New Party Leaders

Luo Zhijun	Li Hongzhong

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) announced on December 5 the appointment of two new provincial Party chiefs—Luo Zhijun for Jiangsu and Li Hongzhong for Hubei. Their predecessors—Liang Baohua and Luo Qingquan—have reached the mandatory retirement age for provincial officials of 65.

Luo, 59, was elected governor of Jiangsu in January 2008, after having served as vice mayor, mayor and Party chief of Jiangsu's capital city Nanjing since 1995.

Li, 54, became governor of Hubei in January 2008. Before that, he held several leading posts in south China's Guangdong Province and Hubei, including their vice governorships.

Wang Guosheng, 54, was nominated as Hubei's candidate for governor, and 60-year-old Li Xueyong was named as Jiangsu's candidate.

Heroic Peacekeeper

Jiang Hangang, 42, a former Chinese peacekeeper in Liberia, moved the whole nation after his heroic deeds recently made headlines on every channel in China.

Jiang led 274 fellow engineers to fulfill peacekeeping tasks in Liberia in April 2008. Despite suffering great pain throughout the eight-month mission, Jiang, who was later diagnosed with gastric cancer, directed the Chinese peacekeeping contingent to upgrade and rush-repair a total of 448 km of road and build five bridges. He also created a road-building method suited to Liberia's bad climatic conditions. This was later named after him and was adopted by peacekeepers from other countries in the war-torn African country.

Jiang's dedication to work won high praise from officials with the UN Mission in Liberia and the president of Liberia. All the Chinese engineers were awarded first-class peace medal by the UN upon completion of their mission in December 2008.

After returning to China, Jiang had 60 percent of his stomach removed in January 2009 and received six rounds of chemotherapy. He returned to work in May 2009 and is serving as commander of an engineering regiment in the Beijing Military Area Command.

Best Memory

Wang Feng, a 20-year-old student from China's Wuhan University, clinched the individual title at the 19th World Memory Championships in Guangzhou, south China's Guangdong Province, on December 2-5. Wang is the first Chinese to win the competition, widely considered the highest-level competition of memory sport in the world.

Wang took first place in five of the competition's 10 events, and he broke four world records. His record-setting total of 9,486 points, established him firmly as the planet's top memory man and his performance will be enshrined in the Guinness Book of Records and the Book of Mental World Records.

Wang said the key to having an excellent memory is transforming information to images in the head. For instance, he memorizes a long list of numbers by turning those numbers into similar-pronounced words and making stories up based on those words. When more numbers come, he just needs to make the story in his head longer.

The World Memory Championships were founded in 1991 by Tony Buzan, inventor of Mind Maps. Competitors are challenged in 10 different disciplines, each designed to test ability to memorize different types of information.

"The shift will help promote China's sustainable growth. It is time for change with the domestic economy maintaining its strong momentum and with inflation running at a high level as liquidity from abroad grows."

Xia Bin, Director of the Finance Research Institute of the State Council's Development Research Center, on a decision of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee to shift China's monetary policy stance from relatively loose to prudent next year

"The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) should play an active role in establishing such a mechanism, on the prerequisite of maintaining its independence."

Hu Xiaodi, China's Permanent Representative to the UN and other international organizations in Vienna, saying China remains open to initiatives on the establishment of an international nuclear fuel bank at a board meeting of IAEA on December 3

"It is a warning to advanced economies that they cannot take for granted that they will forever have 'human capital' superior to that in other parts of the world."

Angel Gurria, Secretary General of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development on a report saying the world's richest countries risk losing the edge gained by better education. The report was based on surveys of half a million 15-year-old students in 65 countries

"The euro zone has to provide a comprehensive solution to this problem. The piecemeal approach, one country after another, is not a good one."

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, IMF Managing Director, criticizing Europe's disjointed response to the euro zone debt crisis after Germany and other states resisted his calls for bolder action

"This is a paramount step forward and a step the world is closely watching."

Herman Van Rompuy, European Council President, after the EU agreed to back Russia's bid to join the WTO in a bilateral agreement signed on December 7

"Developed countries should not force developing countries to cut gas emissions. Instead, they should help developing countries in this area."

Jean-Pierre Raffarin, former French Prime Minister, in a dialogue with Chinese youth in Beijing on December 2