News » Society » Memorial service held for fighter jet production head
News » Society » Memorial service held for fighter jet production head |
- Memorial service held for fighter jet production head
- Court upholds death penalty for man in car-crush murder
- Bird flu `epidemic' sparks chicken cull
- Vow to combat rural land grabs
- Beijing vowed to tighten laws on the expropriation of farmland, and warned that the problem risked fueling rural unrest and undermining food security.
- The man who exposed China's sex tape scandal
- Sharp rise in HIV cases for young and over-50s
- State Council vows tighter rules for farmers' land
- Village official lodges appeal despite his early release
- New trial date set for HK football tycoon
- Report on rare monkeys being eaten ends with officials sacked
- Molested girls speak out
- Cop accuses boss of drug ties
- Birth rule could be relaxed
- Chinese Movie Studios Seek Shanghai Listings
- China Seeks to Play Down Passport Row
- U.S. declines to name China currency manipulator
- Police probes syringe attack on pedestrian
- Officials sacked over monkey slaughter
- Man cleaning underpants with industrial air pump inflates when hose hits his anus
| Memorial service held for fighter jet production head Posted: 28 Nov 2012 06:59 PM PST A high-profile memorial service was held for Luo Yang this morning in Shenyang, the birthplace of China's new J-15 fighter jet as well as the provincial capital of Liaoning. Luo, head of the production phase of the J-15, experienced a heart attack on Sunday after observing aircraft carrier flight landing tests for China's first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning. He later died in hospital. He was also chairman and general manager of Shenyang Aircraft Corp. (SAC), a subsidiary of China's state-owned aircraft maker, Aviation Industry Corp. of China (AVIC). Thousands of people stood in silence in the Huilonggang Cemetery for Revolutionaries in a tearful farewell to Luo. |
| Court upholds death penalty for man in car-crush murder Posted: 28 Nov 2012 06:51 PM PST THE Fujian Province High Court yesterday upheld the death sentence for a man who crushed the husband of a woman he harassed to death with his car. He Wei was sentenced to death for intentional homicide and ordered to pay the victim's family 640,000 yuan (US$ 102,720) in compensation by a court in Zhangzhou City in March. He appealed the court ruling, arguing that he was drunk and surrendered himself to the police, and compensated the family with money. The high court said that though the convict drank a lot that day, he was still able to drive smoothly and rolled over the man whose wife he had harassed. After killing the man, He contacted a friend to drive him to another county in Fujian. This indicates he was still clear-minded, the high court said. The victim was chased to his house gate and the victim's action of crashing the windshield of He's car with a brick was regarded as self-defense, the court said. |
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| The man who exposed China's sex tape scandal Posted: 28 Nov 2012 10:50 AM PST The BBC Beijing bureau interviews Zhu Ruifeng, the journalist credited with exposing Chinese official Lei Zhengfu in the midst of a sex-tape scandal. |
| Sharp rise in HIV cases for young and over-50s Posted: 28 Nov 2012 09:35 AM PST
From January to October, 16,131 new cases of HIV infection among people over 50 were reported, a year-on-year increase of 20.2 percent. There were also 9,514 new cases of HIV among young people aged 15 to 24, up 12.8 percent, the Ministry of Health said. The ministry also said that 17,740 AIDS-related deaths were reported the first 10 months, a rise of 8.6 percent. It said nine provincial regions accounted for 79.9 percent of reported HIV carriers and AIDS patients. The regions weren't named. The ministry said the latest figures showed that 34,157 new cases of AIDS were reported in the 10-month period, up by 12.7 percent year-on-year. In total, China reported 492,191 cases of HIV/AIDS by the end of October, including 68,802 new cases. Figures for Shanghai are to be announced tomorrow but on November 25 last year the city had 1,294 new HIV carriers, 509 new AIDS patients and 64 AIDS-related deaths. Of the new carriers, about 68 percent were from out of town, Shanghai Health Bureau said. At the time, the city had a total of 7,498 HIV carriers and 1,813 AIDS patients, with 307 deaths, since the first HIV case was reported in 1987 and the first AIDS patient was identified in 1996. Sun Xinhua, of the ministry's disease control and prevention bureau, said 84.9 percent of the new cases reported this year were the result of unprotected sex, according to China News Service. Sun said the prevalence of HIV/AIDS among male homosexuals was rising quickly. HIV transmission between homosexual men accounted for 21.1 percent of new cases so far this year, compared to 15 percent in the same period in 2011. Vice Premier Li Keqiang has promised to let non-government groups play a bigger role in fighting HIV/AIDS. At a meeting with non-government groups on Monday, he told them: "You have a greater understanding of what sufferers want. The government will continue to offer support and pay even greater attention to and listen more closely to the voices of civil society groups and you will be given greater space to play your role." State television showed pictures of Li shaking hands with sufferers. In China, discrimination against people with HIV/AIDS is rampant, even in the health-care community. Meanwhile, Lei Zhenglong, vice director of the disease control and prevention bureau, told an AIDS forum in Liaoning Province that China had offered free treatment to nearly 200,000 AIDS patients and the mortality of AIDS patients undergoing treatment had dropped from 31 percent to 10 percent. However, challenges remained. The change of the main spreading vehicle from blood to sex made prevention and control more difficult, Lei said. According to China's AIDS Action Plan for the 12th Five-Year Program period (2011-2015) published by the State Council in February, the country aims to decrease AIDS fatalities by 30 percent by 2015, and new cases by 25 percent as compared to 2010. Since the end of 2003, the government has carried out the policy of "four frees, one care" for people living with HIV/AIDS. This includes free blood tests for those with HIV, free education for orphans of AIDS patients, free consultation and screening tests, and free antiretroviral therapy for pregnant women. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| State Council vows tighter rules for farmers' land Posted: 28 Nov 2012 09:33 AM PST THE State Council has vowed to tighten laws on the expropriation of farmland, warning that the problem risks fuelling rural unrest and undermining food security in China. "Rural land has been expropriated too much and too fast as industrialization and urbanization accelerate," it said after a meeting of China's Cabinet chaired by Premier Wen Jiabao. "It not only affects stability in the countryside but also threatens grain security," it warned. More reforms were needed and a better legal system set up to resolve the problem, including stricter regulations on farmland expropriation, the State Council said in a statement. It passed a draft amendment altering rules on how to compensate farmers who lose their land. The draft will be submitted to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, for deliberations, the statement said. The Cabinet also urged giving more priority to the countryside in efforts to boost investment and consumption to bolster a slowing economy. The government must make efforts to beef up support for farmers and place more importance on rural development, its statement said. Farmers in China do not directly own their fields. Instead, most rural land is owned collectively by a village, and farmers get leases that last for decades. In theory, villagers can decide whether to sell or develop the land. In practice, however, officials usually decide. And, hoping to win investment, revenue and pay-offs, they often override the wishes of farmers. Protests by farmers over land seizures have erupted in villages across the country in recent years, prompting calls for better protection of farmers' property rights to the land they have contracted. In a keynote report to the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China earlier this month, President Hu Jintao pressed for reform of the land expropriation system and an increase in farmers' share of gains in land value. |
| Village official lodges appeal despite his early release Posted: 28 Nov 2012 09:32 AM PST A VILLAGE official in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality has appealed against a two-year sentence of re-education through labor despite being released after little more than a year of his term in a labor camp. The appeal came nine days after Ren Jianyu, an official in Pengshui County, was freed and eight days after a local court dismissed his father's appeal on his behalf against the imprisonment. Ren, 25, was arrested on August 17, 2011 after forwarding and commenting on more than 100 pieces of "negative information" and given a two-year term in a labor camp for "incitement to subvert state power" without a court process a month later. Chongqing's re-education through labor committee reviewed the imprisonment, however, and freed Ren on November 19, saying the punishment was "improper." A day later, the Chongqing No. 3 Intermediate People's Court rejected his father's appeal filed in August this year, saying "the appeal should have come within three months after the re-education term was given." Ren, however, said the time limit set for appeals had not been exceeded and the court should rule that his two-year sentence was illegal. "I will continue to appeal for my innocence and social justice," Ren said. He is also to plead for compensation and resumption of his civil servant status. "Now whenever I talk with people, I feel terrified and hope to finish the conversation sooner," he said. "This is the bigger harm re-education through labor has brought to me. "I was scared at the moment when I was arrested. Meanwhile, I felt it ridiculous and unbelievable. Have I subverted state power just because I forwarded a couple of microblog postings? Millions of netizens express their own viewpoints online and should they all be imprisoned in labor camps?" Ren asked. He lashed out at the re-education through labor system. "The system is against the rule of law and is too arbitrary," he said. "The re-education through labor committee can independently deprive people of their personal freedom and there are no specific rules on how long the freedom can be denied. This kind of law enforcement is too horrible." |
| New trial date set for HK football tycoon Posted: 28 Nov 2012 08:21 AM PST A JUDGE in Hong Kong has granted Birmingham City owner Carson Yeung's request to postpone his trial on money laundering charges. Douglas Yau adjourned the trial, due to start yesterday, until April 29. Yeung's newly appointed lawyer, Joseph Tse, argued that more time was needed to prepare for the case which involves five counts of money laundering involving more than HK$720 million (US$92 million). The court heard that five other lawyers had tried and failed to unfreeze Yeung's assets so he could pay for his defense. Tse says he has managed to raise money from an alternative source, The Associated Press reported. The case is set to put the 52-year-old football tycoon's wealth under an intense spotlight and will probe the former hairdresser's rags-to-riches rise and his ownership of the English football club. His lawyer is confident he can prove the businessman was already a wealthy man before the alleged offences occurred. "The prosecution's allegation is simply the fact that he was a hairdresser and now he has so much money," Tse told the court yesterday. "Before 2001 he and his father were people of affluence. They had wealth and assets in China," Tse said, adding that they had owned a hotel on the Chinese mainland. Relatively unknown before his emergence in English football, Yeung maintained a low profile even after he took control of Birmingham in 2009 in an 81 million pound (US$130 million) takeover. Media reports have described how Yeung made his first fortune on cheap stocks, then increased his earnings by co-founding Greek Mythology, a casino in Macau, in 2004. He was prosecuted by Hong Kong's financial regulator for failing to disclose his holdings in a company in the same year and ordered to pay a small fine. His other business interests include investments in "apparel sourcing trading, entertainment and media services" through Birmingham International Holdings, according to the firm's listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange website. Birmingham International Holdings, controlled by Yeung, is the parent company of Birmingham City. The prosecution is said to be planning to call 19 witnesses when the trial starts next year, and 25 days have been set aside for the proceedings. Yeung was arrested and charged in June last year with five counts of "dealing with property known or believed to represent proceeds of an indictable offence." He has not entered a plea. Prosecutors have said that about HK$720 million passed through accounts connected to him between 2001 and 2007, although details of the allegations remain unclear. |
| Report on rare monkeys being eaten ends with officials sacked Posted: 28 Nov 2012 08:16 AM PST FOUR forestry officials in Zixi County, Jiangxi Province, have been sacked after media reports said rhesus monkeys, an endangered species, were rampantly hunted and sold to restaurants, with some ending up on the tables of government banquets. Wu Kaifa, director of the Zixi Forestry Bureau, and three other officials, Zhou Faquan, Fang Huidong and Peng Zhihua, have been removed from their posts. The report also triggered an investigation by the State Forestry Administration. Two poachers surrendered to police yesterday. One of them told China Central Television that he hid in the mountains after watching the report. He said he surrendered because of too much mental pressure. Criminals convicted of killing endangered species face jail terms from five to 10 years. One restaurant, Laolou Lobster, in downtown Zixi opens only at night and serves a variety of "exotic animals," according to the CCTV report. One kilogram of the monkey's meat sells for 560 yuan (US$90) and a monkey head can fetch 800 yuan, the eatery owner, surnamed Lou, told CCTV. He showed off a frozen rhesus monkey with a curled body and a face that looked as if it was in pain. "It was killed two days ago and weighs more than 5 kilograms," CCTV quoted him. Lou said he buys dozens of rhesus monkeys each year, without revealing the identities of the sellers. Zhenwei, another restaurant in a suburb of Zixi specializing in wildlife animals, offers rhesus monkeys along with wild geese, hog badgers and bamboo rats. The owner told CCTV: "A wild goose sells for 400 yuan and the meat can be steamed, braised in brown sauce and eaten in soup." The restaurant receives more than 100 guests each day. Zhenwei is one of the designated restaurants serving the Fuzhou City government in Jiangxi. Zixi is under the jurisdiction of Fuzhou. Restaurants have to go through public bidding to be a government-designated service provider, CCTV said. Meanwhile, big demand has led to rampant poaching at Gaofu Forest Farm in Zixi. CCTV footage showed three illegal hunters shooting dead seven rhesus monkeys at the farm within three hours. But no farm official showed up to stop it. The seven monkeys are worth about 3,000 yuan at the local market. One monkey was shot in the face. A poacher grabbed its head, lifted it up and threw it down to check whether it was still alive. "A dead one is worth less," he told CCTV. Poachers have placed at least 10,000 iron traps throughout the forest farm to catch live monkeys, the report said. "Many restaurants call us asking for rhesus monkeys," one of the poachers was quoted. The 50-year-old farm is one of five state-owned forest farms in Zixi. A farm employee said about 1,000 rhesus monkeys live there. After the CCTV report, authorities shut down eight stores and restaurants in the area and seized more than 100 iron traps and other tools used for poaching. |
| Posted: 28 Nov 2012 08:16 AM PST A SCHOOL teacher has been arrested for molesting girls in Wuwei County, Anhui Province, police said. The school headmaster was fired after the scandal surfaced. The middle-aged teacher surnamed Xu at Sanshuijian Primary School was accused of "fondling the hips" of eight girls in his grade-six class, Jianghuai Morning Post reported yesterday. An 11-year-old girl was quoted as saying: "The teacher touched me inside my trousers and wanted to give me 1 yuan (US$0.16), but I didn't accept it. "Xu took off his underwear and asked me to fondle him," the girl continued, adding she had been molested many times in the past two years. Other victims told the newspaper Xu molested them in the school's storage room. |
| Posted: 28 Nov 2012 08:16 AM PST A POLICE chief in Qingyuan City, Guangdong Province, is under investigation after his subordinate accused him of having ties to drug traffickers and offering them protection. Xie Longsheng, former deputy police chief in Yingde City, which is under the jurisdiction of Qingyuan, said Zheng Beiquan, Yingde's police chief before being promoted to Qingyuan, deliberately covered up a drug bust because his brother was involved, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported yesterday. Police in Yingde caught 175 people, including dozens of minors, in a raid at the unlicensed Xinhuayue hotel in March, the report said. Officers also seized nearly 2 kilograms of illegal narcotics, including ketamine and ecstasy, during the raid. Officers regarded the bust as a big success and reported it to Zheng, who "gave no response," according to Xie. Hotel camera surveillance footage showed Zheng's brother was present during the raid and the hotel owner, Zeng Weibiao, was Zheng's old schoolmate. "We never expected Zheng would be so irrational to order us to free all the suspects," Xie told the newspaper. Xie then launched a secret investigation and found Zheng's brother owned 15 percent of the hotel, the report said. When they tried to uncover more details, Zheng allegedly hindered their work. On August 6, Xie and the bureau's political commissar, Zhu Yingzhong, were transferred while Zheng was promoted. Qingyuan's Party discipline watchdog on Tuesday said Zheng is being investigated on suspicion he abused his power for personal gain and having severe economic problems. |
| Posted: 28 Nov 2012 08:55 AM PST  Source: By Shan Juan (China Daily) | Photo: infoseekchina Changes to the family planning policy are being considered, and action plans have been drawn up, amid a graying society and other demographic challenges, according to a former minister of the National Population and Family Planning Commission. According to Zhang, one of the key areas of possible change will concern the criteria for urban couples having a second child. At present, only parents who are themselves an only child are allowed to have a second child. Under the proposed changes, couples will be able to have a second child even if one of them is not an only child. "China's population policy has always taken into account demographic changes but any fine-tuning to the policy should be gradual and consider the situation in different areas," Zhang said The relaxed policy might first be implemented in more economically productive regions that are facing greater demographic challenges, especially an aging population and a large influx of migrant workers, he said. And places that have implemented the country's family planning policy well might also be chosen initially. The national fertility rate (the average number of children a woman has during her lifetime) stands at about 1.7, far below the replacement level of 2.1. "Even with the policy further relaxing, there won't be any sharp rise in the population," Zhang said, adding that an ideal fertility rate should be at least 1.8. President Hu Jintao said in the report of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China this month that "we must adhere to the basic state policy of family planning, improve the health of newborns, steadily improve the population policy and promote long-term and balanced population growth". Observers said it was the first time that "maintaining low reproduction levels" had been omitted, representing the central government's wish to ease the policy. Government policy in the early 1970s was that two (children) were preferred. That gradually changed in the early 1980s to become a one-child rule in urban areas. Starting in 1984, the rules began to be relaxed. "We can see that the population policy was always diversified and dynamic," Zhang noted. "So the coming fine-tuning to the one-child rule is just a step forward to improve the policy," he explained. Lu Jiehua, a social-demographics professor at Peking University and a member of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, agreed. "I think the government will take action next year and the changes are inevitable given the increasingly complicated population problems ranging from ageing to a massive migrant population, and the huge gender gap," he said. But whether it will be a universal change or introduced in selected pilot projects remains to be seen, he noted. But he also conceded that the fertility rate will hardly return up to 2 and "in the coming 20 years, family planning on the mainland will remain dominated by the government rather than the family itself," he said. "But a universal two-child policy appears to be a future trend," he expected. However, easing the policy alone will not fix all the demographic problems, he noted. Zhang echoed the sentiment adding that "other issues, like facilitating the migrant population in cities and largely improving the overall health of newborns have to be addressed as well as facilitating healthy population development". |
| Chinese Movie Studios Seek Shanghai Listings Posted: 28 Nov 2012 08:58 AM PST  Source: Wall Street Journal SHANGHAI—Two state-owned Chinese film companies are aiming to list shares on Shanghai's stock exchange, as Beijing champions the growth of a homegrown film industry to rival Hollywood. Raising funds on the public market would help the companies get cash to make big-budget films and to acquire the technology needed for the creation of 3-D and other advanced special effects China's leaders are determined to take on Hollywood by building studios large enough to compete with U.S. companies such as Warner Bros. and Sony Pictures and creating films that will compete at the box office at home and overseas. Chinese policy makers see a vibrant film industry as an extension of what is called soft power, giving the nation cultural sway on par with its status as the world's No. 2 economy. But Hollywood has overwhelmed the Chinese movie market in recent months with big-budget action films and 3-D movies, such as Warner's latest Batman film, "The Dark Night Rises," and Sony's "The Amazing Spider-Man." Revenue from domestic films accounted for 41% of box-office sales in the first 10 months of the year, Tian Jin, vice minister of China's State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, said this month during the Chinese Communist Party's 18th Party Congress. He said the figure was down from a year earlier though not by how much. China's box-office revenue for domestically produced films fell 4.3% for the first half. Chinese films generated 2.7 billion yuan ($434 million), while foreign movies generated 5.37 billion yuan. Huayi Brothers Media Corp.'s "Painted Skin: Resurrection" has been the highest grossing domestically made film in China this year, taking in 686 million yuan at the box office. China Film, established in 2010, has made such movies as "Flying Swords of the Dragon Gate" and "Let the Bullets Fly," the top grossing domestic film of 2010. Shanghai Film, a unit of Shanghai Media & Entertainment Group, hit it big with "Aftershock," a 2010 movie about a devastating 1976 earthquake in China. The film grossed 670 million yuan. The studios are among China's largest film companies, but little is known about their revenues. China's leaders have been building cultural industries, including news media, publishing and education-related businesses, while seeking new engines for economic growth. Critics of China's film industry have said additional funding will do little to boost China's domestic films and that audiences prefer foreign films because they are made with more creative freedom than Chinese films have. China Securities Co. is sponsoring the China Film offering, while China International Finance Corp. is sponsoring Shanghai Film's. |
| China Seeks to Play Down Passport Row Posted: 28 Nov 2012 09:03 AM PST  Source: Wall Street Journal by Cris Larano, Vibhuti Agarwal and Celine Fernandez China on Wednesday sought to play down a regional backlash sparked by maps printed on new Chinese passports that its neighbors consider provocative, one day after the U.S. State Department said it would raise the issue with Beijing. At a regular media briefing on Wednesday, China Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said China began issuing new passports this past spring to introduce new technology, including smart chips, also used by other countries. "The picture on the passport should not be overinterpreted," he said. "China is ready to maintain communication with relevant countries and promote the sound development of personnel exchanges." Mr. Hong's comments follow those by U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland on Tuesday, who said the U.S. would bring up the matter with Beijing, following protests from India, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan. The map "is causing tension and anxiety between and among the states in the South China Sea," she said. She added that China has the right to design the passport as it wishes but "that's a different matter than whether it's politically smart or helpful to be taking steps that antagonize countries that we want to see a negotiation happen with." The map depicts waters and islands claimed by Vietnam and the Philippines as part of China, as well as two inland areas also claimed by India. The passport also has images from Taiwan, an island that China considers its sovereign territory, sparking a protest from Taipei. The dispute has caused inconveniences for some Chinese travelers in the region as governments such as those in Vietnam and the Philippines look for alternatives to stamping the new Chinese passports. David Li, who works in the shoe manufacturing industry, said customs officials in Vietnam initially refused to stamp his passport on his Nov. 19 arrival. After a half-hour, he said, customs officials gave him a separate sheet of paper that they stamped instead. "I think the government should be actively negotiating with related countries," he said. "Otherwise, people who need to go abroad will eventually face the impact." Said a user of Sina Corp.'s popular Twitter-like Weibo Chinese microblogging service, who said Vietnamese customs kept her waiting for two hours, "I come here to spend money, and if Vietnam declines me, they will lose money. " In a statement, Vietnam's Foreign Ministry said it protested to the Chinese embassy in Hanoi and asked Chinese officials "to repeal the wrongful contents" in the new passport. India hasn't officially complained to China about the issue, said Syed Akbaruddin, a spokesman at India's foreign ministry. Instead, the Indian embassy in Beijing has responded by issuing visas to Chinese nationals stamped with maps that show the two areas claimed on the map by China as falling within India's borders. "Every country has a right to determination on its boundaries," Mr. Akbaruddin said. "The Chinese side have expressed its view on where its boundary lies. We have our own opinion." The dispute is part of broader regional jostling over claims to areas that, in the case of the South China Sea, could be potentially resource rich. The territorial claims were a major issue at a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, last week, where U.S. President Barack Obama backed an effort by many in the group to negotiate a regionwide agreement with China. China has said the dispute should be settled one-on-one just with the nations involved. "While it is far-fetched to consider the new Chinese passports as an act of provocation, it is damaging to Asean-China ties, and will further inflame the already tense situation in the South China Sea," said Tang Siew Mun, director, foreign policy and security studies at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies, a Malaysian think tank. "If anything, this shows Beijing's lack of regard for Asean sensitivities." Others were quick to play down the impact of this episode. In the Philippines, Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima said he is confident the dispute won't significantly affect relations among businessmen. "Relations among nations are multidimensional. While there's a territorial dispute, business relations, people to people, cultural relations are still doing well," he said. The Philippines' exports to China totaled $3.4 billion during the first six months of the year, while imports hit $3.2 billion. Still, the Philippines's Department of Foreign Affairs said Wednesday it would no longer stamp its visas on the Chinese passport, and would instead stamp a separate visa form. Shen Dingli, a professor of international relations at China's Fudan University, said the map is counterproductive to China's position that the South China Sea has historically been part of its territory. "The point is not to stress the differences but to see the common ground," he said. |
| U.S. declines to name China currency manipulator Posted: 28 Nov 2012 09:06 AM PST  Source: Reuters By Anna Yukhananov (Reuters) – The Obama administration said on Tuesday that China's currency remained "significantly undervalued," but stopped short of labeling the world's second-biggest economy a currency manipulator. The label is largely symbolic, but would require Washington to open discussions with Beijing on adjusting the yuan's value. It has been 18 years since the U.S. Treasury has designated any country a manipulator. China was labeled a manipulator between 1992 and 1994. The latest report reflected both the administration's desire to maintain good relations with its top creditor and an attempt to keep up pressure for changes in China that could benefit the U.S. economy and mollify domestic critics. The report noted that the yuan, also known as the renminbi, had risen 12.6 percent against the U.S. dollar in inflation-adjusted terms since June 2010. An official said it was up 9.7 percent on a nominal basis through Tuesday, when it closed at a record high. The Treasury also said China had "substantially" reduced its intervention in foreign exchange markets since the third quarter of 2011 and had loosened capital controls. "In light of these developments, Treasury has concluded that the standards … have not been met with respect to China," it said. "Nonetheless, the available evidence suggests the renminbi remains significantly undervalued," the report added, echoing the Treasury's last assessment in May. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei denied the currency was undervalued. "In recent years, the ratio between China's GDP and the current account surplus has decreased on a daily basis. The renminbi's exchange rate is in equilibrium. There is no so-called problem that the exchange rate is undervalued," he told reporters in Beijing. "We hope that the U.S. side can appropriately deal with trade and economic issues, including the renminbi exchange rate," Hong added. Ted Truman, a Treasury official under former President Bill Clinton, said it was important to keep a watchful eye on China's currency policy. "We have the aftermath of 10 years of misbehavior," said Truman, who is now with the Peterson Institute for International Economics. "It would probably be unwise and too soon to declare victory." During the U.S. presidential campaign, Republican candidate Mitt Romney pledged to label China a manipulator on his first day in office to show he would be tougher on the chief U.S. economic competitor than President Barack Obama. Many U.S. businesses and lawmakers complain that Beijing keeps the value of its currency artificially low to gain an advantage in trade at the expense of American jobs. But an international consensus is growing that the yuan is closing in on its fair value after about a decade at an artificially weak level. The International Monetary Fund softened its language on the yuan in July. YUAN AT RECORD HIGH Signs of a recovery in the Chinese economy and a new round of quantitative easing by the U.S. Federal Reserve have led traders to push the yuan higher. But China's central bank has kept a lid on the move. The central bank allows the yuan to rise or fall by only 1 percent from whatever rate it sets each day. Charles Schumer, the No. 3 Democrat in the U.S. Senate and a longtime critic of China's yuan policy, said the Treasury passed up an opportunity to level the trade playing field. "It's time for the Obama administration to rip off the band-aid, and force China to play by the same rules as all other countries," the New York senator said in a statement. But the U.S.-China Business Council, which represents U.S. companies that do business with China, applauded the decision. "The exchange rate has little to do with the U.S. trade balance or employment," council President John Frisbie said. "We need to move on to more important issues with China, such as removing market access barriers and improving intellectual property protection." The Treasury said further appreciation of the yuan would help China balance its economy toward consumption by giving households greater purchasing power. It called on China to reduce its "exceptionally high" foreign exchange reserves and publish data about its intervention in currency markets. The Obama administration also used the currency report to keep pressure on South Korea to limit its foreign exchange intervention. South Korea says it intervenes to smooth the volatility of its won currency, but it has gone into the market throughout 2012, the Treasury report said. In July, the IMF said the won was undervalued by up to 10 percent. "We will continue to press the Korean authorities to limit their foreign exchange interventions to the exceptional circumstances of disorderly market conditions," the report said. |
| Police probes syringe attack on pedestrian Posted: 28 Nov 2012 02:27 AM PST POLICE in Tianjin, a north China municipality, have started a probe after a woman said she was pricked by a syringe that probably contained anesthetics early on Sunday and suspected it was an attack. The 22-year-old woman surnamed Dou said she was strolling in the street at about 4:30am on Sunday morning to relieve her frustration when she felt a sting in her left arm, today's Beijing Times reported. She saw two men in a taxi staring at her and she was scared. She picked up the syringe from the ground and ran to the other side of the road. But the taxi chased her along until she ran to a shopping mall with three or four workers standing there. She called the police but gave them a wrong address, the paper said. After catching some sleep at home, Dou went to a police station near her home and the officers accompanied her to do a blood test in the Tianjin Medical University Hospital. The woman suspected it was anesthetic in the syringe that caused her arm to feel numb. The hospital told her to stay at home and wait for the result, the paper said. |
| Officials sacked over monkey slaughter Posted: 28 Nov 2012 01:00 AM PST Four forestry officials in Zixi County, Jiangxi Province were sacked after media report exposed that rhesus monkeys, an endangered species under protection, were hunted and sold to restaurants and even ended up on the tables of an official banquet. CCTV news revealed that one kilo of monkey meat was sold for 560 yuan (US$90) to local restaurants and a monkey head could fetch 800 yuan. A restaurant owner surnamed Lou showed a frozen monkey, about the size of a one-year old baby, with a curled body and a face that looked as if in great pain. "It was killed two days ago and weighs more than five kilos," he said. Lou said their wildlife dishes have attracted many customers and his restaurant purchases scores of monkeys each year. Big demand has led to rampant poaching in the Gaofu Forests. CCTV footages showed three illegal hunters shot down seven monkeys within three hours. They strapped the dead monkeys to their legs as they walked in the woods and said they could earn 3,000 yuan. After the CCTV report, authorities shut down eight stores and restaurants in the forest area and seized more than 100 iron traps and other poaching tools, China News Service reported today. Two poachers were caught this morning while others are still on the run. Wu Kaifa, director of Zixi Forestry Bureau, and three other officials, Zhou Faquan, Fang Huidong and Peng Zhihua have been removed from their posts. The State Forestry Administration is also investigating the case. |
| Man cleaning underpants with industrial air pump inflates when hose hits his anus Posted: 28 Nov 2012 01:09 AM PST
He a remains ill but his health is on the up, up and up and awaaaaaayyyyy. |
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