In This Edition

 

China and Sri Lanka seek to strengthen military ties.

The 16th Non-Aligned Movement Summit concludes in the Iranian capital of Tehran.

The death toll in Wednesday's mine blast in southwest China's Sichuan has risen to 41 while 5 others remain trapped.

And China issues new policy guidelines to provide medical insurance for seriously ill patients with the aim to reduce illness-related poverty.

 

Hot Issue Reports

 

Chinese Defence Minister Visits Sri Lanka

Chinese Defence Minister Liang Guanglie has met with top Sri Lankan military officials in Colombo ahead of a trip to neighboring India.

 

Liang assured that China's rise is only for peaceful purposes, despite a build up of military infrastructure in recent years.

 

"In modern times, China suffered a lot at the hands of foreign invaders, and tasted the bitterness of war. The Chinese people realized profoundly the value of peace and the importance of speeding up development."

 

Liang also said that among China's fourteen land neighbours, five are in South Asia, and that the Indian Ocean was an important energy and material transportation route for China.

 

UN Security Council Meets to Discuss Syrian Humanitarian Situation

Turkey has again appealed to the UN-Security Council for the establishment of humanitarian corridors and buffer zones for displaced people in Syria.

 

The Council held a meeting Thursday to discuss the humanitarian situation in Syria.

 

Just ahead of the meet, Britain and France announced new funding for refugees and offered support for more aggressive action.

 

Jan Eliasson is the United Nations Deputy Secretary-General.

 

"Syrians need less weapons, not more. Those who supply the government or the armed opposition with weapons, equipment or money, are creating a vicious circle of violence and are paving the way for more suffering and chaos, Member states with influence on the Syrian government or opposition forces have an obligation to end the killing and promote a peaceful resolution of the conflict. "

 

At the meeting, China's UN ambassador Li Baodong, said humanitarian principles of neutrality and impartiality need to be complied with in alleviating the humanitarian crisis in Syria.

 

More than 50 Survivors Recovered off Indonesia

Indonesian rescuers have brought the asylum seekers who survived a shipwreck, to a port on the island of Java.

 

About 150 people were aboard an overcrowded, wooden fishing boat that sank off the Indonesia coast as it headed for a remote Australian island.

 

Mohammad Reza is a survivor.

 

"Four days ago the boat flow started leaking water and then for 24 hours with buckets we took water out and then survived till the Australians... the boat sunk after one day and for another three days we were just floating on waters. "

 

Meanwhile,Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard stressed the perils of this kind of journey to Australia.

 

"We have seen what's happened this week, we've seen tragedies like this at other times. It should reinforce the message about how dangerous these journeys are."

 

More than 50 people have been rescued while one body has been recovered.

 

Six were said to be in critical condition.

 

More than 90 people are still missing, and the continuing search and rescue operation will include three merchant vessels and two aircraft from Perth.

 

Romney Accepts Nomination

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney has accepted the U.S. Republican Party's nomination to run against President Barack Obama in the coming Presidential election.

 

Speaking to an audience of millions, Romney attacked Obama for failing to pin down the national debt.

 

He also lays out a five-point plan to create 12 million jobs in four years should he be elected.

 

Romney's speech capped the three-day Republican convention, which started a day late because of Tropical Storm Isaac.

 

This is Romney's second run for the White House, after an unsuccessful bid in 2008.

 

Hundreds of African Miners Charged

Miners arrested at the South Africa platinum mine have been charged with murdering their colleagues.

 

The 270 workers were in the crowd of striking miners, who confronted police earlier this month.

 

The confrontation later turned violent as police shot dead 34-miners.

 

Itume-lang Lepel-esana is the sister of one of the arrested miners:

 

"All we ask for is for their release, so that we can be able to see them. Why are they being arrested? There's nothing that they have been arrested for, because they are being taken up and down. All we ask for is their release."

 

More than 150 of the arrested miners have filed complaints that they have been beaten up in police cells by officers.

 

Police blamed striking miners for inciting violence leading up to the police shooting.

 

It is being reported the miners who were armed with clubs, machetes and at least one gun allegedly charged at police, who then opened fire, killing 34 and wounding at least 78.

 

No police officers were hurt.

 

Six of the charged miners are still in hospital after being wounded in the shooting.

 

The 270-miners have been rejected bail.

 

Their hearing has been adjourned for seven days.

 

Non-Aligned Movement Summit Concludes off in Tehran

The 16th Non-Aligned Movement Summit concluded in the Iranian capital of Tehran on Friday.

 

Representatives from over 100 countries discussed the new global challenges.

 

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the rotating chairman of the summit, said the participants unanimously expressed their commitments to the principles and objectives of the Non-Aligned Movement.

 

He also said participants called for "fundamental changes" in global governance and collective management of the world as the precondition of establishing peace, and all of them expressed the call for avoiding conflicts in the world.

 

The escalating conflict in Syria has been a focus at the Summit.

 

UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon urged once again that relevant parties should stop the violence:

 

"I urge all parties in the strongest possible tones to stop the violence now. The Syrian government has a primary responsibility to resolve this crisis by genuinely listening to the people's voices. Our diplomatic efforts will be led by the joint special representative of the UN Mr.Lakhdar Brahimi, he will need the united support of the international community. "

 

Founded in the former Yugoslavia in 1961, the NAM represents nearly two-thirds of the UN members and about 55 percent of the world population.

 

Tokyo Court Rules Samsung has not Infringed Apple's Key Patent

A Tokyo District Court has ruled that Samsung has not infringed Apple's smartphone and tablet computer patent.

 

The ruling comes after a U.S. jury's decision earlier this month that Samsung copied key features of Apple's iPhone and iPad, ordering Samsung to pay a fine of over 1 billion U.S. dollars.

 

Tsuyoshi Uchida is a researcher at the Institute of Intellectual Property.

 

"By suing Samsung, presenting the evidence and letting the media in on this, Apple wants to spread the impression that Samsung is a copy-cat and just that alone is advantageous for Apple."

 

Meanwhile, in South Korea, a local court ruled that both the smartphone rivals infringed each other's patents, banning the sales of some of both their mobile devices within the country.

 

Death Toll Rises to 41 in Southwest China's Colliery Blast

The death toll in Wednesday's mine blast in southwest China's Sichuan Province has risen to 41 while 5 others remain trapped.

 

A total of 154 miners were working underground when the blast hit the Mine in Panzhihua City on Wednesday afternoon.

 

107 of them have survived the accident, with 54 wounded miners receiving medical treatment at hospital.

 

Shen Ji, head of Sichuan Provincial Health Department, says the local government has formed a team of 31 experts for their treatment.

 

"Thanks to the joint efforts from the experts and medical staff, the 54 miners' injuries have been under control. Four of the seven severely injured miners have been out of coma. Two of the patients suffered from respiratory arrest. Now both of them are out of danger. All seven patients are in a better condition."

 

According to Shen, the other 37 miners, poisoned by carbon monoxide, were also in better condition now with some of them even having resumed eating.

 

The Ministry of Health has sent a crew of experts to the local hospital to help with the treatment.

 

China's Fiscal Revenue Growth Slowdowns but the Financial Operation is still in a Good Shape

China's Vice Finance Minister Wang Jun says financial operation in the country is still sound despite a 19-percent decrease in fiscal revenue growth during the first seven months of the year.

 

He says the figure is still higher than the expectation made at the beginning of the year.

 

Wang Jun's comments come following the 19th APEC Finance Ministers' Meeting in Moscow:

 

"We are highly concerned about this trend, but I want to emphasize that it's a separate issue from financial risk. The 11.6 percent growth rate is still more than the 9.5 percent target we set at the beginning of the year. So from this perspective, the fiscal operation is still in a good shape."

 

Wang also says the overall situation on China's economy remains stable.

 

He says China has the ability to maintain stable and relatively fast economic growth.

 

Car Sale Stagnant amid Economic Slowdown

A recent survey shows that many automobile dealers in China are seeing their car stocks piling up amid the country's economic slowdown.

 

Shen Jinjun, is the vice president of The China Automobile Association.

 

"According to our survey, the average stockpile turnover time for domestic dealerships amounts to 59 days as against 24-36 days normally."

 

Shen also says the present auto stockpile is around 2.5 million units, that's more than double the stockpile last year.

 

Dealers say that a weak demand in this year's domestic auto market is a major cause for the high stockpile, and another important factor is that auto manufacturers forced the dealers to buy their brands so they could rank high on the auto sales leaderboard.

 

Shen suggests auto makers and dealers adjust their production and sales targets.

 

China Expands Health Insurance to Cover Severe Cases

China's central government has issued new policy guidelines to provide medical insurance for seriously ill patients. The goal of the guidelines is to reduce illness-related poverty.

 

As CRI's Su Yi reports, the move is part of China's ambitious reforms to make its healthcare more affordable and open to the private sector.

 

Chen Jianguang is a farmer in east China's Jiangsu Province. He has spent between 800 to 900 thousand yuan on medical care for his ill son. Now he has run out of money to pay his wife's health care bills.

 

Economic professor Liu Guo'en leads the Health Economics and Management Institute at Peking University. He says Chen's story is not an unfamiliar one in China.

 

"Medical care that is not covered by the basic insurance program can be a big financial burden that drives people into poverty and makes middle-income people poor."

 

Although more than 95 percent of Chinese were covered by basic health-insurance program at the end of last year, those with serious illnesses had, and still have, barely any coverage at all.

 

Now the new policy guidelines say when medical expenditures exceed a city's annual per capita income, the new program will reimburse at least half of the portion that is not covered by the existing health insurance system.

 

And if local budgets can afford this, people won't need to pay anything extra.

 

Li Yaoguang is an official from the health reform office under the State Council.

 

"The policy was made based on the principle of zero extra burdens. That means the new program will not charge patients."

 

The way to realize this is to use government health insurance funds to purchase commercial insurance.

 

Peking University health care economist Liu Guo'en suggests the way the insurance is paid must be changed to encourage insurers to tap into this business voluntarily, as the scheme could easily lead to excessive treatment and drug over-prescriptions.

 

"Paid according to a disease, for example, or capitation… the incentives for both medical providers and insurers can be somewhat consistent. Therefore, they will have incentives to save money and not over-provide medical care against the insurers' wishes."

 

Liu Guo'en also suggests the government keeps the business transparent and fair to select the most qualified applicants.

 

China's three-year-old medical reforms have encouraged the private sector to enter the health care sector to ease shortages of hospitals and medical staff and reduce sky-high medical costs.

 

Local governments are being tasked with localizing the new policy.

 

Several cities, including Chen Jianguang's hometown, Taicang, have tried the policy for months. Now the policy is going national.

 

The farmer says it has really helped his family a lot.

 

For CRI, I'm Su Yi.

 

English Edition of Sanguosha Put into US Market

The English edition of Sanguosha, the most popular role-playing card game in China, recently landed in the US market. Its developer, Beijing-based Company Yoka Games, hopes the game will bring fun, as well as Chinese culture, to the country.

 

Wang Wei has more.

 

Yoka Games, a Beijing-based card game developer, recently released the English edition of the most popular card game in China, Sanguosha, into the US market, trying to grab a bite of the overseas market.

 

Sanguosha, or Killers of the Three Kingdoms, is highly popular in China, occupying 80 percent of the market share of 30 million board game players. Named after Chinese classic novel, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, it is one of the first original card-based role-playing games with Chinese elements. Each player takes a role card based on characters from the novel, equipped with distinct skills and weapons. War in the game is waged channeling the fury, intelligence and cunning of the novel's characters. It has won millions of Chinese fans among worldwide, ranging from 10- to 60-year-olds.

 

Du Bin, president of Yoka Games, says they have long been considering expanding from the Chinese mainland into Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and now the US.

 

"We have different strategies for various markets. People in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan basically read and write Chinese in traditional characters, so all we need to do is to replace simplified characters with traditional ones. But for the US, we need to translate them into English and convey the cultural meaning behind the lines."

 

Sanguosha was first brought to US university campuses by Chinese students, but it soon attracted local students, eventually showing up in UC Berkley's course catalog. This sped up the pace of releasing an English version of the game. Du Bin says, given what the reputation of the game has achieved in the country, Sanguosha will receive a warm reception.

 

However, the translation work turned out to be difficult.

 

"There were two obstacles we found hard to overcome for the translation. One was translating the idioms, like Nan Man Ru Qin, Nan Man means barbarians from the south and Ru Qin means invasion. Why does it have to be barbarians from the south? It will definitely baffle foreign players. The other one is translating role skills, we have Qing Cheng, Guo Se, Tian Xiang. How does someone describe those in English? It takes a whole lot of brain work. "

 

Thirty thousand packs of English Sanguosha have been put into the overseas market, and market performance of Sanguosha in the US is optimistic. However, Du Bin says that, aside from sales and profits, they also hope the game will arouse local people's interests in the Three Kingdoms novel and Chinese culture.

 

"We don't expect players to be experts of the Three Kingdoms history. Like in China, many players start knowing very little about the time period, but they are intrigued to look into it after playing the game. We hope to see that in the US."

 

For CRI, I'm Wang Wei.

 

Shanghai Daily

 

Passengers from Texas face stricter screening

 

Passengers coming from the state of Texas and its surrounding areas in the United States are being subject to stricter quarantine checks at city airports following the outbreak of the West Nile epidemic that has killed dozens there, Shanghai quarantine authorities said yesterday.

 

West Nile Disease is an illness transmitted by infected mosquitoes.

 

Local quarantine and supervision bureau said they are stepping up checks on visitors and their luggage, but there is no need to panic.

 

Goods and mails from the region are also under strict scrutiny with mosquito and larva killed immediately.

 

Those who have visited the epidemic-hit areas and suffer from fever or rashes should report to quarantine authorities or visit hospitals immediately, the bureau said.

 

Those suspected of being infected will be sent to medical institutions for further observation and treatment.

 

China Daily

 

1st Cross-Straits hospital in trial operation

 

A maternity hospital built jointly by medical institutions from the Chinese mainland and Taiwan went into trial operation in Beijing this week.

 

Baodao Healthcare has 226 medical staff and provides 50 beds for expectant mothers at first.

 

Up to now, 11 expecting mothers have already registered at the hospital before the trial operation.

 

Baodao Healthcare is the first mainland-Taiwan joint hospital to be registered in Beijing since the signing of the landmark Cross-Straits Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) in 2010.

 

The hospital is scheduled to go into official operation in October, providing 100 beds.

 

BBC

 

Active pensioners 'add six years'

 

Academics at Sweden's Karolinska Institute analyzed the lifestyles of 1,810 people over 75.

 

The findings, on the British Medical Journal website, said men with the healthiest lifestyles lived six years longer, women had five extra years.

 

The researchers showed that smokers died a year earlier, but people who quit in middle age were almost as long-lived as those who had never smoked.

 

Swimming, walking and gymnastics increased life expectancy by around two years.

 

People with a rich social circle lived a year and a half longer than those without.

 

Even after the age of 85, low risk lifestyles prolonged life by four years.

 

Reuters

 

Softer restaurant music, lighting can help cut calories

 

According to a U.S. study, just as music and lighting can influence what shoppers buy, toning down the tunes and dimming the lights in a fast food restaurant can help diners enjoy their meal more and eat less.

 

After transforming part of a fast food restaurant in Illinois with milder music and lighting, researchers found that customers ate 18 percent fewer calories than other people in the unmodified part of the restaurant.

 

The researchers said the bright lights, stimulating colors, sound-reflecting surfaces and loud music in fast food restaurants are not designed to be relaxing.

 

So they improved the mood in a section of a restaurant for the study, adding plants, paintings, indirect lights, tablecloths, candles and instrumental music.

After seating customers in both the original and restyled sections of the restaurant, they timed how long their meal lasted and how many calories they consumed.

 

Customers in the modified section ate longer than those in the main dining area, consumed fewer calories and rated the food as more enjoyable.

 

Market Update

 

U.S. stocks ended higher on Friday after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said he would leave the door open for further stimulus.

 

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 0.7 percent to 13,091. The Standard & Poor's 500 was up 0.5 percent to 1,407. The Nasdaq Composite Index increased or 0.6 percent to 3,067.

 

In Europe, London's FTSE 100 lost 0.1 percent to 5,711. Frankfurt's DAX increased one percent to 6,971. CAC 40 in Paris also rose one percent to 3,413.