Keywords: anti-corruption, media censorship, migration, consumer price index, labour, religion, drug, internet security, Hong Kong air pollution

Politics

• President Hu Jintao has manoeuvred one of his closest aides into a key post ahead of next month’s major party congress. Ling Jihua, 50, had been appointed head of the General Office of the party’s Central Committee, the main executive body responsible for administrative affairs of the decision-making Politburo.
• President Hu Jintao is set to secure a place in the party constitution for his political theory, with the Communist Party announcing it will amend its charter at next month’s national congress. Unlike other constitutions, which are meant to be permanent documents that are rarely amended, the party charter has been regularly revised at each party congress, held at five-year intervals, since it was rewritten in 1982
• The National Bureau of Corruption Prevention was launched in Beijing. Its main duties included conducting policy research to initiate new anti-graft policies and improve existing ones and to institutionalise corruption preventive and combative systems, bureau chief Ma Wen said. Ms Ma also heads the Ministry of Supervision, which monitors government officials. A senior official (former deputy chairman of Chinese People’s Poltical Consultative Conference in Shaanxi) reportedly brought down because of evidence supplied by his mistresses – 11 in total.
• People’s Daily has called for a crackdown on text messages on the mainland by proposing the introduction of a real name registration system similar to the one used to control internet forums.

Environment

• A US report that branded Tianjing one of the world’s most polluted places apparently confused the large northern port with a notorious lead-processing town in Anhui province. Tianjin with more than 10 million people, gained unwelcome global attention when the New York-based Blacksmith Institute named it as one of the world’s most heavily polluted places for its outpouring of toxins from scrap lead processing. But the mainland reports cited by the announcement had referred to Tianying town in Anhui, some 750km south of Tianjin.

Economy

• The head of the Export-Import Bank said Beijing would support farmers who migrated. Speaking at a meeting in Chongqing to address rural immigration, Mr Li said the city’s planned experiment in rapid urbanisation would transform several million farmers into city residents, but finding them jobs would be a problem. More than 12 million farmers will have to leave their land by 2020 under the city’s plan. He said construction of the experimental zone will relocate several million peasants. Chonqing should consider organisation migration to Africa.
• The mainland’s consumer price index rose 6.5 per cent year on year last month, statistics chief announced. The increase bigger than expected and the highest in nearly 11 years, was fuelled by soaring food prices.

Society

• According to WWP, before the implemenation of Labour Law in next January, some companies have started to laid off their employees or terminated their contract. Some legal experts said the employees can approach the union or legal bodies for assistance if encounter any unreasonable punishment or the work unit has created any problems to them.
• The Vatican has given its approval for the ordination of Father Joseph Li Shan as bishop of Beijing. The approval came prepared for a Mass at which Father Li will become the first mutually recognised bishop in Beijing in almost 50 years.
• An explosion in the flow of illegal drugs from Central Asia has seen Xinjiang overtake Yunnan as the mainland’s narcotics trafficking and dealing hub. By the end of last month, police in the far northwestern region had cracked 18 cases of drug smuggling from the Golden Cresent – an area that overlaps Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan – up from four in the same period last year, Xinhua reports. The amount of heroin seized, almost 70 kg, represented a jump of 12 times on the same period last year. A criminologist said any large-scale police action could be used by Uygur separatists as evidence that the central government oppresses local people.
• Guangdong will embarkon an emergency poultry vaccination programme following a suspected outbreak of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu in a Guangzhou village that prompted a massive duck cull. A Panyu animal health official said strict inspections were in place for all poultry being transported from the area for other markets.

• According to MingPao, an AIDs activists Gao Yaojie recently said the blood selling operations have turned underground after their disclosure and government interference. The operation has spread to Guangdong, Guizhou and other cities. To maxmise their profit, some unscrupulous doctors perform blood transfusion to patient who do not need it. This has caused the problem blood shortage and blood selling.

Foreign Affairs

• Australian Prime Minister John Howard said the 21 leaders had agreed a Sydney Declaration on climate change, and called it an international consensus. It sets the stage for the UN climate conventions’s annual summit in Indonesia. Developing economies, led by China and Indonesia, opposed any wording on climate change that committed them to binding targets, believing it would hinder economic development.

• Reports that Chinese military hackers have attacked the computer systems of Western governments have renewed uncertainty about the control China’s civilian leaders exert over the country’s increasingly powerful armed forces, defense experts say. There have also been reports that Chinese hackers have attacked government departments in Britain. In the meantime, Vice Minister of Information Industry wrote that the internet has become the main technological channel for external espionage activities against our core, vital departments.

Taiwan

• Tens of thousands of slogan-chanting Taiwanese demonstrated in two cities to support the island’s efforts to join the United Nations. The rallies were staged by the Democratic Progressive Party in Kaohsiung, and the main opposition Kuomintang in Taichung, despite repeated warnings from the United States and the mainland.

Hong Kong

• Wong Kam-fu, the chairman of Hong Kong-listed Smart Rich Energy Finance (Holdings), said he would pay HK$68 billion to wholly own PCCW, Hong Kong’s largest telecommunications company. He said he had arranged HK$38 billion in debt financing and would raise the remainder by spinning off PCCW’s assets in an initial public offering. Insisting the deal was legitimate, he said he was being advised by French bank Societe Generale and Australian bank Macquarie Group. Chim Pui-chung, the legistative councillor who represents the financial services industry said he did not believed Mr Wong has been blessed by Beijing to acquire the PCCW stake.

• Hong Kong should learn from London and Los Angeles in its fight against air pollution, in particular the need for political leaders to drive bold cleanup measures, Civil Exchange and critics said. A think-tank research report reviewing the city’s air quality policies was released. It urged Hong Kong to adopt stricter air quality standards, which are being reviewed by the government for the first time since 1987. High levels of pollution that plagued Hong Kong over the weekend would remain for a few more days, the Observatory said adding that the decline in air quality had been caused by a high-pressure weather system. The environment minister attributed the serious pollution to regional influence from the Pearl River Delta, but atmospheric experts said roadside pollution had also contributed to worsening air quality.

• The government is seeking a judicial review of a key finding of the Hong Kong Institute of Education commission of inquiry in a move critics said was arrogant and amounted to arguing against the outcome of its own inquiry.

• There are thousands of buildings in Hong Kong which could be demolished without drawing public attention, convservationists have warned. The bleak warning followed a last-minute decision to classify the King Yin Lei mansion on Stubbs Road as a potential monument – only after the owner embarked on a two-day demolition binge on the building’s distinctive features. Meanwhile, lawyers and architects said declaring it a proposed monument had left key questions about its future unanswered. They said the administration faced having to cover the cost of restoring the iconic property on Stubbs Road, Mid-Levels, and pay the owner millions of dollars in compensation for blocking its development.

• Hong Kong and the mainland should develop a single China market that could challenge the trading power of exchanges in New York, Tokyo and London, the chairman of the local bourse said. Chief Ronald Arculli outlined an ambitious blueprint that would include a single listing and trading platform covering Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Shanghai. The government last Friday revealed it had a 5.88 per cent stake in HKEx, a move Financial Secretary Johan Tsang Chun-wah said could pave the way for share swaps with mainland bourses.

• Swedish computer security consultant DDan Egerstad hopes to come to Hong Kong next month and visit some of the legistators and NGOs he exposed on his website as having weak internet security – but only if the police promise not to arrest him at the airport. He published the email passwords of prominent legistators such as the Democratic Party’s Sin Chung-kai and Liberal Party vice-chairman Miriam Lau Kin-yee on the website dErangedsecurity.com. He also published the IP addresses of the e-mail servers. He trawled through the emails of the One Country Two Systems Research Institute of China and the Liaison Office of the Dalai Lama for Japan and East Asia, as well as the Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor. His site has been shut down.

• Bar benders called off their 36-day strike after their seventh round of talks with employers. They accept the latest offer of a daily wage of HK$860 for eight hours of work – a rise of 14.24 per cent.

• The government unveiled its frest start for the West Kowloon Cultural District, handing control to a new authority. The government will inject HK$19 billion to pay for construction of 15 performing arts venues, museum, convention centre, transport and public facilities.