SHANGHAI -- China will launch its first Mars probe in October 2009 as part of a joint mission with Russia, said sources with the Shanghai Space Administration, the main developer of the probe, on Monday. Researchers are "pressing ahead" with the project for a synchronized launching with a Russian probe, said Chen Changya, a researcher with the Shanghai Institute of Satellite Engineering, at a space technology exhibition. He said the home-developed Chinese probe is scheduled for completion by June 2009. The probe, 75 centimeters long, 75 centimeters wide, 60 centimeters high and weighing 110 kilograms, is designed to be able to serve a two-year mission, according to Chen. Its model is on display at the exhibition. The Chinese probe, with Russia's Phobos-Grunt, will be launched by a Russian carrier rocket, Chen said. They are expected to land on Mars in 2010 after 10 month's flight.
At the end of a dusty narrow path cutting through a stretch of cornfields on the outskirts of Qingyang, an obscure town in Henan Province, looms a 3-hectare ground dotted with green tents, armored cars and bulldozers. Over the past three months, 315 Chinese engineering troops have gone through the rigors of tough day-night training here. And in a month from now, they will travel more than 8,000 km to Darfur in Sudan to be part of a special UN peacekeeping mission.Commander of UN Mission in Sudan Lieutenant General Jasbir Singh Lidder (L) hands over Unit Citations to Chinese peacekeepers for their excellent performance at the base of the Chinese peacekeeping troops on September 12, 2007. [Xinhua]The first international group of peacekeepers to be deployed in Darfur will build barracks, roads and bridges, and dig wells, which form the key to the accession of more UN peacekeepers to the region. The drills the engineering troops, with the UN's blue berets, perform in front a group of reporters from home and abroad show what they are capable of. In about 10 minutes, bulldozers and road-rollers smoothen a potholed path and soldiers use bare hands to move a 40-meter stretch of steel bridge into place over a ditch. In less than that time, another squad builds a cabin with prefabricated aluminum walls and a "UN" symbol on its side. On show, too, are impressive wrestling and battlefield aid performances."The engineering unit is manned by sturdy, versatile soldiers, mainly from the Jinan Military Area," says Lieutenant Colonel Dai Shaoan, deputy director of the Ministry of National Defense's peacekeeping affairs office. "They have wide experience in building roads and bridges and are fully competent for the mission."The Chinese troops are part of the "Annan Plan", a three-phased approach proposed by former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan to end the Darfur crisis. The plan calls for deploying a joint UN-African Union (AU) peacekeeping force in the 500,000-square-km arid Darfur region, plagued by conflicts over limited resources. Their deployment has been made possible after a hard-won diplomatic tug-of-war.Dai says the UN invited China in April to dispatch a multi-functional engineering unit to Dafur. Four months later, the world body requested that the unit be dispatched in early October."We are doing the preparatory jobs in line with the prescribed timetable to guarantee smooth implementation of the peacekeeping operation," says engineering unit head Shangguan Linhong.The force comprises three engineering platoons, a platoon each of well-diggers and 40 guards, a small hospital unit, 145 vehicles including excavators, bulldozers, road-rollers, power generators and armored personnel carriers, Shangguan says. All the vehicles are "brand new" from domestic companies and have undergone strict tests in line with UN standards.Since its formation in mid-June, the engineering unit has attended intensive courses, from emergency aid to simulating heat in Darfur and from studying UN regulations to getting to know Sudanese culture. "Everyone in our unit can communicate in English to a certain extent," Shangguan says.The UN raised the alarm on Darfur in 2003, and began looking for a lasting resolution to the ethnic conflict. The Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) was signed in May 2006, thanks to intensive diplomatic and political efforts of the UN, AU and other partners. It took more than one year after that to persuade the Sudanese authorities to accept the UN-AU "hybrid" peacekeeping force.President Hu Jintao met with his Sudanese counterpart Omar al-Bashir in Beijing last November and in Khartoum in February, and asked him to be flexible in his stance over Darfur and ensure that humanitarian aid was distributed properly among the refugees. In March, when Sudan and the UN differed over the implementation of the Annan Plan, China sent a special envoy several times to Khartoum to persuade the government to accept the UN resolution."I think the Sudanese government heeded China's advice," China's special representative for Darfur Liu Guijin said at a press conference in early July. Sudan agreed in June to have the "hybrid" force in Darfur after intense diplomatic efforts of the UN and the international community. Besides, China offered million in humanitarian aid to Sudan, with the last installment leaving Tianjin last month.The latest situation in Darfur is a mixture of good and bad. The UN says the mortality rate in the region is now below the emergency level because of the massive humanitarian efforts of the last four years. Also, malnutrition has been halved from mid-2004, when the crisis reached its peak.But in June, the UN Environment Programme reported an "unprecedented" long-term climate change in northern Darfur, saying its impacts are closely linked to the conflict.This is a real challenge for the Chinese engineering troops, but they are not unnecessarily perturbed. In fact, they are ready to overcome all obstacles on the road to peace."The challenges ahead of our peacekeeping troops are obvious," says Dai. Poor living conditions, lack of proper infrastructure and complex security situations are the obvious challenges. "But our army has a glorious tradition of being hard-working, particularly combat-worthy and of playing a contributory role."Major Ma, an officer with the engineering troops, says Chinese soldiers see the UN peacekeeping operation as a glorious opportunity. "Implementing a mission so far from the country and being part of the efforts to maintain peace in the world is a unique experience."All the soldiers in the battalion which Ma used to serve in the Jinan Military Area had applied to be part of the engineering unit for Darfur, and they included 18-year-old recruits, he says, and they had the full support of their families.But is Ma worried about the dangers in Darfur? The major says: "What we think of most is how to do a nice job. Danger and difficulties are normal for servicemen."China's peacekeepers till nowSince dispatching five military observers to the UN Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) in 1990, China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) has sent 8,095 military personnel to 17 UN peacekeeping missions. Altogether, 1,648 Chinese officers and soldiers are serving in 10 UN missions and the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations today.Lieutenant Colonel Dai Shaoan, deputy director of the Ministry of National Defense's peacekeeping affairs office, says China will participate only in those peacekeeping missions that are in line with the UN Charter, which means those operations overseen by the UN Security Council.China has contributed peacekeepers in the shape of engineers and medical and transport units. It has not sent any combat troops for peacekeeping operations.But Dai says China has a "positive" attitude towards sending combat troops for future UN peacekeeping operations.
Chinese auditors said it found no embezzlement or misappropriation of construction fund in the ongoing Three Gorges project, however, they also detected some problems and flaws in the project management. The National Audit Office (NAO) said the overall quality control of the project was fine and total investment were kept under control. All 11 major projects were up to the standards, as were main materials such as steel and cement, said an audit report by the NAO. It said total inflation-adjusted investment, expected to be 78 billion yuan, could be more than 35 billion yuan less than planned in 1994. By the end of 2005, the country had spent 64.2 billion yuan on the project. The NAO, however, also detected extra construction costs of 488 million yuan, most of which was incurred by project construction contractors who exaggerated their expenditure. The office also found 20.4 hectares of land illegally used without governmental permission, while another 110 hectares approved for use had been left idle. "The problems are largely due to lack of laws and regulations and imperfection in internal control," said Pan Xiaojun, senior official with the NAO. The company said it had already corrected the use of 139 million yuan of fund involving violation of rules, and a total 17 measures had been adopted to improve management over the project. The office said 21 power station construction projects, most of which involved a single contract value of less than 10 million yuan were not put out to tender. A few construction companies were discovered to have subcontracted their projects against regulations and obtained illegal charge of 53.45 million yuan. About half of the 1,448 supervisors sampled were found to have no licenses for the work. The China Three Gorges Corporation said it had strengthened the implementation of public bidding to ensure the fairness of the results and avoid the influence of people, and it also added detailed terms about contracting in contracts to prevent illegal contracting. The unlicensed supervisors had been fired and supervision over the project supervisors were enhanced, according to the company. The report said that the project across the Yangtze River, the construction of which began in 1993, had played a "better-than-expected" role in flood prevention, power generation and shipping. "It's possible to put the project into full operation by 2009 as planned, and the project is running a bit ahead of schedule," it said. The fourteen generators in a power plant had been put into operation a year earlier than planned in 2005, the office said. Upon its completion, the Three Gorges dam will produce 85 billion kwh of electricity annually for supply to central and eastern China. The dam, which is 2,309 meters long and 185 meters high, will be installed with 26 turbo-generators, each with a generation capacity of 700,000 kilowatts. The audit, which took 150 auditors more than six months to complete, covered areas including fund raising, management and use, construction management as well as benefit of the project.
SHANGHAI - One experimental clean-energy car runs on natural gas. Another uses ethanol distilled from corn. A third has a zero-emissions electric motor powered by a hydrogen fuel cell. Visitors walk around a Ryuga Mazda car on display during The Shanghai Auto Show in Shanghai April 21, 2007. These alternative vehicles were created not by a global automaker but by China's small but ambitious car companies, which displayed them Sunday alongside gasoline-powered sedans and sport utility vehicles at the start of the Shanghai Auto Show. At a time when they are still trying to establish themselves in international markets, Chinese automakers are already investing in such avant-garde research in a bid to win a foothold in the next generation of technology. "This is the tide of the industry. If you don't go with the tide, the industry will pass you by," said Qin Lihong, a vice president of China's biggest domestic automaker, Chery Auto Co., in an interview ahead of the show's opening. China's leaders are encouraging the development as part of efforts to cut pollution and rising dependence on imported oil and to make this country a creator of profitable technologies. Chinese manufacturers are getting help from foreign automakers in joint ventures and from research alliances with Chinese universities and government laboratories. Beijing has made cleaner cars a policy priority, targeting the field as one of 11 priority areas in a 15-year technology development plan issued in February 2006. It promised grants and tax breaks to support industry efforts. The campaign embodies one of Beijing's strategies in technology development: Pick new areas with no entrenched competitors so China can make breakthroughs without huge costs. While foreign automakers have a lead in conventional technology, "in new energy we're starting from almost the same line," said Chen Hong, the president of Shanghai Automotive Industries Corp. "So we believe we can catch up with other auto companies and make great progress in developing new energy vehicles," Chen said. China's leaders are pressing its auto, steel, manufacturing and other industries to improve energy efficiency and cut pollution. They see China's rising reliance on imported oil as a strategic weakness. China already is the world's No. 2 oil consumer after the United States and saw imports soar by 14.5 percent in 2006, driven by economic growth that has topped 10 percent for the past four years. A boom in car sales has added to smog shrouding China's major cities, which are among the world's dirtiest. Vehicle sales jumped 25.1 percent last year to 7.2 million units, including 3.8 million passenger cars. At the Shanghai show, both SAIC and Chery displayed experimental fuel-cell sedans, while they and a third Chinese automaker, Chang'an Automobile Group Co., also showed gasoline-electric hybrids. SAIC said it will start selling its hybrid next year, while Qin said Chery's would go on the market in two to three years. "The hybrid will be our focus," SAIC chairman Hu Maoyan said at a news conference. "The fuel cell will be our direction." SAIC has spent 100 million yuan ( million) on fuel cell research, according to state media. Chery had the widest array of alternative vehicles on display at the Shanghai show. They included models outfitted to run on bio-diesel made from vegetable oil or a "flexible fuel" choice of compressed natural gas or ethanol. Foreign automakers also are playing a role in China's research. General Motors Corp. has a joint-venture technology center with SAIC in Shanghai and operates three experimental fuel cell buses in the city. DaimlerChrysler AG has three of its own fuel cell buses running regular routes in Beijing in a research project with the technology ministry. Foreign automakers including GM, Ford Motor Co., BMW AG and Honda Motor Co. displayed their own hybrids and experimental fuel cell cars at the Shanghai show. Company officials said hydrogen fuel cells, which produce power with no exhaust, are the cleanest option. But they say it could be a decade or more before such technology is commercially feasible, due partly to the need to create a network of hydrogen filling stations. Chinese authorities also are looking at other possible fuels such as natural gas and methane extracted from coal, said Mei-Wei Cheng, the president of Ford's China operations. "This is not an easy decision, because every option has pros and cons," Cheng said. "The government is trying to find a solution as quickly as possible, but this is a difficult problem."
First Deputy Prime Minister and presidential candidate Dmitry Medvedev smiles during a news conference at his election headquarters in Moscow March 3, 2008. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo) BEIJING, March 3 -- Chinese President Hu Jintao Monday congratulated Dmitry Medvedev on his victory in Russia's presidential election. With the joint efforts of both sides, China and Russia have seen in-depth and all-around development in their strategic partnership of coordination, Hu said during a telephone conversation with Medvedev. China and Russia have continued to strengthen mutual political trust and made fruitful achievements in pragmatic cooperation, he said, noting the successful national theme years held respectively in the two countries in 2006 and 2007. The Chinese government will unswervingly boost the strategic partnership of coordination with Russia on the basis of mutual respect, trust and support, Hu said. Hu said he is willing to make concerted efforts with Medvedev to push forward the two countries' strategic partnership of coordination. In their telephone conversation, Hu also invited Medvedev to visit China at an early date. For his part, Medvedev said Russia and China have continued to make headway in pragmatic cooperation in such fields as trade and economy, as well as conducting significant coordination in international affairs. He described Russia-China ties as a key factor in current international relations, saying that to develop the strategic partnership of coordination is the only option for Russia's policy toward China. Russia is ready to work closely with China to push their bilateral relations to a new high, said the president-elect. Medvedev thanked Hu for his invitation, saying he is looking forward to a visit to China and a meeting with the Chinese president. Medvedev, first deputy prime minister of Russian President Vladimir Putin's cabinet, won a landslide victory in Sunday's presidential election.
Investors monitor the movement of stock prices at a brokerage firm in Guangzhou, South China's Guangdong Province May 9, 2007. [newsphoto]China's main stock index hit a fresh all-time high after breaking a key barrier of 4,000 points due to the soaring blue chip stocks as investors shrugged off official warnings of a possible market bubble amid soaring corporate profits. The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index, the most widely watched indicator of the mainland's stock market, gained 1.60 percent to end at 4,013.08 points, breaching the psychologically important mark of 4,000 for the first time. That marks a gain of 50 percent so far this year on top of a 130 percent rally in 2006. Blue chip stocks showed strong performances. China Unicom, the nation's second largest wireless operator, jumped its daily limit of 10 percent to close at 6.35 yuan per share. Bank of China rose 7.77 percent to 6.10 yuan, while Industrial and Commercial Bank of China was up 5.47 percent to 5.78 yuan. The surge came after the Shanghai Composite Index was pushed to a new high in the previous session as new investor cash flooded in after the week-long May Day market recess and China's yuan broke the barrier of 7.70 against the US dollar. The consistent hitting of new highs since January was partly driven by the wave of money brought in by new investors. Some 4.787 million new A-share trading accounts were opened in April, more than the combined number of the previous two years, statistics from China Securities Depository and Clearing Corporation. The figures for the new accounts are considered a rough indicator for the number of new individual investors entering the market. Analysts said the market may undergo drastic fluctation after the index breaks the 4,000 point mark, as worries about stock overvaluations build up. The stocks in the Shanghai and Shenzhen markets are trading at more than 40 times earnings per share on average, much higher than developed markets overseas. The growing bubble in the country's stock market is a concern, said central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan last week, adding he would closely monitor asset prices, the consumer price index and producer price index. Zhou's remarks added to speculation there could be an interest rate hike as early as next month. Xie Guozhong, former chief China economist for Morgan Stanley, suggested regulators should come up with certain policies to put the brakes on the surging stock market for the good of long-term economic development and social stability. "China's equity market is starting to show signs of getting out of control," said Zuo Xiaolei, chief economist of China Galaxy Securities in China Securities Journal on Wednesday The market rose even after the interest rate was hiked in March, and the bank reserve ratio was raised in April, said Zuo. "The neglect of policy and blindly pushing up the equity market fosters a big market risk," he claimed.
企业排名优化
Foreign trade in east China's Shanghai port rose 20.3 percent year-on-year to 91.06 billion U.S. dollars in the first two months of 2008, official statistics show. The figure accounted for 24.9 percent of the country's total trade value of 365.93 billion U.S. dollars from January to February. Exports climbed 17.2 percent, 20.7 percentage points lower than the period from a year earlier, to 58.59 billion U.S. dollars. Mechanical and electronics products accounted for around 60 percent of total exports. Imports jumped 26.3 percent, 10.8 percentage points higher from the same period last year, to 32.47 billion U.S. dollars, the Shanghai Customs said. The surplus rose 7.6 percent to 26.12 billion U.S. dollars. The rate was 66.1 percentage points lower from a year ago. Export growth slowed as the Spring Festival holiday and the strongest winter blizzards in five decades closed factories and disrupted transport. The government policies introduced last year to reduce surging surplus also contributed to the slower pace, as shown in the steel and garment sectors. Imports, however, accelerated their pace as China bought more commodities and farm produce at higher prices. Through the Shanghai port 549,000 tons of agricultural products were imported in the two months, an annual increase of nearly 30 percent. Their average price was up 24.7 percent from a year earlier.
Yichang - Construction of a tunnel under the Yangtze River that will form part of a gas pipeline project running from Sichuan Province to Shanghai was completed Monday.The 1.4-km, 3.08-m diameter tunnel sits 20 m beneath the riverbed and connects two wells on either side of the river in Yichang city, Hubei Province, Liu Juzheng, head of the Hubei section of the pipeline, said.With a total length of 2,203 km, the pipeline will serve as an "energy artery" as part of the West-East gas project, Liu said.The pipeline is expected to channel 12.1 billion cu m of natural gas a year from the Puguang field in Sichuan to central and eastern regions of the country, including Chongqing Municipality, the provinces of Hubei, Anhui, Jiangxi, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and Shanghai Municipality.The tunnel, which took 325 days to complete, is the first of five to be built under the Yangtze.Industry experts say the new pipeline, which will cost 62.7 billion yuan (.4 billion) to build, will provide an opportunity to develop western regions based on their rich natural resources.Chen Deming, vice-minister of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), said the pipeline will be completed in late 2010 and the gas it transports will help reduce carbon dioxide emissions by tens of millions of tons a year.Figures from the China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec) put Puguang's proven reserves at 356.1 billion cu m. The country has total proven natural gas reserves of about 2.66 trillion cu m.The government has been promoting the use of natural gas to improve energy efficiency and reduce air pollution.Under an NDRC proposal on natural gas development, the government plans to increase the natural gas pipeline network to 44,000 km by 2010 to meet demand.Although China's natural gas output will reach 94 billion cu m in 2010, up from 58.6 billion in 2006, an additional 16 billion cu m a year will still have to be imported to meet demand, Sinopec said.In Shanghai, demand for natural gas soared from 4 million cu m in 2003 to 1.9 billion in 2005.In 2004, China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) opened its West-East gas pipeline, which runs more than 4,000 km and channels 1.2 billion cu m of gas a year to Shanghai from the Tarim Basin in the country's westernmost region of Xinjiang.CNPC is to build a second West-East pipeline to carry gas imported from central Asia to the Pearl and Yangtze river deltas. Construction will begin next year with the line, which is designed to carry 30 billion cu m a year, becoming operational in 2010.
GUANGZHOU: Zhuhai in Guangdong Province and the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) are under threat from a serious saltwater tide that is likely to worsen over the next two months, the provincial water resource department said Thursday.The saltwater tide arrived in Zhuhai in the first half of November, earlier than the usual saltwater tide season from December to February.Last month, the city's main water source, Pinggang Water Pumping Station, was rendered incapable of pumping qualified fresh water for 171 hours. This seriously affected Zhuhai people's daily lives, and the impact extended throughout the Pearl River Delta.Currently, the whole city has stores of 25 million cu m of fresh water, 7 million cu m less than the same period last year.Director of the Guangdong provincial water resource department Huang Boqing said the department and other relevant organizations would do their best to control the saltwater tides and increase the amount of fresh water.Huang said construction of hydropower stations in the upper reaches of Xijiang and Beijang rivers - two tributaries of the Pearl River - should be slowed down, because they would block a large amount of fresh water and worsen saltwater tides in the river's lower reaches.Other provinces in the river's upper reaches diverted about 10 million cu m of fresh water to Zhuhai from November 20 to December 4.In addition, Zhuhai would complete a large reservoir by next October, and construction of another would begin next year and finish in 2010.However, many individuals are dredging river sands from the Pearl River Delta for profits, causing the riverbed to lower."The riverbed of Beijiang River is 30 percent lower than two decades ago," He Zhibo, a senior engineer of Zhujiang (Pearl River) water resource commission, told China Daily Thursday.The lowered riverbed cannot buffer saltwater tides. And if the river sand dredging continues, all government efforts to stem the tides would be wasted, he said.
BEIJING -- China's first lunar probe Chang'e-1 will fly to the moon orbit with no more orbital corrections, a scientist told Xinhua on Saturday.Tang Geshi, a scientist with the Beijing Aerospace Control Center (BACC), said that the center will order the satellite to apply the first break at about 10:00 on Monday with no more planned orbital corrections.BACC carried out an orbital correction of Chang'e-1 on Friday, about nine days after its launch. "The correction has made the satellite run accurately in the transforming orbit heading to the moon, and another correction planned on November 4 will be unnecessary," Tang said.The Chang'e-1 lunar probe has been flying at a speed of 500-meter per second to the space where the moon's gravity could capture it.It has completed four orbital transforms and one halfway correction and is expected to enter the moon orbit on November 5.China's first lunar probe, Chang'e-1, named after a fairy-tale Chinese goddess who flew to the moon, blasted off on a Long March 3A carrier rocket on Oct. 24 from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwestern Sichuan Province.