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Xi hails Nigeria's Buhari on election victory
President Xi Jinping has sent a message to Nigeria's former military strongman Muhammadu Buhari to congratulate him on his election as the new head of state of his country.
As 2015 marks the 10th anniversary of the establishment of strategic partnership between China and Nigeria, in-depth development of bilateral relations meets the fundamental interests of both countries and both peoples, Xi said in the message.
China highly values the development of its ties with Nigeria and stands ready to make concerted efforts with the Nigerian side to lift the strategic partnership between the two countries to new heights, Xi added.
Buhari, a former military ruler, emerged as winner of the Feb. 28 election after polling 15.4 million votes to outgoing President Goodluck Jonathan's 13.3 million.
Representing the All Progressive Congress party, Buhari is the first opposition candidate to win a presidential election in Nigeria.
Premier to attend Asian-African meeting
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang is to deliver a keynote speech at the opening of the 54th session of the Asian-African Legal Consultative Organization this month, a foreign ministry spokesperson said on April 7.
The annual session, held in Beijing from April 13 to 17, will involve delegates from the organization's members and international organizations, spokesperson Hua Chunying said.
A special meeting will commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Bandung Conference in 1955, and an international seminar on United Nations chapters and postwar international order are scheduled to take place on the sidelines of the meeting, Hua said.
Since its founding, the organization has made crucial contributions to Asia and Africa, increasing coordination and cooperation and safeguarding common interests.
"As host, China would like to work with AALCO and member countries to make the upcoming session a success, joining with Asian and African countries to seek democracy and rule of law in international relations," Hua said.
New UN campaign focuses on food safety
The United Nations launched a food safety campaign on April 7 at a time when millions are dying of hunger or tainted produce, as more and more people fall ill from eating too much.
"Food safety, quality and quantity must go together," said Margaret Chan, director-general of the UN World Health Organization.
She was speaking at the Rungis wholesale market in Paris, where she launched World Health Day 2015 under the theme: "From farm to plate, make food safe."
Millions around the world wage a daily battle to obtain safe food, and the WHO says about 2 million people die each year from food-borne and waterborne diseases.
Many things can contaminate food on its long production chain including viruses, bacteria, parasites or chemicals from polluted water. Tainted food causes more than 200 diseases ranging in severity from diarrhea to cancers.
According to initial figures from a WHO report due to be released later this year, about 582 million people suffered from 22 different food-borne diseases in 2010, and 351,000 died.
More than 40 percent of people who fell ill were children under 5, and poor countries, particularly in Africa, were hardest hit.
Bank scouts globally for top talent
The Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank has not been formally established, but the global hunt for talent has already begun.
In early March, a workshop on the institutional development of the new bank was held behind closed doors in Beijing.
But only one of the attendees shown in a photograph published later was Chinese. That was Jin Liqun, chairman of the Multilateral Interim Secretariat of the AIIB.
The two-day workshop discussed the global financial and banking environment and the social framework of multilateral banks, governing structures and procurement policies. Similar topics were discussed at a meeting of delegates in Almaty, Kazakhstan, at the end of March.
The meetings drew officials from major multilateral financial organizations, including the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
Executives with working experience in international institutions are what the AIIB is looking for as it seeks to develop standards relating to transparency and lending.
Matthew Dalzell, previously a special adviser to New Zealand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade who later worked for the World Bank, is now the senior operational expert in the Interim Secretariat, according to his page on LinkedIn, the online business connection website.
New air routes set to alleviate congestion
China aims to solve its serious air traffic congestion and flight delays by opening 10 one-way air passages, senior civil aviation officials said.
"Over the past 10 years, the number of flights using China's airspace has continued to increase 10 percent year-on-year, but our airspace that can be used by civil airlines is only one-third of that in the United States and the number of our air traffic controllers is about half of that of the US," said Che Jinjun, director of the Civil Aviation Administration of China's air traffic management bureau.
The limited airspace and shortage of air traffic professionals have resulted in severe delays, he added, noting that under the current airspace management mechanism, one feasible solution is to optimize current flight routes.
Wang Zhiqing, deputy head of the Civil Aviation Administration, said the nation's air traffic management system is expected to handle more than 10 million flights in 2017.
"The current air traffic management system makes it very difficult to spare a large area of airspace for airlines, so we have to make the best use of the existing resources," he added.
System targets Chinese tourists' behavior
A new measure has been introduced aimed at ending inappropriate behavior by Chinese tourists.
According to the China National Tourism Administration, such behavior includes violating order on public transportation - including flights - damaging public facilities or historical relics, ignoring social customs at tourism destinations, and becoming involved with gambling or prostitution.
Records will be kept by provincial and national tourism authorities for up to two years, starting from the day the misbehavior was confirmed by tourism authorities.
If necessary, they will also be handed to public security, customs, frontier inspection, transport and banking authorities. Tourists are allowed to appeal.
The move follows incidents involving Chinese tourists that triggered controversy.
Navy wins praise for evacuating foreigners
China has joined the elite humanitarian club of countries that are able to bring non-nationals to safety from danger zones, after evacuating hundreds of Chinese citizens and foreigners from war-torn Yemen.
The People's Liberation Army navy won global plaudits by conducting four major evacuations from two ports against a backdrop of gunfire and explosions.
Any single evacuation operation requires a considerable amount of planning and coordination. However, the obstacles faced when taking 279 foreigners from 15 countries to safety increase dramatically, not least because of the language difficulties.
To do it days after evacuating fellow citizens makes it all the more remarkable, observers said.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing said in a statement on its website on April 2 that 10 foreign governments - Pakistan, Ethiopia, Singapore, Italy, Germany, Poland, Ireland, Britain, Canada and Yemen - had requested China's help.
Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said it was the first time China had carried out a specific evacuation of foreign nationals from a danger zone.
The first mission took place in the southern port city of Aden on March 29 when 122 Chinese people were evacuated.
Ranks of super wealthy soar despite slowdown
Although the nation's economic growth has slowed over the past year, the number of super rich people has expanded to a record high, according to the recently released China Ultra High Net Wealth Report 2014-2015.
The number of people from the Chinese mainland who hold assets worth at least 500 million yuan ($81.35 million; 74.31 million euros) has exceeded 17,000, according to the report.
From 2008 to 2013, the report generally listed no more than 1,000 names. The report was jointly released by China Minsheng Bank and the Hurun Research Institute on April 2 in Beijing.
But the number in this year's list reached an all-time high.
The 2014-2015 report investigated in detail where these people live, how they accumulated their wealth and their lifestyles, the Chinese first report to do so.
The total assets of the super rich soared to 31 trillion yuan, 10 times the GDP of Norway and 20 times that of the Philippines. They have an average age of 51 and average assets of 1.82 billion yuan.
President's books and speeches go mobile
A mobile app has been released that provides free access to the complete writings of President Xi Jinping, including all his e-books and speeches. It is the first time the top leader's complete works have been made available on smartphones.
The app displays a list of his books published over the past 22 years.
Xi's first book, Poverty Eradication, published in 1992 when he was the top official in Fuzhou, Fujian province, and his latest one, The Governance of China, published in September in several languages, are available through the app.
It also gives users access to two of Xi's books published when he was Party chief of Zhejiang province from 2002 to 2007.
One of these, Zhejiang Xin Yu, or New Visions for Zhejiang province, was published in May 2007 and became a bestseller last year.
It is a collection of Xi's 232 short commentaries published in Zhejiang Daily from February 2003 to March 2007, most of which are intended to advise local public servants to work in a down-to-earth manner.
The app was developed by an online learning website of the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.
Russia to give medals to Chinese veterans
Russia is to honor Chinese veterans who worked in the Soviet Union during World War II, Moscow's top envoy to Beijing said on April 1.
Russian media outlet Sputnik quoted Ambassador Andrei Denisov as saying that President Xi Jinping will also be a chief guest at celebrations in Moscow marking the 70th anniversary of victory in the Great Patriotic War against Nazi Germany (1941-45).
The two moves are the latest indications of high-profile activities planned by China and Russia to mark the end of World War II, highlighting their close ties.
In an unprecedented move, the Russian embassy in China will award Jubilee Medals on April 15 to 40 Chinese veterans who worked in the Soviet Union during the war, "in the year of the 70th anniversary of our common victory", Sputnik quoted Denisov as saying in Beijing.
China still top for US adoptions
China remains the most popular country for parents in the United States to adopt a child, with 2,040 adoptions last year, according to US State Department figures released on April 1.
The report shows that adoptions of foreign children from all countries to US families dropped by 9 percent in the fiscal year 2014 that ended Sept 30, and has reached its lowest level since 1982 at 6,441.
That figure is down from 7,092 the previous year and from a high of about 23,000 in 2004.
Adoptions from China in 2014 totaled 2,040, down more than 10 percent from 2013 and far below the 2005 peak of 7,903.
Since then, China has expanded its domestic adoption program and sought to curtail the rate of child abandonment. It has also modified its one-child policy. At the same time, it has adopted more rigorous standards for all children to qualify for adoption, including those with special needs.
Scores of scenic spots lose their shine
Dozens of highly rated Chinese tourist attractions have had their accreditation removed after a crackdown on irregularities.
According to the National Tourism Administration, ratings awarded to 44 tourist attractions, mainly in 2A and 3A categories, have been removed. Nine 5A tourist attractions were given a "warning" and required rectification.
Popular destinations for overseas visitors, including the Nanjing Confucius Temple and Qinghuaihe River Scenic Area, Hangzhou Qiandao Lake Scenic Area and Meitianya Tropical Ocean World in Sanya, were among the first group to receive media exposure.
"We started the campaign last year. Undercover investigations at those high-rated tourist attractions revealed that some of them failed to meet national standards," said Peng Decheng, a finance official with the administration. "The problems involved include toilet cleanliness, garbage disposal, bullying tourists and forced shopping."
China adopts a five-tier tourist rating based on criteria such as the importance of the site, transportation and sanitation.
The highest rating is 5A and has to be awarded by the administration, while ratings of 4A and below can be given by provincial tourism authorities.
Tech company may default on bond principal
A former high-end restaurant company that switched its focus to the technology sector could become the first Chinese company to fail to repay principal on the public bond market.
Cloud Live Technology Group Co., formerly known as XE Flavor Group Co, has said it is unable to raise the 240.6 million yuan ($39 million; 35.8 million euros) needed to make note and interest payments due on April 7.
If a solution cannot be found before the deadline, it will become the first company to fail to repay principal to local bond investors.
Shanghai Chaori Solar Energy Science & Technology Co became the first Chinese company to default on interest payments in March last year.
(China Daily 04/10/2015 page2)
