2010-07-17 06:35

1 Liaoning

Blast rips through oil pipeline

A blast ripped through an oil pipeline in Dalian, a port city in Northeast China's Liaoning province on Friday.

The explosion took place at 6:50 pm when a foreign 300,000-ton oil tanker discharged its oil, Dalian police said. The accident has also caused oil leakage.

More than 2,000 rescuers are trying to contain a fire which erupted after the blast. No casualties have been reported.

2 Beijing

'China Top Brand' to be phased out

The government will phase out the title of "China Top Brand" starting this September, said the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ).

The AQSIQ started to appraise and confer the title once a year since 2001. Companies that won the title were authorized to use the logo on the package of their products for five years.

Compensation for rights abuse raised

The Supreme People's Procuratorate has raised compensation for victims of rights abuse to 125.43 yuan ($18.5) per day, 13.44 yuan more than that of last year's, Xinhua reported on Friday.

The move follows the National Bureau of Statistics announcement of last year's average annual salary, which was 32,736 yuan.

According to the State Compensation Law, the amount of daily compensation given to freedom infringement victims should be calculated on the basis of the average daily salary of employees in the preceding year.

3 Zhejiang

Illegal arms trader executed

A man convicted of illegally making and selling firearms and ammunition was executed in East China on Friday after the Supreme People's Court approved his death sentence.

Wu Zhiqiao was convicted and sentenced to death at the Intermediate People's Court in Ningbo, Zhejiang province, on April 22 last year.

Wu, from Guizhou province, had sold more than 50 guns and about 200 bullets before police arrested him and seized 40 firearms and 160 rounds of ammunition in November 2007.

Caved-in mine may pollute lake

A lead and zinc mine in Zhejiang province began caving in on Wednesday following days of heavy rain and threatens to contaminate a lake, local authorities said on Friday.

Slag entered a tributary of Qiandao Lake when the mine in Zitong town, Chun'an county, caved in on Wednesday and Thursday.

The water in the tributary has turned gray but no fish deaths or drinking water problems have been reported.

4 Inner Mongolia

HIV+ worker 'thrown out' of hospital

A migrant worker who was seriously injured in a wage dispute said on Friday that a hospital refused to treat her after finding out she was HIV-positive.

Li Na, 37, said she was beaten up on Monday when she and her fellow workers at a construction site in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region asked their company for unpaid wages, and was sent to a hospital.

"They didn't give me any medicine, and the company said that if I didn't leave the hospital, they would not pay any of the workers," Li said, adding she had left as a result.

5 Guangdong

BaWang threatens to sue magazine

The CEO of BaWang International Group, Wan Yuhua, said on Friday that the herbal shampoo maker is preparing to sue the Hong Kong-based Next Magazine for a compensation of 1 billion yuan ($147 million) for its report claiming BaWang's shampoo contains a cancer-causing chemical.

During the past three days, the market value of the Hong Kong-listed company plunged by 20 percent, or nearly HK$ 4 billion.

China Daily - Xinhua

(China Daily 07/17/2010 page4)