Press Interpreter

05/15/08 -- After a severe earthquake hit Wenchuan County in China's Sichuan Province, the Chinese government's swift deployment of earthquake relief has become a positive example for the international community.

So far 1520 cases of infection in Fuyang*; Jiangsu** requires kindergartens and elementary schools to carry out morning physical examinations

Cases of EV71 reach 1520

04/30/08 -- Yesterday afternoon at 2:00, the Fuyang Newsroom held their second press conference about the children infected with enterovirus type 71 (EV71)***. Leaders and experts from the Fuyang Health Department and the Fuyang People's Hospital made an announcement concerning the city's control and prevention efforts against the enterovirus epidemic. "As of 11:00 on the 28th, the city has reported 1520 pediatric cases of enterovirus type 71." The Fuyang Health Department spokesman and Deputy Director Yan Wei announced that the city's most recent statistics on hospitalizations show that from 11:00 on the 27 to 11:00 on the 28th, there were 321 reports of enterovirus--37 more cases than the day before. Of these, 216 cases were seen in clinic and 105 were hospitalized; 34 patients were released from the hospital.

Highly infective -- in one year a single person can infect 15 others; even more frightening is that many TB sufferers still socialize

04/08/08 -- Yesterday, the Jiangsu Province Department of Health published the March 2008 provincial report on infectious disease as mandated by law. The report indicated that tuberculosis (TB) is still the leading cause of new infections and of death from infection [in the province]. In the course of interviews [for this story], this reporter found out that some individuals who know that they have tuberculosis take buses without wearing masks, continue to eat at restaurants as usual, and certainly will not publicly reveal their infection status. Some patients do not comply with treatment once they are diagnosed with TB. Experts say that behind these problems is the current legal vacuum for supervision of those with TB.

Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital treats three cases of Leptospirosis and stroke

03/06/08 -- Five years ago, Old Wang* never imagined that a careless cut on his hand from washing snails would lead to long-term high blood pressure and a sudden stroke that left him in the hospital and nearly crippled. Zhang Jun, the director of Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital’s Emergency Department, told reporters that beginning in January, the hospital had seen a series of three stroke cases brought on by Leptospira**. The other two cases besides Old Wang may have been infected from contaminated water that came into contact with their broken or injured skin.

One just born, another just married

03/05/08 -- “It’s so unusual that we would see two ‘stone maidens’* in such a short time!” said a doctor from the Nanjing Maternity and Child Health Care Hospital, absolutely flabbergasted by the situation. In recent days, the hospital saw two rare ‘stone maidens’, one a young woman that had just gotten married and another a newborn infant girl.

7600 kg of rat poison waits for them to feed

03/16/07 -- When winter is mild, rats reproduce quickly. The Nanjing City Patriotic Health Campaign Committee Office’s (PHCCO) most recent survey indicates that the average density of Nanjing’s rats is 3.5%, already much higher than the 2% national standard. Action cannot be delayed. The PHCCO revealed to the Modern Bulletin yesterday that a campaign across the entire city to eradicate the rats has already begun and that 7600 kg of rat poison will be unleashed in every district next week.

03/10/07 -- During the ‘two sessions’*, delegates** occasionally spouted some startling words, including many that went against ‘popular opinion and common sense’, comments that made more than a few uncomfortable. For instance, there was the suggestion that Tai Mountain be designated the National Mountain***, the comment that price gouging during the peak travel times of the Lunar New Year was part of the laws of the market, a proposal for renaming Ladies’ Day as Womyn’s day****, and the claim that a ban on smoking would undermine social stability. There was even a representative that wrote a draft of a resolution entitled, “Environmental Protection Begins With Me,” decried by netizens as “the work of a seven-year-old.”

02/19/06 -- Previously Awarded the Merit Citation Class III, Recently Sentenced to Death

Xu Bin, a former member of China’s first Narcotics Squad and the first to serve as Head of the Narcotics Squad in the Public Security Bureau (PSB) of Wanding, Yunnan, decorated three times with the Merit Citation Class III; Xia Shaoxiong, formerly a coworker and subordinate of Xu Bin, and the third to serve as Head of the Narcotics Squad in the Wanding, Yunnan PSB, decorated once with the Merit Citation Class III. Now, they have become drug dealers, sinking to become prisoners: because after retirement the two men gradually followed the road to trafficking drugs, they have recently been sentenced to death by the Intermediate People’s Court of Kunming, a sentence suspended for two years.

12/09/05 -- Qin Gang, spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, told reporters at a press conference on December 8th that the Chinese were willing to strengthen communication and cooperation with Russia and agreed to actively consider measures to solve the problem of pollution in the Songhua River, including building a dam in the Fuyuan Channel.

12/07/05 -- At a Nanjing city charity association yesterday, a Kuaibao reporter learned that since the commencement of the "Donate to charity every day, help those in distress by providing them with heat" initiative, over 2 million RMB (app. 243,000 USD) in donations have already been collected. This week, the third batch of donations will be extended to those distressed families. It is reported that this initiative plans to raise 15 to 20 million RMB (app. 1.8-2.4 million USD) worth of money and goods throughout the city and adopt a system of collecting funds and providing needed assistance. Before the New Year and Spring Festival, the donated money and goods will be directly given to over 130,000 distressed people.

11/18/05 -- Wen Jiabao investigated work on the development of human bird flu vaccine and antiviral medications, requesting that strict precautions be taken to prevent the propagation of bird flu among the people

07/12/05 [Editorial] -- According to a report in The Modern Bulletin, the media has recently said that 95% of domestic beer contains formaldehyde and that consumers’ right to know has been violated, resulting in a great disturbance in the beer industry. On July 8th, the three magnates of the beer industry, Tsingdao, China Resource Breweries, Yanjing, each expressed their disagreement with the claim that 95% of domestic beer contains formaldehyde and indicated that formaldehyde produced during the process of brewing and formaldehyde that is added during the brewing process are two separate issues.

07/12/05 -- Recently, domestic news agencies have reported that “95% of domestic beer contains the suspected carcinogen formaldehyde." Though an old topic, it has still caused a ruckus within the industry. Does 95% of domestic beer contain formaldehyde?

05/14/05 -- Several years after graduation, a pair of former college classmates had each already established their own married households. After running into each other at a class reunion, however, they immediately found themselves caught up in an extramarital love affair. When they agreed to divorce their respective spouses and remarry each other, they simultaneously signed the following agreement: “If you go back on your word [to divorce and remarry], then you must pay a 20,000 RMB [2,500 USD] compensation fee for the other’s loss.�? Nobody anticipated that when the male classmate went through his divorce, the female classmate would not keep her side of the bargain. The male classmate hired a lawyer and filed a lawsuit demanding the 20,000 RMB compensation fee. However, he was informed that the agreement was ineffective, and he would not be receiving any money.

The "Jiangsu Province Ordinance to Combat City and Town Noise Pollution"* is publicly announced

04/09/05 -- Beginning yesterday, the “Jiangsu Province Ordinance to Combat City and Town Noise Pollution�?, drafted by the Provincial Environmental Protection Department and sent to the Jiangsu Provincial Government for approval, is being publicized. This ordinance provides meticulous and explicit regulations regarding vexatious disturbances such as remodeling racket, discordant business advertising and the like. This is Jiangsu Province’s first attempt to use legislative means to combat the problem of noise pollution prevalent in cities and towns.

3/25/04 –- Through a Modern Bulletin dispatch, Jiangsu Province’s annual statistical report shows that with the number of civilian cars*, especially personal cars, rapidly increasing, the number of license holders throughout the province is constantly rising. Last year, 844,500 people in the province became new drivers, giving it the highest number of new drivers in recent years. Presently, the provincial average is one private car for every two drivers.

03/16/05 -- After 10 years real murderer caught, but local authorities still say case closed -- On January 18th of this year, the police in Xingyang County, Henan arrested a suspicious character. In the course of interrogation, this man divulged the corpus delicti from the murder and rape of four women in the Guangping area of Hebei Province. On January 19th, the man, named Wang Shujin, was extradited back to Guangping. When he was later escorted to the crime scene in the suburbs* of Shijiazhuang, police learned from the victim’s coworkers that the murder committed by Wang Shujin had already been "solved" by local authorities in the same year that it had happened; the "murder-rapist" Nie Shubin had been executed 10 years earlier.

03/16/05 -- Yet another erroneous death penalty conviction has become widespread knowledge through media reporting. The unjustly convicted, Nie Shubin, was already executed ten years ago as a rapist-murder. This news, which appears on page A12 of today’s [March 16] The Modern Bulletin [translated here: http://www.pressinterpreter.org/node/97 ], is the first case of all such cases that this writer has painstakingly gathered over many years in which the accused was not only wrongly convicted, but also wrongly executed.

03/16/05 -- "If you can't even keep your own personal life in order, will you really be able to manage an entire department?" -- Having just failed to be selected for his department’s deputy directorship, Mr. Wu was feeling extremely disconsolate: as mind-boggling as it appears, the reason he was not chosen for the position of deputy director was directly related to his failure to remarry since his divorce several years ago.

03/09/05 -- China’s* Foreign Ministry Spokesman: Japan’s Allegations are Completely Baseless -- In a press conference, Liu Jiaochao,** Spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, indicated that Japan’s recent accusation that China is fostering anti-Japanese historical education is completely baseless.

03/04/05 -- Mainland China’s Policy toward Taiwan Undergoes Vigorous Change -- Since March of last year, the Chinese Mainland, in response to the unstable situation in the Taiwan Strait following the re-election of Chen Shuibian, has made specific adjustments to its Taiwan policy. These vigorous adjustments, made under the premise that the Mainland would continue to advocate the policies of peaceful unification, “one country, two systems,�? and Comrade Jiang Zemin’s “Eight Point Proposal,�? have attracted a great deal of attention.