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Reeling from one of the worst droughts in a century, Gao Dekun and his wife have nothing left to harvest from their farmland in the hills of Southwest China\’s Yunnan province.

Gao, 48, a resident of Shiyang village in Zhangyi county, is now busy preparing a rice paddy to cultivate seedlings in order to ensure his family has food to eat.

A girl in Panxian county, Guizhou province, picks up stalks of withered wheat that had been reaped by her parents on Sunday. [China Daily]  
"I\’ve not seen a single drop of rain since last summer. I have lost all my crops," he said.

"Now I have to cultivate seeds on the only paddy field we have for the sowing season around mid-May, hoping there will be rain by then."

When and if it rains, the seedlings will be transplanted to the farmland.

"This way, I may recover part of my losses," he said.

"But if the drought continues, I will have nothing to harvest all year round and will try to make a living as a migrant worker."

Millions of other farmers in Yunnan province are as worried as Gao, because the severe drought has erased their summer harvest for wheat, leguminous plants and threatened the upcoming spring plowing season.

Local authorities are well aware of the farmers\’ plight.

If the situation worsens, one alternative the authorities have planned is to help farmers get jobs outside their areas as migrant workers, said Gao Shihua, head of Qujing city\’s agriculture bureau.

His bureau will offer free vocational training to 200,000 farmers in the hope that at least half of them will be able to find jobs.

The dry spell, which hit Qujing, a leading grain producer in Yunnan and a production base for growing and processing quality tobacco for the country, last July, has left nothing to harvest in 99 percent of its farmland, affecting more than half of its 6.16 million residents.

More than 1.3 million people are short of drinking water, said Rao Wei, vice-mayor of Qujing.

"Worst of all, the dry spell could go on for another 60 days, according to weather forecasts. We have to prepare for the worst and prevent further havoc for our people and local economy, particularly farming," he said.

The authorities and residents are taking measures to brace themselves for a prolonged dry spell by consolidating their existing water conservation projects with some new ones.

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Hong Kong Post announced Monday that postal remittance service to Canada will cease with effect from April 1.

A spokesperson of the Hong Kong Post told Xinhua that the cessation, which is made in accordance with a request by the Canada Post, will last unless there is new arrangement by the Canadian side.

Such service to other countries and regions remain unchanged.

Source: Xinhua

Chinese Minister of Education Yuan Guiren on Monday called for concerted efforts to ensure safety in primary and high schools, after Tuesday\’s school knife attack that left eight children dead and shocked the country.

"There is no education if we cannot protect the lives of students," Yuan said at an event in Beijing to mark a national day of safety awareness among schoolchildren.

He urged education authorities across the country to make school safety a priority and to work with schools, police and other government agencies to ensure safety both on and around campuses.

Yuan also called on authorities to remain alert against potential safety risks and resolutely work to avoid serious and major security incidents.

A man stabbed eight children to death and wounded another five outside the gate of the Nanping Experimental Elementary School in east China\’s Fujian Province on Tuesday. Former community doctor Zheng Minsheng, 41, has been charged with murder in connection with the attack.

Source: Xinhua

Two miners were rescued alive Tuesday morning after being trapped for eight days since March 22 in a flooded coal mine in central China\’s Henan Province, local authorities said.

Source: Xinhua

Xiao Shihong (in brown jacket) and Luo Jiangxia console each other on Tuesday as they wait outside the Wangjialing Coal Mine where both their husbands are trapped. Yang Shizhong / China Daily
Managers are accused of ignoring flood warnings ahead of Shanxi disaster. Hu Yinan reports from Xiangning.

At 1:40 pm on Sunday, Xiao Shihong\’s world collapsed. That was the time her husband Wang Jiming and two brothers-in-law were killed in what could well be remembered as China\’s deadliest mine accident in years.

Floods trapped at least 153 workers underground at the State-owned Wangjialing Coal Mine in Xiangning county, Shanxi province, while another 138 managed to escape, according to officials. Those figures came from a logbook in the mine\’s monitoring room, although checking in is not a habit for many workers, said employees of China National Coal Group Corp (ChinaCoal), which has a 50-percent stake in the mine.

Xiao, 38, was not even aware of the tragedy until Monday. Even as she rushed to the scene from Gujiao – the scene of a gas blast at a coal mine in Shanxi last year that killed 78 – she knew there was little hope.

"My husband is dead I don\’t need them to tell me that," she said.

Authorities have blamed the disaster on workers digging a hole in an abandoned pit filled with water. As of Tuesday night, some 60 hours after the flood, more than 1,000 rescuers from Shanxi and neighboring Henan province were installing machines to pump out water from the underground shafts. Trucks carrying pumping machines from around the region lined the narrow mountain roads to the mine.

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After a series of blasts in Moscow\’s subway, Beijing will comprehensively strengthen patrols on rail transit stations and prioritize the deployment of its patrol personnel at subway entrances, halls and security checkpoints in order to improve the subway security through cooperation with Beijing Subway Company, announced the Public Transportation Security Department under the Beijing Public Security Bureau on March 30

On the early morning of March 30, not only were all of the police dogs from the Public Transportation Security Department on patrol at each subway station, but the department also transferred police dogs from relevant departments to reinforce the patrol and intensify the subway security checks as much as possible.

The police said that to fully ensure Beijing\’s public traffic security, it will increase the number of police dogs to further step up the patrols. Meanwhile, police officers will strengthen the investigations into suspicious persons found during the patrol and further perfect the emergency response plan.

Except at subway stations, safety checks will be conducted at bus and streetcar stops in line with the principle of questioning all bag carriers and checking large bags, according to Beijing\’s traffic administrative department.

As for rail transportation, safety checks will be conducted in line with the principle of checking all bags and liquids. At long-distance bus stations, every passenger and piece of luggage to and from Beijing shall be checked. At the same time, safety checks will become a routine at subway stations.

The police hope that all passengers will receive safety checks under their own initiative and report suspicious people and items to the police at 64011327. The telephone number for the Public transportation division under the Beijing municipal public security bureau is 13911991234.

By People\’s Daily Online

Members of the crew of the flight from Taiyuan to Taiwan pose for a group photo before leaving for Taiwan at Taiyuan Wusu Airport in Taiyuan, north China\’s Shanxi Province, on Feb. 10, 2010. The first direct flight from Taiyuan to Taiwan, carrying 130 tourists, took off in Taiyuan on Wednesday morning. Taiyuan, Changchun, Nanning and Yantai have been added as regular cross-Strait terminals in the mainland, bringing the total number of mainland terminals to 31. (Xinhua/Yan Yan)
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Chinese President Hu Jintao will attend the Nuclear Security Summit on April 12-13 in Washington, and the second summit of BRIC nations — Brazil, Russia, India and China — in Brasilia on April 14-17, Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said Thursday.

It will be the beginning of China\’s new round of summit diplomacy. It is widely expected China, as a major developing nation, will play important roles in the summits and join the international community in meeting global challenges.

CHINA\’S VOICE INDISPENSABLE AT NUCLEAR SECURITY SUMMIT

The Nuclear Security Summit will be an important multilateral meeting with an agenda covering nuclear disarmament, peaceful use of nuclear energy, nuclear material protection and the fight against smuggling of nuclear materials.

The fact that leaders and representatives from more than 40 countries will take part in the conference indicates strong international support for a multilateral solution.

"As a fast-rising major state, China\’s voice will undoubtedly draw the attention of the world," said Fu Mengzi, a scholar on U.S. issues with the China Institue of Contemporary International Relations.

Niu Xinchun, another scholar from the institute, stressed the importance of cooperation between China and the United States.

"China and the United States are both in legitimate pessession of nuclear weapons and material. In the globalization era, nuclear security is a significant topic involving the whole world, and the importance of the two countries\’ relevant cooperation seems self-evident," Niu said.

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With China\’s traditional holiday for honoring the dead falling on Monday, throngs of people jostle along the 2-km road in Liudaokou village, Tianjin Municipality, where more than 100 wholesale funeral supply shops compete for business.

"This urn is 170 yuan (24.9 U.S. dollars) wholesale, 1,000 yuan retail here. A retailer can sell it for 5,000 yuan in the city," says saleswoman Li Na, pointing at a plain red wood urn inscribed with two Chinese characters "bai fu", or a hundred blessings.

"It\’s easy money," says Li. "Take urns for example, no one wants to bargain for a container of his father, mother or whoever\’s ashes."

In a country where about 10 million people die every year, the funeral industry market is worth tens of billions yuan, says Hao Maishou, a researcher with Tianjin Academy of Social Sciences.

However, a lack of market standards and management is allowing unscrupulous business people to monopolize areas of the industry and exploit people\’s grief, Hao adds.

URN PRICES

In another shop, tags claim that the urns, priced from 200 to 600 yuan, are made of rare and precious ebony or redwood, a claim that invites questions.

Li says, "Of course they are not made of ebony or redwood, or they would not be so inexpensive, but if the urns were finely made and tagged with high prices, customers wouldn\’t doubt it."

Wang Na, owner of Lingzhitang funeral supply shop, teaches a novice retailer to sell a 200-yuan urn for 5,000 yuan. "Say it\’s ebony, rosewood, redwood or whatever precious material and quote high. Customers like premium urns. They won\’t buy cheap ones."

Elaborate funeral remains a traditional culture of the Chinese, as nobody wants to be regarded as stingy or unfilial on funeral issues, especially for deceased family members, says a Tianjin businessman involved in funeral service, who only identifies himself as Liu.

"As long as you understand and utilize such a feeling, you are guaranteed to make a pile," Liu says.

At an urban Tianjin funeral home, a government-run facility that provides cremation and funeral services, an "ebony" urn bearing the traditional painting, Riverside Scene on Tomb-sweeping Day, sells for 12,800 yuan while the same urn costs only 1,100 yuan in Liudaokou.

A plain-looking urn inscribed "Always remembered" in Chinese characters is priced at 10,000 yuan. Urns of the same inscription, materials and shape sell for 180 yuan in Liudaokou.

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Five people died and another was injured when a truck overturned and crushed a car in southwest China\’s Yunnan Province, police said Sunday.

The truck rolled on to car carrying six people on a highway in Jianchuan County at about 10 p.m. Saturday. Five people in the car were found dead when rescuers cut open the wreckage.

The truck driver was slightly injured, said a county traffic police spokesman.

The identities of the victims were not yet available.

Police were investigating the cause of the accident.

Source:Xinhua