Briefly

Ex-COFCO deputy GM charged with graft

Zhou Zheng, a former deputy general manager of leading Chinese food trader COFCO Corporation, has been indicted on suspicion of accepting bribes and abuse of power, the Supreme People's Procuratorate said on Thursday. Zhou also served as a member of the company's leading Communist Party of China members' group. He allegedly took undue advantage of his various positions to seek profits for others, illegally accepting a particularly large sum of money and valuables in exchange, prosecutors said. Zhou is also alleged to have used his positions to embezzle large amounts of public property, causing significant losses to national assets.

Move to standardize emission calculations

China has released a plan to standardize carbon emission calculations across key sectors, as part of efforts to meet its carbon reduction targets. By the end of this year, 70 national standards on carbon accounting, footprint, reduction, capture, utilization and storage will be published, covering all key sectors and companies, according to the plan issued by the National Development and Reform Commission, the State Administration for Market Regulation and the Ministry of Emergency Management. Next year, a standardized calculation and evaluation system will be put in place for businesses, projects and products, with key sectors and products meeting world-leading bench marks for energy consumption control.

Giant panda fossil discovered in Shaanxi

A well-preserved giant panda fossil, dating back at least 10,000 years, has been discovered in a cave in Northwest China's Shaanxi province, the provincial natural resources department said on Wednesday. The department received tips late last month from local residents that suspected animal bone fossils had been discovered in the depths of a cave in Chenggu county, Hanzhong. Following an investigation, researchers have preliminarily determined that the fossil belonged to an adult giant panda, presumably a female. The fossil is estimated to date back to between the late Middle Pleistocene and the Late Pleistocene of the Quaternary Period, between 200,000 and 10,000 years ago.

Xinhua