Education Chief Replaced

Yuan Guiren (above), a philosophy professor, has replaced Zhou Ji as China's minister of education. The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, the country's top legislature, made the appointment on October 31.

Yuan, 59, has spent his whole career in education. He began teaching at a middle school in his hometown, Guzhen County in

Anhui Province, at age 19. After graduating from Beijing Normal University in 1984 with a master's degree, he worked at the school and rose to be its president in 1999. Since 2001, Yuan had served as a vice minister of education.

Zhou, who assumed the post of minister of education in 2003, was declared deputy Party chief of the Chinese Academy of Engineering on November 2.

A 63-year-old computer scientist, Zhou received his doctorate from the University of Buffalo in the United States in 1984. He became president of Huazhong University of Science and Technology located in Wuhan, Hubei Province, in 1997 and was elected to the board of the Chinese Academy of Engineering in 1999.

Graft Investigator

Chen Lianfu, a veteran prosecuting attorney, has been named director general of the General Administration for Combating Embezzlement and Bribery under the Supreme People's Procuratorate.

Chen, 56, was director general of the Prosecutorial Department for Dereliction of Duty and Infringement of Citizens' Rights under the Supreme People's Procuratorate before taking over the country's top anti-graft body.

Sources with the Supreme People's Procuratorate attributed Chen's appointment partly to his rich experience in investigating power-for-money deals. Chen oversaw the department for combating embezzlement and bribery under the Jilin Provincial People's Procuratorate when he served as deputy procuratorial chief of the northeastern province years ago.

The General Administration for Combating Embezzlement and Bribery under the Supreme People's Procuratorate was established in 1995. Chen is its fourth director general.

Crime Boss Gets Jail

Xie Caiping, the only female gang leader to be apprehended in the southwest Chinese city of Chongqing's recent crackdown on organized crime, was sentenced to 18 years in prison on November 3. She was also fined 1.02 million yuan ($149,430) by the No.5 Intermediate People's Court of Chongqing.

Xie was convicted of organizing and leading a criminal organization, running gambling dens, illegal imprisonment, harboring people taking illegal narcotics and giving bribes to officials. Since September 2004, her gang had made 2 million yuan ($293,000) in illegal earnings by running more than 10 gambling dens and harboring those who took drugs, the court heard.

Xie, a former tax official, is the sister-in-law of Wen Qiang, the highest-ranking official to be arrested in the anti-gang campaign. Wen was deputy director of the Chongqing Municipal Bureau of Public Security and director of the city's Bureau of Justice. Xie was found to have taken advantage of Wen's power and manipulated other police officers to cover up her illegal business.

"It is physically impossible under any scenario to complete every detail of a treaty in Copenhagen."

Yvo de Boer, top UN climate official, on the possibility of concluding a comprehensive treaty to stop climate change in Denmark next month

"In addition to the recovering exports, China's imports are also on the rise, contributing significantly to the recovery of the world economy."

Chen Deming, Chinese Minister of Commerce

"China's economy is for real. It's time for the rest of the world to stop waiting for it to halt or collapse and start preparing for it to grow more rapidly and more robustly than any country has in quite some time."

Zachary Karabell, President of River Twice Research, in his commentary "China's Growth Is Real," published on Forbes magazine's website on October 26

"The new president must move swiftly to form a government that is able to command the support of both the Afghan people and the international community."

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, after Hamid Karzai was declared the winner of Afghanistan's presidential election on November 2

"Force should never be used unless every other option has been exhausted, and only then within the bounds of international law."

Mohamed ElBaradei, outgoing Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, warning other countries not to "jump the gun" or be swayed by politics in dealing with the Iranian nuclear issue, in a speech at the UN General Assembly on November 2

"The negotiations are in a state of paralysis, and the result of Israel's intransigence and America's backpedaling is that there is no hope of negotiations on the horizon."

Nabil Abu Rdainah, spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged resumption of Palestinian-Israeli talks during her recent Middle East visit, despite Palestinian insistence that Israel freeze its West Bank settlement expansion first