Professor Heads Building Institute

Chinese Professor Li Shirong has been named president of the UK-headquartered Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB), as part of the organization's efforts to expand its global reach and influence.

Li formally assumed the presidency of CIOB on June 24. She is the first female president in CIOB's 175-year history and the first person from outside the UK and Ireland to head the professional body. CIOB represents a diverse range of professionals who work within the construction industry on behalf of the public.

Li, Deputy Director of the Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation Commission of southwest China's Chongqing since 2007, is a veteran in the construction industry. After getting her Ph.D from the University of Reading in the UK in 1998, Li took a position as professor of construction management at Chongqing University (a role she now holds part-time). Her academic work focuses on issues such as China's construction industry in transition, sustainable urbanization and the role of government in construction. Li has to date published more than 170 papers and 27 books both domestically and internationally.

CIOB, with 43,000 members around the world, is considered the international voice of the building profession. Chartered Member status is recognized internationally as the mark of a true, skilled professional in the construction industry.

Veteran Gets Key Sports Post

Zhang Jilong, a seasoned Chinese "sports diplomat," took over the chairmanship of the Sports Committee of the Olympic Council of Asia at the 28th General Assembly of the council in Mumbai, India, on July 3. He replaced Wei Jizhong, another Chinese who resigned after taking the reins of the International Volleyball Federation in August 2008.

The powerful Sports Committee oversees the organization of Asia's five most important sporting events, including the Asian Games and the Asian Winter Games.

Zhang, 57, incumbent Vice President of the Asian Football Confederation and Chairman of the confederation's Finance and Marketing Committee, has been prominent in Asia's football family for many years. He is recognized in China mostly for his important role in helping the Chinese men's soccer team secure a berth in the World Cup finals in 2002.

Home Appliance Tycoon Released

Huang Hongsheng, founder and former chairman of Shenzhen-based TV maker Skyworth Group, was paroled on July 4, after spending nearly five years in jail in Hong Kong.

In 2004, Huang was arrested in an anti-graft campaign launched by the Hong Kong Independent Commission Against Corruption. He was sentenced to six years in prison in 2006 on charges of fraud and embezzlement of more than HK$60 million ($7.7 million) in company funds.

Huang, 53, created Skyworth in 1989. The company expanded rapidly under Huang's leadership, becoming the third largest TV maker in China in 2002, with annual sales of 6.9 million TV sets.

Though Huang still has a 40-percent stake in Skyworth, the current management of Skyworth said that the company had no plan to reinstate Huang's leadership role in it.

"As an important participant and beneficiary of the economic globalization process, China is practicing what it preaches on opposing protectionism and will never use protectionism to fight against protectionism."

Chinese Minister of Commerce Chen Deming, in his article published in La Repubblica, an Italian newspaper, on July 6

"The U.S. dollar is still the most important international reserve currency of the day, and for years to come. That's the reality."

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei, telling a news briefing in Rome on July 5 that the creation of a supranational reserve currency is not the position of the Chinese Government

"We will have a new honeymoon until the end of this year and then it depends on how they succeed in improving the general atmosphere."

Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of Russia in Global Affairs magazine, after Russian and U.S. presidents Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama agreed on July 6 to reach a new nuclear arms reduction pact to replace the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty

"We do not see interest, we only see vague, uncoordinated interest in high-profile issues such as influenza—which is in itself a great risk, but not the only one."

Tammam Aloudat, senior officer for health in emergencies of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, contrasting the international community's "complacency" toward the impact of communicable diseases on poor countries with responses to flu or heart disease in rich nations

"The end of the G8 must be prepared. There is a fundamental contradiction in maintaining this small team when it itself has turned over the big issues to the G20."

Charles Wyplosz, a research fellow with the Institut de Hautes Etudes Internationales in Geneva, joining in calls for the abolition of the Group of Eight industrialized nations that is widely considered ineffectual in the face of the worldwide financial crisis

"You don't see any other nation or government or even private organizations where you have equally important 192 shareholders."

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who is midway through his five-year term, talking about his job as head of the largest world body in an interview with the Associated Press