CHONGQING, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- The Chongqing Higher People's court on Monday upheld the convictions of 54 members of two mafia-like gangs, amid a massive crackdown on organized crime in the southwestern Chinese city.In the second trial at the court, Wang Tianlun, leader of a 23-member gang, was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve for organizing and instigating gang-related crimes, forcing others to trade and assault.Wang had controlled a local market since 1995, using violence and other criminal means to force vendors to sell meat injected with water, the court said.Tang Youbin, a gang member, was also sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve on similar charges. Another 21 members received life imprisonment and jail terms ranging from one to 20 years.In a separate case, Li Qiang, a former municipal lawmaker, was sentenced to 20 years in jail for seven crimes including organizing a 31-member criminal gang, disturbing public order, disturbing traffic order, illegal business, bribery and hiding accounting documents.Li Qiang based his gang around the company he founded in 1996, Chongqing Yuqiang Group Co. Ltd. To boost his company's share of the Chongqing transportation market, Li organized gang members to disturb the traffic order and cause traffic jams. More than 55 buses were illegally put into use in the city, with the illegal business generating an estimated 18.4 million yuan (2.7 million U.S. dollars).Of the other 30 members of the gang, 25 received sentences ranging from one to 18 years.The members of the two gangs were put on trial in December last year at the Chongqing No. 5 Intermediate People's Court.
BEIJING, Feb. 3 (Xinhua) -- China has decided to start public hospital reform with pilot programs in selected cities or districts in each province, autonomous region and municipality, according to a cabinet guideline passed Wednesday.The guideline on public hospital reform was discussed and approved by an executive meeting of the State Council chaired by Premier Wen Jiabao.The public hospital reform is aimed to establish a reasonable, effective and optimized medical service system, and to fully motivate all medical workers to provide the public with safe, effective, convenient and affordable medical services, according to a statement issued after the meeting.It was stressed at the meeting that public hospitals must retain its orientation of serving public interests and giving top priority to people's health.According to the statement, a coordination mechanism should be established between big public hospitals and grassroots medical service institutions so that they could cooperate with each other with proper division of labor.The management system of public hospitals should also be reformed so that operation and supervision of the hospitals are conducted separately, it said.The quality of public hospitals' medical services should be improved, whereas their incentive mechanism of income distribution should be perfected, the statement said.Public hospitals should also gradually quit profiting from drugs and rely on medical service charges and government subsidies.The guideline also encourages non-governmental sectors to invest in and set up non-profit hospitals.
SHANGHAI, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- The government must mobilize the public to safeguard security, which is the priority of the Shanghai World Expo, the top Shanghai official said Wednesday.The measures to ensure a secure Expo need understanding and support from the public, said Yu Zhengsheng, secretary of the Communist Party of China Shanghai Municipal Committee. "We can minimize the elements of potential dangers only if we trust, rely on and mobilize the grassroot organizations and the public."Yu made the remarks at the ongoing annual session of the municipal advisory body.The measures in safeguarding security and smooth traffic would interrupt the citizens's daily life. The government should seek public opinions and understanding to hold a successful Expo, he said."We should call for citizens to carry as few bags as possible or even no bags when traveling by subway so as to reduce the pressure on security checks," he said.The 2010 World Expo will be held from May 1 to Oct. 31 in Shanghai, expected to attract an record total of 70 million visitors.
JINAN, Feb. 20 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese vocational school blamed for staging cyber attacks on Google and other firms said Saturday the allegations are unfounded."Investigation in the staff found no trace the attacks originated from our school," Li Zixiang, Party chief at Lanxiang Vocational School in Shandong Province, told Xinhua.Students of Lanxiang are still in their winter vacation, Li said.He said Lanxiang has no relationship and does not cooperate with the military, adding that school authorities do not have military backing.He also dismissed the suggestion of involvement of a "specific computer science class" taught by a Ukrainian professor."There is no Ukrainian teacher in the school and we have never employed any foreign staff," Li confirmed."The report was unfounded. Please show the evidence," he said.Li's remarks came after the New York Times reported Thursday cyber attacks on Google and other American firms have been traced to Shanghai Jiaotong University and Lanxiang Vocational School, which the report alleged has ties to the Chinese military.The report, citing unidentified investigators, said there is evidence suggesting a link between the attacks and a computer science class at Lanxiang taught by a Ukrainian professor.Lanxiang, founded in 1984, has about 20,000 students learning vocational skills such as cooking, auto repair and hairdressing.The computer science class offers basic courses about Photoshop, 3D drawing and Word -- not software engineering."It was not until 2006 that our graduates began to join the army. So far, 38 students have been recruited by the military for their talent in auto repair, cooking and electric welding," said Zhou Hui, director of the school's general office, who stressed it is natural for someone to join the army at a proper age.No comment was available from Shanghai's Jiaotong University.Google said on Jan. 12 it might pull out of the Chinese market, citing disagreement with government policies and unidentified attacks targeting Google's services in China.
BEIJING, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- China's police departments will launch a 30-day campaign starting Wednesday to hunt down fugitives who are suspected of having committed a crime known as fake invoice fraud.The campaign will have a code name known as "spring thunder", said Liu Jinguo, Vice Minister of Public Security.While addressing a teleconference Monday, the vice minister said: "As the Spring Festival is drawing near, the demand for fake invoices remains strong. Perpetrators will get on the move."Statistics show that the police across the country uncovered 237 cases involving fake invoice fraud and detained 234 suspects in January. They also destroyed eight large sites making and selling fake invoices, and confiscated more than 12 million fake invoices in the past month.Fake invoice vendors are common in Chinese cities, where they offer receipts used for tax purposes. Such invoices could cause huge losses in tax revenues and could feed illegal activities, such as smuggling, money laundering and corruption.The Spring Festival, or the New Year's Day on the Chinese lunar calendar, will fall Sunday. It is an occasion for reunions of relatives and friends, completed with much fun and plenty of eatings. Spring Festival is the most important event for people of Chinese origin.
SANYA, Hainan, March 21 (Xinhua) -- A senior official with the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) said Sunday China is expected to become the world's largest tourist destination by 2015."China, as we predict, is going to become the world's No. 1 tourist destination by the year 2015," said Taleb Rifai, secretary general of the UNWTO."China is almost there. It is now the world's fourth largest destination when it comes to incoming tourists, and the rates of growth are moving so quickly that we think this is a realistic target," Rifai said.France is currently the country receiving the most international tourists, at 80 million per year, followed by the United States and Spain, both at 60 million a year, while China has about 48 million, he said."China's tourism economy has moved incredibly in the last ten years. The number of incoming tourists rose from 8 million to 48 million. The potential of the growth is still big because of the size of China," Rifai said.Rifai said the global tourism industry is improving but challenges remain due to the weak economy."The tourism industry has to follow and is very much affected by the general economic situation, and for sure the general economic situation has started to turn around. But we cannot call it a full recovery at the moment," he said.
seo优化的公司
HONG KONG, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Plans of extensive and comprehensive inspection of roughly 4,000 buildings aged 50 years and over will be carried out in a month, said the website of the HK Special Administrative Regional government on Saturday after a building collapse incident."This is a comprehensive check across the territory of all the buildings of this age, which we believed are more or less of similar construction, which is reinforced concrete framed construction," said Secretary for Development, Carrie Lam, after inspecting the scene of the building collapse case in Ma Tau Wai Road Saturday.A five-story apartment building of more than 50 years old in Hung Hom, Hong Kong's Kowloon district, collapsed suddenly around 1:30 p.m. local time ( 0530 GMT) Friday afternoon. Four people were confirmed dead and two others injured."we are going to set up 40 teams of professional and technical staff to go out to various parts of Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories to inspect these 4,000 buildings. The target is to complete these comprehensive inspection within a month. We will then follow up with the needed remedial action," she added.Carrie Lam also mentioned she was going to introduce into the Legislative Council a new piece of legislation concerning mandatory inspection of Hong Kong's buildings over 30 years old and also mandatory inspection of windows for buildings aged 10 years and over.
KUNMING, Feb. 26 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Vice Premier Hui Liangyu has called for more efforts to fight Yunnan's worst drought in 60 years when visiting the province in southwestern China.He urged local authorities to ensure water supply for urban and rural residents and for agricultural uses.He also asked local authorities to take more measures to limit the spread of forest fires.Hui visited several rural households to know if they had enough water. He also inspected affected crops, reservoirs and forests during his visit to Yunnan from Wednesday to Friday.Yunnan's drought has resulted in water shortages for locals, livestock and crops.The dry spell started in the autumn 2009 and has also hit neighboring Guizhou Province and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.The seriousness, duration, areas affected and losses are rarely seen in history, the Ministry of Civil Affairs (MCA) said late Friday in a statement on its website.The ministry urged all affected regions to "take all possible means" to minimize the damages of the drought.The ministry also asked local civil affairs authorities of the four hardest-hit regions to report, on a 10-day basis, the number of people affected by the drought, people suffering from drinking water shortage, and people in need of government aid.
NAIROBI, Feb. 12 (Xinhua) -- Achim Steiner, UN Under Secretary- General and Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) told Xinhua in an interview on Friday that China played a significant role in the process leading up to Copenhagen Climate Change Conference."I think China played a very significant role in the process leading up to Copenhagen, and in a sense it became very engaged at the highest international political level in the process," the UNEP chief said.Steiner noted that China took a significant step forward when it made its announcements of voluntary actions a few weeks before Copenhagen. And that sent a very important signal to the negotiations."We saw similar actions taken by Mexico, by South Africa, by Brazil, by Indonesia and also India. That created an opportunity," he said.Steiner admitted that Copenhagen did not deliver what the world had hoped, which was a deal among developed and developing countries to achieve significant agreement in reduction of emissions. However, he maintained that it was also not the failure that some people had attributed to it."I think in history it shall be written as a missed opportunity. We are now focused on moving forward towards Mexico and the world has an opportunity to reach an agreement," he said to Xinhua.On China's situation of environmental protection and carbon emissions reduction, Steiner said the nation has made rapid progress yet challenges still remain.He stressed that China has begun to take a different development path. Chinese leaders and people have started to look at development also from a sense of balance. And therefore environmental protection and sustainable development have taken a far quicker route of being addressed today than by some industrialized nations have done in historical terms."I think many of the measures the government is taking, from establishing a ministry of environmental protection to new legislation, to setting pollution standards, showed that in a period of just 10 to 15 years, China has walked a distance that some other countries had taken 30 to 40 years," he said.The UNEP chief added that "also let us be very realistic that environmental challenge for China is significant, and therefore effective action is necessary and urgent."He lauded China for including the notion of ecological civilization and the transition to a green economy into part of the country's mainstream development planning and the next Five- Year Development Program."To me it provides some very encouraging signs that we will see a very different economic development philosophy emerging in China. And this is also UNEP's mission to work with China in bringing the latest science and knowledge that have been developed across the world on green economy opportunities into the debate and discussions in China," he said.Referring to the upcoming Shanghai EXPO, Steiner said such big events can be not only a showcase for the country, but can also act as an experiment with policies, with new technologies and with new ways of management."The Shanghai EXPO, with the theme of 'Better City, Better Life, ' has put the quality of life, which is so closely related with environment management, at the heart of this international event," he said.Steiner compared the EXPO to the Beijing Olympics, saying that the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing provided many examples of innovation technology as well as environmental management initiatives. It is in his belief that the Shanghai EXPO will just stand in the same tradition.