| Trade Representative
Gao Hucheng, has been appointed the international trade representative of the Ministry of Commerce (MOC), the ministry said on August 16. Zhong Shan, Vice Minister of Commerce, and Chong Quan, former Assistant to the Minister of Commerce, are Gao's deputies.
The international trade representative takes charge of China's major multilateral or bilateral economic and trade negotiations, and coordinate the stances of concerned parties at home.
The mechanism of trade representatives has been established in response to increasing friction between China and its trading partners since the global financial crisis began.
Gao, 59, has worked with the MOC (formerly the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation) since 1994 and became its vice minister in November 2003. In April 2005, he was appointed chief international trade negotiator of the ministry.
Bank Card Manager
Su Ning, a former deputy central banker, has taken over as chairman of the China UnionPay Co. Ltd., China's national bank card payment network.Su, 63, left office as vice governor of the People's Bank of China (PBC), China's central bank, in June, after holding the post for seven years. During his tenure at the PBC, he had overseen the development of China's banking payments system.
Su's predecessor Liu Tinghuan, 68, who served as chairman of China UnionPay since 2004, has retired.
China UnionPay was founded in March 2002. Besides the Chinese mainland, UnionPay services are available in 90 countries and regions throughout the world.
Lenient Victim
Luo Caixia, the victim of a well publicized identity theft, settled her lawsuit against the infringer on August 13 with an agreement for 45,000 yuan ($6,617) in compensation.
Following a three-hour court mediation in Changsha, Hunan Province, Luo finally dropped her original 141,900 yuan ($20,868) claim for violations of her right of name and right to education, as well as for mental injury, from high school classmate Wang Jiajun and her family.
The theft took place in 2004, when Luo scored higher than Wang in the national college entrance examination. Wang's father, Wang Zhengrong, a senior police officer, abused his position to steal Luo's identity for her. Wang was then recruited by Guizhou Normal University.
In March 2009, Luo, then a student at Tianjin Normal University, found out about the offense. Two months later, she filed a lawsuit against Wang, her family and other people she thought were responsible.
Wang disappeared when the theft was uncovered. Her father was sentenced to four years in jail last October on charges of counterfeiting official documents.
Luo said she had forgiven Wang and hoped the case's settlement would mean a new beginning for both of them.
"Even if international prices rise steeply, it will not pose a significant impact on domestic prices."
China's National Development and Reform Commission, saying ample domestic supplies would be able to meet the country's grain demands this year despite short supplies in the international market
"What is more important is ensuring foreign aid is effective. The aid will only prove successful if social responsibilities are met."
Zhang Zhaofeng, Director of Kenya Project under the PetroChina Great Wall Drilling Co. Ltd. The company has drilled 30 geothermal wells in Kenya since 2006, where the local government has adopted a new energy development plan aiming to provide 90 percent of its population with electricity by 2030
"There are plenty of stories of a Chinese-sponsored infrastructure project or a Chinese company cutting a deal to feed its 'insatiable thirst' for raw materials, while Western involvement of similar or greater magnitude is lucky to make a headline at all."
Ioannis Gatsiounis, a Malaysia-based journalist and author, on unbalanced coverage on China in his recent Newsweek story titled The China Dream
"The U.S. army must stay until the Iraqi army is fully ready in 2020."
Babaker Zebari, Iraq's army chief, telling a defense conference in Baghdad on August 12 that the Iraqi army won't be able to ensure security after the planned withdrawal of U.S. troops in 2011
"The German economy should remain the top attraction of the eurozone league for some time."
Carsten Brzeski, senior economist at the Internationale Nederlanden Groep (ING), on the news the German economy grew 2.2 percent from April to June, its fastest pace since the country was reunified
"While lying there, I thought about a lot of things. But what I felt most strongly was the pure excitement that came from knowing I was part of the creation of a world record."
Li Xiaodong, after joining another 10,266 people to make the Guinness-record world's longest human domino chain in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on August 12 | 
