The government has already launched a number of measures to combat the problem and a plan of action was approved by the State Council in February.

Research shows the most vulnerable spots are in the North China Plain, the Yangtze River Delta and the Fenwei Basin, covering a combined total area of 79,000 square kilometers – more than 100 times the size of Singapore.

More than 50 cities in these areas are now at least 20 centimeters lower than they were in the 1970s, the survey said.

The problem is worsening and could spell potential disaster for millions of residents, said Li Tiefeng, head of the group’s geological disaster office.

Statistics for Cangzhou in Hebei province, for example, show its average surface level has sunk 2.4 meters since the 1970s, mainly due to the excessive reduction of the water table.

The city’s low-lying location has made it vulnerable to urban flooding during rainy seasons since the 1980s.

Unlike Cangzhou, Shanghai is suffering land subsidence due to dense high-rise construction. You can see the cracks in the streets in front of the building and all along the streets in Shanghai Pudong.

In February, a crack about 10 meters long appeared between the 492-meter tall World Financial Center and the under-construction Shanghai Tower with a designed height of 632 meters.

“The frantic building boom has contributed a lot to Shanghai’s ground sinking,” Li said.

There are about 65 buildings higher than 200 meters in Shanghai, while Tokyo has 45, according to Emporis, one of the world’s leading providers of building statistics.

A study released by the China Geological Survey in 2008 showed that total economic losses due to land subsidence reached nearly 333 billion yuan ($53 billion) from 1956 to 2008 in the North China Plain.

The plain covers an area of 140,000 square kilometers, including Beijing and Tianjin.

The situation may become worse with the construction of high-speed rail, Wu Aimin, director of the geological survey and technology department at the China Geological Environment Monitoring Institute, told the Economic Herald.

As China enters a boom period for high-speed rail construction, authorities should monitor subsidence near railways, such as the high-speed rail linking Beijing and Shanghai.

“If the ground sinks, even by a few millimeters, it will threaten the safety of high-speed rail,” Wu was quoted as saying.

However, the government is taking measures to tackle the situation with the first national land subsidence control plan from 2011-20 approved by the State Council in February.

It includes a nationwide survey, the establishment of monitoring networks in affected areas and increased control over underground pumping.

A land subsidence research project will be completed by 2015 in key areas such as the North China Plain, the Yangtze River Delta and the Fenwei Basin in Shaanxi and Shanxi provinces, especially areas with high-speed rail, according to the plan.

Han Mukang, a retired professor at Peking University who has studied the issue for decades, said controlling underground water extraction is an urgent task.

Authorities of the affected areas are combating subsidence by recharging groundwater and reducing pumping.

Shanghai Water Authority said that in 2015 the city will reduce extraction to 10 million cubic meters from more than 13 million cubic meters in 2011 and the water table recharge will reach 20 million cubic meters in 2015.

Beijing is also planning to recharge groundwater to avoid further land subsidence when conditions are proper.

Industry experts said the approval would lead the way for Chinese traditional medicine to enter the mainstream European market.

Ninety-three-year-old Hu Yisong, a traditional Chinese medicine doctor, teaches a student from Pakistan how to distinguish TCM materials at a drugstore in Nantong, Jiangsu province, in March.

Di’ao Xin Xue Kang, a well-known herbal medicine produced by the Chengdu-based Di’ao Group, received marketing authorization from the Medicines Evaluation Board of the Netherlands, making it the first Chinese traditional drug to be identified as a therapeutic medicine in the European Union.

“This is an important step for TCM to enter mainstream markets of developed countries,” Health Minister Chen Zhu said at a news conference organized by the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing on Wednesday.

This first success was “proof that Chinese firms are capable of producing top-level medicines”, he said.

Bai Chunli, president of Chinese Academy of Sciences, urged TCM research institutions to increase their focus on the European market now.

“As well as strengthening research, I hope they can also study the authorization requirements of different countries, so that more and more medicines will have access to the high-end market,” he said.

Sang Guowei, vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, said that TCM could finally enter European “rightfully”.

The certification of Di’ao Xin Xue Kang follows an EU ban on traditional Chinese medicine in May 2011, imposed to prevent unlicensed herbal medicines being sold as food supplements.

“This new authorization marks the first time that Chinese traditional medicine steps into the mainstream health market,” said Zhang Boli, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and president of the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences.

Zhang said another seven or eight Chinese TCM firms were trying to get access to the EU market.

“Maybe one or two of them will receive authorization next year. And this may lead to more applicants, as the influence of TCM expands on international market,” he added.

Earlier reports said that the Guangzhou Qixing Pharmaceutical Company, the Foci Pharmaceutical Company in Lanzhou, and Tongrentang in Beijing are also striving for the EU market.

“The medicine is also the first herbal medicine that has entered the EU market from a country outside the EU member states,” said Li Bogang, president of the Di’ao Group.

Li said the group took six years to obtain the certification from the Netherlands, although the medicine has been sold in China since 1988.

The group carried out two years of research on active substances in TCM drugs with the help of the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research.

“Without the help of the research organization, the application could have taken longer,” Li said.

“Di’ao Xin Xue Kang contains only a single portion of traditional medicine, which makes the research much easier than for a compound medicine, so we decided to use it in our first attempt at the EU market.”

Chen Keji, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and chairman of the Chinese Association of Integrative Medicine, said identifying the active substances is essential when applying to enter the EU market.

“In China, we currently do not have so strict requirements on the study of active substances, especially in compound medicines,” Chen said. “For example, a TCM doctor may add or take out some herbs in prescriptions for different patients.”

“However, the healing principle is similar in TCM and Western medicine, so it’s best we find out the effective parts in all medicines.”

Liu Jun, chief engineer of the research department of Guangzhou Qixing Pharmaceutical Company, said the basic research into active substances started in 2011, and will take at least another year to finish.

“We are likely to promote our Xiaoyaowan and Biyanpian medicines next. Both are compound medicines,” Liu said. “Compared with Di’ao Xin Xue Kang, the compound medicine is more complicated, so it takes time.”

US consular officials in China issued more than 453,000 visas in the current fiscal year’s first half (October-March) compared with 310,000 during the first six months of fiscal 2011, a 46 percent increase, the State Department disclosed on Wednesday. They have figured out the Chinese go to the United States to go shopping, The average China consumer will spend between 5-7,000 USD on their trip to the United States.

As part of its “Jobs Diplomacy” agenda, the department has been stepping up visa processing because travelers are an important economic engine for the US.

Earlier this year, Obama called for a national strategy to make the US the world’s top travel and tourism destination, to generate jobs and revitalize the still-recovering economy. Now a days it looks like the US consulate is rubber stamping everyone to the United States. The economy in China is better than in the United States. Everyone wants to go shopping and then go home to China.

More than 1 million US jobs could be created over the next decade if the US increases its share of the international travel market, officials estimate.

Among other initiatives, the State Department has cut the average waiting time to five days for Chinese applicants seeking an interview for a US visa. The department is also considering the addition of visa-issuance services in Wuhan.

To further streamline processing, the department recently dispatched its first group of “consular adjudicators” to consulates in China to help regular Foreign Service employees. The new hires undergo similarly rigorous security screening as the more traditional diplomats but are recruited based on their Mandarin-language skills.

The Chinese mainland is on its way to becoming the leading source of cross-border tourism in the world, according to a report last week by the National Tourism Administration and China Tourism Academy.

Mainland tourists made 70 million trips to foreign countries, as well as to Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan last year, up 22 percent from 2010.

Jiang Yiyi, director of China Tourism Academy’s International Tourism Development Institute and one of the main compilers of the report, said that figure was 1.2 times the number of US citizens who traveled abroad in 2011.

“The US’ visa application process was really inconvenient in China, particularly for those who do not live in Beijing and Shanghai,” Zhao Jie, 28, who has lived in New Orleans since 2008, told China Daily on Wednesday.

“My friends used to waste their flight tickets back home in other cities because the visa application interview got delayed in Beijing,” she said.

“US citizens should not only take Chinese tourists’ money but also furnish more convenient and comfortable conditions to win over Chinese tourists’ hearts,” said Cao Xi, a 28-year-old Beijing resident who chose the US for her honeymoon destination three years ago.

“I would like to visit the US again to celebrate our marriage anniversary this year if the visa application could be much easier,” she said.

The State Department initiatives also include Brazil. US consular officials in that country issued more than 555,000 visas in the first half of fiscal 2012, a 59 percent increase from the same period a year earlier.

Rights groups call transplants from condemned prisoners a form of abuse and allege that the government, which executes far more people than any other nation, pressures them to donate organs. The government, however, says prisoners volunteer, and that the change is being made because prisoners are less healthy than the general population.

The official Xinhua News Agency quoted Vice Health Minister Huang Jiefu as saying Thursday that prisoner organ donations are not ideal because condemned inmates have high rates of fungal and bacterial infections.

“Therefore, the long-term survival rates for people with transplanted organs in China are always below those of people in other countries,” Xinhua paraphrased Huang as saying.

Organ donations from condemned prisoners will be abolished within five years, Xinhua quoted Huang as saying at a conference in Hangzhou in eastern China.

Xinhua said hospitals will instead rely on a national organ donation system that is being set up. It said trial systems have already been launched in 16 provinces.

China refuses to say how many prisoners it puts to death each year. Amnesty International estimates it is in the thousands, far more than the executions in all other countries combined. The San Francisco-based Dui Hua Foundation estimates that China executed 5,000 people in 2009. They should not stop it only because they committed a crime and now they should help society out and give something back.

A terse statement posted Thursday morning on a website run by the official Xinhua news service said that Bo would be replaced in Chongqing by the nation’s vice premier, Zhang Dejiang. It did not specify whether Bo also would lose his seat on the nation’s 25-member politburo.

Bo’s dismissal appeared to be part of a power struggle beneath the surface of China’s ruling elite. Bo was widely seen as a leading candidate to be appointed this year for the standing committee of the politburo, a promotion that would have put him at the center of power in the second-largest economy in the world.

There was widespread speculation that Bo’s rise made some senior Chinese Communist Party leaders nervous. He was famous, or infamous, depending on the audience, for launching a populist political campaign in Chongqing that combined both anti-corruption crackdowns and a revival of Mao Zedong-era culture.

On Wednesday, Premier Wen Jiabao warned that unless the nation continued to pursue political reform, it risked sliding into turbulence like that of the Cultural Revolution, a chaotic period sparked by Mao that displaced, injured or killed millions beginning in 1966.

Those highly unusual remarks by Wen — the Cultural Revolution is rarely discussed openly — appeared at the time to in part be a condemnation of Bo’s approach. That impression was cemented by the announcement Thursday morning.

Bo’s ascent to power had taken a heavy blow in early February after his former police chief showed up at an American consulate, spent the night and, perhaps, sought asylum. The former security head, Wang Lijun, was placed under central government investigation. A separate Xinhua item on Thursday morning said the central government had also decided to remove Wang from the position of vice mayor of Chongqing.

Bo’s political fate remained uncertain in the aftermath. He made the journey to Beijing for the annual rubber stamp National People’s Congress this month and, except for a missed meeting, gave no obvious signs of being on the way out.

Bo’s political fate remained uncertain in the aftermath. He made the journey to Beijing for the annual rubber stamp National People’s Congress this month and, except for a missed session, gave no obvious signs of being on the way out.

At a news conference on the sidelines of the People’s Congress last Friday, Bo said he was surprised by the events surrounding Wang Lijun and acknowledged poor management on his part. Bo said he wanted it known that he was not under investigation and that he had not offered to resign. He also sought to clear up other reports that he said were false, including his family’s wealth and sightings of his son driving a red Ferrari.

Bo also warned that the widening wealth divide in China could mean the nation going down “a wrong road.” He extolled Chongqing as an example of a place that was seeking to address those dangers.

On Wednesday, Wen Jiabao also referred to problems like income disparity in China and their links to social tensions. But he, and other Chinese leaders, apparently did not think that Bo, who favored a resurgence of Maoist culture, was the right man for the job.

The latest structure to require an elevator system is the 632 meter tall Shanghai Tower in China. As far as I know, the fastest elevator to date is located in the Taipei 101 building and travels at 1,010 meters per minute. If that got installed in the Shanghai Tower, it would take all of 37 seconds to go from the ground floor to the top.

Mitsubishi has been tasked with developing the elevator for the Tower, and it clearly wasn’t happy with 1,010 meters per minute. Its new elevator will become the world’s fastest when installed, as it travels at 1,080 meters per minute. That means the height of the Shanghai Tower can be traveled in just 35 seconds.

In order to save those 2 seconds, Mitsubishi manages to cover 18 meters every second of travel. Although in reality that time will be extended for the speed up and slowdown phases so as not to fling the occupants of the elevator into the ceiling and floor.

Developing an elevator capable of such speeds is no easy task. Mitsubishi had to come up with a new two-tier breaking system and use brake shoes made of ceramic capable of handling 1,000o Celsius temperatures. The shaft also required a new, stronger rope called sfleX-rope. It combines steel wire and plastic, and allows 85% more load to be handled under breaking while only increasing the weight of the rope by 18%. That additional weight is compensated for by a control cable that is much lighter than previous Mitsubishi elevators.

Passengers aboard the Shanghai Tower elevator shouldn’t be able to feel any vibration during travel, and best of all ear popping will not be an issue. Vibration is removed via an active roller guide that counteracts any vibration that occurs. Pressure changes are nullified by an air pressure control system that adjusts the pressure in the elevator depending on your current location in the shaft.

The Mitsubishi elevator system is set to become operational in the Shanghai Tower by 2014.

I have had this pizza for years, but I have to draw a line in the sane today. I have ordered this pizza from the same place for the last few yeas. It was fairly good for Shanghai. It is one of the best New York city pizza’a around. I say again New York style pizza.

The pizza I ordered just before I headed to NY was a disaster, I called around 9:30 at night and the said they still do delivery. I ordered, and the pizza came at 10:30 and the guy did not tell me he dropped it. When I opened it, the cheese was all on the top cover of the box. I called the next day and all they said was sorry.

I came back to Shanghai and ordered again, this time the guy making the pizza must of been trying to save the cheese, the cheese was paper thin and you can see the base of the pizza. The cheese was 3 inches from the crust of the pizza. That’s crazy.

Well I went over a friends house and they ordered from NYC Pizza and when they opened the box they couldn’t help but laugh, where’s the cheese!!. It was paper thin crust with a little red color tomato sauce and tissue paper cheese, and yes 3 inches in from the crust the cheese came.

So now we know the new standard of New York city Pizza. Don’t order from them. Your better off getting pizza from papa John’s, at least that comes with cheese.

Construction of 11 million square meters of affordable housing will begin in the city this year, Liu Haisheng, director of the Shanghai Housing Support and Building Administration Bureau, told a municipal conference yesterday.

Budget homes will account for 53,000 units, homes for relocated residents will total 42,800 units and there will be 40,000 units of public rent apartments.

The city’s affordable housing program mainly consists of budget homes, houses built for relocated residents, public housing units for rental as well as some low-rent apartments catering to low-income families.

Under the plan, a total of 90,000 affordable housing units are supposed to be completed this year in Shanghai. The new supply of such houses to hit the market should reach 7.7 million square meters, or 110,000 units, in 2012. More properties are planned for Shanghai next year too.

The city has been working hard to increase the supply of affordable housing as high home prices have priced many out of the market. Some many Shanghainese think the Shanghai real estate prices are out of control.

Karen Ma, owner of the Napa Wine Bar & Kitchen on Jiangyin Road, Huangpu District, complained to Shanghai Daily that its reservation book was stolen “in the blink of an eye” on Monday.

Ma said a surveillance camera showed the book was stolen by a thief, believed by the bar to be one of the trio caught on video stealing a reservations book from the Da Marco Italian restaurant last week.

I hope she adds to the reward, D’Marco has put out a free dinner for 2 for information on who they are. Since it’s Marco, I think it was an offer for dead or alive in Shanghai.

Ma said: “Our video shows he wore the same suit, the same shoes and even ran away with the book in the same way as the thief who appeared in Da Marco’s video.” They are probably friends or partners in a business in Shanghai, trying to steal customers from doing cold calls.

She said the book contained more than 4,000 contacts, about half Chinese and half expats. The bar believes the book was stolen by thieves hired by a consultancy that advertises or sells by cold-calling.

“We are desperate to ensure our customers are not bothered by cold-callers,” said Ma.

This is the latest in a string of such thefts. Three expats stole a reservations book containing hundreds of contacts from the Da Marco last week, and in October last year a reservations book containing several thousand contacts was stolen from another Italian restaurant, VaBene, according to a restaurant official.

As a result at least 5,000 customer contact details are believed to have been leaked by way of book thefts, but police will not initiate an investigation because they say the books have little face value. So we hope everyone will help out and we will police ourselves. Find the criminal and give them some lumps and find out the business they own and boycott it till they close.

Ma said: “The book itself is not valuable, but it contains valuable information.”

Matteo, a Shanghai Da Marco staffer, yesterday provided Shanghai Daily with the name of a company and one of its senior officials who he believes is behind the thefts, claiming an Englishman once phoned the restaurant to apologize for the theft.

But when the Shanghai Daily confronted the company on Nanjing Road W., the manager protested its innocence, claiming the culprits could be other small companies faking their identity.

According to local lawyer Wu Dong, the thefts reveal a loophole in China’s laws protecting privacy, as a theft case can be established only when the value of goods stolen reaches a certain value or the goods constitute a business secret. Wu said the thieves may face charges of selling private information only when evidence shows they have sold or passed on the contact details. Another lawyer, Wang Zhan, said it would be hard to provide such evidence.

Both said if the bars can provide evidence that the same thieves stole books repeatedly, and emphasized the huge number of people that might become victims, the police should detain and fine them for disturbing social order.

Meanwhile, lawmaker Pei Zhen suggested the bar and restaurants report the case to local prosecutors if police refuse to pursue it.

He also suggested people who have dined at those venues should be careful when taking phone calls from cold-callers. Pei said: “They should record such callers’ names and their companies and report them to police as evidence that their contact details have been traded.”