China Chronicles January 30, 2013
- 100 storeys up: Observatory deck of SWFC
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- Smugglers fined just US$340 over ivory
FOUR Chinese men who pleaded guilty in a Kenyan court to smuggling thousands of dollars worth of ivory were yesterday fined just US$340 each.
In Nairobi, Magistrate Timothy Okello regretted that the defendants' crime "is still considered as a petty offence" and called for Kenyan laws "to be amended to reflect the gravity of such matters."
The four men were arrested on Sunday carrying ivory items including chopsticks, necklaces and bracelets, as well as two pieces of raw ivory weighing 9.6 kilograms.
The raw ivory alone had an estimated black market value of US$24,000 in Asia, said Patrick Omondi, head of the Kenya Wildlife Service's elephant program.
The smugglers, Qu Rongjun, Liu Xuefeng, Gu Guisheng and Wang Chengbang, were stopped in Kenya while in transit from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Guangzhou airport in south China.
They said they were unaware it was illegal to carry ivory through Kenya.
- Abe suggests summit
A summit is being suggested by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to mend relations with China damaged by a territorial dispute, according to Japanese media.
The Kyodo news agency quoted Abe as saying there might be "a need to re-establish the relationship, starting with a summit."
But the prime minister reiterated that the territorial issue, concerning the Diaoyu Islands, was non-negotiable, Kyodo's report said.
Abe's comments on a TV program came after a visit to China by Natsuo Yamaguchi, leader of the New Komeito party which forms the coalition government with Abe's Liberal Democratic Party.
On Saturday, Yamaguchi briefed Abe on his visit to China, which the prime minister called "important."
- Xi vows no compromises over China's sovereignty
CHINA will never compromise on its sovereignty, security or development interests, Party chief Xi Jinping said.
Xi told members of the Communist Party's politburo that China would stick to its policy of peaceful development but would never sacrifice its legitimate rights or basic interests.
"No foreign country should expect us to make a deal on our core interests and hope we will swallow the bitter pill that will damage our sovereignty, security and development interests," Xi told the 25-member body on Monday.
Xi said China will adhere to an "open, cooperative and win-win" development model with due consideration for both domestic and international situations.
China will pursue its development by seeking a peaceful international environment while safeguarding and promoting world peace, he said.
Xi said the government will ensure the public benefits from China's peaceful development, as well as work to consolidate a material and social basis for furthering its development.
Wartime atrocities in the past had made an indelible impression on the Chinese people, leading them to desire and cherish a peaceful and stable life, Xi said.
"Turbulence is what the Chinese people are afraid of, stability is what they are after and world peace is what they are looking forward to," Xi said.
Xi said that "without peace, China and the world at large cannot develop smoothly; without development, both China and the world as a whole cannot have enduring peace."
He added: "Global progress is like a tidal wave: ride with it and prosper, sail against it and you surely will perish."
Global prosperity and stability represent an opportunity for China, while China's development represents an opportunity for the world, he said, adding that the success of a peaceful path of development will depend on the utilization of the opportunities that exist for both sides.
Through sound interaction between both sides, China will open up a path for advancement, he said,! adding that the country will unswervingly adhere to its own path.
Xi said China is following a road of peaceful development and other countries should do the same.
He also said that only when all countries pursue a path of peaceful development can they jointly develop and enjoy peaceful coexistence.
"We should widely and deeply spread our country's strategic thinking of sticking to the road of peaceful development and guide the international community to properly understand and approach China's development," Xi said.
"China will never pursue development at the cost of sacrificing other country's interests. We will never benefit ourselves at others' expense or do harm to any neighbor," he said.
China will unswervingly pursue peaceful development, push forward joint development, maintain the multilateral trade system and participate in global economic governance, Xi said.
- Scientists find out why H1N1 is a bigger problem for Chinese
BRITISH and Chinese scientists have found a genetic variant which explains why Chinese people may be more vulnerable to the H1N1 virus, commonly known as swine flu.
It may also help explain why new strains of flu virus often emerge first in Asia.
"Understanding why some people may be worse affected than others is crucial in improving our ability to manage flu epidemics and to prevent people dying from the virus," said Tao Dong at Britain's Oxford University, who led the study.
Less than 1 percent of Caucasians are thought to have the gene alteration, which has previously been linked to severe influenza. Yet about 25 percent of Chinese people have it, and it is also common in Japanese and Korean people.
The scientists analyzed 83 patients admitted to a Beijing hospital during the 2009-2010 swine flu pandemic. Of those with serious complications such as pneumonia, respiratory or kidney failure, 69 percent had the genetic alteration. Among patients with mild illness, only 25 percent did.
"It doesn't mean you should panic if you have this gene variant," said Andrew McMichael, director of the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine at Oxford University. "Most people who have it won't run into any trouble at all."
But he said people with the genetic predisposition to severe flu should be treated earlier and more aggressively than others.
McMichael estimated people with the variant were five to six times more likely to become severely ill once infected. But the gene alteration doesn't make people more likely to catch the flu, since that depends on other factors.
McMichael said the gene variant might give people the same susceptibility to get severely ill from other ailments. But it could also provide them with better immunity once they recover.
"The bug in someone who gets severely ill is not any different than the one that infects someone who has mild illness," said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Po! licy at the University of Minnesota.
Genetic screening might one day be included in national flu plans.
"Further work needs to be done to justify that, but maybe in the future we would be able to say that if you're of a certain ethnicity, you are more at risk and should be prioritized for vaccination or antivirals," said Peter Openshaw, director of the Centre for Respiratory Infection at Imperial College London.
"It's possible we could one day do a genetic test before treating someone with flu to see what the best treatment would be."
- Guangdong heralds end of decried labor camps
SOUTH China's Guangdong Province is planning to end the re-education through labor system within the year, according to the provincial judicial department yesterday.
Guangdong was preparing to be the leading and exploratory region to stop the laojiao system, said Yan Zhichan, director of the province's Department of Justice.
Public criticism of the re-education through the labor system has been growing.
In August, Tang Hui, a woman in central China's Hunan Province, was sentenced to 18 months in a labor camp after protesting and demanding tougher penalties for the seven men convicted of abducting, raping and prostituting her 11-year-old daughter.
Tang was released within a week following complaints from people across the country.
The national political and legal work conference in early January announced changes to the system, which will be pushed forward this year.
- China catches its breath as haze envelops nation
Residents across northern China suffered choking pollution yesterday while Beijing was plunged into a toxic twilight for the fourth time this winter.
Visibility was reduced to around 200 meters in parts of the capital, where pedestrians wearing masks made their way through a murky haze despite warnings from authorities to stay indoors unless absolutely necessary.
In one city office, according to the AFP news agency, up to 20 workers worried that the pollutants could penetrate indoors took extra precautions, wearing protective masks at their desks.
Wang Anshun, Beijing's new mayor who took office on Monday, was quoted as saying: "The current environmental problems are worrisome."
The Beijing News went as far as to suggest banning or regulating Spring Festival fireworks in the capital. Pollution readings spiked after the city's skyline lit up with explosions last year.
The Beijing Environmental Monitoring Center gave the air quality index as 406 yesterday, indicating the capital's air was "severely polluted."
The index rates a reading over 150 as "unhealthy" and above 300 as "hazardous."
National weather forecasters estimate that rain and snow will hit the nation tonight, and a cold front is expected in the capital tomorrow, bringing strong winds to disperse the fog.
Earlier this month, several consecutive days of smoggy weather choked Beijing and other cities in north and east China, with PM2.5 readings far in excess of levels considered safe, Xinhua news agency said.
Yesterday's toxic conditions followed an extreme bout of pollution earlier this month, when readings for PM 2.5, particles small enough to deeply penetrate the lungs and cause health problems, peaked at 993 micrograms per cubic meter, almost 40 times the World Health Organization's recommended safe limit.
At the height of the smog, many residents rushed to buy face masks and air purifiers, and doctors at two of Beijing's major hospitals said the number of patients with res! piratory problems had increased sharply during the period.
China Central Television gave the smog's second day huge airplay, showing vehicles having to use full headlights in the middle of the morning to light their way through noxious clouds enveloping huge swathes of northern China as well as other areas.
The smog affected a total area of 1.3 million square kilometers across the country, the Ministry of Environmental Protection said yesterday.
It said the hardest-hit regions included the cities of Beijing and Tianjin, the provinces of Hebei, Henan, Shandong, Shanxi and Jiangsu, and the cities of Hefei, Wuhan and Chengdu.
Beijing, Tianjin, Shijiazhuang and Jinan were "gravely polluted" and air pollution in other cities including Zhengzhou, Wuhan, Xi'an, Hefei, Nanjing, Shenyang and Changchun was rated just one level lower, or "seriously polluted," at 10am yesterday.
More than 100 flights were delayed or canceled at Zhengzhou Airport in Henan, said CCTV, adding that the haze would last until tomorrow.
In the eastern province of Shandong, almost 2,000 passengers were stranded at Qingdao's main airport after it shut, with 20 flights canceled, after visibility dropped to 100 meters.
- Urgent action in Beijing
BEIJING yesterday ordered 30 percent of official vehicles off the road and suspended 103 heavily polluting factories as a murky haze that began to choke the capital on Monday got worse yesterday.
Other businesses were encouraged to suspend or cut production by midnight tomorrow, according to an emergency meeting called to tackle the toxic haze.
Earlier, the city's environmental protection bureau had announced that Beijing would be adopting a stricter standard for vehicle emissions from this Friday.
New cars will be subject to Beijing Standard V, equivalent to that in Europe, in a bid to reduce the density of dangerous PM2.5 particles.
- Celebrities urge masks to protect traffic police
AFTER days of gray skies in the capital, some of Beijing's better known residents not only began to vent their frustration at the conditions but also expressed concern for people who had to work outdoors.
An online campaign was launched, calling for traffic police to be allowed to wear masks.
Internet celebrity Sister Lotus was one of the first to highlight the dangers faced by the city's traffic police.
Sister Furong, as she is also known, became famous for her blogs about getting into college and finding a boyfriend and for posting risque photographs of herself.
She wrote on her microblog: "The outdoor still seems so foggy in the daybreak. We can wear gauze masks to protect our health, but how about the police on duty in the fog? Please provide them with military gauze masks."
Her post was forwarded 14,052 times and won many supporters.
Jing Yidan, an anchorwoman with China Central Television, said she, too, was worried about the traffic police.
"Haze comes again. Many pedestrians wear gauze masks, but traffic police don't," she said. Her post quickly gained the support of other celebrities, including TV personality Yang Lan and real estate tycoon Ren Zhiqiang.
Bloggers Pan Shiyi and Xue Manzi, who have a combined 24 million followers on Chinese sites, called for legislation against pollution.
In Shanghai, police don't wear masks. "Wearing a mask is not allowed in our dress code," an officer told Shanghai Daily.
- New Tibet chief pushes reform, opening up
REFORM and opening up are a must for the prosperity of Tibet and its people, according to Losang Jamcan, newly-elected chairman of southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region.
Losang Jamcan was elected chairman of Tibet at the close of the first session of the 10th Tibet Autonomous Regional People's Congress yesterday.
His predecessor, Padma Choling, was elected chairman of the standing committee of the current regional legislature. Fourteen others were elected vice chairpersons of the regional government.
"Without reform and opening up, today's Tibet would not be there, nor would there be prosperity and development of tomorrow's Tibet," Losang Jamcan told reporters after his election.
He said the regional government will deepen reform and opening up for the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics.
"Harmony and stability is an essential guarantee for Tibet's development and prosperity," he said. "We should cherish the harmonious and stable situation in our region in the same way that we cherish our very sight."
He called for maintaining vigilance in times of peace as well as taking a firm political stand and acting consistently in resolutely battling against the 14th Dalai Lama clique and unswervingly safeguarding the unification of the motherland and national unity.
"All development and progress of Tibet since its peaceful liberation is the result of sticking to the leadership of the Communist Party of China, the socialist system, the regional ethnic autonomy system and the path of development with Chinese characteristics and Tibetan features", said the new chairman.
He vowed to improve the living standards of both urban and rural residents and narrow the gap between Tibet and the rest of the country in the public service sector.
Over the past five years, the region's gross domestic product has seen an average growth of 12 percent each year to reach 70.1 billion yuan (US$11.15 billion) in 2012.
Born in Chagyab, Tibet, in July 1957! , Losang Jamcan studied at the Tibet University for Nationalities for five years and worked at the university for another 10 years. Between May 1996 and January 2003, he was mayor of the regional capital of Lhasa and deputy secretary of the CPC Lhasa municipal committee.
From January 2003 to January 2013, he served in different posts, including vice chairman of the regional government and deputy secretary of the CPC regional committee.
- TCM maker sued again over toxic ingredient
TRADITIONAL Chinese medicine maker, the Yunnan Baiyao Group, has been sued by a lawyer in central China's Hunan Province for concealing an alleged toxic ingredient in its signature product from consumers.
The lawyer, Luo Qiulin, said that he found the toxic ingredient, radix aconiti agrestis, from the English instruction of the medicine Yunnan Baiyao being sold in the United States, news website Caijing.com.cn reported.
The ingredient is a toxic herb also known as gelsemium elegan, or "heartbreak grass", according to the Rules of Toxic Drugs for Medical Use, issued by the State Council.
In China, the medicine maker refuses to list any of its ingredients in the Chinese instruction claiming the formula is a "state secret". Luo said the group has violated consumers' right to know the ingredients of the medicine and damaged their "personal dignity", the website said.
It is not the first time that Yunnan Baiyao has been taken to court for not revealing its ingredients. In 2009, Zhao Yin, a lawyer in Beijing, sued the group after he took the medicine and suffered allergies.
In that case, the lawyer sued the group, also for violating consumer rights, but lost the lawsuit as the court agreed the group's formula is under protection as a state secret.
According to the database of the website of China's State Food and Drug Administration, Yunnan Baiyao medicine and capsule are listed under first rank protection from 1995 to 2015.
Yunnan Baiyao is natural herbal medicine used for healing wounds and pain relief, according to the group's official website.
Doctors said high doses of the toxic herb can cause dizziness, nausea or even death.
- Hygiene at Nestle candy factory under spotlight
SWISS food giant Nestle is investigating one of its factories in north China's Tianjin City after an undercover reporter found workers making candies with their unwashed bare hands.Some workers didn't have health certificates and some didn't wash their hands, use gloves or wear protective masks, the Qingdao-based City Sun newspaper reported.
The newspaper also said that while Nestle announced last March that it had stopped using artificial additives in its food products in the United Kingdom, workers in Tianjin were found using flavoring essence in peppermint candies.
The reporter said he took a job at the factory on January 18 with five other people but none of them had a certificate to show they were healthy, a breach of the factory's rules.
A worker surnamed Zhang told him that it took about a week for new workers to get certificates, but the factory put them to work straight away.
In the factory, hardly any of the workers was seen wearing a mask while making candies or ice-cream, again a breach of factory rules. And although workers are required to wash their hands before handling products, many said they didn't need to if senior officials weren't around.
An official at Nestle's Beijing headquarters surnamed Li told Shanghai Daily yesterday officials had been sent to Tianjin to investigate. Nestle will not tolerate any violation of factory rules, Li said.
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