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News » Society » Samsung audit finds China issues |
- Samsung audit finds China issues
- Elton dedicates show to Ai Weiwei
- Viewpoint: Are protests moving China backwards?
- 1.5m vie for civil service
- Hundreds of thousands packed out schools and universities across China yesterday to take the national civil service exam, with record numbers registering in search of a stable government job.
- Fighter jet in first landing on new carrier
- Kate Moss, you've got competition ...
- Mother demands change to lighten pupils' burden
- Heart attack kills jet designer
- 7 perish in foggy highway vehicle pileups
- Production at unlicensed dentures factory halted
- Two sentenced to death for trafficking of babies
- China’s princelings come of age in new leadership
- Scandals and successes of China’s princelings
- China’s Ping An eyes legal action after NYT reports on premier’s family wealth
- China Tightens Rules on Reopening Coal Mines After Accidents
- Have You Heard…
- Thinking of Snowflakes, again
- Heavy fog causes expressway crashes in Shandong, killing 7
- Factory uses waste metals to make dentures
| Samsung audit finds China issues Posted: 26 Nov 2012 02:29 AM PST Samsung says an audit of 105 of its suppliers in China has identified "several instances of inadequate practices". |
| Elton dedicates show to Ai Weiwei Posted: 26 Nov 2012 02:58 AM PST Sir Elton John stuns audience in Beijing by dedicating his show to the Chinese artist and dissident's 'spirit and talent'. |
| Viewpoint: Are protests moving China backwards? Posted: 26 Nov 2012 05:54 PM PST Why China's mass protests may not signal change |
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| Kate Moss, you've got competition ... Posted: 26 Nov 2012 08:31 AM PST LIU Qianping was visiting his 24-year-old granddaughter in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou recently when the women's clothes the aspiring fashion entrepreneur was packing into boxes caught his eye. His visit came as the model that granddaughter Lu Ting and four friends had booked for a photo shoot to promote their online fashion business suddenly cancelled, dealing a setback to their new venture. But Liu, a 72-year-old farmer visiting to escape the chilly winter of central Hunan Province, stepped in to help. "I walked into the room and saw them packing up some clothes and I thought they looked quite interesting and quite cute," Liu said. "So I tried on a jacket and they found it really funny, and I thought it was quite funny, too. So they asked if they could take pictures of me and post them on the Internet to sell the clothes. And I said, 'why not?'" Thus it was that two weeks ago a star was born. Liu, known affectionately as MaDiGaGa - funny elderly - is now one of China's most recognized models. Delighted with his new fame, Liu says he now sometimes looks at fashion programs on television for ideas on how to pose but generally relies on his granddaughter's team for direction. Liu does, however, have his own opinions on styling. "He will tell us which items should be stronger and what should be improved," Lu said. "He really likes bright, contrasting colors while I prefer more tone-on-tone combinations. He gives lots of advice when we try different combinations, so we have some very different styles," she said. Since her grandfather became involved, visits to Lu's online site have increased four-fold and continue to rise. Liu, who traveled to Shanghai with his daughter for the first time last week after they were invited to appear on television, said he had been approached by other companies to model for them but had turned them down. "I never dreamed of lucky things like these happening to me. Now, my name has spread to everywhere in the country," he said. Lu has been criticized on the Internet and accused of using her grandfather, but Liu insists the experience has put a spring in his step and she says they are now closer than ever. "We have no firm plans on how long we will continue, it depends on my grandfather," Lu said. "If he is happy and his health is fine, we will keep using him as our model." |
| Mother demands change to lighten pupils' burden Posted: 26 Nov 2012 08:30 AM PST A SOFT-SPOKEN mother becomes an agitated campaigner when talking about Chinese children buried under loads of schoolwork. Hu Lanlan has written to the Ministry of Education, appealing for changes she believes will be crucial for saving China's more than 200 million children. Hu, whose teenage twins attend junior high school in Beijing, was prompted to write the letter after a series of suicides over poor grades or heavy loads of schoolwork, she said. Ten years ago, a friend's 14-year-old son hanged himself because he had not finished his mountain of schoolwork and feared punishment. "Similar tragedies, however, are still happening today," she wrote in the letter. "Each year, dozens of children commit suicide under the pressure of too much homework and their parents' expectations for them to enter top schools." The youngest of these children was just nine years old. Last Tuesday, a 12-year-old boy in Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong Province, jumped from a 16th-floor window, leaving behind an English exercise book in which he wrote: "I'm going to die. Bye." The boy had poor grades and sometimes failed to finish his homework. The day before he died, his teacher had torn his Chinese textbook in pieces because the boy had not done his assignment properly. "As an ordinary citizen, I make my appeal for those millions of Chinese children devastated by the exam-based education, out of my love for the kids and the determination to do something for their physical and mental health," Hu wrote. Growing academic pressure is a threat to children's psychological health, according to Dr Ye Yiduo, a child psychologist in eastern Fujian Province. In a survey of 6,091 children, he found that at least 20 percent of primary school students, 44 percent of junior high students and 52 percent of senior high students had psychological problems. "These are not just abstract figures," said Hu, who quoted the figures in her letter. "Behind these figures, so many children and families are suffering. Pre-teens get up drowsily at daybreak to go to school and stay up late to finish their assignments. Many attend training courses on weekends and holidays in order to excel." When Hu was young, in the 1980s, she said she had more fun than homework. "Today, however, children are like machines running around the clock. In an ailing education system, teachers exert too much pressure on children because they themselves feel the stress from school authorities," she said. "We should understand the children, who are not as mentally strong as we might think, and create a healthier environment to boost their confidence and enable them to truly love school life." Hu called for laws ensuring children can get at least eight hours of sleep each night and exempting primary school students from homework. She also demanded an end to the exam-based evaluation system by canceling tests and rankings during primary school and junior high years. An education ministry official said yesterday they were "attentive to this letter" and were "checking the situation," but refused to comment further. |
| Heart attack kills jet designer Posted: 26 Nov 2012 08:28 AM PST The 51-year-old head of production for China's J-15 fighter jet died of a heart attack on Sunday, a day after he witnessed the successful take-off and landing of two of the planes on the nation's first aircraft carrier. Luo, chairman and general manager of the Shenyang Aircraft Corp, headed the manufacturing and production phase of the J-15. "Mourn General Manager Luo Yang. Luo will be immortal," read electronic signs at the gates of the SAC, a subsidiary of China's state-owned aircraft maker, the Aviation Industry Corp of China. Flags were flown at half-mast at the company gates in Shenyang, capital of northeast China's Liaoning Province, and the homepage of the SAC's website was turned black and white in mourning. Meng Jun, chairman of AVIC Shenyang Liming Aero-Engine (Group) Corporation Ltd, said he spent eight days on the carrier with Luo from November 18. Luo worked all day and night and bore enormous psychological pressures during those days, Meng said. Colleagues of Luo said he had always been in good shape but he overworked himself. Luo returned to Shenyang on November 17 from southern Guangdong Province after attending an airplane exhibition. He had no time to go back home but headed instead to the base of the J-15 fighter jet for test flight preparations. Chu Xiaowen, a AVIC official who also worked with Luo, said his late colleague analyzed testing data and watched the flying and landing processes, and recorded the condition of the jets every day. Luo felt uncomfortable at one point, but didn't ask the doctor to examine him, Chu said. Even his wife only received one call from Luo - on Saturday, when he told her the test flights were successful. "People in the SAC are in the deepest sorrow for Luo Yang. And we will remember him forever," read a company obituary. A memorial service is to be held in Shenyang on Thursday. "This is so unfortunate. I feel deeply sorry to hear the sad news of Luo's death," said Wu Guanghui, chief designer of the C919, China's first domestically produced large passenger aircraft. "We had been familiar with each other since he worked at an aviation institute in Shenyang. The tall man was gentle and always energetic," Wu said. Luo's 79-year-old mother has not yet been told of her son's death. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| 7 perish in foggy highway vehicle pileups Posted: 26 Nov 2012 08:04 AM PST SEVEN people were killed and 35 others injured in multiple vehicle pileups caused by fog on sections of a highway in east China's Shandong Province, traffic police said. As heavy fog shrouded the province yesterday morning, at least 22 accidents involving hundreds of vehicles happened on the Beijing-Taipei Highway (Highway G3). Seven crashes occurred in the Tai'an section, leaving one dead and 11 injured, while 15 crashes occurred on the expressway's Ningyang section, killing six and injuring another 24, Qilu Evening News reported. Online pictures show mangled remains of sedans and sports utility cars after they crashed into the metal fence placed along the highway and heavy-loaded trucks rolled over, with windows and truck bodies scattered on the wet road. The highway was reopened at 3pm following the rescue work, the paper said. Nearly 50 highway entrances in southeastern parts of Shandong were temporarily closed as the fog reduced visibility to less than 50 meters in some areas. The fog also caused traffic jam in some sections with one queue of vehicles stretching back over 10 kilometers. A red fog alert was issued by the meteorological authority of Liaocheng City while an orange alert was issued by Heze City. The highway network is a partially completed expressway that, when completed, will connect the Chinese mainland with Taipei, capital city of Taiwan, and is a main trunk route in China's national highway plan. The 2,030-kilometer four-lane highway passes through Tianjin, Hebei, Shandong, Jiangsu, Anhui, Zhejiang, and Fujian. Though local officials speak highly of it, the Jinan section, dubbed a "deadly highway," has long been plagued with safety issues. Since 1999, a four-kilometer downhill road in Manshou Mountain has killed nine people on average per year. Preliminary investigation showed the section, full of twists and turns, has a sunken road section at the edge of the mountain, which makes it easy for vehicles to turn over, Ji'nan Times reported earlier. But the contractor has refused to repair the road in spite of authority's demands because it would cost hundreds of millions of yuan, officials said. Villagers live near the highway even see a potential fortune from the "deadly highway." They have set up lookout towers on top of their houses to monitor the road in order to rush to the accident site in time to earn "rescue fees," the paper said. |
| Production at unlicensed dentures factory halted Posted: 26 Nov 2012 08:03 AM PST AN unlicensed denture processing factory in Beijing has been ordered to suspend production for allegedly using recycled metal materials to make dentures, Beijing News reported yesterday. The Beijing Jingjiayi Denture Processing Center is also accused of using illegal cleansing cream to whiten the dentures to meet the requirement of hospitals and clinics. The factory, in the city's Tongzhou District, has been ordered to suspend production after a local law enforcement team found it had no license following an undercover investigation by the newspaper. The investigation found the factory melted recycled residue of metal materials to make dentures and used shoe polish and furniture cleansing products to whiten and brighten the dentures. Since the purity of the metal was lower, the dentures would unavoidably have small holes on them. The poorly-made dentures were also likely to cause irritation in the mouth and other oral diseases if they were not disinfected under strict conditions, according to Shao Dongsheng, a former prosthodontist with Beijing Stomatological Hospital. The unlicensed dentures and false teeth were sold to small- and medium-sized hospitals and dental clinics in Beijing at low prices. For instance, a false tooth worth only a few dozen yuan was sold to medical faculties at several hundred yuan and resold to patients at thousands of yuan, the newspaper said. "To put it bluntly, this is an unlicensed factory. If there is any check, we won't pass it," Huang Yuchao, the factory owner, told the newspaper's reporter, adding there were hundreds of illegal denture factories in Beijing while only around 50 were licensed. |
| Two sentenced to death for trafficking of babies Posted: 26 Nov 2012 08:00 AM PST TWO ringleaders of an infant trafficking gang, based in mountainous Ya'an City of southwest China's Sichuan Province, were sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve, Xinhua news agency reported yesterday. Cai Liaochao and Chen Hongfeng were accused of selling 14 babies between July 2010 and May 2011, the Ya'an City Intermediate People's Court said. Four other gang members received jail terms of between three years to 15 years. The court said the gang purchased newborn babies from poverty-stricken families and sold them in Shandong, Fujian and Henan provinces. A boy was priced at 30,000 (US$4,818) to 40,000 yuan and a girl 10,000 to 20,000 yuan. Their crime came to light when three of them were caught trafficking three babies from Sichuan to Shandong in May 2011. Cai and Chen were given the death sentence because they were jailed five years earlier for the same crime, the court said. China has seen many cases of poverty-stricken families in southwestern regions selling their children to sterile couples in big cities to earn a living. In a significant case in July, young mothers from Sichuan and Yunnan were among 802 suspects arrested for abducting and trading 181 children. Police rescued 8,660 abducted children and 15,458 women while busting 3,195 human trafficking gangs last year. |
| China’s princelings come of age in new leadership Posted: 26 Nov 2012 08:27 AM PST  Source: Reuters By Benjamin Kang Lim (Reuters) – In China they are known as "princelings" — the privileged children of the revolutionary founders of the People's Republic of China. And in the generational leadership change that just took place in Beijing, it could not have been clearer that having the right family bloodlines is among the most important attributes an ambitious cadre could possess. The thriving of the princelings should not be a surprise, analysts and party insiders say. Rarely in its six decades in power has the party been under more stress. Public anger over widespread corruption, widening income inequality and vast environmental degradation have chipped away at its legitimacy. The party's over-arching goal is to maintain its grip on the nation, and moving so many princelings into top positions is akin to taking out a political insurance policy. "Fundamentally, princelings advocate maintaining one-party dictatorship," said Zhang Lifan, a Beijing-based political commentator. "This is (their) bottom line." The rise of the princelings comes despite the fall of one of their own ambitious brethren, Chongqing party secretary Bo Xilai, himself a one-time contender for the standing committee and a son of one of Mao Zedong's closest comrades. Earlier this year, Bo's wife was convicted of murdering a British businessman in one of modern China's biggest political scandals. Bo himself faces possible charges of corruption and abuse of power. But in the wrangling over the new leadership, the princelings got a boost from former president and party elder Jiang Zemin, 86, widely viewed as a backroom powerbroker. Jiang had long supported Xi's rise and helped get another princeling onto the standing committee. Jiang sees himself as a princeling as well, party sources say. His uncle, who died in 1939, is hailed as a martyr of the revolution that brought the Communists to power in 1949. Jiang additionally hopes that backing Xi will preserve his legacy and protect his family. Party insiders say Jiang wants to make sure his two sons, both of whom are successful businessmen, are protected at a time of enhanced scrutiny of the wealth accumulated by the families of the country's top leadership. The new standing committee is the first to be dominated by princelings. Jiang's successor, outgoing president Hu Jintao, was the first among equals in the previous line-up, which comprised mainly technocrats and bureaucrats. But now, according to several analysts, most senior party members have fallen in line with what late economic tsar and one-time standing committee member Chen Yun once said: "The land under heaven should one day be handed to princelings, who can be trusted not to dig the party's grave." PRINCELING IN CHIEF In addition to Xi, 59, those on the committee with familial ties to the country's red founders are Vice Premier Wang Qishan, who will lead the party's efforts to contain corruption; former Shanghai party secretary Yu Zhengsheng, 67, the oldest member on the committee; and Zhang Dejiang, who studied economics in North Korea and replaced Bo as party boss in Chongqing. Beyond their commitment to party rule, insiders say the princelings' inclinations on the critical issues facing China – especially political and economic reform – are harder to discern. Xi has used standard party rhetoric since taking the top job, saying China must "continue reforming and opening up". The princelings, analysts said, tend to be bound not by strong policy preferences, but by their privileges and the conviction they were born to rule. "The way they rode to power is very similar, but whether they share the same outlook, the same preferences for policies, I think that's not really the case," said Damian Ma, a China watcher at the Eurasia Group think tank. Some analysts are cautiously optimistic that a leadership dominated by Xi and the other princelings might move with surprising boldness. One Beijing-based political analyst, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity surrounding discussions on the leadership, said princelings believe it is their birthright to rule, and act accordingly. Analysts contrast them with leaders from a rival political faction, the Communist Youth League which produced President Hu. "(The princelings) are naturally more confident and bolder than the children of commoners like Hu, whom they see as a mere caretaker, or a hired CEO," the analyst said. "The CEO is more prudent. The stakeholders are more anxious than the CEO if the company is not doing well. Princelings are likely to be bolder in pushing for change." Some members of the political elite believe the party, after a decade of stagnation on political reform, needs to move quickly to improve government transparency, accountability and the rule of law, as well as allow more freedom of expression. They point hopefully to Xi's princeling bloodlines. His father, Xi Zhongxun, who gave refuge to Mao during the Long March from 1934 to 1936, was a liberal. As party secretary of Guangdong in 1980, the elder Xi convinced Deng Xiaoping to allow him to set up market-oriented special economic zones in the province, the first place to do so in the Communist era. He also opposed the army crackdown on student protesters at Tiananmen Square in 1989, and championed the rights of Tibetans and other minority groups. Others believe Xi junior's public comments and writings, however rare, indicate he and the other princelings are pragmatists. A TALE OF TWO PRINCELINGS Xi's ascension, along with the other members of the red aristocracy, came at an awkward moment for the princelings. Their princeling comrade Bo Xilai was ousted in March as party boss of Chongqing, lost his seat in the wider Politburo in April and was expelled from the party in September. But the downfall of such a high-profile princeling, analysts suggested, was not necessarily unhealthy. At a time of deepening cynicism about the leadership among many Chinese, it showed that when a princeling breaks the law, "his crime is the same as that of a lawbreaking commoner", commentator Zhang said, quoting a Chinese proverb. The different outcomes for Xi and Bo also suggest that even for the offspring of well-connected families, the way they wield power matters. By all accounts, Xi mostly kept his head down and did what was asked of him as he rose through the party's ranks. Bo, by contrast, was flamboyant by Chinese political standards and played the family card if he thought it could help. Bo's father, Bo Yibo, was one of the so-called "eight immortals," and helped guide China away from some of the most disastrous policies of the Mao era. He died in 2007. At one point before the elder Bo's death, President Hu summoned Bo and Xi and offered them the same job: to run the landlocked province of Inner Mongolia, an economic backwater. Bo, then commerce minister, was reluctant to go and told Hu he would have to ask his father first, one party insider told Reuters. Xi, then party boss of prosperous Zhejiang province in eastern China, said he was not familiar with the ethnic issues in Inner Mongolia but was willing to go. "It was a test, but Bo used his father to pressure Hu," the party insider said, requesting anonymity to avoid repercussions for discussing secretive elite politics. "Xi was willing to accept whatever the party arranged." All along, Xi understood intuitively that "the higher the profile (of an up and coming official), the more difficult promotion will be", even for a princeling, said Zhang, the political commentator. In 2000, as governor of Fujian province in the southeast, Xi gave an interview in which he quoted an ancient Chinese military strategist: "Do not try the impossible. Do not seek the unattainable … Do not do the irreversible. Taking up a new government post is a relay. Don't drop the baton and run your leg well." |
| Scandals and successes of China’s princelings Posted: 26 Nov 2012 08:21 AM PST  Source: Reuters (Reuters) – China's princelings, the children of the country's political elite, have often had a poor image with a string of scandals in the past three decades, including execution for hooliganism, defection and more recently murder and corruption. Below are some of the high and low points of the princelings: - Zhu Guohua, a grandson of Marshal Zhu De, was executed in the northern port city of Tianjin in 1983 on the now-defunct charge of hooliganism. The execution led in part to the downfall of then Communist Party chief Hu Yaobang who had refused to spare the 25-year-old despite repeated appeals from party elders. The criminal code was revised in 1997 when the crime of hooliganism was abolished. - Yu Qiangsheng, an intelligence official and a son of a former party boss of Tianjin, defected to the United States in the mid-1980s. The defection resulted in the arrest and suicide in custody of China's top mole in the Central Intelligence Agency. Yu's brother, Yu Zhengsheng, however overcame the scandal to eke his way into the party's seven-member decision-making politburo standing committee at the 18th congress which wrapped up earlier this month. - Deng Pufang, wheelchair-bound son of late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping, was embroiled in a financial scandal in the late 1980s when Kang Hua, the trading empire he founded, was accused of abusing tax exemption privileges granted for its donations to his welfare fund for the disabled. Deng senior ordered Kang Hua shut down. - Three princelings were voted out in elections to choose Beijing's delegates to the party's 13th national congress in 1987, apparently because of the poor reputation of princelings as a group. - Current party chief Xi Jinping, a son of late vice premier Xi Zhongxun, finished last in elections to the central committee at the 15th congress in 1997, while Bo Xilai, a son of late vice premier Bo Yibo, was voted out. - Wang Qishan, a son-in-law of late vice premier Yao Yilin, catapulted from party boss of China's smallest province, Hainan, to mayor of capital Beijing, where he ended a government cover-up of the SARS epidemic in 2003. A darling of foreign investors and a reputed troubleshooter, Wang helped clean up a financial mess in the southern province of Guangdong in the 1990s. - General Liu Yuan, political commissar of the People's Liberation Army's General Logistics Department and a son of late president Liu Shaoqi, declared war on corruption even if it meant losing his job. He brought down Lieutenant General Gu Junshan, who has been sacked and awaits court-martial. But Liu was passed over for promotion to the party's Central Military Commission, which commands the People' Liberation Army, at the 18th congress because he alienated Gu's powerful backers. Liu was deemed too close to Bo Xilai, party sources said. - Bo was ousted in March as party boss of the southwestern metropolis of Chongqing, lost his Politburo seat in April and was expelled from the party in September in the country's worst political scandal in more than three decades. Bo was accused of taking bribes and abusing his power, suggesting he tried to obstruct a police inquiry into the November 2011 poisoning of a British businessman in his bailiwick Chongqing. His wife, a daughter of a general, has been jailed for the murder. - Xi replaced Hu Jintao as Communist Party and military chief, emerging as the first among equals in the standing committee in a dramatic comeback 15 years after the embarrassing election results. He is tipped to succeed Hu as state president next March. - Li Xiaopeng, 53, a son of former premier and parliament chief Li Peng, collected the least number of votes in central committee elections at the 18th congress. Li senior declared martial law in 1989 at the height of the 1989 student-led demonstrations for democracy which was crushed by the army days later. Li junior is tipped to be promoted as governor of the northern coal-rich province of Shanxi from executive vice governor, sources with ties to the leadership told Reuters. |
| China’s Ping An eyes legal action after NYT reports on premier’s family wealth Posted: 26 Nov 2012 08:18 AM PST  Source: Reuters (Reuters) – China's second-biggest insurance company has threatened to take legal action against the New York Times for reports that Premier Wen Jiabao's relatives had accumulated massive wealth, largely through holdings in the firm. It added that it "will take appropriate legal action commensurate with the damage and adverse impact the media reports have caused to the company". Ping An did not name the New York Times Co in the statement, but a Ping An spokesman told Reuters that it referred to a New York Times article published over the weekend. The New York Times issued a report in October, citing corporate and regulatory records that it said showed Wen's family had amassed massive wealth during his time in power, the biggest source of which it said was large stakes in Ping An. On Saturday, it issued a follow-up report, saying that in 1999, Ping An Chairman Ma Mingzhe wrote to Wen – who was vice premier at the time – and another official, imploring them to relax rules aimed at containing risk in the financial sector that would have required a breakup of the company. Ping An remained intact, and relatives of Wen eventually came to control Taihong, a company that acquired a large stake in Ping An in December 2002, eight months after the waiver on breaking up the company was granted, the Times said. The price paid by Taihong was one-fourth that paid by HSBC Holdings PLC for a stake it bought two months earlier, the Times added. The Times said it was not clear whether Wen had personally intervened on behalf of Ping An's request for a waiver, or if Wen was even aware of the stakes held by his relatives. "We stand by our story," New York Times spokeswoman Eileen Murphy said in an email to Reuters, adding that the company did not plan to comment further at this time. Lawyers representing the family of Premier Wen have rejected claims by the Times that relatives had accumulated at least $2.7 billion. A Foreign Ministry spokesman declined to comment directly on Monday, but previously the ministry had criticized the paper's investigation, saying it "smears China and has ulterior motives". Since its initial report on the wealth of Wen's family in late October – including documents that showed the premier's mother had holdings of $120 million worth of Ping An stock in 2007 – the newspaper's English and Chinese language websites have been blocked in China. The website of Bloomberg news has also been blocked in China since it reported in June that the extended family of president-designate Xi Jinping had investments in companies with assets of $375 million, and an 18 percent indirect stake in a company with $1.7 billion in assets. |
| China Tightens Rules on Reopening Coal Mines After Accidents Posted: 26 Nov 2012 08:16 AM PST  Source: Bloomberg News China, the world's biggest producer and user of coal, tightened standards for reopening suspended mines, according to a statement from the State Council. China suspended operations at smaller coal mines earlier this month to boost safety ahead of a once-in-a-decade leadership transition, and policy makers are moving to improve standards after spate of accidents. Eighteen people were killed yesterday at a mine in the southwestern province of Guizhou. Small mines with little resources and that don't meet safety standards shouldn't easily receive permits to reopen, the council said. Larger mines without necessary safety technology should consider merging with bigger companies that do, it said. China's raw-coal production climbed 4.9 percent to 2.5 billion tons in the first eight months of the year, according to China Coal Resource data. In 2010, China recorded 2,433 coal- mine deaths, 7.5 percent fewer than a year earlier, according to the State Administration of Work Safety. |
| Posted: 26 Nov 2012 08:12 AM PST Have You Heard… |
| Posted: 26 Nov 2012 07:23 AM PST This morning started out in classic New England November fashion: dusting of snow on the ground; chilly temperature; gray overcast; a few flurries floating in the air. Sitting in my office, gazing out the window, I found myself following the fitful flight of individual snow flakes as they drifted down the sky. There was no breeze, so they tumbled gently, randomly, intermittently. Brought passage 34 of the Daodejing (Hendricks translation) to mind: The Way floats and drifts; it can go in left or right. It accomplishes its tasks and completes its affairs, and yet for this it is not given a name. The ten thousand things entrust their lives to it, and yet it does not act as their master. Thus it is constantly without desires. It can be named with the things that are small. The ten thousand things entrust their lives to it, and yet it does not act as their master. It can be named with the things that are great. Therefore the Sage's ability to accomplish the great comes from his not playing the role of the great. Therefore he is able to accomplish the great. Almost two years ago, I was also thinking about snowflakes. There were many more of them at that moment, and there will surely be many more soon. But today, it is their sparseness and smallness that comes to the fore. |
| Heavy fog causes expressway crashes in Shandong, killing 7 Posted: 26 Nov 2012 01:48 AM PST SEVEN people died and 35 others were injured in at least 22 accidents on several sections of an expressway in east China's Shandong Province amid heavy fog today, local government officials said. |
| Factory uses waste metals to make dentures Posted: 26 Nov 2012 01:05 AM PST AN unlicensed denture factory in Beijing was suspended from production yesterday for allegedly using recycled metals to make dentures, today's Beijing News reported. The Beijing Jingjiayi Denture Processing Center is also accused of using illegal cleansing creams to whiten dentures to meet hospital requirements. The factory in the city's Tongzhou District was suspended by law enforcement officers after reading an investigative report by a local newspaper. A journalist found the factory smelted recycled metals to make dentures and used shoe polishers and furniture cleansing products to whiten and brighten the dentures. Due to the low purity of recycled metals, the poorly-made dentures contain tiny holes and can cause irritation and other mouth diseases if not strictly disinfected, said Shao Dongsheng, a Beijing prosthodontist. The company sold its dentures and false teeth sold to small and medium-sized hospitals and dental clinics at low prices. A false tooth made at a cost of less than 100 yuan was sold to dental clinics for hundreds of yuan and resold to patients at thousands of yuan, sometimes 60 times the factory price, the report said. "To put it bluntly, this is an unlicensed factory. If there is any check, we wouldn't pass it," said Huang Yuchao, the factory owner. Huang told the reporter that there are hundreds of unlicensed denture factories in Beijing and only half of them are licensed. Huang admitted that about 20 percent of their products failed the quality standard and needed to be remade. The law enforcement team has cut the water, gas and power supplies for the factory and official investigation is still ongoing. |
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