NORTH

Beijing on alert against rabies
首都严防狂犬
Beijing is cleaning up its dog breeding farms in the wake of several rabies outbreaks in other parts of the country. Officials say stray dogs pose the greatest threat of rabies in the capital. The Beijing Municipal Agriculture Bureau will inspect the city's dog breeders and check the registration of pet dogs, in an effort to remove potential sources of rabies outbreaks. The public security department will catch homeless animals and deal with them after confirming they are stray.

3rd Women's Forum on Success opens
第三届女性成功论坛北京开幕
The Third Women's Forum on Success opened in Beijing on August 12. The Forum aims to enhance women's awareness of their equal status with men, encourage female entrepreneurs and equip women with the knowledge and skills they need to compete against men on an equal footing. During the two-day forum, a group of successful women from various walks of life shared their experiences and advice on how to achieve success in their careers.



Wrongly-jailed man demands compensation
误判入狱8年, 索要巨额赔款
A former temporary teacher in rural Hebei, who was wrongly jailed for eight years for the rape of a neighbor, has appealed to a local court for RMB 1.43 million (about USD 180,000) in compensation for the damage to his reputation and material losses. The Intermediate People's Court of Handan City has accepted the appeal from Xu Jibin, who also asked permission to resume his job as a teacher.

 

 

WEST

Foxes trained to catch rats
狐狸拿耗子, 多管闲事?
Xinjiang authorities have trained 20 wild foxes to catch rats, which are being blamed for speeding up desertification in the autonomous region. Rats eat desert plants at the edge of the desert, with an average of 210 rat holes found in every hectare of winter grazing land on desert borders, said Li Xiaoping, the official in charge of the Xinjiang Fox Breeding Center. The center will release 200 foxes onto the grasslands every year to step up the biological fight.

Tibet railway to extend
青藏铁路"节外生枝"
China's newly-built railway to Tibet will be extended some 270 km next year, from Lhasa to the region's second largest city of Xigaze, according to a local official. The project is expected to take three years. About 3,500 tourists have visited Xigaze every day since July 1 when the Qinghai-Tibet railway opened, and all the hotels in the city have been fully occupied.

Walkie talkies pop up in Lanzhou
对讲机成大学生新宠
Students in Lanzhou, Gansu, nowadays like to use walkie talkies to talk to friends within school campuses. Walkie talkies have been seized on by cash-strapped students as a cheap and convenient means of short distance communication. The handsets cost just a few hundred yuan each, and talking is free, making them much more attractive than mobile phones, which charge per minute.

 

 

MIDDLE

Recycling industry forum opens
长三角资源再利用工业论坛开幕
The Yangtze Delta Recycling Forum opened on August 7 in Hefei. Officials, experts and scholars from Anhui, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai gathered to exchange research results and discuss the development of the recycling industry in the delta.

 

 

EAST

English on the bus
上海市民公车上学英语
English learning is taking a whole new route - the bus. World Link, published by US-based Thomson Learning, will be available on some buses in Shanghai this month, according to Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press at the ongoing Shanghai Book Fair. Passengers can follow English programs on monitors aboard buses to improve both listening and speaking skills. According to Oriental Pearl Mobile TV, the program will have at least 9 million viewers every day.

Shanghai Wal-Mart considers unionizing
上海沃尔玛将成立工会
Staff at Shanghai's only Wal-Mart store are considering establishing a trade union, the company has announced. Managers of the Wal-Mart Nanpu Bridge store, in Pudong New District, have been discussing the move with workers and representatives of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), said a company spokesman. The world's largest retailer, with 1.6 million employees in 15 countries, Wal-Mart has traditionally refused to allow its employees to join trade unions, incurring criticism from human rights and labor organizations.



Compensation for text spam
电信公司被告短信骚扰
The country's first lawsuit filed against a telecommunications company for sending unsolicited commercial text messages recently ended in Nanjing, with a ruling that the company must compensate the plaintiff RMB 5,000 (USD 625). Wang Jun, from Nanjing, accused the Jiangsu branch of China Unicom, one of the country's three biggest telecommunication firms, of disturbing his life by relentlessly barraging him with text messages since March. Wang requested a public apology from Jiangsu Unicom in local newspapers and compensation of RMB 40,000 (USD 5,000) for harassment.

 

 

SOUTH

HK international airport tightens security
香港国际机场加强安检
Hong Kong Airport Authority said on August 11 that it has tightened security measures at Hong Kong International Airport, after British police in London thwarted a major terrorist plot to blow up planes flying from Britain to the United States. HK special police have increased patrols at the airport and strengthened security checks, especially for passengers to Britain and the United States.



Government seeks data backup
广东省政府建备用数据库防黑客
The Guangdong provincial government announced on August 9 it would build a data backup and disaster recovery center in a nearby city to safeguard the municipal government's information system. In order to avoid problems following a system collapse, the backup system, known as "Super Brain", will replicate all the information and functions in Guangzhou's e-government agencies. It will serve as a backup in case of a breakdown of the electronic system during an attack or natural disaster.

 

 

Job creation
中国力争今年再创就业岗位1400万

Efforts are being made this year to create 9 million new jobs in cities and towns, and another 5 million for laid-off workers, the Ministry of Labor and Social Security said on August 9. It said in a report that the country is focusing on generating jobs for unemployed college graduates and migrant workers. Acute unemployment in those two groups has aroused great concern in recent years. The ministry said college graduates, who are flooding the employment market, should look to less dynamic western regions and small cities for employment, as there was intense competition in the likes of Beijing and Shanghai. Additional training, internships and employment information would be provided for the jobless, said the ministry. They also aim to train 8 million migrant workers this year, helping them to improve skills and making them more competitive in the job market. China's registered urban unemployment rate stood at 4.2% at the end of June, which is lower than the 4.6% the government had predicted. In the first half of the year China created 130,000 more jobs than in the same period last year, the report said.

Vocabulary
spam 兜售信息
entrepreneur 企业家
unionize 联合
cash-strapped 缺钱的
thwart 击败
walkie-talkie 对讲机