Press Interpreter

03/09/06 -- Never Say None -- The owner of a store overheard one of his employees tell a customer, “Ma’am, at this time there isn’t any. It looks like it will be a while before we can expect some.� The owner was very upset. Hurriedly, he ran over to the customer and said, “We’ll have some soon; Last week we ordered a big batch.� After the customer left, the owner turned to his employee and said, “In the future, never tell a customer that ‘there isn’t any’ or that ‘we’re out of stock.’ You should always say, ‘We just ordered some’ or ‘They’ll be here soon.’� He then asked what the lady had wanted to purchase. “She wanted rain.� The employee said smiling. “She had been asking when I thought it was going to rain.�

03/04/06 -- More and more people are spending their leisure time listening to MP3s. They should listen with more care - Yesterday, Beijing Tong Ren hospital aural specialists reported to the media that clinical research has proven that listening to portable audio devices too much can cause hearing loss.

12/21/05 -- In the next five years, 40% of Beijing homes hope to buy a car while in the previous five years, the number of homes with private cars has already increased three times, bringing the total number of private cars from 220,000 to 600,000. These figures were just realeased yesterday in the report released from the Beijing Urban Resident Lifestyle Survey.

12/02/05 -- Wuhan -- The assertion that "the Three Gorges Project trigged the earthquake in Jiujiang, Jiangxi Province" was merely a wild guess without any scientific ground, according to Chinese experts.

Nov. 14 -- For the Third Day Surviving Child Still in Critical Condition

Hundred Year Old Xin Dong An Will Change its Name and Image

Monthly Traffic Pass Will be an IC Card Next Year

Ethnic Temples in a Rush to Prevent Artifacts From Being Harmed

11/13/05 -- A reporter learned on the 13th from Henan's Tongxu county that early in the morning of the 12th a firecracker explosion killed five and seriously injured four in Gaisisuolou township, Houluo village. After the accident the Tongxu county committee, the county government, the leaders of four other groups, and the relevant leaders of the city of Kaifeng immediately rushed to the scene to organize the rescue and deal with the aftermath.

11/12/05 -- Thirty-seven foreign teachers in Beijing took their driver's licence exam on transportation codes at the Office of Vehicle Management, Bureau of Transportation Administration this morning.

11/08/05 -- The press office of the investigative agency of Russia's Sverdlovsk Oblast has announced that the court of the "Kirov" district of Yekaterinburg tried the case of a 16-year-old Russian youth who beat a Chinese citizen to death.

10/21/05 -- Yesterday evening, the Jiaojiang District Committee of Taizhou city, Zhejiang province, decided to fire the Traffic Police Chief, Li Xiaoguo. After interviewing several eyewitnesses, this paper’s reporter has learned that at 10:00 AM, the Traffic Police Chief stormed into the office of the Taizhou Evening News and initiated a fistfight with the editor, Wu Xianghu. After the fight, about ten traffic cops under the jurisdiction of Mr. Li, crammed the editor into a police car and drove away.

10/05/05 -- Xinhua News Agency -- The National Security Bureau* and the Ministry of Civil Affairs held a joint press conference yesterday in which they announced that the death toll from natural disasters would no longer be kept confidential.

07/22/05 -- In Beijing, on the 21st of July, at 7:00 PM, the People’s Bank of China announced that it was improving the method of setting the exchange rate for the yuan. This news immediately sent ripples through overseas and domestic capital markets. As set by the People’s Bank, the value of the yuan will no longer be determined according to the value of the American dollar, and at the same time, the exchange rate between the American dollar and the yuan was adjusted to 8.11 yuan for every one American dollar.

The Ministry of Agriculture refutes false reports concerning Chinese measures to prevent chicken bird flu.

06/22/05 -- Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, June 21 -- The Ministry of Agriculture and related authorities told a Xinhua reporter on the 21st that over the past few days foreign reports had claimed that Chinese peasants under the permission or at the encouragement of civil servants had used doses of the antiviral medicine Amantadine, which is for human use, to prevent chicken bird flu. This statement lacks any basis and is inconsistent with reality.

06/20/05 -- After last week's hacker attack on Mastercard user information, a reporter for this newspaper contacted the relevant authority at Mastercard's Beijing offices yesterday afternoon. This person said that up to the present time he had not yet received a formal report on the matter from the company, nor had he been contacted about it by Chinese clients. But he had decided that, since it was the American credit card handling system that had problems, so long as Chinese cardholders did not swipe their cards in the United States and did not hold credit cards issued in the United States, then generally speaking they would not be affected.

Air quality trends are not promising. The Environmental Protection Agency will increase enforcement of environmental laws.

5/20/05 -- Yesterday, Beijing’s Environmental Protection Agency announced that so far this year there have been 88 days where the air quality met or exceeded level two standards. The number of “blue sky� days currently exceeds the five year average of “blue sky� days by 25, bringing the total percentage of clear days to about 63%. But despite this promising trend, the month of May has caused many people to be less optimistic. According to Feng Yuqiao, director of the Atmospheric Department of the Environmental Protection Agency, during the last 18 months of May, Beijing has experienced only 11 “blue sky� days. This is four less than during the same time period last year. Even if the remaining 12 days of May, were clear then there would still be two less clear days than May of last year. His sentiment was that if we lower our guard, we will pay the consequences sooner of later.

Seventy-Eight “Model Workers� and “Advanced Workers�** From Across the Country Visited the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Yesterday.

04/30/05 -- 950 new labor models and advanced workers were publicly praised in Beijing yesterday.

Yesterday morning at Beijing Municipality’s General Labor Union, a total of 950 new model workers and advanced workers, as well as 209 model groups formally took the stage amidst an awe-inspiring ceremony of thunderous drums and gongs and received solemn praise.

04/23/05 -- Minister of Commerce Bo Xilai fields reporter questions on Chinese-Japanese economic relations.... Japanese opposition party critiques.... 80 Japanese congressmen worship at the Yakusuni shrine yesterday....

04/23/05 -- World News -- The Mexican newspaper “Milenio� recently published an article titled “The Oil List� which revealed that the United States has a list of 25 “unstable nations� which are all candidates for U.S. military intervention. Such nations as Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru, Nigeria, Sudan, Somalia, Cameroon, etc. are all are on the list. It is notable that these countries all have petroleum, natural gas, or control important oil transportation routes or oil pipelines. From this list, the people can smell the obvious scent of oil.

03/19/05 -- The results of China's 15th Urban Child Lead Poisoning Survey were announced yesterday for the first time. Among 17141 children under the age of six, the average rate of lead poisoning was 10.45 percent. The rate in Beijing was lower than average at 9.07 percent.