CRI 中国国际广播电台 2010-03-13（在线收听）

Broadcasting Time: 07:00-08:00, GMT+08:00, 2010-03-13

Hello and Welcome to News and Reports on China Radio International.

In This Edition

Anti-government protesters in Thailand begin gathering in the capital Bangkok in the group's scheduled "million people march."

secularist coalition headed by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi alleges major fraud in Iraq's historic election.

A new government report from China's education system is to focus on fostering creative talent in this country.

And Toyota dealers in China wonder about their future following the massive global recall troubles.

Hot Issue Reports

Google – When In Rome, Do As Romans Do

China's top Internet regulator, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, insisted that Google must obey its laws or "pay the consequences".

Li Yizhong, minister of Industry and Information Technology, stressed that China's internet management could not be compromised.

"If you do not abide by Chinese laws and regulations, it means that you are unfriendly, irresponsible, and you will have to pay the consequences."

That is also the response of China's side to Google's January announcement that it planned to stop complying with Chinese Internet censorship rules and might close its China-based site.

Li emphasized that China needed to censor Internet content to protect the rights of the country and its people.

"We need to preserve our nation's interest as well as our people's. We cannot sit by any information that will destabilize our society."

China encourages Internet use for education and business, but tries to shield pornographic contents.

Red-shirt Protesters Mobilizing to Bangkok

Anti-government protesters in Thailand have begun gathering in the capital Bangkok Friday, the first day of the group's scheduled "million people march."

According to a national TV report, checkpoints on all the main roads into Bangkok have activated, with police and military forces preventing anyone from bringing arms or explosives into Bangkok.

Security authorities estimate there will be between 70,000 and 100,000 red-shirted demonstrators at the rally's peak, while the anti-government group claimes Bangkok will see as many as 1 million protestors on Sunday.

Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thuagsuban says police and soldiers will be at the rally to maintain the peace.

"If the protest is peaceful, that's fine. But if they block the roads and disrupt the lives of ordinary people in Bangkok, they'll be breaking the law and we'll bring charges against them."

The United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship is trying to push the government to dissolve parliament, and to hold a snap general election.

The group is made up of supporters of ousted former Prime Minister Thaskin Shinawatra.

Calm Returns to Athens After Strikek and Demonstrations

Calm has now returned to the streets of Athens, after strikes and protests against the government's new austerity measures trashed parts of the Greek capital.

The debt-ridden country is under intense pressure from both the financial markets and the European Union to reduce its deficit from 12.7 percent of economic output in 2009 to 8.7 percent this year.

Many in Greece are disappointed the protests have not stopped the government from making over 15 billion US dollars worth of new, drastic cuts.

"Nothing is going to happen by going out on to the streets protesting and demonstrating. It's unnecessary."

"There has been no result whatsoever. It's not as if we can say that something will come out of the mobilizations. I'm a pensioner myself, and I participated in the demonstration yesterday and will go again, but I don't see anything happening."

The latest 24-hour general strike, the second in a week, grounded airline flights, halted public transport, suspended news broadcasts, and left hospitals working with emergency staff.

These services mostly resumed on Friday.

Clashes between riot police and rock-throwing, masked youths broke out during the demonstration in central Athens on Thursday.

Iraq Opposition Allege Fraud as Early Election Results Announced

Partial vote results in Iraq's historic election show a tight contest between the nation's prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has the lead in two provinces in the mainly Shiite south, and a secular rival.

However, a cross-sectarian, secularist coalition headed by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi is alleging major fraud in the election, including the discovery of ballots in the garbage.

Adnan al-Janabi, a senior member of the Iraqiya bloc, has told reporters that they expect to discover more fraud as the count continues.

"There were lot of violations occurred during election day, the operations room and our representatives in all Iraq recorded the violations which already documented in the electoral commission. I think the violations are still continuing so far."

Full initial results from across Iraq's 18 provinces, including areas where support is expected to be strong for the opposition, were still not available four days after the national election.

Final results may take weeks.

Sixty-two percent of Iraq's nearly 19 million voters turned out at the polls on Sunday despite death threats from the al Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and a spate of election-day attacks by Sunni Islamist insurgents that killed 39 people.

Sebastian Pinera Inaugurated as President of Chile Amid Strong Aftershocks

The newly inaugurated president of Chile, Sebastian Pinera, has addressed the nation for the first time from the balcony of Santiago's presidential palace, urging people to help him rebuild the country following the devastating earthquake last month.

"Together we will know how to get up again, to rebuild what the earthquake and tsunami destroyed, to lift our country and restart that path towards a free, great, just and fraternal nation that we have always dreamt of."

The 60-year-old president and his ministers were sworn in quickly, as several aftershocks rattled the ceremony. Eventually 2,000 people in the audience headed for the exits and the hills, joining an evacuation called out of concern for another tsunami.

Three of the aftershocks were over magnitude-6 and six more above magnitude-5 hit within the next five hours.

The strongest, at 6.9, nearly matched the 7.0-magnitude quake that devastated Haiti on the 12 of January.

Shortly after being sworn in, Sebastian Pinera flew to some of the areas most affected by the earthquake.

Venezuela Orders Cutting Energy Consumption by 20% Amid Electricity Crisis

Venezuela's deepening electricity crisis has forced the government of President Hugo Chavez to enact rationing schemes as it looks at expensive measures to increase energy output and stave off negative effects the shortage.

A drought since late 2009 has been draining hydroelectric dams that supply 70 percent of Venezuela's electricity. Low reservoir levels have threatened to shut off 40 percent of the country's electricity generation.

At a Caracas mall, manager Gustavo Gonzales says the scheduled blackouts to reduce energy consumption by 20 percent are hurting businesses.

"We have to agree because it's a presidential decree and we have to comply with it. It's a tough blow. It's a 20 percent reduction in the quality of service we provide, we undoubtedly affects sales."

To cut back on the unpopular blackouts, Hugo Chavez has begun an aggressive campaign to get low-consumption light bulbs into homes.

The Venezuelan leader claims over 50 million light bulbs have been changed so far.

The government is now looking to revamp the power grid by buying 4 billion dollars worth of power turbines and paying premium prices to rush in new power plants, which can run on either natural gas or petroleum.

Light News

Education Reform and Development Focus on Cultivating Creative Talents

A new government report from China's education system is focusing on fostering creative talent in this country.

The National Outline for Medium and Long-term Education Reform and Development suggests ways to better train people to think outside the box.

Sun Xiaobing, director general of Department of Education Policy Studies and Legal Construction with the Ministry of Education says the country plans to adjust its education assessment system and make it easier for people with creative minds to get ahead.

"In addition to the school education system, the whole society should adopt new assessment standards of talents. Instead of judging talents solely from academic score and educational background, assessment of other abilities should be adopted."

Sun Xiaobing points out that the college entrance exams need to be transformed into a comprehensive evaluation system, so that students aren't judged solely on an academic test.

The new report is a guideline for China's educational development over the next ten years. The draft was published for public opinion on February 28th. So far over a million people have made comments on it.

China's Lawmakers Advance Rule of Law to Improve People's Livelihoods

Questions about how to improve people's livelihoods have been one of the bigger agenda items at this year's NPC sessions. And as we hear from our Zhao Yang, a new collection of laws set to take effect later this year may help solve some of those lingering questions.

Toyota's Sales Plunge in Chinese Market

Toyota, once viewed here in China as the poster-child for quality, is now struggling in the mainland market because of its recall troubles, leaving many Toyota dealers in China wondering about their future.

Super Dan Advances to Final Eight at All-England Open

World No. 2 badminton player Lin Dan of China has reached the quarter-finals of the

men's singles at the All-England Open. He beat Muhammad Hafiz Hashim of Malaysia in two

straight sets. CRI's Tu Yun filed this report from Birmingham.

Media Digest

Media Picks

From MLB.com: Camera flashbulbs lit up the concourse at the Taoyuan airport in Taipei Thursday night, as the Los Angeles Dodgers professional baseball team deplaned their EVA 777 chartered flight. From the hundreds of autograph seekers that greeted the team at the airport to the police escort through rush-hour traffic, there's already a heightened excitement before any of the three games have been played against an All-Star team from Taiwan. Manager Joe Torre, outfielder Manny Ramirez and Taiwan natives Hong-Chih Kuo and Chin-lung Hu lead the split squad that will play games in Taipei over the weekend. The travel party will take a bullet train Sunday morning to Kaohsiung County for the finale that day before flying back to Arizona immediately following the game. Ticket demand for this series was so intense that the local promoter added a third game, which wiped out a planned day of sightseeing.

From the Associated Press out of New York: For the want of a better two-second picture of a tachometer, ABC News has called into question its own reporting on acceleration problems with Toyota vehicles. Correspondent Brian Ross' "World News" report showed him driving a Toyota that an expert rigged to quickly accelerate to demonstrate a theory as to why Toyota vehicles might have problems. Briefly during the drive, ABC cut to a picture of a tachometer with the needle zooming forward. The impression was that the tachometer was documenting the ride Ross was taking. Instead, that picture was taken from a separate instance where a short-circuit was induced in a parked car. It all points to problems that are created when visual journalists try to alter reality in order to get a better picture. A journalism ethics expert from the University of Syracuse points out that anytime you give the audience any reason to doubt the honesty of the piece, that's a serious problem.

Market update

US Stocks shuttled between narrow gains and losses Friday after mixed reports on retail sales and consumer confidence gave investors little new insight into the economy.

The Dow rose 12, or 0.1 percent, to 10,624. The broader S&P 500 index fell 0.31, or 0.03 percent, to 1150.

The Nasdaq composite index fell 0.8, or 0.03 percent, to 2,368. It stands at an 18-month high.

In Europee, Britain's FTSE 100 rose 0.2 percent to 5626, Germany's DAX index rose 0.3 percent to 5945, and France's CAC-40 slipped less than 0.1 percent to 3927.

0313 weather for 07am

Before we go, a quick look at the weather,

Beijing is Sunny day with a high of 8, cloudy tonight and low of 1

Shanghai is cloudy and high of 16, falling to 12

Elsewhere around the world

Bangkok Sunny of 34

Tokyo Sunny 13

Vientiane Sunny 34

New York light rain 9

Toronto light rain at 9

Sydney cloudy at 22

Wellington cloudy at 19

Perth Sunny 35

Cairo Sunny at 29

Morovia Sunny at 34

And finally Nairobi will be Sunny at high of 28 degrees