CSG news update -- 2007-07-15

[China Study Group <chinastudygroup@gmail.com>]

China Study Group news update

China's trade deficit with East Asia hits $87.5b
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2007-07/15/content_5435197.htm
China Daily | 2007-07-15
Although China has an overall foreign trade surplus, it had a deficit of $87.5 billion in 2006 with East Asian countries, said Liao Xiaoqi, vice minister of commerce, on Saturday.  Liao said at the 3rd East Asia Investment Forum that economic and trade exchanges between China and East Asian countr...

China exports jewelry made with toxic U.S. waste
http://www.ktvb.com/news/regional/stories/ktvbn-jul1407-china_toxins.752fe581.html
KING 5 News | 2007-07-14
GARY CHITTIM
 SEATTLE – On the other side of the world, discarded United States electronics fill foreign slums with toxic metals that are hand-removed by unprotected workers.  Back in the United States, a 4-year-old Minnesota child swallows a piece of jewelry and dies of lead poisoning.  These two tragedie...

Half of China drenched, bedraggled by unprecedented floods
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-07/14/content_6375424.htm
Xinhua | 2007-07-14
JINGSHAN, Hubei, July 14 (Xinhua) -- Zheng Xiaoling trekked in the knee-deep water, careful not to fall and be washed into a swollen river 500 meters away.      On Friday, the worst rainstorm to attack her home county of Jingshan in central China's Hubei Province since records began interrupte...

Stock tip blogger detained in China
http://www.charlotte.com/463/story/196327.html
Charlotte Observer | 2007-07-14
CHRISTOPHER BODEEN
SHANGHAI, China -- A blogger who sold stock picks to thousands of subscribers has been detained in northern China, as regulators try to reign in freelance operators amid a booming stock market.  Wang Xiujie, known to his readers as "Big Brother Leader 777" could face charges of running an unlicen...

20 trapped following gas explosion at coal mine in northern China
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/07/14/asia/AS-GEN-China-Mine-Blast.php
IHT | 2007-07-14
BEIJING: A gas explosion trapped 20 people at a northern China coal mine where nine people died in an accident last month, state media reported Saturday.  Rescuers did not know if those trapped were still alive following the early morning explosion, the official Xinhua News Agency reported, citing...

China's pork prices continue to rise
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-07/14/content_6376028.htm
Xinhua | 2007-07-14
BEIJING, July 14 (Xinhua) -- The pork will continue to be expensive in the latter half of the year as supply shortfall can hardly be eased in a short period of time, a senior Chinese trade official said Saturday in an interview with Xinhua.      "If disasters or epidemics occurred, there would be ...

Hotels told to keep temperatures no lower than 26 degrees
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-07/14/content_6375726.htm
Xinhua | 2007-07-14
BEIJING, July 14 (Xinhua) -- China has ordered hotels in the capital not to reduce the temperature in air-conditioned rooms to less than 26 degrees Celsius in summer and not to heat them over 20 degrees in winter to save energy.      Du Jiang, director of the Beijing Tourism Administration, said a...

6 men on trial in China kiln slavery scandal say they were ordered to beat workers
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/07/14/asia/AS-GEN-China-Slavery.php
AP | 2007-07-14
BEIJING: Six men who worked as enforcers in brick kilns said they were ordered to beat "lazy" workers, who were forced to labor up to 18 hours a day, state media reported.  The men were the latest to go on trial over China's slave labor scandal, which erupted last month after hundreds of paren...

China develops home-grown electric vehicle engines
http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/6215670.html
Xinhua | 2007-07-14
 China has developed its own electric vehicle engines after more than a decade's research, a scientist with the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) announced here Saturday.  China has proprietary intellectual property rights for the asynchoronous drive motors and the permanent magnet synchronous...

Carving Plight of Coal Miners, He Churns China
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/14/world/asia/14zhang.html?ex=1342065600&en=3726f1814a9f22c4&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
New York Times | 2007-07-14
HOWARD W. FRENCH
 IT is not easy to forget an encounter with Zhang Jianhua's sculptures of Chinese coal miners; that is, if one is lucky enough to see them.  Many of the life-size works depict miners sitting on the ground in their black rubber boots wearing looks of sheer fatigue. Some stare blankly into the d...

No more winters in Hong Kong by 2050
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/82750.html
Earth Times | 2007-07-14
 Hong Kong- Global climate change may mean Hong Kong will no longer have winters by the middle of this century, the head of the territory's weather service said Saturday. The director of the Hong Kong observatory, Lam Chiu-ying, said there were more mornings now that had temperatures higher than...

China Halts Imports On U.S. Meats
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/07/14/health/main3057878.shtml
AP | 2007-07-14
(AP) China has suspended imports from several major U.S. meat processors, including the world's largest, in the latest indication the government may be retaliating as its products are turned back from overseas because of safety concerns.  Frozen poultry products from Tyson Foods Inc., the worl...

Starbucks finds imperial palace a forbidding market
http://africa.reuters.com/world/news/usnPEK132294.html
Reuters | 2007-07-14
 BEIJING (Reuters) - A controversial Starbucks coffee shop in the Forbidden City, the former imperial palace at the heart of Beijing, has closed its doors after years of opposition.  A campaign for its closure has been brewing since early this year, when a television anchor complained that the Ame...

Cardboard dumplings on China's toxic menu
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/health/view/288005/1/.html
Channel News Asia | 2007-07-13
BEIJING - They may contain plenty of fibre, but that's all you can say for the cardboard-stuffed dumplings found on sale in the streets of Beijing in the latest example of China's food-safety woes.  In a case that has made television and newspaper headlines, a vendor was found selling the ...

Somalia oil deal for China
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/20a8a430-3167-11dc-891f-0000779fd2ac,dwp_uuid=9c33700c-4c86-11da-89df-0000779e2340.html
FT | 2007-07-13
Barney Jopson
The Chinese state oil giant, CNOOC, has won permission to search for oil in part of Somalia, underlining China's willingness to brave Africa's most volatile regions in its hunt for natural resources.  Somalia has been a no-go area for US oil companies since it descended into anarchy in the...

Beijing Running Out of Garbage Landfills
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2007/07/beijing_running_out_of_garbage_landfills_southern_weeke.php
CDT/ Southern Weekend | 2007-07-13
Beijing needs cleaner air, more water, but more urgently perhaps, it needs to find where to dump its trash. Translated from Southern Weekend, (photo: the landfill site) via sina.com:  Liu Ying (刘英), a 30-year resident of Beijing's northwestern Liulitun (六里屯), is often awakened by the...

That cell phone in your hand is a tracking device
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-07/13/content_6371318.htm
Xinhua | 2007-07-13
 BEIJING, July 13 (Xinhuanet) -- Cell phone signals are being used by law enforcement officials to find missing people in romote areas, to track terrorists and fugitives, and to place suspects near crime scenes, experts say.      "The average citizen is not aware that they are carrying a location-...

Yum! Cardboard-Stuffed Buns
http://www.forbes.com/2007/07/12/china-cardboard-buns-face-markets-cx_vk_0712autofacescan01.html
Forbes | 2007-07-12
Vivian Wai-yin Kwok
HONG KONG -  Amid a steep rise in pork prices this year, one small purveyor of pork buns in Beijing found a way to keep prices down and sales high — substitute cardboard.  Here's its recipe for xiaolongbao, a popular breakfast item, as captured by a television reporter with a hidden ca...

Half a million people evacuated as floods threaten in China
http://www.independent.ie/breaking-news/world-news/asia/half-a-million-people-evacuated-as-floods-threaten-in-china-1035236.html
Independent | 2007-07-12
Nearly half a million people have been evacuated from a potentially deadly flood zone surrounding central China's swollen Huai River, state media reported today.  Continuous rain since June has caused the river to rise to dangerous levels.  The official Xinhua News Agency said the region was...

Chinese firm to sue Google over name
http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_6890000/newsid_6896200/6896205.stm
BBC | 2007-07-12
There's a fresh problem coming out of the floods in China - it's a tiny terror with four legs and whiskers.  Half a million people have had to leave their homes because of the rising water and now the countryside is being over-run by MICE.  They've been forced out of their holes by t...

Man bites dog to death to save pet
http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sp/article/2007/200707/20070704/article_322094.htm
Shanghai Daily | 2007-07-04
Alice Gu
A MAN in Central China's Hubei Province is believed to have saved his pet dog from death in the jaws of a strange dog by biting the attacker to death, according to a local newspaper.  The villager, surnamed Geng, in Yangfan Town, Xingtai County, was unwilling to talk much about the incident la...