News EnglishAugust 2, 2008 6:53 am

Defense Minister: China to pursue peaceful development



A reception is held by the Denfense Ministry of China to celebrate the 81th Army Day which will fall on August 1 with the attendance of Chinese Defense Minister Liang Guanglie, Chief of the General Staff of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA)Chen Bingde, Head of the General Political Department of the PLA Li Jinai, Director of the PLA General Logistics Department Liao Xilong, Commander of the Second Artillery Force of PLA Jing Zhiyuan, Navy Commander of the PLA Wu Shengli and the PLA air force commander Xu Qiliang, in Beijing, China, on July 31, 2008.

    BEIJING, July 31 (Xinhua) — China’s military would increase cooperation with foreign armed forces in order to contribute more to common development, Defense Minister Liang Guanglie said on Thursday.

    At a reception at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing to mark the 81st anniversary of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), Liang said, "China will take the road of peaceful development, unswervingly, and carry out an independent and self-reliant, peaceful diplomatic policy and a defensive defense policy, no matter how the international situation changes."

    A member of the Central Military Commission (CMC) and a state councilor, Liang stressed the fundamental necessity of the Army’s acceptance of "the absolute leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC)".

A reception is held by the Denfense Ministry of China to celebrate the 81st Army Day which will fall on August 1, 2008 in Beijing, China, on July 31, 2008. (Xinhua/Wang Jianmin)

    China would never take to hegemonism and expansionism and posed no threat to any other country, Liang said.

    He noted the "positive changes" regarding the situation across the Taiwan Straits, while pointing out that pro-independence forces in Taiwan had never abandon their activities.

    "We are strongly determined to oppose and curb the separatist activities of ‘Taiwan independence’ forces," he said.

    The mainland would show its utmost sincerity and exert its greatest efforts for the welfare of Chinese compatriots on both sides of the Straits, to seek peace, safeguard China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and safeguard the fundamental interests of the Chinese nation.

    Liang also praised the efforts of the armed forces during the severe winter weather chaos at the start of the year and after the May 12 earthquake.

    The reception was attended by other CMC members, including Chen Bingde, Li Jinai, Liao Xilong, Jing Zhiyuan, Wu Shengli and Xu Qiliang, as well as foreign military attaches.

    In August 1927, the CPC-led armed forces held an uprising against warlords, which is regarded as the founding day of the services.

reception is held by the Denfense Ministry of China to celebrate the 81st Army Day which will fall on August 1, 2008 in Beijing, China, on July 31, 2008. Military officers of foreign embassies in China and their wives also attend the reception.
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News English 6:48 am

Clear weather for sun eclipse observation in west China


    YIWU, Xinjiang, Aug. 1 (Xinhua) — Eclipse tourists who swarmed to small towns in west China’s Xinjiang and Gansu were happy to be greeted by bright sunshine on Friday.

    "The weather would be favorable for the eclipse observation," said Carolyn Ng, a program manager and science education specialist from NASA (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration of America).

    She led a 12-member crew to broadcast the solar eclipse live from Yiwu, a small pastoral county in Hami Prefecture 500 kilometers east of Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital.

    Wang Kemin, the Beijing Astronomical Observatories deputy director was also optimistic about the weather, estimating a 76-percent chance of success in seeing the eclipse from Yiwu on Friday evening.

    The sun eclipse, the first that can be viewed in China in the new century, will begin at 6:59 p.m. Beijing Time, and last for about two hours, although the total eclipse will be only two minutes.

    About 10,000 tourists have gathered at an observation square opened on Friday in Yiwu.

    The Solar Calendar Square covering 14,600 square meters is the largest observation square in the world, where nine pillars that surround the square will cast shadows indicating changes of the solar term, said Wang.

    "The observation preparations made by Yiwu County surprised me. When I came here to make a preparatory field study last year, it was a total wilderness in the area of the square," said Ng, the NASA program manager of the sun-earth connection education forum.

The combination photo shows the total solar eclipse occured in Jinta County of Jiuquan City, northwest China's Gansu Province, on Aug. 1, 2008. The total solar eclipse, the first that can be viewed in China in the new century, occured on Friday. (Xinhua/Han Chuanhao)

    She said that the county has prepared sophisticated astronomical equipment and broadcasting facilities, which aided broadcasting crews.

    The China National Astronomical Observatories under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has announced Hami in Xinjiang and Jiuquan in neighboring Gansu Province as the best places in China to observe the eclipse.

    Federico Avellan Borgmeyer, manager of travel agency Eclipse City in U.K. and Germany, said that the company had brought 500 foreign tourists, mainly from Europe, to the observation places in Yiwu, Xinjiang and Jiayuguan City in Gansu.

    "Most of the international visitors will travel along the Silk Road, after observing the sun eclipse," said Borgmeyer.

    Ancient towns in the west China region have become boisterous, after thousands of observers have seized their hold of open areas dotted along the Silk Road, the ancient trade route that traversed the present-day Shaanxi, Gansu provinces and Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

    According to astronomers here, the next solar eclipse to be seen in China will occur on July 22, 2009. The frequent eclipses could spark a fresh wave of astronomy travel in the country, observed Wu Guangjie, a senior scientist with the CAS.

    Cheng Zuo, a research fellow from the Purple Mountain Observatory based in east China’s Jiangsu Province said that his research found that 55 years from now, another sun eclipse would be viewed from Yiwu, Xinjiang.

    Eclipses are scientifically interesting because they allow a rare glimpse of the cooler corona, glowing gases near the sun’s surface and solar flares, which are normally not visible because of the brightness of the sun, he said.

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News English 6:40 am

Cambodian PM’s wife prays at disputed Hindu templ

PREAH VIHEAR, Cambodia (Reuters) - The wife of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen led Buddhist monks and soldiers in prayers at a 900-year-old Hindu border temple on Friday amid a three-week military stand-off with Thailand.

With Thai troops and artillery dug in only metres away, Bun Rany thanked the soldiers, mostly battle-hardened ex-Khmer Rouge guerrillas, for resisting what Cambodia says is Thai encroachment on a disputed patch of land next to the ruins.

"The first lady called on the ancestral spirits to defend Preah Vihear and chase away the enemy," Min Khin, chairman of the Southeast Asian nation’s Festival Committee, told reporters after the ceremony, shrouded in early morning mist.

Preah Vihear sits on top of a jungle-clad escarpment that forms a natural boundary between Thailand and Cambodia, and has been a bone of contention between the two countries for decades.

The International Court of Justice in the Hague awarded the site to Cambodia in 1962, a ruling that has rankled in Thailand ever since, although it did not rule on ownership of the 1.8 square miles (4.6 sq km) of scrub at the centre of the latest spat.

The trigger for the latest row came from Bangkok’s backing of Cambodia’s bid to have the temple listed as a World Heritage site, support that was seized on by nationalist street protesters bent on overthrowing the Thai government.

With a general election campaign underway in Cambodia at the time, it quickly escalated into a serious confrontation, with hundreds of troops and artillery sent to both sides of the border. In some places, the two sides are only a few yards apart.

Both foreign ministers vowed on Monday to resolve the stand-off peacefully and pull back troops, although nothing has changed on the ground, with Bangkok and Phnom Penh reluctant to redeploy in case they are painted as weak.

Bun Rany’s high-profile visit, flying in by helicopter and a heavily armed security detail, suggests her husband, a wily former Khmer Rouge soldier who won a landslide victory in Sunday’s election, is in no mood to compromise.

A group claiming Preah Vihear for Thailand described the ceremony as a black-magic ritual meant to bring bad luck, one newspaper reported.

Preah Vihear is not the only temple to have hit relations between the two countries.

In 2003, a nationalist mob torched the Thai embassy and several Thai businesses in Phnom Penh after erroneously reported comments from a Thai soap opera star that Cambodia’s famed Angkor Wat actually belonged to Thailand.

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