Price Irregularities Crushed

To put a lid on simmering inflation, the Chinese Government promulgated a revised decree, effective on January 13, to exert harsher punishment on activities of driving up prices through hoarding or cheating.

The new decree based on 1999 regulations raises the maximum fine to 1 million yuan ($139,000), which almost triples the sum of the old regulations, for those who manipulate market prices and ignore the prices advised by the government during emergencies.

Trade associations that deliberately spread rumors on price information can be fined at a maximum of 500,000 yuan ($69,000). Those who severely violate the decree may have their legal certificates revoked. The State Council and local governments can set profit ratios or price ceilings for key items of goods and services when prices rise too sharply, according to the decree.

Polluted Water

A faucet water pollution accident in Fuxin City, northeastern Liaoning Province, has affected 2,636 households and made at least 1,139 people sick. No deaths had been reported as of January 15.

The community clinic received dozens of food poisoning cases on the afternoon of January 8. Engineers from a local water company confirmed the polluted faucet water as the cause of the food poisoning the next afternoon, after hundreds of people had been transported to hospitals by ambulance.

Initial investigations discovered a broken water valve had caused that sewage leaking from pipes to contaminate the ill-designed water reserves pond of the community, which is less than 5 meters away from sewage pipes. Besides guaranteeing free medical treatment to the poisoning victims, the local government has started to distribute free clean water to the community.

Head Shift of Defeated DPP

Following Democratic Progress Party (DPP)'s landslide defeat against its rival Kuomintang (KMT) in Taiwan's "legislature" elections on January 12, Frank Hsieh, nominee of the DPP for the March election in Taiwan, replaced Chen Shui-bian as the chairman of the DPP on January 14.

In Taiwan's "legislature" elections, the KMT won 81 seats of the 113, beating the DPP, which got 27 seats. Chen Shui-bian declared his resignation hours after the DPP's defeat, taking responsibility for what he termed the most disastrous defeat since the DPP was founded.

Threat from Sea Rising

According to the first official release of cumulative sea level rises over the last three decades, China's faster-than-world-average sea level rise caused by climate change and depleting groundwater poses a threat of submersion to coastal cities Shanghai and Tianjin.

Li Haiqing, Spokesman of the State Oceanic Administration (SOA), quoted from the administration's 2007 sea-level monitoring report that the sea level around Shanghai has risen 115 mm in the last 30 years while around Tianjin it has risen 196 mm. The same report said the country's overall sea level has risen 90 mm over the monitored period.

In the next decade, the SOA forecasts China's coastal sea level is likely to rise by 3.2 mm every year, as opposed to the average global sea level rise of 1.7 mm every year between 1975 and 2007.

Guangdong Gets Hazier

The air quality of south China's Guangdong Province is getting worse with a record number of hazy days registered last year, a newly issued environment report shows.

The province bordering Hong Kong recorded an average of 75.7 days of haze in 2007, "the most" in the last 58 years, according to the report on the atmospheric composition of Guangdong released by the provincial meteorological bureau.

The situation was gravest in the Pearl River Delta region in the eastern part of the province, location of the country's first export-oriented special economic zone Shenzhen City.