新闻纵贯线 The Beijing Hour updated 20:00 2015/02/12（打印版）

leaders from Ukraine, Russia, Germany, and France have reached an agreement to end the fighting in eastern Ukraine...

Chinese travelers have already taken nearly half-a-billion trips by road and rail during the first week of the Spring Festival travel rush...

and experts say lowered or eliminated GDP targets in Chinese provinces and cities will ultimately help strengthen the country's economy...

In Business...Chinese Foreign Direct Investment in Europe set a new record last year...

In Sports...the CBA team from Shanxi expresses regret, after players argue with opposition fans...

Beijing will be clear tonight with a low of minus 5. It will be sunny tomorrow, with a high of 9 degrees.

A deal aimed at ending the fighting in eastern Ukraine has been reached, following marathon talks in Belarus.

The leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France announced that a ceasefire will begin on Sunday.

The deal also involves the withdrawal of heavy weapons from the front line, but some issues remain to be settled.

For more about the Ukraine peace talk, CRI's Xu Qinduo spoke earlier with Sergiy Kudelia, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Baylor University.

Over 420 million Chinese passengers have traveled by road, and nearly 50 million others taken trains home during the first week of the Spring Festival travel rush.

Some cities have launched special trains for migrant workers, who make up about one-third of those home-bound passengers.

The city of Dalian has organized the first special train for migrant workers, with more than 1,000 passengers on board.

"Of course it was convenient. We did not have to buy the tickets by ourselves and got the tickets before our trips."

The city has helped workers from at least 300 companies order tickets to home since last December.

A two-day international seminar on China's 21st Century Maritime Silk Road Initiative opened Wednesday in Fujian Province.

Over 280 academics and experts from 30 countries attended the conference in Quanzhou city.

The event was themed "collectively building the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road and creating a community of common destiny".

"Maritime Silk Road enables countries along it to live together as a big family. It is a community of common destiny. Currently, the Maritime Silk Road has entered a new stage of pragmatic cooperation. We can step up collaboration to reach a win-win situation. We can also continue to bring prosperity and progress by jointly accomplishing programs and creating common interests."

Fujian Province is recognized worldwide as the starting point of the ancient maritime Silk Road.

He says that the Province has always been a pioneer of China's reform and opening-up and a close trading partner of Southeast Asian countries.

"Fujian will step up infrastructure construction to improve air, sea and land traffic. We will create a port clearance mechanism to facilitate the goods flow and personnel exchange. In the meantime, we will try to promote multiple trades and to advance maritime cooperation. It's crucial to accelerate the experimental process of Fujian Free Trade Area thus making contributions to the Road."

On the enterprise front, companies from countries along the Maritime Silk Road have high expectations.

Sun Zhiyong is vice general manager of China Huaneng Group, one of the country's State-owned enterprises to go global.

"We are willing to communicate and cooperation with the countries along the "Belt and Road" in order to aid business. Especially in the energy sector, we can cooperate in new projects, energy saving and environmental protection, technology innovation and personnel exchanges, among others. We believe in the future, we are able to develop more and more opportunities."

In 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping suggested that China and Central Asia join hands to build a Silk Road Economic Belt to boost cooperation.

Later, President Xi proposed the building of a more closely-knit China-ASEAN community following a common destiny and provided guidance for constructing a 21st Century Maritime Silk Road to promote maritime cooperation.

Chinese authorities are promoting changes to the economy and lower GDP growth rates as the "new normal" in this country.

Shanghai, an economic powerhouse on its own, has stopped issuing an annual GDP growth target while most provinces across the country have been lowering their forecasts.

CRI's Niu Honglin has more, with what some experts are saying about the ongoing changes.

A new report says 29 of 31 provincial regions on the mainland have lowered their GDP growth targets for 2015. Beijing, the capital region, has lowered its target to 7 percent, down from 7.5.

Li Yaoxin, Director of the Shanghai Economic and Information Commission, believes the changes, including Shanghai's elimination of GDP targets, will help to create a healthier economic growth pattern.

"Eliminating the GDP growth target is a "historical inevitability". We are now more concerned about the quality and structure of growth instead of just its quantity and efficiency. GDP should be used as one of the indicators of how well we did, and not be an overall target."

According to a report issued by the Shanghai government, its goal is to achieve a more stable, better structured, and high-quality economic growth pattern. At the same time, it's hoped a better-developed economy will also allow the government to further improve environmental protection.

Among the other 29 regions which have lowered their GDP targets, most have set a number at around seven percent.

Niu Li is the head of the Macroeconomic Study Department in China's State Information Center.

"We've reached consensus that the shifting from former high speed growth rate, such as the 9.8 percent increase that has been the average number of the past 35 years, to a slightly slower but stable growth rate, is indeed necessary. Even the exact number is not agreed on yet. I believe it should be between six to eight percent, around seven percent. Now we've reached seven percent."

China recorded a 7.4 percent GDP growth in 2014, the lowest in 24 years, and many provinces missed their targets.

In 2015, most provinces are facing major challenges such as overproduction, restructuring, and industrial transformation and updating. And Niu Li says eliminating old habits will take time.

"Even though we've talked a lot about the "new normal," when entering a new stage we still need time to accept new concepts and adjust to new practices."

Chinese Search and Rescue Center says the MH370 search operation has exposed many deficiencies of the China maritime search and rescue force.

The officials say China should further strengthen the nation's overall maritime search and rescue ability, including improvements to search equipment.

According to data from the Chinese Ministry of Transport, in 2014, the success rate of rescues within Chinese territorial waters was more than 96 percent.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop have met with Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari in Canberra.

al-Jaafari says Baghdad has not asked for ground forces as US president Barack Obama urges Congress to authorize military action against IS militants.

"The message that Iraq gave to the Security Council at the beginning of the conference never included a request for ground forces to enter Iraqi territory to conduct such operations."

"We have not sought to expand our role to include combat troops. We've not had that discussion. We have talked about opportunities to continue to train Iraqi defence forces in circumstances where that would be required."

Republicans, who control Congress, have swiftly resisted Obama's plan, and said Obama's foreign policy is too passive.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has called for reforms and security improvements in his annual policy speech.

"This year especially I would like to raise even further the flag of proactive contributions to peace to make Japan a country that is to be trusted and make this change appropriate, 70 years since the end of World War II."

Japan's pacifist constitution places restrictions on its military including a ban on its troops fighting overseas.

But Abe is trying to ease curbs on exercising the right of collective self-defence, which means providing military aid to allies that are under attack.

Abe's move refers to a reinterpretation of Japan's constitution, but any changes must be voted on to become law.

Debt talks between Greece and its creditors in the 19-country eurozone ended on Thursday without agreement before next week's follow-up meeting.

"It was fascinating. We had a very constructive and extensive discussion of all the facets of the Greek crisis and the way in which the Eurogroup can facilitate the transition to a new phase in the history of the Greek social economy, so that we overcome the debt inflationary crisis, the humanitarian crisis, and so on."

However, the creditor side appeared less optimistic when giving assessment of the talks.

Jeroen Dijsselbloem (yo-roon dastle-bloom) is the head of the Eurogroup of finance ministers.

"It was my ambition to agree on the steps to take (over) the next couple of days so we could spend them well and make more progress between now and Monday. Unfortunately, we've not been able to do that, so we will continue our talks on Monday and move on from there."

Greece's newly-elected Syriza government is seeking changes to the country's financial bailout which it blames in large part for the country's economic problems.

The Greek economy has shrunk around 25 percent over the past few years and poverty levels have swelled.

The Indonesian government will continue to communicate with the Australian government regarding plans to execute two Australian nationals.

Australia's foreign minister Julie Bishop has made a plea for mercy on the two Australian drug traffickers.

"The Australian government will continue to seek clemency for Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukamaran. We urge the Indonesian government to show the same mercy to Andrew and Myuran that it seeks for its citizens in the same situation abroad.."

Indonesian foreign minister Retno Marsudi has reacted to the plea at a press conference.

"This is not against a country, this is not against a national of a certain country, but this is against crime, against extraordinary crime."

The two Australians were arrested in 2005 for attempting to smuggle nearly 9 kilos of heroin to Australia from the tourist island of Bali.

Chinese stocks closed slightly higher on Thursday, with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index rising half a percent and the Shenzhen Component Index gaining a third of a percent. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index added almost half a percent.

Rumors have gone viral today claiming that China Telecom will merge with China Unicom, and China Mobile with Broadcast TV Network.

But the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and these companies all denied the merger plans amid market speculation that pushed their stocks higher.

China Unicom stocks surged more than 8 percent, and Broadcast TV Network gained more than 6 percent. China Telecom gained more than 2 percent on the Hong Kong exchange.

Chinese foreign direct investment into Europe hit a record 18 billion U.S. dollars last year, with food and agriculture the top draw.

Britain was the top European destination for Chinese FDI last year at 5 billion U.S. dollars, followed by Italy at 3.5 billion U.S. dollars.

Chinese FDI into Europe barely existed before 2004, and did not really take off until 2009.

Over the past decade, more than two-thirds of Chinese FDI has gone to countries that have emerged relatively unscathed from the eurozone debt crisis.

China and Australia are expected to sign a landmark free trade agreement in the second quarter of this year and implement it from the fourth quarter onwards.

Lachlan Crews, economic counselor of the Australian embassy in China says the two sides concluded FTA talks in November and are expected to sign an agreement after completing the legal review and translation of the text.

Under the FTA, Australia will eventually reduce tariffs to zero on all goods imported from China, and China will remove tariffs on the vast majority of Australian goods.

It will also include the opening-up of numerous service sectors, a simplified review procedure for investment, most-favored-nation treatment, favorable market access rules and market transparency.

Tariffs on infant formula will be eliminated in four years and that on milk powder in 11 years, to allow Chinese dairy producers enough time to manage potential growth of competing imports.

The U.S. Commerce Department has initiated anti-dumping and countervailing investigations against imports of certain uncoated paper from China and other countries.

The US complains that imported paper from China, Australia, Brazil, Indonesia, and Portugal were sold below fair value in the American market.

The investigation will define whether exporters from China and Indonesia received improper government subsidies.

The Chinese Ministry of Commerce is urging Washington to abide by its commitment against protectionism and help maintain a free, open and just international trade environment.

For more on the trade probes issue, we are joined live by Benjamin Cavender, Principal at China Market Research.

The number of electric-vehicle charging stations in Beijing will be doubled by the end of this year to encourage the use of new-energy vehicles.

Beijing currently has more than 1,400 public charging stations at nearly 200 sites, that means one charging station can be found within a five kilometer radius from anywhere in the city.

The charging stations are located at shopping malls, office buildings, parking lots, airports, highway service areas, and parks.

However, Beijing authorities are also calling for more private investment in charging facilities to help increase their numbers in the capital city.

Wanda recently bought a stake in the football club and announced it will open 200 stores at Wanda Plazas across the country to sell club merchandise.

But the two will also open soccer academies. Atletico will provide technical support and coaching expertise while Wanda will build the schools.

The academies will complement the Future Star youth program, a joint venture between Wanda and the Chinese Football Association to train kids at football schools in Spain.

Wanda will invest 20 million euros every year to support the development of 180 young Chinese players in Spain.

Baidu reported a lower-than-expected 48 percent rise in quarterly revenue as more users switched from PCs to mobile devices.

Baidu, a search engine, reported revenue of 14 billion yuan for the fourth quarter of last year, falling short of the average estimate.

In December, search revenue from mobile surpassed PC for the first time, which means less space for more lucrative forms of advertising.

A deal aimed at ending the fighting in eastern Ukraine has been reached, following marathon talks in Belarus.

The leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France announced that a ceasefire will begin on Sunday.

The deal also involves the withdrawal of heavy weapons from the front line, but some issues remain to be settled.

Authorities in Malaysia say more ships may join the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.

The country's Transport Minister says the government is in talks with China regarding the addition of more ships.

Currently, there are four vessels actively searching for the flight, which disappeared nearly a year ago while traveling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

No evidence of the plane has been found so far. All 239 people on the plane are presumed dead. More than half of them were Chinese.

The central government has approved a feasibility plan involving construction of a domestic regional airport in the city of Suifenhe in Heilongjiang Province.

The facility would include a 25-hundred meter runway and a 45-hundred square-foot terminal. The design would be able to handle up to 450-thousand passengers and 36-hundred tonnes of cargo annually by 2025.

80 percent of the province's trade with Russia passes through Suifenhe. In 2013, the central government approved the use of the Ruble in that city, on a trial basis alongside the Renminbi.

An expansion of the Suifenhe land port is also underway, which will significantly increase passenger and cargo handling capacities upon completion.

Su Tseng-chang, former chairman of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party, has announced that he will not run in the Taiwan leadership election in 2016.

The 67-year-old was the island's vice leader candidate representing the DPP in 2008, running with Frank Hsieh, but lost the campaign to Kuomintang's duo of Ma Ying-jeou and Vincent Siew, ending DPP's eight-year rule by Chen Shui-bian.

A former head of the island's executive body, Su lost an inner-DPP nomination for the Taiwan leadership election to Tsai Ing-wen in 2012. Tsai, however, failed to unseat incumbent Ma in her first leadership campaign that year.

One week ahead of Spring Festival, China's firework companies are feeling the heavy pressure as they face a stagnant market going into their busiest sales period, with demand shrinking amid bans on firework displays.

Setting off fireworks during the Lunar New Year is an age-old tradition in China and is used to bring a festive atmosphere during the country's most important holiday.

However, fireworks have been increasingly blamed for contributing to the country's smog problem, pushing local governments to implement measures forbidding or limiting firework displays.

A total of 138 cities have introduced bans and 536 cities have issued restrictions so far.

In Beijing, the official period to sell fireworks has been shortened from 20 to 11 days this year. The number of licensed retail outlets was down by 20 percent year on year to 942.

Art lovers, football fans and revelers heading to parties are among those who find themselves increasingly unwelcome in several countries if they use selfie sticks to take photos.

Also known as monopods, selfie sticks are hand-held, extendable poles that can be attached to smartphones or cameras and help users take pictures of themselves.

Regarded as the hottest selling item in the United States over the Christmas holiday, several museums in New York City have pulled the plug over fears that the lengthy tools might damage art.

In Singapore, dance club Zouk banned selfie sticks at its music festival ZoukOut. Partygoers had to deposit the implements in lockers before entering the festival venue.

South Korea has also launched a crackdown. Anyone selling unregistered versions of selfie sticks could face a 32-thousand USD fine or up to three years in prison.

Selfie sticks are already banned in stadiums during English Premier League matches as they could be used as weapons or compromise public safety.

British parliament has approved regulations which will make smoking in cars become illegal when carrying children.

The new rules are expected to come into force on Oct. 1 and people who violate those rules will be fined 50 pounds or about 76 U.S. dollars.

Public Health England will launch campaigns to raise awareness of the new legislation and the dangers that secondhand smoke in homes and cars can cause to children's health.

It says the regulations would become part of the existing smokefree laws and would make it an offence to smoke or to fail to prevent smoking in a private vehicle with someone under the age of 18 present.

Each year about 80-thousand people in England are killed by tobacco use, which is one of the most significant challenges to public health.

In Britain, smokefree laws have covered public transport, public places and work vehicles.

A Montana legislative panel moved to kill an indecent exposure bill after the lawmaker who introduced it said he thinks yoga pants should be illegal.

Members of the House Judiciary Committee voted unanimously to table House Bill 365, which Rep. David Moore introduced Tuesday.

The proposal would have expanded the definition of indecent exposure to include garments that give the appearance of a person's buttocks, genitals or pelvis.

The Republican from Missoula said he wouldn't have a problem with people being arrested for wearing such provocative clothing such as tight-fitting beige garments. Moore also said yoga pants should be illegal.

Although members of the committee giggled about the bill, no discussion was allowed before a voice vote to table it.

Currently, a person convicted of indecent exposure three times in Montana can be sentenced to life in jail and up to 10,000 US dollars.

Rising tourist market cries for better performance of China airlines: industry insiders

A new survey conducted by travel information firm Travelsky and English.China.com is suggesting expats planning to travel around China remain concerned about the quality of service on domestic airlines to the point where it may affect where they decide to travel.

Leading Chinese aviation and tourism information provider TravelSky used the analysis method of big data in this survey.

In the survey, several second-tiered Chinese cities, including Urumqi, Xiamen and Qingdao are among the most popular tourist destinations.

"Harbin in this weather is very interesting, and I like Kashgar, very interesting, nice carpets, good food."

"This Chinese new year I'll travel around the south of China. I would like to go to Xiamen. I would like to go to Guilin and the area of Sichuan."

However, at the same time, the TravelSky survey is also suggesting the passenger satisfaction for domestic carriers remains not optimistic.

Aviation expert Zhang Jing says the experience of air travel is one of the elements that will have a direct impact on tourists' decision process.

"Most of China's tourist cities are under heavy influence of seasonal factors, which means season will be the top consideration for foreign tourists. Besides, the on-time performance of carriers, on-flight service and ground transit will also have an impact on air travelers."

Apart from flight delays, passengers and industry insiders say on-plane service is another thing that Chinese carriers should pay extra attention.

"I work for Air Canada, so I always choose Air Canada. A friend I work with also travels with Air China and other airlines. He says the service of Air Canada is above China's airline service."

"We encourage competition among carriers in order for them to improve safety and service standards to meet the diversified needs."

Industry insiders say with the demand of domestic air travel rising, China's airlines still have a lot of things to do to better explore the market.

Shanxi has expressed regrets in its official microblog over a clash involving players and some fans of Qingdao.

The clash happened right after Qingdao closed the series against Shanxi in 3-0 sweep after winning their second home match 108-96 last night. Qingdao earned a spot in the semi-finals with that victory.

Many Qingdao fans even gathered around the Shanxi teams' vehicle, which made the Shanxi players cancel their press conference after the match due to security concerns.

In actions tonight, Guangdong is taking on Dongguan, which is game 4 in the best-of-five series.

Tiger Woods has announced he will take leave from the PGA Tour and only return when he thinks he is ready.

Woods made the announcement on his website yesterday after a run of poor performances, including shooting an 11-over-par 82 in the second round of the Phoenix Open. That round, in January, was the worst of his professional career.

In his statement, Woods said his play and scores are not acceptable for tournament golf and he needs a lot of work on his game.

Woods wanted to compete in The Honda Classic near his hometown in Florida in two weeks, but he added he won't be there unless the game is tournament-ready.

International Cricket Council chief executive Dave Richardson has expressed his confidence that this year's Cricket World Cup following moves to prevent match fixing.

"I think the preparations that our anti-corruption unit have put in to this tournament far exceed previous tournaments. That's mainly due to the increase in the intelligence, they call it, the information that they have got at the finger tips. They have got a far better idea of who these people are that travel the world, trying to influence players, umpires, curators, whoever, to try and get some sort of benefit on the betting side. "

He also added that the security around teams and officials would make it very hard for them to be approached by fixers.

A late strike has snatched a 1-0 home win for Chelsea over a stubborn Everton side to maintain Chelsea's seven-point lead over Manchester City. Man City beat Stoke 4-1 in recent Premier League action.

City kept pace with the leaders as striker Sergio Aguero scored twice to help the champions to their first league win in five matches at mid-table Stoke, who briefly made it 1-1 through Peter Crouch.

According to his friends, Wu has been preparing for the proposal for weeks in order to give his girlfriend a surprise.

The team won the second place in 2014 Chinese FA Cup and was the champion in the 2013 Chinese FA Super Cup.

There's been an upset at the World Indoor Tennis Tournament as Bulgarian fifth seed Grigor Dimitrov has been knocked out by unseeded Gilles Muller of Luxembourg during second round action in the Netherlands.

Dimitrov, who had to save two match points before beating unseeded qualifier Paul-Henri Mathieu in the first round on Monday, started badly against Muller, dropping his opening two service games before losing the set 6-2 in just 24 minutes.

There are reports that top Russian tennis players Maria Sharapova and Gregor Dimitrov will get engaged on Valentine's Day, which falls on Saturday.

Director Jiang Wen attended the premiere of his film Gone with the Bullets yesterday at the Berlin Film Festival.

"It's been 20 years since I have been at the Berlin Film Festival. If we include this one it's the fourth time that I am involved in a film that is in the festival, either as director or as actor. The last time was 20 years ago and time before that was 1991 so it's been a while,"

Gone with the Bullets is screening in competition as part of the festival. The film has earned over 81 million dollars in China since its release last December. It's the follow up to the successful movie Let the Bullets Fly.

The actress now turned producer attended the press conference for the film A Journey, Through Time, With Anthony. She told the members of the press that it was the first time she was promoting a film as a producer and she finds it very nerve-wracking.

The movie is adapted from Ma Liang's bestselling novel and stars supermodel Liu Chang as the title role Anthony – a character based off the author who rose to fame in the fashion world at the 2012 London Fashion Week.

When asked why she did not choose her husband, Hollywood actor Archie Kao, to play the lead instead, Zhou stated that she would always keep her personal life and professional life separate.

Zhou Xun has won many awards for her acting including best actress for her role in Peter Chan's musical film Perhaps Love.

The three film adaptations of JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit book have collectively reached a box office figure of almost three billion dollars worldwide.

The trilogy which cost around 765 million dollars to make has been successful despite mixed reviews from both fans and critics.

The first film took just over one billion dollars worldwide making it only the 15th film in history to exceed one billion dollars globally.

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies has performed well in China taking a total of 114 million dollars in just seventeen days however was bumped into second place at the Chinese box office last week by the new Running Man film.

Sony Pictures are said to be seeking a much younger actor to replace Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man.

According to reports from Variety, Sony are considering Dylan O'Brien and Logan Lerman for the role.

Andrew Garfield who has played Spider-Man for two films is expected to leave the franchise following a new deal with Marvel Studios that will see a character appear in its upcoming movies.

The choice of who is to play Spider-Man needs to be made quickly as it's thought that the character could appear in Marvel's Captain America: Civil War which should be released next year.

JJ Abrams is apparently considering releasing heavily anticipated Star Wars: The Force Awakens this summer.

According to site Movie Pilot, the director is losing patience with the constant stream of plot and image leaks from the set. He apparently believes that moving the release date forward will help stop the leaks from ruining the film before fans see it.

Abrams is reported to have made these comments at the 2015 Visual Effects Society Awards earlier this month where he picked up the VES Visionary Award.

Last week Disney started the crack down on anyone illegally leaking content from the upcoming film requesting that a judge issue a subpoena to a website called ImageShack. The site was hosting a blurred image of a sith lord clutching a red lightsaber said to be a leaked still from the film.

新闻纵贯线 The Beijing Hour updated 20:00 2015/02/12（在线收听）