US apologises to China over Taiwan fuse shipment

The US president, George W Bush, has told his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao the Pentagon made a "mistake" sending Taiwan four nuclear warhead fuses in 2006.

Nose cone assemblies containing the fuses were shipped to Taiwan as helicopter batteries.

The erroneous shipment of the fuses, which can be used to trigger warheads on ballistic missiles, was only discovered last week and has since been recovered.


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George W. Bush has apologised to Hu Jintao for sending nuclear warhead fuses to Taiwan in 2006. China demanded that the shipment be investigated and that the U.S. would stop sending military weapons to Taiwan.

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China may join Iran-Pakistan pipeline

China is ready to join the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline if India drops out of the $7.4 billion project, Dawn newspaper reported Tuesday quoting Pakistani sources.

The report said Pakistan had urged Iran earlier this month to make the project final by next month because of its growing demand for natural gas.

Iran informed Pakistan if India remained reluctant to join the project under pressure from the United States, Iran would then invite China to do so, the report said.

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If India drops out of the $7.4 billion gas pipeline project with Iran and Pakistan, then China will be invited to join. China is ready to do this, but it is not yet clear how the agreement will change once it is involved.

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China sends more divers to find missing Ukrainian sailors

China sent another 22 divers to the South China Sea on Tuesday to try and locate the 18 sailors missing after their Ukrainian ship sank Saturday.

The Ukrainian tug, Naftogaz-67, sank after colliding with a Chinese vessel near Hong Kong off the southern coast of China. Out of the 25 sailors on board, only seven have been rescued.

A total of 44 Chinese divers will now be involved in the operation to find the missing sailors.

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18 Ukranian sailors went missing after their ship, the Naftogaz-67, sank. The ship collided with a Chinese ship before sinking, and now a total of 44 Chinese sailors will be working on rescuing the missing Ukranians.

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Town silent amid Chinese build-up

Soldiers clutching assault rifles stand guard on approach roads. Official checkpoints have sprung up all around. After several days of protests by Tibetans, the army has taken control of Hezuo.
Demonstrations in Hezuo and the surrounding towns and villages began last Saturday - part of wider protests that started in Lhasa, the Tibetan provincial capital.
Many Tibetans appear fed up with their lives under Chinese rule.
Protesters have been tearing down Chinese flags and replacing them with the flag of the Tibetan government in exile, based in Dharamsala, India.

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Tibetan citizens are not happy with their lives under Chinese rule. They are tearing down Chinese flags and starting many protests.

China slams jail door on Olympic dissent

BEIJING–In the darkest of ironies, as the Olympic torch was lit in Athens yesterday, a court in China sentenced a man to five years in prison after he dared to say the principle of human rights is more important than the Olympic Games.

Unemployed former factory worker, Yang Chunlin, 54, gathered more than 10,000 signatures on a petition last year, appealing against illegal seizures of land from poor farmers by powerful local officials in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang.

The petition letter began: "We want human rights, not the Olympics."

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The Olympic torch was lit in Athens yesterday, but at the same time, a court in China sentenced Yang Chunlin to five years in jail. The irony of the situation is that Chunlin was charged after he said that human rights were more important than the Olympics.

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China raps Olympic torch protest

China has condemned a protest over Tibet at the Olympic torch lighting ceremony in Greece on Monday.
In the first reaction from Beijing, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said any attempt to disrupt the torch relay for the Olympic Games was shameful.
During the ceremony, campaigners broke through police lines and unfurled a Tibetan flag before being dragged away.
Meanwhile there are reports of more violence in and around Tibet, and the police are continuing to make arrests.

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A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said any attempt to disrupt the torch relay for the Olympic Games was shameful. During the ceremony campeigners got past security and unrolled a Tibetan flag before being taken out. There have been 13 arrests made in Lhasa for protests that took place before anti-chinese rioting began.

You have permission to think freely

IT MAY seem an odd time for China's risk-averse officials to be talking about political change. Yet at the opening of the country's annual session of parliament on March 5th the prime minister, Wen Jiabao, echoed recent calls in the state-owned media to “liberate our thinking”, even as he gave warning of a difficult year ahead, with threats from inflation and from America's subprime mortgage mess.
This year's session of the National People's Congress, as the legislature in known, comes at a critical time. It marks the start of a new five-year term of government (it will elect Mr Wen to serve until 2013). China is also hosting the Olympic games in August and celebrating 30 years of “reform and opening” in December.

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Chinese officials have influenced media to "liberate their thinking." This seems like an odd time for China to have political change, because of the growing threat of inflation. This meeting of the Nationals People Congress marks the begining of a new five-year term.

'Severe' jobless problem in China

China is facing a very severe unemployment problem, says Labour Minister Tian Chengping.
He said 20 million new workers entered the labour market each year, chasing only 12 million jobs.
He said employers were complaining about a lack of skilled workers and China had to provide more training.
Speaking on the sidelines of the annual National People's Congress in Beijing, Mr Tian said the aim was to keep urban unemployment at or below 4.5%.

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There is a major unemployment rate in China. 2 million new workers show up each year for jobs and only 12 million get them leaving 8 million jobless. This problem is trying to be fixed by creating 10 million new jobs this year.

China's dilemma over Darfur

China has worked hard over the past few months to show it is doing all it can to resolve the humanitarian crisis in Sudan's Darfur region.
It has appointed a special envoy, sent peacekeeping troops to the region and embarked on a publicity campaign to persuade others it is being responsible.
This was done in part to prevent anyone linking China's close relationship with Sudan to the Olympics Games.
But for Steven Spielberg it was still not enough.
His decision to withdraw as artistic adviser to the Games' opening and closing ceremonies will be seen as a huge blow.

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China is trying to show the world that they are working hard to eliminate humiliation in Sudan. They have been doing this for the past few months and since China imports two thirds of Sudans oil, they are a said to be Sudan's biggest arns supplier.

China says militant plots foiled

The authorities in China say they have foiled two plots - one to crash an airliner, and another targeting the Beijing Olympic Games.
Officials said a plane crew prevented an attempt to crash a flight from Xinjiang province to Beijing on Friday. Two passengers are being questioned.
Another official said a raid that saw two people killed in Xinjiang in January foiled a plot on the Games.
Uighur separatists in Xinjiang have waged an insurgency for many years.
The Chinese authorities accuse them of having links to international terror networks.

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Airline officials prevented a plane, coming from Xingjaing, from crashing into the Olympics game sight in Bejing China. Two men are being questioned for more information on this crime. This could help the security in Xingjiang be more monitered.

Air pollution forces star to pull out of Olympic marathon

One of the world's top long distance runners has said he will not compete in the marathon at the Beijing Olympics because China's air pollution would pose an unacceptable risk to his health and future career.

In a major blow for the Chinese authorities, who have spent vast sums of money trying to tackle Beijing's pollution problem, the world record holder, Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia, said he still intended to participate in the 10,000 metres but could not run in the 26-mile, 385-yard (42.2km) marathon.

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Thirty-four year old Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia has said that he cannot compete 26 mile marathon of the Beijing olympics because of the pollution in the city. Gebrselassie suffers from asthma and believes that it would be too great a risk to participate in the marathon, but he still plans to run in the 10,000 meter race.

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China One-Child Policy to Stay in Place

BEIJING (AP) — China will not consider changing its one-child policy for at least a decade for fear that a population surge could spark social and economic instability, the nation's top family planning official said in an interview published Monday.

Zhang Weiqing of the State Population and Family Planning Commission told the official China Daily newspaper that the one-child rule should be maintained for now.

"Given such a large population base, there would be major fluctuations in population growth if we abandoned the one-child rule now," he was quoted as saying. "It would cause serious problems and add extra pressure on social and economic development."


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It has been officially stated that the one child policy will remain in China for at least ten years, which is the end of the nations "birth-peak." The policy which was launched in the seventies has prevented 400 million births, but it only applies to a portion of the population.


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China's Curious Olympic Terror Threat

The dramatic news came in the midst of China's staid and boring annual legislature: a terrorist hijacking plot, perhaps meant to mar the coming Olympic Games, had been stopped. Security forces had thwarted a plot to "create an air disaster," Nur Bekri, chairman of the Xinjiang regional government, told reporters at the ongoing session of the National People's Congress (NPC). Apparently, on Mar. 7, a hijacking attempt by separatists from the Muslim-majority province of Xinjiang had been foiled. Initial reports stated that China Southern flight CZ6901 had made an emergency landing in the northwestern city of Lanzhou at about 12:40 p.m. after an apparent attempt to blow up the aircraft. The plane was en route from the Xinjiang capital Urumqi for Beijing.

The news however has been met with considerable skepticism outside China, particularly since details of the incident remain confusingly murky. According to the English-language China Daily, Bekri declined to give more details, only saying that the authorities are investigating "who the attackers are, where they are from and what their background is... But we can be sure that this was a case intending to create an air crash." Some details began to emerge later of between two and four hijackers, possibly carrying gasoline. But concrete information remained elusive.

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Steven Tsang, a China specialist at St. Anthony's College, Oxford University, notes that it seems very strange that the plane was allowed to continue to Beijing after it made its landing in Lanzhou. He also recognized that "it [is] particularly easy to blame a shadowy Islamic separatists movement in the build-up to the Beijing Olympics, possibly as a deterrent to those or any other groups who might want to disrupt the Games."

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China one-child rule 'to remain'

Family planning chief Zhang Weiqing said there would be no change in the rule limiting families in cities to one child and those in rural areas to two.
His comments come a week after another family planning official said a policy change was under discussion.
The rule has been blamed for creating a gender imbalance, with families eager to have boys rather than a girls.

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The policy of limiting one child to each family and two for those living in rural areas is starting an issue with the gender balance. Most families would rather have a boy than a girl. The suggestion to make changes to this policy has been considered in the past but have not taken action due to the fear of a major population growth that China doesn't want to handle.

Losing patients

STARTLING economic growth in China has not been matched by similar improvements in health care. The cost of treatment is becoming ever more prohibitive for the poor. Government spending is meagre. But nearly three years after declaring the system a failure, officials are at last getting ready to unveil a plan to fix it.

Some Chinese press reports say the long-awaited and much-debated reform plan is likely to be revealed at the annual session of China's parliament, which opens on March 5th. The outline is already clear: a stronger role for government, including more money from the central budget, and a drive towards universal health insurance. Changes are already in train.
The reforms reverse the market-driven policies of much of the past two decades. The outbreak in 2003 of SARS, an often fatal respiratory disease, made the government realise what a mess the health-care system had become. Government hospitals and clinics, starved of funding, had turned to raising money (and boosting ill-paid doctors' salaries) by prescribing ever more expensive treatment and diagnostic procedures. With the collapse and privatisation of state-owned enterprises, the vast majority of citizens had been left with no insurance. Many began avoiding even desperately needed treatment.

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The price for health care is becoming harder to afford, especially for the poor. Officials have been working on a plan for the past three years to fix this problem

Future of China's one-child policy is unclear

First they said they might do it, then they said they wouldn't. Now it seems more of a definite maybe.

At issue is the sensitive question of how best to control the growth of the largest population on Earth.

Over the weekend, an official said China was considering making changes to its one-child policy, but didn't offer any specifics. The statement by Wu Jianmin, a spokesman for the advisory body to the Chinese parliament, appeared to echo comments made last week by a senior family planning official.


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China has stated that it might change its one-child policy, which has been in place for three decades. Victor Yuan states, "I think maybe in 10 years' time we will see a turning point, where people's behavior will have changed sufficiently that there is no need to force them to have fewer children," but critics say they don't want to wait that long.

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China's largest bank buys stake in South African lender

The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the nation's largest lender, said Tuesday it completed the acquisition of a 20 percent stake in South Africa's Standard Bank for 5.5 billion dollars.

The Chinese lender said the deal, the largest ever Chinese acquisition in the financial field, had been approved by Chinese and South African regulators, according to a statement with the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

The cash settlement and issue of new shares for the planned purchase, originally announced in October, was finished on Monday, it said.


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The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China is helping to boost Standard Bank's expansion. This merger will allow Standard Bank to access capital which will allow it to grow into South Africa, Africa, and other places around the world.

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In a fix

ACROSS Asia inflation is rising, largely because of higher food and energy prices. China's inflation rate surged to an 11-year high of 7.1% in January and looks set to climb further this month, after some severe snow storms. India, Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore all have inflation rates above 4%.
Central banks are reluctant to raise interest rates by much at the same time as America's Federal Reserve is slashing its rates, for fear this would attract foreign capital and push their currencies sharply higher. Stronger currencies would in fact help to reduce the price of imported food and energy. But instead, many governments are resorting to price controls and government subsides to curb inflation. India has long imposed price ceilings on a wide range of goods. Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines are considering new price controls or subsidies. In January the Chinese government froze the prices of energy, transport and water, and announced that producers of essential food items, such as meat, grain, eggs and cooking oil must seek approval before raising prices.

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Inflation has become a huge problem forcing the chinese government to "monitor" food because most of inflation is being drivin by food and not by aggregate demand. The inflation rate is supposed to keep climbing with all the bad weather expected in the future.

China's basketball giant Yao has successful foot surgery

China's giant centre Yao Ming underwent successful foot surgery at a Texas hospital on Monday, the Houston Rockets announced.

Yao, who will miss the rest of the National Basketball Association season, had to have the procedure to repair a stress fracture in his left foot.

"I am very relieved that everything went well with my surgery today," said Yao. "I am looking forward to getting better and starting my physical rehab as soon as the doctors say I can."

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Tom Clanton, the Rockets team doctor, performed the surgery at Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center. The 7' 6" Yao seems to be recovering well, but he will miss the rest of the basketball season.

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China's Yellow Dust Storms Begin, Data Called a "State Secret"

China's Yellow Dust Storms Begin, Data Called a "State Secret"

East Asia's yellow dust season is underway, with clouds of sand spotted last
week in northwest China now closing schools, disabling factories and
depositing toxic loads in Korea and Japan.

The dust storms last from March to May of each year, with sands pulled by
wind from deserts in Mongolia and China, picking up pollution in China's
industrial regions and finally arriving in the east.

Damage estimates are hazy, but conservative figures put manufacturing losses
in the billions, especially among makers of high-tech goods -- and the human
costs are greater, as the pollutants trigger lung and immune diseases.

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This time of year is going to be difficult for China to prosper economically after dealing with the worst snow storms they have seen in years. This will be a test of China's ability to deal with hardship.

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