In This Edition

 

The chief of the IMF's Mission in China says Renminbi is destined to become a major world currency.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barosso says Greece is part of Europe's family and must stay that way.

Chinese experts are warning of a possible trade war if the European Union imposes anti-dumping tariffs on Chinese-made solar products.

And the opening ceremony of London 2012 Olympic Games begins amid protest by taxi drivers in the British capital.

 

Hot Issue Reports

 

IMF Chief Says RMB Experiences No Devaluation

The chief of the IMF's Mission in China says Renminbi is destined to become a major world currency.

 

Markus Rodlauer has made the suggestion, following an IMF report which says the Renminbi is moderately undervalued.

 

"If you compare the value of the Renminbi not just against the dollar which is going up, but you compare it also against the euro and other countries who trade with China, then you see as we value the Renminbi, as we say against a basket of other currencies, in fact, the Renminbi continues to go strong over time."

 

The IMF report says China's current account surplus declined from over 10 percent of the GDP in 2007 to 2.8 percent last year.

 

Rodlauer says the decline is due to three main reasons.

 

"It is due in part to the significant appreciation of the Renminbi. China of course is growing somewhat slower now, so import growth is less. But also we have seen a significant deterioration in the external environment."

 

At the same time, Rodlauer says the Chinese government needs to continue to try to strengthen its crisis management framework and promote currency reform.

 

Renminbi has appreciated over 30 percent since it was depegged from the US dollar in 2005.

 

UN Official Deny Leaving Syria

United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping, Herve Ladsous, is denying reports the UN is poised to leave Syria.

 

"The United Nations is in no way packing and going as of today. What we have done, and that had been decided for some time, after the decision to suspend the activities of the military monitors of UNSMIS, in view of all the constraints, especially security constraints, then of course we found ourselves with too many people, with not enough to do."

 

Half of the United Nations Supervision Mission in Syria has left the country, even though the mission has been extended for an extra 30-days.

 

Ladsous is rebuffing suggestions the decision is politically motivated.

 

"There is no political signal in the level of what is actually a daily allowance, for daily subsistence for our military observers. We are bound by rules, which are set by the membership of the United Nations, that is to say the General Assembly. We did all we could in that framework,"

 

Violence has intensified in the capital Damascus and the city of Aleppo in the past week.

 

Alep-po is Syria's commercial capital and the key to controlling the north of the country.

 

Barossos Request Reforms from Greece

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barosso says Greece is part of Europe's family and must stay that way.

 

But, he says it must also deliver on reforms:

 

"The key word here is deliver deliver deliver deliver deliver. The main issue is implementation, to deliver results, to maintain the trust of European and international partners the delays must end. Words are not enough, actions are much more important. Following my meeting with Prime Minister Samaras I am reassured that this delivery will happen. In return I have been unequivocal that the European Commission will stand by Greece."

 

The European Commission President has told the Greek public, reforms are the only solution.

 

However, various Greek worker groups have been protesting against a visit by a team of international inspectors, condemning the economic reform programme.

Vassil-is Kara-kit-sos is the president of one workers union at the Skara-manga Shipyards.

 

"We will continue our battle until we are justified. The government and the company must realise that we are employees, we are not slaves."

 

Greek government is putting together 12-billion-euros worth of austerity measures for the next two years.

 

It will be presented to the troika inspectors.

 

Experts: No One is a Winner if Trade War Happens between EU and China

Chinese experts are warning of a possible trade war if the European Union imposes anti-dumping tariffs on Chinese-made solar products.

 

European solar companies, led by Germany's SolarWorld, are asking the EU to impose tariffs on Chinese panels.

 

Mei Xinyun with the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation says European tariffs would have a significant impact on the Chinese solar industry.

 

But at the same time, he's warning a trade war over this issue would hurt both sides.

 

"Solar products related sale agencies, consumers and harbors have benefited a lot from China's solar exportation. If EU imposes anti-dumping tariffs, it will also harm their interests."

 

Mei Xinyun says he believes if the EU does impose tariffs on Chinese solar panels, the Chinese side will fight back.

 

"China should help our enterprises develop domestic market. Meanwhile, we can also take some resistant measures since China has already been the second largest importer in the world."

 

The United States has already imposed preliminary anti-dumping duties on Chinese-made solar products.

 

In response, the Chinese side launched investigations into imported U.S. solar-grade polysilicon last week.

 

Beijing Reflects on Disaster Management

Beijing's top officials are now speaking publically about the deadly rainstorm last weekend.

 

Guo Jinlong, secretary of Beijing's CPC Municipal Committee, says massive rainstorm Saturday has exposed loopholes in urban planning, infrastructure and emergency management.

 

He is calling on all city leaders to reflect on the lessons, while at the same time, expressintg his condolances to the victims.

 

Meanwhile, acting Mayor Wang Anshun says the government is going to take the public's criticisms into account and improve its work to avoid such tragedy happening again.

 

Pan Anjun is the deputy chief of Beijing's Flood Control Headquarters.

 

"By now, 77 bodies have been discovered in Beijing. Among them, 66 victims' identities have been confirmed. 11 others are yet to be identified."

 

Municipal authorities in Beijing have come under intense scrutiny, particularly online, for a percieved lack of response to the scale of the flooding, as well as for the time it took to update the death toll.

 

Most of those killed were in Beijing's suburban districts, including 38 in the hardest-hit district of Fangshan in the southwest of the city.

 

Central Authorities Allocate Disaster Relief Fund

China's central authorities have allocated new disaster relief funds to rainstorm-hit areas across the country.

 

Pang Chenmin is the deputy director of the Ministry of Civil Affairs Disaster Relief Department.

 

"The Ministry of Civil Affairs and the Ministry of Finance have allocated 200 million yuan of disaster relief fund to Beijing and Hebei province. The money will be used on relocation, reconstruction and consolation. The Ministry of Civil Affairs also dispatched 7000 tents, 20,000 quilts and 20,000 overcoats to Hebei and Chongqing. "

 

Rainstorms that have been battering the country since last week have left 179 people dead.

 

Direct economic losses are being pegged at 30-billion yuan so far.

 

Forecasters are warning the northern parts of China are going to continue to see rains continuing over the next few weeks.

 

Summer is the traditional rainy season in northern China.

 

Chinese Cities' Poor Drainage Systems

The massive storm that hit Beijing is raising larger questions across China about the state of storm-drain management in the country's larger cities.

 

CRI's Liu Min has more.

 

Guangzhou Resident Mao Ling's house has been waterlogged more than 18 times this year. She says as more tall apartment buildings are built around her alley, the more frequently her house gets flooded.

 

"In the past, the water flowed into the drainage system and disappeared right away. But now there are no ditches left in the alley area. The whole ground has become hardened due to all the construction."

 

Many other cities in China are also facing severe challenges with their poor drainage systems.

 

Beijing's torrential rainstorm last weekend caused severe losses to the city and at least 37 people died.

 

The Chinese government released regulations concerning city drainage systems last year. It requires that an urban drainage system has to perform well in heavy rains that happen at least once every three to five years.

 

However, according to recent survey, more than 70 percent of the drainage systems in cities across China can only handle regular rainfall. Ninety percent of the old urban areas can hardly handle heavy rains at all.

 

City urban development experts across the country are racking their brains for solutions. Some in Guangzhou suggest that an underground wide span tunnel should be built as part of the drainage system. However, Ding Guangqi from the Guangzhou Water Management Bureau says it's already too late to do so.

 

"It would be a huge operation. We would need to dig all the current underground system out, and construct the wide tunnel inside, which is almost impossible to do. We have to figure out another way."

 

However, some experts point out that the overall cost of building such an underground tunnel would only cost one fifth of a subway line. Zhou Yuwen, a professor from Beijing University of Technology whose focus is drainage system research advocates the idea.

 

"We have to pay more attention to the infrastructure of the city's development when we push forward with urbanization. We've got to build the tall buildings, the skyscrapers, but we also need to build an underground infrastructure. The theory from the developed countries says the money you spend on the underground facilities should be equal to the amount of money you spend on buildings above the ground."

 

Recently, the city of Nanchang just completed five major drainage systems which cost two billion yuan or 313.2 million US dollars, a good example as one of the few cities in China which has focused on a drainage system.

 

For CRI, I'm Liu Min.

 

China's Private Jets with Licenses Can Do Low Flying after Approved

The Defense Ministry has issued new rules allowing Chinese private jets to fly in low altitude airspace.

 

All jets will still need to have the appropriate licenses.

 

Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Yang Yujun:

 

"On the question when small private aircraft can fly at low altitude airspace, I can tell you good news. In accordance with current laws and regulations, private aircrafts now can fly at low altitude airspace as long as the aircrafts and the operators have got the appropriate licenses after flight plans are approved."

 

The move is designed to try to make navigation flight services more convenient, efficient and safer.

 

Reforms of the low-altitude airspace management have been in the pipeline since 2010.

 

UK Olympic Protest

The opening ceremony of London 2012 Olympic Games has begun amid protest by taxi drivers in the British capital.

 

The protest over London's Olympic lanes have brought one of the city's busiest roundabouts to a complete standstill.

 

Dozens of police officers stood guard on Hyde Park Corner as the number of taxis slowly grew, until the entire junction stopped moving altogether.

 

Drivers were protesting the fact that London's tens of thousands of taxis have been forbidden from driving in the Olympic lanes set up to allow vehicles related to the Games to move more freely.

 

Cabbies say their exclusion from the lanes will mean they are not able to pick up passengers in many areas, and will end up stuck in traffic jams, both of which they say will significantly affect business.

 

George Vyse is one of the drivers.

 

"We've been trying, trying, endeavouring to get into the Olympic lanes, just to go to work. We're asking for no more money, we just want to go to work."

 

But after an hour or so, police officers formed a diagonal line across the road and funneled traffic out along Park Lane, away from the junction, which gradually returned to normal.

 

Newspaper Pick

 

1. Shanghai Daily

 

Two thirds of local residents did not visit museums or art galleries last year even when they were able to go free of charge, a survey said.

 

Urbanites' lack of free time and the distant location of some museums are the main factors affecting locals' visits to them, according to the survey issued by the Shanghai Statistics Bureau yesterday.

 

Parks and public green areas are the most popular venues for locals to have fun, followed by cinemas and theaters.

 

Museums are the third most favorite recreation venue for locals, according to the survey, based on telephone interviews of 1,000 residents aged 16 to 70.

Shanghai has about 120 museums and memorial halls and nearly 60 percent of them are open to the public at no cost.

 

Some museums that previously charged for entry have changed their policies to allow entry without admission, while others opened for free during set periods of time.

 

But nearly half of those interviewed had no idea of the free-entry policy.

 

In the survey, fewer than 30 percent people visited once or twice and 6 percent visited for three or four times.

 

The majority of people said they are interested in art, but they don't have time to visit museums, especially those in the city's outskirts.

 

Among the free museums, some are extremely popular, while some are seldom visited because of their remote location, unattractive content or lack of publicity.

 

The Shanghai Museum and Shanghai Art Museum in People's Square have had lots of people queuing outside since opening free to the public. Some children like to paint inside the museums and some residents come to enjoy the air conditioning in the scorching weather.

 

The organizers have to limit the number of visitors every day to protect the cultural relics.

 

By comparison, the Jinshan District Museum in the suburban area didn't have a great increase in the number of visitors after free entry began. Most of the visitors are nearby residents and students assigned by their school to go to the museum.

 

Location is not the only factor. The Shanghai Jiao Tong University History Museum, in downtown Xujiahui area, had few non-student visitors after the free entry as most people did not know of the university's free museums.

 

Some museum-goers complained that they visited less frequently after the museums opened for free.

 

An undergraduate student said he gave up visiting the museums a couple of times due to long time waiting in line.

 

A local white-collar worker said she never cared about entry fees and often visited the museum with her friends. But the increasing number of visitors after the free entry affects her mood and the visit.

 

2. Global Times

 

Huang Daocheng from Henan Province has made a tableau comprising a meal made from chalcedony he has collected on mountain walks over the past four years. Huang has been fascinated by stones since childhood and his "stone-made meal" involves more than 50 dishes.

 

Collecting an array stones has been Huang's dream since he was born in a village in Xinyang, Henan Province. In four years, Huang collected 10 tons of chalcedony from Dabie Mountain and hired engravers to help him craft his meal.

 

To realize his goal, Huang sold his house and spent his life savings on his goal. He also documented every step of the process on his laptop.

 

Although many of his family members and friends criticized him for chasing a fool's hobby, Huang enjoyed the process and believes it was his destiny to work with chalcedony.

 

Having achieved a degree of notoriety thanks to his stone-made meal, Huang said his next hope is to build a chalcedony museum in the nearby Dabie Mountain.

 

3. The Telegraph

 

A large log dug up in Cambodia has drawn thousands of visitors who believe it has healing powers and can predict winning lottery numbers.

 

Some 4,000 to 5,000 people have already been to see the 13-metre-long log (42 feet) that was discovered earlier this month when a family excavated a pond in western Pursat province.

 

Visitors were coming loaded with offerings such as pig heads and boiled whole chickens after some locals who touched the wood won money in the lottery.

 

A local chief said at least one hundred people a day visit the log to ask for lottery numbers and to cure their illnesses.

 

Cambodians are highly superstitious, particularly in the countryside where people continue to merge animist practices with Buddhism.

 

Some believers rubbed talcum powder onto the wood, hoping to see lucky lottery numbers, and others drank water from the pond and smeared nearby mud onto their bodies in a bid to cure their ailments.

 

4. Yahoo

 

A studio apartment is typically suited for one occupant. But Dylan Baumann has been forced to coexist with about 40 lodgers in his small living space in Omaha, Nebraska. Even worse, the new tenants are potentially deadly recluse spiders.

 

The brown recluse spiders are rare in Omaha but have been spotted with more regularity, particularly since the area experienced an unusually short winter, according to Dennis Ferraro, of the Douglas County Extension Office.

 

Ferraro said, "We virtually did not have a cold winter this winter, and the hotter temperatures that we're having would probably allow for more reproduction."

 

It was reported that while there are more than 40,000 known species of spiders, that number may be less than half of all the different types of spiders currently living around the world.

 

Still, even with the near-constant threat of venomous spider bites, Baumann has decided to stay in his apartment until his lease is up in September.

 

"It's mainly just learning to cope with them," he said. "Pushing your bed away from the wall, pulling out your bed skirt, making sure nothing is touching the walls, shaking off your clothes before you put them on, after you get out of the shower, shake out your towel, knock out your shoes at night. It's just kind of learning to not get bit."

 

Market Update

 

The U.S. stocks continued to rally on Friday amid mounting hopes that central banks in both Europe and the United States would soon step in to bolster the economy.

 

The Dow Jones industrial average rallied 1.5 percent to 13,076. The Standard & Poor's 500 surged 1.9 percent to 1,386. The Nasdaq Composite Index soared 2.2 percent to 2,958.

 

In Europe, London's FTSE 100 rose one percent to 5,627. Frankfurt's DAX gained 1.6 percent to 6,689. CAC 40 in Paris advanced 2.3 percent to 3,280.