". The first foreign films came to China in 1896. The language problem wasn't an issue in those days because the movies were all silent productions, filmed before the invention of "talkies". Although foreign films with Chinese subtitles began to appear on the big screen in 1922, the real breakthrough came in 1949 when Chinese audiences were treated to a Soviet film featuring Western-looking actors, who, crucially, spoke in Mandarin. During the 1950s and 60s, around 50 foreign movies were dubbed in Chinese every year, but the audience was limited to senior officials. Very few, if any, members of the general public were able to see these movies, which were almost exclusively productions of the Soviet Union or its satellite states, which shared China's communist ideology. The Golden Age arrived in the 1980s, when Chinese audiences were able to see a wide range of films from different parts of the world, all dubbed in Mandarin. Many foreign actors became popular with Chinese audiences. For example, Zorro won a large number of fans when it was first screened in China in 1985, with the voice of a Chinese actor replacing that of Alain Delon, who played the eponymous hero. "At that time, the voice represented, to a large extent, the image of the hero," said Shi Chuan, a doctoral advisor at the School of Film & TV Arts and Technology at Shanghai University. When Delon visited China in the late 1980s, he made a point of thanking Tong Zirong, an actor at the Shanghai Dubbing Studio whose sparkling vocal performance added greatly to the appeal of Zorro, originally portrayed as a Spanish speaker. It wasn't until his visit that regular Chinese moviegoers actually heard Delon's real voice. Apparently, it was a disappointment to many, according to Shi, as the Frenchman didn't sound as glamorous as the character he portrayed. During that period, dubbing allowed Chinese cinema audiences to become familiar with the marital predicament facing Jane Eyre and the famous "Life is like a box of chocolates" line, uttered by a wistful Forrest Gump, played by Tom Hanks. A whole crew of professional voice actors were widely known for their excellent voice-over performances. Death knell As China opened up to the outside world, the pace of change accelerated. From the mid-1990s, 10 foreign blockbusters were allowed into the Chinese market every year, with revenues split evenly between the moviemakers and local distributors. From that point, Chinese audiences were given unprecedented access to a wider range of cultural products from the West. "The market became more diverse and people stopped focusing exclusively on the arts," said Yang. However, this easier access sounded the death knell for many of the old-school Chinese voice actors, whose rigidly stylised performances proved unattractive to younger audiences. "The old voice-over methods showcased certain fixed values among voice-performance artists who had strong, individual styles and ways of illustrating characters in the story," said Shi. "Today, audiences are rarely able to identify a single voice among the various roles played by the same actor. Voice-overs have been transformed from a sort of performance art into a bridge that crosses the language barrier," he said. China's cultural authorities still assign all foreign movies to just four dubbing companies, located in Beijing, Shanghai and Changchun, the capital of Jilin province. Budgets are restricted, with the crews receiving a mere 50,000 yuan ($8,000) for each production. The limited budget means there is precious cash little left over once post-production costs – including script translation and adaptation, voice casting and synchronization – have been covered. Even in the days when the budget per feature was twice as high, studios could only just scrape by. "In the past, we had a few months to finish each entire job," said Liao Lin, a dubbing producer in Beijing. "Now we have about one week before the movie hits the screen. In tight circumstances like these, we feel it's unfair if we receive complaints about the lower quality of the output." At one time, an dubbing producer was able to summon an experienced crew, but nowadays few of the staff work in the dubbing industry full time. Sporadic employment While the situation in China is parlous, even less attention is paid to dubbing Chinese movies into English or other languages. At present, China has no program to oversee translations for subtitles, let alone dubbing. "Given the difficulties understanding the cultural references embedded in Chinese characters, it is crucial that we establish a program to specifically target overseas markets," said Liao. Roger Savage has 40 years experience in the Australian movie industry and is a leading light at the post-production sound outfit Soundfilm. Having worked on the Chinese production Let the Bullets Fly, Savage said post-production crews often discover errors in completed subtitles. Savage said dubbing a movie from Chinese to English can cost from $5,000 to $25,000, but the exact cost depends on the ratio of dialogue to action sequences. On one of China's most successful movies overseas Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the dubbing into English cost $80,000, according to Savage. "But Chinese producers and film companies obviously have yet to realize that their films can reach a wider audience in the Western market," he said. Yang Heping, director of the dubbing center of China Film Group, said it is unrealistic to lay the burden of dubbing on movie film companies alone. "The government needs to offer strategic and financial support for the Chinese dubbing industry," he said. In addition, with a huge number of foreign TV dramas, online games and cartoons in need of dubbing, movie and amateur voice actors are now playing a much more active role in the business because of technological developments in online dubbing services. Those developments, however, are helping to reduce the overall quality. China's only State-owned dubbing company, Shanghai Dubbing Studio, has yet to discover a way out of the dilemma that sees professionals working only sporadically, especially as the companies only receive a set fee for their work and are never entitled to a cut of the profits at the boxoffice. "We have to provide dubbing-related services for animations or other projects just to keep busy," said Jiang Jing, marketing manager at Shanghai Dubbing Studio. She added that the most effective way of protecting and expanding a healthy dubbing industry would be to establish a series of regulations and standards for the industry. "That would make the average good, and the good brilliant," she said   |
| Posted: 29 Nov 2012 08:33 AM PST Have You Heard…   |
| GM opens China research centre to focus on "new energy" Posted: 29 Nov 2012 08:40 AM PST  Source: Reuters By Norihiko Shirouzu (Reuters) – General Motors Co unveiled its latest global research center in China on Thursday, where it hopes to take advantage of the country's vast supply of engineering graduates to drive its development of a new generation of electric vehicles. But the new facilities in Shanghai – the GM China Advanced Technical Center – will look after not just China's auto market. It plans to develop an array of technologies and know-how for the global marketplace, alongside similar engineering centers in the United States, Germany and South Korea. "This center plays a critical role in GM's global R&D, engineering and design network," said Jon Lauckner, the U.S. car maker's global technology chief. The decision to site a major upstream research facility in Shanghai was based in part on the relative abundance of engineering talent in China, which already produces more science and engineering graduates than any country, said John Du, a director of the new center. "There's tremendous people capability in China with more science and engineering graduates than the U.S., Japan, and Germany combined," said Du. "China now ranks first in the world in the number of PhD candidates, and these are talents we want to attract into the GM R&D and engineering workforce. Not just to develop product for China market." The move is also consistent with a degree of division of labor GM has been promoting among its primary research facilities, said Yale Zhang, head of Shanghai-based consulting firm Automotive Foresight. One principal area of research the new tech center is likely to focus on, Zhang believes, is "new energy" – a Chinese codeword for heavily electrified technology that powers all-electric battery cars and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. "It makes sense because Northeast Asia – Japan, South Korea and China – is the world's major hub for advanced electric car battery research," Zhang said. Thursday's launch marked the official opening of the second and final phase of the Shanghai center, which the company said will have styling, vehicle engineering, engine engineering, and vehicle communications research all under one roof. GM said up to 250 engineers, researchers and designers will eventually work at the sprawling campus. This is the most comprehensive automotive tech center in the country," said Bob Socia, head of GM's operations in China, India and Southeast Asia. The first phase opened in September 2011, and it has already started research in lightweight auto parts with a focus on magnesium and high strength steel, because China is a major producer of those materials and has ample supplies of both. The center has also been testing new, "next-generation" battery technology for electric battery vehicles. China is home to a large number of automotive parts producers, both indigenous and units of foreign suppliers, who are poised to play a bigger role in supplying more sophisticated components to auto makers around the world, including GM, Du said. "It makes sense for us to do vehicle development closer to our suppliers," he said. Du, who heads the centre's Science Lab, which conducts advanced battery and lightweight materials research, said that in his field a presence in Asia was a must. "(Some of) the companies leading the world in battery development are based in Korea and Japan, so it makes sense for us to do this work in China with its close proximity to both of those countries and their leading edge suppliers in this field," he said. "Many of the best battery researchers and engineers are also located in Asia, and we're recruiting them to work for GM."   |
| Chinese police plan to board vessels in disputed seas Posted: 29 Nov 2012 08:43 AM PST  Source: Reuters By Ben Blanchard and Manuel Mogato (Reuters) – Police in the southern Chinese island province of Hainan will board and search ships which illegally enter what China considers its territory in the disputed South China Sea, state media said on Thursday, a move likely to add to tensions. The shortest route between the Pacific and Indian Oceans, it has some of the world's busiest shipping lanes. More than half the globe's oil tanker traffic passes through it. New rules, which come into effect on January 1, will allow Hainan police to board and seize control of foreign ships which "illegally enter" Chinese waters and order them to change course or stop sailing, the official China Daily reported. "Activities such as entering the island province's waters without permission, damaging coastal defense facilities and engaging in publicity that threatens national security are illegal," the English-language newspaper said. "If foreign ships or crew members violate regulations, Hainan police have the right to take over the ships or their communication systems, under the revised regulations," it added. Hainan, which likes to style itself as China's answer to Hawaii or Bali with its resorts and beaches, is the province responsible for administering the country's extensive claims to the myriad islets and atolls in the South China Sea. The Philippines, which also has claims to parts of the South China Sea, said the move could violate international maritime laws allowing the right of passage and accused Beijing of trying to escalate tension in the area. "That cannot be. That's a violation of the international passage (rights)," Marine Lieutenant-General Juancho Sabban, commander of military forces in the western Philippines, which covers the contested area. "That's too much. While we are exerting all peaceful means, that is what they are doing." Raul Hernandez, a spokesman for the Philippines' foreign ministry, was more circumspect, saying the government was still checking the reports. "If it is true, it will pose a concern to the Philippines and the international community," he added. Rex Robles, a retired senior Philippine naval officer and security analyst, said China was just testing the reaction. "Those warnings are not directed at us. They might be trying to find out how far the United States would react because this could affect freedom of navigation in one of the busiest sea lanes in the world. If this is an official policy announced by Beijing, this is very serious and a cause of concern." China has said in the past it will respect freedom of navigation in the South China Sea and that it has no intention of trying to restrict access to the area's vital shipping lanes for legitimate vessels. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said his government, which says it will brook no outside interference in its sovereignty claims, was perfectly within its rights in allowing police to board vessels in the South China Sea. "Management of the seas according to the law is a sovereign nation's legitimate right," he told a daily news briefing. China's assertion of sovereignty over the stretch of water off its south coast and to the east of mainland Southeast Asia has set it directly against Vietnam and the Philippines, while Brunei, Taiwan and Malaysia also lay claim to parts. China occasionally detains fishermen, mostly from Vietnam, whom it accuses of operating illegally in Chinese waters, though generally frees them quite quickly. The China Daily said that the government will also send new maritime surveillance ships to join the fleet responsible for patrolling the South China Sea. The stakes have risen in the area as the U.S. military shifts its attention and resources back to Asia, emboldening its long-time ally the Philippines and former foe Vietnam to take a tougher stance against Beijing. China has further angered the Philippines and Vietnam by issuing new passports showing a map depicting China's claims to the disputed waters.   |
| Posted: 28 Nov 2012 08:52 AM PST Have You Heard…   |
| Poachers detained for poisoning storks Posted: 29 Nov 2012 03:01 AM PST Two poachers who poisoned dozens of endangered birds to death in a wetland in north China's Tianjin Municipality have been detained, the State Forestry Administration announced today. The pair surnamed Wang and Liu bought four packs of highly toxic pesticides early this month and poured the toxins in ponds in the Beidagang Wetland Reserve, preliminary investigation showed. Nearly 80 migratory birds, including 22 oriental storks, died from poisoning, police found. Another group of seven who hunted and sold wild birds has also been taken into police custody, the administration said. Wang Chuanwei, a lawyer, said people who kill more than four protected animals can be sentenced up to 10 years in prison and have their properties confiscated according to the Chinese Wildlife Protection Law. Due to habitat loss and hunting, the oriental stork is classified as endangered on the World Conservation Union's Red List of Threatened Species. There are now only 2,500 to 3,000 oriental storks in China. But to satisfy some people's appetite for wildlife, some local restaurants list the birds on menu to attract diners. |
| Gas outburst kills 5 in SW China mine Posted: 29 Nov 2012 01:22 AM PST FIVE people were killed and two injured in a coal mine gas outburst in southwest China's Guizhou Province early today, local authorities said. The accident occurred at about 4 am under a transportation shaft of Nengtong Coal Mine in Pu'an county of Qianxinan prefecture when nine workers were doing maintenance work, the county government said in a press release. Of four people who managed to escape to safety, two were under medical treatment but suffered no life-threatening injuries. The rest five were killed as emergency treatment failed to save their lives. All coal mines in Pu'an County have been ordered to suspend production for a sweeping safety inspection. A deputy director of the county bureau of work safety and mayor and a deputy mayor of the town where the coal mine is located were suspended from their posts. The Nengtong Coal Mine has an annual production capacity of 150,000 tons. |
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