"Other people sacrifice their sons to the nation, but I gave my son away to online games," one South Korean mother told Donga, a South Korean news outlet.
In an effort to curb video game addiction among youth, South Korea's Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has implemented a sort of gaming "curfew" that will block underage users from accessing online computer games after midnight.
Published: April 12 2010 17:49
By Christian Oliver in Seoul
Inspiration comes easily to South Korea’s Buddhist abbots.
The Venerable Bop Ta decided in the late 1990s he should build noodle factories in North Korea, and not just because of starvation in the secular dictatorship. The factories could increase the role of Buddhism in inter-Korean rapprochement, clawing back ground from tenacious South Korean Protestant missionaries, who are eagerly seeking North Korean converts.
Religion is officially banned in North Korea and anyone who believes in any religion must practise in the utmost secrecy…
2010-4-13
Source: Xinhua
THE average land prices in 70 major cities fell 31 percent in March over February as China's measures to curb property prices "start working," a report from the China Land Surveying and Planning Institute said yesterday.
Land supplies in 70 large- and medium-sized cities were rebounding in March and market transactions remained active, said a CLSPI report released by the Ministry of Land and Resources on its Website.
Land prices for residential use and their premiums in Beijing, however, continued to surge "markedly" in March from a month earlier, the report said, without giving the exact numbers.
Housing prices almost doubled in big cities such as Beijing in 2009, triggering fears about possible property bubbles and widespread complaints among people who don't own a house in the cities.
The Beijing city government vowed earlier this year that it would provide at least 2,500 hectares of land to build 30 million square meters of houses this year.
The average land prices of the 70 cities dropped 31 percent month on month to 1,438 yuan (US$210) per square meter in March while land prices for residential use in those cities averaged 1,868 yuan per square meter, down 20 percent from February.
2010-4-13
By Mari Yamaguchi
THE head of an international aviation group yesterday said the only way for Japan's struggling airline industry to recover is to serve as a gateway to China and he urged reforms and cost-cutting.
Japan has slipped from being a leader in the Asian-Pacific market and its competitiveness is "at risk" because it has lagged in cost-cutting, liberalization and other reforms for decades, said Giovanni Bisignani, chief executive of the International Air Transport Association.
The recent bankruptcy filing of Japan Airlines Co, the signing of an Open Skies agreement with the United States and planned runway expansion at Tokyo's two main airports are "a wake-up call for urgent change," Bisignani said. He urged Japan to use the opportunity to speed up industry reforms and rebound.
Bisignani said Japan should take advantage of being a neighbor of booming China. He urged Tokyo to build up its strength to compete with rival regional hubs, including South Korea's Inchon, as well as Singapore and Hong Kong, "to serve as a gateway to China, which is where the future is."
"You are located in a wonderful part of the world, with China in front of you. This is the only opportunity that you have," he said. "Take advantage of this area of the world where the traffic is still growing."
"Why can't you play a role as a hub entering into China? Why leave this to Inchon or Singapore?"
Over the past decade, Japan's total jet fleet size has grown to 540 and China to 1,400 from about 480 each. Japan's market size has hardly changed during the period, with international seats now at 1.3 million per week, while China has outgrown Japan from 500,000 to 1.4 million, according to industry figures. IATA represents 240 airline companies worldwide.
China's expansion gives a great opportunity for Japan that "you cannot miss," Bisignani said.
Tokyo's new government has said Japan has too many airports due to often-wasteful public works projects promoted by previous administrations. Japan, the size of California, has 98 airports and the newest, which opened near Tokyo in March, has only one regular daily flight.
Bisignani called for leadership to resolve the "incredible situation" in west Japan, where three airports with five runways altogether are vying for 36 million passengers.
April 12, 2010
China's demand for oil and other commodities is surging as the country's economy powers forward. Beijing says it imported so many things from the rest of the world last month, that it posted an unusual trade deficit. With the U.S., however, China still runs a surplus.
TRANSCRIPT
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
NPR's business news starts with China's import juggernaut.
(Soundbite of music)
MONTAGNE: China's demand for oil and other commodities is surging. Beijing says it's imported so many things from the rest of the world last month, it posted an unusual trade deficit. With the U.S., however, China still runs a surplus, meaning it sells the U.S more than we sell China.
Beijing may be hoping the numbers will ease some of the political pressure to change its currency policy. U.S. lawmakers complained that China keeps its currency unfairly low in order to boost its exports.
2010-4-13
By Wan Lixin
SEVERAL recent occurrences serve as depressing commentary on the state of China's public servants.
One took place in Gushi, Henan Province, on March 25, when a company boss, a local bank chief named Min Zhitao, and a deputy county magistrate summoned four women to keep them company at a teahouse.
Min began to take liberties with three of them, and when stopped by the fourth woman, the banker began to turn his attention to the women who interrupted.
The banker then followed another woman to the toilet.
When he was rejected, he pushed her to the ground and began to grope her.
When the woman begged on her knees for mercy from the deputy county magistrate who was standing nearby, the magistrate remonstrated with her softly: "Lass, stop that fuss. Bank chief Min has good connections."
We cannot but marvel at the camaraderie between our civil servants.
Another incident also illustrating the strong bond between our officials is the case of Wang Yali, who before last June was the youngest member of the local People's Political Consultative Conference and deputy chief of the Communist Youth League in Shijiazhuang, capital of Hebei Province.
As a matter of fact, Wang has been found to have falsified nearly everything except her sex - her name, age, education, work experience and cadre status have all been forged.
Wang had rustic origins, but her fortune took an abrupt turn after she claimed nominal kinship with a rich local businessman.
Wang would have been in line for higher position, had she not brazenly claimed she was the daughter of a billionaire.
It was reported yesterday that a dozen officials who had helped her in her career have been disciplined or are facing criminal charges.
To ordinary Chinese dazzled by the high wages and perks associated with their servants, they cannot but suppose that coveted status can be achieved only after a rigorous selecting process.
Not so for someone who knows how to work the system.
Other evidence of officials' indulgence towards each other was found in the cover story on last week's South Weekend.
It reported that no local Party or government chief has been dismissed in the eight known cases over three years in which death was the result of forced relocation.
The victims committed suicide or were buried alive as their land was taken over.
Sharp contrast
In sharp contrast to our indulgence towards our servants is our officials' severity towards their masters.
It was recently reported that in Shiyan, Hubei Province, that citizen Peng Baoquan was detained by police on April 9 for having taken pictures of some people appealing to higher authorities to air their grievances.
Early next morning the police sent Peng to the local mental hospital.
In another case in Sui County, Shangqiu, Henan Province, on March 22, a peasant visited a township chief in his office to complain that his farm field had been misappropriated.
The peasant picked up a mug in the office to take a drink, but was stopped. He retorted and a scuffle ensued, resulting in his detention for a week.
A followup report in the Bejing News yesterday suggested that many other peasants have been detained on other occasions for complaints of land misappropriations.
In all these cases we sense a contempt on the part of our servants for the feelings of their masters.
There are strong suggestions that our servants are generally out of touch with their masters, and in the relatively few instances where real contact and touch occurs, it often takes place in an indecent, violent, suppressive, or fatal context.
2010-4-13
By Zhang Fengming
CHINA'S foreign exchange reserves, the world's biggest, rose to a new high of US$2.45 trillion at the end of March, up 25 percent on a year earlier.
They increased by US$47.9 billion in the first quarter, the People's Bank of China, the nation's central bank, said yesterday on its Website. The growth is US$40.2 billion more than a year ago.
2010-4-13
By Zhang Fengming
THE issuing of new credit in China fell further in March as regulators control lending growth to avoid overheating, the latest economic data showed yesterday.
The nation's banks extended a smaller-than-expected 510.7 billion yuan (US$74.82 billion) in yuan-backed loans last month, down from February's 700.1 billion yuan, the People's Bank of China said on its Website.
The median forecast for March new credit was 700-plus billion yuan.
It was way down from the monthly record of 1.89 trillion yuan a year ago when China pumped up liquidity to revive economic growth against the global financial crisis.
China's new credit issuance has fell for two straight months this year.
The growth in M2, the broadest measure of money supply, including cash and deposits, slowed down to 22.5 percent in March from February's 25.5 percent.
China has targeted a money supply growth of 17 percent this year.
"The slowdown of new credit is a set trend this year with China's tough stance on lending controls," said Li Wei, a Standard Chartered Bank economist.
"The March credit is smaller than market expectations but still bigger than the central bank's previous target, leading us to expect even tighter measures in the second quarter."
First-quarter new lending was 35 percent of the government's full-year target of 7.5 trillion yuan, partly because Chinese banks tend to lend in the early part of the year for maximum interest returns.
China's official monetary stance is still "appropriately loose" but tightening moves have started to take effect.
Li said an interest rate increase in the second quarter was possible as the central bank may use it as a tightening signal, though administrative credit control could be more effective in China.
The view is shared by JPMorgan Chase Bank economists who said interest rate increases would have a smaller impact on the economy but could have a much bigger impact on sentiment.
Banks in China issued 9.6 trillion yuan of new credit in 2009 amid the fiscal crunch.
2010-4-13
By Tomoko A. Hosaka
JAPAN'S finance minister said yesterday his government deserves credit for guiding the economy out of recession but must now focus on beating deflation, controlling debt and reigniting growth.
Stock prices are up since the government of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama swept into power last summer and the Cabinet met its goal of passing a budget before the March 31 end of the fiscal year, Naoto Kan said in a speech at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan.
"In the seven months of the Hatoyama administration, you cannot deny the fact that the fiscal and economic situation is improving if you look at the results," Kan said.
But he expressed concern about deflation and the government's ballooning debt - the highest in the industrialized world at nearly double the size of Japan's gross domestic product.
With little room to maneuver on the fiscal policy front, Kan has been particularly vocal about the central bank's role in fighting falling prices. The Bank of Japan in March expanded a cheap loan program to help boost liquidity amid the political pressure.
The Bank of Japan sees monetary easing as having limited impact on deflation, Kan said. But they both agree deflation is unacceptable. The central bank has said inflation of up to 2 percent would be desirable. Kan said he would embrace a higher goal.
2010-4-13
Source: Agencies
CHINA overtook Germany last year to become the world's second-largest producer of wind power behind the United States, global wind energy producers said yesterday.
The Global Wind Energy Council, which represents companies that make and manage wind power stations, said China's rapid drive to install wind turbines brought its total power capacity to 25.8 gigawatts, just squeaking past Germany's 25.77 gigawatts.
US has the most wind power capacity at 35 gigawatts, 36 percent of the world's total.
However, the wind energy group said it expects China to eventually overtake the US and exceed its own target of building enough wind turbines to churn out 150 gigawatts of power by 2020.
China is the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, but is turning to renewable energy as well as coal as its growing economy calls for more power. Even with the large scale growth, wind power still accounts for only 1 percent of China's total electricity consumption.
Global wind energy capacity will increase from 158.5 gigawatts at the end of this year to 409 gigawatts by 2014, the council said.
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April 12, 2010
by Mike Shuster
A two-day international nuclear summit convenes Monday in Washington, with nearly 50 nations sending leaders to join in the discussion. But while the Obama administration wants to see all vulnerable nuclear materials and weapons locked down in four years, not all nations see that goal as an urgent priority.
Although the U.S. and Russia have been trying to secure dangerous nuclear materials for more than a decade, there has never before been an international summit this large and at such a high level focused on nuclear security. It's part of the shift in thinking that is taking place globally as the nuclear confrontation of the Cold War gives way to other concerns, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said.
"The nature of the threat has changed," Clinton said Friday at the University of Louisville in Kentucky. "We no longer live in constant fear of a global nuclear war, where we're in a standoff against the Russians with all of our nuclear arsenal on the ready. But as President Obama has said, the risk of a nuclear attack has actually increased. And the potential consequences of mishandling this challenge are deadly."
A New Nuclear Threat
The risk of nuclear attack is now from terrorists intent on getting their hands on a nuclear weapon, according to Ben Rhodes, the president's deputy national security adviser. Rhodes spoke from Air Force One on its return to Washington after the signing of the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in Prague.
"We know that terrorist groups, including al-Qaida, are pursuing the materials to build a nuclear weapon. And we know that they have the intent to use one," Rhodes said. "This, of course, would be a catastrophic danger to American national security and to global security, were they able to carry out that kind of attack."
The stockpile of dangerous materials that could be used to make a nuclear weapon is enormous — 500 tons of plutonium and 1,600 tons of highly enriched uranium around the world. That's enough to make more than 120,000 nuclear weapons.
Despite much work spearheaded by the U.S. and Russia, a significant portion of that stockpile is still vulnerable, says Gary Samore, director for nonproliferation in the National Security Council.
"If we're able to lock those down and deny them to nonstate actors, then we have essentially solved the risk of nuclear terrorism," he says.
This summit is designed to rally the world to take action urgently.
Action Needed More Than Words
The idea of the summit has garnered applause from many outside the government who have been trumpeting this cause for years, such as Matthew Bunn, an expert on nuclear proliferation at the Managing the Atom project at Harvard.
"This material, unfortunately, is easy to smuggle and hard to detect. The nuclear material needed for a nuclear bomb would fit easily in a suitcase. Hence, insecure nuclear material anywhere is really a threat to everyone, everywhere," Bunn says.
Over the past 15 years, many programs have been established and billions of dollars have been spent to secure some of the world's plutonium and highly enriched uranium. But the effort still has fallen short, says Ken Luongo, a former Department of Energy official, now president of the Partnership for Global Security.
"As important as this event is — because no one has ever convened this kind of an event before, and the president and his administration deserve credit for that — if it just focuses on ratifying the status quo, I think that's going to be inadequate," says Luongo. "Because the status quo for preventing nuclear terrorism is inadequate."
President Obama may have had that in mind when he said recently that this gathering will not end in some vague, gauzy statement. The summit, the president said, will spell out clearly how to lock down all the nuclear materials over the next four years.
A bold statement, Luongo notes, but still far from the concrete actions needed to accomplish the goal.
"The international community, including South Korea and the U.S. , has maintained a firm position that North Korea (DPRK) cannot obtain nuclear power status," the ministry spokesman Kim Young-sun told reporters in a press briefing.
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