China Chronicles October 27, 2012
- First hepatitis E vaccine hits market in China
THE world's first hepatitis E vaccine "Hecolin" is now available on the Chinese market, a pharmaceutical company confirmed today.
The vaccine hit the market after a two-year clinical trial involving 113,000 volunteers in east China's Jiangsu Province.
Developed by Xiamen University and Xiamen Innovax Biotech Co. Ltd. in southeast China's Fujian Province, the vaccine was approved for production in December 2011.
At a launch in the city of Xiamen, Gao Yongzhong, general manager of Xiamen Innovax, said the company is working with the government to offer the vaccine to high-risk members of the public. It is also cooperating with international organizations to introduce it to other countries.
The hepatitis E virus is shed in feces and spread through tainted water and food. The World Health Organization estimates that 20 million people around the world are infected by the virus each year.
In China, hepatitis E is now the most common type of hepatitis infecting adults. It is also widespread in South and Southeast Asia, Africa and Central America.
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- Fire in Hong Kong claims two lives
A fire broke out at a village house in Yuen Long, New Territories of Hong Kong, early this morning, claiming the lives of two boys and leaving one woman injured, the city's government news website said.
The accident occurred at No. 492 Kam Wing Garden in Pat Heung, Yuen Long. The Fire Services Department received the call at 00:55 am today, and arrived at the scene at 1:01 am. Firemen used one jet and mobilized two breathing apparatus to fight the blaze. The fire was largely put out at 1:22 am.
Three victims were sent to hospital where two boys aged seven and eight were certified dead upon arrival. A 35-year-old woman is now receiving medical treatment. According to local media reports, she is a Filipino maid.
The Fire Services Department is now investigating the cause of the fire.
- China urges Japan not to misread situation
CHINA has asked Japan to have a clear picture of the situation, correct its mistake and handle the problem between the two countries properly, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Zhijun said yesterday.
China and Japan have maintained contact and consultations on the issue of Diaoyu Islands through various channels and in different forms, Zhang told reporters at a press briefing.
The two sides started vice foreign ministerial-level consultations on Diaoyu Islands in Beijing on September 25, Zhang said.
In the contact and consultations at all levels, China has stated its government's solemn position on the issue and strong determination to safeguard territorial integrity, Zhang said.
"China has urged Japan to have a correct reading of the situation, abandon any illusion and face up to reality," Zhang said.
"Japan should correct its mistake with credible steps and make real efforts so that the current problem will be handled properly," he said.
- 6 killed in NW China traffic accident
FIVE school pupils and one villager were killed in a traffic accident in northwest China's Gansu Province, which also injured six others yesterday afternoon, local authorities said today.
The accident happened at about 5:10 pm, when a light truck careened off a mountain road and tumbled 200 meters down a slope in Wudu district of Longnan city, officials from the city government said.
The truck was carrying 13 people, including eight students who were returning home from school. One managed to jump out of the vehicle and survived without injury.
Further investigation is underway.
- Typhoon Son-Tinh to bring rainstorms to S. China
SON-TINH, the 23rd tropical storm this year, strengthened to typhoon early this morning and is expected to bring rainstorms and gales to China's southern coastal areas, the country's meteorological authority said today.
The National Meteorological Center of China said the center of Son-Tinh, which is gaining strength, was 75 kilometers to the southwest of Sansha, a newly established city in the South China Sea, at 5 am today. It was moving northwestward at a speed of 20 to 25 km per hour.
The approaching Son-Tinh is expected to bring heavy rainfall and strong wind to the southern parts of China, including parts of Hainan Province and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in the coming two days.
Sansha and southern parts of Hainan will be hit the hardest by downpours, according to the meteorological center.
- Typhoon Son-Tinh to bring rainstorms to S. China
SON-TINH, the 23rd tropical storm this year, strengthened to typhoon early this morning and is expected to bring rainstorms and gales to China's southern coastal areas, the country's meteorological authority said today.
The National Meteorological Center of China said the center of Son-Tinh, which is gaining strength, was 75 kilometers to the southwest of Sansha, a newly established city in the South China Sea, at 5 am today. It was moving northwestward at a speed of 20 to 25 km per hour.
The approaching Son-Tinh is expected to bring heavy rainfall and strong wind to the southern parts of China, including parts of Hainan Province and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in the coming two days.
Sansha and southern parts of Hainan will be hit the hardest by downpours, according to the meteorological center.
- Chen, Lin win big at Golden Bell Awards
Taiwanese actor Berlin Chen and actress Ariel Lin hold their trophies yesterday after winning the Best Actor and Best Actress awards of the 47th Golden Bell Awards, an annual Taiwanese television production award.
- Think tank calls for loosening of one-child policy
CHINA should consider adjusting its family planning policy, as structural problems have overtaken excessive growth as the most significant population-related problem, a government think tank said yesterday.
Problems in population structure, quality and distribution have become increasingly visible and will have a profound impact on China's future social and economic development, the China Development Research Foundation reported.
China's population has seen a declining annual growth rate, slowing to 0.57 percent in the first decade of the 21st century, down from 1.07 percent in the previous 10 years, according to the report. Its population situation is quite different from that of 30 years ago, when a family planning policy limited the majority of urban families to just one child.
The report said the population is heading for negative growth and an ultra-low fertility rate, adding that it also faces issues related to aging, gender imbalances, urbanization, an expanding shortage of migrant workers and an only-child generation.
The CDRF said the government should gradually loosen the one-child policy over the next three years in regions where family planning has been strictly implemented. By 2020, there will be no need to continue birth planning, as people will make more rational decisions on birth issues, the CDRF said in its report.
China will also have an ultra-low fertility rate after 2026 and that the government should start encouraging families to have more children.
The family planning policy was introduced around 1980 to rein in China's surging population by encouraging late marriages and pregnancies, as well as limiting most urban couples to one child and most rural couples to two children.
"The family planning policy has had a profound influence on China's economic and social development," said the CDRF.
The implementation of the policy has reduced the pressure created by a rapidly rising population, made contributions to economic growth and! helped improve population quality.
However, China has paid a huge political and social cost for the policy, as it has resulted in social conflict, high administrative costs and led indirectly to a long-term gender imbalance at birth. Efforts should be made to support one-child and disadvantaged families in family planning, the report said.
It also pointed out the aging population and the fact that China's "demographic dividend" has already ended and will pose a severe challenge for the country's development.
"This means China cannot rely on an unlimited labor supply for its future economic development, but must instead boost its total factor productivity," said Cai Fang, director of the Institute of Population and Labor Economics under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Cai, one of the writers of the report, urged the government to increase investment in healh care and education.
- Call to ease residency permit
A SENIOR Party official yesterday called for relaxation of the controversial residency permit, or hukou, to ensure that migrant workers can enjoy better services like health care and housing.
The 230 million-strong migrant workforce drives China's economy, but a lack of access to education, health and other services tied to the country's strict household registration system forces massive saving, restraining efforts to shift the focus of growth to consumption from investment.
Zhou Yongkang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Party's Central Committee, said China should establish as soon as possible a new "national residence permit system" to improve services for migrant workers.
The new system would help with employment, health care, housing, social security and education for the children of migrant workers, said Zhou, who is in charge of political and legal affairs at the Party's decision-making inner circle.
"These efforts would help to avoid a new discriminatory dual system in cities and better ensure migrant workers enjoy the fruits of reform and opening up," he said, according to Xinhua news agency.
It provided no other details.
China has talked of reforming the hukou system for years, but with little progress.
The government has said the system is necessary to manage its vast population.
It essentially classifies its more than 1.3 billion people into two groups, farmers and non-farmers.
The rigid regime means an officially rural resident has no access to education, health and other welfare services in the towns where they live and work, even though they may have been there for years.
China's migrant workers in their millions flood into cities each year from the impoverished countryside.
They are relatively low paid, but have earned annual double-digit pay raises for years, making them a huge potential source of consumer spending.
- guomao
- Law passed in China to protect mentally ill
CHINA yesterday adopted a long-awaited mental health law that aims to prevent normal people from being wrongly institutionalized while also protecting the rights of the mentally ill.
In a country where 16 million people suffer from some kind of mental disorders, the law standardizes mental health care services for them, requires general hospitals to set up special outpatient clinics or provide counseling, and train more doctors.
Debated for years, the law attempts to address an imbalance in Chinese society - a lack of mental health care services for a population that has grown more prosperous but also more aware of modern-day stresses and the need for treatment.
Psychiatrists who helped draft and improve the legislation welcomed its passage.
"The law will protect the rights of mental patients and prevent those who don't need treatment from being forced to receive it," said Dr Liu Xiehe, an 85-year-old psychiatrist in Chengdu, capital of the southwestern Sichuan Province, who drafted the first version of the law in 1985.
"Our mental health law is in line with international standards. This shows the government pays attention to the development of mental health and the protection of people's rights in this area," Liu said.
Forced treatment
Pressure has grown on the government in recent years after reported cases of people forced into mental hospitals when they did not require treatment. Some were placed there by employers with whom they had wage disputes, others by their family members in dispute over money.
On October 10, or World Mental Health Day, four people who claim to have been wrongly institutionalized sent written pleas to hospitals and courts across China, demanding fairer diagnoses of mental diseases and greater scrutiny of patients' custodians.
Among them was Chen Guoming, a former gold store owner, who was forced into an asylum in February 2011 by his wife and locked up for 56 days after refusing to lend money to his in-laws at their! request.
When he was released, he found his wife had transferred nearly 800,000 yuan (US$126,182) from his account and taken all of the jewelry in his store. His losses totaled 6 million yuan.
- Bo expelled from the NPC, put under criminal probe
AUTHORITIES yesterday launched a criminal probe into Bo Xilai, former Party chief of southwestern Chongqing City.
Lawmakers yesterday formally expelled Bo from China's top legislature in a bid to strip him of his last official post, clearing the way for criminal proceedings against him.
On September 28, the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee decided at a meeting to deprive Bo of the CPC membership and kick him out of public service for severe disciplinary violations.
Bo was accused of offenses dating back two decades that range from taking bribes and abusing his power to having improper relationships with an unspecified number of women.
His expulsion from the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, removes his immunity from prosecution for a criminal case against him involving accusations of corruption and other wrongdoing, including interfering in the investigation into the murder of a British businessman by his wife.
Bo's wife Bogu Kailai and a household aide were convicted in the murder of Neil Heywood in August. She was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve.
Investigations have found that Bo seriously violated CPC disciplines while managing Dalian City in Liaoning Province and the Ministry of Commerce, as well as serving as the Party's Political Bureau member as well as the Party chief of the southwest city of Chongqing.
Bo had abused his power, made severe mistakes and borne major responsibility in an incident that former Chongqing police chief and Vice Mayor Wang Lijun entered, without permission, the US Consulate General in Chengdu, investigators said.
Bo was also accused of taking advantage of his position to seek profits for others and received huge bribes personally or through his family. His position was utilized by his wife to seek profits for others, and the Bo family accepted a huge amount of money and property from others, authorities said.
He was also found to have violated or! ganizational and personnel disciplines and made erroneous decisions in certain promotion cases, resulting in serious consequences.
Bo's downfall started when Wang fled to the US Consulate in Chengdu, where he revealed to diplomats details of Heywood's death, which previously was called accidental.
A month later, Bo was sacked as Chongqing's Party secretary and suspended from the 25-member Political Bureau.
Wang was sentenced on September 24 to 15 years in prison on charges of abusing power, attempt to defect to the US, and taking bribes.
- Fashion 2012 Stella 02
Shanghai 2007 has added a photo to the pool:
- Fashion 2012 Stella 01
Shanghai 2007 has added a photo to the pool:
- US-based ponzi scheme rips off 200,000 investors
US-BASED ponzi scheme website Hootoot660 has been busted after allegedly swindling 200,000 Chinese people out of 2.4 billion yuan (US$384 million), police said.
The perpetrators targeted short-term profit-seeking investors by promising high returns. People were first required to pay 660 yuan to 12,540 yuan in membership fees and were then encouraged to buy an online stock called Guquan, which was said to never drop in price, and attract more members to earn commissions, Yangtze Evening News reported yesterday.
To earn trust, the website paid off early investors with the money paid in by new clients, the report said.
The case came into the spotlight in April when police in Xinyi City in Jiangsu Province found hundreds of residents registered to Hootoot660, a website that has no real business.
A preliminary police investigation found the website was operating a pyramid selling scam.
A Chinese businessman surnamed Yun started Hootoot trading company in Texas in 2010 and opened the website one year later. But the company didn't do well until he masterminded the plan to promote a virtual stock in January and cheat people out of billions of yuan, the report said.
Hootoot's co-founder, surnamed Pang, was arrested in Henan Province on May 3 and a major Internet engineer surnamed Xie was caught in Guangdong Province on May 10 in joint police raids. Other ringleaders on the Chinese mainland were also caught although Yun remains at large.
- Satellite launch to bolster Beidou navigation system
China successfully launched another satellite into space late on Thursday for its global navigation and positioning network, the launch center said yesterday.
The satellite was launched from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan Province and was boosted by a Long March-3C carrier rocket.
It is the 16th satellite for the Beidou, or Compass system, the launch center said.
The network is scheduled to officially provide services for most parts of the Asia-Pacific region early next year and begin offering global services by 2020.
Since it started to provide services on a trial basis on December 27, 2011, the Beidou system has been stable, said a spokesperson of the China Satellite Navigation Office.
The system has been gradually used in more sectors including transportation, weather forecasting, marine fisheries, forestry, telecommunications, hydrological monitoring and mapping, according to the spokesperson.
The satellite will play an important role in improving the system's service, the spokesperson added.
China started to build its own satellite navigation system to break its dependence on the US-made Global Positioning System in 2000.
Between October 2000 and May 2003, the country set up a regional satellite navigation system after launching three Beidou geostationary satellites.
Beidou-1 could not meet growing demand, so China set up the more advanced Beidou-2 regional and global navigation system, Qi Faren, former chief designer for Shenzhou spaceships, said in 2011.
- Police warn of find-and-flirt chat app risks
POLICE suggest the ever growing numbers of handset users close social-networking apps when in public over concerns they are putting themselves at risk to theft, fraud and even sexual attacks.
The apps, usually featuring location-based services, or LBS, allows users to track friends or search for a random woman or man in the same city who you would like to meet. Unwary users often instantly pinpoint themselves and disclose personal information, making them vulnerable, Xinmin Evening News reported.
Tencent's Weixin, one of the country's most well-known smartphone messaging apps, has more than 200 million users, which means it also attracts people with bad intentions.
Police in Hangzhou City, capital of Zhejiang Province, told the newspaper they have received 100 Weixin-related cases this year. Wang Chen, a police officer in Changzhou City of Jiangsu Province, was quoted as saying the highly popular app makes prostitution easier.
Apple's well-received Siri, a voice-activated personal assistant app, has also been plagued by a sex scandal after it was found last week to have helped a user locate 15 brothels in Kunming City, capital of Yunnan Province. Call girls can even post nude pictures to entice customers, the report said.
These fast-growing social apps, most of which are free on Apple's iOS and Google's Android operating systems, have burst onto the scene and quickly become popular among Chinese youth. Apps featuring match-making functions are especially popular.
Though Apple's iPhone warns only those over the age of 17 are allowed to download such apps, no departments or authorities are assigned to supervise them. Users also do not need to provide their real identity.
In the popular LBS chat app Momo, a user can follow others and go through their personal details without their knowledge.
Perpetrators thus find there are many opportunities to commit crimes via such apps since it's relatively easy and they feel they can get away with it. However! , few users realize criminals are targeting them.
Most of the victims are young women or teen girls who want to find Mr Right, police said.
Last December, a 32-year-old man in Ningbo city looked to date college girls via Weixin. He successfully lured seven for dates and after gaining their trust, he drove them to remote parking lots and raped them. In June, he was sentenced to eight years and six months in jail.
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