Source: China Daily News
Date: June 9, 2008

XICHANG, Sichuan Province — China launched a new communications satellite, Zhongxing-9, from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in the southwestern Sichuan Province at 8:15 p.m. (Beijing Time) Monday.

The satellite was shot into space aboard the Long March-3B rocket carrier. It was the 107th launch mission for the Long March series of carrier rockets.

Zhongxing-9, a satellite ordered by China Satcom from the France-based Thales Alenia Space, would be used for live television broadcast and put into use before the Beijing Olympic Games in August.

Audiences would be able to watch live broadcasts of Olympic events via the satellite. The quality and coverage of the country’s television and broadcasting services were to be increased, and people in remote regions of China would receive clear television programs.

The China Great Wall Industrial Corporation (CGWIC), the contractor of the satellite launch, signed the launch service contract with China Satcom in November 2005.

As the only company engaged in international commercial satellite launching services, CGWIC has launched 34 foreign satellites for 28 services.

Date: June 6, 2008
Source: China Daily News

BERLIN – China has been ranked the most attractive destination for foreign direct investment (FDI), according to a survey of business leaders released by Ernst & Young Thursday.

The survey of 834 international business decision makers showed that 47 percent of respondents ranked China as the most attractive investment destination, followed by India with 30 percent.

The third-placed Russia scored this year’s sharpest climb up the attractiveness ladder, rising 9 points to a 21 percent rating.

“China, India and Russia are on the rise,” said Peter English who led the survey. “These countries offer what investors are looking for: large untapped markets and considerable growth potential. The incumbent major industrialized nations like the United States and Germany simply cannot keep up in this respect.”

The US appeal for investors, meanwhile, has been damaged by the subprime crisis and the threat of recession this year. While 33 percent of respondents ranked the US as top location for FDI in 2007, the percentage dropped to only 18 percent in 2008.

The survey also showed that 50 percent of respondents described the United States as the most innovative country, followed by China with 34 percent and Germany with 31 percent.

Date: June 5, 2008
Source: China Daily

NewsPublic buildings such as schools and hospitals will be constructed to higher earthquake-resistance standards, a senior construction official said Thursday.

“We’ve started research and will draft detailed quake-resistance codes for such buildings,” Qi Ji, vice-minister of housing and urban-rural development, told a news briefing organized by the State Council Information Office.

He said the codes will be based on geographic analysis from the State Seismological Bureau and scientific construction methods.

Although Qi admitted that tougher building standards should be used in reconstruction, he disputed the assertion that a disproportionate number of schools had collapsed, saying “other public buildings and homes had also collapsed”.

Many people, especially aggrieved parents who lost their children in the quake, have questioned the quality of school buildings as many of them collapsed in the quake, killing thousands. They are also calling for an increase in the quake-resistance level of these public structures.

Experts, however, say that standards are one thing, and implementation is another.

“The quake-resistance level for Wenchuan’s buildings is rated Degree 7, but based on what I’ve seen on-site, the buildings are far from this level,” a professor at the Beijing Construction and Engineering Research Institute, Liu Hang, said.

“The key is implementation.”

At yesterday’s briefing, Qi also said that authorities are focusing on the goal of producing 1 million prefabricated temporary housing units within three months, a task that would require a “round the clock” effort.

Latest official figures show that the 26,730 makeshift shelters had been set up by Wednesday, and another 14,353 are being erected. A further 68,448 are waiting to be assembled in the disaster-hit areas.

Qi said with nationwide assistance, the country can now produce about 15,000 to 18,000 makeshift housing units every day, but assembly speed is only 5,000 a day.

“We’ll try our best to make the assembly speed match production,” he said.

Qi acknowledged that because of the huge demand for makeshift houses, there was a shortage of some raw materials such as color coated steel sheets and Polystyrene.

To ease the shortage, Qi said his ministry and the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission had jointly issued an emergency notice, requiring some big State-owned companies to work around the clock to produce the materials in short supply.

He said the temporary houses could be used for three to five years, and the central budget will cover most of the expenditure of the 1 million housing units, while donations will pay for about 10 percent.

Source: China Daily News
Date: June 4, 2008

Overwhelmed by media coverage of the deadly quake that hit Sichuan province on May 12, graduate student Shi Yan stopped following developments of the disaster on news websites for 10 days.

The master’s degree candidate at the China Foreign Affairs University in Beijing decided instead to visit her favorite online shopping site to browse items she loved – clothes, cosmetics and shoes.

But, for the first time, she found that she had lost interest in the products.

“I suddenly lost the desire to buy a 400 yuan ($57.75) pair of sandals,” Shi said.

“I did not want to be a spendthrift.”

Shi decided to donate the money she would have spent on the shoes to quake victims instead.

“I realized that safety and health are the most precious things in life,” she said.

“You can never enrich your life through shopping.”

She is part of the majority of respondents in a recent survey who said that the quake changed their attitude toward life.

The poll, conducted by newspaper China Youth Daily and news portal Sohu.com, showed that 88 percent of the 4,309 people surveyed thought that the quake had “changed” their lives.

The rest of those polled said they were “not sure” of the effect of the disaster on their lives, or that there was “no change at all”.

Shi was also part of the 82.1 percent of those polled who chose to “cherish life more and create more value for society” after the quake.

The results of the survey come amid changing attitudes in society over how the younger generation in the country is being perceived in the aftermath of the quake.

Those born in the 1980s and 1990s, for example, have been labeled as spoiled, criticized for lacking care for others and said to be too focused on themselves.

But many have seen a large number of young people contributing to relief efforts for quake victims. Media reports tell of parents, along with the whole country, being pleasantly surprised to see so many youngsters maturing quickly in the disaster.

Date: May 23, 2008
Source: China Daily News

The supply of food and other goods in Sichuan province is stable now and business is expected to recover soon, the commerce minister said on Thursday.

The delivery lines to some remote villages, however, has still not been fully restored because of blocked roads, Chen Deming said at a press conference.

Sichuan is a major pork-supplying province, accounting for about 10 percent of the country’s total. But the price of pork in the country will not shoot up because the worst quake-hit areas are in the mountains and they do not supply a large amount of the meat to the national market, Chen said.

The government took steps to rein in pork prices after they shot up to record highs last year. “In fact, in some Chengdu markets, the price of pork have even fallen a little,” he said.

“Since we have the mechanism to send materials anywhere in the country at a short notice, it’s not that difficult for us to reach goods to quake-hit areas ,” he said.

It is still difficult, though, to reach goods to some villages because many roads remain blocked. The ministry, however, will take all possible means to deliver essentials to places in need, he said, even if it means motorcycles, horses and men have to carry them in relay.

Chengdu, the provincial capital, has an abundant supply of goods, Chen said. Counties and towns, too, have a stable supply, and business in the region is recovering despite the heavy losses.

“And by the end of this month, the business at the county level and above should be back on track.”

The commerce ministry has asked 15 large-scale national retailers to set up outlets in quake-hit areas to ensure that people there get food and other products.

Chen said the quake has had only a slight impact on the country’s overall trade situation. “China is a big country, and there is a lot of room to maneuver.”

Exports will not suffer much, though some goods needed badly in the quake-hit areas may not be traded in for the time being. For instance, supply of tents to some countries could be suspended.

The impact of the quake on the consumer price index (CPI) will not be much either, Chen said, because Sichuan accounts for about 4 percent of the country’s GDP, and the most severely hit areas comprise only 0.5 percent of the overall GDP.

Date: May 20, 2008
Source: China Daily News The Ministry of Health is stepping up efforts to guard against epidemic outbreaks in the quake-hit regions, said Mao Qun’an, its spokesman.

The move comes on the heels of detection of gas gangrene, a deadly bacterial infection that may require immediate amputation, in the disaster zone.

As of Sunday, several major facilities treating quake survivors reported 58 cases of the disease, said local health authorities.

Some 30 of them will need to be amputated.

The first five cases, all involving severely injured survivors, were detected on May 14 at Sichuan University‘s Huaxi Hospital, the biggest hospital in Chengdu. They are in stable condition now, the dean of the hospital, Shi Yingkang, told China Central Television.

An isolation ward has been set up to prevent the infection from spreading, he said, adding that all quake survivors will be screened for gas gangrene upon arrival at the hospital.

“So far there has not been any case of cross-infection among the patients at the hospital,” he said.

Zeng Guang, a top epidemiologist with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told China Daily yesterday the infection would not affect the general public.

It usually strikes people with serious injuries such as open fractures, according to Zeng.

Isolation of those infected and frequent disinfection can cut cross-infection chances. It takes about five minutes to diagnose the disease by testing wound secretions.

Gas gangrene is a bacterial infection that produces gas within gangrenous tissues. The disease is usually treated through surgical procedures and, in some serious cases, amputation, said experts.

Left untreated, it leads to death within 12 hours, Zeng said.

He urged all hospitals receiving patients from quake-hit areas to set up isolation facilities and test all patients for the disease upon their arrival.

“Medication must be provided to suspected cases as soon as possible,” he said.

Rescuers on the ground should not touch survivors’ skin without protection and should follow closely the disinfection procedures, he added.

Alert should also be raised for other infections, including diarrhea, hepatitis A and cholera, he said.

“Mass infection of diarrhea was recorded in the aftermath of the 7.8-magnitude Tangshan earthquake in 1978,” Zeng said.

To tighten epidemic surveillance, the Ministry of Health has ordered that public health emergencies, including epidemic outbreaks and mass food poisoning cases in the quake-hit regions, be reported every day.

The ministry will send some 3,500 specialists in epidemic prevention and sanitation inspection to the disaster zone in five days.

On Monday, a 320-member medical team specializing in hospital infection containment and ICU management was dispatched by the ministry to help in securing hospital hygiene in the affected areas.

Some 5.3 million leaflets containing tips on hygiene and disease prevention are on the way to rescue workers and survivors.

The leaflets provide detailed guidelines on epidemic surveillance, food and water safety, environmental hygiene, physiological intervention and proper disposal of victims, said ministry spokesman Mao.

Date: May 19, 2008
Source: China Daily News

DUJIANGYAN, Sichuan: A soldier in a dirty, soaking wet uniform rushed into a logistics center in Dujiangyan yesterday afternoon, shouting: “Help! We need water and food!”

Within half an hour, a truck -load of bottled water and two trucks of food, including fresh cabbages and biscuits, were ready to leave the base for Yingxiu in Wenchuan county, the epicenter of the May 12 earthquake.

n Yingxiu, the soldier’s comrade-in-arms were still busy rescuing survivors despite not having much food or water. “We must be quick. Time is life,” Jiang Ke, director of the logistics center, said.

The logistics center, set up on a drug factory compound in the suburbs of Dujiangyan, gets supplies such as bottled water, instant noodles, biscuits, milk and milk powder, clothes and tents.

Some of the goods are carried from Chengdu airport. Others are brought by trucks or even private cars from nearby provinces.

The center sends about 700 to 800 fully loaded trucks to Dujiangyan and nearby areas such as Wenchuan, Jiang said. The center does not have a large stock because most of the goods are dispatched as soon as they arrive. “Food items, tents and bottled water are needed the most,” he said.

“Our priority is the homeless,” Jiang said. But they are not allowed to enter the center directly for fear of causing chaos.

Instead, the center has asked local communities to report how much supplies are needed every day. The local communities can distribute the goods after they get them from the center.

Requests for supplies continued even while this correspondent was talking to Jiang. He slept for only two or three hours a night on the first three days after the quake. Things are getting better now, so he can sleep for three to four hours.

Niu Junjie, an army driver, who was about to leave for nearby areas to dispatch water, said he made four to five such trips a day.

“I returned from Saturday’s shift at 3 am this morning. And my first trip today was at 8 am,” said the resident of Liangshan in Sichuan province.

“We cannot complain because people are waiting for us.”

The center also has health and quality control officials in order to ensure food safety.

But Wang Ding, a Chongqing municipality health official, said they could only conduct “visual inspections” such as checking the packaging and production dates.

“Given the huge amount of food products and the lack of proper testing equipment, it’s almost impossible to test each batch thoroughly,” Wang said.

But despite the officials’ and workers’ best efforts, the homeless still need more supplies.

“Food is okay, but one person gets only one bottle of water for the whole day. That can hardly quench our thirst, let alone be used for cooking or washing,” said Wang Xiaoping, a Dujiangyan resident who lost her home in the quake.

“But we know the government is in a very difficult situation,” Wang said.