OPINIONS HEARD: Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao listens to participants at a meeting on health care reform in Beijing on April 15. About 22 experts, medical workers, ordinary citizens and representatives from pharmacy companies attended the meeting, the first of its kind, held to solicit opinions about a draft plan for health care reform

HUANG JINGWEN

The Chinese Foreign Ministry lodged a solemn representation with the Beijing office of Cable News Network (CNN) on April 16, condemning the network as "without any professional reputation."

Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Liu Jianchao said that a statement issued by CNN on April 15 failed to apologize for its host Jack Cafferty's remarks, which maliciously attacked the Chinese people and seriously violated the professional ethics of journalism.

Cafferty said in a TV show on April 9 that Chinese products are "junk" and the Chinese people "basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they've been for the last 50 years."

Cafferty's remarks drew indignation from Chinese at home and abroad, and Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Jiang Yu demanded an apology from CNN as well as Cafferty himself. CNN then issued a statement saying "it was not Mr. Cafferty's nor CNN's intent to cause offence to the Chinese people, and CNN would apologize to anyone who has interpreted the comments in this way."

Former Shanghai Head Sentenced

Former Shanghai Communist Party Chief Chen Liangyu was sentenced to 18 years in jail for bribery and abuse of power in an initial trial at the Tianjin No.2 Intermediate People's Court.

The court also confiscated 300,000 yuan ($42,860) in personal assets from Chen, aged 61, who was also a former member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.

Riot Victims Given Aid

Shop owners who suffered losses in the March 14 riot in Lhasa will receive monthly living allowances from the government. The unrest left seven schools, five hospitals and 120 homes torched and 908 shops looted.

Xu Jianzhong, Deputy Director of the regional civil affairs department, said that by April 16, 180 people from 51 households had received their allowances for March and April.

The monthly allowance of 260 yuan ($37.1), which is equal to the minimum living allowance in Lhasa, will be given to the riot-affected businesses from March this year to February 2010.

Over the same period, owners of the damaged shops will be exempted from business and corporate income taxes, urban maintenance and construction taxes, the Tibetan government announced.

Non-Communist Provincial Heads

China currently has 205 non-communists working as provincial-level leaders in 31 of the provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions on the mainland.

They were working as either vice governors of provincial governments or vice chairmen of the provincial People's Congress Standing Committee-the legislature, or vice chairmen of the provincial committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference-the political advisory body, the flagship People's Daily reported recently.

Of them, 166, or 81 percent, were from the country's eight non-communist parties, the paper said. The rest were non-partisans.

Of the total non-communist provincial leaders, 118, or 57.6 percent, were newly elected in the latest provincial leadership reshuffle earlier this year.

Heat Rising in Shanghai

The average temperature in Shanghai has gone up 1.4 degrees Celsius over the past 100 years and the trend will continue in future. Tang Xu, Shanghai Meteorological Bureau Director, predicted if such a situation of climatic warming went unchecked, there would be a higher possibility for Shanghai being hit head-on by more extreme weather conditions.

Tang disclosed the World Meteorological Organization, a specialized organization of the UN, had decided to carry out a project in Shanghai to showcase its establishment of a multiple disaster warning system. Experience gained from the experiment will be expanded to other international cities.