GAO JIE

Huang Qifan (left) was appointed as acting mayor of Chongqing, southwest China's largest city and a rapidly growing business center.

The Standing Committee of the Third Municipal People's Congress of Chongqing made the appointment at its 14th session on December 3 when former Mayor Wang Hongju submitted his resignation.

The 57-year-old Huang is well known for his financial expertise. He was

LI MINGFANG

appointed as vice mayor of Chongqing in 2001 after having worked in Shanghai, China's largest business hub, for more than 20 years. During his tenure, Huang devised Chongqing's economic development program and orchestrated restructuring of local state-owned enterprises and financial institutions.

A Chongqing native, the 64-year-old Wang had served as Chongqing mayor since January 2003. He said he had quit because he was near the compulsory retirement age of 65.

Star Scientist

YANG ZONGYOU

Deng Zhonghan, a U.S.-educated chip scientist, has made history as the youngest academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE), the country's national academy for engineering.

CAE announced the addition of 48 scientists, including 41-year-old Deng, as its academicians on December 2.

Deng is chairman of the board and chief executive officer of NASDAQ-listed Vimicro International Corp., which he founded in Beijing in 1999 after returning to China from the Silicon Valley. The company is now the largest multimedia semiconductor technology company in China.

Before founding Vimicro, Deng, who received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of California at Berkeley, was a research scientist for IBM at the T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York.

Deng has received numerous awards for his achievements, including the National First Class Award for Science and Technology in 2005.

CAE academician is China's highest national academic title in engineering science and technology, and is a lifelong honor. The academy now has 756 academicians.

Dirty Trader Executed

Yang Yanming, the first securities trader in China to receive a death

(CFP)

penalty for embezzlement, was executed in Beijing on December 8.

Yang, 51, was sentenced to death on December 13, 2005, by the No.1 Intermediate People's Court of Beijing in a first-instance trial. He was convicted of embezzling and misappropriating 94.52 million yuan ($13.84 million) of public funds from 1998 to 2003 when he served as general manager of the Beijing trading business department of the China Great Wall Trust and Investment Corp. (now Galaxy Securities Co. Ltd.). He used the public funds for personal benefits, including starting up a private company, purchasing real estate and investing in futures business, said the final court ruling.

Yang has kept silent on the whereabouts of the misused funds, according to the ruling.

The Higher People's Court of Beijing ruled against Yang's appeal and upheld the death penalty on April 21. The Supreme People's Court approved it after reviewing the case.