THIS WEEK

THIS WEEK

ZHANG CHUNLEI

Recycled Trees

On March 11, an environmental protection volunteer works on a special tree made of recycled disposable chopsticks.

Many “chopstick trees” were on display that day at an environmental protection exhibition in Dalian, northeast China’s Liaoning Province, as part of the 2012 Earth Hour activities. The exhibition aims to remind people of the importance of environmental protection. In China, 45 billion pairs of disposable chopsticks are used every year, equal to 1.66 million cubic meters of wood.

“China’s rare earth resources only account for 36.4 percent of the overall reserves in the world.And China provides more than 90 percent of the global supply of rare earth. This is unsustainable.As a result, China has to take measures to control the export of rare earth.”

Liu Weimin, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, on the trade complaint over rare earth exports jointly fi led by the United States, the EU and Japan to the WTO, at a news brie fi ng in Beijing on March 13

“Relations between the Chinese and German armies have seen remarkable progress in recent years, while the cooperation structure has been continuously improved.”

Chen Bingde, Chief of the General Staff of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, saying that China will continue to boost military ties with Germany when meeting with Werner Freers,German Inspector of the Army in Beijing on March 14

“The Schengen Agreement can no longer respond to the seriousness of the situation. It must be revised. There is a need to implement a structural reform that we have implemented for the euro.”

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, making the remarks in a reelection campaign speech in Paris on March 11 that the border-free Schengen Agreement should be rethought and re-founded

“The interest rate in Greece is too low, and therefore people spend too much and park their money abroad. This cannot continue.”

Daniel Gros, Director of the Center for European Policy Studies, suggesting the Greek Government sharply increase interest rates during an interview with Xinhua News Agency

Against Bribery

Seven ministerial-level of fi cials were investigated for suspected embezzlement or bribery in China last year, said the country’s top procurator on March 11.

Prosecutors nationwide investigated a total of 2,524 of fi cials above the county head level, said Cao Jianming, Procurator General of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, while delivering a work report at the annual session of the National People’s Congress, China’s top legislature.

According to him, efforts to crack down on bribe-taking and giving were intensified last year, with 4,217 bribe givers being prosecuted, a year-on-year increase of 6.2 percent.

More Transparency

The Red Cross Society of China (RCSC)plans to select fi ve quali fi ed accounting fi rms to provide services such as annual auditing,auditing of special programs and off-office auditing, according to a notice the RCSC published on March 13.

The RCSC will receive bids from across the country for 20 days following the publication of the notice, and the selection process will comply with national regulations regarding government procurement, it says.

The RCSC will publicly announce the five bid winners, which are required to be among the top 100 accounting fi rms included in the Chinese Institute of Certified Public Accountants. It will sign a three-year service protocol with the fi ve fi rms and assign auditing tasks according to their offer, professional strengths and service level.

This is the fi rst time the charity has publicly called tenders for its auditing services.

Female Astronauts

Authorities have completed the initial selection of crew members for China’s first manned space docking mission, and the roster includes female astronauts, according to an of fi cial with knowledge of the matter.

But the final three-person crew will be decided “on the very last condition,” said Niu Hongguang, deputy chief of China’s manned space program.

The manned spacecraftShenzhou-9will take its crew members to theTiangong-1space module lab between June and August this year.Tiangong-1was launched in September last year and completed the country’s first space docking with the unmannedShenzhou-8spacecraft last November.

Forest Coverage

China aims to increase its forest coverage to more than 23 percent and lift the forested land area in the country to 223 million hectares by the end of 2020, according to Jia Zhibang, Administrator of the State Forestry Administration.

Citing a national afforestation outline for the 2011-20 period, Jia made the remarks during an interview with Xinhua News Agency. He said that the public will be mobilized to plant 26 billion trees over the next 10 years.

China’s forest coverage had reached 20.36 percent, or 195 million hectares, at the end of 2008, according to of fi cial fi gures.

Vehicle Emission Control

Beijing is likely to introduce new vehicle emission permits that could be as strict as those in Europe, in response to concerns over the city’s air pollution.

The Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau has released a draft of the new standard, which speci fi es strict limits for a variety of vehicle emissions, including carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, nitric oxide and particulate matter.

If adopted, the “Beijing V emission standard” could help reduce the emission of nitric oxide by 25 percent. Nitric oxide is one of the main causes of the tiny pollution particles in the air, 2.5 micrometers or less in diameter,known as PM2.5.

New Discovery

A team of Chinese and American scientists revealed the plumage and feather color of a 120-million-year-old small theropod dinosaur in an article published inSciencemagazine on March 9.

LIFE SAVING People carry an injured rare Chinese white dolphin in Luocun Village in Foshan, south China’s Guangdong Province, on March 12. The dolphin, with injuries to its dorsal fi n and caudal fi n, was found in a river near the village

POWERLINE PATROL Workers inspect ±800 KV Ultra High Voltage transmission lines in Huzhou,east China’s Zhejiang Province, on March 13. The transmission project traverses eight provinces with a total length of 2,089 km

The microraptor, a theropod dinosaur,was discovered to have had iridescent feathers, according to the research project jointly led by Meng Qingjin, Director of the Beijing Museum of Natural History (BMNH), and Mark Norell, a dinosaur expert with the American Museum of Natural History.

The microraptor fossil studied in the project is a specimen held by the BMNH.

The study proposes that the plumage of the “four-winged” dinosaur was predominantly iridescent, and that the colors of the feathers would change depending on the angle from which they were viewed.

Coldest Winter

The average temperature in China this winter was the lowest in 27 years, thePeople’s Dailyreports.

Between December 1, 2011, and February 29, 2012, the average temperature in the country was 4.8 degrees below zero degrees Celsius, 1 degree lower than that of the same period of the previous years, according to the China Meteorological Administration.

The National Climate Center said during the last five years, China had experienced three cold winters in which the average temperatures were at least 0.5 degrees Celsius lower than that of the same period between 1981 and 2010.

FREE LUNCH A pupil from the Tu ethnic group takes her lunch at a classroom in the Shimen Central Primary School in Tianzhu, northwest China’s Gansu Province, on March 12. The local government has launched a Free Lunch project to improve nutrition of rural students

Young Scientist

He Xionglei, a professor at the School of Life Sciences at Sun Yat-sen University (SYSU)in south China’s Guangdong Province, has made significant progress with his research group in how chromatin structure regulates DNA mutations. The findings were published in the journalScience,one of the two most influential academic journals in the world, on March 9, according to the official website of SYSU. This is the first time that an academic from SYSU has published a paper in the elite journal.

GREEN GREEN TREES People plant trees in Wuhan, capital of central China’s Hubei Province,on March 12, the 34th Tree Planting Day of the country

HEAVY LIFTING An employee of Yibin Port, Sichuan Province, load cargo on March 14. The port, known as the No.1 Port on the Yangtze River, came into operation in 2011 and its container throughput has so far exceeded 10,000 standard containers

CPI Dips

China’s consumer price index (CPI), a barometer of in fl ation, climbed 3.2 percent year on year in February, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics.

The growth, down from 4.5 percent in January, hit the lowest level in 20 months,providing more room for the government to stimulate growth.

The February CPI marks the end of the“negative deposit rate” era that had existed since February 2010, as the in fl ation rate finally fell below the one-year deposit rate of 3.5 percent.

Deficit Soars

For the fi rst time in a year, China recorded a trade de fi cit of $31.48 billion in February, the largest in a decade, as import growth far outpaced exports (see page 36).

Exports rose 18.4 percent from a year earlier to $114.47 billion in February, while imports were up 39.6 percent to $145.96 billion, according to data from the General Administration of Customs.

Liu Ligang, head of Greater China Economics, ANZ Banking Group, was cautiously optimistic about the country’s export outlook this year, saying export growth may rally, buttressed by the government’s supportive policies and stabilizing external conditions.

“The trade data, along with a slew of other indicators announced previously, suggests the world’s second largest economy is heading for a soft landing,” he said.

New Advisors

China will change three members of the central bank’s monetary policy committee,according to the State Council on March 14.

The State Council has approved the appointment of Qian Yingyi, Chen Yulu and Song Guoqing as new members of the monetary policy committee of the People’s Bank of China.

Qian is currently Dean of the School of Economics and Management with Tsinghua University. Chen is President of Renmin University of China, and Song is a professor of the National School of Development of Peking University.

Meanwhile, Zhou Qiren, Xia Bin and Li Daokui will no longer be members of the committee.

The committee was established in 1997, tasked with advising on the country’s monetary policies. There are currently 15 committee members, including central bank officials, economists, ministers from other government departments and economists.

Buying China Assets

Japan announced on March 13 that it has won Chinese approval to buy 65 billion yuan ($10.3 billion) of Chinese government bonds.

The move will help Japan diversify its foreign exchange reserves away from the U.S.dollar and strengthen ties between the two Asian economic powers.

“We will consider trends in the financial markets to decide on a right time for the purchases,” said Jun Azumi, Finance Minister of Japan.

He also suggested the initial purchases would be in small amounts and take into account conditions in Japan’s foreign-currency assets.

Lian Ping, an economist with Bank of Communications, said the move shows China is increasingly opening up its bond market to global investors.

Auto Gloom

Vehicle sales in China rose 24.5 percent year on year to reach 1.57 million units in February,said the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. The output was 1.61 million units, surging 28.5 percent.

However, the total sales for the fi rst two months dropped 6 percent from a year ago to 2.95 million units, while output declined 4.9 percent to 2.9 million units.

The performance was dragged down by slack sales in January, as most Chinese worked fewer days in January as a result of the weeklong Spring Festival holiday (January 22-28).

China is the world’s largest auto market,with last year’s automobile sales reaching 18.50 million units and output topping 18.42 million units.

Qinghai’s Green Future

The 2012 China Qinghai Green Economy Investment and Trade Fair will be held on June 10-13 in Xining, capital of northwest China’s Qinghai Province.

The annual fair serves as a platform to attract investment and facilitate the green economy. In the past 12 years, the fair witnessed a total of 2,313 investment deals worth 457.2 billion yuan ($72.57 billion).

“Looking ahead, the province will step up a clampdown on highly polluting and energy-depleting projects,” said Wu Haikun,Director of Qinghai Economic and Trade Commission. “In addition, more vigorous efforts will be made to propel development of new energies, new materials and information technology.”

IMF’s New Secretary

Lin Jianhai was named the secretary of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)by its managing director Christine Lagarde on March 7.

The appointment will take effect on March 22 and Lin will be the first Chinese to lead the Secretary’s Department of the Washington D.C.-based global institution.

This is the second time the IMF chose a Chinese economist as its senior official. In July 2011, Zhu Min was named deputy managing director of the organization.

“Lin has had a wide-ranging Fund career in both country and policy work.This breadth of experience has been of particular benefit to the IMF, where Lin’s skill in building consensus among staff, management and our global membership has been essential for the productive work of the executive board during one of the most challenging periods in the Fund’s history,” said Lagarde.

Lin was born in Wenzhou, east China’s Zhejiang Province, in 1955 and studied at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing and the University of California, Berkeley.He holds a doctorate in international finance from George Washington University. Lin has been acting director of the Secretary’s Department since November 2011. Before coming to the IMF in 1989, he worked in the financial sector and academia.

his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from SYSU and earned his doctorate at the University of Michigan in the United States. In 2007, He returned to China and was hired as a professor at SYSU,the youngest professor in the history of SYSU.

BUMPER HARVEST A farmer in Pingbian County, Yunnan Province, near the border between China and Viet Nam, sets newly picked bananas along a roadside for purchase.Harvests of bananas and pineapples have boosted income of local farmers

AFGHANISTAN

Protesters shout anti-U.S. slogans during a demonstration in east Afghanistan’s Jalalabad on March 13, two days after a U.S. soldier killed 16 innocent Afghan villagers

LIBYA

Libyans hold a huge national fag as they rally in the eastern city of Benghazi on March 9 against federalism after tribal and political leaders declared Libya’s oil-rich eastern region of Cyrenaica autonomous

FRANCE

Nicolas Sarkozy, incumbent French President and Union for a Popular Movement candidate for this year’s presidential election, attends a campaign meeting on March 11 in Villepinte, near Paris. The election is scheduled for April 22

INDIA

A man throws colored water on a woman during Holi celebrations in New Delhi on March 8. Holi, the Festival of Colors, is a popular Hindu festival in India and Nepal at the end of winter

JAPAN

Residents stand hand in hand on a beach in Iwaki City in Fukushima Prefecture on March 11 to pray for the victims of the earthquake and tsunami that killed more than 15,000 people one year ago