KUNMING - Altogether 248 students fell sick after eating a school lunch including kidney beans in Southwest China's Yunnan Province on Thursday, local authorities confirmed early on Friday.Investigators suspected the beans were undercooked.The students, from Zhuyuanzhen Township High School in Fuyuan County, complained of vomiting and nausea late Thursday afternoon and were put under medical observation at night, a spokesman with the Fuyuan County government said.By 8:00 am on Friday, about 170 students were still under observation at four local hospitals.Hospital sources said none of the cases was critical.Kidney beans contain lectin, a toxic agent that can cause diarrhea if the beans aren't heated thoroughly, according to health officials.
BEIJING -- China has ordered its police to behave well and improve their services to the public as the country marks the one-year countdown to the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. The Ministry of Public Security has launched a one-year inspection campaign in Beijing and other cities hosting Olympic events as well as major tourist cities to ensure a polite, standard and efficient police services to citizens and foreign visitors. The inspection mainly deals with police who take a bad attitude towards the public and do not wear standard uniforms and insignia. An inspection team will oversee police service departments such as community police stations, traffic police brigades, patrolling cops, border entrance and exit offices, reception rooms for foreigners, border checkpoints, visa application centers and police alarm "110" phones. Police who smoke, chew food, chat or use chilly words in front of the public will be immediately punished by inspectors on the spot, says the ministry, adding the inspection team will find out whether the police can take proper, immediate and effective actions when the public, especially foreigners, ask for help. The campaign, which is a part of the overall Olympic security deployment, is aimed at maintaining a sound order for the upcoming congress of the Communist Party of China and the Olympic Games next August, and setting a good image of the Chinese police, according to the ministry.
The government has earmarked 6 billion yuan (4 million) to pay for energy conservation projects to be launched before the end of this year, a senior official from the top economic planner said Monday."The special funds will support 10 major energy-saving projects, such as reducing the use of petroleum and developing petroleum substitutes and green lighting technology. It is hoped these developments will help the country use less energy," Xie Zhenhua, vice-minister of National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), said at the China Energy Saving and Emission Reduction Forum 2007."Incentives have been devised to encourage enterprises to save energy. Enterprises will receive financial aid according to the energy they can save while reducing emissions."Xie said the central government has also set aside an additional 2 billion yuan to compensate local governments and enterprises for eliminating excess production capacity in the latter half of this year.The government has set a target of reducing energy consumption per unit of GDP by 20 percent between 2006 and 2010, with annual cuts of 4 percent. However, the decrease was only 1.33 percent last year compared with 2005."If we cannot reverse this situation in a timely manner, it will be difficult to meet this year's energy-saving target, which could have an unfavorable effect on the energy-saving and emissions-reduction targets in the 11th Five-Year Plan," Xie said.To prevent this from happening, the government will accelerate the elimination of obsolete production capacity in 13 sectors.He also said the NDRC and the State Environmental Protection Administration will soon organize a conference on the recycling economy in Chongqing.The government will guide the price of power from small thermal power plants, and raise excise taxes on resource-consuming products such as refined oil, automobiles and solid wood floors.
Clashes erupt between members of the ethnic Chinese community and Italian riot police in Milan April 12, 2007. [Reuters]China has made representations to the Italian government after at least 10 Chinese nationals were injured during a clash with local riot police in Milan on Thursday, the Foreign Ministry said on Friday. "We hope the Italian side deals fairly with the issue and seriously considers the justified demands of local Chinese nationals and takes real measures to protect their legitimate rights and interests," a statement on the ministry's website said. The conflict was sparked by a dispute over parking between a local Chinese woman and a police officer. The woman was detained after the argument turned into a physical clash, according to the Foreign Ministry. The situation escalated when hundreds of local Chinese protested over the detention of the woman, which led to the conflict. Of the Chinese nationals injured in the clash, five have been released from hospital after treatment, the ministry said. The scuffle broke out in the city's busy Chinatown area. Protesters reportedly threw plastic bottles and rubbish bins at police armed with batons. "It is not right for a violation of road regulations to cause this," Milan's mayor Letizia Moratti was quoted as saying. "This cannot be justified." Protesters complained about the police violence, with some saying one of the demonstrators had been pistol whipped. The ministry said in the statement that the situation had eased.
A Chinese national flag is raised atop a house, standing in the centre of a ten-metre-deep pit dug by the real estate developter, in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, on March 21, a day before the deadline for the owner to move out sentenced by local court. [newsphoto] A photo of the solitary building has been circulating on the Internet, where it has been dubbed "the coolest nail house in history" a translation of a Chinese metaphor for a person who refuses to move from their home. A local court set a deadline of Thursday for the couple to move out. But the house remained intact on Friday afternoon. The owner of the house, Yang Wu, 51, used two steel pipes to climb up to his castle from the construction pit on Wednesday afternoon something most people would have found difficult, but an easy maneuver for the former martial arts champion. Two men walk past a house on a mound in the middle of a construction site in Chongqing on Thursday. A couple has refused to move out of their two-storey home, which is now the only building left standing in a 10-meter-deep pit. APHe carried a national flag and banner reading "No violation of legitimate private property", which he hung from the top of the house. Local residents look at a two-storey home, which is now the only building left standing atop a mound in a 10-meter-deep construction pit in Chongqing March 22, 2007. [newsphoto]With his relatives' help, he also took two gas bottles, mineral water and other necessities. Water and electricity supplies were cut off long ago. Yang's wife, Wu Ping, remained outside the house, answering questions from the media. She said they had not lived in the house for two and a half years. The building, formerly a restaurant with a floor space of 219 square meters, is located in Jiulongpo District. The local government plans to build a shopping mall and apartments on the site. More than 200 households were moved from the area in the past three years to make way for the development. But the couple refused to move because they were not satisfied with the compensation offered: 3.5 million yuan (3,000). Wu said they wanted a property of the same value, because the compensation money would not cover the cost of an apartment of the same size in that location. After negotiations between the couple and the local government reached a stalemate, the government took the matter to court in January. On Monday, the Jiulongpo District court ordered the couple to move out by Thursday. According to the court ruling, the couple would be forcibly removed if they did not move out of the house by the deadline. No action had been taken on Friday. Shanghai-based China Business News said an eviction of this nature would create unwanted attention for the government just after the Property Law was passed. It will come into effect on October 1. Property law expert Zhao Wanyi was quoted by Beijing Evening News as saying he was pleased that citizens were learning to safeguard their rights through the legal system. But he said it was a concern that by refusing to move out without adequate compensation, the couple could be accused of abusing their individual rights. "There is no absolute right," he said. Judge Li, whose court sent the notice, told the media on Thursday evening that the court would "follow lawful procedures to deal with the matter", but he refused to say when.
BEIJING - China purchased at least 400 billion yuan (.6 billion) of goods and services in 2007, a new high compared to the 368.1 billion yuan recorded a year earlier, preliminary figures from the Ministry of Finance (MOF) revealed.Assistant Financial Minister Zhang Tong described the expansion as "outstanding" given the procurement stood at only 100 billion yuan in 2002, the first year the mechanism was introduced.The past five years have also witnessed an increasingly diversified government consumption that expanded from solely commodities in the beginning to services and engineering, he said. With 13,000 people engaged in purchasing nationwide, China has twice revised its procurement list to include 18 categories encompassing nearly 4,770 items.Energy-saving products accounted for a large percentage of the newly-added items. To lead by example, the government has pledged to reduce energy consumption for every 10,000 yuan of gross domestic product by 20 percent and pollutant emissions by 10 percent for the 2006-2010 period.This year, student textbooks for primary and junior high schools, medicine, farm machinery and other items to distribute to the needy free of charge or at inexpensive prices will be added to the list, Financial Minister Xie Xuren told a recent work meeting for 2008.Under a MOF directive promulgated last month, government procurement will favor independent innovation products starting this year, a practice, experts said, the United States adopted in the late 1950s to foster domestic high-tech industries, including aeronautic and astronautic technology, computing, semiconductors and integrated circuits.Qinghua University law professor Yu An said the move would provide good incentives for domestic firms to speed up technical innovation.MOF statistics revealed the procurement had spared an aggregate expenditure of at least 180 billion yuan between 2002 and 2007.The benefits, however, didn't drown out grumbles from the Heilongjiang provincial chapter of the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang, one of the country's eight political parties, beside the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC).At a meeting last month, the chapter held transparency in government procurement should be enhanced as some products were found to be overpriced, of unsatisfactory quality or without effective after-sales service.Tendering companies must be subject to real-time supervision to avoid bribery and kickbacks. Perpetrating firms must be blacklisted and banned from the procurement, while governmental departments must submit their accounting ledgers for regular auditing scrutiny, they said.
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Chinese auditors said it found no embezzlement or misappropriation of construction fund in the ongoing Three Gorges project, however, they also detected some problems and flaws in the project management. The National Audit Office (NAO) said the overall quality control of the project was fine and total investment were kept under control. All 11 major projects were up to the standards, as were main materials such as steel and cement, said an audit report by the NAO. It said total inflation-adjusted investment, expected to be 78 billion yuan, could be more than 35 billion yuan less than planned in 1994. By the end of 2005, the country had spent 64.2 billion yuan on the project. The NAO, however, also detected extra construction costs of 488 million yuan, most of which was incurred by project construction contractors who exaggerated their expenditure. The office also found 20.4 hectares of land illegally used without governmental permission, while another 110 hectares approved for use had been left idle. "The problems are largely due to lack of laws and regulations and imperfection in internal control," said Pan Xiaojun, senior official with the NAO. The company said it had already corrected the use of 139 million yuan of fund involving violation of rules, and a total 17 measures had been adopted to improve management over the project. The office said 21 power station construction projects, most of which involved a single contract value of less than 10 million yuan were not put out to tender. A few construction companies were discovered to have subcontracted their projects against regulations and obtained illegal charge of 53.45 million yuan. About half of the 1,448 supervisors sampled were found to have no licenses for the work. The China Three Gorges Corporation said it had strengthened the implementation of public bidding to ensure the fairness of the results and avoid the influence of people, and it also added detailed terms about contracting in contracts to prevent illegal contracting. The unlicensed supervisors had been fired and supervision over the project supervisors were enhanced, according to the company. The report said that the project across the Yangtze River, the construction of which began in 1993, had played a "better-than-expected" role in flood prevention, power generation and shipping. "It's possible to put the project into full operation by 2009 as planned, and the project is running a bit ahead of schedule," it said. The fourteen generators in a power plant had been put into operation a year earlier than planned in 2005, the office said. Upon its completion, the Three Gorges dam will produce 85 billion kwh of electricity annually for supply to central and eastern China. The dam, which is 2,309 meters long and 185 meters high, will be installed with 26 turbo-generators, each with a generation capacity of 700,000 kilowatts. The audit, which took 150 auditors more than six months to complete, covered areas including fund raising, management and use, construction management as well as benefit of the project.
In the latest move by some countries to construct new embassies or give their missions in Beijing a makeover, the Australian embassy will spend million refurbishing its already elegant building, the Australian ambassador announced Tuesday.The refurbishment will cover much of the embassy's high-traffic areas and incorporate all four levels of the Chancery building.A new 2,500-sq m annex building will also be constructed on the site, the ambassador added.The project will begin immediately after the 2008 Olympics and is scheduled for completion in 2010.Geoff Raby, the Australian ambassador to China, said the number of embassy staff had increased to 190 resident Australian diplomats and their families and 120 Chinese staff.He recalled there were about 32 Australian staff and 60 Chinese employees when construction of the embassy was completed in 1992, making it one of more iconic buildings in Beijing."The Australian embassy in China is one of our biggest embassies in the world," Raby said.It is a sign that Australia attaches more importance to its relations with China, the ambassador said.Woods Bagot, a global studio specializing design and consulting that operates in Australia, Asia, the Middle East and Europe, will implement the project with Chinese local design institute UAD and multinational engineers Arup."The (Australian) government demanded new thinking for a new diplomatic era in China," Jason Marriott, managing principal of Woods Bagot, said.The Australian embassy is located in the second diplomatic neighborhood on Dongzhimenwai Street.The first diplomatic neighborhood is near Jianguomenwai and a third one is north to Liangmahe.The United States has plans for a new embassy project in the third diplomatic neighborhood after Republic of Korea and Malaysia finish their new buildings.Wang Fan, a researcher of international relations with China Foreign Affairs University, said the embassy building and renovation boom symbolized how important China was to foreign countries' diplomatic strategies.
SHENZHEN: A student at an IT college in Zhuhai, South China's Guangdong Province, ran amok on Tuesday, stabbing six of his classmates, police said Wednesday.One of the victims suffered a deep gash to the neck, which required intensive care treatment, but he is said to be in a stable condition.The 21-year-old attacker, surnamed Chen, was later arrested and is now in custody. He is believed to be suffering from a mental illness, a spokeswoman for the Zhuhai public security bureau told China Daily yesterday.She refused to give any further information, however, as the case is still under investigation.According to a report by the Guangzhou-based Southern Metropolis Daily, the incident happened at about 10:40 am at the start of a new class.Witnesses said Chen pulled out a 15-cm-long fruit knife and "casually" stabbed the two people sitting next to him and in front of him."I saw blood gushing from one boy's throat and another had been stabbed in the right side of his neck," the newspaper quoted one witness, who asked not to be named, as saying.Chen then attacked four other classmates, as they and their teacher attempted to escape the room, the witness said.After the attack, Chen remained in the classroom.A teacher locked the door from the outside and called police, the Guangzhou Daily reported.Police arrived soon after and arrested him.The victims were taken to a nearby hospital. Three of them had been stabbed in the neck while the others had suffered wounds to their arms and wrists, a source from the hospital said.A spokeswoman for the school, surnamed Cui, said the school authorities will issue a formal statement once the police have concluded their investigation.Students and teachers were receiving counseling to help them deal with the incident, she told China Daily.According to the Guangzhou Daily, Chen, who lives in Zhuhai, attacked a classmate while he was at university in Wuhan, in Central China's Hubei Province. He was later expelled.
Walking up on a dais in traditional Chinese dress to receive your baccalaureate degree. Well, that can become a reality if a Peking University design contest throws up something novel and exciting enough to replace the Western-style gown, which till now have been worn by students. The prestigious seat of higher learning, long known for its tradition of innovation, launched the academic-gown designing contest on Thursday. The criterion: the costume has to be traditionally Chinese. The top design could become a must at the university's graduation ceremony in the not-so-distant future, according to the university's Communist Youth League committee, which is in charge of students' activities. "If the gown proves a success, we could introduce it in other universities, too," committee director Han Liu said. The contestants, students and teachers both, have been asked to submit their gown and cap designs before June 8. After the preliminary eliminations, the selected costumes will be displayed at this year's graduation ceremony on July 3. "It's an innovation because students in all Chinese colleges today use the same Western-style gown," said Lu Peng, another committee official. "It's also part of our campaign to promote culture and tradition on campus." Colleges students used to wear different types of gowns at the graduation ceremony till the State Council's Academic Degrees Committee promoted a standard one, the Western-style gown, in 1994. The degrees committee, however, told China Daily on Friday that it was not compulsory for all colleges to use the same gown. Scholars and students have been asking if Chinese people should wear traditional clothes on important occasions, such as graduation ceremonies. "Why should Chinese students wear Western gowns while receiving their degrees?" Sui Yue said. Sui is a sophomore and president of Peking University's Costume and Culture Association for Communication, a students' association that's helping organize the contest. The contest is open to all traditional Chinese clothes, she said, but "hanfu", the pre-17th century traditional dress of the Han Chinese, the majority ethnic group of China, has the edge because of its popularity among students. Wide sleeves, crossed collar-bands, layered robes and a fabric belt are the striking features of the hanfu. The contest reflects the revival of traditional Chinese culture, Li Zhisheng, a professor of history at Peking University, said.