Typhoon Sarika

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  Several trees lie in the road, having been felled by typhoon Sarika in the coastal city of Qionghai in south China’s Hainan Province on October 18. The tropical cyclone, with maximum winds of up to 162 km per hour recorded in the eye of the storm, made landfall at Hele Town of Wanning on the same day.
  The storm was the most powerful and destructive one to hit Hainan in a decade, causing landslides in Hainan as torrential rain and gales lashed the island province. Classes were suspended in kindergartens and schools in eight counties in the province, and tourist sites were closed to the public.


   White Paper on Poverty Reduction
  The Chinese Government issued a white paper that hailed the efforts and progress made in poverty alleviation and human rights on October 17.
  The white paper, titled China’s Progress in Poverty Reduction and Human Rights, said poverty reduction is the most telling evidence of China’s progress in human rights.
  The white paper said China has made an enormous contribution to poverty reduction worldwide. Over the past 30 years since the launch of the reform and opening-up drive, more than 700 million Chinese people have been lifted out of poverty.
  According to the UN Millennium Development Goals Report 2015, the proportion of people living in extreme poverty in China fell from 61 percent in 1990 to 4.2 percent in 2014, with the number of people that China has raised from poverty accounting for 70 percent of the world’s total.
  At the end of 2015, China still had 55.75 million people living in poverty. The country plans to lift all of its poor out of poverty by 2020.
   Organ Donations
  China processed 2,950 organ donations in the first nine months of this year, up 50 percent year on year, according to figures unveiled by the health authority on October 16.
  This exceeds the number undertaken in 2015, which stood at 2,766, the National Health and Family Planning Commission said in a statement.
  At present, the annual average number of organ donations in China ranks first in Asia and third around the world, and its annual number of organ transplants ranks second worldwide.
  The government started to pilot changes to the organ donation system in 2010, and in 2011, the unauthorized trading of organs was made illegal through a criminal law amendment. Moreover, a new system for organ management and distribution was launched in 2013 to better regulate donations.   The increase in voluntary donations shows the public is more confident in the distribution of donated organs, said Ye Qifa, a member of China’s National Organ Donation and Transplantation Committee.
   Grain Losses
  Meteorological disasters are to blame for the destruction of at least 50 billion kg of grain in China annually, according to official statistics.
  Climate change is having an increasing impact on food and agriculture, with each 1 degree Celsius rise causing a 10 percent loss in grain, according to figures released on October 16 at a promotional activity in Nanjing for the 36th World Food Day.
  China is one of the nations most affected by meteorological disasters, with droughts causing about 60 percent of all the agricultural losses in the country, according to officials at the activity.
  Xu Xiaofeng, deputy head of the China Meteorological Administration, said that immediate measures must be taken to address the issue.
  “We need to diminish the effects of meteorological disasters on grain production, harvest, storage, processing, packaging, transportation and consumption,” Xu said.
   Shared Benefits
  The Chinese Government on October 18 released a plan that will enable the poor to share earnings from local hydropower plants and mining projects.
  To pilot the reform, the government will choose a maximum of 20 projects in impoverished areas and counties targeted in the state poverty alleviation program, according to the State Council plan.
  Local rural residents will be able to acquire stakes in such projects with compensation they receive for land occupied by the construction, the plan said.
  This way, rural residents will receive proceeds from project operations, with priority given to registered poor households.
  The reform will be carried out from late 2016 to the end of 2019, and the chosen projects will start construction in 2017. The environment will be strictly protected during the projects, the plan said.
  The reform is part of the country’s “precision” poverty relief, or targeted efforts to help specific impoverished groups, said Yang Qian, an official with the National Development and Reform Commission.
   Revitalizing the Northeast
  China is determined to use reform and innovation to rejuvenate its northeast region, Premier Li Keqiang said at a State Council meeting on October 18.
  Expediting the revitalization of the northeast is crucial to China’s wider economic restructuring push, regional development and the people’s wellbeing, said Li, who chaired a State Council meeting on the rejuvenation of old industrial bases.   The provinces of Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang in the northeast were among the first areas in China to become industrialized, featuring traditional industries including steel, automobiles, shipbuilding, aircraft manufacturing and petroleum refining.
  However, this once robust industrial base is experiencing a more acute slowdown in economic expansion than the rest of the country, trailing well behind in terms of GDP growth.
  Noting that the northeast should reverse the downward trend, Li stressed the importance of promoting employment, improving people’s well-being and maintaining social stability in the region.
  It is important to encourage private investment into the northeast, and efforts should be made to actively develop the service industry and new growth points including elderly care and tourism, said the premier.
   Election Malpractice Punished
  The Communist Party of China(CPC) has punished 245 people after investigating 125 reported cases of malpractice in local elections, said a recent statement by the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee.
  The 245 were caught engaging in a range of malpractices, including attending banquets while inspecting the performance of cadres, leaking confidential information, canvassing, seeking promotion through improper methods, and spreading fabricated information in local elections, according to the statement.
  Among those punished, 47 were given “Party disciplinary and administrative punishment,” which may include warnings, demotions, and expulsions from the Party and administrative posts.
  Another 135 were given “organizational punishment,” a category which includes criticism, demotion and dismissal.
  The statement calls for stricter discipline and zero tolerance for malpractice in elections in order to build a fair environment for local elections.
  In September, 45 National People’s Congress deputies from China’s northeastern Liaoning Province were disqualified after a case of massive electoral fraud.
   First Snowfall
  A person walks in this year’s first snowfall in Urumqi, capital of northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, on October 19.
   New Water Supply
  A resident of Xiaojia Village in Linxia of northwest China’s Gansu Province turns on a tap to obtain water diverted from the Yellow River on October 17.
  Put into use two days earlier, a diversion project is expected to provide 49.7 million cubic meters of potable water to 570,000 local residents. It is expected to ease the regional shortage of water for several decades.    Air Quality
  The density of fine particulate matter(PM2.5) in Beijing decreased by 10.1 percent year on year in the first nine months of 2016, the local environment watchdog said on October 18. The average PM2.5 reading in the period was 62 micrograms per cubic meter, the city’s environmental protection bureau said. In 2015, the level was 80.6 micrograms, down from 95.7 micrograms in 2012.
  Air quality was rated excellent or good for 155 days, 17 days more than during the same period last year. Heavy air pollution occurred on 15 days, four fewer days than in the January-September period last year.
  Meanwhile, the densities of PM10, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide dropped 14.9 percent, 28.6 percent and 6.7 percent, respectively.
  Over the past three quarters, Beijing completed improvements on coal-fired boilers, eliminated 306,000 aging automobiles and phased out 224 polluting factories.
   China-Europe Cargo Trains
  A safe, convenient and efficient system for China-Europe direct cargo trains will be established by 2020, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) has said.
  It is estimated that there will be around 5,000 cargo trains running between China and Europe annually by 2020, according to a development plan issued by the NDRC.
  As a key component of the Belt and Road Initiative, direct cargo trains will connect a growing number of cities in China and Europe.
  Demand for rail cargo service between China and Europe has exploded in recent years because it offers an alternative to slower and riskier sea freight and much costlier air cargo.
  The development plan shows that the cargo train service system will consist of three routes—an east route, a central route and a west route. The routes will not only connect China with Europe, but also with East Asia and Southeast Asia.
  Forty-three transport hubs will be created along the three routes and 43 railway lines will be built, according to the plan.
  From 2011 when the ChinaEurope rail cargo service was launched to June this year, 1,881 trains were operated, transporting goods worth $17 billion.
  The European Union has been China’s largest trading partner for more than a decade, while China is one of the EU’s biggest sources of imports. Bilateral trade amounted to 3.51 trillion yuan ($519 billion) in 2015, according to the Ministry of Commerce.
   Mega Project Goes Into Production   Robots work on an assembly line of Beijing Hyundai Motor Co. in Cangzhou, north China’s Hebei Province, on October 18. The first car assembled in the plant rolled off on the same day.
  It is Beijing Hyundai’s first plant located out of China’s capital, expected to produce 300,000 cars and 20,000 engines per year.
  The project cost 12 billion yuan ($1.78 billion), the largest project in terms of investment between Beijing and Hebei. Beijing is moving some plants to neighboring Hebei to promote the coordinated development of the Beijing-TianjinHebei region.


   Rural E-Commerce
  To boost rural development, China will push for the faster growth of ecommerce across the nation’s vast underdeveloped areas.
  “Policy support will be given to small online retailers to lower their operational costs,” the Ministry of Commerce announced on October 17.
  More will be done to support and nurture e-commerce businesses operating in rural regions, and training programs will be on offer to small business owners, according to guidance posted on the ministry’s website.
  Cooperation between e-commerce businesses and service providers that deal with rural consumers will be encouraged, infrastructure that supports or facilitates e-commerce in rural areas will be upgraded, and private investors will be encouraged to support the sector, it noted.
  The document came as retail sales emerged as a major driver of China’s economic growth. The country is transitioning from an exportreliant economy to a consumptiondriven one. In 2015, consumption contributed 66.4 percent to China’s GDP, up 15.4 percentage points from 2014, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
  To further tap market potential, China is looking to exploit the ample retail opportunities in its underdeveloped rural areas and e-commerce sector.
   New Firms Surge
  The number of newly founded companies in China continued to surge in the first three quarters, after government efforts to streamline the process for starting businesses, official data showed on October 17.
  A total of 4.01 million new companies were set up in the JanuarySeptember period, an increase of 27 percent from the same period last year, according to statistics from the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC).
  An average of 14,600 new firms are set up daily, surpassing the average of 12,000 recorded in 2015,according to the SAIC.   The growth in newly registered enterprises was a result of China’s continued efforts to improve the business environment by facilitating business registration and fostering new growth impetus, said SAIC spokesperson Yu Fachang.
  Between January and September, the number of newly registered firms in the tertiary industry went up 27.6 percent to 3.25 million, accounting for 81.1 percent of new companies.
  China’s improved business environment has prompted social capital to invest in emerging industries and the service sector, which is conducive to ongoing economic restructuring and industrial upgrading, said Yu.
   Weibo Overtakes Twitter
  Chinese social media giant Sina Weibo overtook its U.S. counterpart Twitter in market capitalization for the first time ever during trading on October 17.
  The Nasdaq-listed Sina Weibo saw its market value rise to about$11.32 billion at one point during trading, while that of Twitter, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, stood at about$11.22 billion. It is the first time the Chinese microblogging service has outperformed its U.S. counterpart in market value.
  Sina Weibo’s share price closed at $52.91 per share while that of Twitter stood at $16.73, with the former lagging behind the latter by about $600 million at market close.
  Financial reports showed that Twitter raked in about $602 million in the second quarter, more than quadruple that of Sina Weibo.
  However, Sina Weibo showed stronger momentum in user growth. Twitter had about 313 million monthly active users by the end of the second quarter, up only 3 percent year on year, while Sina Weibo boasted 282 million monthly active users, surging 33 percent compared with the second quarter of 2015.
   Ceramic Fair
  Visitors view ceramic craftwork during the 2016 China Jingdezhen International Ceramic Fair in Jingdezhen, east China’s Jiangxi Province, on October 18.
  The fair lasted from October 18 to 22. More than 900 ceramic producers showcased their products at the fair. Known as the “porcelain capital,” Jingdezhen has been producing ceramics for more than 1,000 years.
   First Modular Data Center
  China’s information and communication technology (ICT) giant Huawei and Dubai Airports, the governmentcontrolled holding company of the Dubai International Airport, said on October 17 that they had agreed to build the world’s first “Tier III certified Modular Data Center Complex(MDCC)” at the biggest civil aviation hub in the Middle East.   The design-and-construct contract was signed earlier on October 17 during the Gitex Technology Week, one of the world’s biggest annual ICT trade shows.
  The project will serve the world’s busiest international airport, which served around 78 million passengers in 2015.
  “The Dubai International Airport data center will be the first of two planned modular facilities that Huawei will build for Dubai Airports,”they added.
  In contrast to a traditional data center, a modular data center can be flexibly deployed where data storage capacity is in need and customers can scale the existing center by adding data storage modules, according to Huawei.
  They will provide a “stable and reliable environment for Dubai Airports to host its private cloud.”The MDCC will be the world’s first modular data center certified by the Uptime Institute to Tier III for design and construction.
  The first facility will be constructed at the Dubai International Airport in 2017. The time schedules for the other data center have yet to be confirmed.
   Entrepreneurship Boost
  The first incubation center for people with disabilities in Yiwu, east China’s Zhejiang Province, is opened on October 17. Twelve entrepreneurs with disabilities have settled down in the center to start up their businesses.
  Established by the Yiwu Disabled Persons’ Federation, the center offers the entrepreneurs not only preferential policies and subsidies, but also e-commerce operation training.
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