General Seeks Asia-Pacific Dialogue

Lieutenant General Ma Xiaotian, Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA), reiterated China's call for denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula at the recent Asian Security Summit.

Speaking at the meeting, Ma also suggested that multilateral dialogue and security cooperation mechanisms at different levels and in different fields be encouraged in the Asia-Pacific region. He said it is here where traditional and non-traditional security threats are interwoven, leading to a more complex regional security situation.

The London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies sponsors the Asian Security Summit, also known as the Shangri-La Dialogue. Government officials, military leaders and security experts from 27 countries and regions attended this year's session on May 29-31 to discuss regional security issues and defense cooperation.

Vice-ministerial Chinese officials began to attend the Asian Security Summit in 2007. Ma, 60, who was appointed as deputy chief of general staff of the PLA in 2007, also headed the Chinese delegation to the meeting last year.

Three-time world figure skating champions Shen Xue (left) and Zhao Hongbo are planning a comeback after two years in retirement, hoping to win a gold medal at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games in Canada next February.

According to Zhao, the pair are back in shape after they began training in Beijing in early May. Their names are among entries for the China and U.S. legs of the ISU (International Skating Union) Grand Prix of Figure Skating 2009/10 season due in October and November.

Shen, 31, and Zhao, 36, are the first world champion figure skating pair from China. Before they retired in 2007, they won three world championship titles and five grand prix finals. But the duo's bid for an Olympic gold medal failed in three attempts, despite two bronze medals in 2002 and 2006.

Bank Chief's Banning Denied

Jin Weihong, former President of Beijing Rural Commercial Bank (BRCB), had not been banned from the banking industry, the Beijing Banking Regulatory Administration said on May 31.

The denial came after a Beijing-based business weekly, Economic Observer, alleged that Jin and his deputy Jiang Chao were recipients of the country's first lifetime working ban on bank executives for dereliction of duty. But regulatory officials said that they had not decided on the final punishments to be imposed on Jin and Jiang.

Jin is inaugural president of BRCB, which was incorporated in 2005. Earlier this year, the bank was found to be duped out of 460 million yuan ($66 million) by a local company, with verified losses topping 100 million yuan ($14.3 million). Jin, who was removed from the bank's presidency in April, was accused of being responsible for BRCB's failure to establish an effective operational risk control system.

According to state regulations, bank executives will be barred from the industry for either committing crimes or being held accountable for negligence.

"A greater role for China is necessary for China, for the effectiveness of the international financial institutions themselves, and for the world economy."

Visiting U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, in a speech titled "The United States and China, Cooperating for Recovery and Growth" at Peking University on June 1

"The West will have to start to get to grips with the fact that we are no longer dominant and cannot expect to have things our own way."

Douglas McWilliams, Chief Executive Officer of the London-based Center for Economics and Business Research Ltd., when the institution released its research results showing that theeconomic output of the United States, Canada and Europe will account for less than 50 percent of the world total in 2009

"It is clear to me that as a continent Africa has needs that managing climate change and the environment have to speak to."

Buyelwa Sonjica, South African Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs. African environment ministers agreed to mainstream climate change adaptation measures into national and regional development plans, policies and strategies at a special session of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment in Kenya on May 29

"Cancer comes from our own cells. And so it's more like guerrilla warfare--the immune system has trouble distinguishing the normal cells from the cancer cells."

Dr. Patrick Hwu, melanoma chief at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. U.S. doctors revealed at a cancer conference on May 31 that they have overcome 30 years of false starts and found success with using the human immune system in treating cancer