HSK held in Xiada
Photo by Yao Fan



On December 5 for the first time, an HSK test was held at the Overseas Education College, Xiamen University. All together 139 people from 13 countries participated in the test, most of whom are overseas students from Xiamen University with the rest being foreigners living in Xiamen.

 

 

Economics

Kinmen tour enters operating stage
游金门进入操作阶段
Following the consultations between Kinmen and Xiamen travel agencies, Kimen tours for Fujian residents will soon enter the actual operating stage. At present, the proposed itinerary is for three days and two nights. A three-day and two-night tour of Kimen will cost around RMB 2,000 per person for Fujian residents in a tour group.

High yield of marine fish breeding possible without drugs
养海鱼不用药照样高产
High yield in aquiculture is possible with minimal or no use of drugs. Research for the city's "Fishery Non-pollution Mesh and Case Breeding Project" has recently achieved significant results, which will greatly improve the quality of the local marine products.

Local seafood price rises
厦海鲜涨价
Prices of local seafood have recently risen up to 50% as a result of the strong demand for seafood at restaurants and hotels, which are receiving an increased amount of reservations for wedding banquets and year-end feasts. Another problem is the reduced supply resulting from bad weather conditions, which have hampered fishermen's normal production activities.

 

 

Society

No subway planned for Xiamen
厦门暂不考虑建地铁
Pan Shijian, Deputy Mayor of Xiamen, said during a briefing on the city's planning and development that the local government has no plan to build a subway in Xiamen for the time being. He explained that unlike Beijing and Shanghai, Xiamen has too many subterranean fractures and excessively complicated geological conditions, which makes it unfeasible to build a subway before the current urban population density reaches a sufficient level.

Street artists to be licensed
街头艺人要持证上岗
Street artists will soon be strictly regulated by local authorities in a change from the recent laissez-faire attitude towards them. In mid-December, the Administrative Committee for Gulangyu Islet & Wanshi Hill Scenic Area will organize an expert panel to evaluate street artists. Ten "street musicians" will be singled out for performing for tourists at designated locations. This is the first such move in Xiamen and even in the whole country.

All seashells purified for market
贝类全部净化上市
Local authorities plan to promulgate the Xiamen Local Standards & Administrative Measures for Seashell Purification by the year's end. Effective on New Year's Day, all seashells must be purified before hitting the market. To date, the city's fishery quality inspection station has built the capabilities to inspect microorganism, toxins, antibiotics and heavy metals.

Xiagang to be renovated next year
明年改造厦港
Local authorities will implement three major policies to guide real estate development next year: focusing renovation efforts on the Xiagang area, encouraging property development on large stretches of land and off the island, and creating a new residential district in Jimei.

Ecological restroom installed in railway station square
生态公厕进驻火车站广场
A mobile, ecological and environmental-friendly restroom, costing more than RMB 200,000, has been put into service by the Xiamen Railway Station. The new restroom, managed around the clock by designated personnel, utilizes high technologies from Japan to dispose of solid excrements by degradation and liquid excrements by precipitation, filtering and deodorizing, part of which can even be used to flush the toilet.

Xiamen tiger competes for Olympic mascot
厦门虎应征奥运吉祥物
December 1 was the deadline for the submission of mascot designs for the Beijing Olympic Games. So far, more than 600 designs have been submitted. Fujian provincial government has submitted Longyan South China Tiger (also known as Xiamen Tiger) as a candidate mascot for the Beijing Olympic Games (the 29th Olympiad).

 

 

Education

Xiamen University to build Japanese Research Institute
厦大将建日本研究所
Zhu Chongshi, president of Xiamen University, recently unveiled the university's plan to build an institute for Japanese studies. The institute will conduct studies of Japanese language, education, economy and politics in the initial stage and expand its research to cover Japanese society and religion later on.

Primary school students to travel abroad for "study tours"
小学生出国"游学"
Starting next year, Singapore's Nanyang Primary School and Huming and Bingdong Primary Schools in the Siming District of Xiamen will exchange teachers and students for "study tours". The exchange program will be the first of its kind in Xiamen's history of cross-country joint operations of primary schools.

Schools to offer anti-AIDS courses
学校将开设防艾课程
All local schools must offer anti-AIDS courses. The City's Education Bureau has recently made an official decree, requiring all local schools to make AIDS health education part of their students' curricula, with six hours for junior middle school students and four hours for senior middle school students.

 

 

City News
Edited by Lily

Beijing 北京

Fog dampens "blue sky" campaign
大雾滞延"蓝天行动"
Heavy fog ushered in an awkward start for the last month of Beijing's "blue sky campaign," a goal set for the municipality's 2004 air pollution cleanup. Beijing is in need of 18 clear-sky days in December according to the environmental protection campaign, which requires the capital to have clear sky 62 percent of the year, or 227 days.
It was the first heavy fog in the national capital this winter and five of the eight expressways were blocked because the visibility was less than one kilometer.

Police officers report work to public
警官定期向公众述职
Nearly 5,000 police officers at all of Beijing's 363 grass-roots police substations started to report their work to residents in their precincts. Each police officer's report session requires a minimum of 50 local residents from different walks of life to be in attendance. The evaluation form includes 13 items including the effectiveness of local police officers, corruption, hoc fines and negligence. Residents' feedback will be recorded in a police dossier. The reports will take place twice a year - from June 1-10 and December 1-10.

Preparing to meet the press
2008奥运应对媒体大军
A top Greek official said it is important to provide assistance to non-accredited journalists attending the Olympic Games along with approved news media people. He headed the Zappeion Press Centre, which aided more than 4,000 non-accredited journalists during the Athens Olympic Games and Paralympic Games. It was believed that such centers would be helpful to facilitate those media people who were not able to gain accreditation in the Olympic Games.

Shanghai 上海

Fake e-coupons flood McDonald's Shanghai
麦当劳遭遇网上假券
Shanghai McDonald's restaurants are being flooded with fake free-meal coupons that have been distributed over the Internet. The cyber frauds offer a free set meal for each meal purchased. McDonald's is providing e-coupons, but only for free ice cream cones. The company is now directing customers to its website for the real thing. The fake coupons have been passed around the city by e-mail and McDonald's Shanghai headquarters have received 60 calls about the coupon. Officials said it will be hard to discover the origin of the fake coupons.

Upgrade to transport links
交通升级备战世博会
Though the 2010 World Expo is still years away, the host city is already actively preparing itself for the big event. The organizers are most concerned about traffic. To meet the need of such a big event, the transportation system should be both modern and multiplex. Safety and economical aspects will be a top priority. The metro lines in the city will carry 50 percent of total passengers. The public buses will take 30 percent. Other plans also under consideration for the World Expo are expanding the existing magnetic suspension line to reach the Expo garden.

Graveyard leases cut
削减墓地租期
Shanghai plans to cut the current 70-year leases on graveyards to 30 years. The measure aims at saving land in this increasingly ageing and densely populated city in the country. A newly implemented local standard, which aims to standardize the measurement of graveyards, sets a clear criterion on the size of the tombs. The standard also stipulates the space between tombs.
Before this, each public cemetery had its own measurement, which has already resulted in an extravagant use of land.

Chongqing 重庆

Migrant birds fly back for winter
侯鸟飞来过冬
Some water birds these days can be seen flying over the confluence of the Jialing and the Yangtze rivers by the Chaotianmen Harbor in Chongqing. They are gulls, migrant birds from outside Chongqing who are coming to spend their winter there.

Three Gorges Dam areas to be built into new economic zone
三峡大坝将成新的经济区
The CPC Chongqing Municipal Committee and Chongqing Municipal Government have been called on to carry out the plans and the projects made by the State Council. They are going to build the Three Gorges Dam areas of the Yangtze River into a new type of ecological economic zone. There economy will develop, society will progress, people's lives will stabilize and the environment will be fine.

Guangzhou 广州

Pregnant women with HIV to be treated free
免费救治HIV孕妇
HIV-infected pregnant women are expected to receive free medication in a government move to prevent mother-to-child transmission of the virus. Among the 20 infected pregnant women, six had given birth successfully without transmission to their children, another six had their pregnancies terminated and the remaining eight had given birth without knowing they were infected. Transmission from infected mother to child mainly takes place in the womb, during labor or through breastfeeding.

Chilly X'mas for Guangdong exporters
出口商圣诞"低落"
Guangdong, one of the major provincial exporters of Christmas gifts in China, is experiencing a big drop in exports of Christmas products. Except for August, when there was a slight increase of 5 percent year on year, exports in July and September slumped 20 percent over the same period last year.
Rises in price for raw materials were considered the main factor triggering the loss of export.

Health alert for body cleansing
小心"洗"出危险
Guangzhou experts are warning consumers to be careful about lung and blood cleansing services in beauty parlors and hospitals.
Human organ cleansing has become popular in Guangzhou as people are becoming more aware of health issues and believe cleansing can help remove "inner poisonous materials". It is especially popular among young women who believe the process makes them look better and slimmer. But actually frequent blood cleansing can increase the possibility of blood contamination. The best way to keep fit and healthy is to exercise more and have a healthy diet rather than cleansing your body.

Hongkong 香港

Researchers develop novel treatment for liver cancer
治疗肝癌新法
A study describing a novel liver cancer treatment released by the University of Hong Kong (HKU) has shown that arginase is effective for suppressing cancerous cell growth.
Conventional chemotherapy depends on drugs that are cytotoxic to cancer cells, but these drugs are also cytotoxic to normal cells. This is the first drug developed in Hong Kong that has been able to come to the stage of clinical trial. It has currently been synthesized in the Chinese mainland with quality compatible with the Chinese State Federal Food and Drug Administration's requirements for the Investigational New Drug Status for human trials.
A clinical trial in Hong Kong's Queen Mary Hospital will start in December 2004.

Restaurant at centre of outbreak may face prosecution
无证经营餐馆将被重罚
The restaurant hit with more than 100 food poisoning cases is suspected to have been operating without a licence for six days.
A spokesman said the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department was investigating to decide whether to prosecute. The maximum penalty for operating a restaurant without a licence is $50,000 and six months' jail. A total of 154 food poisoning cases have been traced back to the Chinese restaurant since November 24. Officials believe the problem was caused during food preparation, with cross-contamination between raw and cooked food.
It's said the food poisoning outbreak was caused by the bacterium vibrio parahaemolyticus, which is one of the most common causes of food poisoning.

Henderson Land sweetens bid with Bruce Lee gallery
李小龙纪念馆在建
A permanent gallery dedicated to Bruce Lee has been promised by one of the developers competing to build the West Kowloon cultural project.
Robert Lee, brother of the martial arts movie legend, said Henderson Land had told him it would establish a permanent area in the moving-image museum at its proposed Hong Kong Cultural Park. It would show Bruce Lee films and exhibit personal belongings and childhood photographs.
Bruce Lee followers in Hong Kong have for years been urging the government to fund a permanent memorial to their hero, who died in 1973 at the age of 32.
Henderson also plans to establish a fund to nurture artists and to add facilities specifically for Chinese opera, including a permanent outdoor theatre.

Taipei 台北

Visa-free policy for Taiwan
赴日韩游免签
As part of a plan to stimulate tourism, the government said that it will permanently waive visa requirements for Taiwanese visitors to Japan.
The waiver, which will apply only to tourists, will be introduced in two stages. A temporary waiver will be introduced in time for the 2005 World Expo, which runs from March to September.
The waiver will become permanent from next fall. Taipei is also considering a similar system for tourists to South Korea.

Help Iraqi schools launch Internet network
资助伊拉克学校
Taiwan will donate 400,000 US dollars to help Iraqi schools set up an Internet centre so students can use their computers to learn about the outside world.
The Internet centre is a continuation of Taiwan's participation in Iraq's post-war reconstruction. After the US-led war on Iraq broke out, Taiwan pledged 4.3 million US dollars in aid to Iraq. Taiwan non-governmental organizations (NGOs) donated 13 containers of relief material and 2 million US dollars to Iraq last year.

Bank suggests reducing stakes in Taiwan dollar
银行建议减少台资投放
Standard Chartered Plc. recommended that some investors cut holdings of Taiwan dollars to lock in recent gains in the currency and to limit losses should it decline in the coming two to four weeks.
The Taiwan dollar's 5.6 percent appreciation in the past three months may stall because the island's trade surplus is narrowing, the bank said in a research note. Also, Standard & Poor's this week downgraded its outlook for the island's credit rating and a political conflict with the mainland may intensify.
The report predicted any immediate declines in the island's currency may be reversed in coming months.
The Taiwan dollar may strengthen against the U.S. currency in three to six months on speculation that Taiwan's central bank will raise interest rates.