Harbin city turns water taps back on
Bureau Report

HARBIN (China)—Authorities in the Chinese city of Harbin have restored running water to its 3.8 million residents, five days after supplies were cut off due to a massive toxic spill in the city’s river, state media said. The governor of Heilongjiang province, Zhang Zuoji, took the first drink of city water in Harbin, the provincial capital, after supplies were restored at 6:00 pm (1000 GMT), Xinhua news agency reported.
Some 100 tons of benzene were dumped into the Songhua river, which runs through Harbin, on November 13 after a huge explosion at a chemical plant in Jilin province, some 380 kilometers (235 miles) up river from the city. Public water supplies to Harbin were cut on Tuesday as the government scrambled to bring in massive shipments of bottled water to avoid a public health crisis. Water samples taken in the city now show no trace of the chemical, Xinhua quoted local officials as saying Sunday. “The nitrobenzene level has met the national standard with a concentration of 0.0050 milligrams/liter,” the agency said, quoting Lin Qiang, spokesman for the Heilongjiang Provincial Environmental Protection Bureau. The city will launch a three-color water quality warning system to ensure the health of city residents, Xinhua said, adding that the local media would be used to keep city dwellers informed. Red will signify that the water is not suitable for any use, yellow that water can be used but not for drinking, and green that the water is suitable for all purposes, the report said.
Premier Wen Jiabao, who arrived in Harbin Saturday, ordered officials to begin directing their attention toward the lower reaches of the Songhua, where the 80-kilometer toxic slick was heading after passing through Harbin. He insisted that pollution levels should be promptly and publicly reported.
“Local governments must follow the polluted waters through the cities, towns and villages along the river and make prompt public reports on the monitoring results,” Wen was quoted by the Heilongjiang Morning Post as telling officials. “Every available measure must be taken to ensure the drinking needs of the people and the quality of the water”.
Following the blast at a PetroChina benzene plant, officials in Jilin province covered up the water pollution disaster for 10 days. The calamity has been widely seen as a reflection of China’s increasingly dismal environmental situation, which has been largely ignored during 25 years of fast-paced economic growth. “Since the reform and opening began we have made huge accomplishments in the development of our economy and society, but this has come at a huge price to the environment,” Zhang told Xinhua in an interview. “The nature of this incident may appear to have been accidental, but from the background circumstances this was unavoidable,” said the provincial governor. Despite panic buying of water and food supplies in Harbin last weekend, the city responded to the crisis rather calmly, with the government reporting zero cases of benzene poisoning and no pollution-related fatalities. Wen further ordered officials in Heilongjiang province to report on river monitoring efforts to their Russian neighbors.
“We must strengthen our cooperation and contacts with Russia in a friendly and responsible way and give them reports on the monitoring efforts,” he said. China has formally apologized to its neighbor for the benzene spill, now heading for the Amur river — known in China as the Heilong — on their common border. The polluted Songhua is a major tributary of the Amur. On Saturday in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing informed Russian ambassador Sergei Razov about the river pollution and expressed regret over possible harm to the Russian people. The slick was expected to reach Russia within days. President Vladimir Putin’s envoy to the Far East, Kamil Iskhakov, told regional media outlets Saturday that there was no reason for residents living along the Amur to panic. “We will know at least a week before the chemical spill reaches Khabarovsk,” a city of 650,000 people, Iskhakov said.
Despite its booming economy and rising living standards, China is facing a water crisis due to severe shortages caused by heavy pollution, which will only worsen if drastic measures are not taken. China was “facing a water crisis more severe and urgent than any other country in the world,” Vice Minister of Construction Qiu Baoxing said earlier this month before the benzene spill. “We’ve got to solve the problem before it is too late,” warned Qiu.

Beijing to host Bird Flu donors’ conference

BEIJING—An international donors’ meeting will be held in Beijing in January to raise funds for the fight against bird flu, the official Xinhua news agency said on Sunday.
Xinhua did not say who was organising the January 17-18 conference or for whom funds would be raised.
The fundraiser will be a “good chance for countries around the world to demonstrate sincerity and enhance cooperation in the fight against bird flu”, Xinhua said in a despatch from Rome.
The United Nations’ Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation has highlighted a lack of funds in efforts to implement a global strategy to tackle bird flu, saying it has received $30 million from Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United States, Xinhua said.
This fell far short of the hundreds of millions of dollars required to fund the comprehensive global effort to deal with the problem over the next three years, Xinhua quoted FAO as saying.
Industrialised nations should shoulder more responsibility in the global effort to curb the epidemic, FAO was quoted as saying.
The H5N1 virus has killed at least 67 in Asia since late 2003. It remains hard for people to catch but there are fears it could mutate into a form that could be passed from person to person, sparking a global pandemic in which millions could die.
Pacific Rim leaders agreed this month to bolster cooperation to fight bird flu and stage a “desktop” simulation drill in early 2006 to test regional responses and communication in the event of a pandemic.
China has culled more than 20 million birds this year to contain the spread of avian influenza and reported 22 outbreaks since mid-October in nine regions and provinces, from the far southwest to the frigid northeast. It has confirmed three cases of human infections, two of whom have died.
China, the world’s biggest poultry-producing nation, has announced plans to vaccinate billions of birds.
Beijing was roundly criticised for covering up SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which started in southern China in 2003 and then spread to Hong Kong, the rest of Asia and North America, killing hundreds of people.—Agencies

Quake rehabilitation
Beijing reassures support to upgrade Karakorum Highway
From Javed Akhtar ( APP)

BEIJING—China reassured its substantial support to Pakistan bringing the life in the quake’s hit areas to normal, by rehabilitating and up-grading the 700-kilometres Karakorum Highway as early as possible.
The necessary funding for undertaking this gigantic task has already been committed by the Chinese government, said a senior official of the Chinese Commerce Ministry.
“We know the urgency of the matter, since the earthquake caused massive land-slidings at various places on the KKH that provides main communication link for socio-economic activities in the area,” the official said adding” There will be no delay on our part in starting the work”.
Talking to APP, he said “We are prepared to realize our pledge, made at the international donors’ conference in Islamabad early this month providing $300 million soft-term loan to Pakistan for the repair of KKH, the provision of health and educational facilities in Balakot of the North West Frontier Province, and the establishment of a network of seismic stations throughout Pakistan.
The Chinese side is looking forward to work with the relevant authorities in Pakistan for preparing the feasibility report and other necessary infrastructure data.
The pledge for the financial help was made by the Chinese Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs Wu Dawei while addressing the donors’ conference. “We hope Pakistan could do more work in coordination so as to materialize the aid at the earliest,” the official added.
Besides the fresh commitments, China has already provided dollar 26.73 million worth of materials, cash and medical services in three batches to Pakistan. A total of 1,911 tons of relief goods have been airlifted to Pakistan from China by 24 planes since the tragedy occurred.
The KKH, the greatest symbol of Sino-Pak friendship also needed immediate up- gradation to cater traffic especially from China, Kazakhstan and Kyrgystan. The KKH has assumed great significance after the construction of Gowdar seaport, since all traffic to the Central Asia to be routed through it.
The KKH, a joint venture was built through some highly mountainous terrain and it was completed 1978 at a high human cost as well as financial spending of about dollar 3 billion. It is considered as an all-weather highway along the site of the southern branch of the ancient Silk Road, the 8th wonder of the world.

China to put man on moon by 2020

HONG KONG—Budget permitting, China wants to be able to put a man on the moon and build a space station in 15 years, a space program official said Sunday. “I think about 10 to 15 years later, we will have the ability to build our own space station and to carry out a manned moon landing,” Hu Shixiang, deputy commander in chief of China’s manned space flight program, said in Hong Kong.
But the goal is subject to full funding, Hu said, explaining that China’s space program must fit in the larger scheme of the country’s overall development. He said China wants to master the technology for a space walk and docking in space by 2012.
China is developing its space program at its own pace, not competing with the U.S., Hu said. “It’s not the competition of the Cold War era,” he said.
Hu is visiting Hong Kong following China’s second successful manned space mission, together with the mission’s two astronauts, Nie Haisheng and Fei Junlong. He made his comments in a televised question-and-answer session with news executives. The two astronauts orbited Earth for five days last month aboard the Shenzhou 6 capsule, traveling 3.2 million kilometers (2 million miles). China’s first manned mission was in 2003, when astronaut Yang Liwei orbited for 21 1/2 hours.
Hu stressed that China intends to explore space for peaceful purposes, saying Beijing “is willing to work hard with people around the world for the peaceful use of space”. Chinese space officials want to study the possibility of making rockets with 25 tons capacity — three times the capacity of exiting rockets — but the government hasn’t approved the funding, he said.—Agencies

 

60% children beaten by parents in China

BEIJING—More than 60 percent of children in China have been beaten by their parents, according to a survey released yesterday by the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences at the International Forum for Children.
More than 200 experts from 10 countries and regions participated in the three-day forum co-organized by the Shanghai Women’s Federation and the academy. Its theme is children’s security and social responsibility.
Yang Xiong, director of the Institute of Youth and Juvenile Studies under the academy, said family violence is the worst kind of harm children can experience.
“Serious violence may cause disability or even death. When children are beaten they have a strong will to resist and some will even seek revenge in the way of self-destruction,” Yang said.
About 5,800 students in 10 cities, including Shanghai, answered the survey’s questions. About 15 percent of respondents said they had been hit by teachers and 38.6 percent had been teased by students in higher grades.
According to the survey, 10.4 percent of sampled children below 12 slept less than eight hours a day. The proportion keeps increasing with the age going up. Among 15-year-old children, the proportion reached 44.6 percent.
“Parents and educators need to be aware of these things because lack of sleep can stunt a child’s growth,” Yang said.
Parents also need to be more aware of their behavior around their children. Nearly 10 percent of the questioned children said they worried most that their parents didn’t care about them. About 35 percent said they were most afraid to see parents argue or fight.