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Premier Li Keqiang and his wife, Cheng Hong (second from left), who are on a visit to Africa, attend an exhibition featuring China's most advanced railway and aviation technologies with Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma (left), who chairs the African Union Commission, and Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn (right) at the new AU headquarters in Addis Ababa on May 5. Li Xueren / Xinhua

Li vows to expand ties with Africa

Premier Li Keqiang said on May 6 that China is willing to unreservedly transfer industries and technologies that match Africa's needs.

He made the remarks at an economic, trade and people-to-people exchange symposium in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.

China, for instance, has unconditionally transferred its high-yielding hybrid rice technology to Africa to contribute to the continent's poverty relief program, he said.

"To live and let live, as we have enough to eat, we'd like to see our friends lead the same lives," he said.

With a combined population of 2.3 billion, China and Africa see each other as tremendous development potential, he said. Their intensified cooperation will benefit both peoples in a profound way, Li said.

Housing sales fall over May Day break

Property sales fell by more than 30 percent in major cities during the May Day holiday compared with the same period last year, according to property agency Centaline Group.

This holiday period used to see brisk transactions.

Dragged down by the first-tier cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, 9,887 apartments were sold in transactions in the country's 54 major cities, a drop of 32.5 percent from last year.

Second-tier cities - mostly provincial capitals - saw housing sales drop by about 35 percent.

The Beijing Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development said only 169 apartments were sold from May 1 to 3, down by nearly 80 percent from the same period last year and a record low since 2008.

In Shenzhen, Guangdong province, only 49 apartments were sold during the holiday, compared with 133 last year.

A total of 423 apartments were sold in Shanghai and 405 in Guangzhou, the Guangdong provincial capital, roughly the same as last year.

New satellite boosts bright forecast

China is boosting its weather forecast and natural disaster prevention capacity with a new weather satellite delivered to the China Meteorological Administration on May 5.

"FY-3C, a polar orbiting meteorological satellite, marks a milestone for China's meteorological satellite development, making China one of the most advanced countries in this field," said Zheng Guoguang, director of the administration.

The satellite will replace FY-3A, the test satellite launched in 2008, and provide global air temperature, humidity profiles and meteorological parameters such as cloud and surface radiation required for weather forecasts.

The FY-3C satellite, designed to last five years, carries 12 remote sensing instruments, including microwave temperature and humidity sounders and GNSS occultation detectors, a new payload for the global three-dimensional and vertical soundings of the atmosphere.

The satellite, launched in September from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in Shanxi province, will be the country's 13th weather satellite launched since 1988.

Chinese teens not so short after all

The claim that Chinese teenagers' average height falls short of their Japanese and South Korean counterparts surfaced at the National People's Congress in March, prompting public concern that students' fitness levels have plunged.

Specialists at a recent youth sports event shrugged off the comparisons, though they highlighted the importance of adequate exercise and diet as non-genetic factors behind overall health.

A fitness expert also rejected the notion that Chinese youths are shorter than Japanese or South Koreans.

An average 17-year-old Chinese male in 2010 stood 171.4 centimeters in height, while the average female was 159.3 cm, according to figures from the National Fitness Survey released by the State Administration of Sport of China in 2011. That was taller than Japanese youth of either sex.

Global action to help drug fight

China will improve intelligence exchanges and cooperation with other countries to fight drug smuggling amid an increasing number of cases, said Liu Yuejin, director of the narcotics control bureau.

Last year, national anti-narcotics officers uncovered 1,491 transnational drug smuggling cases, up 14.5 percent from the previous year, according to officials. Of those, 138 cases involved more than 10 kilograms of drugs.

The cases involved countries from Southeast Asia, Africa and Europe as well as the United States, with the suspects caught mainly in Yunnan and Guangdong provinces, Liu said.

US grad schools losing luster

The number of Chinese applicants for graduate schools in the United States has dropped for the second year in a row, figures from an education group in the US show.

Applications from Chinese students for the 2014 fall enrollment dropped by 1 percent from a year earlier, said the report by the Council of Graduate Schools. Applications for the same period last year fell by 3 percent from those of 2012, the report said.

Overall foreign applications for US graduate schools rose by 7 percent, with the highest growth - 32 percent - coming from India, said the report released recently by the council, which advocates graduate education and research.

E-commerce giant files IPO document in US

China's e-commerce giant Alibaba has filed initial public offering document on May 7 to the US Securities and Exchange Commission with plans to raise $1 billion, according to SEC information and well-informed sources.

Announcing this in an internal communication to employees, founder and chairman of Alibaba Ma Yun said: "Becoming a listed company has never been our goal. It is a tactic and means to realize our mission."

The huge pile of cash it is expected to raise is likely to help Alibaba find more new growth points as its e-commerce-based business is transformed into a competitive digital platform covering an increasingly broad array of Internet services.

Alibaba's regulatory filing gave a $1 billion placeholder value for the offering, but the actual amount is expected to be far higher, possibly topping the $19.65 billion raised by Visa Inc's offering in 2008, data compiled by Bloomberg showed.

Alibaba neither specified the number or price of shares it will offer nor gave a proposed IPO date. It has not revealed whether the IPO will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange or Nasdaq.

Xi urges students to be more diligent

President Xi Jinping visited Peking University on May 4 to commemorate Youth Day and urged young people to follow core socialist values and create a happy life.

Xi stressed that the core socialist values carry the spiritual pursuit of a nation, and he urged young people to be diligent and honest and to make the core values their basic principles.

Core socialist values comprise a set of moral principles summarized by central authorities as prosperity, democracy, civility, freedom, harmony, equality, justice, the rule of law, patriotism, dedication, integrity and friendship.

"University students are lovely, loyal and precious. Young people of every generation have their own opportunities and should create their lives and history," Xi said during a discussion with teachers and students from the university.

The core socialist values mix valuable requirements of the nation, society and the public, Xi said.

Tourist outflows to Malaysia decline

The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 has led to a decline in the number of Chinese tourists to Malaysia during the May Day holiday, the China National Tourism Administration said.

Many travel agencies have changed the once popular "Singapore-Malaysia-Thailand" itinerary to a "Singapore-Vietnam-Thailand" one due to the negative impression of the Southeast Asian country from the Flight MH370 incident, the administration said.

It did not provide figures or further details but said many travel companies have canceled group trips to Malaysia.

Tokyo lawmakers visit China amid tensions

A bipartisan group of Japanese lawmakers began their trip to Beijing on May 4, with more delegations from Japan scheduled to visit China later this month.

The delegation members are expected to find remedies to boost communication between the two neighbors at a time when official contacts have hit a record low, observers said.

Masahiro Koumura, visiting vice-president of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, led the delegation to Beijing for the three-day visit.

The delegation consists of lawmakers from the ruling coalition and the opposition, including Katsuya Okada, a senior member and former chief of the Democratic Party of Japan.

Former Chinese state counselor Tang Jiaxuan held a meeting on May 4 with Koumura, former Japanese foreign minister and now the president of the Japan-China Friendship Parliamentarians' Union.

Tang said Beijing placed "great priority" on Koumura's friendly visit when the ties are facing huge challenges. Koumura said he hoped the visit might help improve the relationship.

Decisive action ordered in Xinjiang

The two people who carried out a terrorist attack on April 30 in a railway station in Urumqi, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, had been involved in religious extremism for a long time, police said on May 1.

A police investigation showed that Sedierding Shawuti, 39, from Shaya county of southern Xinjiang's Aksu prefecture, and another attacker were influenced by religious extremism. They stabbed people at the South Railway Station exit with knives and set off explosives about 7:10 pm on April 30, the information office of the region said the following evening.

Both attackers were killed in the blast and a civilian was killed at the scene. The attack and explosion, which happened on the day President Xi Jinping concluded his visit to the region, also left 79 injured, including four in serious but not life-threatening conditions. Some of the injured have been discharged from hospital.

Xi demanded "decisive actions" be taken after the attack. He said that the battle to combat violence and terrorism cannot allow even a moment of slackness, and decisive action must be taken to suppress the terrorists' momentum.

Vaccine ready for global distribution

Southeast Asian children at risk of getting infectious Japanese encephalitis are expected to be immunized by 2015 with the first Chinese vaccine to obtain WHO prequalification, according to a senior official.

The vaccine, prequalified in October, meets international quality, safety and efficacy standards and could be integrated into the global vaccine supply, said Zhang Li, the senior manager of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, a publicprivate global health partnership.

She said applications for the vaccine have been sent to needy countries, mainly in Southeast Asia, with annual per capita incomes under $1,550.

Japanese encephalitis strikes quickly and usually has a devastating impact on children and their families, medical experts said.

China Daily-Xinhua

Photo taken on Nov 12 last year shows Ma Yun, founder and chairman of Alibaba Group, in Hangzhou, capital of East China's Zhejiang province. China's e-commerce giant has filed IPO document to the US Securities and Exchange Commission with plans to raise $1 billion. Ju Huanzong / Xinghua

(China Daily European Weekly 05/09/2014 page2)