Society

Around China: Billionaire commits suicide

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-04-29 07:11
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1 BEIJING

Internet domain name approved

The China Internet Network Information Center announced Wednesday that the top-level Chinese domain name ".zhongguo" (written in Chinese characters) has been approved by the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, a nonprofit body that oversees Internet addresses, information portal chinanews.com.cn reported.

Domain names with the suffix ".zhongguo" in both simplified and traditional Chinese characters are ready for use. People can now visit Shanghai World Expo's website expo2010.cn by inputting in Chinese shanghaishibohui.zhongguo (Chinese characters) into their Web browsers.

More than 90 percent of Chinese ministries and provincial departments and more than 95 percent of news websites have already opened their ".zhongguo" domain names, the report said.

Kiosk luggage check-ins begin

A new service was launched on Wednesday to allow passengers to check in luggage at self-service kiosks in Terminal 3 of Beijing Capital International Airport.

Air China officials said the service, available to domestic flight passengers leaving Beijing, is the first of its kind in China.

The service will cut the current luggage check-in from 57 seconds to only 17 seconds.

Fujian governor to visit Taiwan

Governor of East China's Fujian province, Huang Xiaojing, is scheduled to visit Taiwan from May 5 to 10, a spokeswoman for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council said Wednesday.

Huang's trip was at the invitation of a policy foundation under the Taiwan-based Kuomintang party, Fan Liqing said at a press conference.

According to Fan, during the trip Huang's delegation will hold a series of cultural exhibitions as well as a forum to promote commerce, trade cooperation and investments between the two regions.

Central bank helps stop fraud

The People's Bank of China, the central bank, said it assisted in investigating 970 anti-money laundering cases last year, involving 301.2 billion yuan ($44.1 billion), up from 251.3 billion yuan for 2008 and 53.7 billion yuan in 2007.

Most of the cases involved money laundering arising from embezzlement, bribery, organized crime, financial crimes and drug trafficking, the bank said in a statement on Wednesday.

Site set up for kidney disease

An information support website for chronic kidney disease patients has been jointly launched by the Chinese Association of Health Education and Promotion and Baxter China.

The website,www.shentouxi.com.cn, is intended to serve as a platform for patients to exchange information on the prevention and treatment of chronic kidney disease, with veteran clinical doctors and experts invited to answer questions from patients online.

The prevalence of the disease among adults older than 20 is 10 percent, official statistics showed. If left untreated, the condition can develop into uremia, which can be fatal.

Free exams for would-be parents

A pilot project to provide free physical examinations to rural couples who plan to have a baby has been launched by the National Population and Family Commission in 18 provinces, including Hebei, Jilin and Shaanxi.

The examination focuses on reproductive health and will cost the government 240 yuan ($35) per couple, according to the commission.

The project aims to improve the health of newborns and to prevent birth defects, according to officials with the commission.

Celebrities honored for good deeds

Chen Guangbiao, chairman of Jiangsu Huangpu Renewable Resources Utilization, ranked top on the 2010 China Charity List, which was released on Wednesday by the China Association of Social Workers to honor individuals and companies who have made extraordinary contributions to charity in the past year.

A total of 133 individuls are on the list, with a total donation of 3.44 billion yuan ($504 million), while 448 enterprises are also listed, with a donation of 5.3 billion yuan (excluding materials donated).

2 HENAN

Officials deposed over farmer issue

Four local officials were deposed on Tuesday after news report revealed a farmer who had lodged a complaint had been detained in mental hospitals in Central China's Henan province for more than six years.

Xu Lindong, a farmer from Daliu town, Yuanhui district, Luohe city, complained to the central government from 1997 to 2003 on behalf of his handicapped friend, Zhang Guizhi, whose land had been occupied by a third party.

Xu was thrown into the Zhumadian City Mental Hospital in October 2003. After being held in mental institutions for more than six years, he finally returned home this Sunday.

Three local officials - Yang Yaoqin, Chen Huijun and Song Changqing - were found to have fabricated evidence in 2003 to put Xu into mental hospitals. All three have been deposed.

Shi Hongtao, Party chief of Daliu town at the time, was also deposed from his current position as an official with the Yuanhui district government for failing to prevent the farmer's detention.

Forum supporting tea held

The 2010 Summit Forum on "Tea and the World" was held in Xinyang of Central China's Henan province on Wednesday.

Delegates from 35 countries attended the event, which aims to promote tea culture as well as to strengthen tea economy exchanges among major tea-producing countries.

Xinyang is well-known for producing Maojian green tea, which won a gold medal at the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition.

3 ANHUI

Billionaire commits suicide

A billionaire in East China's Anhui province committed suicide in Feixi county by ingesting pesticide on Monday, information portal ifeng.com reported on Tuesday.

Hou Yefu was the chairman of the board of the Hefei Senmiao Company Group, a leading enterprise in Anhui engaged in chicken products.

Hou was elected a deputy to the provincial people's congress in 2008 and honored as one of the province's top 10 private entrepreneurs for his contribution to society.

Police are investigating the case.

4 GUANGDONG

Shenzhen ranked most dense city

Shenzhen has the most dense population in China and has embraced the largest floating population in the country, Yangcheng Evening News reported on Wednesday.

Xu Qin, executive deputy mayor of Shenzhen, said at a family planning conference on Tuesday that the city ranked fifth in the world's most congested cities, referring to a list released by Forbes magazine this year.

Shenzhen has surpassed Beijing and Shanghai to become the most dense city in China with a population density of 17,150 people per square kilometer, the report said.

5 SHANDONG

Sandstorm wreaks havoc

Three people are dead and two more are missing after a sandstorm swept East China's Shandong province on Monday, the provincial civil affairs bureau said on Wednesday.

Two women, both aged 55, were killed when a boat overturned in the fierce sandstorm in Juxian county. Two men fell into the water in the same accident and were still missing on Wednesday, the bureau said.

In a separate accident, a villager in Ningyang county was blown into a river by the sandstorm and drowned.

The bureau received reports that 1.5 million people suffered property losses in the freak sandstorm, which hit the province on Monday afternoon.

The bureau has sent work groups to investigate the disaster and help with the relief work.

6 HUNAN

Official detained in driving accident

Police in Central China's Hunan province on Wednesday detained an official who is alleged to have killed two people while driving without a license.

Three others were injured in the accident, which occurred in Hengdong county, Hunan province, at 3 pm on Tuesday, said a spokesman with Hengdong government.

Ding Jiayao, deputy director of highway construction supervision of Hengdong county, who had no driver's license, drove a sports utility vehicle into a tailor's shop on Hengdong's Xincun Road and hit five people who were playing cards, the spokesman said.

Police are still investigating the accident.

7 JIANGSU

Automobile expo set for September

China (Suzhou) International Automobiles Industry Expo will be held at Suzhou International Expo Center between Sept 21 and 25 this year.

The expo will have the theme of "a low-carbon economy, fashionable consumption and a happy life".

During the expo, domestic and foreign industrial leaders, economists, marketing experts and representatives of new-energy research institutions will be invited to attend the forum.

(China Daily 04/29/2010 page5)