Extinction of baiji, Lipotes vexillifer Chinese River Dolphin from Yangtze River

Enviromental issues is now considered as the top threats to China, they finnaly realised that if they dont do anything about the enviroment they will not have a country to live in anymore.

The latest victim is the fresh river dolphin or baiji, lipotes vexllifer, which were entirely wiped out from the Yangtze river.

Robert L. Pitman has spent 30 years studying the world’s whales, dolphins and other aquatic mammals.

He returned to San Deigo, Calif., last week after a fruitless six-week expedition in which teams of five observers on two vessels scoured the Yangtze River from the Three Gorges Dam to Shanghai, seeking the last members of the rarest cetacean species of all, a white, nearly blind dolphin called the baiji, Lipotes vexillifer.

The dolphin is now considered, at best, “functionally extinct.” Dr. Pitman wrote this note in response to a reporter’s question about the broader implications of this, the first apparent extinction of a cetacean in modern times.

Locally, the Yangtze River is in serious trouble; the canary in the coal mine is dead. In addition to baiji, the Yangtze paddlefish is (was) probably the largest freshwater fish in the world (at least 21 feet), and it hasn’t been seen since 2003; the huge Yangtze sturgeon breeds only in tanks now because it has no natural habitat (a very large dam stands between it and its breeding grounds).

The whole river ecosystem is going down the tubes in the name of rampant economic development. There is a huge environmental debt accruing on the Yangtze, and baiji was perhaps just the first installment.

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The price one is willing to pay for the so called "developements" is unbilievable!

Chinese Website charged with distributing hollywood movies online

Piracy has always been one of the top issues in China, and China is under alots of pressure from the global community to curb piracy and to penalise those who involved in such an act.

The upcoming Beijing Olympics games actually play a huge role on why Chinese government suddenly put such emphasize on this matter.

BEIJING, Dec. 29 (AP) — A Beijing court has ordered the popular Chinese Web portal Sohu.com to pay $140,000 in damages for distributing Hollywood movies online without permission, the movie industry’s trade group said Friday.

A subsidiary of Sohu.com must also publish an acknowledgment of wrongdoing, the Motion Picture Association said.

A Sohu spokeswoman, Zhang Xin, said the company was aware of the ruling but had no comment.

China is regarded as the world’s leading source of illegally copied movies, software and other goods, despite repeated government promises to stamp out the underground industry. The Motion Picture Association blames piracy in China for costing studios in the United States $244 million in lost box office revenues last year.

[Read Full Article Here]

Dogs Eater Jailed in Hong Kong

I really cannot understand how someone could eat a dog, dog are never meant to be part of our foodchain, likewise wolves, foxes, tigers, lions etc.

What worse is we human have very close relationship with dogs, we rare them as pet and not as food. We play with them like a friend and they treat us with dignity protecting us and our properties from harms way. How could you eat a dog? eating a dog is just like eating a friend!

Dog eating is totally unacceptable and the person caught eating dogs should be heavily penalise!

Jailed For Eating Dogs

Four men were sentenced to 30 days imprisonment for slaughtering of dogs for food by a Hong Kong court. Counsel for defendants in mitigation said that it was a question of food culture and the case did not involve torture. The learned magistrate was unimpressed - "then assault is even more serious than murder?"

Imprisonment for the offence is unprecedented. The usual sentence has been fine.

Dogs and Cats Regulations (Chapter 167A), the Laws of Hong Kong
Regulation 22(1):-
No person shall slaughter any dog or cat for use as food whether for mankind or otherwise.

Regulation 23:-
Any person who contravenes regulation 22(1) or (2) shall be liable to a fine of $5000 and to imprisonment for 6 months.

[Source]

China's Toys Industries Outgrown Themselves

This issue will inevitably happen and just as I predicted a few years ago, China will slowly become like Japan. Japan started as one of the manufacturer for cheap products and slowly transformed their way into one of the most expensive nation by today's standard so is China.

Standard of living is rapidly increasing on China and at an alarming rate, employer have no choice but to include the additional overhead into the price of the products itself thus creating more expensive products in the near future, this is further worsen by the evaluation of the Yuan against US dollar. Pretty soon China will not be able to produce cheap toys anymore.

Those whole process is actually a cycle, when the boss is making mpre then the employees will want more too, employees will keep demanding and because China is such a labour intensive country employers have no choice but to give in to the employee's requests and the additional cost is then transfered to the price of the products.

China's toy industry feels growing pains

DONGGUAN, China — At the North Pole, the elves are bustling to fill Santa's sack with toys for the world's children.

In the real world, Christmas looks like Dongguan: a grey, industrial city in South China, where mile upon mile of factories house mile upon mile of uniformed young women toiling on production lines. Within a single generation, they have swept up the global toy business.

But are they bustling hard enough? Reports suggest that America's hottest Christmas toys, such as Mattel's T.M.X. Elmo, are running short this year. And some place the blame on China, where rising labor costs and electricity blackouts have disrupted production. Labor shortages, too, though hard to imagine in the world's most populous country, now affect U.S. firms sourcing from China.

"Wages have gone up, the availability of labor is not as plentiful as before, and power shortages continue to happen," says Tom Debrowski, Mattel's executive vice president of global operations.

Now, those companies face a raft of new challenges as minimum wage laws raise production costs, raw material prices rise and ethical trading concerns force their Chinese partners, already operating on wafer-thin profit margins, to treat the workforce more fairly.

You hardly need look for that "Made in China" stamp. "Consumers are shocked that something is made (in the USA)," says Araten, who still makes the bulk of his toys' rods and connectors in the USA, but assembles 90% of the final product in China.

South China toy center

China's toys now constitute 75% of world output, according to the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Light Industrial Products and Arts-Crafts. And the bulk comes from Guangdong province, home to more than 5,000 of China's 8,000 toy factories.

At peak times, some 1.5 million workers are making toys in Guangdong, which borders Hong Kong.

Last year, the province accounted for 78% of China's $15.2 billion of toy exports, a 10% jump from 2004, according to customs figures.

The toy migration to mainland China from Taiwan and Hong Kong in the 1960s, sometimes via Japan in the 1970s, is epitomized by Chinese firms such as Lung Cheong.

The 40-year-old firm now employs 5,000 workers, 70% of them women, at its Dongguan plants, which boast their own generators to deal with occasional power shortages. Lung Cheong ranks among the most successful toy companies in Guangdong, exporting $50 million worth of toys to the USA every year, for clients including Mattel (such as the flying Superman toy), MGA and Hobbico.

But the realities of a highly competitive marketplace are forcing change.

"It has become harder and harder to hire people in recent years," says Leung. "Other places in China have developed, and workers want to stay close to home."

To slow turnover and cut operation costs, the company will unify its production next year in a single factory with improved facilities for workers, including basketball courts and karaoke halls.

Those workers include Zhang Hairong, 28, who packages toys on a production line for $88 a month, the local minimum wage (raised 20% this September), for an eight-hour daily shift, 21 days per month.

But business is tough for many Chinese toy companies, says Chen Huangman, secretary general of the Guangdong toy association. "There is so much pressure on prices from foreign companies."

U.S. buyers demand prices that are not reasonable, considering the growing labor costs, says colleague Li Zhuoming. "Wal-Mart in particular puts a lot of pressure on prices, and as they order so much from China, it has a large influence," says Li.

Toys R Us recently opened its first mainland China store to capitalize on growing incomes within China.

[Read Full Aticle Here]

RETIREMENT AGE gap proposed to be shortened

Why is there a different retirement age between a man and a woman in the 21st century? Don't think many women or families have like 6 kids nowadays like those days. Many women can handle family, work with no hassle. Trust them.

The percentage of people have 6 kids in a home is Chinese scholars proposed recently that China should not only delay people's retirement age to 65 or even older, but also shorten the retirement age gap between male and female.

It is learned that the average life expectancy of Chinese people has risen by more than 20 years since the founding of the People's Republic of China, while their retirement age remains no change for more than 50 years.

According to law in China, a man retires at 60, women cadres at 55 and women workers at 50.
In the 1950s, every woman had to take care of 6 kids on average. Playing an important role in family life, women were permitted to retire five years earlier than men at that time. But situation has changed greatly nowadays. Women have relieved a lot from heavy family burden as the old days.

Moreover, the average life expectancy has risen from 49 years old in 1950 to 72 at present. "Furthermore, Chinese women now live three years longer than men on average.

Therefore, the retirement age gap should be shortened between men and women," said Du Peng, chief of the Research Institute of Gerontics in the Renmin University of China.

[Source]

China Warmest in 134 Years

First we have snowless situation in the Swiss Alps and now China is experiencing the warmest winter since 1873. Whats next? Show in Malaysia?

Protects planet earth, this is the only home we have.

Shanghai reported an average temperature of 18.2 degrees centigrade in its urban areas this year, the warmest year since it started to record weather information in 1873.


The temperature is 0.1 of a degree centigrade higher than the last record in 2004, a source with the municipal meteorological bureau said on Saturday.

The bureau said the city recorded 17.5 degrees centigrade on average this year, the warmest year since Shanghai set the first meteorological observatory in its suburban areas in 1961.

Shanghai experienced its warmest autumn in 55 years this year, with the average temperature reaching 20.8 degrees centigrade between September and November.

[Read Full Article Here]

Ice drug kingpin in Guangdong sentenced to death

If the report is true then this guy made 12 tonnes of drugs before he was caught. 12 tonnes!! thats a whole freaking lotsa drugs and lotsa freaking destroyed the life of lots n lotsa innocent people all over the world!!!

But if you look at it from a different angle, if there is no buyer i doubt he would be producing that kinda quantity of drugs for sale also. This kinda things works both ways, demand and supplies. Why arent the drugs abusers being penalise as well? Prolly there are too much of them and it would be easier to penalise the producers?

Think again, cause when they buying stopped then production stops too!

Ice drug kingpin in Guangdong sentenced to death

BEIJING - A Chinese court has sentenced a man to death for making 12 tonnes of the drug ice, a local newspaper said on Tuesday. The court in the southern city of Guangzhou handed down the sentence to Chen Bingxi on Monday after a 22-month trial, convicting him of making, trafficking and shipping the drug and illegally crossing the border, the Beijing News said.

The official Xinhua news agency has described the case as "the world's largest" in the trade of ice, the street name for the crystallised form of methamphetamine that causes euphoria.

Under Chinese law, those found guilty of making or dealing 50 grams of ice can face capital punishment.

Local media said that 12 tonnes had been roughly the amount of all ice seized elsewhere in the world in 1999.

Chen, 50, masterminded and funded the ice production from 1998-1999 in a handbag factory in his native province of Guangdong in south China and in a pesticide factory in the northwestern region of Ningxia, the Beijing News said.
He fled to Thailand in 1999 the but was arrested by police in 2003, state media have said.

Chen and his wife, who was jailed by the court for 11 years for helping with the business, would appeal, the Beijing News said.

Two members of Chen's drug ring were also sentenced to death, but with a two-year reprieve, while another two received life imprisonment, Xinhua said on Tuesday.

[Source]

Women hurt in Xuzhou cash grab

There is a chinese proverb saying "If you got the cash, you can even hire a ghost to work for you" what else a man?

There is this incident in Xuzhou where a man drop a large stash of cash in the elevator and a mob hurt 2 ladies while trying to push his way through the cash.

He managed to grab 1,800 yuan (US$229) and was later recovered by the police. Whats the point??!!

Cash grab nearly crushes women

Two women were nearly trampled when people swarmed into the lift they were in to pick up dropped banknotes at the Xuzhou Railway Station in Jiangsu Province last Wednesday.

The two women were walking into a lift in the waiting hall when a man in front of them dropped a pile of banknotes on the ground. A mob pushed their way into the elevator to pick up the money, pushing the two women to the ground. Station staff heard their cries for help and rushed to save them.

More than 1,800 yuan (US$229) was grabbed in the crush, but it was all returned to the owner with the help of police.

[Source]

eBay to shut own site in China

eBay PLANS TO PARTNER WITH LOCALLY OWNED FIRM

By Troy Wolverton



Mercury NewseBay plans to shutter its main auction site serving China and replace it with one majority owned and run by a Chinese company, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.


As soon as Tuesday, the San Jose-based online auction company will announce that it has formed a partnership with Tom Online, a Beijing-based online portal company, according to the Journal. Tom will invest $20 million and own a 51 percent stake in the joint venture, which will head up eBay's new Chinese auction effort. eBay will invest $40 million and own the remaining 49 percent of the company, the Journal reported.


The new site will launch next year, but the companies have not yet decided what to call it, according to the Journal. eBay will continue to run an auction site catering to Chinese who sell items to buyers outside of the country.


[Full Article Here]

Little Fatty Found Instant Fame

"Little Fatty" an instant Internet phenomenon

Dec. 9 - An overweight Chinese gas station attendant has become an unexpected celebrity after a picture of his portly face was posted on the Internet -- and then started appearing on movie posters and in other unlikely places.

Nicknamed "Little Fatty," 19-year-old Qian Zhijun's picture was loaded on to the Internet four years ago by a teacher.

His face -- round, ruddy-cheeked, with a drooping mouth and topped by a mop of black hair -- has since replaced Tom Hanks' on a poster for the movie "The Da Vinci Code" and Johnny Depp's for "Pirates of the Caribbean," to name just two.

Although famous now and having appeared extensively in Chinese media, Qian says he was rather upset when he first saw his photo being made fun of on the Web.

"Now my feeling has changed. If you always feel depressed, then you feel uncomfortable. Now I can view this event with a calm mind, and I feel released," said Qian.

This combo taken from a Chinese website shows doctored pictures depicting "Xiao Pang" ("Little Fatty") on various movie posters in Beijing. The chubby-faced Shanghai gas-station intern known as 'Little Fatty' has vaulted to the top of Internet fame in China thanks to cheeky PhotoShop artists who are turning the plump youth into a pop icon. (Photo: AFP)

[source]

Back Dorm Boys Going Pro

Huang Yixin, left, and Wei Wei, right, former college roommates from south China who last year found worldwide web notoriety with their low-quality, high-hilarity lipsynching clips, perform one of their famous numbers during a recording session in Beijing, Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2006.

Lip-synching duo look beyond YouTube fame


Dec. 13 - Their mock music videos draw millions of Internet viewers and thousands of fawning reviews by fans around the globe who declare them hilarious, talented, cute, and hot.
Now, Huang Yixin and Wei Wei, former college roommates from south China who last year found worldwide Web notoriety with their low-quality, high-hilarity lip-synching clips, are aiming for a career in the performing arts.


"We want to do movies, ads, music, abstract art, everything," said Huang, who is known to fans as "the little one." He usually "sings" the high notes and has perfected the pretty boy's doe-eyed gaze.


In February, the duo signed a five-year contract with Taihe Rye Music, a Beijing talent management company. Other clients include pop star Xu Wei and the winner of China's own American Idol-style singing contest Li Yuchun.


"We think they have a lot of artistic potential," said Taihe manager Song Zhe. "They could do a lot of different kinds of projects like movies, singing, maybe funny cameo bit parts ... their own art exhibitions."


They are known in English as the "Two Chinese Boys," "Chinese Backstreet Boys" or "Back Dorm Boys," which is a direct translation of their Chinese nickname "Houshe Nansheng."
The 24-year-old sculpture majors graduated from the Guanzhou Academy of Fine Arts in June and moved to Beijing in October to study singing, dancing and stage arts. At Taihe's office in Beijing, they show off their senior project: lifesize sculptures of themselves performing in red sweatshirts and chunky basketball shoes.


Huang and Wei are part of a new generation of Chinese who spend hours online every day, surfing, blogging, playing interactive games, doing video and text chat, and downloading music and movies.


China's Internet market is the world's second biggest after the United States, with more than 123 million people online.


Their tongue-in-cheek faux delivery of schmaltzy ballads and fluffy pop — all filmed in their dorm room with Huang's cheap little web camera — has spawned dozens of spoofs and countless copycats.


They posted their first "performance," a nearly 5-minute clip of lip-synching to the Backstreet Boys hit "I Want It That Way," to their college intranet in March 2005. It quickly migrated to big sites like YouTube and Google Video and fast became one of the most watched and highest rated amateur clips online.


A French fan leaves them a message on YouTube saying "j'adore!!!!!!!!!!" while another from Brazil writes "Perfeito!! Love u boys..love love love de video!!"


Over the past 18 months, they've done five more music videos and landed jobs advertising Pepsi Cola, Motorola, and Jessica Simpson's latest album 'Public Affair.'


Wei, the 'big one' who Huang insists looks like basketball star Yao Ming, said the two just want to have fun and approach whatever they do with an artistic attitude.


"The way we do things too is very easy going, we are really just looking to have fun and enjoy life," he said.


They won't reveal how much money they have earned since making it big on the Internet but say it is enough for them to maintain separate apartments in a Beijing suburb and keep spending money in their pockets.


"The secret is: enjoy yourself," the two said at the same time, when asked to explain why in a sea of amateur videos, they stand out. "And do what you like."

[source]

Tighter Gun Control Before Beijing Olympics 2008

Beijing is tightening control on the storage and safe handling of guns, ammunition, explosives and radioactive materials in a bid to secure a safe Olympics in 2008, the capital's police chief said Tuesday.

Beijing will no longer approve commercial shooting ranges and hunting ranges, and sports authorities are required to reduce the number of shooting ranges for training purposes and cut down the number of guns, said Ma Zhenchuan, director of the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau.

Museums and exhibition halls that fail to safely display weapons must remove them, Ma said.
Gun producers and sellers and professional storing agencies of guns should reduce their guns and ammunition, he said.

Private ownership of guns is forbidden in China.

Meanwhile, guns owned by organizations that are engaged in sport shooting should not be increased, he said.

In the future, local police will only approve new state or municipal storehouses for high risk explosives in the eight districts of the city, and police will only approve explosive tests within the city that are attached to necessary scientific and teaching programs.

All the districts and counties administered by Beijing are also ordered to cut down on the number of storehouses of explosives, toxic chemicals and radioactive material, he said.

"If such dangerous articles (guns, ammunition, explosives and radioactive material) are lost or stolen due to a lack of management, the organizations and manager will prosecuted and their permits revoked," Ma said.

[source]

McDonald Beijing Where Homeless Chinese Hangout

BEIJING, Dec. 16 (Xinhua) -- The decision by McDonalds to churn out Big Macs 24 hours a day in some of its restaurants in Beijing has proved an unexpected bonus for the capital's homeless population this winter.

It is becoming common for Beijing's homeless people to use the fast food chain's outlets as a respite from the biting winter and on Friday night more than a dozen people slept in a McDonalds restaurant in Shuangyushu, Haidian District. Some of them ate the food left on the table before going to sleep on the benches.

A middle-aged man said shyly that he had come to Beijing from another province to look for a job. But he had not found one and had no place to live. "I've lived in McDonalds for more than two months," he said.

Another young man in the same situation said, "The rent in Beijing is so high that I've had to stay in McDonalds while I look for a job. It's very warm in here and I can often find some food. Since the restaurant is located in the downtown area, it is convenient for job-hunting during the day," he said.

Homeless people have also been seen sleeping in other McDonalds in Beijing but the majority of customers seem unperturbed.

A customer surnamed Lin said she didn't mind if there was someone sleeping nearby when she was having her meal. But another customer surnamed Gu pointed out the restaurant should ensure a "good dining environment".

No one from the McDonalds headquarters in Beijing was available for comment but it seems the staff in the Shuangyushu branch are not overly concerned.

"We haven't found a good way to solve the problem since the tramps would not leave the restaurant when asked but they are not disturbing other customers' meals," one worker said.


[Source]

English Speaking Driver for Beijing Olympics 2008

BEIJING, Dec. 16 (Xinhua) -- Beijing started on Saturday to select volunteer drivers for the 2008 Olympics from a shortlist of 6,200 candidates.

One hundred candidates were tested on Saturday on their driving skills, oral English and knowledge of the Olympics, according to the organizing committee of the 2008 Olympic Games.

The tests will last until January 28 and a training scheme will be drawn up based on the test results, it said.

The candidates were picked from eight government departments including the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission.

Three thousand of them will be

[ source]

More than 6,200 volunteer drivers in Beijing for the 2008 Olympic Games will receive English language proficiency test from next weekend to the end of January.
The volunteers were picked from eight governmental departments including the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission.
They were asked to use weekends to go to four driving training bases designated by the organizing committee for the Beijing Olympics to receive tests and evaluation about their English communication capability.

Students of English major with good academic records from the renowned Beijing Foreign Studies University will work as testing instructors.

A training scheme will be made based on the test results, according to Sunday's Beijing News.
The paper said the volunteers are "quite uneven" in English proficiency because of an age gap.

[Source]