Society

Around China: UFO not from space

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-07-26 09:21
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1 GUANGDONG

Second oil plant burns

Another oil plant caught fire on Saturday in Huizhou, South China's Guangdong province, following the pipeline explosion in Dalian city, the Hong Kong-based Ming Pao newspaper reported.

According to the local government, the fire has been extinguished with no casualties and emergency measures have been taken to prevent an oil spill. The fire started around 2 am on Saturday morning at a 15,000-cubic-meter oil tank at Daya Bay belonging to the China National Offshore Oil Corporation, the country's largest producer of offshore crude oil and natural gas. Firefighters and local officials have joined the rescue work. The cause of the incident is still under investigation.

Clamoring for Cantonese

Hundreds of Guangzhou residents gathered around 5 pm Sunday outside the city's Jiangnan West subway station in support of protecting the Cantonese dialect.

People sang Cantonese songs and shouted in Cantonese: "stick to speaking Cantonese", "Cantonese people should speak Cantonese" and "Cantonese will last forever".

The crowd dispersed hours later.

Earlier this month the people's political consultative conference in Guangzhou proposed that Guangzhou TV stations use Mandarin rather than Cantonese in its primary and news channel, which immediately sparked opposition from local residents who feared that their dialect would be abandoned.

A senior official from the Guangzhou government was quick to deny rumors that the city would weaken the role of Cantonese to promote Mandarin in the near future.

ATM fees double

Chinese banks have doubled the fees on withdrawing cash from other banks' ATMs to four yuan per withdrawal, the Guangzhou Daily reported on Sunday. The banks include the big four State-owned banks: the Construction Bank of China, the Bank of China, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and the Agricultural Bank of China. Some mid-sized banks, such as the China Bank of Communications, also followed suit this month.

Detainee compensated

A former detainee suspected of blackmailing was paid 26,300 yuan ($3,850) in State compensation after being found innocent, reported the Guangzhou Daily, citing an order by a South China procuratorate. But the procuratorate of Shenzhen, Guangdong province, dismissed demands for more damages by Zhang Shangqiang, who had been detained by Shenzhen police for 210 days.

2 LIAONING

Oil spill cleanup

The Dalian oil spill clean-up has entered a critical stage, the Ministry of Transport said on Saturday.

Over 40 oil-spill control vessels and about 1,000 fishing boats have joined the massive clean-up effort off the coast of Northeast China's Dalian city in Liaoning province, according to local maritime officials. At least 1,300 professional staff and 5,300 social workers are working in line with the direction center in a bid to clean up the ocean and to prevent the oil from spilling into the Bohai Gulf.

3 ZHEJIANG

UFO not from space

A report on the unidentified flying object (UFO) that appeared near Hangzhou Xiaoshan Airport on July 7 said there is no evidence showing the UFO was related to extraterrestrials.

The report was released by an investigation team of experts from Shanghai and Beijing.

Experts also believed that the object in a picture taken by a resident, which was widely published in media, was a plane, according to Zhang Yunhua, an investigation team member who was quoted by the Legal Mirror on Sunday.

The UFO disrupted air traffic at Xiaoshan Airport. Nearly 20 flights were diverted and some 2,000 passengers were affected.

4 TIANJIN

Billionaire falls to death

A 48-year-old billionaire surnamed Tan, owner of a Hubei-based construction company, died on Friday after falling from a building in Tianjin, Hubei local portal cnhubei.com reported.

Surveillance video shows Tan falling from the 10th floor of Tianjin Construction Engineering Corporation's office building, 16 minutes after he arrived at the site. Although the police have ruled out murder as a cause, the conclusion is still being questioned by Tan's relatives, who told local media that the deceased was going to demand a debt payment of up to 10 million yuan ($1.47 million).

The effect of Tan's death is being felt by the villagers from his hometown at Dawu county in Central China's Hubei province. Villagers say the businessman sponsored dropout kids and helped with local infrastructure construction.

5 XINJIANG

Minimum wage increased

Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region announced on Sunday the first increase in the minimum wage for the region since 2009. The monthly minimum pay has been increased an average of 24.6 percent, according to Tian Wen, secretary of the party committee of Xinjiang's human resources and social security department.

The mandatory minimum pay varies form region to region in Xinjiang. The highest minimum pay is 960 yuan ($141) per month after this adjustment.

6 SICHUAN

Pandas to give birth in wild

The Wolong China Giant Panda Protection and Research Center in Southwest China's Sichuan province released four selected pregnant pandas into the wild in the hopes the animals can deliver their cubs in the forest.

The giant pandas, aged four to five, are expected to give birth to their cubs in a forest area covering some 20,000 square meters, said Tang Chunxiang, a senior expert with the center, adding that the cubs will live there until the young pandas are aged three to four.

The prospective mothers, previously held in captivity, will produce and breed the cubs on their own, while the workers of the center will monitor these pregnant pandas through surveillance cameras for safety and research purposes.

Official kills woman while driving

An official in Dujiangyan, Sichuan province surrendered to local police several hours after he struck and killed a woman while he was driving a government car on Thursday night, West China Metropolis Daily reported on Sunday.

The victim was Lin Guangxiu, a 34-year-old employee of a local company. Her colleague Gao Li was badly injured in the accident.

Pu Jianxiong, the suspect, was the deputy secretary-general of local municipal government. Pu drove away after the accident instead of rushing the victims to hospital, the report said.

Lin's friends suspected Pu of drunk driving, but it has not been confirmed by the police yet.

7 HENAN

Woman drives car into crowd

A 29-year-old woman was detained in Zhengzhou, capital city of Henan province, after she drover her car into a crowd of migrant workers on Thursday night, injuring five people, Zhengzhou Evening News reported on Sunday.

The accused, surnamed Li, drove a red Mazda 6 into a group of migrant workers who were resting on a square in the north of the capital around 10 pm.

Two of the severely injured were still in comas.

Li was captured on Saturday. Her motive for the act remained unclear.

8 YUNAN

Tourist found dead

Ren Shengjie, a 25-year-old tourist from Shanghai, was found dead on Sunday on a 3,500-meter mountain in Cangshan, a tourist attraction in Yunnan province, 13 days after he fell over a cliff.

He called police for help on July 13 when he fell from the mountain and broke his left leg. Local police kept searching for him until his body was found.

Policemen with the Dali public security bureau have reached the place where his body was found and carried out an investigation. Further forensic results will be announced later.

9 BEIJING

National target met

The Chinese government has met its annual target to close outdated coal-fueled power generating capacity of 10 million kilowatts this month, an energy official said on Sunday.

A total of 468 generators with generating capacity of 10.71 million kilowatts have been closed by July 15, said the official with the National Energy Administration.

The realization of the goal, two months ahead of schedule, also meant the authorities had eliminated 70.77 million kilowatts of small-scale, outdated power capacity during the 11th Five Year Plan period from 2006 to 2010, the official said.

The government had aimed to eliminate 50 million kilowatts of small-scale, outdated power capacity from 2006 to 2010.

China Daily - Xinhua