CSG news update -- 2007-09-01

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

China Study Group news update

Sandstorms Are Eroding Great Wall, China Says
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/30/world/asia/30wall.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin
New York Times | 2007-08-31
BEIJING, Aug. 29 (Reuters) — Sandstorms in northwest China are reducing sections of the Great Wall to mounds of dirt and may cause them to disappear in about 20 years, state media said Wednesday.  The Great Wall snakes its way across more than 3,980 miles and gets an estimated 10 million vis...

China's top legislature adopts new laws, approves ministers nomination, expels corrupt deputies
http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/6251775.html
People's Daily Online | 2007-08-31
Xinhua
China's top legislature closed its seven-day bimonthly session on Thursday, adopting a law amendment that backs the government's expropriation of institutional and private houses for public interests and approving the nomination of five cabinet ministers.  The 170-member Standing Committee...

China amends real estate law to back state expropriation
http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/6251778.html
People's Daily Online | 2007-08-31
Xinhua
China's top legislature amended a real estate management law Thursday, allowing the government to expropriate institutional and private houses on state-owned land for public interests.  The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) voted at its legislative session that end...

Beijing to focus on financial services
http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/6252049.html
People's Daily Online | 2007-08-31
China Daily
The Beijing municipal government yesterday issued a report, which seeks to promote the capital as a center for back office operations for the financial sector.  The report contains a host of measures to lure financial institutions from home and abroad to set up bases in Beijing and increase the ci...

Housing bureau issues controversial guidelines
http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/6252172.html
People's Daily Online | 2007-08-31
China Daily
New guidelines issued by the city's housing bureau that discourage landlords from offering "group rents" have sparked debate among local people.  According to the rules released on Monday, rooms should be let only to individuals and families and the total floor space should equate to not less ...

China's largest "pyramid" scheme nets 170,000 people before crackdown
http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/6252488.html
People's Daily Online | 2007-08-31
Chinese police have uncovered the country's largest ever alleged on-line pyramid selling scheme, involving 170,000 people and 1.36 billion yuan (180 million U.S. dollars).  The scheme, operated under the name of "Swiss Mutual Fund", required each investor to pay 8,000 yuan (1,052 U.S. dollars)...

China Replaces 5 Senior Officials
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/30/AR2007083002026.html
Washington Post | 2007-08-31
Edward Cody
BEIJING, Aug. 30 -- The Chinese government announced Thursday that five senior officials were being replaced, including the finance and state security ministers, as part of a broad realignment leading up to a crucial Communist Party congress in October.  Finance Minister Jin Renqing has resigned f...

 Chinese activist's wife slams China
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070831/ap_on_re_as/blind_activist_1
AP | 2007-08-31
OLIVER TEVES
 MANILA, Philippines - The wife of an imprisoned blind Chinese activist denounced China for its human rights record and for preventing her from receiving a Philippine humanitarian award for her husband in Manila on Friday.   Yuan Weijing was stopped last week by Chinese authorities from leaving f...

 China vice-PM ranked world's 2nd most powerful woman after Merkel
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070831/ts_alt_afp/usworldsocietywomen_070831041327
AFP | 2007-08-31
 NEW YORK (AFP) - China's Deputy Prime Minister Wu Yi and Singapore state investment chief Ho Ching knocked US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice down two notches in the annual Forbes ranking of the world's most powerful women published Thursday. ADVERTISEMENT  German Chancellor Angela M...

 China starts recall systems for food
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070831/ap_on_bi_ge/china_tainted_products_9
AP | 2007-08-31
AUDRA ANG
 BEIJING - China's first nationwide recall systems for unsafe food and toys came into effect Friday in one of the strongest steps taken by Beijing to clean up the country's scandal-hit manufacturing industry. ADVERTISEMENT click here  China, a major global supplier, has been facing growi...

Upcoming Congress a New Starting Point for Party
http://www.china.org.cn/english/news/222494.htm
Xinhua | 2007-08-30
The upcoming 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) will serve as a new historical starting point for the Party and country's further advancement, says an editorial to be carried on Thursday's People's Daily.     The congress, proposed by the Political Bureau of...

Worlds Apart
http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=76863
AsiaMedia | 2007-08-26
Timothy B. Weston
Like many Americans, I watched with hope, apprehension, and finally with real sadness as the saga of the six miners trapped underground at Utah's Crandall Canyon mine played out earlier this month. Anybody in the United States who keeps even half an eye on the news is familiar with the broad out...