| Official Sacked
 |
|
(IC) |
Li Yali, 52, head of the Public Security Bureau of Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, and deputy head of Shanxi Provincial Public Security Department, was removed from both positions and subjected to a disciplinary investigation on December 6.
The decision came after authorities reviewed a whistle-blowing report on how Li used his power to cover up a disturbance involving his son Li Zhengyuan.
A widely circulated online video showed that the younger Li attacked traffic police officer Xia Kun when he was caught running a red light in a sport utility vehicle on October 28. He was stopped by three police officers who arrived at the scene later. Police took blood-alcohol tests and found that he was driving drunk. However, he went home, instead of being detained. Xia claimed that he was forced to keep silent afterward, and his mother received threatening text messages.
The removal of Li Yali from his posts follows a series of recent cases in which a number of high-level officials were investigated and dismissed for corruption.
China's industrial production growth continued to accelerate in November, indicating that the nation's economy is rebounding after seeing its lowest expansion pace in more than three years.
China's value-added industrial output rose 10.1 percent year on year in November, picking up from 9.6 percent in October and 9.2 percent in September, said the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on December 9.
Industrial production data supported earlier indications that China's economy is picking up steam, thanks to the government's pro-growth measures and policy loosening.
To buoy the slowing economy, the government has rolled out an array of measures this year, including two cuts to benchmark interest rates, the easing of banks' reserve requirements and the approval of infrastructure projects worth more than 1 trillion yuan ($161.3 billion).
China's economy expanded by 7.4 percent in the third quarter of the year, marking the slowest quarterly growth in more than three years.
Chinese oil conglomerate China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) Ltd. is preparing to move ahead with the country's biggest ever overseas acquisition.
On December 8, the Canadian Government approved CNOOC's $15.1 billion bid to buy Calgary-based oil and gas producer Nexen Inc., paving the way for the final completion of the long-debated deal.
The takeover boosts CNOOC's international ambitions and diversifies its business but also contains political and financial risks, experts said.
CNOOC said acquiring Nexen's assets will strengthen its presence in Canada, Nigeria and the Gulf of Mexico and allow it to enter the oil- and gas-rich North Sea regions.
As China's largest offshore oil producer, CNOOC operates mainly outside China and has assets throughout the world, according to company information.
Nexen runs oil sands and shale gas projects in western Canada and conducts conventional explorations primarily in the British North Sea, offshore West Africa and the Gulf of Mexico.
China's consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation in the country, grew 2 percent from a year earlier in November, up from 1.7 percent in October and 1.9 percent in September, because of higher food prices. On a month-on-month basis, November's CPI rose 0.1 percent from the previous month, said the NBS on December 9.
The growth of consumer prices is expected to accelerate next year due to a widely anticipated economic rebound and globally loose liquidity conditions, experts say.
Consumer prices are likely to enter a new upward cycle next year, although the increases will be moderate, said Hu Chi, from the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission's research center.
Hu said the government should not relax controls over inflation because price growth will gain traction as the economy picks up.
Ample market liquidity resulting from easing measures both at home and abroad will also push prices up, according to Yi Xianrong, a finance researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Liu Ligang, chief China economist with Australia and New Zealand Banking Group, forecast China's whole-year inflation to be around 2.7 percent in 2012, much lower than the government's target of 4 percent.
But the government needs to act cautiously in 2013 because infrastructure projects have been accelerating since May and might lead inflation to rise to a dangerous level in the second half of the year, Liu said.
China's wealth gap has now reached an alarming level, a survey showed.
The Gini coefficient was 0.61 in China in 2010, based on a survey of 8,438 households in the country by the Survey and Research Center for China Household Finance, a body created by the Finance Research Institute of the People's Bank of China and Southwestern University of Finance and Economics.
The Gini index ranges from 0, which represents perfect equality, to 1, which implies perfect inequality. Readings above 0.4 indicate the potential for social disturbances.
"The gap is wide in all regions and in both rural and urban areas," said Gan Li, chief researcher and a professor at the university.
"The reading is not dreadful as the wide rich-poor gap is common in a country's economic development, and we hope the government could spend more in improving people's social welfare," he said.
Gan suggested the government could take 3.8 trillion yuan ($607.6 billion) from its coffers and from the profits of state-owned enterprises to narrow the wealth gap without imposing new taxes or cutting fiscal spending.
The State Council called for the development of a circular economy while mapping out future tasks for boosting the country's green growth on December 12.
Establishing a circular economy is a major strategic task for China's economic and social development, and an important means to promote ecological progress and achieve sustainable growth, the cabinet noted during an executive meeting presided over by Premier Wen Jiabao.
The State Council urged more efforts toward constructing a nationwide industrial system that allows recycling of renewable resources and encourages green consumption.
In the industrial sector, China will promote the economical use of resources including energy, water and land, as well as waste exchange, according to a statement released after the meeting.
The country will also build a cyclic agricultural system that promotes resource conservation, clean production and waste reuse, in order to improve rural China's ecological environment and the efficiency of its farming.
It also vowed to carry out demonstration projects and improve policies and regulations in areas including taxation, finance, industry, investment and pricing.
The two sides of the Taiwan Straits are in the final stages of reaching a service trade agreement, said the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office on December 12.
At a press conference in Beijing, Fan Liqing, spokesperson with the office said, "We have reached a common understanding in many aspects and will try our best to finish the negotiations by the end of this year."
Afterward, the mainland's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits and Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation will decide on a timetable for signing the agreement, Fan said.
The deal is one of the follow-up agreements as part of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, a wide-ranging cross-Straits economic pact signed in 2010. | 
