IN BRIEF (Page 2)

Diplomacy

Sino-US talks help build trust

Chinese and US officials stressed the importance of cooperation and putting aside differences as the two countries began the fifth round of the China-US Strategic and Economic Dialogue on July 10.

US Vice-President Joe Biden said the dialogue is essential to bilateral relations and called for more trust to be built between the two countries.

"We don't have to agree on everything - we have to trust," he said in his address at the opening of the event in Washington, adding that competition is good and cooperation is essential.

Biden and the dialogue's four co-chairmen, Vice-Premier Wang Yang, State Councilor Yang Jiechi, US Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew, all emphasized the importance of boosting cooperation and also managing differences.

Wang said the summit between President Xi Jinping and US President Barack Obama a month ago reached important consensus and has pointed a clear direction for the two countries to build a new type of major country relationship.

Justice

Officials punished over fatal accidents

More than 100 Chinese officials and company executives found to be responsible for three deadly workplace accidents this year have been prosecuted, sacked, demoted or otherwise punished, the State Council said on July 6.

It said in a statement that it had approved an investigation report regarding the accidents in Jilin province that left a total of 174 people dead. The report includes proposed punishments for those found responsible for the accidents.

Thirty-five people, including government officials and company executives, have been transferred to the judicial authorities for prosecution, and 73 others, including Jilin's deputy governor Gu Chunli, deputy governor and police chief Huang Guanchun, and former top work safety official Jin Hua, have been disciplined.

The State Council ordered the Jilin government to conduct a review of procedures.

A fire ripped through a poultry plant owned by the Jilin Baoyuanfeng Poultry Co in Dehui on June 3, leaving 121 dead and 76 injured. The fire came after two coal mine blasts on March 29 and April 1 at the Babao Coal Mine in Baishan, Jilin, that killed 53 people and injured 20.

Security

Attack fuels call for anti-terrorism law

A law to define terrorism or a terrorist attack is urgently needed to prevent further bloodshed following attacks in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, where there is a tendency toward suicide attacks, experts say.

They also say the spread of religious extremism must be curbed in the northwestern region.

"After a planned attack on a passenger plane taking off from the regional capital, Urumqi, was foiled in 2008, terrorist attacks in the region have entered a new phase," said Ma Pinyan, a senior anti-terrorism researcher and deputy director of the ethnic and religious study center at the Xinjiang Academy of Social Sciences.

The number of terrorist attacks in Xinjiang fell between 2001 and 2008 because the international community stepped up security after the Sept 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, Ma said, without giving figures.

But he said that in the past few years, the penetration of religious extremism and attack manuals from abroad has led to increased attacks in Xinjiang that are similar to those elsewhere in the world.

Nuclear emergencies measures tightened

China has pledged to strengthen its capability to handle any possible nuclear emergencies, according to a plan approved by the State Council on July 2.

The national nuclear emergency plan, based on a previous edition issued in 2005, stipulates the structure and responsibilities of China's nuclear emergency response system.

It sets four levels of emergency response for possible incidents or accidents in civil nuclear stations and lists directions for dealing with accidents that may happen during the transport of spent nuclear fuel or aerospace vehicles equipped with nuclear devices.

At the end of last year, China, which began to build its first nuclear power station in 1985, had 17 reactors in operation and 28 more under construction. Nuclear power contributes 1.7 percent of China's electricity consumption, according to the China Atomic Energy Authority, which is in charge of coordinating inter-ministerial efforts on nuclear emergencies.

Agriculture

Nations mark opening of joint water project

The first joint water diversion project on the river that borders China and Kazakhstan has gone into operation to irrigate more than 30,000 hectares of farmland for the two countries.

The China-Kazakhstan Friendship Joint Water Diversion Project is 27 kilometers away from the Khorgos Port and is built on the Khorgos River, which serves as the boundary between the two countries.

Designed by Kazakhstan and built by China, the project can draw at least 50 cubic meters of water a second to be equally shared by each country. Both paid an equal amount for the $9.56 million investment. The project began on April 15, 2011.

The Khorgos River, 148 km long, rises in the Aktas, an offshoot of the Tianshan Mountains, and flows southward from Kazakhstan, forming a boundary with the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

Environment

Millions on alert over foul water

Thallium- and cadmium-contaminated water in the Hejiang River in Hezhou, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, will keep about 30,000 people downstream in Fengkai county, Guangdong province, from using river water for almost three weeks and put tens of millions of others on alert in the downstream Pearl River Delta.

The Hezhou government closed 112 illegal metal mines along the Maweihe River, a branch of the Hejiang, on July 6. Seventy-nine of the closed mines had been verified as pollution sources by 9 am on July 7. Their industrial waste was carried to the river by floods from recent torrential rains.

Thallium and cadmium are carcinogenic and poisonous heavy metal pollutants.

Xu Zhencheng, vice-director of the South China Institute of Environmental Sciences of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and leader of a task force created by the Guangxi government to investigate the pollution, said on July that the water will clear up through natural dilution of the pollutants, but he said that it would take at least a week for the water quality along the border with Guangdong province to return to national standards.

32 endangered birds released into the wild

Thirty-two crested ibises were released on July 3 from a protected enclosure to their natural habitat in the northern reach of the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi province.

After a two-year experiment in Yangxian county, the rare birds, including 14 adults, 10 sub-adults and eight juvenile birds, are now able to survive in the wild, said Chang Xiuyun, a scientist with the Wildlife Conservation Center under the Shaanxi Forestry Administration.

The birds, which were found in Japan, China, Russia and the Korean Peninsula, were believed to be extinct in the early 20th century.

Great efforts have been put into protecting the birds since 1981, when seven crested ibises were accidentally found in Yangxian county.

Since then, the number of crested ibises in China has increased to more than 1,700, including more than 1,000 in the wild, and 700 in captivity, the State Forestry Administration says.

(China Daily Africa Weekly 07/12/2013 page2)