Deputy Central Banker

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Du Jinfu, a former assistant to the governor of the People's Bank of China (PBC), China's central bank, has been appointed the bank's vice governor.

Du, 55, joined the central bank in 1992 as head of research at the PBC's Inner Mongolia branch. He was promoted to assistant governor in June 2006, after heading the central bank's statistics and personnel departments. He received a PhD in economics from the Graduate School of the PBC in 1992, majoring in money and banking.

The State Council also announced on June 18 it was removing PBC vice governors Su Ning and Zhu Min from office.

Su, 63, began to serve as vice governor of the PBC in November 2003. He may be appointed chairman of the China UnionPay Data Co., operator of the country's bankcard payment network, Caijing magazine reported on May 19, citing anonymous sources.

Zhu, 58, became PBC vice governor in October 2009. He was named as a special advisor to the managing director of the International Monetary Fund in February.

World Nursing Chief

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Eric Chan Lu-sek joined the World Health Organization (WHO) in Switzerland on June 21 as its chief scientist in nursing and midwifery. He is the second medical expert from Hong Kong to take up a senior post at the UN body to help improve international public health. Margaret Chan Fung Fu-chun from Hong Kong is the incumbent WHO director general.

Chan worked in Australia between 1978 and 1993 in frontline and administrative posts before he returned to Hong Kong to work for the Hospital Authority. One of his achievements in Australia was to help the country upgrade nurse training to university level. He was a senior planning manager at Hong Kong's Hospital Authority before taking up the WHO post. He had advised the WHO on nursing and midwifery management since 1995.

In his new post with the WHO, Chan is tasked with three missions--human resources training, establishing standards for nurse training, and coordinating the six global regions to adopt those training standards.

Sacked Official

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Zhang Jingli, Deputy Director of China's State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA), had been sacked and put under investigation for suspected disciplinary violations, said sources with the Communist Party of China Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.

Zhang, 55, became deputy director of SFDA in 2003. He is the highest-ranking SFDA official to be investigated for corruption since 2007 when Zheng Xiaoyu, former chief of the drug safety watchdog, was executed after being convicted of taking 6.49 million yuan ($954,412) in bribes and dereliction of duty.

Beijing-based business weekly, The Economic Observer, said Zhang was found to have engaged in bribery involving pharmaceutical firms including the Shanghai branch of Johnson & Johnson. Johnson & Johnson declined to comment.

Only months ago, five of Zhang's former colleagues and subordinates at the SFDA were arrested on graft charges.

"Whenever something went wrong in the global economy, and whenever someone had to shoulder international obligations, the West would always point fingers at China."

Vladimir Portyakov, head of the Center for Prognosis of Russia-China Relations and Deputy Director of the Far East Institute in the Russian Academy of Sciences, rebuffing the "China solo show" theory in recent Western media reports, which indicates China has been the biggest winner in the global financial crisis while Western economies have been confronted with grave difficulties

"Narrowing the fluctuation of the yuan's value was the best exchange rate policy China could take during the crisis period, which gave export businesses a stable expectation of the yuan's value and reduced costs caused by a volatile currency."

Xiang Songzuo, Deputy Director of the Center for International Monetary Research at the Renmin University of China. China announced on June 19 it would allow more flexibility in its yuan exchange rate

"A global economic downturn will always end, but food security is the problem we have to face every second."

Yuan Longping, the Chinese agronomist known as the "father of hybrid rice," at a theme forum of the World Expo on June 20. His team is now working on a new version of high-yield hybrid rice with an expected yield of 13.5 tons a hectare and might complete it in 2012

"We've never seen anything like this in history anywhere across the world."

Sarah Waller, of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, on its new report, which found the use of opiate drugs such as heroin and opium has doubled in Afghanistan since 2005, with nearly 3 percent of Afghan adults now addicted

"My budget is tough, but it will be fair. This is an unavoidable budget because of the mess we have to clear up."

George Osborne, the UK's Chancellor of the Exchequer, on the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition's first budget, which includes the biggest package of tax increases and spending cuts in a generation

"We wish it a speedy recovery because it is also our currency."

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, expressing concern about the dramatic plunge of the euro at the Saint Petersburg economic forum on June 19. Russia holds over 40 percent of its forex reserves in the single currency

"We obviously expect this to have a very, very nice effect on our attendance."

Bill Davis, Chief Operating Officer and Chairman of Universal Orlando Resorts, referring to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. The new theme park attraction had its grand opening on June 18