| Criminal Pardoned by Court
 |
|
(IC) |
Liao Dan, 41, a Beijing local who forged medical bill payments for his sick wife, was sentenced to three years in jail with four years' reprieve, according to a court ruling on December 7. He was also required to pay a fine of 3,000 yuan ($482).
Unable to afford his wife's uremia treatments, Liao forged a stamp and printed it onto medical bills to make it appear as though he had paid. By this means, he avoided paying a total of 172,000 yuan ($27,301) from 2007 to 2012.
The incident aroused public sympathy online and the family has received donations amounting to about 500,000 yuan ($79,365).
Liao said he was satisfied with the ruling because he can stay at home to look after his wife.
The Fifth Beijing Forum on Human Rights opened on December 12 with experts and officials calling for enhancement of efforts with science and technology and better environmental protection.
Themed Science and Technology, Environment and Human Rights, this year's forum had three sub-themes, namely Scientific and Technological Development and Human Rights, Era of Information and Human Rights and Environment and Human Rights.
Addressing the forum, Orest Nowosad, a UN official with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said, "The establishment of a sound and healthy environment is a precondition in enjoying a variety of human rights."
More than 100 experts and officials from around the world attended the two-day forum, which was first organized by the China Society for Human Rights Studies in Beijing in 2008.
A new regulation will allow foreigners who have permanent residence in China to share the same rights and duties as Chinese nationals with the exception of political rights and duties, according to a December 11 statement from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security.
The regulation, jointly created by 25 ministerial-level departments, says that permanent foreign residents will be granted national treatment in terms of employment, investment, purchasing homes, gaining professional titles and obtaining an education for their children.
According to the regulation, children of foreigners who possess permanent residence cards will be able to enjoy compulsory education in their place of residence.
Permanent foreign residents will also be able to enjoy social insurance and purchase homes using publicly accumulated housing funds, the regulation says.
A court in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region on December 11 sentenced three men to death and another man to life imprisonment after finding them guilty of attempting to hijack an aircraft in June.
Musa Yvsup and Arxidikali Yimin, the leaders of the group who plotted the hijacking, and Eyumer Yimin, a major participant in the planning, were sentenced to death.
Alem Musa, who played a minor role in the plane hijacking and willingly pleaded guilty after arrest, received a life sentence.
On June 29, six people attempted to hijack Tianjin Airlines' flight GS7554 after it took off from Hotan Airport. The hijackers used modified metal crutches to disguise the explosives.
They were stopped by crew members and passengers while trying to detonate the devices. Two other hijackers, Ababaykeri Ybelayim and Mametali Yvsup, were injured in the ensuing fight and later died despite medical treatment.
Police in southwest China's Sichuan Province have detained a monk and his nephew for their roles in inciting a series of self-immolations, local police said on December 9.
Lorang Konchok, a 40-year-old monk at the Kirti Monastery in Aba County, Sichuan, has goaded eight people to set themselves on fire since 2009, three of whom died, said a police statement. He recruited Lorang Tsering, his 31-year-old nephew, to help with his instigation.
Lorang Konchok acted on the instructions of the Dalai Lama and his followers, according to his confession and police investigation.
The police started their investigation after a series of self-immolations took place in Aba in August. They detained Lorang Konchok on August 13 and Lorang Tsering on August 15.
Two trade organizations, one from Taiwan and the other from the Chinese mainland, have been given approval to set up offices across the Taiwan Straits.
The Taipei World Trade Center, a leading trade group in Taiwan, was cleared to set up offices in Beijing and Shanghai, said Fan Liqing, spokeswoman for the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, at a regular press conference on December 12.
The mainland-based China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products was also approved to set up an office in Taipei, Fan said.
China's Confucius institutes and Confucius classrooms registered about 655,000 students in 108 countries and regions this year, according to the organization's headquarters.
The Confucius institutes and Confucius classrooms, both named for the eponymous philosopher, are non-profit public institutions promoting Chinese language and culture in foreign countries.
Currently, 400 institutes and more than 500 classrooms have been established across the world, according to a statement by the organization on December 12.
Those facilities hosted a wide range of cultural exchange activities this year, attracting a total of 9.48 million participants to more than 16,000 events, said the statement.
Family planning authorities in Shanghai are encouraging couples who are both a single child themselves to have a second baby.
Single-child couples are allowed to have an additional baby under China's family planning policy.
However, a survey showed such couples are only having on average 1.2 babies in the city, Huang Hong, Director of the Shanghai Municipal Population and Family Planning Commission, told a press conference on December 11.
Economic conditions, the family environment, work pressures and fertility conditions are among the main factors that affect parents' decision of whether to have an additional child or not, Huang said.
Like other cities in China, Shanghai's population is aging. According to the figures released at the conference, the city has a registered population of 14.21 million, and 24.5 percent of them are 60 or over. The percentage is expected to reach 30 percent by 2015.
China's high-skilled workers reached 31.2 million at the end of 2011, 4.9 million more than at the end of 2009, according to official data released on December 8.
High-skilled workers accounted for 26.2 percent of China's 119 million skilled workforce as of the end of 2011, up 1.5 percentage points from the end of 2009, said the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Securities.
High-skilled workers usually refer to those who grasp expertise or sophisticated skills in a certain area. China aims to expand its high-skilled workers to 34 million by 2015 and 39 million by 2020.
The Ministry of Environmental Protection on December 7 issued a directory of polluting and anti-pollution products and behaviors in a bid to curb production, use and export of polluting goods and raise the public's environmental awareness.
The directory, updated annually, is aimed at strengthening enterprises' sense of environmental responsibility and optimizing the country's economic structure, according to a ministry statement.
It features 596 products with large pollution emissions and environmental risks, 68 polluting behaviors, 64 environment-friendly technologies and 28 pieces of environmental protection equipment. | 
