Society

Around China: Four die in sandstorm

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-04-28 07:11

1 BEIJING

Property market cooling off

China's property market has started to cool down after the government introduced new regulation policies, with the country's four first-tier cities of Beijing, Shenzhen, Shanghai and Guangzhou all seeing a drop in the volume of property trading, Shanghai Securities News reported on Tuesday.

Property trading volume plunged 64 percent last week from the preceding week in Shenzhen. It also dipped 45 percent in Beijing, 38 percent in Shanghai and 2 percent in Guangzhou.

In China's 35 main cities where housing market data was monitored by the newspaper, 21 experienced a fall in the trading volume of commercial housing last week, with the figure in Hangzhou diving 73 percent.

China's property market is expected to enter a long wait-and-see period as the new policies take effect, an analyst said.

Ban on HIV carriers lifted

China has lifted an explicit decades-old travel ban on foreigners with HIV virus, leprosy as well as venereal diseases, according to a revised State Council regulation made public on Tuesday.

Instead of banning foreigners with mental disorders, lepriasis, active pulmonary tuberculosis, HIV and venereal diseases from entering China, the revised regulation, passed at a State Council meeting last Monday, stipulates that "foreigners with serious mental diseases, infectious pulmonary tuberculosis and other infectious diseases that may do serious harms to public health are not allowed into China".

2 HUNAN

Debate sparked over funding

A local electricity authority in Hengshan county, Hunan province, recently came under fire from the country's netizens for allegedly misusing public funds to build villas for its workers.

A post, which has widely circulated online, claimed that a large number of villas are under construction near the office building of Hengshan Electricity Bureau, citing a source close to the bureau as saying the villas are being built by the bureau as a benefit to its workers. The author of the post also published a series of photos showing the unified style and magnificence of the villas.

The post aroused a mixture of concern and satire from other netizens about the possible abuse of government authority, as well as the use of public funds in the construction of the villas.

In response to the post, an official with the bureau said the expense of the project is being met by the bureau's workers and that an investigation will be launched into the allegation of possible misconduct.

3 CHONGQING

Ex-police on trial for bribery

A former high-ranking police chief in Chongqing stood trial at Chongqing First Intermediate People's Court on Monday for allegedly taking bribes, China News Service reported on Tuesday.

Xie Dejiu, former director of Beibei district public security bureau, is charged with receiving 1.42 million yuan ($208,000) in bribes by taking advantage of his position to offer illegal assistance in real estate developments. He is also accused of receiving a bribe in return for sheltering a prostitution business.

Xie confessed to all charges in court, where a verdict has yet to be delivered.

4 FUJIAN

Miners killed, injured in blast

Two people were killed and seven injured in a mine blast in East China's Fujian province on Tuesday, local authorities said.

Explosives in a Shunchang county mine went off at 9:35 am, killing two at the scene and injuring seven others, said the county's government in a statement.

Two miners with eye injuries were rushed to a hospital in the provincial capital Fuzhou and the other five were sent to Shunchang County Hospital.

Police are investigating the incident.

5 HUBEI

Director seeks career change

A senior official of the Wuhan city, capital of Hubei province, abandoned his position in the government in order to do business, information portal xinhuanet.com reported on Tuesday.

Xu Jin, director of Wuhan city's development and reform commission, filed his resignation days ago, sources from local authorities said, adding his resignation has been submitted to the city's people's congress for approval.

If approved, he would be the highest-ranking official in Wuhan who quit government for business.

6 SHANDONG

Sailors missing at sea

Twenty-nine sailors were rescued and an unknown number of others are missing after strong winds overturned eight vessels off East China's Shandong province on Tuesday, local authorities said.

Strong winds with speeds of up to 100 km per hour rocked China's east coast on Tuesday, with eight boats capsized between 3 am and 8 am, said Xu Zengfu, deputy director of the province's maritime safety bureau.

"We have received reports that two commercial ships and six fishing boats capsized in Yantai, Weihai and Qingdao," said Xu.

Helicopters and rescue ships are still searching for the missing seamen.

7 GANSU

Four die in sandstorm

The death toll from a fierce sandstorm in Northwest China's Gansu province over the weekend has climbed to four, the civil affairs authority said on Tuesday.

One more person was reported dead after raw materials belonging to a biochemical company burst into flames, presumably caused by static generated by the sandstorm, according to the civil affairs department of Gansu province.

Gansu was hit by the strongest sandstorm in nine years on Saturday and Sunday, with wind speeds of more than 100 km per hour. The visibility in some areas was reduced to 50 meters, while in Minqin and Jiuquan the visibility was zero.

Minqin reported 13 fires were caused by the sandstorm, leaving five people injured and 460 others evacuated, the local authority said.

Preliminary statistics show that the sandstorm affected 1.32 million people in 19 counties in Gansu and damaged 206,800 hectares of crops, of which 33,900 hectares were totally destroyed.

(China Daily 04/28/2010 page5)