US strategy boosts visas for Chinese
The United States, hoping to rev up its economy through greater travel from China, is on the way to meeting President Barack Obama’s 2012 goal of a 40 percent boost in the processing of visas from the country. # years ago it was very hard to get a visa to the United States. I figure 6 out of 10 got one. now a days it looks like 9 out of 10 get visas to the United States.
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.
ATV boss takes rap over Jiang gaffe
Asia Television’s major shareholder Wang Zheng – who denied being the source of the station’s false report on the death of former president Jiang Zemin last year – is headed for the exit. Hong Kong – ATV’s major shareholder Wong Ching and executive director James Shing Pan Yu may bow out after the station misreported the death of former PRC president Jiang Zeimin last year.
The Broadcasting Authority, which fined the troubled broadcaster a record HK$300,000 in December, is still investigating the blunder which stunned the nation – but it is understood the authority will not wrap up its probe prior to its merger with the Office of the Telecommunications Authority to form the Communications Authority.
This “super regulator” will take up the ATV saga in one of its first major tasks next month and the station could well be held responsible – giving Wang no alternative but to step down, according to a source.
Despite being the major investor in ATV, Wang is not eligible to run a broadcaster under current regulations.
But media reports have speculated that Wang – who describes himself as a “consultant” to his cousin, executive director James Shing Pan-yu – is directly involved in day-to-day operations.
It has also been alleged that an unnamed investor has interfered in ATV’s news department. After reporting the death of retired state leader Jiang Zemin last July, ATV retracted the broadcast following a strong denial by the official Xinhua News Agency. All of this has not yet been proven and so far it’s all hear say.
On the day of the broadcast, the station also changed its orange logo to gray with Wang’s approval. But Wang, said to be a relative of Jiang, said later he learned about the purported scoop only after the news cast.
Two senior news executives – senior vice president of news and public affairs Leung Ka-wing and his deputy, vice president Tammy Tam Wai-yee – resigned from the station shortly after the hugely embarrassing blunder. They did not name any names on the way out.
Refusing to take responsibility, Leung said at the time he made an “all- out effort” to stop the broadcast.
He refused to disclose who in management had insisted that the report be aired, but he hinted that the person who actually relayed the news was “just a messenger” and that someone more senior was behind it.
But executive director Shing said senior management – including himself, Wang and vice president Kwong Hoi- ying – were not the source.
Announcing the fine last year, the regulator said it was senior vice president Kwong Hoi-ying who pushed the news team to broadcast the report of Jiang’s death. The authority’s chairman, senior counsel Ambrose Ho Pui- him, will chair the new watchdog.
An ATV spokesman denied that staff had held a meeting yesterday to discuss Wang’s impending departure.
China to phase out prisoner organ donation
BEIJING — China will abolish the transplanting of organs from executed prisoners within five years and try to spur more citizens to donate, a top health official says.
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.
China dismisses Bo Xilai as head of party in Chongqing
BEIJING — Bo Xilai, a man recently seen as headed for the center of power in China, was removed from his office as the Chinese Communist Party chief of the mega-city of Chongqing, a stunning turnabout for one of the nation’s most controversial politicians.
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.
Probe after formula report raises fears in China
A REPORT by a Hong Kong-based research firm that said a brand of infant formula failed Chinese mainland standards for protein content has sparked an investigation in Shanghai. China’s track record on baby formula is very bad.
The city’s Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision told Shanghai Daily it was investigating because the report had raised fears among local consumers. The fear their only child is not getting the right safe food is very scary.
In its report, CER Research said tests showed that a sample of Abbott Similac Stage 1 purchased from a Hong Kong supermarket in December contained much lower levels of whey and higher levels of casein than allowed on the mainland China.
The firm released the details on its website with the headline: “A first step towards malnutrition.”
Its report said excess casein could lead to diarrhea, intestinal bleeding and kidney problems alongside malnutrition.
The report aroused public concern over the weekend as many Chinese parents purchase formula from markets outside the Chinese mainland. It;s hard to even get the right formula in China. After the incident in Japan with the release of nuclear material in the air. Japan baby formula may not be that safe either.
However, Abbott China hit back, calling the report “utterly and deliberately misleading.”
In a lawyer’s letter sent to CER Research, it said: “The claim that Abbott formulas do not meet the mainland standards is simply unfounded and false. Abbott products sold in the mainland meet all regulations. Each batch of Abbott infant formula sold in the mainland has been cleared by all government tests.” China standards are not like world standards.
Hong Kong, unlike the mainland, has no standards covering the ratio of whey and casein.
Abbott has demanded an immediate public apology and removal of the report from CER’s website. The formula producer also warned it would take legal action against CER for jeopardizing its trust among consumers and harming the reputation of the brand.
Mainland standards rule that the whey to casein ratio in infant formula should be 60 to 40 percent with whey content being no less than 60 percent.
In response, CER Research said that its samples “were tested by one of the world’s top food testing laboratories in Germany” and cited “comments from named top experts.”
However, five of the six Chinese and foreign doctors and nutritionists said by the report to have endorsed its conclusions have now accused CER Research of misleading them when they were asked for comments.
Professor Chen Yuming, a pediatric doctor at the Public Health and Nutrition College of Zhongshan University in Guangzhou City, said he had been asked to comment on a nutritional topic and was not aware of the report and its findings. “I was used deliberately,” he said.
Andrew Day, a pediatrics professor at the University of Otago in New Zealand, told Guangzhou Daily that his name and comment were used without his knowledge.
He told the newspaper he was not aware of any objective data to support the title or the conclusions of the report.
Apple factories are better than the garment factories in China
Apple iPad plant conditions better than the norm: agency
Working conditions at Chinese manufacturing plants where Apple Inc’s iPads and iPhones are made are far better than those at garment factories or other facilities elsewhere in the country, according to the head of a non-profit agency investigating the plants. Apple is under the gun because they are one of the most successful companies doing business in China. So many other factories have worse conditions but are not famous so they under the microscope. As I noticed before the government would never allow slave labor now a days. If you don’t like the pay you don’t have to work.
The Fair Labor Association (FLA) is beginning a study of the working conditions of Apple’s top eight suppliers in China, following reports of worker suicides, a plant explosion and slave-like conditions at one of those suppliers, Foxconn Technology Group.
Auret van Heerden, president of the FLA offered no immediate conclusions on the working conditions, but he noted that boredom and alienation could have contributed to the stress that led some workers to take their own lives. Everyone in the world is not satisfied with what they are paid.
In addition to Foxconn, FLA investigators will later visit facilities of Quanta Computer Inc, Pegatron Corp, Wintek Corp and other suppliers, who are notoriously tight-lipped about their operations.
After his first visits to Foxconn, van Heerden said, “The facilities are first-class; the physical conditions are way, way above average of the norm.”
He spent the past several days visiting Foxconn plants to prepare for the study.
“I was very surprised when I walked onto the floor at Foxconn, how tranquil it is compared with a garment factory,” he said. “So the problems are not the intensity and burnout and pressure-cooker environment you have in a garment factory. . It’s more a function of monotony, of boredom, of alienation perhaps.”
He noted that the organization has been dealing with suicides in Chinese factories since the 1990s. The factories run well, it’s just the Chinese that are not use to working hard, they don’t like the system, they want more money than other factories pay because they build I pads.
“You have lot of young people, coming from rural areas, away from families for the first time,” he said. “They’re taken from a rural into an industrial lifestyle, often quite an intense one, and that’s quite a shock to these young workers.
“And we find that they often need some kind of emotional support, and they can’t get it,” he added. Factories initially didn’t realize those workers needed emotional support.”
Van Heerden dismissed the notion that his organization might paint a cursory and positive picture of Apple’s suppliers.
Companies that join the FLA abide by rigorous commitments, and their interests are balanced by non-governmental organizations and more than 200 universities that sit on the board of the organization with the corporations, he said.
FLA evolved from a group originally convened by U.S. President Bill Clinton in 1996 with the goal of reducing sweatshop labor around the world. Its board includes executives from sneaker companies Nike and Adidas.
“Apple didn’t need to join the FLA,” he said. “The FLA system is very tough. It involves unannounced visits, complete access, public reporting.
“If Apple wanted to take the easy way out there were a whole host of options available to them,” he added. “The fact that they joined the FLA shows they were really serious about raising their game.”
RESPONSES ENTERED ON IPADS
Some 30 FLA staff members are visiting two Foxconn factories in Shenzhen in southern China and one in the central city of Chengdu. Each plant has about 100,000 workers, although not all work on Apple products.
Over three weeks, some 35,000 workers will be interviewed about 30 at a time to answer questions anonymously, entering their responses onto Apple iPads.
Questions will include:
* how the workers were hired
* if they were paid a fee
* if they were offered and signed contracts and whether they understood them
* the condition of their dorm rooms and food
* if complaints are acted upon
* their emotional well being
The data will be uploaded immediately and consolidated, and an interim report will be made public in early March.
The eventual FLA report will identify areas the suppliers need to improve and offer suggestions, van Heerden said.
“There might not be a clear policy on hiring, that could lead unwittingly to discrimination against hepatitis B sufferers,” he said as an example.
“There might not be adequate documentation that could lead to the risk that workers get hired with fake documentation, that underage workers come in . We can recommend very specific actions they can take.”
There is also the thin line. Once they pay to much to the workers and the factories are not competitive, production will move out of China to other countries.
Mitsubishi develops world’s fastest elevator for 632m Shanghai Tower , China will be another record breaker soon.
The taller buildings get, the faster we need elevators to go so as to keep travel times at an acceptable level. It sounds ludicrous to have to worry about time spent in an elevator, but when you’re talking about buildings hundreds of meters tall, speed is essential.
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.
Mitsubishi develops world’s fastest elevator for 632m Shanghai Tower , China will be another record breaker soon.
The taller buildings get, the faster we need elevators to go so as to keep travel times at an acceptable level. It sounds ludicrous to have to worry about time spent in an elevator, but when you’re talking about buildings hundreds of meters tall, speed is essential.
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.
Shanghai New York City Pizza review
B/F, Email Fashion Plaza,
1699 Nanjing Xi Lu,
near Huashan Lu
南京西路1699号，
近华山路
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.
More Affordable housing still key priority in Shanghai
Shanghai will proceed with its affordable housing program this year as the city continues to make efforts to improve the living standards of middle to low-income households.
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.
