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Information/Technology - 57. page

China Consumes Half of the Antibiotics in the World

Xinhua reported on a research study that the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, which is part of Chinese Academy of Science, had recently conducted. The study found that the consumption of antibiotics in China was 162,000 tons (147 million Kilograms) in 2013 which accounted for half of the total usage in the world. Of this total, 52 percent was for animal use and 48 percent was for human use. The study also found that over 50,000 tons (45 million Kilograms) of antibiotics was discharged into soil and water each year. The statistics also revealed that China’s average antibiotics consumption per person was 5 to 8 times higher than in Western countries and that antibiotics were found in close to 60 percent of children’s urine samples. The expert stated that the over usage of antibiotics was driven by two factors. One is that doctors like to prescribe antibiotics in order to seek a speedy recovery for their patients and the other is the higher profit margin of antibiotics which can bring economic benefits to the hospital.

Source: Xinhua, July 6, 2015
http://news.xinhuanet.com/fortune/2015-07/06/c_127988141.htm

RFI: China Issues Internet IDs to Chinese Citizens

Radio France International (RFI) Chinese Edition recently reported that the Chinese government has initiated a program of rapid issuance of “Internet IDs” to its citizens at a speed of 100,000 issued per day. The “Internet ID,” also known as the “eID,” will be integrated into the Ministry of Public Safety’s Citizen’s Online Identification System and the personal identification systems of the banking industry. The eID system was certified by the National Passcode Administration in 2013, with a pilot program going into effect in the City of Karamay in Xinjiang. Starting in 2012, the Ministry of Public Safety worked closely with the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) to use a “strategically” embedded eID in the ICBC-issued IC (Integrated Circuit) debit cards and reached its capacity of producing 300,000 cards daily. In the market value of its assets, ICBC is generally considered the largest bank in the world.
Source: Radio France International, June 9, 2015
http://tinyurl.com/p3lt529

China to Require Censoring Personnel for Internet Video Providers

On June 10, Beijing city’s local newspaper, Jinghua Times (京华时报), reported that the State Council Legislative Affairs Office called for public comment on the "Administrative Approaches to the Dissemination of Audio-visual Programs via the Internet or Other Information Networks (revised draft)" (hereinafter referred to as the "draft"). According to the draft, Internet video broadcasters should be staffed with professionals who review the program contents. If broadcasters do not do so, they should be given a warning for correction and subject to a fine up to 30,000 yuan ($US 4,834). In addition, the current affairs audio-visual news programs that the Internet service providers broadcast should be those programs that regional or city level radio stations or TV stations already produced and broadcast. This means that homemade current affairs news programs are to be banned from the Internet.

Source: Jinghua Times, June 11, 2015
http://epaper.jinghua.cn/html/2015-06/11/content_206133.htm

People’s Daily: The U.S. Military Hurried to Replace IBM Servers

People’s Daily recently reported that the United States Military is actively planning to replace all IBM blade server computers, which are used in the U.S. Navy’s Aegis destroyers. This happened after last October when the Chinese IT vendor Lenovo had just completed the acquisition of IBM’s low-end x86 server division. Lenovo is now the third largest sever computer manufacturer in the world. The U.S. Navy is very worried about the potential information leakage to Chinese hackers via this Chinese equipment; it assumes that, sooner or later, they will need maintenance. This is part of the typical U.S. national security measures and may trigger concerns about the impact on Lenovo server sales in the U.S. market. However, now the question becomes: when the Chinese government inspects U.S. made equipment for national security reasons, why does the United States whine about unfair treatment?
Source: People’s Daily, May 23, 2015
http://world.people.com.cn/n/2015/0523/c157278-27044603.html

People’s Daily: Apple Watch Faces Copycats

People’s Daily recently published a report based on news from RFI (Radio France International) and Agence France-Presse that Chinese mobile device manufacturers released a large number of Apple Watch look-alikes before Apple started selling its long-awaited Apple Watch. All of these Chinese watches appeared to look just like Apple Watch, even with identical user interface and icons. However they all ran the Android mobile operating system and they were priced at around one sixth the cost of the lowest priced Apple Watch model. One owner of these Chinese factories told a French reporter that his smart watches match the Apple Watch in both appearance and performance and have a much lower price – his products even offered slightly more functionalities than Apple. One of his factories can manufacture around 2,000 smart watches a day, with a monthly volume of 50,000. Even Apple Stores didn’t carry Apple Watches on the release date of April 24. They were only available via online reservations or in certain luxury stores in a few cities around the globe.
Source: People’s Daily, April 24, 2015
http://it.people.com.cn/n/2015/0424/c1009-26900110.html

People’s Daily: Market Penetration Rate for Mobile Users Reached 94.6 Percent

People’s Daily reported that, according to the statistics that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology recently released, by the end of March, the number of mobile users in China was close to 1.3 billion with a market penetration rate at 94.6 percent. Meanwhile the number of broadband users had reached 640 million. In the month of March alone, the number of 4G broadband users went up by 23 million and reached 162 million. The statistics also suggested that total mobile Internet users surpassed 899 million in the first three month of 2015, up by 5.7 percent compared with the same period in 2014.

Source: People’s Daily, April 20, 2015
http://it.people.com.cn/n/2015/0420/c1009-26869500.html

Global Times: U.S. Processor Export Ban Gave China an Opportunity

Global Times recently reported that the U.S. Department of Commerce announced a ban on exporting two models of Intel’s Xeon CPU (Central Processing Unit) chips to four of the Chinese supercomputer centers, citing their possible use in nuclear research, which might threaten U.S. national security. China currently holds the championship in the world’s supercomputer speed race, which the United States apparently experiences as a “pain point.” Although the ban will cause some temporary upgrade issues for the Chinese supercomputers, this has also offered China an opportunity to improve its own processor technologies and to allow the Chinese computing industry, finally, to gain independence. I addition, some Chinese industrial leaders have called for establishing new laws to punish those nations that have issued this type of single-sided ban. 
Source: Global Times, April 12, 2015
http://world.huanqiu.com/hot/2015-04/6164221.html

Health News Suggests Rising Parkinson and Cancer Patients in China

People’s Daily published an article which stated that, in China, over two million patients suffer from Parkinson’s disease. The number accounts for 50 percent of all Parkinson’s disease patients in the world. The article also said that there is an alarming trend developing. Even though most Parkinson patients are in their 60’s, lately, patients who are only in their 40’s have developed the disease.

People’s Daily published another article reporting that the number of cancer patients has been rising in China. The article said that, according to the statistics that the National Cancer Research and Control Office released, there were 3.37 million cancer patients in 2011, up by 280,000 from ten years ago. Of these patients, the diagnosis was often too late. As many as 60 to 80 percent of the patients were already in the middle or late stages of cancer when they were hospitalized.

Source: People’s Daily, April 12, 2015
http://scitech.people.com.cn/n/2015/0412/c1007-26831041.html
http://scitech.people.com.cn/n/2015/0412/c1007-26830868.html