China Chronicles February 19, 2013
- Fat Boy!!!!
Carola VE has added a photo to the pool:
- Stricter rules on property info
A REGULATION making it harder to uncover property details in some Chinese cities has raised questions over whether the new rule is to protect personal information, as claimed, or to prevent "house family" scandals being exposed.
The stricter rules come in the wake of several "house family" scandals in which government officials, bankers and businessmen were nicknamed "house sisters," "house brothers" and "house uncles" because of reports that they owned multiple properties.
The scandals were exposed because household information was then made available by merely providing the names of alleged multiple property owners.
The government of the coastal city of Zhangzhou has introduced a new rule banning residents checking information by providing only the householder's name, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported.
People can only check information by providing a detailed location of the property or its ownership number. The rule follows a similar one in eastern Jiangsu Province's Yancheng, introduced recently after "the leaking of personal household information sparked concern among some residents over the safety of their personal information."
In Guangzhou, household information rules were also strengthened last month.
Inquirers who were previously required to provide locations of properties are now being asked to provide a series of certificates including those related to the property's ownership and its registered number, the newspaper said.
The new rules have stirred controversy with many people believing they are in place to protect corrupt officials and prevent details of their properties being made public.
Zhang Xiuting, an official with an anti-corruption bureau in Mudanjiang, a city in northeast China, was said to have owned 17 properties.
The whistleblower told the newspaper that the information was gleaned via the household information inquiry system with the help of some "insiders."
A post on weibo.com that had been forward! ed more than 2,300 times by yesterday said: "So who would fear the leak of household information? Only those corrupt officials who illegally purchase the properties.
"In the wake of the 'house sister' scandals, the rules are actually protecting the corrupt officials in the name of protecting personal information."
Guangzhou officials said that in the case of Li Yunqing, dubbed the "house auntie" and said to own 24 properties worth 15 million yuan (US$2.4 million), she had bought the properties with legal income and money left by her father. Li's household information had been illegally acquired, they said.
- Official arrested
A neighborhood committee official in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, has been arrested on charges of bribery after online claims he owned more than 2 billion yuan (US$320 million) in assets and 80 properties.
Zhou Weisi, a deputy head of the Nanlian community in the city's Longgang District, reportedly has 20 luxury cars.
- China takes control of Pakistani port
China took control of Pakistan's Gwadar Port yesterday as part of its drive to secure energy and maritime routes.
"The contract of operation of Gwadar Port is formally given to China. Today, the agreement is transferred from the Port of Singapore Authority to China Overseas Ports Holding Company Limited," President Asif Ali Zardari announced.
"The award of this contract opens new opportunities for our people ... It gives new impetus to Pakistan-China relations," Zardari added in a speech broadcast live on television.
On January 30 the Pakistani Cabinet approved the transfer of Gwadar, currently a commercial failure cut off from the national road network, from PSA International to the Chinese company.
The Pakistanis pitched the deal as offering an energy and trade corridor to connect China to the Arabian Sea and Strait of Hormuz, a gateway for a third of the world's traded oil, overland through an expanded Karakoram Highway.
Experts say it would cut thousands of kilometers off the distance which oil and gas imports from Africa and the Middle East have to travel to reach China.
China paid about 75 percent of the initial US$250 million used to build the port but in 2007 PSA International won a 40-year operating lease.
On February 6 Indian Defense Minister AK Antony said New Delhi was concerned at Pakistan's decision to transfer management of the deep-sea port to China. However, Pakistan foreign ministry spokesman Moazzam Ahmad Khan dismissed those concerns last week, telling reporters: "This is not something that any other country should have any reason to be concerned about."
- A new life to treasure ...
Villagers take part in a treasure-grabbing competition as part of activities to mark the Shangjiu Festival in a Tibetan township in southwest China's Sichuan Province. The festival, on the ninth day of the first month in the lunar calendar, celebrates the birth of new life.
- Action on pollution after swim challenge
AN environmental protection official was challenged to swim in a highly polluted river with 200,000 yuan (US$32,040) as a reward if he did.
In response, the official has pledged to build facilities to combat the pollution and to control population in the area.
Jin Zengmin, chairman of a glasses company in Hangzhou, asked Bao Zhenming, director of the environmental protection bureau in his hometown of Rui'an in Wenzhou City, to swim in a local river for just 20 minutes. Jin claimed pollution had caused cancers among many villagers living nearby.
He posted the challenge on his microblog at the weekend to raise awareness of the problem.
Jin claimed that shoe-making workshops along the river were discharging industrial sewage direct into the river as well as toxic gas into the air.
Seventeen residents among the 1,000 villagers died of cancer last year, Jin said.
Jin posted pictures showing lots of rubbish floating in the river and the water in parts of it turning white. He said he and his friends often swam in the river when they were young and when there were no workshops.
Bao phoned Jin on Sunday, saying it was his responsibility and promising to treat the river soon, Jin said.
Yesterday, Bao said: "The river has truly been polluted, but mainly by household garbage rather than industrial waste."
He denied that the cancer cases were related to the workshops because officials had found no industrial waste being discharged.
The pollution was mainly caused by an overexpansion of the migrant population in the area, he said. Some 40,000 citizens and 80,000 out-of-towners were living in the neighborhood, far exceeding the numbers the region could cope with.
He said many workers in about 100 labor-intensive workshops along the river were discharging household waste into the river.
Bao said officials would be clearing the waste on and along the river soon.
"The city government has built a garbage recycling plant and will put! it into use this year. A new sewage treatment plant will also be built within three years," Bao said.
Jin Xiaokun, a neighborhood official, said illegal residential buildings along the river would be dismantled to control the migrant population.
- Landslide buries 5, including 2 kids
FIVE people, including two children, were buried after a landslide hit southwest China's Guizhou Province yesterday morning, a preliminary investigation found.
An electrician at a neighboring coal mine is among those buried, rescuers said.
The landslide happened about 11am in Longchang Township in the city of Kaili, burying six work sheds.
Rescuers had rushed to the scene, and the cause of the landslide was being investigated.
- Officials deny shielding deep-well polluters
ENVIRONMENTAL authorities in Weifang City of Shandong Province yesterday denied online accusation saying they were helping chemical companies avoid scrutiny while offering a big reward to anyone reporting companies illegally discharging waste deep underground.
A snapshot of an emergency notice reportedly issued by Weifang environment watchdogs to local chemical companies has been spread widely online. It informed the companies of visits by reporters and asked them to control waste discharge.
The incident follows online claims that many chemical companies have used high-pressure injection wells to discharge waste sewage over 1,000 meters deep for years, seriously polluting underground water.
The notice said a TV news crew from China Central Television had arrived to carry out an undercover investigation.
The environmental authorities required in the notice that the chemical companies keep their sewage treatment stations working normally and ensure zero waste discharges. They also asked the companies to make sure the quality of treated sewage would meet the province's standards, while no liquid or other waste was allowed to be poured into rainwater pipelines.
"The security workers must not stop the TV news program's cars and their reporters from entering the factory from each entrance, but they should inform the environmental officials immediately," the notice reads. It gave telephone numbers of two contact persons, who could not be reached yesterday.
Xie Zhenxi, leader of Weifang environmental supervision team, told Nanfang Daily yesterday that "the environment bureau has never issued such a notice to local companies." Xie said he didn't know the source of the notice online.
Meanwhile, although the city government told Xinhua news agency on Sunday that they had investigated 715 companies but so far hadn't found any polluting the underground water, netizens are raising doubts. They asked how officials could investigate so many companies in less than 48! hours.
"The watchdogs started a citywide investigation last Friday and they checked 715 companies by Sunday. Even if they worked around the clock in the 48 hours, they could only have stayed at each company for less than 20 minutes," a netizen said.
In response, the government said a total of 69 teams including 320 officers participated in the investigation, covering the entire city to finish the mission in such a short time.
- Airliner's cowling falls off in flight
A CHINA Southern Airlines flight from northeast China to the southern city of Guangzhou made an emergency landing yesterday morning after an engine hood fell off during the flight. No one was injured.
Part of the cowling on the left engine of the Airbus 320 was missing shortly after Flight CZ3624 took off from Harbin, capital of the northeastern Heilongjiang Province, about 8:30am, the airline said.
"We heard a big bang when the aircraft was still ascending and passengers sitting near the left engine informed the crew members that the cover fell down," a passenger on the flight said.
The crew followed emergency procedures and the pilot flew back to Harbin Taiping Airport.
"The captain told us other parts of the aircraft were working well and they decided a make an emergency landing," a passenger identified as "cigarette ash prince" said on his microblog.
"Finally, we landed smoothly and the passengers applauded," the passenger added.
The aircraft circled the airport to consume fuel before landing safely at 9:52am, the Guangzhou-based carrier said in a statement.
The cause of the accident was still under investigation, while the airport authority said none of the missing cowling parts had been found. No casualties were reported on the ground from falling parts.
Passengers were moved to another A320 aircraft to take them to Guangzhou at around 11am.
Cowlings are used to protect the engine but the aircraft can still fly without the part, said Zhou Jisheng, a civil aviation expert.
However, losing part of the cowling might cause problems if the exposed engine were damaged by turbulence or the falling cowling hit other parts of the aircraft, so the pilot should make an emergency landing, he added.
In a similar case, the cowling of a Turkey Airlines A320 aircraft fell onto the runway in Istanbul when the aircraft was about to take off in November 2009. It returned and made a safe landing.
- with granddad
- ...
- Huangshan
Comments