China's efforts to cool down Myanmar

China hopes that all parties in Myanmar exercise restraint and properly handle the current issue so as to ensure the situation there is free from further escalation and complication, said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu at a regular press briefing on September 27, Beijing.

We hope that Myanmar be devoted to improving people's welfare, maintaining national harmony and properly dealing with its domestic social conflicts so as to restore stability at an early date, she said.

The same day, U.S. President George W. Bush invited Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi to the Oval Office during the Chinese official's previously scheduled White House meeting with national security adviser Stephen Hadley and expressed his concerns about Myanmar.

Bush thanked China for helping to win Myanmar's consent to a visit by U.N. envoy Ibrahim Gambari and asked that Beijing "use its influence" with the Myanmar Government, White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.

On September 28, Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao agreed during a telephone conversation to work together in the international effort to find a solution to the Myanmar crisis.

"We can maintain stability in this region by boosting exchanges of people, goods and culture between Japan and China," Fukuda said. "I hope we can deepen mutual understanding and friendship between the two countries, and I'd like to do the utmost to achieve that goal."

Nine people, including a Japanese journalist, were killed on September 27 when Myanmar security forces opened fire on groups of protesters in the capital, Yangon.

No pollution at all

China's BlueStar Group announced that it has entirely eliminated toxic residues from chromium chemical production in a pioneering plant in central China.

With the help of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the company launched the world's first pollution-free 10,000-ton chromium chemical project in Henan Province, said a company statement.

The Chromium Oxide Green clean production project was running steadily with mass production of qualified chromium oxide green, desulfurizing products and potassium chromate as semi-finished products.

The project had zero discharges of chromium residue and chromium dust.

The treatment of residues has been a problem for chromium chemicals worldwide, with even the most advanced manufacturing techniques in developed nations unable to eradicate the pollution completely.

Piracy fighter rewarded

China's National Copyright Administration (NCA) recently launched a system to reward information on piracy, according to which an organization or individual who provides information that leads to a prosecution would receive a reward of up to 100,000 yuan, the NCA said in a press release.

But the reward could exceed 100,000 yuan for informants who made critical contributions to a case with national significance or involving an unusually large sum of money, the statement said.

The center would keep the identities of informants confidential unless they agreed to publicity, the NCA said.

Chinese authorities have carried out successive campaigns against piracy. The NCA, the police and the Ministry of Information Industry are conducting a campaign against on-line piracy from August to October.

Birth control loosens

The family planning authorities in east China's Zhejiang Province have loosened their birth control policies to encourage couples to have their second child earlier in the hope of easing the pressures created by an aging society.

Couples eligible to have second babies, including those who are both only children and those from ethnic minority groups, have been required in recent years to have their second child at least four years after their first one was born.

According to the new policy, couples eligible to have a second child can choose when they want to have it, said Zhang Wenbiao, head of Zhejiang Provincial Population and Family Planning Commission.

He said the old policy did not help to tackle the unbalanced age structure of the population in Zhejiang.