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Blacklisted Chinese Democracy Activists to Sue Netease

Finding their names blacklisted on an internet file of the company’s website, three democracy activists have asked for an open apology and plan to sue Netease Com Inc, a Chinese internet company listed on NASDAQ (code: NTES).

Zheng Cunzhu, a businessman in Anhui province and chairman of the board of Jiahe Food Inc. Ltd, was the first to find from the official website of Netease a file named "badwords.txt," where his name was placed aside a list of dirty words. Zheng also spotted the names of Wang Zhaojun, a member of the standing committee of the political consultative conference of Anhui province, and Guo Quan, a professor at Nanjing Normal University. The three of them intend to file a lawsuit in the U.S. against Netease, providing no apology is heard by Nov. 14.

Zheng, Wang, and Guo are famous as each of them wrote an individual open letter to the leaders of the communist regime, calling for political reform and criticizing the regime’s policy on  the 1989 prodemocracy movement and the Falun Gong religious group. Censored in the Mainland, the letters  spread widely on overseas Chinese websites.

Other forbidden words on the list discovered by Zheng include those related to democracy, religion, and the domestic civil rights movement. The lawsuit aims to call attention to freedom of expression in China, with the hope of reforming the political system.

Source: Radio Free Asia, November 11, 2008
http://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/guoquan-11112008102038.html

China and Russia Discuss about Collaboration in the development of Space Station

Vitaly Davydov, deputy director of Russian Aerospace Institute, says that Russia will expand the collaboration with China in the peaceful development of space, but will not transfer technology. He made the comment while he was attending The 2008 China International Aviation & Aerospace Exhibition in Zhuhai,Guangdong Province. Davydov says: “Chinese colleagues are interested in developing space stations in the near-earth space. We are discussing the possibility of collaboration in this area.” Davydov says that Russia will not develop the station together with China, but will provide help by providing certain equipments.

Source: people.com.cn, November 11, 2008
http://military.people.com.cn/GB/42962/8316594.html 

Xinhua China Comment: Analyze the Shortcomings of Capitalism from the Financial Crisis

Xinhua magazine China Comment published an article calling the end of American style of free capitalism. The article says that U.S. government’s massive involvement in the market signals the end of the free capitalism of America. The author argues that the sudden collapse of the free capitalism is the result of the shortcomings of free capitalism. The article listed several deficiencies of the capitalism that resulted in the crisis. In the end, the author concludes: “…The financial crisis and the U.S.’s “nationalizing” market rescue shows that the American flag of freedom has already descended from the flagpole. For so many years, the United States has been offending other countries’ sovereignty and will to promote the free capitalist model, now many problems have come.

Source: Xinhua, November 11, 2008
http://news.xinhuanet.com/world/2008-11/11/content_10339611.htm

Hu and Obama Had Telephone Conversation

Hu and Obama had a telephone conversation in the evening of November 8. Hu congratulated Obama for winning the presidential election. He praised Obama’s China policy where the importance of US-China relationship was emphasized, so was the cooperation between the two countries to work together through the global challenges and sharing the opportunity to grow.

“In the new era, China is willing to maintain the dialog with US at all levels, continue to develop strategic talks and increase cooperation in various areas.” Hu said. “We would also hope to further develop talks in handling the important international affairs, respect and care for each other and properly handle sensitive issues, such as the issue of Taiwan, so as to elevate our constructive cooperation to another level.”

Source: Xinhua, November 9, 2008
http://news.xinhuanet.com/newscenter/2008-11/09/content_10328354.htm

State Council Introduced Measures to Expand Domestic Consumption

On November 5, Premier Wen Jiabao chaired a State Council meeting and discussed the measures to expand the domestic consumption to ensure smooth economy growth.

It was agreed that it is necessary to adopt a macro economic policy in light of the world economic crisis which will contain the execution of proactive fiscal policies and loose monetary policy; speed up the projects to improve people’s living standard as well as infrastructure, bio-environment and natural disaster recovery. The measure will also include the effort to improve the living standard of the low income group.

Source: Xinhua, November 11, 2008
http://news.xinhuanet.com/newscenter/2008-11/09/content_10331258_1.htm

Millions of Migrant Workers Return Home

In little over two weeks from October 11 to October 27, 1.2 million people boarded the train from Guangzhou Train Station. The number is 130,000 higher than the same period last year. Most of them are migrant workers who were affected by factory shutdown and chose to return back to their hometown. Experts predicted that the trend of factory closing is currently moving from the south towards the east part of China.

Source: Mingpo, November 9, 2008
http://www.mingpaonews.com/20081109/gba1.htm

Agriculture Official on Privatization of Land

Privatization of land will not solve China’s problems, said Huang, an Agriculture official, at a press event on November 4, 2008.  Huang stated that China agriculture sector cannot compete with that of the United States because of low land per capita (1.38 mu per person) and its small scale of economy.  The right way, according to Huang, is to increase the efficiency of land use and the scale of economy through transfer of  land use right. 
  
Source: Xinhua, November 7, 2008
http://news.xinhuanet.com/fortune/2008-11/07/content_10319517.htm

China Exports Slows Down

Chinese Customs authorities released export statistics for the first three quarters of 2008 showing an 11.8% net growth of export, totaling $1,074 billion.  It is a reduction of 8.1 percentage point comparing to the same period last year. The reduction was mostly caused by the decrease in the traditional and bulk products. A China Customs official warned that China cannot ignore the impact on its import and export trade of the U.S. financial crisis.

Source: Xinhua, November 6, 2008
http://news.xinhuanet.com/newscenter/2008-11/06/content_10317019.htm