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China rejects US religion report
2004-09-17 China Daily
China rejected the US State Department's annual report on religious
freedom Thursday with "strong displeasure" and "resolute
objection. "Commenting on the International Religious Freedom
Report 2004 released by the US State Department, Chinese Foreign
Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said the report's section concerning
China disregarded the truth and want only attacked China's religious
and ethnic policies. " () China has been protecting its
citizens' religious rights in accordance with the law, Kong
said, adding that it is an obvious fact that all ethnic groups
and people throughout the country enjoy religious freedom. Kong
urged the United States to stop interfering in China's internal
affairs under the guise of religious issues in order to avoid
damages to bilateral relations. ( )
Beijing opposes US Congress resolution on HK
2004-09-15 China Daily
China on Tuesday strongly objected to a US Congress resolution
on so-called "support for freedom in Hong Kong," saying
it interfered in China's domestic affairs. ( ) The US House
of Representatives on Monday adopted a resolution expressing
support for "freedom" in Hong Kong at the instigation
of several anti-China congressmen. "The US House of Representatives
again meddled in Hong Kong's affairs and intervened in China's
domestic affairs, which not only harms Hong Kong's long-term
prosperity and stability and Sino-US relations, but also harms
the interests of the United States," said a statement issued
Tuesday by the foreign ministry. ( ) Facts prove once again
that since 1997, when Hong Kong returned to the motherland,
its residents have been enjoying unprecedented democratic rights
and freedoms, said the office. It is also a fact that Hong Kong
has been progressing under the principle of "one country,
two systems" and the Basic Law, it added.( )
FM spokesman: China intends no harm to neighbors
2004-09-16 China Daily
China will do no harm to its neighbors, but will instead seek
common prosperity in the region through cooperation, said a
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Thursday at a regular press
conference. In response to a question about a report released
by a Japanese advisory panel describing China as a military
threat, Kong said the report represents a minority viewpoint
and will not be supported by most Japanese people. ( ) China's
national defense budget last year stood at about US$21.5 billion,
while Japan's was more than 60 billion, Kong said. China has
reiterated many times that it pursues a policy of "treating
its neighbors as friends and partners," he said. "Under
no circumstances will China harm the interest of any neighboring
countries." Kong said healthy and mutually beneficial Sino-Japanese
relations would be beneficial to the two peoples and conducive
to regional peace and stability.
Difficulties exist for scheduled 4th round of six-party
talks: FM spokesman
2004-09-16 People's Daily
Difficulties exist for the holding of the fourth round of the
six-party talks before the end of September, said spokesman
Kong Quan Thursday. He said at a regular press conference that
all parties should make efforts to hold the new round of six-party
talks before the end of September. "Even if the new round
could not be held before the end of September, it should be
held at an early date," he said. ( ) The six parties agreed
to meet again before the end of September during the third-round
meeting this June. China has carried out mediation actively
and done much constructive work, leading to much progress, said
Kong. However, whether the talks could be held as scheduled
is mainly up to the DPRK and the United States instead of China,
Kong added. The six-party talks have turned out to be a mechanism
for peaceful resolution of the Korean nuclear issue. ( )
Premier to visit Kyrgyzstan, Russia
2004-09-14 Xinhua News
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao will visit Kyrgyzstan and Russia,
attending the third meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
(SCO) among Prime Ministers from SCO member states and the ninth
regular meeting between Chinese and Russian Prime Ministers
from September 21 to 25. ( ) During Wen's visit, he will extensively
exchange ideas of bilateral relations as well as international
and regional issues of common interest with leaders of the two
countries. He will also discuss the trade cooperation and SCO's
development with other Prime Ministers from SCO member states.
He will sign some important documents during his visit. ( )
DPRK confirms explosion in power plant project
2004-09-13 Xinhua News
An official of the Foreign Ministry of the Democratic People's
Republic of Korea (DPRK) confirmed Monday that last week's explosion
in the country's northern region was part of a power plant project.
The official told Xinhua that Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun
had told visiting British Foreign Office minister Bill Rammell
that the blast was conducted to demolish a mountain for the
project. Outside media reported last week that a large explosion
happened in the northern region of the DPRK on Sept. 9. Initial
reports of a possible nuclear test had been denied by South
Korean and US officials for lacking signature signs.
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CPC Central Committee opens plenary session
2004-09-16 Xinhua News
The Fourth Plenary Session of the16th Central Committee of the
Communist Party of China (CPC) opened here Thursday. During
the four-day plenum, the CPC central committee will hear a work
report of the committee's Political Bureau while deliberating
on issues concerning the improvement of the Party's ruling capacity.
It is the first time for a CPC Central Committee plenum to put
the building of the Party's ruling capacity on the top of the
agenda, analysts here said. The analysts expected that the Party's
ruling capacity building will focus on issues such as how to
pursue the policy of governing the country according to law,
how to better handle the relations between the Party and the
government, and how to improve its governance in line with the
development of market economy. ( )
Traffic accidents causing more deaths
2004-09-15 China Daily
Traffic accidents killed some 68,000 people and injured 302,000
across China in the first eight months of this year, according
to statistics released by the Ministry of Public Security. A
total of 340,000 traffic accidents happened from January to
August, a year-on-year rise of 24 per cent, with the number
of fatalities increasing 2.7 per cent during the same period.
( ) In one case on June 16, 21 of 26 passengers on a bus were
killed in an accident in Xinyu, a city of Southeast China's
Jiangxi Province. The bus was only designed to accommodate 19
people and its driver Li Xinming drove the bus into a lake.
He was sentenced to 5 years in prison.
No room for splittists in Xinjiang
2004-09-15 Xinhua News
A senior Party official says there is absolutely no room for
the extremely small number of national splittists and terrorists
in Xinjiang as nationalities unite, border defense is strengthened
and people's living standards keep rising. Speaking in an interview
with foreign reporters in Urumqi, Wang Lequan, Secretary of
the CPC Xinjiang Autonomous Regional Committee, says the Chinese
government relies on the broad masses of people to safeguard
the country's unification, social stability and the happy lives
of various ethnic groups in Xinjiang by cracking down on extremists,
splittists and international terrorists. Wang Lequan says the
facts prove that violent activities conducted by these three
forces have damaged the fundamental interests of people and
their objectives do not enjoy popular support in the region.
( )
Survey aims to discover, curb AIDS spread
2004-09-13 China Daily
China's worst-hit AIDS province, Henan, has initiated a survey
of blood buying medical stations in an effort to discover the
true extent of its AIDS epidemic, local officials said. The
survey, which began on July 26, aims to poll over 1 million
people in 18 cities and 35 counties in the province believed
to have sold blood at unsanitary blood stations, China Youth
Daily reported. The survey aims to clarify how many people in
the province are currently suffering from AIDS, how many are
carrying the HIV virus and how many people donated blood for
money before 1995, said Ma Jianzhong, director of the Henan
Health Bureau at a press conference. The Henan provincial government
has so far documented some 21,703 HIV carriers who became infected
after selling blood at illegal and unsanitary blood stations
in the 1990s, officials said. In a bid to make money, people
in the Central China province, mostly farmers, sold their blood
to illegal blood stations and individuals. Total HIV cases in
Henan have reached 25,036. Among those infected, more than 97
per cent come from rural areas, official statistics show. (
) Since 2003, governments have been providing anti-virus medicine
for all rural HIV/AIDS sufferers for free. Nearly 80 per cent
of China's HIV carriers live in rural and remote areas. However,
due to the poor medical services and under trained personnel
at grass-roots levels, many AIDS patients have stopped taking
the medicine, which has allowed the disease to progress
China pledges better cooperation with int'l health bodies
2004-09-13 Xinhua News
China is ready to strengthen health cooperation and exchanges
with the international society and contribute to the conquest
of human diseases and the progress of international health drive,
said Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi on Monday. Nowadays, traditional
communicable diseases and chronic non-communicable disease are
becoming greater burdens. The spread of new types of diseases
like HIV/AIDS is becoming more serious. The health development
gap between the developed and developing countries is widening.
All these pose challenges to health undertakings of the world,
said Wu. ( )
China has 236,000 "rich people"
2004-09-14 Xinhua News
China had about 236,000 wealthy people, each with more than
US$1 million in assets in 2003, the Shenzhen Economic Daily
said Monday, quoting a report in the Guangzhou-based 21st Business
Herald. The report, compiled by the Merrylin Group, said China,
with an increase of 12 percent over the previous year, was second
behind India which had a 22-percent increase in the number of
wealthy people, reported Shenzhen Daily. The wealth is calculated
on financial assets, not including housing. Their total assets
average 34 million yuan (US$4.1 million), according to the report.
( )
Three Gorges Dam protected by armed troops
2004-09-14 People's Daily
China has dispatched heavily armed troops to the Three Gorges
Dam, the world's largest hydropower project, to guard against
any terrorist attack, a newspaper said on Tuesday. The forces
had begun patrolling waters near the US$25 billion project in
central Hubei province, built also to tame the flood-prone Yangtze
River, the online edition of Huaxia Times, said. Soldiers manning
the dam had been equipped with armed helicopters, airships,
armoured vehicles and robots to defuse bombs, the newspaper
said. "( ) China would be "seriously on guard against
threats from Taiwan independence terrorists". His comments
came in response to the US Pentagon's annual report to Congress
on China's military power, which said unnamed proponents of
strikes against China "apparently hope" that merely
establishing places like the Three Gorges Dam as targets would
deter Chinese military action. ( ) China has staged a string
of anti-terror manoeuvres throughtout the country, to be better
prepared for the rise in global terrorism since the September
11, 2001 attacks on the US.
14,000 prisoners illegally released early
2004-09-11 Xinhua News
An investigation by China's top judicial body discovered that
13,961 prisoners had their jail terms illegally reduced in the
past four months. The Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP) also
found 3,875 prisoners had been illegally released on parole
or received medical treatment on bail. The SPP said it has redressed
4,331 of the cases, adding that 42 law enforcement officers
have been found guilty in 35 cases concerning illegal jail term
reduction. Before launching the investigation, the SPP believed
that some prison guards were accepting bribes from the prisoners
in exchange for lightening their sentences. The investigation's
results have shown this to be true. ( )
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