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President's message of peace and prosperity IN his New Year's address, Chinese President Hu Jintao said China will forge ahead with reform and opening up as well as its drive for modernization in 2013. Wishing Chinese and people across the world a happy new year, he said that under the leadership of the Communist Party of China with Xi Jinping as general secretary, the Chinese people were forging ahead toward completing the building of a moderately prosperous society. Hu said China would continue to transform its economic development pattern as well as pursue progress while ensuring stability in the year ahead. China will stick to the guidelines of "one country, two systems," "Hong Kong people governing Hong Kong," and "Macau people governing Macau," with a high degree of autonomy, thus facilitating the long-term prosperity and stability of Hong Kong and Macau, Hu said. "We will continue to promote the peaceful development of mainland-Taiw...

Chinese government will take strong measures against companies that break food safety regulations to ensure "healthy" New Year holiday and the Spring Festival that falls in mid February next year. The authorities will implement harsher punishments for food producers that make counterfeit products and sell adulterated or expired food, according to an announcement released Sunday by the food safety office under the State Council, or China's Cabinet. It also urged local inspectors to intensify their efforts to ensure the safety of grain products, meat, infant food, alcoholic beverages and edible gifts during the holidays. The Spring Festival is one of the most important traditional holidays in China and is likely to see huge transaction volume in food trade, as people always arrange banquets to celebrate family reunion and entertain guests. Read More @ Source

Children of migrant workers in Beijing and Shanghai cities and Guangdong Province will be able to enter senior high schools and sit college entrance exams locally, according to plans published by the authorities on Sunday. They are the latest in a total of 13 provinces and municipalities to formulate plans to ensure that rural children who have followed their parents to cities can enjoy the same rights as their urban peers in education. Beijing will allow migrant workers' children to attend local vocational schools in 2013 and allow them to be matriculated by universities after graduating from the vocational programs in 2014. Shanghai took a step further, saying it will allow migrant children in the city to enter local senior high schools, vocational schools and sit college entrance exams locally starting in 2014. Guangdong has asked its cities to start recruiting migrant workers' children in local senior high schools in 2013. The province will allow these children ...

Entrepreneurs in China's southwest are dreaming of turning the city of Chengdu into the world's next Silicon Valley as the government encourages more investment outside the booming coastal regions. Small startups as well as big-name western companies have flocked to the metropolis of 14 million people, attracted by cheap labour costs and favourable government investment policies and hoping to tap into China's rapidly expanding consumer market. And the Silicon Valley dream is becoming reality as the city, already a hi-tech manufacturing hub, seeks increasingly to become a magnet for software development and innovation. Between one-third to one-half of the iPads sold worldwide are assembled in Chengdu, while computer giant Intel makes up to half of its chips in the city. Far from the booming coastal regions, Chengdu can offer perks through the government's "Go West" development programme, with incentives for startups such as one-year int...

Chinese President Hu Jintao delivered a New Year's address via state broadcasters Monday. While addressing domestic and overseas audiences, he said China will forge ahead with reform and opening up as well as its drive for modernization in 2013. He said the country aims to make a "good start" in the new year in achieving development goals outlined during the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC). He said 2012 carried high and profound significance in the overall course of China's development. The 18th CPC National Congress and the first plenum of the 18th CPC Central Committee held in November outlined a blueprint for China to complete the building of a moderately prosperous society and deepen reform and opening up, Hu said. The events also featured a smooth change of the central leadership of the CPC, he said. Under the leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Xi Jinping as General Secretary, Chinese people are forging ahead...

China's domestically-produced navigation system aims to take 70 to 80 percent of the now GPS-dominated domestic market by 2020, a spokesman for the system said Thursday. We hope industries based on the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) will hold 15 to 20 percent of the market share by 2015, BDS spokesman Ran Chengqi, also director of the China Satellite Navigation Office, said at a press conference on the official launch of the system. Ran announced that the BDS began providing positioning, navigation, timing and short message services to civilian users in China and surrounding areas in the Asia-Pacific region on Thursday. Ran said the general functionality and performance of the BDS is "comparable" to the GPS system, but cheaper. He further explained that the BDS open service is currently available and features positioning accuracy of 10 meters, velocity accuracy of 0.2 meters per second and one-way timing accuracy of 50 nanoseconds. The BD...

A high-ranking military official on Friday urged researchers to properly maintain China's home-grown navigation system so it can provide steady and reliable services for the country's economic development and military combat preparations. Fan Changlong, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, required researchers to beef up the security measures of the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) and increase its capacity to ward off interference. The BDS began providing services to civilian users in China and surrounding areas in the Asia-Pacific region on Thursday. The general functionality and performance of the BDS is "comparable" to the GPS system, but cheaper, a spokesman for the system said at a press conference on Thursday. Fan said the system has broken China's reliance on foreign navigation systems and carries great significance in safeguarding national security and promoting economic development. The Communist Party of ...

Blast at tunnel construction site in Shanxi kills 8, injures 5 EIGHT people died and five other were injured in an explosion at the construction site of a railway tunnel in north China's Shanxi Province last Tuesday, local provincial government announced today. Authorities said the accident happened at around 3pm on December 25 when construction workers were digging a tunnel face and fired cannon to re-blast a hole in Nanlu-Liangshan Tunnel being built in Linfen City. The project manager of the blast area is alleged to have concealed the accident which caused the death of eight workers. The five injured are receiving treatment at hospital, authorities said. The tunnel is being built by Erchu Co., Ltd of China Railway Tunnel Group whose officials from the safety quality and environmental protection department has confirmed the accident. Details of the accident are still under investigation and will be open to the public soon. The accident was first exposed online last Saturday a...

These pictures show the incredible sculptures carved from egg shells by Chinese artist Wen Fuliang Wen, of Shaanxi province, was laid off from his job as a wood carver and turned to the unusual and skillful form of art to make ends meet. He uses chicken, goose and duck eggshells to carve out places of interest, such as the iconic Dayan Pagoda in Xi'an. Wen Fuliang has practiced eggshell carving for more than ten years. Egg carving is done using a fine diamond bit on an electric rotary tool. The artist sketches a design on the shell, which has been carefully emptied of the yolk and egg white with a syringe. They must then gently but securely hold the egg shell in one hand, the rotary tool in the other and slowly carve away the design in an incredibly time-consuming and skillful process. From China Daily forum .com   You might also like： ...

China's Criminal Procedure Law, which was newly amended earlier this year to highlight human rights protection, will take effect on Jan. 1, 2013. Following the previous revision 16 years ago, the newly-amended law include the phrase "respecting and protecting human rights" in its first chapter and contains numerous detailed articles aimed to ensure the benefits of suspects and the justice of law enforcement work. The law stipulates that a suspect should be informed of the right to appoint an attorney from the first instance he or she is interrogated by investigating organs or is subject to mandatory measures, altering the old version which stated that a suspect could only have a defense counsel when the case is handed over to prosecutors. Meanwhile, law enforcement entities should ensure that lawyers meet their clients within 48 hours of receiving a request to do so, and the lawyers have the right to understand main facts pertaining to the suspect or defendant...

 IT'S minus 25C in Siberia, but it hasn't stopped these kids enjoying the great outdoors. Despite the freezing temperatures in the city of Barnaul, a group of kindergarten children pour freezing water on themselves as part of their daily exercises. The children, with some as young as two, march into the freezing air and douse themselves with water from plastic pails. The invigorating exercise is meant to do them good. The kindergarten director Olesya Osintseva has 18 years experience working with children and believes the brutal regime keeps them healthy. She encourages them to dress in swimming costumes, rub themselves in snow and frolic in the bitter cold. And far from seeing it as a punishment, many of the children think it is great fun.  Olesya told The Siberian Times: "Some 18 years ago we gathered together teachers and doctors to speak about our children's health. "They were catching influenzas, and there were moments when half of the...

30 December 2012 Last updated at 19:31 ET A Chinese fishing boat has been detained by Japan's coast guard for allegedly fishing inside Japanese waters, Chinese officials say. The boat was seized on Saturday near Japan's Kagoshima Prefecture, China's Xinhua news agency reported, citing the Chinese consulate in Fukuoka, Japan. The captain had admitted entering Japanese waters, Xinhua said. The incident comes months after anti-Japanese protests in Chinese cities over disputed islands near Taiwan. The captain and two crew members have been taken to Kagoshima for questioning while six other sailors remained on board the boat, which comes from Fujian province in south-east China, Xinhua said. A Chinese consulate official has been sent to Kagoshima to visit the crew members, the report added. Relations between Japan and China have been strained over the disputed islands, known as the Diaoyu in Chinese and Senkaku in Japanese. Japan controls the islands,...

BEIJING – Xinhua News Agency on Saturday unveiled its list of the year's 10 most attention-grabbing events in China. The events are as follows, in chronological order: – China cuts 2012 GDP growth target At its annual session in March, the National People's Congress, China's parliament, adopted the government work report, in which the country lowered its GDP growth target to 7.5 percent this year after keeping it at around 8 percent for seven consecutive years. The change was made in the face of global turbulence and pressing domestic demand for economic restructuring. – Medical reform meets three-year target The State Council in March issued an implementation plan for reforms in the health and medical care sector in the next three years. According to official statistics, as of the end of 2011 the basic medicare insurance system covered over 1.3 billion people in China, more than 95 percent of the total population, marking the realization of the previous three...

A truck driver and a moped rider died yesterday morning in a six-vehicle collision at the Xupu Bridge in Shanghai, which spans the Huangpu River between Xuhui District and Pudong New Area. The accident happened at 6:40am on the Xuhui approach to the bridge. Witnesses said a trailer truck plowed into vehicles in front of it in slippery conditions. The truck driver and moped rider were killed. The truck smashed road barriers, shedding its cargo of concrete pipes which blocked bridge lanes. Traffic was disrupted for around two hours. Also yesterday morning, a scooter rider died after being crushed by a truck on a Pudong building site. A witness said his head was caught between the truck and another vehicle. The truck driver was taken for questioning by police. Read More @ Source

Late on Dec 20 afternoon, less than 24 hours from the "Mayan Apocalypse" according to Beijing time, I sat at my computer in the office feeling increasingly restless and apprehensive. There were e-mails from close friends who half-jokingly thanked me for being part of their lives, and wished me a happy "next life" if the "prophecy" came true. And the sullen, yellowish sky outside seemed to be foreboding much more than just another spell of snow. But what disturbed me more at that moment was the surveillance video footage of a knife-wielding man that went viral on the Web. Allegedly under the influence of doomsday rumors, Min Yongjun, 36, chased a group of children through a primary school's gate in Henan province and slashed a little girl with a knife, causing her to fall to the ground. Before he was overpowered, Min had stabbed 23 students at the school and an elderly woman who lived nearby. It was not the first time a crazy man wielding a kn...