China Chronicles February 23, 2013
- Warmer weather on the way for China
CHINA will experience higher temperatures across the country over the next few days, the Central Meteorological Center said today.
Temperatures will be 1 to 3 degrees Celsius higher than last year in most regions except some areas in northeast China from Saturday to Tuesday, the center said.
But a strong cold front will bring sharp temperature drops to central and eastern regions starting Thursday, the center said.
On Saturday and Sunday, moderate and heavy snow will fall in southwestern parts of Tibetan Autonomous Region, with its borders expecting snowstorms, it said.
The center forecast rainfall in regions along Yangtze and Huaihe rivers, as well as some northern regions, including Xinjiang Uygur and Inner Mongolia autonomous regions, over the coming ten days.
- Fire kills 8 in east China city
A fire that broke out early this morning in Wenling City, east China's Zhejiang Province, has killed eight people.
Among the deceased were two children. Five of the six adults who died were migrant workers from outside the province.
The city's fire department said the blaze, which occurred at 2:59 am, burnt over an area of 129 square meters in three residential houses in Zeguo Township. The fire was eventually contained at 4 am.
Fire fighters rescued 17 people. One of them was severely injured, while the others only sustained minor injuries.
Investigators found that the three houses, all owned by a local named Li Faming, were being leased.
Police have detained Chen as part of its investigation in to the blaze.
The cause of the fire is not yet known.
- mum and piano
- China angered by Abe's remarks in US
CHINA made strong representations to Japan yesterday over Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's comments that characterized Beijing as having a "deeply ingrained" need to challenge neighbors over territory.
"China is strongly dissatisfied with the Japanese leader's comments that distort facts, attack and defame China and stir up confrontations between the two countries," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a daily press briefing.
In an interview with the Washington Post, Abe said China had a "deeply ingrained" need to spar with Japan and other Asian neighbors over territory because the ruling Communist Party was using the disputes to maintain strong domestic support.
In Tokyo, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Abe's China-related statement had been misquoted and that had led to misunderstandings.
Abe began a visit to the United States on Thursday, the same day his comments were published in the Washington Post.
Hong urged the Japanese government and leaders to take a correct view of China and its development, pursue positive policies with China, show sincerity through actions and make efforts to improve bilateral relations.
Hong said that China's maritime activities were in accordance with domestic and international law. "Thus, navigational freedom and security in the East China Sea and South China Sea have never been affected."
He said Japan intended to play up the "China threat," mislead world opinion and purposely create regional tensions.
"Japan should do more to enhance bilateral trust in politics and security and work for regional peace and stability, rather than act contrarily," he said.
Hong said China had never recognized and would never accept Japan's so-called "actual control" of the Diaoyu Islands.
"Japan should face up to history and reality, immediately stop illegal activities on the seas near the Diaoyu Islands and make substantive efforts to properly deal with the current situation," Hong said.
He! said Japan was to blame for current difficulties in bilateral relations and urged it to reflect on past aggressions.
- Wu Ying appeals conviction for fraud
WU Ying, once a highly successful businesswoman, has lodged an appeal against her conviction for fraud, her father said yesterday.
Documents were mailed to the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate and the Higher People's Court of Zhejiang Province on Wednesday, Wu Yongzheng told the Xinhua news agency.
Wu Ying, 32, was found guilty of cheating investors out of 380 million yuan (US$60.2 million) between May 2005 and January 2007 in private lending scams.
Last May, Wu was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve in east China's Zhejiang Province. She was found to have raised 770 million yuan by promising high interest rates, and at the time of her arrest she still owed investors 380 million yuan.
Wu said in her appeal that she invested most of the money in property and businesses which were operating well, yesterday's National Business Daily reported. She said there was no doubt she could repay investors.
Wu also said the courts had previously undervalued her assets when they decided she was worth just 171.6 million yuan.
She denied having illegally raised funds or lured others to lend her money. The practice of promising high interest rates to private creditors was widely accepted in Zhejiang, she said, adding: "I never cajoled anyone."
In May, the Zhejiang Higher People's Court found that Wu had deliberately concealed her business profits. Wu denied this was the case and had sent related documents to the court.
Wu's story, before her conviction, was one of rags to riches. Her formal education ended after primary school but she later built up a multimillion-dollar business in three years after starting with a single beauty salon.
In 2006, Wu, former owner of Zhejiang-based Bense Holding Group, was the sixth richest woman on China's mainland with personal assets of 3.6 billion yuan.
In December 2009, she was sentenced to death by the Jinhua Intermediate People's Court for fraud, and the Zhejiang provincial cou! rt upheld the verdict on January 18, 2012.
On April 20, 2012, the Supreme People's Court sent the case back to the court for re-sentencing. Wu was granted the two-year reprieve.
- Sun shines on the Buddha
Lamas and local Tibetans pray in front of a huge thangka during a Sunning the Buddha ceremony at Langmu Monastery in northwest China's Gansu Province yesterday. About 20,000 people took part in the event, about half of them tourists and photographers from around the world. Featuring the Buddha, a thangka is an artwork combining painting and embroidery. Each lamasery has its own thangka and airs it on different days, though usually on the 13th day of the first month of the lunar calendar. Legend has it that once a thangka is unveiled for the ceremony rain will stop in the area. Another legend says that when the forehead of the Buddha is revealed as the thangka is unfolded, the first ray of sunlight will always shine on it.
- 'Watch Brother' expelled from Party, going to court
A WORK safety official in northwest China's Shaanxi Province who was photographed smiling at the scene of a fatal bus crash last year has been expelled from the Communist Party of China and his case has been transferred to judicial authorities, local authorities said yesterday.
Yang Dacai, former head of the provincial work safety administration, engaged in serious disciplinary violations and is suspected of committing crimes during his tenure, according to Shaanxi provincial disciplinary authorities.
Yang first stirred up condemnation from netizens after he was photographed wearing a broad smile while surveying a road collision that left 36 people dead on August 26.
Photos showed Yang wearing luxury wristwatches, earning him a nickname: "Watch Brother." Yang said he purchased the watches with his own salary, but Internet users argued that a public servant could not possibly afford costly watches.
He was dismissed from his position on Shaanxi's Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection of the CPC, as well as head and CPC chief of the provincial work safety administration, in September.
- Singer's son detained in Beijing gang rape case
THE 17-year-old son of a renowned Chinese military singer has been detained on suspicion of participating in a gang rape in Beijing only six months after he was released from a year's confinement for assault in a road-rage case, China News Service reported.
Police in Beijing said yesterday that Li Guanfeng was detained on Thursday night for allegedly participating in the gang rape of a woman last Sunday.
Li Guanfeng is the name adopted by Li Tianyi after he was released in September from a year in a youth reformation center after he and another young friend assaulted a couple after a fender-bender, according to China News Service.
Li's father, Li Shuangjiang, 74, is a famous singer with the People's Liberation Army with a rank equivalent to major general.
Police in Beijing's Haidian District said the rape victim told them that she was drinking with five people in a bar last Sunday. The men took her to a room, beat her and gang-raped her, China News Service said.
Police said they detained the men in a parking lot in Chaoyang District.
An adult found guilty of participating in gang rape can be imprisoned at least 10 years, according to the Chinese criminal law.
- Doctors with cancer blame X-ray machines
SOME medical professionals in a hospital in central China said they went on strike after three doctors claimed lengthy exposure to X-rays without adequate protection triggered their cancers.
Three female gynecologists in their 50s from Wuhan Union Hospital in Hubei Province were diagnosed this year with thyroid cancer, which can be caused by radiation poisoning. Their thyroids have been removed, and they will undergo radiotherapy, the Beijing Times reported yesterday.
They blamed the hospital, citing haphazard supervision over the radiation machines and little concern for staff health, according to their statement, published on Monday.
The statement said they always perform surgery in a fourth-floor operating room, with two X-ray machines just above them in two orthopedic operating rooms on the upper floor.
The two operating rooms weren't radiation proof, they said. The hospital is missing necessary documents, such as an environmental evaluation report and health authority approval, they said. Also, the hospital never monitors the radiation, they claimed.
At least four doctors at the hospital develop thyroid cancer every year, The Beijing News cited a doctor as saying.
People exposed to high X-ray levels over time have a higher risk of leukemia and cancers of the thyroid, breast and lung.
Their story has sparked deep concern among hospital staff, with some medical staffers who work in the two operating rooms walking off the job, forcing the hospital to suspend some surgical procedures, The Beijing News reported.
Hospital officials denied the accusations, saying the hospital just passed three tests conducted by the Hubei Disease Prevention and Control Center between December and February. But they did not show any qualification reports or approvals, the newspaper reported.
The provincial health bureau said an investigation showed no sign of a radioactivity problem in the operating rooms.
The X-ray machines are also up to standard, it sai! d.
But China's famous "science cop," Fang Zhouzi, a self-proclaimed fighter against pseudoscience, didn't accept the assurances of officials.
"Hospital insiders told me they had put away the radiation machines under lock and key before the authority came to start an inspection," he wrote.
Neither the provincial health bureau nor the hospital has issued a response.
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- Principal held after female students molested
THE principal of a kindergarten has been detained for molesting female students in Shaanxi Province, Xi'an Evening News reported today.
The principal, surnamed Ma, 60, molested a five-year-old girl when visiting her home at the end of last month, the newspaper said.
Ma, principal of Yuying Kindergarten in Yuchu Village of Gaoling County, visited the victim on January 24. The victim's grandmother led him to the girl's room and left them alone as she assumed it was a regular visit. But later she was shocked when she checked on them and found the man exposing his genitals to the young girl.
She shouted, which frightened Ma away. The girl's parents reported the case to the police that night.
"I felt a little strange when I saw him hugging the girl," the grandmother told the newspaper. "How could anyone know he would do that later?"
But Ma had already fled and police didn't capture him until Tuesday.
Four other parents told police their children had been harassed by Ma, the report said.
The kindergarten was run privately by a family and first opened two decades ago.
Education authorities have since set up another kindergarten in the village, the report said.
- Wuhan doctors on strike over X-ray radiation
SOME hospital workers in Wuhan, capital of Hubei Province reportedly went on strike after three gynecologists developed thyroid cancer, which they believed was caused by their frequent exposure to X-rays.
The three women doctors at the Wuhan Union Hospital were diagnosed with cancer last month, today's Beijing News reported. They blamed the hospital in a statement made to the public on Monday.
The statement said they performed surgeries on a floor directly underneath two X-ray machines in two bone surgery rooms overhead. The two rooms were not insulated with radiation-proof materials. The hospital did not inform or warn them of the risks.
Their plight caused panic among other hospital staff. Those who worked in the two bone surgery rooms staged a strike and forced the hospital to suspend surgeries, the paper said.
But the hospital denied the allegations, saying its facilities had passed three tests conducted by the Hubei Province Disease Prevention and Control Center since December.
The provincial health bureau also supported the hospital, saying in a statement yesterday that no radiation leak was detected in the operating rooms.
- Job fair held in E China's Anhui
Job applicants take part in a job fair in Changfeng of east China's Anhui Province, today. More than 36 companies participated in the job fair today with over 3,000 employment positions.
- Highway accident leaves 7 dead, 5 injured
A minor accident on a highway in Guangdong Province led to seven deaths and five injuries after more vehicles slammed into them on Monday, Xinhuanet.com reported yesterday.
A vehicle with five people bumped into the back of another vehicle on a highway in Guangzhou, the provincial capital. The collision was minor, but both drivers stopped their vehicles in a traffic lane and all 12 people in the vehicles got out to argue about who caused the accident, the report said.
A transport truck traveling at high speed the smashed into a car, leading to a five vehicle pile up that crashed into the people arguing about the first accident.
The report didn't break down the casualty total for each vehicle.
Meanwhile, three people died in a similar accident on Hubei Highway on February 7, Wuhan Morning News reported during the Spring Festival.
Traffic police advised people to move their vehicles to the side of the highway if possible to avoid such accidents in future.
- Forbidden City graffiti offends many netizens
A Weibo post that accused a tourist of engraving words on a large water vat in the Imperial Palace in Beijing has sparked outcry on the Internet.
"Liang Qiqi has been here," read the sentence scratched on the side of a bronze vat, one of many in the palace, alias the Forbidden City, to store water for firefighting purpose.
The culprit was not caught in the act and a museum worker surnamed Yan posted a snapshot of the vat on Weibo, China's version of Twitter, today's Beijing Morning Post reported.
The post immediately set off an online search of the tourist called Liang Qiqi. Many netizens condemned Liang for damaging cultural relics.
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