E-cigarette controls considered for safety

China is considering bringing electronic cigarettes under State management to ensure a standardized and well-regulated development of the popular smoking alternative, according to an official of the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration.

Li Baojiang, deputy director of the administration's economic research institute told China Daily there is currently a lack of regulation and standards for e-cigarettes across the nation, which could affect public health. He cited problem products as well as potential government revenue.

"Regulating e-cigarettes, like traditional tobacco products under the State monopoly, is highly feasible. And that helps with consumer safety and rights, product quality control and the government coffers," he said.

Bernhard Schwartlander, the World Health Organization's representative in China, said the group is highly concerned about the role of the tobacco industry in the rapidly emerging e-cigarette sector.

"The WHO is calling for stronger regulation of e-cigarettes and similar devices," he said.

Invented in 2003 in China, e-cigarettes use battery-powered cartridges to produce a flavored vapor, either with or without nicotine. Worldwide, regulation and management of e-cigarettes varies.

Brazil banned e-cigarettes in 2009, but people could buy them online or on the black market. In the same year, Canada followed suit, prohibiting sales of e-cigarettes containing nicotine. In 2013, Spain banned e-cigarette use in public. In the UK, the product has been regulated under the country's drug authorities since June 2013 to ensure quality and consumer safety.

In China, e-cigarettes have become increasingly popular. Gan Quan, China director of the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, said that caught the attention of the WHO.

The Sixth Conference of the WHO Framework Convention of Tobacco Control Parties, including China as a signatory country in October, recognized that e-cigarettes represent an "evolving frontier filled with promise and threat for tobacco control".

According to Schwartlander, evidence suggests that exhaled e-cigarette aerosol increases the background air level of some toxicants, nicotine and particles. Thus, the WHO recommends that use of e-cigarettes should be banned in all places where smoking is banned, he said.

"If it's regulated as a tobacco product, it will thereafter be subject to existing smoking control policies," the tobacco administration's Li said.

China had roughly 900 e-cigarette manufacturers by the end of 2013, up 200 percent over the previous year. Exports amounted to 3.5 billion yuan ($560 million) the same year, up 150 percent over 2012. Worldwide, more than 80 percent of the e-cigarettes in a market worth $3 billion are made in China.

Li said he expected that the product would become steadily bigger in the domestic market. E-cigarettes are widely available in the country through online sales.

"A regulatory blank spot, which resulted in problem products and unsubstantiated media hype and health claims, has to be filled, particularly for quality control and consumer safety," Li said.

Source: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/

Many Africans in Guangzhou earn more than local white-collar workers

Africans walk in the Xiatangxilu area in Guangzhou, Guangdong province on April 1, 2014. More Africans are choosing to do business in the city. 

More than 20 percent of African people staying in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, are earning more than 30,000 yuan ($4,838) a month, according to a recent survey by Southern Metropolis Daily.

The newspaper in Guangzhou interviewed 204 people from more than 50 African nations.

Of the 165 interviewees who revealed their monthly income, 37 said they earn more than 30,000 yuan a month doing business in the southern city. The figure is higher than the average income of local white-collar workers.

Many African businesspeople think that Guangzhou has a wide range of good-quality products at competitive prices and that the business environment is getting better, the survey found. More than 50 percent of the African businesses in Guangzhou achieve a profit rate of between 50 and 100 percent.

"A shirt purchased at 50 yuan in Guangzhou can change hands for 100 yuan in my African mother-land," an African businessman was quoted as saying.

Garments, silks, ceramics, handicrafts, electronics, toys, shoes and watches are the products many African businesspeople like to purchase in Guangzhou and ship to Africa, the survey said.

Xie Xiaodan, deputy mayor and director of the Guangzhou city bureau of public security, urged departments in his city to offer even better service to foreigners.

Xie dismissed rumors that Guangzhou has now registered more than 600,000 people from African nations and regions.

According to statistics from the city's entry and exit department, Guangzhou has about 120,000 permanent foreign residents, including 16,000 from Africa.

In addition to doing business, African people arrive in Guangzhou for work, study and sightseeing, Xie said.

The African people live in the Dengfeng, Kuangquan, Taojin and Xinshi communities of the city's Baiyun and Yuexiu districts.

Guangzhou welcomes all foreign people who arrive in the city with valid travel documents and visas, while sparing no effort to fight illegal immigration, Xie said.

Peng Peng, a senior researcher with the Guangzhou Academy of Social Science, said departments should step up efforts to curb illegal immigration in the city.

"But the legal interests and rights of the foreigners, including Africans, who arrive in Guangzhou with effective travel documents should be protected according to laws," Peng said.

Source: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/

A cloud over large-scale events after deadly Shanghai stampede

Shanghai police officers stand guard at Nanjing East Road in the Bund on Saturday night, site of the tragic stampede on New Year's Eve that claimed 36 lives. The accident occurred Wednesday night as tens of thousands of revellers assembled in Shanghai's historic riverfront walk to watch a New Year skyline show in the Pudong financial area opposite of Huangpu River.

Guyi Garden has confirmed that their lantern exhibition, one of the two major annual lantern exhibitions held for the last seven years in Shanghai, will be canceled this year out of safety concerns, reported The Beijing Morning Post on Tuesday.

Guyi Garden said they decided to cancel the exhibit because the event was oversubscribed given the limited capacity of the garden, based on attendance figures from former years.

Instead, they will enhance security to better prepare for the Spring Festival Temple Fair, another large-scale event during Spring Festival.

The cancellation could be a reflection of the concerns and lack of confidence in crowd control after the unexpected deadly stampede in Shanghai. Concerns have also spread to Beijing.

Many supermarkets in the capital noticed their customers said they would cancel their planned business promotions to avoid the repetition of the Shanghai New Year countdown tragedy, according to The Beijing News on Tuesday.

"Not all the large-scale promotion events must be cancelled," the staff of Beijing Municipal Commission of Commerce stressed, "but reporting the event in advance is now even more important."

Thirty-six people died in a fatal stampede during New Year celebrations late in the night of Dec 31 in Shanghai due to the lack of crowd control. After the incident, Shanghai called off all New Year celebrations in public places.

Source: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/

Shanghai government responsible for deadly stampede: China tourism body

China's National Tourism Administrator said Shanghai authorities had failed to take precautions to prevent the deadly stampede that killed more than three dozen people on New Year's Eve.

SHANGHAI: China's National Tourism Administrator says the Shanghai government is responsible for the deadly stampede that killed more than three dozen people on New Year's Eve.

In a document published on its website, the agency said the city's authorities had failed in taking precautions to prevent the incident from happening.

The comments come nearly a week after the tragedy took place and authorities have so far provided little explanation for what happened at Shanghai's iconic riverfront.

Authorities said they understood from family members that they had wanted to go to the stampede site to mourn the dead.

Hence, additional barricades were put up and the entire area cordoned off to maintain order and prevent overcrowding - the very same measures that should have been in place that fateful night to prevent the tragedy from happening.

Earlier, emotions ran high as anguished parents went to the incident site to grieve their children on the traditional Chinese seventh day of mourning. Most of the dead were students in their twenties.

"In terms of public safety, Shanghai is known to be better than other cities. It's really unexpected that something like this has happened," said a member of the public.

China's National Tourism Administration said the Shanghai government is responsible for the public's safety even though no event was planned for that night.

Earlier on, officials had said they did not bring in extra reinforcements that night because there was no countdown celebration on the riverfront.

Quoting the law in a document published online, the tourism administration said that when incidents of such nature occur, the government is obliged to be prepared, vigilant and responsive.

Authorities in Shanghai have yet to respond and have also not provided further details on their investigation into the incident.

Meantime, there was controlled grieving on-site as police blocked off public access to where the mishap allegedly took place. Mourners, who are next-of-kin of the victims, are heavily escorted away from the public's eye.

When asked, officials said it is unclear how long the cordons will stay, providing little comfort to families who lost their loved ones on New Year's Eve.

Source: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/

Slow progress in AirAsia crash search

Recovery teams made patchy progress on Tuesday (Jan 6) in the search for bodies from the wreckage of AirAsia Flight 8501, finding the remains of just two more victims on the tenth day of operations.

Indonesia has ordered the suspension of aviation officials involved in the departure of the flight. It says the flight operated by AirAsia Indonesia was flying on an unauthorised schedule when it crashed.

The airline, a unit of Malaysia-based AirAsia, has been suspended from flying the Surabaya-Singapore route -- although Singapore officials said they had given permission for the flight at their end. Indonesia's transport ministry also promised action against any domestic airlines violating their flying permits in the country, which has a patchy aviation safety record.

The Indonesian meteorological agency BMKG has said weather was the "triggering factor" of the crash, with ice likely damaging the plane's engines. The initial report by BMKG into the likely cause referred to infra-red satellite pictures that showed the plane was passing through clouds with temperatures of minus 80 to minus 85 degrees Celsius.

But it remained unclear why other planes on similar routes were unaffected by the weather, and other analysts said there was not enough information to explain the disaster until the flight recorders were recovered.

In Surabaya, which was home to a number of the victims, a crisis centre has been up for identifying bodies and wakes have been held as they are returned to relatives.

Eric Edi Santo lost his aunt and five other family members, but so far only two of their bodies have been found. He was holding out hope for the others. "They died so tragically, at least I want them to have a proper burial," he said.

Source: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/

Thousands in NYC see off slain police officer

Widow Pei Xia Chen holds a photo of slain New York Police Department officer Wenjian Liu as his casket departs his funeral in the Brooklyn borough of New York January 4, 2015.

NEW YORK - Tens of thousands of law enforcement officers from across the country gathered on Sunday for the funeral of the second of two New York City policemen killed last month in an ambush that galvanized critics of Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Family members, politicians, police brass and other mourners filed solemnly into a Brooklyn funeral home on a gray morning to honor Wenjian Liu, believed to be the New York Police Department's first Chinese-American officer killed in the line of duty.

A sea of blue uniformed police officers stood in silence outside. Police Commissioner Bill Bratton, who shook hands with many of the rank and file before entering the building, had urged them to do nothing during the services to steal from the "valor, honor and attention" that rightfully belonged to the slain officer.

At last week's funeral for Liu's partner, Rafael Ramos, some of the uniformed police officers assembled outside the church showed their disdain for Mayor de Blasio by turning their backs when he began his eulogy.

"A hero's funeral is about grieving, not grievance," Bratton wrote in a memo to officers.

The murder of Liu, 32, and Ramos, 40, triggered a backlash in support of law enforcement, following nationwide demonstrations last year over the use of force by police against blacks and other minorities.

The deaths of unarmed black men in Ferguson, Missouri, and New York City, in encounters with white officers rekindled a national debate over racial relations and law enforcement.

The tenor of that debate shifted when Liu and Ramos were shot as they sat in their squad car in Brooklyn by a killer who said he wanted to avenge the deaths of the two unarmed black men.

In New York, the murders frayed already strained relations between the police force and de Blasio. The head of the largest police union said the mayor contributed to the political climate that led to the killing of Liu and Ramos.

Source: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/