China treats 5th human Bird Flu successfully
Bureau Report

BEIJING—China has treated the fifth person with bird flu successfully, a woman from northeast China’s Liaoning Province who was declared as the fifth person to have contracted human bird flu on Thursday by the Ministry of Health.
“I was discharged from hospital nine days ago after doctors proved I’m healthy. Initial tests during my hospitalization did not suggest I got bird flu, but the latest tests did,” said the woman, surnamed Liu.
The patient’s individual physical condition made the case special and her blood test turned positive only 28 days after she fell sick, said Zhao Zhuo, director of the Liaoning Provincial Disease Control and Prevention Center.
The governments at various levels did not cover up this time and released the information to the public in time, Zhao said.
The woman, aged 31, was a chicken farmer in Fangshan Town in Heishan County, which was hit by bird flu on Nov. 3 and declared free from the epidemic on December 1.
She got feverish on Oct. 30 with 38 degrees Celsius of body temperature. Then her condition worsened with more flu symptoms like coughs and shortness of breath on Nov. 3. She suffered from respiratory exhaustion on Nov. 7, about one week after falling sick.
With prompt, successful treatment, she was discharged as healthy from hospital on Nov. 29 after no flu symptoms had been detected for 14 consecutive days, said Jiang Chao, director of Liaoning Provincial Health Department.
During treatment, Liaoning Provincial Disease Prevention and Control Center tested her blood four times — in the acute period, at 14 days, at 21 days after she got sick, and 28 days after she got sick and was recovering.
The previous three tests were negative, while the last one was positive. The outcome was confirmed in further tests by the China Disease Prevention and Control Center.
The local disease control and prevention center found the bloodsample on Nov. 26 positive, namely 28 days after the woman got sick. The sample was forwarded to the China National Disease Prevention and Control Center, which found it negative. But further tests on Dec. 5 with local H5N1 bird flu virus from Heishan was positive.
The information was sent to a local disease control and prevention center and publicized in the following two days.
Nine people in close contact with Liu, including her husband, son, daughter, mother-in-law, a village doctor and four county medical workers, showed no flu-like symptoms after having been observed for seven days.
“I feel well now. I just want to live simply and undisturbed,” said Liu, after having received so much attention in the past month.

                                                                                                                                                                                       
                                                                                                                                                                       
China, US talks end inconclusive

WASHINGTON—Two days of discussions between the United States and China found common ground on contentious issues but the two sides agreed they sometimes will use differing policies to reach mutual goals. US officials emerged from the sessions seemingly convinced that the Chinese government has made a policy decision to exercise its emerging economic and political power as a “responsible stakeholder” in world affairs.
The phrase was used in a September speech by Robert Zoellick, the State Department’s No. 2 official, that laid out U.S. strategies in its future relationships with China. Zoellick headed the US side in the talks that ended Thursday. His counterpart for China was Dai Bingguo, China’s executive vice foreign minister.
“During this week’s dialogue we discussed how China could work with the United States and others on challenges such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran and North Korea,” Zoellick said in a statement about the talks. “Without always pursuing the same policies, we can still pursue the same policy goals with complementary approaches. We discussed our overlapping interests in fighting terrorism, preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, building energy security and reducing the risks of pandemic disease”.
Other U.S. officials said Dai, in his first offering of the first session, responded to every statement in Zoellick’s September speech, apparently eager to demonstrate its decision to be a major player in world affairs in concert with the United States and others. That harks to the “responsible stakeholder” idea, that China is developing such a huge stake in the coming century that its success will depend on its conduct.
“This concept has spurred a useful debate in China about its role in the world and, in particular, China’s relations with the United States,” Zoellick said. “This strategic framework can help us identify mutual interests and guide our cooperation with China”. The forum for the talks was the second in a “senior dialogue” series suggested to President Bush by Chinese President Hu Jintao. The first was in Beijing in August.
Zoellick’s statement and comments by other American officials came close to effusive in their praise for the exchange. “As President Bush did when he traveled to China, we had discussions about the importance of freedom and human rights,” Zoellick said. “We explained that the United States does not raise these issues to threaten or destabilize China, but rather because we believe expanded freedom is a natural and integral part of China’s development. I noted that China itself has recently stressed that building the rule of law is central to its development strategy”.

                                                                                                                                                                             (The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item)

                                                                                                                                                                           
China to build dam in bid to halt river pollution

HARBIN—China is considering a proposal raised by Russia to build a temporary dam at the confluence of its Heilong and Wusuli rivers to prevent the water source of a neighbouring Russian city being contaminated, a local water resources official said yesterday. Khabarovsk, a major city in the Russian Far East, relies heavily on Wusuli River, on the border, for civilian and industrial use.
The toxic spill in Songhua River, a tributary of Heilong River, was caused by a chemical plant explosion on November 13. About 100 tons of benzene, a carcinogenic chemical, spilled into the river. Building of the dam will start on the Fuyuan waterway, which joins Heilong and Wusuli rivers, to block the flow of the polluted water, said sources at the provincial water resources department.
On Tuesday, the Ministry of Water Resources sent an expert panel to Jiamusi to study the possibility of building the dam. According to the initial investigation, there are two factors in favour of the project.
“The water at the Fuyuan waterway is 0.91 metre at its deepest and 0.3-0.4 metre deep on average. In addition, the current velocity of water there is almost zero,” said an expert. In a related development, the State Council on Tuesday set up a high-level team to probe the cause of the chemical plant blast which led to the pollution and vowed to mete out severe punishment to those responsible.
Li Yizhong, minister of the State Administration of Work Safety, was appointed the head of the investigation team. The team has three groups, responsible for technical, administrative and overall matters. The Supreme People’s Procuratorate has also sent a representative. The same day the special team was formed, Wang Wei, vice-mayor of Jilin city, who was in charge of work safety and environment protection, was found dead at home. Wang, who took part in the rescue work after the blast, insisted to journalists then that there would be no pollution.
The exact reason for his death and whether it was related to the pollution case is unknown. The Jilin Provincial Public Security Bureau is probing the case and local officials refused to comment. The slick disrupted the lives of millions of residents living in the cities downstream of Songhua River. It forced Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang Province, and a city of 3.8 million people, to cut tap-water supply for four days from November 23 to 27.
At 2 pm yesterday, the front of the contaminated water arrived at Aoqi Town, 30 kilometres away from urban Jiamusi. Zhu Guanyao, deputy director of the State Environment Protection Administration (SEPA), yesterday asked governments at all levels along the Songhua River to strengthen monitoring. Meanwhile, in Harbin, experts said they would closely study future impact on drinking water safety, irrigation, fisheries and livestock breeding when the ice melts.

                                                                                                                                                                         (The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item)

Chinese city gets new satellite first-aid facilities

GUANGZHOU—The South China city is installing ambulances with satellite navigation technology and setting up a new state-of-the-art first-aid centre in a bid to improve medical facilities and response times.
Lu Yande, deputy director of Guangzhou Health Bureau, said that the city’s existing main first-aid complex already had its computer system and Intranet facilities upgraded, along with smaller stations across the city.
The main centre has also begun to install the city’s ambulances with the global position system (GPS), to give warning to ambulances in case of traffic jams or other unexpected incidents on the road.
Extra ambulances have been purchased to increase the city’s fleet.
The upgrade of the computer and Intranet system, and the installation of GPS, will cost about 2 million yuan (US$246,600).
Lu said that the measures are expected to make big improvements to existing first-aid operations in the city.
Guangzhou set up its first-aid centre and first-aid medical treatment network by integrating stations into 25 hospitals in the city in 1989.
The first-aid call centre “120” was launched in the same year.
The city’s first-aid system now has 40 stations, 136 ambulances, one air relief site, one sea relief complex and a first-aid pioneer team. And the city’s first-aid call centre has 28 staff members, which could now be increased to 50.
“It is highly necessary to make improvements to the city’s existing out-of-date first-aid infrastructure to be able to respond immediately to first-aid reports and unexpected accidents,” he said.
He said that the new system would make it possible for the first-aid centre, call centre, all the first-aid stations and ambulances to be online for instant information.
It receives about 3,500 calls on average each day.
He said that the municipal government of Guangzhou is planning to set up a new high-standard first-aid centre soon, which is expected to cover an area of 5,000 square metres and be open by 2010 when the city hosts the Asian Games.
The project will be launched as soon as a location is fixed and will take about two years to complete.
He said that the city will also increase the number of first-aid stations in suburban areas and along trunk roads, where emergency treatment is not so easily available.
“We aim to realize a first-aid radius of 4 kilometres in urban areas and 8 to 10 kilometres in suburban areas; we will attempt to make it possible for the ambulance to reach the first-aid site within 10 minutes in the urban areas and less than 15 minutes in suburban areas in one or two years,” he said.

                                                                                                                                                                           (The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item)

World’s 90% top firms invest in China

BEIJING—Four hundred and fifty of the World Top 500 companies have invested in China, said Wei Jianguo, Vice Minister of Commerce.
He said at an activity held between China’s private businesses and the world’s top 500 firms in Hangzhou, capital of east China’s booming Zhejiang Province.
China has been improving its investment environment in recent years, while foreign investors have been optimizing their investment structure, said Liu Yajun, director of the investment promotion department under the Ministry of Commerce.
Businessmen from 202 countries invested in China this year, involving 600 billion US dollars covering almost all fields like the service, manufacturing and rural infrastructure construction sectors, Liu said.
The high-tech and trade service industries were most favored by overseas investors, Liu said. Overseas investment has contributed a lot to China’s economic growth.
The industrial added value made by the joint-ventures took about 27.8 percent of the national industrial added value last year, Liu said.
The joint ventures contributed to about 20.8 percent of the national revenue and provided about 20 million jobs last year, Liu said.
Private businesses provide jobs for 100 million Chinese: China’s private businesses are providing jobs for about 100 million people, said Liu Yajun, director of the investment promotion department under the Ministry of Commerce on Thursday.
He made the remarks at an e vent held between China’s private businesses and the Word’s Top 500 Firms at Hangzhou, capital of east China’s booming Zhejiang Province.
China’s private businesses have been growing remarkably in recent years, with an average annual growth rate of 53 percent, Liu said.
Liu acknowledged that the private businesses are contributing more to the national economy, taking about 60 percent of the national economy and funds from private businesses take about 40 percent of the investment in urban fixed assets.
More capital-intensive and technology-intensive private businesses have emerged and been active in various industries in recent years, including real estate industry, information industry and the new-born service industries, Liu said.
                                                                           
                                                                                                                                                                             (The Daily Mail-China Daily new exchange item)

Historic students movement marked
From Max Lee
The Daily Mail’s Special Correspondent in Beijing

BEIJING—Chinese university and college students arranged a diversity of rich, colorful and healthy activities on Friday to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the “December 9 Movement” and the 60th anniversary of the “December 1 Movement”.
Seminars were held at a number of universities in the national capital of Beijing to educate the students about fine Chinese traditions and instill patriotism.
Sports games, torch relays and cross-country races were also held in universities and colleges in northeast China’s Heilongjiang provinces as well as in Beijing, while singing and writing contests and poetry composition were arranged in several southern universities.
The historic “December 9 Movement” occurred in 1935 when university and college students in Beijing (then called Beiping), under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, took to the streets and staged a massive patriotic demonstration, with such revolutionary slogans as “Stop the civil war and unite to resist foreign aggression” and “Down with Japanese imperialism”.
The movement soon spread elsewhere in China then and gained extensive support, but it was suppressed by the then-ruling Kuomintang (KMT) government.
The “December 1 Movement” was an democratic anti-civil war movement initiated by students in 1945, when the Kuomintang authorities shot more than 60 students in high schools and universities in Yunnan Province for their anti-war advocacy and thus aroused a nationwide patriotic campaign.