THIS WEEK

THIS WEEK

Celebrating Tibetan New Year

A Tibetan father and his daughter pose for a photo in front of the Potala Palace on February 21, one day before the Tibetan New Year.

Also known as Losar, the Tibetan New Year is the most important festival for Tibetans. It usually falls one month later than the Spring Festival, the Chinese Lunar New Year, and the celebration lasts two weeks. The festival features ancient ceremonies including a ritual representing the struggle between good and evil by chanting and passing fi re torches through the crowds.

“The Nanjing Massacre is a proven atrocity recognized by the international community.The Japanese side should abide by the principles of the historic agreements made between the two countries and work to advance bilateral relations in a healthy and stable way. This is in the basic interests of both countries and their peoples.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei, expressing the attitude of the Chinese Government over Nagoya mayor’s denial of the Nanjing Massacre, at a press conference in Beijing on February 22

“China will continue to implement a proactive fi scal policy this year amid complicated economic environments both at

home and abroad.”

Chinese Minister of Finance Xie Xuren, in an article published on the ministry’s website, on February 22

“We avoided a nightmare scenario, for Greece, the euro zone, Europe and the global economy.”

Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos,at a press conference in Athens on February 21, after Greece was granted a fresh 130-billion-euro ($173-billion) rescue loans package

“Topol-MandYarsare new-generation missiles. One can say we are a bit ahead of our American partners in this area.”

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, accusing the United States of attempting to destroy the global strategic balance with its antimissile system, at a meeting with top-ranking military of fi cers in Moscow on February 22

SEA GUARDIAN A Chinese maritime law enforcement boat on patrol in China’s territorial waters on February 19. Routine patrols by China Marine Surveillance of fi cers discovered two Japan Coast Guard survey boats in the East China Sea late that day. The survey boats left the waters after receiving a warning from the Chinese patrols

Genetic Engineering Ban

The freedom of grain producers in China to genetically engineer produce will be limited under a draft law released on February 21 by the Legislative Affairs of fi ce of the State Council.

The research, sale, import and export of transgenic grain seeds should comply with state regulations. Institution and individuals must not apply transgenic technologies to principle grain cultivars without approval,said the draft referring to transgenics, the practice of inserting into an organism DNA that is not normally present.

The forthcoming law, the fi rst of its kind in China, aims to ensure grain supply and security by stabilizing grain output and intensifying supervision over the market.

The draft also includes stipulations concerning the market deployment of grain resources and the safeguarding of grain production, circulation and quality.

According to the draft, the production,circulation and sale of edible vegetable oil will also be subject to the bill.

Health Benefits

China will raise government subsidies for health insurance offered to farmers and non-working urbanites to over 360 yuan ($57) per person per year by 2015, an increase of 80 percent.

The announcement was made after a State Council executive meeting on February 22. At the meeting, new health reform targets were set for the 2011-15 period.

China’s basic health insurance system includes health insurance for urban employees,jointly paid by the government, employers and individuals; there is also health insurance for non-working urban dwellers and rural cooperative health insurance for rural residents, which is co-paid by the government and individuals.

Major reform targets include the expansion of basic health insurance coverage,perfecting the country’s essential medicine system, as well as improving communitylevel clinics and public hospitals.

The ongoing health reforms started in April 2009.

Government Transparency

A report on China’s legal development has rated the transparency level of the country’s governmental organizations, with the Ministry of Commerce topping the list of 59 central government departments.

According to the report released by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences on February 20, the Ministry of Commerce achieved a score of 67 out of 100 based on evaluations of several factors, including transparency and the public availability of information.

The National Population and Family Planning Commission and the Ministry of Environmental Protection ranked second and third, respectively.

Among provincial-level governments,Beijing led with 72.5 points, followed by Tianjin and Jiangsu Province.

The report said different standards make it

Youngest Go Champion

Jiang Weijie, born in 1991, a Chinese Go player, became champion by defeating Lee Changho of South Korea at the 16th LG Cup Championship on February 15. Go, calledweiqiin Chinese,is an ancient board game that originated in China. This victory made Jiang China’s youngest Go world champion.

WATER SCARCITY A woman fetches water from a water cellar in Yugu Village in Luliang County, southwest China’s Yunnan Province, on February 20. A severe drought has been lingering in Yunnan for three consecutive years,disrupting the lives of 6.3 million people in the province this year

SWEET FRUIT A mother and son visit a strawberry greenhouse in Changping District in Beijing’s northern suburbs on February 18, as 1,000 agricultural scientists from around the world met at the seventh International Strawberry Symposium in the district

In winning the title,Jiang earned a promotion from the professional fifth dan straight to the ninth dan,the highest rank for professional Go players.dif fi cult to compare the transparency levels of government organizations, with many transparency reports lacking clear and detailed information.

Space Docking

China will launch its mannedShenzhou-9spacecraft between June and August this year,as well as conduct a space rendezvous and docking mission with the orbitingTiangong-1space lab module, a spokesman for China’s manned space program said on February 17.

The space-docking mission will be manually conducted by astronauts, giving China another chance to test its docking technology,the spokesman said.

TheShenzhou-9’s three crewmembers will board theTiangong-1after the docking is completed, they will spend several days in the module and conduct scienti fi c experiments.

An evaluation of the program was carried out following a previous rendezvous between theTiangong-1and the unmannedShenzhou-8spacecraft, which showed that all relevant systems are in good condition and are ready for a manned docking, the spokesman said.

The orbitingTiangong-1is ready to accommodate the astronauts, and theShenzhou-9spacecraft and its carrier rocket, the Long-March II-F, are undergoing final checks, the spokesman said.

TheTiangong-1went into space on September 29, 2011, docking with theShenzhou-8spacecraft to complete China’s fi rst space docking mission just over a month later.

Sand Control Program

An anti-desertification program powered by an investment of 700 million yuan ($111 million) is expected to begin in October in northwest China’s Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, said the regional forestry department.

The World Bank will provide a loan of$80 million to help fund the program, with the remaining amount supplied by the local government.

Located on the arid Loess Highlands,Ningxia has been heavily affected by desertifi cation over the years.

The program is designed to reverse the desertification of more than 66,000 hectares of land located near the Ningdong Energy and Chemical Industry Base. It will also improve the ecology of a section of the Yellow River,China’s second longest waterway.

Anti-bribery Archive

A national online archive of individuals and companies guilty of bribery has been established, said the Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) on February 16.

The archive connects all local databases,which store information on bribe givers and takers, making their names available across the country for public inquiry, according to a statement from the SPP. Prior to this, there was no national listing.

Institutions or individuals can apply for an inquiry if they are suspicious about an individual or company. Anyone discovered to be on the list will likely be disqualified for bidding on government projects, some of these companies will even be forbidden from operating, the SPP said.

Female Role Model

Yi Jiefang, head of NPO-greenlife,an environmentally oriented nonprofit organization, won the 2011 Annual Female Model prize on February 20.

In 2000, Yi’s son died. In order to fulfill her son’s wish of “planting trees and creating forests,” Yi quit her job and set up NPO-greenlife three years later. Under her leadership, the organization,together with hundreds of volunteers,reforested north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region by planting more than 1 million trees there.

TRUE LIES Twins Wan Yiju (right) and Wan Yiheng and their 148-meter-long 3D painting in Guangzhou,south China’s Guangdong Province, which was recognized by the Guinness World Records Corporate as the world’s longest 3D street painting

INNOVATIVE PLAYER A towering machine independently developed by Zoomlion, a Chinese heavy machine producer based in Changsha, central China’s Hunan Province

Loosening Liquidity

The People’s Bank of China, the central bank,on February 24 lowered the ratio of deposits that banks must set aside in reserves by 0.5 percentage points.

The cut, the second in three months, is part of the country’s efforts to enhance market liquidity and shore up the slowing economy.

The move is expected to inject around 400 billion yuan ($63.54 billion) of capital into the markets.

Property Gloom

In January, 48 cities out of the 70 monitored major cities reported month-on-month decreases in prices of new commercial residences, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics. Meanwhile, prices stayed unchanged in the rest of the 22 cities.

As for second-hand homes, prices in 54 cities dropped month on month in January,and only five cities saw their prices head north. Prices stayed unchanged in 11 cities.

Policymakers have pledged to continue with a stringent clampdown on the real estate market, despite acute woes of many property developers.

Yin Zhongli, a research fellow with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said housing prices might see steeper falls in the second half of this year if the government maintains tightening measures.

Currency Swap

The People’s Bank of China signed a 10-billion-yuan ($1.59 billion) currency swap agreement with the Central Bank of Turkey on February 21.

The three-year agreement will be extendable by mutual consent, said the central bank.

The move is aimed at enhancing fi nancial cooperation and promoting bilateral trade.

To promote the international use of the yuan, China has signed currency swap agreements with 15 countries and regions since the onset of the global fi nancial crisis in late 2008.

Yiwu Shines

Yiwu of east China’s Zhejiang Province, the country’s largest petty commodity market,recorded combined exports of $1.03 billion to Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa in 2011,soaring 52 percent from the previous year.

Exports to Russia increased 8.5 times year on year. This was largely attributable to Russia’s WTO entry last year.

The robust growth has, to some extent,offset the negative impact caused by the eurozone debt crisis and economic uncertainties in the Middle East.

The city’s total export value stood at $9.87 billion last year, up 15 percent from a year ago.

POWERING UP Engineers work to maintain rural electricity equipment in Julu County, north China’s Hebei Province, so as to ensure power supplies for irrigation and sowing

iPhone Fever

China Telecom announced it will soon start selling Apple Inc.’s iPhone 4S smart phones,making it the second mobile carrier to offer the product in the world’s No. 1 mobile phone market.

Analysts believe a new carrier partner will help Apple increase distribution channels and further boost sales in the Chinese market. It will also help China Telecom, the No. 3 mobile carrier in the country, to catch up with bigger rivals China Mobile and China Unicom in the high-end market.

China Telecom will start by offering the iPhone 4S running on its code division multiple access (CDMA) network on March 9. It will start accepting online orders on March 2.

Small Lending Thrives

China’s micro-credit sector is getting into full swing as the country lends a helping hand to smaller fi rms.

By the end of 2011, the country had 4,282 micro-credit companies, surging 63.81 percent from the previous year, according to data from the People’s Bank of China.

The companies extended 193.5 billion yuan ($30.71 billion) of new loans last year,up from 120.2 billion yuan ($19.1 billion) one year earlier. Outstanding loans of China’s micro-lenders stood at 391.5 billion yuan ($62.1 billion) by the end of 2011, up from 197.5 billion yuan ($31.3 billion) in 2010.

While commercial banks consider small and medium-sized enterprises larger risks, the micro- fi nancing provides a viable solution to addressing the capital shortages. In China, the micro-lenders face many restrictions, such as a ban on deposit-taking. But at a recently meeting of the State Council, policymakers pledged to loosen those restrictions and transform quali fi ed micro-credit fi rms into rural banks.

New Tsinghua President

Chen Jining was appointed president of Tsinghua University,one of China’s leading universities,taking over from Gu Binglin on February 20.

Chen, 48, has bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Tsinghua University. After completing his master’s degree he went to Britain for further study and received his doctoral degree in Brunel University.After returning to China in 1998, he became an associate professor in the School of Environment at Tsinghua. In 2006,Chen was appointed vice president of Tsinghua.

YEMEN

Yemeni men show their identity cards as they line up outside a polling station in Sanaa on February 21. Yemenis took part in a one-candidate presidential election to vote for a successor to outgoing President Ali Abdullah Saleh

MEXICO

Guns are crushed in north Mexico’s Ciudad Juarez on February 16. The Mexican Army destroyed at least 6,000 rifes and pistols seized from drug cartels

IRAN

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (right front) listens to an expert during a tour of Tehran’s research reactor on February 15. Iran’s fi rst domestically produced 20-percent enriched nuclear fuel was used for the research reactor that day

AFGHANISTAN

Demonstrators shout slogans outside the U.S.-run Bagram Air fi eld north of Kabul during a protest against Koran desecration on February 21. NATO soldiers have been accused of burning copies of the Muslim holy book

THE CZECH REPUBLIC

German acrobats perform during the International Festival of Circus Art in Prague on February 15

JAPAN

A northern red fox chases a red-crowned crane at a birds’ sanctuary in Tsurui on Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido on February 18.Some 400 red-crowned cranes, migrating from eastern Russia, northeast China and eastern Mongolia, have been observed in the village over the winter