China Chronicles August 22, 2012
- Shaanxi police arrest 37 for rapes, abductions
A 38-member gang that robbed, raped and sold women into prostitution has been busted by police in northwest China's Shaanxi Province with one member still at large.
The gang was linked to 86 criminal cases in Xi'an, the provincial capital, and in Weinan City since late last year, and around 80 percent of their victims were underage, the youngest being only 14, a local newspaper, China Business News, reported today.
One gang member was seized by police on July 12 when he tried to drag a girl into a car. The man confessed that he and three others invited a 17-year-old girl to dinner and raped her before finding a brothel owner.
Ensuing investigation uncovered this big crime group which looked for targets on the Internet and coaxed innocent girls into meeting them. They then raped the girls and sold them as prostitutes for 700 -1,000 yuan (US$110-157), local police said.
Nearly 80 percent of the young girls were underage students. Most of them didn't dare to report to police because they were too ashamed and feared media exposure.
- River floods suburban villages in Nanning
Residents take boat on a flooded road at Xinxin Village in the Yongning District of Nanning, capital of southwest China's Guangxi Province, yesterday. The water level of the Yongjiang River in the urban areas of Nanning City reached 73.01 meters yesterday, surpassing the alarming level of 70 meters and flooding suburban villages.
- 'Killer at large' rumors persist
A POLICE officer has appeared on television to scotch a rumor that he had been mistaken for killer Zhou Kehua and shot dead in Chongqing last Tuesday.
Online rumors said Zhou was still at large and the man shot dead by police on August 14 was a policeman in plain clothes sent from neighboring Hunan Province to take part in the manhunt.
Some people posted a photograph of the police officer, who looked like Zhou, and compared the photo with that of the man lying in a pool of blood after the shootout.
The officer looked so similar to the wanted killer that the rumor quickly spread that Zhou was still alive and it was the policeman who had been shot dead.
"It is ridiculous because I have had no business with the killer," Duan Zhipeng, the officer, told Hunan Province's television station from Changsha on Monday.
He said the photograph posted online was taken several years ago during an outing of his police bureau. It was later put on the bureau's website.
A DNA test and fingerprint comparison confirmed absolutely that the man killed by Chongqing police was Zhou, the city's police force said on Sunday.
All the Hunan police dispatched to Chongqing to hunt for Zhou had returned safely to Changsha, police in the provincial capital also confirmed.
Three portraits of the dead Zhou posted online showed blood on his face and a bullet wound to his right temple but Chongqing police said they had not released the photographs.
Rumors that Zhou was still alive began over the weekend after police closed access to the southwest municipality's Gele Mountain.
The rumors claimed that the killer must still be at large in the mountain area where police and military personnel had been searching before his final shootout with police.
However, police have said they were just searching for any hideouts Zhou might have used for further clues to the killer's activities. They were also still searching for a rifle Zhou had stolen after killing a sentry outsi! de a bar racks in Chongqing in 2009.
Zhou's ex-wife said Zhou once told her the gun was buried on the mountain when questioned by police after his death.
Zhou, 42, killed 11 people over the past eight years, usually targeting people who had withdrawn large sums of money from banks.
- Incomes up on average but wealth gap a worry
HOUSEHOLDS in rural China have seen incomes increase on average over the past three years thanks to migrant work in cities, but the wealth gap in the countryside has almost reached a warning level, a Chinese institute for rural studies said yesterday.
The income of rural households grew 14.13 percent from a year earlier to an average of 38,894.4 yuan (US$6,125) last year, according to a survey by Central China Normal University's Center for China Rural Studies.
The survey covers more than 6,000 rural households.
The institute said in a report that the income growth was fueled by rising wages among farmers who had abandoned rural life to work outside their hometowns, mostly in cities.
Wages paid to migrant workers accounted for 65.7 percent of the total income of rural households, it said.
The nation had 253 million migrant workers by the end of 2011, 10.55 million more than a year earlier, according to official data.
The wealth gap among rural households is widening. The Gini coefficient, which reflects the rich-poor gap, in rural China stood at 0.3949 last year, nearing the warning level of 0.4 set by the United Nations, the institute said.
The index, which measures income distribution on a scale of zero to one, indicates a relatively reasonable income gap if between 0.3 and 0.4. Most scholars believe it is currently between 0.45 and 0.50.
The reason why the gap exists is that those who work as migrant laborers in urban areas earn twice as much as those who grow crops, the institute said.
The income gap, said Xu Yong, chief of the institute, could force more rural residents to abandon farming and leave the countryside.
- Chinese astronomers at the final frontier
CHINA is to launch several space projects, including a hard X-ray telescope for black hole studies, between 2014 and 2016, according to a senior Chinese astronomer.
Su Dingqiang, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and former president of the Chinese Astronomical Society, revealed some details regarding the hard X-ray modulation telescope, China's first space telescope, at the opening ceremony of the International Astronomical Union's 28th General Assembly in Beijing yesterday.
Hard X-rays originate mostly from regions close to black holes and have high penetrative power, making them important tools for studying physical processes in extreme conditions, such as high matter density and high energy density.
Su said China will develop another satellite, the dark matter particle explorer, to help detect high-energy electrons and gamma rays, as well as a telescope, to study the solar magnetic field and a Sino-French joint mission to study gamma ray bursts.
Su said Chinese scientists are also planning to establish an Antarctic astronomical observatory.
Cui Xiangqun, an academic at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and president of the Chinese Astronomical Society, said a lot of work had been done to gain experience for the construction of an observatory in the Antarctic.
An Antarctic Survey Telescope was installed there at the beginning of the year and another AST will be installed in 2013, said Cui.
Cui was optimistic about the Antarctic facility. "It has drier air, better visibility and fewer background disturbances," she said.
The conference is the first of its size to be held in China.
Robert Williams, IAU president, said: "China's technology has advanced markedly, and some of its buildings are really world-class. The fact that we are meeting here is an indication that China has emerged in a short period of time to be competitive on the world stage in the science of astronomy."
- China's drive for patents in 'wrong direction'
CHINA'S drive to produce millions of new patents in the next few years as part of a switch from a "made in China" to "designed in China" economic model will curtail innovation standards, a European study warned yesterday.
China is seeking to transform itself from being the world's factory floor into a global pioneer by setting ambitious state-mandated patent targets - a goal that has already resulted in it surpassing the United States last year in patent filings.
The European Union Chamber of Commerce in China said in a report that the nation filed more than 1.6 million patent applications in 2011, but just 32 percent met the highest threshold for patent quality - new inventions.
The study noted that while China's innovation potential is "impressive," its actual innovation is "overhyped."
"This explosion (of patent applications) has come with a price in terms of the quality and mix of patents. This is not in the right direction," Chamber Secretary General Dirk Moens said.
In some cases, financial incentives and performance evaluations for state-owned firms, officials and academics drive the filing of low-quality patents as they seek to meet quotas - 2 million annually by 2015 under one national plan.
In addition to inventions, China also gives patents for designs and "utility models," incremental developments that can advance an existing product but rarely result in technological breakthroughs.
The US does not use utility model patents, though some developed countries, such as Germany, do.
Sixty-five percent of patent applications filed by medium and large-sized Chinese state-owned enterprises in recent years have been for the lower end design or utility model patents, making them among the country's least effective innovators, the study said.
"One cannot drive or 'force' creativity, but only nurture it, whereas creativity leading to breakthroughs of the type that typically produce the highest quality patents at best comes in spurts," it said,! noting that at least 20 countries have greater innovation potential than the world's second largest economy.
But Elliot Papageorgiou, an intellectual property expert at Rouse Legal in Shanghai, said utility model patents are good for China. "In developing economies, you're not going to get a new wheel, you're going to get an improved or cheaper wheel," Papageorgiou said.
- Another fine mess for urban management
DRIVERS and pedestrians in a central China city were shocked when fellow citizens began stopping them to demand they pay fines for breaking traffic regulations.
A driver surnamed Zhang said "someone suddenly knocked his window" when he was waiting for the lights to turn green demanding payment. He had stopped for the red light but had encroached on the crosswalk.
"He said he would fine me 10 yuan (US$1.57) and then several others rushed to surround my car," Zhang said.
The men weren't in uniform but wore armbands. "I didn't know if they were traffic police or urban management officials, and why did they have the right to fine me? Ten yuan is just a little sum, what really matters is an official explanation," Zhang said.
The Urban Management Bureau in Shaoyang, Hunan Province revealed that, beginning August, it has entrusted 1,000 city environment inspectors to fine offenders. The group, aged between 40 and 60, are being paid 500 yuan (US$78.65) a month and get to keep 80 percent of the fines they collect, the authority said.
However, the city government legal affairs office. which supervises law enforcement, said those inspectors are not in the position to enforce the law. The office is in talks with the urban management authority about the issue, yesterday's Xiaoxiang Morning Herald reported.
The city's traffic police and community officials admitted employing members of the public to supervise the city environment, but denied giving them the right to issue fines. They said that would have been the urban management.
For their part, urban management officials said they were just carrying out the plan the local government had worked out, the newspaper said.
But the report also said that the government had never authorized "environment inspectors" to issue fines in its notice issued on June 29 which aimed to regulate and enhance the daily behavior of residents.
Wang Yingshuai, a Hunan lawyer, told the newspaper that government bodies are not ! entitled to entrusting others to carry out administrative punishments. Besides, any fines should be handed over to the government in full, he said.
In 2008, Zhuzhou in Hunan hired 18,299 such inspectors who were said to have collected fines of up to 127,560 yuan in just three months.
And since the start of this year, the province's Xiangtan City had recruited 1,100 people to help authorities crack down on breaches of regulations.
- Bikinis add controversy to beautiful cow contest
A CONTEST to find a county's most beautiful cow caused controversy when young women in bikinis began milking them in Shanyin County of Shanxi Province.
The event was meant to promote the county's dairy industry, but instead sparked claims of promoting vulgarity.
The "beauty pageant," organized by the Shanyin government, asked villagers to vote for cows based on their appearance, milk production, udder size and bloodlines. Organizer said the 30 "contestants" had been selected from the county's more than 100,000 dairy cows.
However, many villagers were shocked when eight young women in bikinis joined the beauty pageant to milk the cows. A model told a reporter she had been hired to represent harmony between human beings and nature.
But the move backfired, with many people accusing the event of "promoting vulgarity" by hiring the models. There were some, though, who thought it was an entertaining idea.
"Are the county officials trying to test people's aesthetic notions to see whether they would focus more on the cows or on the young girls wearing bikinis?" read one Weibo post.
"If they were to select the most beautiful cow, why did they hire models? I don't think it's good for children to watch," was another.
Some supporters said they had been shocked to see such a pageant but appreciated the idea as it could help to promote the county's dairy products.
County head Nan Zhizhong, told Chinanews.com that he understood why some people felt the pageant was controversial but said it had been held to promote the dairy industry.
Nan said the county had more than 100,000 cows, the largest number in the province.
"We selected 30 cows from 100,000 to compete in the pageant. They are the Ferraris and Rolls-Royces of cows," said Nan. "We want to promote the local dairy industry to let more people drink safe milk."
- Toilet danger no problem for Chinese customers
BATHROOM fittings maker Flushmate, which supplies major toilet manufacturers such as Kohler and American Standard, said yesterday that a flushing mechanism being recalled in the United States and Canada was not used in China.
The US company began to recall more than 2.3 million units in June after 304 customers reported problems that had resulted 14 impact and laceration injuries.
The pressure from the defective system can lift and shatter toilet tank lids, according to newspaper reports.
The US Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a warning about the defect mechanism and the potential for laceration injuries.
The news sparked concern in China where Kohler and American Standard are hugely popular and widely used.
However, Richard Zhang, a representative of Flushmate China, said: "The defect systems have not flowed into China."
Kohler China also issued a statement yesterday reassuring Chinese customers and saying that the substandard system was not used in its toilets sold in China.
American Standard made a similar announcement.
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