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China and Australia sign Antarctic deal

China and Australia vowed to deepen cooperation in Antarctica with a memorandum of understanding signed on Nov 18.

The memorandum was signed in the presence of President Xi Jinping and Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott in Hobart, when Xuelong, China's only icebreaker, was berthed at the port city to take on supplies on its 31st mission to Antarctica.

Under the memorandum, a joint committee that will meet every two years will be established to oversee the cooperation, and a mechanism for environmental, scientific and operational collaboration in Antarctica will be built, according to the Australian Antarctic Division.

A platform for Antarctic official and academic exchanges will be established, under which Australia would be a gateway to Antarctica.

Xi said China hopes to continue to cooperate with Australia and other countries to further protect and explore Antarctica.

Social networking site in Russia eyes China

Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to China this month has ignited interest among Russian technology companies to invest in the world's second-largest economy.

The most-used social networking website in Russian-speaking countries, VKontakte, announced on Nov 18 it is entering China by opening a marketing branch in Beijing.

Russia's answer to Facebook has its eye on bringing Chinese advertisers to its platform instead of attracting individual users.

Top executives at VK, which means "get in touch", said the growing ambitions of Chinese enterprises to go global have provided an advertising opportunity for emerging social network platforms.

VK, based in St. Petersburg, has about 250 million accounts and 4 billion daily page views. Nearly 70 percent of the users are in Russia, with the rest from other countries such as Ukraine. The company has about 150 employees and outsources most of its nonessential operations.

Marx Zhang, who is in charge of VK's overseas business, said the daily net profit of the company is about $1.8 million.

Drug smuggling blamed for violence

Rampant smuggling of synthetic drugs, such as methamphetamine, from Southeast Asia has led to more violent crimes nationwide, the Ministry of Public Security said on Nov 18.

"China is facing a grim task in curbing synthetic drugs, including ice, which more and more of China's drug addicts tend to use," said Liu Yuejin, director of the ministry's Narcotics Control Bureau.

About 2.87 million people have been registered on suspicion of using drugs, the ministry says.

"But the actual number of drug addicts is estimated at 14 million, five times more than our published official number. About half have been suspected of taking methamphetamine," Liu said.

He said that between January and September, police officers in 14 provinces and regions had uncovered more than 100 violent crimes directly related to the use of methamphetamine, more than the total from the previous five years.

CCTV holds ad sale behind closed doors

China Central Television, the country's sole national TV broadcaster, held its 21st annual advertising auction for the coming year on Nov 18 in Beijing.

More than 100 companies attended the bidding, but many bidders were encouraged to sign deals before the auction, rather than take part in the event.

Since last year, auction organizers have declined to disclose the total amount of money bid or the advertising revenue. For the first time, auction doors were closed to the media this year, transforming the event from a media sensation into a guessing game for outsiders. CCTV rarely discloses the monetary total of bids in the auction, which has been a barometer of macroeconomic consumption in China.

CCTV did announce on its website that Ningxia Efone Investment Holding Group won the exclusive naming rights for the third season of the TV program A Bite of China with a bid of 118 million yuan ($19.3 million).

Number of mainland students in US soars

The number of Chinese mainland students studying in universities and colleges in the United States accounts for 31 percent of all international students, the highest concentration that China, the top country of origin, has had since 1948, a report said.

The report, issued on Nov 17 by the Institute of International Education, a global not-for-profit educational organization, said 273,439 Chinese mainland students were enrolled in US universities and colleges during the 2013-14 academic year, a 16.5 percent increase over the previous year.

If the number of students from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan were added, the total number of Chinese students in US universities and colleges would be 304,361, making up more than 34 percent of the 886,052 international students in the US.

It was the fifth consecutive year that the Chinese mainland had retained the top place, after seven years of double-digit percentage increases.

Migrants struggle with life in cities

China had 245 million migrants by the end of last year, representing more than a sixth of the national population.

But many migrants from rural areas struggle to integrate into urban society, according to a report issued by the National Health and Family Planning Commission.

Eighty percent of the migrants came to cities in search of better-paying jobs, said the Report on China's Migrant Population Development 2014, but their access to essential public services lags behind their urban peers.

To bridge the gap, the health authority has introduced a nationwide program to give rural migrant workers in urban areas equal access to basic health and family planning resources, said Wang Qian, head of the commission's department that works with the migrant population.

Currently, they can access services in the cities where they live, establishing personal health files, getting immunizations, accessing reproductive healthcare and receiving free contraceptives, he said.

In 2012, 59.2 percent of migrant women gave birth at hospitals in their city of residence, up 7 percent over 2011, the report said.

Criminal hunt nabs 288 economic fugitives

Chinese police have captured 288 economic fugitives hiding overseas, including many corrupt officials since Fox Hunt 2014 was initiated in July, a Ministry of Public Security official said on Nov 17.

Of those caught, 126 have returned to China and confessed to their crimes, and 81 of them were involved in financial crimes, each valued at more than 10 million yuan ($1.64 million).

Twenty-one of the suspects arrested had spent more than a decade as fugitives, the ministry said.

In recent years, many corrupt Chinese officials have fled overseas to escape legal punishment, the ministry says.

A report by the People's Bank of China shows that the illicit funds transferred by such officials exceeds 800 billion yuan, more than the annual revenue of the country's biggest telecommunication corporation.

"We have increased judicial cooperation, including intelligence sharing and case investigation, with countries such as the United States, Canada and Australia to nab the fugitives and recover their assets," said Liu Dong, deputy director of the ministry's Economic Crimes Investigation Department.

Beijing lays strong claim to host Games

Beijing's plans to host the 2022 Olympic Winter Games' snow events have impressed international skiing officials while assuaging concerns about its lack of snow sports facilities, the capital's bid committee said.

Since Beijing launched its bid for the 2022 Winter Olympics in November, concern about the lack of a winter sports tradition, especially skiing events, in the Chinese capital and surrounding areas has emerged as a potential disadvantage for its bidding prospect.

(China Daily Africa  Weekly 11/21/2014 page2)