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CHANGSHA -- China will spend 16.5 billion yuan to protect and restore its wetlands during the 11th five-year-plan period (2006-2010). Addressing a recent forum on the Yangtze River held in Changsha, the capital of Central China's Hunan Province, Zhu Lieke, deputy head of the State Forestry Administration, said China has made an inventory of 173 wetlands, most of which are in northeast China and the Yangtze River Valley. Thirty of the country's wetlands are listed in the international wetland catalogue, and one third of them are situated along the Yangtze. "Phenomena such as the rapid drop in the number of lakes and fast shrinkage in lake area got worse as China's economy tears through resources," said Zhu, who warned that wetlands in the Yangtze River Valley face uNPRecedented ecological threats. "The problems that plague wetlands in the Yangtze River Valley include pollution, ecological degradation and dwindling water resources," said Zhu. "The protection of our wetlands is urgent." The 6,300-km-long Yangtze, the country's longest, originates in the Tanggula Range on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and passes through Qinghai, Tibet, Sichuan, Yunnan, Chongqing, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Anhui, Jiangsu and Shanghai before emptying into the East China Sea. Wetlands in the Yangtze River Valley include salty plateau lakes and plateau marshlands, the galaxy of lakes on the middle reaches of the Yangtze, and the coastal wetland near Chongming Island at the estuary of the river. Dongting Lake, which flows into the Yangtze River and also serves as an important wetland, for instance, is shockingly polluted. Marine life has been decimated and people are catching a disease called schistosomiasis -- caught by swimming or wading in water where there are parasitic worms. The water area of Dongting Lake has shrunk from 4,350 sq km in 1949 to present 2,625 sq km as a result of silting and land reclamation for farming. According to Zhu, the country has already launched three programs to protect the wetlands in the Yangtze River Valley, including the national program for conservation of wildlife, plants and nature reserves, and the program to protect the Sanjiangyuan wetland in Qinghai Province. But much remains to be done.

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is imposing further trade sanctions against China, South Korea and Indonesia in a dispute involving glossy paper. The decision, announced Wednesday by Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, came a week after US and Chinese officials met for a second round of high-level talks aimed at lowering trade tensions between the two nations. "This administration continues to aggressively and transparently enforce our trade laws to ensure a level playing field for American manufacturers, workers and farmer," Gutierrez said in a statement announcing the decision. In the new ruling, the government determined that imports from the three countries of glossy paper - used in art books, textbooks and high-end magazines - were being sold in the United States at less than fair value, a process known as dumping. The dumping penalties will be collected immediately although they will not become final until this fall after further investigations are conducted. The preliminary dumping penalty for the paper products from China ranged from 23.19 percent to 99.65 percent. The dumping penalty imposed on imports of glossy paper from Indonesia was 10.85 percent while the penalty on South Korean imports ranged as high as 30.86 percent. These dumping penalties will be imposed on top of economic sanctions levied in March after the administration found that paper companies from those three countries were receiving improper government subsidies that allowed them to undercut the price of American producers. The March decision reversed 23 years of US trade policy by treating China, which is classified as a nonmarket economy, in the same way other US trading partners are treated in disputes involving government subsidies. The paper case was brought by NewPage Corp., a Dayton, Ohio-based paper company which contended that its coated paper was facing unfair competition because of the government subsidies and sale of imports at unfairly low prices. The government trade sanctions have received the support of the United Steel Workers union, which represents about 90 percent of the workforce in the US coated paper industry. The glossy paper is produced at 22 paper mills in 13 states. The penalties in the case involving government subsidies are known as countervailing duties. In that case, the trade sanctions ranged as high as 20.35 percent for Chinese glossy paper imports, 1.76 percent for South Korean imports and 21.24 percent for Indonesia. Chinese officials denounced the decision in the government subsidies case saying that it went against the consensus of both countries to resolve disputes through dialogue rather than imposing trade sanctions. The second round of the Strategic Economic Dialogue, which was launched by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson in December, was held in Washington last week. Paulson and Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi announced a series of modest agreements including the boosting of airline flights between the two nations. But they failed to make progress in one of the biggest rade irritants, the value of China's currency, which American manufacturers contended is being kept artificially low against the dollar to give Chinese companies unfair advantages against US firms.

BEIJING - China's top legislature on Sunday started to read draft amendment to the Law on Lawyer which aims to make lawyers easier to meet criminal suspects, obtain evidences, improve their moral standards and allow them to open individual law firms. The draft amendment to the Law on Lawyer was on Sunday submitted to the six-day 28th session of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), or China's top legislature, for the first reading.

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The average pork price has dropped to 12.61 yuan this week, 9.61 percent lower than the peak price on August 9, said China's economic planner after pork prices nearly doubled in the past eight months due to short supply and mounting production costs.The prices have seen a consecutive drop for the eighth week, down by 3.45 percent from the end of August, as the piglets raised since May and June grew ready for the market to add to the pork supply.Pigs daily butchered in 36 major cities have increased by 12.6 percent from August, and the supply is expected to keep rising, said the National Development and Reform Commission.But the Ministry of Commerce said the decline in the pork prices would probably stop as demand surges during the ongoing National Day holiday and feedstuff prices stay high.The soaring pork prices is a major contributor to the general food price hikes that drive up the consumer price index to a 6.5 percent increase in August.

Hong Kong is the destination of choice for most mainland travelers this Christmas, a survey has found.A child walks past a Christmas decoration at the Two IFC shopping mall in Hong Kong November 28, 2007. [Agencies]Forty-four percent of the 2,000 people polled, all of whom have an annual income of more than 60,000 yuan (,000), said they were planning to visit the region over the festive period.Other popular destinations included Shanghai (10 percent), Sanya in Hainan Province (9 percent), Lijiang in Yunnan Province, Bali in Indonesia, Phuket in Thailand and Harbin in Heilongjiang Province.Conducted by the online travel firm ctrip.com, the survey found people were most interested in places with a "strong holiday atmosphere", "good shopping environment" and "excellent hotels and beaches" when choosing a destination for their Christmas getaway.Tang Yibo, director of Ctrip.com's holiday department, said: "Embodying both Eastern and Western cultures, Hong Kong stands out because it has not only a vibrant Christmas atmosphere, but also offers lots of shopping and entertainment facilities, and big discounts at this time of year."The convenience of traveling between the mainland and Hong Kong is also an important factor, Tang said.Lin Nan, a teacher from Shanghai, who sets off on a three-day trip to Hong Kong this weekend, said: "The pre-Christmas discounts in Hong Kong are irresistible, even when you consider what you have to pay to fly there."Lin Kang, deputy general manager of the outbound tourism department of the China International Travel Service Head Office, said tour packages to Hong Kong are always bestsellers at Christmas.He said the reason was that Chinese do not have much time off work at Christmas and the New Year so they cannot travel too far."When it comes to the weeklong Spring Festival holiday, destinations like Europe will be more popular," he said.Packages for the Spring Festival are now available, he said, with some of them to Australia and New Zealand already sold out.Some travel experts have said the high volume of holiday bookings for this year's Spring Festival is due to the cancellation of the May Day holiday.But Lin disagreed, saying it is still too early to judge the impact of the changes to the national holiday schedule. Outbound tours during the Spring Festival holiday are always easy to sell, he said.The cost of tour packages during the spring holiday will, as usual, be at least 20 percent higher than at other times of the year, he said.Zhang Wei, director of the air ticket department of Ctrip.com, said the cost of air travel to Europe, Australia and North America over the Christmas and New Year holidays has also soared.He said the cheapest one-way ticket from Beijing to London is now 3,320 yuan, up from 2,200 yuan at the start of the year.Zhang said the price hikes are due to the high numbers of foreigners flying home for the festive season, and also the increased popularity of group trips offered as staff incentives by some Chinese firms.

UNITED NATIONS -- China's special representative for climate change talks, Yu Qingtai, urged the international community to conduct substantive negotiations aimed at securing a new global post-2012 agreement on climate change by 2009.Speaking at the UN General Assembly debate on climate change, Yu said that the Bali roadmap, adopted at the UN climate conference last December by delegates from nearly 190 nations, is "only a beginning.""The international community must continue with the task of conducting substantive consultations and negotiations, so as to insure a final agreement on the post-2012 international cooperation on climate change within the next two years," he said.Yu emphasized that any framework for future arrangements must be firmly based on the principles established by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) and the Kyoto Protocol, particularly the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities.The four building blocks of the roadmap -- mitigation, adaptation, technology transfer and financing, are all important components for developing an effective framework for responding to climate change, and should be given equal attention, and none of them should be neglected, he noted.Urging developed countries to further strengthen policies and measures aimed at emission reduction, the special envoy said the concerns by developing countries over adaptation, technology transfer and financing should be addressed in earnest, so that they will have the capacity to make greater contributions to confronting the challenge from climate change."The effectiveness of participation by the developing countries will, to a significant extent, depend on whether the developed countries will take substantive actions on financial and technological assistance," he said. "Effective mechanisms should be set up as soon as possible to insure that measurable, reportable and verifiable assistance be provided to the developing countries with regard to financial resources, technology and capacity building," he said.China takes climate change "very seriously" and have adopted various policies and measures to respond to the challenge, with " noticeable success," he said."While making our own due contribution, we will also help other developing countries to enhance their ability to adapt to climate change," Yu added.Representatives, including some 20 ministers, from more than 100 countries and international organizations attended the two-day high-level session and exchanged views on ways to move forward the negotiating process launched in the Bali conference.

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Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said he will face up to history to help improve Sino-Japanese relations. He made the remarks in an interview with China Central Television (CCTV) which was broadcast yesterday ahead of Premier Wen Jiabao's visit to Japan on Wednesday. Starting with a Chinese greeting Ni Men Hao (How are you), Abe said the China-Japan relationship is one of the most important of bilateral ties for his country; and hoped they could develop into a strategic relationship for mutual benefit. He said he is looking forward to Wen's visit in spring, a season "when the ice is melting and flowers are starting to blossom", and hopes to visit China this year. Abe paid an "ice-breaking" trip to China last October soon after taking office. He met President Hu Jintao and reached agreements that thawed relations chilled by former Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi's repeated visits to the Yasukuni Shrine that honors top Japanese World War II war criminals. Abe said he firmly believes that the "ice" in relations will finally melt when more Chinese people get to know Japan's post-war road of development. He said he hopes Wen's trip, including the summit meeting, would produce substantive results in various fields such as energy, environmental protection and regional security. As Wen's visit also coincides with the 35th anniversary of the normalization of China-Japan relations and the Year of Cultural and Sports Exchanges, Abe said he would like to use the opportunity to invite more Chinese people, especially the younger generation, to visit his country and enhance mutual understanding. Abe said China's development provides a big opportunity to not only Japan, but also Asia and the world at large, citing bilateral trade had hit a record eight years in succession. The volume of trade between the two countries has increased nearly 200 times from .1 billion in 1972, when Sino-Japanese ties were normalized, to 7.4 billion in 2006. "Such an achievement was unimaginable even 10 years ago," Abe said. In another development, a survey published yesterday said that most undergraduates in China and Japan regard the other country as an important nation and 37 percent of them are positive about future China-Japan relations. The survey, jointly conducted by the China's Outlook Weekly and mainstream Japanese newspaper The Daily Yomiuri, polled 1,020 Japanese and 987 Chinese college students in March. Though a majority of respondents are not satisfied with the current state of relations, 37 percent believe relations will "improve" or "greatly improve" in the future. More than 40 percent think the relations will "remain unchanged". More than two-thirds of the Japanese undergraduates chose China as Japan's most important partner for economic growth; whereas Chinese students ranked Japan in second place, following the United States. A majority of both Chinese and Japanese students believe China will become the most influential country in the world. More than half of the Japanese students deemed China would overtake Japan in the next 10 years in terms of GDP.

New statistics showing a continuous rise in house prices fly in the face of numerous media reports that domestic property prices have already started to decline in some cities.Policymakers should step up efforts to curb surging house prices now to avoid a later rush for homes in fear of further price hikes.Housing prices in 70 large- and medium-sized cities rose 10.5 percent year-on-year in November. The rise, 1 percentage point higher than that of October, hit a new high, undermining the government's efforts to stabilize house prices.As part of its macroeconomic controls to cool economic growth that is bordering on overheating, the government has introduced a host of tightening measures to rein in soaring house prices.For instance, the banking authorities recently made a strict definition of "second home" according to the property owned by the families of mortgage applicants rather than just the applicant.The rule will deal a heavy blow to speculative homebuyers as they will have to make a higher down payment and cannot enjoy preferential interest rates. In some cities, it was such speculative house purchases that considerably fuelled runaway property price hikes.Besides, the government also decided to adopt a tight monetary policy to check credit growth. In the absence of easy access to bank loans, it is believed that some developers may cut prices to promote sales due to liquidity concerns instead of hoarding houses for fatter profits.Under such circumstances, media reports from across show the country that house sales are shrinking and prices are plunging in cities that once boasted jaw-dropping amounts.It is surely not difficult for these reports to find an audience. Rocketing house prices in recent years have made home ownership a heavier than ever burden for most potential buyers.However, the latest house price data has proved it is only too premature to conclude that the property market has reached a turning point. The November figure indicates that the momentum of property price hikes in major cities remains strong.Only when the government substantially increases the supply of affordable homes for low-income groups and provides more land lots for development can the imbalance of demand and supply in the property market be addressed.

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After 18 months of deliberation and public consultation, legislators passed the long-awaited Labor Contract Law on Friday to improve workers' basic rights. The law, which would take effect on January 1 next year, won 145 of the 146 votes of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC). One vote was not cast. The new law is considered the most significant change in the country's labor rules in more than a decade. It establishes standards for labor contracts, use of temporary workers and severance pay. It makes mandatory the use of written contracts and strongly discourages fixed-term contracts. According to the law, severance should be paid if a fixed-term contract expires but is not renewed without an appropriate reason. It is also stipulated that employers must submit proposed workplace rules or changes concerning pay, work allotment, hours, insurance, safety and holidays to the workers' congress for discussion. After the recent exposure of forced labor in brick kilns in Central and North China, the final draft added stipulations that government officials guilty of abuse of office and dereliction of duty would face administrative penalties or criminal prosecution. Xin Chunying, deputy chairperson of the NPC Law Committee, said the law is not intended to replace the current Labor Law but rather, to further standardize labor contracts in favor of employees. Li Yuan, one of the legislators in charge of drafting the law, said the law targeted bosses and officials who exploited workers. The draft law was first proposed in 2005 amid complaints that companies were mistreating workers by withholding pay, requiring unpaid overtime or failing to provide written contracts. Many workers were also becoming trapped in short-term contracts. Last March, the draft was made public for consultation, and legislators received about 192,000 public responses in a month. Only the Constitution, drafted in 1954, received more. However, business lobbies are worried that stricter contract requirements could raise costs and give them less flexibility to hire and fire employees. Both the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China and the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai (AmCham Shanghai) had made submissions to the NPC, suggesting the law might exert negative influence on foreign investment in China. In a letter to the NPC last year, Serge Janssens de Varebeke, then-president of the European Union chamber, warned the "strict" regulations could force foreign companies to "reconsider new investments or continuing their activities in China" because of possible cost increases. But Xin said there wouldn't be a substantial cost increase for companies that strictly follow the existing Labor Law. "All the principles have been included in the current law. The new law just details the provisions to facilitate implementation," she said.

The straight definitely became the minority at a cheesy bar, dimly lit in pink, in downtown Beijing Friday night, where the shooting of the Heart of Crystal, China's first ever grassroots gay film was heralded to the mostly gay 100-odd audience.The alternative tearjerker tells of the bittersweet romance between a pair of gay men, inspired by the 42-year-old Beijing-based gay illustrator Mao Zhiyong, also the director.Due out for online screening by the end of the year, the small budget movie, based on Mao's personal experience, aims to show the true-life picture of China's millions of gay men and strive for more social tolerance for the community.Like crystal, love between gay men is usually fragile, while more importantly, transparent and pure, Mao said."So we named it that way."The film tells the story of Jia Ning, a gay men in his 30s and with special blessing on art, fell at the first sight for Xiao Dong, an art student at college. The two break up over misunderstandings.As Jia Ning woke up to the truth that Xiao Dong pursues love rather than money together with him, he moved to Beijing to find Xiao Dong to resume the relationship.Without seeing the one he loved, Jia Ning is caught in chaos because one night stands and a decadent lifestyle in the local gay community.Determined to move away from that lifestyle, he tries to break into the fashion industry and finally succeeds, with fame, wealth, and confidence. And finally he meets Xiao Dong, who will go abroad with his new boyfriend shortly."It's not like the conventional gay story with heroes usually socially and economically marginalized." Mao said. "I want to infuse hope into gay life with my story that there is true love, even if not bearing fruit finally, and that through hard work, lit by ambition, life can be as wonderful as that of the straight."Hong Yiping, straight and 26, said he felt comfortable to play Jia Ning despite a short period of struggle before deciding."I have to play against Collin, a real gay, and in some explicit scenarios in the movie, at first frightened me." Hong, a second line entertainer, told China Daily.Collin, a muscular gay, who plays Xiao Dong, said he first took the role just for fun as he only worked half a day as a coach in a Beijing fitness club, but later found the role to be significant work supported by many people."A self-made and true-to-love man, Jia Ning moves me a lot, so I decided to join and do my share, as a straight, to help them with more support through their voice heard from the movie."Edward Russell, a US journalist said: "It's a huge progress and the Chinese society is more open".