FRIENDLY GREETINGS Chinese navy sailors aboard the Zhoushan missile frigate say hello via light signals to Saudi Arabia's Abha missile frigate on the Gulf of Aden on August 4. Two frigates and a supply ship from the Chinese navy are on an escort mission to deter Somali pirates (GUO GANG)

Plots Broken up

Police forces and state security agencies have thwarted five organized terrorist attacks on civilians in China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, a spokesman for Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Regional Government announced on August 3.

Separatist "East Turkistan" terrorists both at home and abroad had been plotting attacks against civilians since the July 5 riot that left 197 dead and more than 1,600 injured in Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang.

The five terrorist plots were planned to take place in the Xinjiang cities of Urumqi, Kashgar, Aksu and Ili.

Antiterrorism agencies had captured "a group of suspects involved in the terrorist activities" and confiscated "guns, knives, explosives and materials advocating violence and terrorism."

Water Pollution

Chifeng City's chief public utilities official in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region was fired on August 4 over a tap water pollution incident that has sickened more than 4,000 residents since July 25.

The Chifeng Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) held a meeting on August 4 to remove the official, Guo Mingda, as the Party chief of the municipal construction commission that is in charge of the construction and management of public utilities. The CPC municipal committee also proposed the removal of Guo as the director of the construction commission.

Local residents have complained of fever, diarrhea, stomach ache and vomiting after drinking tap water and they sought medication for gastrointestinal illnesses after the tap water supply was contaminated by rainfall on July 23.

The well that was contaminated provides tap water for a 17-square-km area that has a population of 58,000 people.

Plague Under Control

China's actions in northwestern Qinghai Province to control the pneumonic plague, which broke out on July 30, have been effective and the disease is unlikely to spread from the center of the epidemic, experts from the Ministry of Health said on August 5.

Health authorities in Qinghai promptly uncovered the chain of disease transmission, which is the key to effective control, said Liang Wannian, Deputy Director of the Emergency Office of the Ministry of Health in Qinghai.

The local government has sealed off 3,500 square km around Ziketan Township and established 23 quarantine stations that are working around the clock.

No other infections were found after the 12 patients in Ziketan who were quarantined on July 31. Three had died and one was in critical condition as of the evening of August 4.

Flooding Warning

The Chinese Government issued an alert on August 5 and urged stepped-up efforts to fight what is expected to be the worst flooding in the upper and middle reaches of the Yangtze River since August 2004.

Continuous heavy rainfall in the region has caused recent flooding.

The maximum water inflow into the Three Gorges Dam would be 56,000 cubic meters a second, the Office of State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters (SFDH) warned. The Three Gorges Dam is capable of reducing floodwaters by between 27,000 and 33,000 cubic meters a second.

The SFDH ordered the Danjiangkou Dam, located at the junction of the Hanjiang and Danjiang rivers, the two main tributaries of the Yangtze River, to open one of its sluices on August for the first time this year to ease flooding.