China Daily | SilverScorpio.Com

Market Chatter — Corporate finance press digest

July 28, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Jul 27 (Reuters) – The following corporate finance-related stories were reported by media on Tuesday:

* China’s insurance regulator has approved Sun Life Everbright’s proposals to raise funds and revamp its shareholding structure, the official Shanghai Securities News reported on Tuesday. [ID:nTOE66Q010]

* Google Inc (GOOG.O) has ended partnerships with two major Chinese advertisers, Universal Internet Media and Xi’an Weihua Network, China Daily quoted the firm’s China spokeswoman as saying on Tuesday. [ID:nTOE66P08L]

* Yahoo Japan Corp (4689.T), Japan’s largest Internet portal site, will likely adopt Google Inc’s (GOOG.O) search engine as part of an alliance between the two companies, media reported. [ID:nTOE66Q02W] (Compiled by Juhi Arora in Bangalore; Editing by Mike Nesbit)

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: Arora, china daily, corporate finance, Finance Press, Goog, google, google inc, insurance regulator, Internet Media, internet portal, Market Chatter, nesbit, portal site, reuters, Shanghai Securities News, Shareholding Structure, spokeswoman, sun life, Universal Internet, Yahoo Japan Corp

China Three Gorges dam can’t tame all floods-paper

July 24, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

July 23 (Reuters) – China’s Three Gorges dam, the world’s largest hydropower project that was built partly to tame flooding, cannot be counted on to hold back all surges that might hit the Yangtze River, state media reported on Friday.

The dam’s own safety would be at risk if floodwaters rushed through at more than 122,000 cubic metres per second, the official China Daily quoted Zhao Yunfa, deputy director of the Three Gorges Corporation’s cascade dispatch centre, as saying.

“The dam’s flood-control capacity is not unlimited,” he said.

Waters near that volume are unlikely to test the dam often. Torrential rains across China brought a peak of 70,000 cubic metres per second flowing into the reservoir earlier this week.

During devastating floods that killed over 4,000 people in 1998, before the dam was completed, the surge was lower.

At least 701 people have died since the start of the year as a result of torrential rains which have swept large parts of southern and central China, and another 347 are missing, the government said on Wednesday.

Future floods could possibly be worse, with climate change raising that possibility. Melting glaciers and more rain in the southwest could both contribute to unusually high water levels.

China’s media have started fretting about whether the Three Gorges project will live up to one of its main long-term objectives. Officials have been toning down claims of the dam’s flood-taming abilities, the China Daily reported.

A report released in June 2003 claimed the dam could control the worst flood in 10,000 years. Four years later that claim was down to the worst flood in 1,000 years, and in 2008 it was trimmed again to the worst in 100 years, the paper said.

Enormously expensive and disruptive, the dam has cost over 254 billion yuan ($37.47 billion) and forced the relocation of 1.3 million people to make way for the reservoir. Towns, fields and historical and archaeological sites have been submerged.

Officials said the dam is opening up China’s interior to economic development, providing clean, cheap energy, and will end centuries of deadly flooding along the lower reaches of the Yangtze river.

Environmentalists have warned for years that the reservoir could turn into a cesspool of raw sewage and industrial chemicals backing onto Chongqing, and feared that silt trapped behind the dam could cause erosion downstream.

China has made scant progress on schemes drawn up nearly a decade ago to limit pollution in and around the reservoir. ($1=6.779 Yuan) (Reporting by Emma Graham-Harrison; Editing by Ben Blanchard)

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: Archaeological Sites, central china, china daily, China Three Gorges Dam, climate change, cubic metres, deputy director, Dispatch Centre, flood control, floods, High Water, Hydropower Project, melting glaciers, reuters, s media, surges, Term Objectives, Three Gorges, Water Levels, yangtze river

China battles large oil slick after pipeline blast

July 20, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

July 19 (Reuters) – Chinese authorities are battling to contain a 50 sq km oil slick after two crude oil pipelines exploded in the northeastern port of Dalian, state media reported on Monday.

Hundreds of firefighters battled for more than 15 hours to extinguish the blaze that started late on Friday when a pipe transporting crude oil from a ship to a storage tank blew up, causing a second pipeline nearby to explode. [ID:nTOE66G007]

There were no casualties, but state television said oil had contaminated the ocean off the port city in Liaoning Province.

The storage facility is jointly owned by Dalian port and China’s top oil company, China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC).

Workers are using skimmers and dispersants to break up the oil slick and stop it spreading, the official China Daily said. The pollution is concentrated about 100 km (62 miles) offshore.

“By Sunday evening, about 7,000 meters of floating booms had been set up and at least 20 oil skimmers were working to clean the spill,” the newspaper quoted local officials as saying.

There are no residents within 3 km (1.8 miles) of the affected site, and little “marine farming”, the report added.

The Xingang oil storage site, where the explosion happened, is home to one of the country’s first government-held emergency crude stockpiles.

It is also a transfer spot for two nearby major refineries, Dalian Petrochemical Corp and West Pacific Petrochemical Corp (WEPEC), both operated by PetroChina (0857.HK) with a combined crude processing capacity of 600,000 barrels per day.

It was not immediately clear if the spill caused suspensions of new cargo offloadings at the port, oil traders said.

The blast happened when a Liberian-flagged tanker was off-loading oil, the China Daily said.

The cause of the blast is under investigation, and CNPC, the parent of PetroChina (PTR.N)(0857.HK), said monitoring of the air and sea environment had been stepped up in the affected areas.

The incident has drawn the attention of top Chinese officials, including President Hu Jintao, Premier Wen Jiabao and security chief Zhou Yongkang, who all issued statements and instructions during the blaze. (Reporting by Ben Blanchard and Chen Aizhu, editing by Jonathan Thatcher)

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: china daily, chinese authorities, cnpc, Crude Oil Pipelines, Dispersants, Liberian, Loading Oil, national petroleum, Oil Skimmers, Oil Slick, Oil Storage, Oil Traders, Petrochemical Corp, petrochina, Petroleum Corp, processing capacity, Sea Environment, state television, storage facility, Storage Tank

China Three Gorges dam faces major flood test

July 20, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

July 19 (Reuters) – China’s massive Three Gorges dam is facing a major test of the flood control function that was one of the key justifications for its construction, as torrential rains swell the rivers that feed it, state media said on Monday.

Much of China has been suffering flooding and landslides after weeks of torrential downpours. At least 146 people have died since the start of this month, as a result of the rains, and another 40 are missing.

The peak flow of water hitting the giant reservoir on the Yangtze River, China’s longest, will be higher than in 1998 when devastating floods killed over 4,000 people and forced some 18 million to relocate, the official China Daily said.

Engineers have raised the rate at which water is being sluiced out of the reservoir, to make room for new waves of floodwaters expected this week.

“The levels of this flooding will be higher than the historic floods of 1954 and 1998,” Wei Shanzhong, Head of the Flood Control and Drought Administration office for the Yangtze River, told state Television.

“The rain in the gorges area will have an immediate affect on the water flow, to around 70,000 cubic metres (per second).”

Overall however, the flood this year is expected to be shorter than the 1998 disaster.

When the flood-tide hits, locks that allow shipping on the reservoir up to the city of Chongqing, a southwestern hub, will be closed if the water comes faster than 45,000 cubic metres per second, the China Daily report added.

The dam was given the go-ahead by the government in 1992, against unusually visible domestic opposition — with environmentalists warning the reservoir could turn into a cesspool of raw sewage and industrial chemicals trapped behind the dam, and feared silt could also cause problems.

The government justified its decision to push ahead by citing massive clean power generation and flood control were cited as the reasons it was pushed through. If it fails in the latter task it will add to concerns about the dam’s overall cost and impact.

However even if the dam succeeds in its role of holding back deadly floodwaters there may still be problems downstream where continuous rains have also weakened dikes. Further north at least 20 people are missing after a landslide last night in a mountainous corner of Shaanxi province, around 400 km (250 miles) from the provincial capital of Xian.

Altogether over 38 million people have been affected and over 1.3 million have had to be evacuated, because of the weather, the Ministry of Civil Affairs was quoted as saying by the China Daily. (Reporting by Emma Graham-Harrison; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

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Chinese farmer fires homemade cannon to defend land

June 9, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

(Reuters) – A Chinese farmer has declared war on property developers who want his land, building a cannon out of a wheelbarrow and pipes and firing rockets at would-be eviction teams, state media said on Tuesday.

Lifestyle

Yang Youde, who lives on the outskirts of bustling Wuhan city, in central Hubei province, says he has fended off two eviction attempts with his improvised weapon, which uses ammunition made from locally sold fireworks.

“I shot only over their heads to frighten them,” the China Daily quoted him saying of his attacks on demolition workers sent to move him off his land. “I didn’t want to cause any injuries.”

The rockets can travel over 100 meters, and exploded with a deafening bang, the official paper added. It did not say if anyone had been injured.

His approach is more aggressive than most, but Yang’s problem is a common one.

Anger over property confiscation is one of the leading causes of unrest in China, with many people forced to give up homes and land to make way for anything from roads to luxury villas.

Yang says the local government has offered him 130,000 yuan ($19,030) for his fields, on which they want to erect “department buildings.” He is asking for five times that amount.

Construction ditches have already been dug across the land of less obstinate neighbors.

A first eviction team attacked him in February after his rockets ran out, but local police came to his rescue. In May he held off 100 people by firing from a makeshift watchtower.

The government is planning to reform property confiscation rules, but rights groups say the changes do not go far enough to address the potentially destabilizing issue.

($1=6.832 Yuan)

(Reporting by Emma Graham-Harrison; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: ammunition, Central Hubei Province, china daily, chinese farmer, Demolition Workers, Department Buildings, ditches, graham harrison, issue 1, luxury villas, outskirts, Property Confiscation, Property Developers, reuters, Rights Groups, rockets, watchtower, Wheelbarrow, Youde, Yuan

Factbox: China AgBank gearing up for world record IPO

June 3, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

(Reuters) – Agricultural Bank of China Ltd’s planned initial public offering of around $30 billion is expected to begin pre-marketing within the next week. At that level, it would be the world’s biggest IPO ever.

Deals | China

Following are some key facts about AgBank.

* AgBank has 270 billion shares

* It has 350 million customers — more than the population of the United States.

* It is the fourth, and last, of the government-owned banks to go public.

* It has more than 24,000 branches, 30,000 ATMs and around 442,000 employees.

* It was the first commercial bank established in the People’s Republic of China — in 1951. It was incorporated as a joint stock company in January 2009.

* Tentative IPO timetable: seeking Hong Kong listing committee approval on June 10; listing in Shanghai on July 15; Hong Kong on July 16.

* AgBank is jointly owned by the Ministry of Finance and Central Huijin Investment. Each owns 130 billion shares.

* It received a 130 billion yuan capital injection from The Central Huijin Investment in 2008.

* China’s pension fund has invested 15 billion yuan in AgBank ahead of the IPO.

* End-2008 total assets: just over $1 trillion, ranking it fourth among China’s big banks.

* 2008 net profit: 51.45 billion yuan (2009 full-year results not yet available, though the China Daily has said AgBank made 2009 net profit of 65 billion yuan.

* AgBank removed 815.7 billion yuan worth of bad assets at face value at end-2007.

* End-2009 capital adequacy ratio: 10.07 pct (China Daily)

* End-2009 bad-loan ratio: 2.91 pct (China Daily)

* China’s top-3 banks by assets (based on 2009 reports): Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) (1398.HK) with 11.78 trillion yuan; China Construction Bank (CCB) (0939.HK) (601939.SS) with 9.62 trillion yuan; and Bank of China (601988.SS) with 7.79 trillion yuan.

* Previous world record IPO: ICBC raised $22 billion in its 2006 dual listing.

(Sources: 2008 annual report, Reuters reports)

($1=6.825 Yuan)

(Reporting by Denny Thomas, Ronnie Koo, Kennix Chim and Samuel Shen; Editing by Ian Geoghegan)

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Chinese sociologists say jailing of sex-party hosting Prof an infringement of his rights

May 21, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

New Delhi, May 21 (ANI): The decision to jail a Chinese Professor convicted of organizing swinging parties at his home, has met with wide-spread criticism from China’s social scientists as they believe this is a violation of his rights.

Ma Yuohai had pleaded “not guilty” to the felony of group licentiousness and this resulted in a harsher sentence being handed down to him than his sex-cohorts.

“Voluntary sex in private places, which does not disturb social order or hurt public sentiments, should not be established as a crime,” the China Daily quoted his lawyer Xue Huogen, as saying.

Chinese social commentators have voiced their objection to this irrationally severe punishment for a private act that was being performed by consenting adults.

Well-known Chinese sociologist and sex expert Li Yinhe said the crime itself should be abolished because it is outdated and the practice only challenges morality.

“Swinging is very private. In this case, public authorities have interfered with people”s private lives,” Li was quoted by the Shenzhen-based newspaper Daily Sunshine, as saying.

Even the general public seems to be with Yuohai on this one, as they too feel that the sentence is unwarranted and that the state’s authoritarianism has usurped the individual’s right to choice in this case.

A survey on ifeng.com, a major Chinese news portal, showed that 70.7 percent of the 15,871 respondents said Yuohai should not have been brought to trial. (ANI)

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: Authoritarianism, china daily, chinese news, chinese professor, Cohorts, Consenting Adults, Li Yinhe, licentiousness, Private Act, private lives, Private Places, public authorities, Public Sentiments, Severe Punishment, Sex Expert, Social Commentators, social scientists, sociologist, sociologists, Voluntary Sex

North Korea warns of all-out war, even as China urges calm

May 21, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Beijing/Washington, May 21 (ANI): North Korea has warned South Korea that it will not hesitate to launch an “all out war” if the latter decides to take “firm” measures” against it.

Pyongyang’s aggressive broadside has prompted China to intervene and call for calm, the China Daily reports.

The broadside follows Seoul’s accusation that North Korea blew up and sank naval ship, “Cheonan” on March 26 this year.

Pyongyang has denied involvement and called the investigation results a fabrication.

“Our army and people will promptly react to any ”punishment” and ”retaliation” and to any ”sanctions” infringing upon our state interests with various forms of tough measures including an all-out war,” the DPRK”s official news agency KCNA quoted the National Defense Commission as saying in a statement.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak has held an emergency meeting of his National Security Council today, but made it clear that his government has no plans for a retaliatory strike as of now.

Chinese Vice-Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai called the sinking “unfortunate” but refused to comment further. He reiterated China”s long-standing view on the need to maintain peace on the Korean Peninsula.

“The parties involved should stay calm and exercise restraint … to avoid escalation of the situation,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu told a separate briefing later on Thursday. (ANI)

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: Broadside, Cheonan, China Beijing, china daily, chinese vice, dprk, escalation, foreign ministry spokesman, Korean Peninsula, Lee Myung-bak, national security council, Naval Ship, North Korea, Official News, president lee, Pyongyang, Retaliatory Strike, South Korea, south korean president, State Interests

US, China hope to restore mutual trust through dialogue next week

May 21, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Washington/Beijing, May 21 (ANI): China and the United States will hopefully set the tone for smoother bilateral relations with candid reflections on past problems when officials of the two sides meet for strategic and bilateral discussions next week.

“The significance of the dialogue is that the two countries can enhance mutual understanding and strategic trust, which is conducive to smooth discussions if there are more frictions in the future,” the China daily quoted Tao Wenzhao, an expert on US studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, as saying.

An escalating situation on the Korean Pennisula and the European debt crisis will be among the top topics discussed at the talks between China and the United States next week, said senior officials from both sides.

The Second China-US Strategic and Economic Dialogue – the highest-level forum between the two countries – will bring together 50 representatives from more than 40 departments of both countries, Chinese Vice-Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai said on Thursday.

Cui said the dialogue would also include energy security, climate change, UN peacekeeping and anti-terrorism.

Regional issues including the sinking of a Republic of Korea warship, Cheonan, the Iran nuclear issue and the frequent intervention of US ships into China”s Exclusive Economic Zone will be among the remaining topics, according to diplomatic sources.

The dialogue, taking place on May 24 and 25, will be co-chaired by Chinese Vice-Premier Wang Qishan and State Councilor Dai Bingguo, along with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. (ANI)

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: academy of social sciences, bilateral discussions, Cheonan, china and the united states, china daily, chinese academy of social sciences, chinese vice, climate change, Debt Crisis, diplomatic sources, economic dialogue, Economic Zone, Frictions, Hillary Clinton, Level Forum, nuclear issue, Pennisula, State Councilor, treasury secretary, Wang Qishan

S. Korea formally blames North for warship sinking

May 20, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Seoul (South Korea), May 20 (ANI): South Korea on Thursday formally blamed North Korea for the sinking of its naval warship “Cheonan” on March 26 this year, after a multinational team of investigators completed their probe.

According to The China Daily, the group of civilian and military experts said the 1,200-ton corvette class warship was sunk as a result of an “external underwater explosion” caused by a torpedo fired by a DPRK (North Korea) submarine, resulting in one of the worst peacetime casualties in South Korea”s naval history.

“The evidence points overwhelmingly to the conclusion that the torpedo was fired by a North Korean (DPRK) submarine. There is no other plausible explanation,” they said in a statement.

The DPRK has denied its involvement in the accident in April.

On Wednesday, the DPRK”s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea released a statement accusing Seoul of taking advantage of the sinking of its warship to push north-south relations to a catastrophe.

According to The Telegraph, North Korea has warned of “full-scale war” if the South imposes new sanctions on the country.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak vowed “stern action” for the provocation and called an emergency security meeting for Friday.

It maybe recalled that 58 sailors were rescued from the frigid Yellow Sea waters near the Koreas” maritime border, but 46 perished in South Korea”s worst military disaster since the end of the Korean War in 1953.

Fragments recovered from the waters near the Koreas” maritime border indicate the torpedo came from Communist-dominated North Korea, investigators said.

The civilian and military investigation team included experts from South Korea, the U.S., Australia, Britain and Sweden.

The report”s release is likely to further increase tensions on the divided Korean peninsula, where the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce, rather than a peace treaty.

The land border is the world”s most heavily armed, and the western sea border has been the site of several deadly naval clashes since 1999.

North Korea disputes the maritime border drawn by the United Nations at the close of the war in 1953. (ANI)

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: Cheonan, china daily, dprk, Emergency Security, Korean Peninsula, land border, Military Disaster, Military Investigation, Multinational Team, peace treaty, peaceful reunification, president lee, reunification of korea, s committee, Sea Waters, Seoul Korea, Seoul South Korea, south korean president, stern action, Underwater Explosion