In This Edition

 

The Thai parliament elects Yingluck Shinawatra to serve as the country's first female prime minister, 11 weeks after she started her political career.

 

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says Washington and its allies are working to apply more pressure on the Syrian government for killing thousands of its own citizens in the crack down on protests.

 

Some experts express concerns over the rapid development of China's high-speed railways in the wake of the recent deadly bullet train crash in Zhejiang.

 

Latest figures show that China's property prices are growing at a slower pace following measures including higher interest rates on home loans and limits on the number of home purchases.

 

 

Hot Issue Reports

 

Thai Parliament Elects Yingluck Shinawatra as Prime Minister

The Thai parliament has voted Yingluck Shinawatra as the country's first female prime minister, 11 weeks after she started her political career.

 

Yingluck, the sister of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, won the approval of almost 60 percent of the 500 members in the lower house.

 

"Today's voting is preliminary. There will be other steps before the official endorsement, we have to wait till it's official before we announce any policies and missions."

 

Yingluck led her Pheu Thai party to a clear victory in last month's national election. And she is now waiting for the endorsement of King Bhumi-bol Adul-yadej before she officially takes up her post and begins naming a cabinet.

 

The ceremony could happen as early as this evening.

 

The Pheu Thai party and its coalition partners now enjoy a huge majority in the lower house.

 

Yingluck has no previous political experience. She was an executive in some of the family's enterprises before she got the nod in May to lead the Pheu Thai party's campaign.

 

The 44-year-old has said her "first urgent issue is how to achieve reconciliation".

 

Her brother was thrown out of office in a 2006 military coup after being accused of corruption and disrespect for Thailand's monarchy.

 

Since then, Thailand has been suffering from internal divisions.

 

Last year, anti-government protesters occupied parts of Bangkok for months. The demonstration was eventually cleared by the army with 91 people killed.

 

Clinton Accuses Syrian Government of Killing More than 2,000 Citizens

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has also accused the Syrian government of killing more than 2-thousand of its own citizens in the crack down on protests.

 

Clinton says the U.S. believes President Bashar al-Assad should no longer be running Syria.

 

"President Assad has lost his legitimacy to govern the Syrian people. We continue to support the Syrians themselves and their efforts to begin a peaceful and orderly transition to democracy."

 

She adds that the US and its allies are working to apply more pressure on the Syrian government.

 

Earlier, officials said the U.S. is working on some new sanctions targeting Syria's state-owned and state-affiliated oil and gas companies. Those companies are a leading revenue source for the Syrian government.

 

In May, the White House imposed sanctions on Assad and several senior Syrian officials in protest against the deadly violence to quell the demonstrations.

Earlier this week, the EU took similar steps, adding more names to a sanction blacklist, including President Assad and 34 other people as well as firms linked to the military.

 

A Long Way to Go from "Made in China" to "Created in China"

When the first Beijing to Shanghai high speed train started its journey in late June, it was seen as a step from "Made in China" to "Created in China."

 

Less than a month later, the Wenzhou train crash made people ask, is China ready to take that step?

 

Chengcheng reports.

 

Tens of billions of dollars has been put into China's high speed train industry annually in recent years.

 

In only 3 years, China leapfrogged to the world No.1 status in terms of the travel distance and the length of railway under construction.

 

Economist Yuan Ming from Tsing Hua University is worried about the rapid development.

 

"We put too much capital into the high speed train industry. Yes, our government departments have their way to mobilize society to achieve big things, but this can have its consequences as well. Developing too fast brings about security disasters."

 

Yuan also says too much input has put huge pressure on the high speed train industry. Technologies in a high end industry like this cannot be acquired in a short time, so rushing to that result is never a good idea.

 

"What we need now is to slow down, to build the foundation. The high speed train industry in China has advanced by leaps and bounds and we've made breakthroughs, there's no denying that. We just need some time to fix those problems that popped up recently."

 

Yuan says China needs to regulate the investment and put it into good use so that repetitive work can be avoided.

 

Before the Wenzhou collision, more than 50 countries wanted help from China to build their own high speed rail lines. Now those proposals are probably all out of the window.

 

However, Yuan does not think China's high speed railway system is a total failure just because of this recent accident in Wenzhou.

 

"I don't think it is that hard for China's high speed train industry to go into foreign markets, because it involves high end technologies. But we need to strengthen development before we can go aboard. In short, despite the accident, I still think Chinese high speed rail has a bright future."

 

As Yuan points out, learning from the Wenzhou accident will be a good first step toward that future.

 

For CRI, I'm Shen Chengcheng.

 

EU Silent on Bicycle Tax Extension

The European Union is refusing to comment on Chinese media reports, suggesting an anti-dumping tax on bicycles imported from China is set to be extended.

 

The EU says cheap bicycles imported from China threaten domestic manufacturers. So it artificially raises their price by imposing what's known as an anti-dumping tax of around 50 percent.

 

But the move has received criticism from both sides. Dominic Swire reports.

 

Trade relations between the EU and China have hit rocky ground again. This time it's about bicycles.

 

Reports in the Chinese press suggest the EU is set to extend anti-dumping taxes on imported bicycles from China. The tariff is designed to protect European bicycle manufacturers from what some say is unfairly cheap competition. But not all agree.

 

Fredrik Erixon heads the European Centre for International Political Economy, an economic think-tank based in Brussels.

 

"It's obvious Europe is acting in a protectionist manner against China when it comes to low-cost manufacturing sectors where Europe is trying to protect itself from much more efficient producers in Asia."

 

China's Xinhua news agency says it's seen a document that states the current anti-dumping tax of almost 50 percent will be extended for an extra two years until 2016.

 

Yu Xiang is an economist at China's Institute of Contemporary International Relations. He says Chinese companies won't like the news, but there could be a silver lining.

 

"Of course such a policy will have a very bad impact on Chinese manufacturing industry. But on the other hand, maybe this policy will be good for some Chinese firms because it will help them improve technologies."

 

Trade disputes between the EU and China are nothing new. China's complained about EU anti-dumping tariffs on many occasions. At the same time, many European companies say they face unfair competition in China.

 

Fredrik Erixon from the European Centre for International Political Economy again:

 

"In the greater scheme of things I don't think this individual example is going to disturb EU-China relations. However, when you aggregate all various forms of negative examples of protectionism by Europe against China and against other countries, of course, that turns into a problem."

 

For its part the EU has refused to comment on the media speculation, simply stating that a final proposal on the tariffs will be released at the end of August.

 

For CRI, I'm Dominic Swire.

 

China's Property Prices Grows at a Slower Pace

China's property prices are growing at a slower pace. The average price of a new home in 100 major cities rose 0.2 percent in July.

 

Price hikes in small and medium-size cities contributed the most to the increase.

 

That means the price per square meter of an average home nationwide is now almost 89-hundred yuan, or about 14-hundred U.S. dollars.

 

Property prices in 66 cities grew in July compared to the previous month, while 33 cities posted declines. Prices remained stable in only one city.

 

China is implementing a series of measures to contain property prices, including higher interest rates on home loans and limits on the number of home purchases.

 

For more on this, Liu Yan earlier talked to Professor Liu Bao-cheng form the University of International Business and Economics.

 

That was Professor Liu Bao-cheng form the University of International Business and Economics.

 

The Business of Qixi Festival

Saturday is Qi Xi festival. Traditionally, this was a day for women to show off their needlepoint skills and wish for a good husband. But in the past few years, it's been reinvented as China's answer to Valentine's day.

 

Allie Johnsson has more:

 

February 14th is a big spending spree in China.

 

And retailers also want to cash in on Qixi Festival.

 

But reports say that they're not having much success.

 

It seems Chinese couples are still a lot more eager to celebrate the Western Valentine's day than the Chinese one.

 

But I wanted to find out for myself.

 

So I went down to NanLuoGu alley, which is a trendy and very youth-oriented street in the centre of Beijing…and spoke to business owners and couples about what they're doing for this year's Qixi Festival.

 

I started at Happy Holidays clothing store.

 

It sells matching his-and-hers t-shirts, so obviously lovers' holidays are a big money-maker for them.

 

Lin Luo Luo is the owner:

 

"Last year at Qixi festival we made almost as much as at Valentines' day. Around Valentines' day we might have made about 100 thousand yuan, and around Qixi festival we might have made, say, 90 thousand. So it's not that big a difference. Qixi festival is definitely still not as important as Valentines' day, but I think it's getting more important. So many of my friends this year have been like, what are you doing for Qixi festival? People are talking about it all over the internet and on their microblogs. I think it's a lot better than it was two years ago.

 

Well as you can imagine I was pretty surprised. I'd heard this festival wasn't a big money-maker! But I went to flower shops and gift shops and pretty much everyone told me the same thing: since last year people have started getting into Qixi festival.

 

Another place I just had to check out was 3A07 cupcakes – their name means LOVE upside down and backwards. And the place is pink and covered in hearts.

Kong Ni owns LOVE cupcakes with her boyfriend.

 

And she says they've got big plans for tomorrow.

 

"For couples who come tomorrow night, we'll get the girls to go upstairs and relax, and we'll make the guys stay downstairs. Then we'll give the guys a flower and get them to go upstairs and give it to their girlfriends themselves. Then when they leave we'll get them to take a photo together and they can take it home as a souvenir. I think young people used to be a lot more interested in Valentine's day, but now we're slowly recovering our traditional culture. So I think young people put more importance on Qixi Festival now.

 

But some lovebirds don't need a festival to show they care about one another.

 

Here's Ms. Wang and Mr. Li.

 

"Her: We'll probably watch a movie and hang out together. I don't think we'll spend more money than usual – the most important thing is just being together.

Him: Of course Qixi festival is as important as Valentines' Day. Really, they're pretty much the same. Every day is the same – as far as we're concerned, every day is Qixi festival."

 

Awww, that's cute. Well, whatever you're doing tomorrow, I'd recommend looking up the legend behind Qixi festival. It involves fairies and cow-herders, so it's pretty much an instant winner in my books.

 

Allie Johnsson reporting on the eve of Qi Xi Festival.

 

James Blunt Looking Forward to the Upcoming Concerts in China

In other news....Grammy-nominated English singer-songwriter James Hillier Blount, better known by his stage name James Blunt, is set to hold concerts in China.

 

Guangzhou will be his first stop followed byBeijing and Shanghai later this month.

 

To promote his upcoming gigs in China, Blunt has opened a SINA microblog account, where he sends greetings to his Chinese fans and invites them to the concerts.

 

Blunt's first album, "Back to Bedlam", catapulted him into worldwide superstardom on the strength of such songs as "You're Beautiful" and "Goodbye My Lover".

 

His second album, 2007's "All the Lost Souls" debuted at No.1 in 10 countries, which sold nearly 5 million copies globally. And his third studio album, "Some Kind of Trouble", was released in November 2010.

 

Blunt's repertoire can be best described as a mix of acoustic-tinged pop, rock and folk.

 

Newspaper Picks

 

China Daily: There are 13 million blind people in China, but only 34 guide dogs. China Daily reports on how difficult it is for these guide dogs to do their job in China. The article mostly talks about a woman in Beijing named Chen Yan who has been barred six times from taking her dog on the subway near her house. She's also been shooed away from restaurants, airplanes, and restaurants, - even McDonalds. Apparently this is quite a common issue.

 

The problem is that guide dogs are so new in China that a lot of businesses and services just don't know how to deal with them.

 

China's Protection Law for Disabled Persons does say that dogs can work in public places – as long as they abide by local regulations. And that little "local" stipulation means that lots of places CAN refuse entry to guide dogs.

 

There are some places where they can't. Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Zhejiang province all have regulations that say guide dogs must be allowed into any workplace, museum, cinema, hospital or other public facility.

 

And as assistance dogs become more common and their use and training become more standardized, we'll probably see a change here.