China aims to restore most of its power lines before the Lunar New Year and reopened its airports even as more snow is forecast in the country's heaviest snowstorms in half a century.
The country needs to "ensure" the restoration of most electricity networks before the holiday, which starts on Wednesday, the National Development and Reform Commission said in a statement on its Web site yesterday. The worst affected are Hunan, Jiangxi and Guizhou provinces, which have only half their normal power capacity, it said.
More than two weeks of snow in central and southern China have brought transport networks to a standstill, killed at least 60 people and 15.8 million livestock and caused economic losses of at least 53.8 billion yuan (US$7.5 billion). The snow is forecast to continue until tomorrow after a temporary halt yesterday, Xinhua news agency said, citing the Central Meteorological Station.
"We have the faith, courage and ability to overcome the severe natural disaster," Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶), who was on board a train to disaster-hit central Hunan Province, was cited as saying by Xinhua.
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China has mobilized all its railway container trucks to ensure the transport of coal, Xinhua said yesterday, citing the Ministry of Railway. Coal shipments were increased to a record 42,200 trucks a day from Friday, it said. China relies on coal for 78 percent of its electricity.
By Thursday, domestic coal producers had total inventory of 34.7 million tonnes, 11.3 percent lower than the end of last year and down 1.8 percent from the same period a year earlier, Xinhua said, citing figures released by the State Administration of Work Safety (SAWS).
As much as 90 percent of key state-owned coal mines have been asked to continue production during the Lunar New Year holiday, it said, citing SAWS. Shenhua Group Corp (神華集團), China's biggest coal producer, could produce 20.2 million tonnes this month, higher than last month's 18 million tonnes, Xinhua said.
All airports were open yesterday, Xinhua said, citing the General Administration of Civil Aviation of China. On Saturday, the official news agency had said airports in Hangzhou and Ningbo were closed.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained