China Chronicles November 21, 2012
- Heavy traffic damages Yangtze bridge in Luzhou
FROM 12am today, the Luzhou Bridge over the Yangtze River in southwest China's Sichuan Province is closed for repair and all vehicles are diverted to other bridges.
The bridge, a main artery connecting Luzhou, a city famous for liquor production, and other parts of Sichuan, showed cracks in one pillar and big vehicles have been banned from going on to the bridge since yesterday.
Heavy flow of traffic for years has taken a toll on the bridge and caused the pillars to crack, said Huang Lingyun, a road official in charge of the bridge.
The province's road and bridge experts have been sent to the bridge to analyze the risks. The city may build a temporary iron bridge to divert traffic if needed.
Heavy vehicles are advised to travel by Lanxi Road and Tai'an Yangtze Bridge to enter Luzhou City, and small vehicles can take Lanxi Road and Guojiao Yangtze Bridge to enter the city.
In another report, cracks were found on a Yangtze River bridge in Jiujiang City, Jiangxi Province. Local police began diverting vehicles weighing more than 20 tons to other routes starting November 11.
- Zhao Hongzhu no longer holds post as Zhejiang Party chief
ZHAO Hongzhu will no longer hold the post as secretary of the Zhejiang Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), according to a decision made by the CPC Central Committee.
Zhao, born in July 1947, is currently a member of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee and deputy secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. - Ruins
Robert Dahuya (罗伯特) has added a photo to the pool:
Near Jiangbei Catholic Church (Laowaitan Area) --- 废墟在江北天主教教堂老外滩附近
- A close encounter of the rare Siberian tiger kind
A SIBERIAN tiger has been spotted on a farm in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, forestry officials said yesterday.
The tiger, believed to have been hunting for wild boar, came face to face with several workers on a forestry farm in eastern Heilongjiang on Sunday, said an official with the provincial Forestry Industry Bureau.
The farm is on the sparsely populated Wandashan Mountain, where Siberian tigers have been spotted many times, but it was the first time such an animal had come so close to humans.
"We had just finished work in the forest when the tiger appeared out of nowhere," said Shi Chun.
The workers rushed to their tractor to avoid an attack and the tiger followed for several hundred meters before going away, Shi said.
The tiger remained calm throughout the encounter, the workers said. On Monday, local authorities checked the site where the big cat was spotted and found plum-shaped pawprints, which they believe belong to an adult tiger.
Yang Lijuan, a wild animal protection official with the Dongfanghong Forestry Bureau, said: "The farm is in a zone where coniferous and broad-leaved trees grow, which provides much food for the tigers' prey, such as boar and deer."
Siberian tigers, otherwise known as Amur or Manchurian tigers, mainly live in eastern Russia, northeast China and the northern part of the Korean Peninsula. It is estimated that only about 500 live in the wild, with about 12 in Heilongjiang Province and eight to 10 in neighboring Jilin Province.
The Dongfanghong bureau has stepped up efforts to increase food for wild boar, roe deer and red deer on its farms where tigers have been spotted to ensure ample prey for the endangered species.
- Emphasis is on South China Sea peace, stability
CHINESE Premier Wen Jiabao said yesterday that China lays emphasis on peace, stability, free navigation and security in the South China Sea.
Speaking at the East Asia Summit in Cambodian capital Phnom Penh, Wen said free navigation and security are fully guaranteed in the area.
China hopes the international sea lanes across the South China Sea will be more fully used as the world economy recovers, he said.
US President Barack Obama said the United States hopes to resolve regional hotspot issues through peaceful means, and will not take a position in issues concerning sovereign and territorial disputes in the South China Sea and East China Sea.
"President Obama's message is there needs to be a reduction of the tensions," Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said. "There is no reason to risk any potential escalation, particularly when you have two of the world's largest economies - China and Japan - associated with some of those disputes."
The Philippines lodged a formal protest against summit host Cambodia yesterday, accusing it trying to stifle discussion on the South China Sea when leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations met on Monday.
But China defended its stand not to discuss the issue at multilateral forums. It prefers to deal with claimants on a bilateral basis.
"We do not want to bring the disputes to an occasion like this," Wen said. "We do not want to give over-emphasis to the territorial disputes and differences, and we don't think it's a good idea to spread a sense of tension in this region."
Several leaders at the summit raised the South China Sea issue, including a dispute over Huangyan Island, where Philippine and Chinese ships faced off in April. That prompted a firm response from China.
"The Huangyan Island is China's territory," Wen told the summit. "China's act of defending its sovereignty is necessary and legitimate."
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said on Sunday that Southeast Asian leaders agr! eed not to internationalize the row over the South China Sea and to confine talks to between ASEAN and China - a claim disputed by Philippine President Benigno Aquino.
Philippine Foreign Minister Albert del Rosario said his delegation had been shocked when a Cambodian official told reporters that ASEAN leaders had reached a consensus at their summit.
"Consensus means everybody. I was there, the president was there and we're saying we're not with it because there's no consensus," he said.
- Tracing problem drinks
PILOT food safety traceability systems were established in cities across the country in 2010 to trace the source of problem food and drinks, including Chinese liquor, Shen Danyang, a Ministry of Commerce spokesman, told a press conference yesterday.
"But we dare not say that these systems are perfect. They are just pilot systems," Shen said in response to a question on plasticizers.
- China's richest woman loses spot
WU Yajun is no longer China's richest woman after transferring about 40 percent of the developer's shares the couple used to own to her ex-husband, Bloomberg News reported.
Wu, 48, co-founder and chairwoman of Longfor Properties, split with husband Cai Kuichao in an August divorce that cost her company shares worth over HK$20 billion (US$2.58 billion), media reports said yesterday.
Wu said that on her road to success, she had sacrificed her husband, who was not among her top two priorities.
"My husband might feel unsatisfied with me," she told a business magazine, China Entrepreneur.
"Female entrepreneurs always face choices. For me, I place my career first, place my daughter second and the third is my husband. Once I made my choice, I started focusing on my business," she said.
"My husband must regret having said, 'Whatever you do I will support.' He never expected such huge costs," she said.
Wu topped the 2012 Hurun List of Self-Made Women Billionaires with a net worth of 38 billion yuan (US$6 billion) before her divorce. Her current net worth is estimated at US$4.2 billion.
The businesswoman started her real estate empire in 1994 when she quit working in journalism.
Yang Huiyan of Country Garden Holdings Co, daughter of the founder, is now China's richest woman with a US$5 billion fortune, according to Bloomberg.
- Death of 5 boys in bin leads to punishment of 8 local officials
EIGHT officials in Bijie City in Guizhou Province were sacked or suspended from jobs after five boys were found dead in a dumpster, killed by carbon monoxide as they huddled inside and burned charcoal for warmth.
The five boys, nine to 13 years old, were found dead on Friday along with charcoal ashes in the trash bin, 20 kilometers from their village.
Those punished include four officials in charge of education and civil affairs - two vice directors of the district where the kids perished, and two officials in the children's hometown - and two school principals, the city's Party committee said yesterday.
Two deputy heads of the district were suspended pending a further probe.
The officials punished had not done anything to help the boys or had not even noticed that they had been missing from home and school for weeks, officials said.
The boys were cousins from the same extended family, surnamed Tao, and their fathers were three brothers.
It drizzled on Thursday night and the temperature dropped to a low of 6 degrees Celsius. The boys got in the dumpster to get warm, officials said.
Not seen for 3 weeks
Tao Jinyou, the father of one of the boys, said the five children had not been seen for three weeks after going out to play. The parents didn't know where to find them and their absence was not reported to police, officials said.
The four sons of those two fathers were supposed to be under the care of an aging, blind grandmother who had difficulty caring for herself.
The five cousins often loitered in town together, said Tao. "Sometimes they didn't even come home at night."
Tao, who works on a farm in the area, said his son quit school two years ago and sometimes helped him herd cattle. "At first, I sent him back to school by force. But every time he'd run away again, so I knew it was hopeless."
Four of the five kids were drop-outs who had performed poorly at school and the last one in school was often absent, said another fa! ther, Tao Yuanwu.
Despite teachers' efforts, the boys refused to return to school.
Their deaths spurred an outburst of grief from the public, who in Internet posts blamed the children's caregivers and local government for failing to take care of them.
Children left behind
Bijie, with a population of 7 million, is perched on craggy mountains. Many local peasants have taken jobs in bigger cities, leaving their children in the custody of grandparents or distant relatives.
"We need to put the well-being of left-behind children at the top of our agenda," said Hu Jihong, deputy mayor of Bijie. "In fact, many uncared-for youngsters are wandering about the streets - some even run away to other provinces."
A day before the deaths, China's new Party chief, Xi Jinping, stressed children's well-being.
"People want their children to have sound growth, have good jobs and lead a more enjoyable life," he told reporters on Thursday, when the newly elected members of the Standing Committee of the 18th Communist Party of China Central Committee Political Bureau made a group debut.
Shanghai-based academic Fu Ping said he saw a pressing need for laws to safeguard children's welfare and provide governmental aid to homeless minors. "Such laws will help ensure adequate funding to provide for needy children."
Official figures show that China has over 150,000 street children, about half of whom left home over family disputes.
- China - Guangdong #15
Araakii has added a photo to the pool:
I would be considered a pedophile if I shot this in North America.
- Dormitory peepholes upset students
A middle school in Wenzhou, eastern Zhejiang Province, installed peepholes on dormitory doors to watch students and this sparked a protest over invasion of privacy.
About 470 students live in the dormitory building of Longwan Experimental Junior High School and their rooms were recently fitted with peepholes, through which teachers can see what is going on inside, the Wenzhou Metropolis Daily reported.
But many students are unhappy with the peepholes. "I feel uneasy and unsafe knowing I am being watched," a girl student said. Others said they used to do anything they like in the room and now they have to go to the bathroom to change clothes.
In protest, some boys blocked the peepholes with toothpaste, the paper said.
He Xiaozhen, a school official, said they installed the peepholes two weeks ago to prevent students playing video games and violating school rules. It is still on a trial stage.
"Advantage obviously outweighs disadvantage," said the school president, Cai Chaohui.
But a Zhejiang lawyer, Jin Bingcong, said the school has infringed on the privacy of its students.
"It may affect the students' psychological development and put overwhelming pressure on teenagers," He Jincai, a Wenzhou psychologist, told the paper.
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