| King Dies in Beijing
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(XINHUA) |
Norodom Sihanouk, former king of Cambodia, died after battling cancer, diabetes and hypertension in Beijing at the age of 90 on October 15.
Sihanouk was king of Cambodia twice, from 1941 to 1955 and again from 1993 until he abdicated in 2004. He led Cambodia to independence from France and inaugurated a rare period of political stability during the first period of his reign.
The friendship between Sihanouk and Chinese leaders started at the 1955 Bandung Conference, when he held private meetings with China's then Premier Zhou Enlai. Having lived in exile in China, Sihanouk often referred to the country as his "second homeland," and it was from China that he received political support in times of adversity and almost all his medical treatment in the last years of his life after being diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1994.
The Sihanouk pair has donated disaster relief funds to China almost every year, between $50,000 and $100,000 each time.
China has set aside 69.6 billion yuan ($11.13 billion) from the central budget to pay for subsistence allowances for needy rural and urban families next year, the Ministry of Finance said on October 12.
Of the fiscal spending, 35.1 billion yuan ($5.61 billion) will be used for urban allowances, while the rest will be distributed to rural areas, according to a statement from the ministry.
The Chinese Government has earmarked 87.5 billion yuan ($13.99 billion) for minimum living allowances since the start of the year, with 44.36 billion yuan ($7.09 billion) given to poor urban families, according to the statement.
China established the subsistence allowance system in the late 1990s. The allowances are given to those whose per-capita household income falls below the local minimum subsistence level.
Last year, the average monthly urban subsistence level was 287.6 yuan ($45.98) per person, up 14.5 percent year on year. The figure for rural areas was 143.2 yuan per person ($22.89), up 22.4 percent.
China is considering protecting its defense-related scientific, technological and industrial facilities as military zones, according to a People's Liberation Army (PLA) officer.
Some key organizations will be zoned as forbidden or restricted military areas, said Ma Yifei from the PLA's Headquarters of the General Staff on October 17.
National defense organizations related to science, technology and industry have a direct bearing on the country's national security and defense strengths, thus requiring good security, confidentiality, air exclusion and electromagnetic environment conditions, Ma said.
However, such organizations are off-limits to the protection of military installations under current law and regulations, and many of them face a complicated surrounding environment, Ma said, adding that such situations have resulted in some information leaks and undermined the efficiency of these facilities.
The Ministry of Environmental Protection said on October 16 that the Qinghai-Tibet Railway has passed its environmental impact assessment.
The ministry launched the assessment of the world's highest rail system in early October and announced the results to be "satisfying."
The wildlife paths, protection of vegetation, frozen earth, marsh and scenery, as well as anti-pollution measures have met expectations, and realized the harmony of projects and the environment, according to the ministry.
Environmental supervision started before construction of the 1,956-km railway and continued after its first operation on July 1, 2006.
China is planning to name the country's undesignated islands and islets, according to an official newspaper with the State Oceanic Administration.
The administration has also ordered provincial authorities to complete local island census and compile information with names and locations of the islands and islets by the end of April 2013, the newspaper said on October 16.
By the end of last year, China had given official names to 1,660 islands and placed marks, such as stone tablets, on these territories, the newspaper said. The naming and marking of another 1,664 islands will be completed by August next year.
According to the official, China has more than 7,300 islands measuring 500 square meters or larger.
China is expected to raise its forest coverage to 21.66 percent by 2015 in a bid to improve the country's ecological environment, said Sun Zhagen, Deputy Director of the State Forestry Administration (SFA), on October 14.
China will beef up its afforestation efforts to cope with global climate change, Sun said.
China's forest coverage reached 20.36 percent in 2009, up from 18.21 percent in 2006, with 20.54 million hectares of forests restored, according to SFA figures.
The Central Government earmarked a total of 46.2 billion yuan ($7.39 billion) from 2008 to 2011 to subsidize farmers whose farmland was reclaimed and turned into forests.
More than 1.3 million hectares of wetland will be transformed this year into habitats to protect the bio-diversity of Poyang Lake, China's largest freshwater lake, local authorities announced on October 16.
With an investment of 15 million yuan ($2.4 million), the project will include returning vegetation to wetlands, dredging aqueducts, setting up boundary markers, building patrol trails and weather monitoring facilities in Poyang County, east China's Jiangxi Province.
Another 50 million yuan ($7.99 million) has already been pumped into environmental protection of the Poyang Lake wetlands, including radioactive assessment and water quality improving, officials said.
Poyang Lake is Asia's largest destination for winter migrant birds. About 95 percent of the world's white cranes, 50 percent of its white-naped cranes and 60 percent of its swan geese spend the winter there every year.
The Chinese Government has promised to recruit more university graduates who have taken on leadership roles in the countryside in a bid to encourage more college students to work in rural communities after graduating.
Next year, 10 to 12 percent of newly recruited civil servants in the country will be college grads who have experience working as "village officials," according to the State Administration of Civil Service.
The number of university students with official positions in rural communities is expected to increase to 600,000 by 2020 from the current 200,000, officials said. | 
