Have You Heard…

Have You Heard…
Party vows to deal with 'degenerate' members
Officials told to disclose financial assets
'More videos' in sex scandal
Rape row mom takes labor camp to court
9 dead in rail crossing collision
The secret history of China's early warning aircraft
Weibo used to find abducted kids' parents
Tests claim new samples of tainted Moutai found
China queries NZ about chemical residue in milk
Party leaders in pledge to deal with corrupt members
Officials told to disclose financial assets
'More videos' in sex scandal
Rape row mom takes labor camp to court
9 dead in rail crossing collision
The secret history of China's early warning aircraft
Weibo used to find abducted kids' parents
Tests claim new samples of tainted Moutai found
China queries NZ about chemical residue in milk
China presses NZ for tainted milk report

Posted: 28 Jan 2013 08:28 AM PST

Have You Heard…

Party vows to deal with 'degenerate' members

Posted: 28 Jan 2013 09:35 AM PST

China's Communist Party yesterday promised to "deal with unqualified members in a timely way." A handful of Party members are "corrupt and degenerate," Party leaders warned at a meeting of its Central Committee Political Bureau.

"The faith of a few Party members has wavered and they have a weak understanding of the Party's tenets and have not followed discipline," said a statement issued after the meeting.

The gathering, presided over by General Secretary Xi Jinping, discussed strengthening the recruitment and management of Party members.

"Some Party organs are not strict with enlisting members and the quality of members who are recruited needs improvement," the statement said, adding that such problems had affected the Party's "vigor and vitality" and its image and prestige among the public.

They had also impaired the Party's "creativity, cohesiveness and combat power."

The Party will enhance its members' vigor and vitality by improving encouragement and assistance mechanisms and building a system of serving the people, the statement said.

"Party members are the cells of the CPC organism and the main part of its activities," it said.

Those present at yesterday's meeting in Beijing agreed that the addition of many outstanding members had injected new blood into the organization.

Party members had played a "leading and exemplary role" in promoting scientific development and social harmony and in serving the people, especially in completing major tasks and combating natural disasters, the statement said.

However, it added, with the deepening of reform and opening-up, the development of the socialist market economy and the expansion of Party membership, the task of regulating the Party had become more arduous, with more challenges ahead.

Strengthening the recruitment and management of Party members was of great significance to implementing the spirit of the 18th CPC National Congress and "maintaining the Party's advanced and pure nature," the statement said.

It added that "the overall number of Party members should be controlled, and the membership structure and quality should be optimized in order to let them play their role."

Efforts should be made to "absorb advanced and outstanding personnel to our Party" so as to build a force of "moderate scale, reasonable structure, sound quality, strict discipline and outstanding work style."

The education and cultivation of those eager to join the Party should be strengthened, and democracy expanded in the recruitment process, the statement said. Work procedures and discipline should be strict in order to enhance the quality of recruits, it added.

The leaders agreed that efforts will be made to recruit members from the country's young workers, farmers and intellectuals.

Officials told to disclose financial assets

Posted: 28 Jan 2013 09:34 AM PST

MORE officials in south China's Guangdong Province are being required to disclose their financial status as part of trials of a scheme combating corruption.

Shixing County's government will ask its 526 officials, including bureau chiefs and county heads, to declare their family assets after the Spring Festival, said Zheng Zhentao, Party chief of Shaoguan City, which administers Shixing, at the first session of the 12th Guangdong Provincial People's Congress.

Assets the officials will be required to declare include salaries, bonuses and subsidies, real estate holdings and investments, Zheng said.

Zheng said the officials' financial status would be available for inquiry on the government's intranet after the Spring Festival.

"We will make their financial assets known to the public in an appropriate way in the future under the guidance of the provincial discipline authorities."

Shixing is one of three regions in the province to pilot the scheme. The others are Nansha New District in Guangzhou, the provincial capital, and Hengqin New District in Zhuhai City.

'More videos' in sex scandal

Posted: 28 Jan 2013 09:34 AM PST

A SEX scandal in the southwestern city of Chongqing which led to the downfall of 11 high-level officials may not yet be over.

A whistleblower says he has video footage of more officials, all holding higher ranks than Lei Zhengfu, the sacked Party secretary of Beibei District who was the first to come under the spotlight.

Zhu Ruifeng says the videos show at least five more officials having sex with women hired by developers intending to use blackmail to secure construction deals, the Qilu Evening News reported yesterday.

Yesterday, police questioned Zhu for seven hours about the tapes and said he could be liable for prosecution if he did not surrender them, according to The Associated Press.

"The police were very polite but they said they wanted the videos. I firmly refused because I have to protect my source," said Zhu, who said he was interviewed by Chongqing officers. "They threatened me with the law, saying I could be accused of concealing evidence."

Zhu said the questioning followed a late-night visit by two police officers to his home in Beijing on Sunday.

Police are entitled to question a witness and request evidence, one of Zhu's lawyers, Li Heping, said. But Zhu also had the right to refuse in order to protect his source.

Local authorities haven't confirmed the existence of the five officials, but Zhu said that if they tried to shield them, he wouldn't hesitate to post the tapes online.

A woman said to be involved in the scandal, Zhao Hongxia, is being held by police, Zhu quoted police sources as saying.

She is said to have been filmed with at least six of the 11 officials sacked after the scandal broke and one of three women hired by the Chongqing Yonghuang Group to lure officials into having sex, the newspaper reported.

Chongqing police have not confirmed Zhao's detention. "We will report to the public if we make progress in the investigation," an officer told the newspaper.

The scandal emerged in November after a video featuring a Chongqing official, later confirmed as Lei, went viral online.

Rape row mom takes labor camp to court

Posted: 28 Jan 2013 09:33 AM PST

A RAPE victim's mother who was sent to a labor camp for protesting at sentences handed down to the rapists is being allowed to take legal action against the camp administration in her city in central China's Hunan Province. She is seeking compensation and an apology.

Last August, Tang Hui was sentenced to 18 months in the camp after she demanded tougher penalties for the seven men convicted of abducting, raping and prostituting her then 11-year-old daughter in 2006.

She was released within a week following a string of protests from academics, state media and the public but is now seeking 1,463.85 yuan (US$235) compensation from the camp administration for infringing on her personal freedom, another 1,000 yuan for psychological damage, and a written apology.

Her lawsuit has been accepted by the Intermediate People's Court in Yongzhou, Xinhua news agency said.

Meanwhile, another victim of the labor camp system has been freed from confinement in a former mortuary after authorities announced a review of the case, China National Radio reported.

Chen Qingxia, who had been confined to one room for the past three years, is to receive physical treatment and psychological counseling in Heilongjiang Province.

In addition, government officials have launched a search for her son, Song Jide, who was just 12 when he was taken from his mother in 2007.

Chen's husband had been sentenced to one year and nine months in a labor camp for destroying public property, Xinhua news agency reported, and Chen was angry his mental state had not been taken into account when sentence was passed. She said he was suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome following a dispute with a neighbor.

After local protests proved fruitless, she traveled to Beijing in 2007 to complain.

But there, she said, government officials from her home city of Yichun separated her from her son and she hadn't seen him since. She was sent to a labor camp.

She was allowed to leave in 2010, but the local government then confined her in the former mortuary.

Chen is now in a welfare home, and government officials, who admitted mistakes had been made, have begun a search for her son.

9 dead in rail crossing collision

Posted: 28 Jan 2013 09:17 AM PST

Officers investigate the scene after a bus and a freight train collided at a railway crossing in Heihe City in the northeastern Heilongjiang Province yesterday morning. The accident left nine people dead and 36 others injured, the local government said. All the victims were on the bus. The crossing was unguarded at the time and a crossing supervisor had failed to reach the area to warn vehicles of the approaching train, a senior railway official in Heihe said.

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The secret history of China's early warning aircraft

Posted: 28 Jan 2013 09:16 AM PST

A WINNER of China's top science award has ended years of secrecy on a key type of surveillance aircraft mastered by China, exposing details of the domestic research and manufacture of "airborne early warning and control" systems.

Wang Xiaomo, 74, regarded as the father of AEWC in China, said the country had developed a complete AEWC aircraft series with its own technology, the People's Daily reported yesterday.

"We're confident of producing more advanced early warning planes with smaller sizes, lower costs, multiple functions and constantly updated models," the paper quoted Wang as saying.

Wang, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, won China's top science award earlier this month for his contribution to the construction of the country's air defense network over the past 30 years.

China began the development of its first AEWC aircraft, Kongjing-1, in the 1960s, but the project was suspended due to problems including ground clutter affecting radar performance.

The research resumed in the early 1990s in the wake of the worldwide transformation of militaries from labor-intensive to technology-intensive forces capable of joint operations in modern warfare.

After the Gulf War ended in 1991, China began to seek cooperation with other countries to build up the core technology of manufacturing AEWC aircraft. Wang was appointed chief designer on the China side.

However, partners suddenly stopped cooperating after interference from the United States, Wang said. Soon afterward, Wang, along with dozens of other military scientists, submitted a letter to the central government, asking to be allowed to continue the research. "The termination of the cooperation delayed China's use of the early warning plane, but accelerated our independent research and development," he said.

Hard toil followed for Wang and his team in the heat of the Gobi desert.

"The manufacture of the AEWC aircraft was a huge and complicated feat of engineering; any small mistake could have led to failure. Without joint efforts by thousands of researchers, we couldn't have done it," Wang said.

Military parade

China's AEWC aircraft made its first public appearance in 2009 when the long-range Kongjing-2000 and two other smaller Kongjing-200 aircraft were showcased at a military parade celebrating the 60th anniversary of the founding of the new China.

The Kongjing-2000 is China's first generation of military AEWC systems developed with its own technology. The plane was first deployed in around 2004 after decades of trade embargoes by Western countries and attempts to acquire a Russian-made equivalent.

Able to process comprehensive information and long-range detection through its high-tech radar, the Kongjing-2000 can track dozens of aerial targets and guide the army's fighters to intercept enemy aircraft far beyond their own detection range.

Weibo used to find abducted kids' parents

Posted: 28 Jan 2013 09:10 AM PST

JIANG Shan has never really known what it means to have parents. He was kidnapped and sold immediately after birth.

For eight years, police and social workers tried but failed to find his parents. But now, they are hoping that social networking websites might be able to help Jiang reunite with his parents.

Jiang has been living in a child care center in the city of Jinjiang, located in southeast China's Fujian Province, since he was a month old. The center shelters 24 kids saved from human trafficking. They are in public care because police can't identify their parents.

"The kids like to ask why everyone else has parents. I can only let them wonder. I tell them that one day, they will see their parents show up," said Xu Xiurui, head of the Jinjiang Child Foster Care.

A recent visit by a charity fund director may help bring an end to the children's wait. The China Social Assistance Foundation, an organization known for fighting human trafficking, has started searching for parents on Weibo.

Photos and birth information for all 24 kids at the care center have been posted online. The campaign has attracted the attention of celebrities and has been reposted tens of thousands of times.

More than 60 newspapers in southwest China, where the majority of the country's human trafficking victims come from, have published articles about the children's plight, a foundation director surnamed Li said.

Yang Tianfu, a veteran anti-abduction officer from the Jinjiang municipal police force, said samples of the children's DNA have been added to a national database that logs the DNA information of parents who report children missing. However, no matches have been found.

Yang said some parents may have no access to the database, as they live in poor and remote areas. "Some may actually be responsible for selling their children in the first place," Yang added.

Not everyone is happy with the online campaign. "Charity is not a show," said Shi Qingliang, a Jinjiang municipal publicity official. "The campaign puts the children's misery under the spotlight. It may hurt them when all their waiting and expectations amount to nothing."

Deng Fei, a public welfare activist who initiated the online campaign, defended his group's rationale.

"It's the most effective method we can think of. With social networking, we can achieve a huge flow of information. It's social mobilization with a low cost but high efficiency," Deng said, adding that the campaign has helped more than 10 kids reunite with their parents.

Tests claim new samples of tainted Moutai found

Posted: 28 Jan 2013 09:08 AM PST

CHINESE high-end liquor brand Moutai has again been accused of containing toxic plasticizers after a netizen reported that one of three bottles of Moutai showed an excessive level of toxic chemical in tests done by three facilities in the United States.

It is the third time since a netizen first published a test result for Moutai Liquor, on December 9, showing that the brand contained excessive plasticizers. In the first case, reports showed one sample contained a plasticizer double the allowable level under China's standards.

In the latest case, a netizen identified as Jason Liao said on Xueqiu.com that he sent three bottles of Moutai for testing in the wake of the scandal embroiling Chinese distilled liquors starting in November.

Liao sent two bottles of Moutai liquor he bought in California to US labs - one each to Applied Technical Service (ATS) and Exova. ATS is a facility approved by the Consumer Product Safety Commission of US and Exova is registered under the country's food and drug administration, Caijing.com reported.

Liao said one of his friends sent him a collector's edition of Moutai and it was sent to Impact Analytical, a chemical analyzing lab in Michigan.

He published the test results on the website, showing that one of the three bottles contained 2.6 miligrams per liter of diethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP). Chinese standards say DEHP in food and food additives should be no greater than 1.68mg per liter.

The other two bottles were found to contain levels of DEHP lower than the maximum level, the website reported. DEHP may impair male sexual function and lead to cancer.

The board director of liquor maker Kweichow Moutai Co, Yuan Renguo, said in December that plasticizer in liquor is overblown by people with ulterior motives.

China queries NZ about chemical residue in milk

Posted: 28 Jan 2013 09:08 AM PST

CHINA'S quality watchdog yesterday said it has asked New Zealand authorities to present a detailed risk assessment report on dairy products after potentially harmful chemical residue was found in them.

The latest development came after milk produced by New Zealand's dairy giant Fonterra Cooperative Group was found to contain residue from dicyandiamide (DCD), a chemical used on pastures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to keep nitrogen from entering waterways.

Although New Zealand's Ministry of Primary Industries has assured consumers that the "very low levels" of DCD found in the dairy products do not pose food safety risks, the news has prompted concern among sensitive Chinese consumers, as New Zealand dairy products account for nearly 80 percent of China's import market.

In response, China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said it has met with New Zealand's Ambassador to China, Carl Worker, and asked for a more detailed report from New Zealand authorities.

Fonterra Cooperative Group was once a shareholder of Chinese brand Sanlu, which became the center of a notorious scandal in 2008, when Sanlu's melamine-tainted protein powder resulted in the deaths of at least six babies and sickened 300,000 others.

Party leaders in pledge to deal with corrupt members

Posted: 28 Jan 2013 09:35 AM PST

CHINA'S Communist Party yesterday promised to "deal with unqualified members in a timely way." A handful of Party members are "corrupt and degenerate," Party leaders warned at a meeting of its Central Committee Political Bureau.