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China not to challenge US, to pursue peaceful development: Wu

BEIJING, Dec 14: China's 'iron lady' today reassured top US officials here that Beijing does not intend to set off rivalry with Washington and was determined to pursue the path of "peaceful development."

Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi used the first round of Sino-US Strategic Economic Dialogue to convey the ruling Communist Party's resolve to adhere to the path of "peaceful development" and dispel fears of a "China threat" which is gaining ground in Washington in view of China's growing influence- economic, political, diplomatic and military might.

"The choice by the Chinese people to follow a peaceful path to development is a wise decision based on China's traditional culture, painful history and her tremendous achievements at the current stage," said Wu in a keynote speech at opening of the dialogue here at the Great Hall of the People.

Wu, 67, the senior-most woman leader of China, is dubbed as 'iron lady'. Wu, a member of the powerful Politburo of the CPC Central Committee, was ranked No 3 on 'The 100 Most Powerful Women 2006' by Forbes Magazine.

In a major policy speech, she noted that China is an ancient civilisation boasting 5,000 years' history with the tradition of seeking mutual complementarities, accommodation and integration with foreign cultures.

"In China's history of interactions with the outside world, she has consistently focused on the practice of befriending her neighbours while pursuing harmony out of a respect for differences," Wu told the high-level US delegation led by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

"Such a cultural heritage has decided that today's China will inevitably choose peaceful development to sustain the continuity of history as well as to align herself into the currents of peace and development in the global context," Wu said, rejecting attempts in Washington to rake up the so-called 'China threat.'

She recalled the history from the Opium War and the First Sino-Japanese War after the 1880s, China's War on Foreign Invaders 1900 to the Japanese War of Aggression against China in 1930s, saying China was subject to the butchering of the then strong powers in the West and East and their extremely barbarian economic depredation.

"This, coupled with feudal corruption and years of successive civil strife and chaos, led to the loss of China's sovereignty and the horrendous suffering of her people, her national strength failing and people barely surviving," she said.

"Such a historic experience has shaped the psychology of the Chinese people in our quest for peace and hope for stability, consolidating our belief in following a path to peaceful development," Wu added.

She said after the founding of new China in 1949, the Chinese people have made arduous explorations in the course of development and starting from 1978, China has embarked on a new journey of transforming from a planned to a market economy, from cloistered up to opening up, from exclusive self-sustaining to integration into globalisation. (PTI)

UN draft calling for release of political detainees in Myanmar

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 14: The United States has ratcheted up the pressure on Myanmar's rulers by introducing a UN Security Council draft resolution urging them to release all political prisoners and end the use of rape as an instrument of war.

The text, a copy of which was obtained by AFP, does not call for sanctions against Myanmar's military junta, which has been accused of political repression and serious human rights abuses. There was no indication from the council of when the draft might be put to a vote.

The draft expresses "grave concern that the overall situation in Myanmar has deteriorated and poses serious risks to peace and security in the region."

It also calls on the ruling junta to "cease military attacks against civilians in ethnic minority regions and in particular to desist immediately from the use of systematic rape of women and girls as an instrument of armed conflict."

The text further urges Yangon to "take concrete steps to allow full freedom of expression, association and movement by unconditionally releasing (democracy icon) Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisoners, lifting all constraints on all political leaders and citizens, and allowing the (opposition) League for Democracy (NLD) and other political parties to reopen their offices."

Last month, UN Under Secretary General for Political Affairs Ibrahim Gambari said that in his talks with Myanmar leaders he stressed the need for them to release all political prisoners. (AGENCIES)

UN Secretary General-designate to take oath of office

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 14: South Korea's Ban Ki-moon, who will succeed Kofi Annan as head of the United Nations on January 1, was to take the oath of office here today at a special ceremony that will also feature a tribute to the outgoing UN chief.

The ceremony, in the General Assembly hall, is to begin at 2030 IST with the tribute to Annan, the 68-year-old Ghanaian who has steered the world body for the past 10 years.

UN officials say the 192-member General Assembly is to adopt by acclamation a resolution in appreciation of the world's departing chief diplomat.

The president of the General Assembly, Haya Rashad al-Khalifa of Bahrain, is then to administer the oath of office to the 62-year-old Ban.

After the ceremony, the South Korean former foreign minister is to give a press conference, his second since his election in October.

Ban, who was selected by the General Assembly, has been here since last month, working on setting up a transition team ahead of his official takeover.

His election was a mere formality after the powerful 15-member Security Council recommended him.

Other contenders for the coveted, high-profile job were Indian diplomat Shashi Tharoor; Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga; former Thai deputy prime minister Surakiart Sathirathai; Jordan's UN ambassador Prince Zeid al-Hussein; Sri Lankan diplomat Jayantha Dhanapala and Afghanistan's former finance minister Ashraf Ghani. (AGENCIES)

Bush says enemy in Iraq is ‘far from being defeated

WASHINGTON, Dec 14: President George W. Bush says the enemy in Iraq is "far from being defeated," but he vows not to be rushed into adjusting his strategy and is giving little indication that he intends to veer sharply from the direction his war policies have taken.

"We're not going to give up. The stakes are too high and the consequences too grave," Bush said after meeting at the Pentagon today with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Rumsfeld's designated successor, Robert Gates.

There are competing schools of thought inside the military and the administration on whether a short-term increase in US troop strength in Iraq, possibly in the range of 20,000, would be enough to quell the sectarian warfare in Baghdad.

After a third straight day of soliciting war advice from top military and diplomatic officials, Bush gave no clue as to whether he will include that in his forthcoming plan.

Some generals believe it would be too little, too late, in a war that already has claimed more than 2,900 US lives and tens of thousands of Iraqis.

Bush said he was considering a wide range of options he has heard during a week of consultations but is rejecting ideas "that would lead to defeat." He said the rejected ideas included "leaving before the job is done, ideas such as not helping this (Iraqi) Government" to function and gain Iraqis' confidence.

"But one thing people have got to understand is we'll be headed toward achieving our objectives," he said. (AGENCIES)

China’s economy to slow down to 9.6 pc in 2007: WB

BEIJING, Dec 14: China’s surging economy will taper off after witnessing a GDP growth of 10.4 per cent in 2006 to 9.6 per cent in 2007 and 8.7 per cent in 2008, a World Bank report has forecast.

The World Bank released its annual report-Global Economic Prospects 2007 in Beijing yesterday, which gives a medium-term outlook for China’s economy in a special section of regional economic prospects.

According to the report, continued robust investment demand and a pickup in private consumption should maintain China’s GDP growth at high rates.

"China’s economy remains favourable in the coming years," the report’s lead author, Richard Newfarmer said.

According to the report, China’s export growth rates are projected to decelerate toward 14 per cent in 2008, lower than the estimated 20.3 per cent increase in the year 2006, the report said.

Newfarmer said the modest slowdown is not a bad thing for China, which will help ease pressure on China’s economic growth.

The report also said in the coming years, signs of overheating in China will be limited to specific sectors and regions. While production capacity continues to expand in line with demand, inflation remains low, and the current account is in surplus-all of which augur well for a soft landing.

But the report also mentioned that high investment rates and excess capacity in several sectors dominated by state-owned enterprises will leave open the possibility of a sharp decline in investment, Xinhua news agency reported.

The year 2006 witnessed China’s efforts to contain its soaring investment for a balanced economy.

Rapid investment growth, and a surge in exports as new capacity came on stream, saw the Chinese economy expand by 10.7 per cent year-on-year in the first nine months of 2006.

Investment demand in China was particularly strong in the first half of 2006, but the World Bank report said China’s efforts to contain investment via tighter monetary policy and sector-specific administrative measures have resulted in a modest slowing of GDP in the third quarter to a 10.4 per cent pace.

The report also said that robust expansion in credit and money supply, in part fuelled by strong balance of payment inflows, helped support an acceleration in domestic demand, whose contribution to growth increased to an estimated 7.3 percentage points in 2006, up from 5.6 percentage points the year before.

During the first nine months of 2006, China’s trade surplus increased to 110 billion U.S. Dollars, already higher than the total for all of the 2005, and its forex reserves have exceeded one trillion dollars.

According to the World Bank report, owing to years of annual export growth of more than 20 per cent, China has overtaken the United States as the world’s second-largest exporting nation during the course of this year. (PTI)

Leading Chinese TV maker acquires stake in S Korean producer

BEIJING, Dec 14: China’s leading TV maker Changhong acquired 75 per cent of South Korea’s third largest plasma display panel (PDP) producer, to enhance its share in the upmarket television segment, the Chinese Government said here today.

The Sichuan Century Shuanghong, a joint venture between Changhong and the biggest Chinese colour TV tube maker Irico Group, will pay 99.9 million US dollars to acquire 75 per cent of the Sterope Investments B V in the Netherlands which is the majority shareholder of the Orion PDP Co Ltd in South Korea, the National Development and Reform Commission, China’s top planning body said.

The takeover of Orion will allow Changhong to enter into the upper level of the production value chain, Xinhua news agency quoted analysts as saying.

The annual output of the new assembly line is projected to hit two million panels, which is equivalent to the world’s number five producer, Pioneer in Japan.

Hefty funds were injected into the joint venture in October where Changhong takes up 80 per cent of the stake and 20 per cent for Irico, which added its registration capital to 180 million yuan and quenched market doubts on its financial capacity of digesting the foreign counterpart.

Analysts show prudent optimism over the buyout, saying it will help Changhong to complete its flat panel production chain, while the competition will remain fierce with falling prices. (PTI)

Pinochet Grandson discharged from army

SANTIAGO, Dec 14: The soldier grandson of Gen Augusto Pinochet was discharged from the Chilean army after causing an uproar with a funeral speech denouncing judges who had tried the late dictator.

Army Gen. Oscar Izurieta said today's announcement that Capt. Augusto Pinochet Molina, 34, had been discharged was delayed 24 hours out of "respect to his family."

Pinochet Molina defended his grandfather's bloody 1973 coup during a speech at his funeral yesterday and said judges who later sought to prosecute him were seeking notoriety, not justice, a comment that brought applause from mourners and censure from the president, demonstrating yet again Chile's deep divisions over the former military dictatorship.

President Michelle Bachelet, herself once imprisoned under the dictatorship, issued a statement today calling the soldier's comments "an extremely serious offense" because it is an attack against a branch of government.

She said she expected the army to take "necessary measures" to punish the officer, but his father, also named Augusto, said the captain was already planning to leave the army.

Pinochet Molina, an army engineer, was reported to be attending a family religious service for his grandfather at a residence southwest of the Chilean capital today. He did not comment on the controversy.

Pinochet died Sunday, but the government denied the state funeral normally awarded to former presidents because he was never elected but took power by force, toppling elected Marxist President Salvador Allende in 1973. (AGENCIES)

NKorea willing to shut down reactor if conditions met: Report

SEOUL, Dec 14: North Korea has told the United States it is willing to shut down a key nuclear reactor and accept UN inspections if certain conditions are met, a news report said today.

The North said it could close the five-megawatt reactor in its main nuclear complex in Yongbyon and accept inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the newspaper Hankook Ilbo reported from Washington, citing an unidentified State Department official.

The conditions include North Korea's long-standing call for Washington to lift financial restrictions for its alleged currency counterfeiting and money laundering and a demand for energy aid, the newspaper said.

The communist regime conveyed that position to Washington via China in the course of setting the date to resume six-party talks on its nuclear program, the newspaper said. The nuclear talks, involving China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the United States, are scheduled to resume Monday for the first time since November last year.

"We have the minimum hope that North Korea will not come (to the nuclear talks) empty-handed," the State Department official was quoted as saying.

In Washington, US nuclear envoy Christopher Hill said he did not "want to get into specific things that we'll be proposing," when asked if the North should shut down its nuclear reactor as a token of good faith.

Hill said the United States wants to make "concrete progress," not just talk, during the international talks aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear weapons program, which are set to resume Monday in Beijing after a 13-month hiatus. (AGENCIES)

Chinese police arrest Myanmarese drug trafficker

BEIJING, Dec 14: Police in southwest China’s Yunnan Province, which borders the notorious "Golden Triangle" has arrested a suspected Myanmar drug trafficker and seized 70.72 kg of heroin from him.

Yunnan frontier police said they received a tip-off last Wednesday saying that large amounts of drugs would be smuggled across the border with Myanmar.

On Saturday night, they arrested a Myanmar national leading a mule loaded with 104 bags of heroin that weighed 70.72 kg near Chashanjiao Village, Zhenkang County that borders Myanmar.

The police didn’t release any further details of the case.

Yunnan is a major route for drugs smugglers of the "Golden Triangle", which lies along the Mekong River in Laos, Myanmar and northern Thailand and is one of the world’s most productive poppy growing regions.

The frontier police in Yunnan announced early this month they had arrested 3,764 suspected drug traffickers and seized 1,429 kg of heroin, 763 kg of methamphetamine, or "ice", and 866 kg of opium this year.

Last year, Yunnan police seized more than four tonnes of drugs and arrested 4,600 suspected drug dealers in the region.

In 2005, Chinese police nationwide seized 6.9 tonnes of heroin and 5.5 tonnes of "ice". (PTI)

World's tallest man rescues dolphins in China.

BEIJING, Dec 14: The world's tallest man has rescued two dolphins from certain death after they swallowed some plastic at an ocean aquarium in northeast China.

The dolphins had fallen sick almost immediately after swallowing some plastic from the perimeter of their pool two weeks ago, the state media reported today.

Vets attempted to surgically remove the plastic but the contraction of the dolphins' stomachs in response to the surgical instruments rendered their task impossible.

Aquarium staff in Fushun in northeast China's Liaoning Province then realised that the plastic could only be removed by a human hand.

Then they sought help from the world's tallest man, 2.36-meter-high Bao Xishun, a herdsman from Inner Mongolia.

Bao, who had an arm of 1.06 meters correctly fitted the job. While a dozen men held down the dolphins' upper jaws with towels so they could not chomp down on Bao's giant limb, he reached his hand into the stomach of each dolphin and pulled out the plastic shards.

It is still not known how the plastic pads, used to prevent skidding around the outside of the pool, fell into water to be eaten by the dolphins.

"Some very small plastic pieces are still left in the dolphins' stomachs," said Zhu Xiaoling, a local doctor. "However the dolphins will be able to digest these and are expected to recover soon."

Bao was confirmed as the world's tallest human being by the Guinness Book of World Records last year. (PTI)

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Solar flare disrupts China's shortwave radio communications

BEIJING, Dec 14: Shortwave radio communications in China have returned to normal after streams of electrically charged atomic particles from the sun caused widespread disruption.

The phenomenon, known as solar flare, occurred at around 10:40 am (Beijing Time), according to the China Research Institute of Radiowave Propagation, state media reported today.

The X3-class flare caused widespread interruption of shortwave communications and broadcasts, and seriously affected electronic survey systems for a long period.

According to the institute, its radio wave observation stations in Guangzhou, Hainan and Chongqing experienced interruption of shortwave detection signals from around 10:20 am through 11:15 am.

The situation returned to normal at 1:30 pm, Xinhua news agency reported.

Two X-class solar flares occurred on December five and seven, accompanied by several M-class solar flares.

A researcher with the institute said the chances of major solar flares were low at present.

"Continuous solar flares like those that have occurred in recent days are rather rare, but we should not be caught unprepared against them," a researcher said. (PTI)

IL-14 aircraft used by 'Chairman' Mao to be exhibited

BEIJING, Dec 14: Beijing will soon exhibit an IL-14 aircraft, used by late Chinese leader Mao Zedong, which was gifted to him by former Soviet Union leader Joseph Stalin in the 1950s.

The aircraft used by Mao would be transported from Zhengzhou, capital of central China's Henan Province, to the new China Civil Aviation Museum in Beijing before the end of the month, Xinhua news agency reported.

Technicians were currently disassembling the aircraft. The aircraft parts would be transported to Beijing in different batches. "The work is likely to take several days," an official said.

The IL-14, which was presented by Stalin to Mao in 1956, is 21.31 meters long, 31.7 meters wide and 7.8 meters high. The 17-seat aircraft can make a non-stop flight of eight hours and 10 minutes.

A bed, a sofa and a desk can be placed inside the cabin.

The IL-14 aircraft family, developed by Soviet Union, was put into use in 1954. China bought 49 IL-14 aircraft starting from 1955 and all these aircraft mainly flew on domestic air routes.

Mao's IL-14 began serving at the Zhongyuan Airline Company, which later merged into the Henan branch of China Southern Airlines, in 1985. The aircraft stopped service in 1992.

Construction of the Beijing-based China Civil Aviation Museum began in 2004 and is expected to go into full use in 2007. The museum has begun collecting items on display.

The museum is built to showcase the development of China's aviation industry and achievements China has made in this sector. (PTI)