In This Edition

 

The Communist Party of China marks its 90th founding anniversary with grand gathering and ceremonies.

 

General David Petraeus who headed the international forces in Afghanistan is confirmed by the US Senate to be CIA Director.

 

Greek parliament passes a second vote on its austerity program, needed to secure further financial support for the country.

 

China's manned deep-diving submersible "Jiaolong" embarks on its journey for a 5,000-meter dive in the Pacific Ocean.

 

 

Hot Issue Reports

 

Hu Jintao: CPC to Enhance Leadership and Fight Corruption

The Communist Party of China (CPC) marked its 90th founding anniversary Friday. The General Secretary of CPC Central Committee Hu Jintao stressed the importance of the Party's roles in leading the world's second largest economy and combating corruption. Wei Tong has more.

 

The Communist Party of China was founded in July, 1921 in Shanghai when China was going through a social unrest by warlords and under the iron heel of imperialist aggression.

 

Hu Jintao says after the birth of the CPC, the party started guiding the Chinese people to combat feudalist and imperialist oppression and finally won the national independence and liberation of the Chinese nation, which culminated in the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949 when the CPC started to govern China as the country's ruling party.

 

Hu says three events have proved the CPC's contributions to China's development and prosperity. They are the completion of the new-democratic revolution, the establishment of the basic socialist system and the development of socialism with Chinese characteristics.

 

"These three major events reshaped the future and destiny of the Chinese people and the Chinese nation. They irreversibly ended the misery endured by China in modern times when it suffered from both domestic turmoil and foreign invasion and was poor and weak. They also irreversibly started the Chinese nation's historic march for development, growth, and great rejuvenation."

 

Hu Jintao says the CPC has made some blunders and encountered difficulties in the past since its guiding principles had failed to accord with China's practice. So he urges the CPC to enhance its leadership and fight corruption to the end.

 

"The whole Party must remain vigilant against corruption, be fully aware that fighting corruption will be a protracted, complicated and arduous battle, and give higher priority to combating corruption and upholding integrity."

 

Meanwhile, Hu Jintao has called for providing broad platforms to talents of all types and fully tapping their development potential.

 

Hu Jintao has also hailed the reform and opening up policy in 1978 that helped to vitalize the Chinese economy in the past three decades. He says China will continue the policy for the future development.

 

"We should keep developing the socialist market economy. We will continue to reform the economic, political, cultural and social systems in an innovative way. We should further free and develop the productive forces, promote the self-improvement and self-development of the socialist system, and get rid of all the notions and remove all the institutional drawbacks that hinder scientific development."

 

Hu Jintao says two goals will be achieved in the first half of the 21st century. One is to build a moderately well-off society to benefit one billion plus people by 2021. The other is to build China into a prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally-advanced and harmonious modern socialist country by 2049, centennial of the founding of the People's Republic of China.

 

The CPC is currently the world's largest political party, claiming over 80 million members at the end of 2010. That accounts for 6 percent of the total population on the Chinese mainland.

 

For CRI, this is Wei Tong.

 

David Petraeus Confirmed as CIA Director

General David Petraeus has been confirmed with a 94-0 vote by the US Senate as director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

 

Republican Senator John McCain says he is one of the best US military commanders in a generation.

 

"I don't believe that in my life which has been blessed to know many outstanding military leaders of all branches of service that I have ever quite encountered a military leader, or civilian leader for that matter, with the combination of charisma and intellect that General Petraeus possesses."

 

Petraeus has been in charge of U.S.-led international forces in Afghanistan since June last year.

 

He leaves the post just after President Barack Obama announced the plan of drawing down the number of US troops in Afghanistan, with 10,000 troops leaving this year and 23,000 in 2012.

 

General Petraeus replaces Leon Panetta, who will become the next Pentagon chief.

 

Petraeus is expected to leave Afghanistan this month and begin his work at the CIA in September.

 

Thailand Prime Minister Faces a Challenge ahead of National Election

Thailand's Prime Minister and Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva is trying to secure a second term, as the country goes to the polls for an general election on Sunday.

 

The election battle will come down to the Democrats, the country's oldest political party, versus Pheu Thai Party, the latest reincarnation of a party backed by ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra.

 

Yingluck Shinawatra, the 44-year-old younger sister of Thaksin, is running for Pheu Thai.

 

Thi-tinan Pong-sud-hirak is a political scientist at Bangkok's Chula-longkorn University.

 

"On the one hand, yes, it's a vote for or against Pheu Thai, and directly that means for or against Thaksin, what he has done for and against Thailand. But most importantly, this election is a referendum on what has happened to Thailand since the military coup - all this manipulation, coercion, suppression from above, from the side, and whether people agree or disagree."

 

Pheu Thai has made it clear that the party still belongs to Thaksin, who is currently in self-imposed exile in a luxurious residence in Dubai.

 

Thaksin was ousted in a coup in 2006 but remained influential among Thais in the rural provinces.

 

Greek MPs Pass Second Austerity Vote

Greece's parliament has passed a second vote on its austerity program, which was needed to secure further financial support for the country.

 

The vote approved putting into practice the tax hikes, pay cuts, privatisations and public sector redundancies approved in principle earlier this week.

 

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou hailed its passage as "a crucial step" for Greece.

 

The EU welcomed the result.

 

With the votes passed, Greece can now receive the latest 12 billin-euro tranche of a 110 billion loan, instead of defaulting.

 

For more this, CRI's Liu Yan earlier tallked to.Daniel Gros, director of Economic Policy with Centre for European Policy Studies.

 

China's Submersible to Go 5,000 Meters Deep in Pacific Ocean

China's manned deep-diving submersible "Jiaolong" has begun its journey for a 5,000-meter dive in the Pacific Ocean.

Liu Feng from China Ocean Mineral Resources R&D Association, introduces the mission.

 

"The aim of this 5,000-meter dive is to comprehensively test the functions of this manned submersible in a designated sea area. The mission includes submarine photography, filming, topography, collecting samples of creatures and minerals, and testing the performance of the submersible after its upgrade."

 

Jiaolong is designed to reach a depth of 7,000 meters.

 

It completed 17 dives in the South China Sea from May to July last year, with the deepest one reaching 3,759 meters below sea level.

 

It makes China the fifth country, following the United States, France, Russia and Japan, to have the technology to send a manned dive over 3,500 meters below sea level.

 

Five Years of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway

Friday marked the 5th anniversary of opening of the Qinghai-Tibet railway, the first rail link to Tibet.

 

Because of the altitude and terrain, Tibet became the last province-level entity here in China to have a conventional railway.

 

Over the past five years, the railway has carried both millions of people and millions of tons of goods in and out of Tibet.

 

CRI's He Fei has more.

 

"The scenery along the rail track is beautiful. We're all retired. Although we were a bit afraid of the high altitude, taking the train to Tibet has fulfilled one of our dreams."

 

"In the 1990s, when I came back to Lhasa from University in Sichuan, it took me about 3 days and nights. I had to take several different trains to Golmud and then the long-distance bus for a day and night to Lhasa. Now it is much easier and the train is far more comfortable than before! Along the rail route from Lhasa to Golmud, there is so much beautiful scenery - the lakes, snow-capped mountains and Tibetan antelopes. It is very beautiful. Although I'm a Tibetan, when I see this beautiful scenery, I feel excited as well."

 

The ticket desk is always one of the busiest places at Lhasa Railway Station. Travelers, migrant workers and local Tibetans - everbody prefers to take the train as it is safe and more economic than airplanes.

 

Wang Jianhua is the chief of the Lhasa Railway Station.

 

"The Qinghai-Tibet railway has been in safe operation for the past five years and has carried 7.5 million person-trips and 7.5 million tons of goods. For the passenger carriage, we have 7 destinations from Lhasa including Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Chengdu, Chongqing, Lanzhou and Xining, which cover almost all important transportation hubs across the country. The same is true for cargo transportation."

 

Wang says that the Qinghai-Tibet railway has adopted the most advanced operational system in China and many parts of the railway are under automatic remote control rather than the manpower. From Golmud to Lhasa, 38 of the 45 stations are unstaffed, monitored by the control center in Xining, Qinghai province.

 

The special designed trains have also stood the test of time. Its sealed carriages, oxygen supply technique and environmentally-friendly waste treatments have all proved to be practical.

 

Head of the Lhasa Railway Station Wang Jianhua tells us that now, in the peak season, the stations runs five pairs of passenger trains and five to seven pairs of freight trains each day leaving from and arriving in Lhasa.

 

He says the schedule of passenger trains is intricately designed.

 

"Usually the trains leave Lhasa or Golmud in the morning. The most beautiful sceneries of the Qinghai-Tibet plateau are along the section between Lhasa to Golmud. Therefore, to ensure all our passengers enjoy the Tibetan antelopes, the Qiangtang grassland and the Tanggula Mountain, we have scheduled the running times during the day time."

 

The railway will be extended to Shigatse to the west of Lhasa and Nyingchi to the east. Wang says when the railway network takes shape in Tibet, the economic benefits for both railways and the region as a whole will grow in leaps and bounds.

 

For CRI, I'm He Fei from Lhasa.

 

PIT Threshold Raised to 3500

The central government here in China has decided to raise the level at which people start paying income tax, exempting some 60 million people from the tax rolls.

 

The standing committee of the National People's Congress is lifting the tax exemption threshold from 2-thousand yuan to 35-hundred yuan a month.

 

This new regulation on personal income tax will take effect from September. Then what's the impact on the Chinese people?

 

Zhao Kun has the answer.

 

Owing to the tax adjustment, a large portion of tax is relieved from the shoulders of the middle and low income earners.

If we take the example of a person whose salary is 4500 yuan, according to the new law, the amount he has to pay from September would be calculated like this: 4500 minus the threshold--3500, and then multiplies by tax rate--3%, so the person only has to pay 30 yuan every month. Compare that to the 250 yuan income tax amount he pays right now and it's a signficant reduction. The adjustment of the personal income tax is being praised by many citizens.

 

"Thanks to the rising of the tax threshold, we pay less."

 

"I'm one of the 80s generation and we have a lot of financial pressure, so tax reduction is good for us."

 

The reduction of the income tax is a compensation to the low and middle income earners in the current climate of rising inflation. It also sheds a big burden for the self-employed. The expert from the State Administration of Taxation, Jin Dongsheng, says that about 60 million people don't have to pay income tax any more.

 

"The adjustments of the individual income tax law show the government is trying to ease the financial burden for middle and low income earners, and that they are taking the public's view into account. If the threshold is too high, it'll damage the public's awareness of paying taxes. "

 

It's reported that more than 92 percent of wage earners don't have to pay income tax.

 

Experts say it is a step forward in the country's tax reform, but some of them, including Jin Dongsheng, also analyze that china's personal income tax still needs further adjustments in order to suit citizens' income structure.

 

"China's personal income tax should adopt both unified and classified means in order to better adjust income distribution and solve the problems caused by income diversity and varied household burdens. With all these taken into account, it would make a fair society."

 

Tax is reduced, which means that the disposable income of middle and low income population has risen.

 

Hopefully we can see a expanding domestic demand in the near future.

 

For CRI, I'm Zhao Kun.

 

Djokovic, Nadal to Meet in Wimbledon Final

Top seed Rafael Nadal is one step away from a successful defense of his title at Wimbledon after beating home favorite Andy Murray 5-7, 6-2, 6-2, 6-4. The Spaniard is set to play Novak Djokovic, who's guaranteed to become World No. 1 for the first time after defeating Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the semifinal. Our London correspondent Tu Yun reports.

 

Murray was eager to prove himself in front of the home crowd as the British No. 1 had never grabbed a set from Nadal in their previous two meetings here at Wimbledon.

 

The Scot started well by breaking the Spaniard late in the first set of their semifinal clash and took the set 7-5. But that also turned out to be the only set where Murray could outperform Nadal.

 

The Spaniard dominated the rest of the match, losing only 8 of the 26 games in the last three sets.

 

"I felt that I'm playing well the first set, too, but he was playing really good, really aggressive, serving really well. I was there all the time. I was little bit luck."

 

Nadal is now in the Wimbledon final for the fifth consecutive year. His opponent, Novak Djokovic, who ousted 12th-seeded Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 7-6, 6-2, 6-7, 6-3 to reach his first Wimbledon final.

 

"It's difficult to put into words. This is one of the best feelings I've ever had on the tennis court. My dreams are coming true. I've been working all my life for this. I've been dreaming about playing finals at Wimbledon since I started playing tennis when I was four. So to be able to be there on Sunday would probably be the best feeling."

 

The Serbian's victory over Tsonga helps him move up to the top of men's tennis rankings on Monday.

 

For CRI, I'm Tu Yun reporting fom Wimbledon.

 

Newspaper Picks

 

China Daily: China seems to be racing ahead with magnificent feats of technology these days, firstly the Beijing to Shanghai bullet train and now the worlds longest cross-sea bridge has opened in Qingdao, East China's Shandong Province. The bridge spans eight lines of traffic and is over 41km long! Other vital statistics, the bridge will shorten travel time between the urban district of the city and its Huangdao district from more than 40 to 20 minutes. The report in the China Daily says Qingdao residents are pretty chuffed not only because their city holds the record for the longest bridge but because its going to ease commuting issues. Apparently this project was 21 years in the making, 17 of those years it took to plan (particularly due to high salt content and the icy winter seas) and then it took 4 years to actually build!