Q&A: What lies ahead in 2015 for Chinese economy?

BEIJING - It is almost certain that China will post its lowest growth rate in more than a decade in 2014, but experts seem uncertain about what will happen in 2015.

Here we review the outlook and risks for Chinese economy in 2015:

 Is the economy sliding toward a hard landing?

Growth in 2014 looks likely to have sagged below 7.5 percent. This year, it could potentially dip lower, with property downturn and industrial overcapacity still being the main drags.

The government's efforts to balance reform with growth will also exert a downward pressure, but it will be a soft landing rather than a sharp contraction, as the broader economy and job market remain healthy.

There have been signs of a rebalancing, with services accounting for a greater share of output than manufacturing; and consumption accounting for a larger share of gross domestic product (GDP) than fixed asset investment.

Moreover, policies, such as the abolition of registered capital requirements for new firms and the replacement of business tax with value-added tax, will provide dividends.

Government think tank economists have lowered forecasts for GDP growth for 2015, with the rate hovering between 7 percent and 7.3 percent.

Read more: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/

Dangerous and downright stupid reasons to open emergency exits

The Chinglish phrase "No zuo no die" has been included in the online slang phrase book Urban Dictionary, meaning, if you don't do stupid things, they won't come back and bite you on the backside. This can't be wrong when referred to those who risk their lives, and those of many others, by triggering the emergency facilities of airliners.

How much must passengers pay in fine for such dangerous mistakes?  92,000 yuan for triggering a Boeing 320's emergency slide; 190,000 yuan for a Boeing 330's slide and 150,000 yuan for its safety door. 250,000 yuan for a Boeing 777's slide - big fat red envelops for airlines that come together with legal responsibilities.

Here are some ridiculous reasons people have triggered them.

In need of relief

A woman on a Sichuan Airlines flight from Sanya to Chongqing confused the toilet and an emergency exit and set off the emergency door and sides before takeoff, forcing 130 passengers to disembark and wait four hours before the plane got going again, on March 30, 2012.

Her behavior forced the pilot to stop the plane on the runway. The woman, in her 40s, said her legs shook when hearing the big bang as the emergency exit opened. Some 19 passengers changed their flights afraid of more problems on the plane.

Read more: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/

Video shows group of teens attacking Chinese USC student

Video shows group of teens attacking Chinese USC student –  The last night of Xinran Ji's life can be told in the videos that tracked the Chinese graduate student from the time he left his apartment to study with other students at the University of Southern California until he returned home hours later covered in blood.

In between those still frames taken outside his apartment, police found two cameras that captured footage of a group of teens attacking him as he walked home from school early the morning of July 24.

The footage was shown Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court as a prosecutor made his case for trying three teens for murder in the incident that raised concerns in China about the safety of students abroad and refocused criticisms about security at USC.

Details were murky in the black and white surveillance videos, but they showed Ji being surrounded by a group of people on a dark street and then, in a subsequent video, being chased as he ran for his life.

"You can just see a scrum, it looks like," Deputy District Attorney John McKinney said during a break in court, describing one of the videos.

Authorities say Jonathan Del Carmen, 19; Alberto Ochoa, 17; and Alejandra Guerrero, 16, were trying to rob Ji, 24, when he was beaten with a bat and wrench and left for dead.

A fourth defendant, Andrew Garcia, 19, is charged, but his hearing was postponed because his lawyer was ill and another defense attorney raised questions about his mental competency. Garcia blurted out obscenities in court Monday.

All four have pleaded not guilty and are being held without bail. Del Carmen and Garcia could face the death penalty if convicted. Ochoa and Guerrero are charged as adults, but they can only face up to life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted because of their ages.

The preliminary hearing that continues Wednesday included a witness who testified about being robbed by three of the defendants about an hour after Ji's killing.

But the brunt of testimony focused on videos and a trail of blood that led from Ji's apartment to two street locations where the confrontation footage was shot.

Ji managed to make it home, where he was found dead in bed later that morning.

Ji's roommate said she awoke around 3 a.m. and heard sniffling, but thought Ji had a cold, so she went back to sleep, Detective Matthew Courtney testified. When she emerged from her room four hours later, she found blood stains and Ji unresponsive and covered in bloody clothing.

Courtney and his partner tracked the bloody trail down the street and around the corner, where they eventually found a pair of broken glasses.

The detective and other officers went to USC and several other private building owners to gather at least seven videos that showed the attack on Ji or his alleged assailants driving through the neighborhood before or after the crime.

Cameras have become a ubiquitous witness to life around the campus that sits on the edge of downtown Los Angeles and borders neighborhoods with historically high crime. The school and Los Angeles police beefed up security measures, including more patrols on and around campus, after two Chinese graduate students were murdered outside an off-campus apartment in 2012.

Video from the location where Ji was first attacked showed a car pull to the side of the road and a group of people surround him in the street. McKinney said one of the men can be seen hitting Ji with a bat.

The student is able to get away, and a second camera caught him as he turned a corner with two others running after him, followed by a car.

The second video lasts longer, but most of the action is obscured until Ji stumbles to his feet and leans on a car for a few seconds. McKinney said Ji bled the most at that location.

He bled the whole way home, arriving at his front door at 12:48 a.m., where the white T-shirt he was seen leaving in appeared covered in blood.

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/

FBI ups reward in case of Mississippi girl burned to death

The FBI has added $25,000 to a reward set up to catch the killer of a teenager who was set on fire last month in a case that rocked a small Mississippi town and drew national attention, authorities confirmed to FoxNews.com.

The federal funds bring to $43,000 the total amount being offered for information leading to the person who killed 19-year-old Jessica Chambers, who was found alive, but badly burned and staggering along the side of a Panola County road on Dec. 6. Investigators remain baffled, but Panola County District Attorney John Champion said he hopes the money might yield more clues in the murder.

"I still have hope that people will do the right thing regardless of monetary benefit, but we can't ignore the fact that money can be a driving force," Champion told FoxNews.com Tuesday. "This is the most frustrating case I’ve ever had to deal with in my 22 years in law enforcement."

"I still have hope that people will do the right thing regardless of monetary benefit, but we can't ignore the fact that money can be a driving force."

- District Attorney John Champion

Chambers, of Panola County, was found shortly after 8 p.m. on Dec. 6 with burns covering more than 98 percent of her body. When emergency responders arrived at the scene, Chambers was walking away from her burning vehicle and able to utter a few words to them about the attack -- though authorities have not said what, if anything, the young woman was able to communicate.

Panola County Sheriff Dennis Darby said last month Chambers was doused with a flammable liquid before she was set on fire on a road in Courtland, Miss., a town with a population of 460 people.

Authorities were quick to label her death a homicide, but have yet to identify a prime suspect in the case, despite interviews with more than 100 people, Champion told FoxNews.com. 

Investigators examined surveillance video of Chambers visiting a nearby gas station the night she was killed. The footage shows Chambers walking toward the gas station before being called away by someone out of the camera's view. The video was recorded about 90 minutes before Chambers was found burned alive on a road less than a mile away from the gas station. 

In an interview with FoxNews.com, Ali Alsanai, the gas station's owner, said he saw Chambers when she visited the gas station that night and the two exchanged a few words.

"Just small talk," Alsanai said of the conversation. "I wasn’t really paying attention because I was busy that day." Champion said Alsanai was cleared as a suspect. 

Over the past month, authorities have also been pored over the teen's cellphone records for clues in the case. Chambers' phone was found by investigators at the scene.

"She was the most beautiful and loving and kind girl I've ever known," Chambers' best friend, Alyssa Cotten, told FoxNews.com last month.

"She loved to cheer. She loved softball. She loved her family and her friends. She was just a big bundle of joy," said Cotton. "We have no idea who did this."

The teen's father, Ben Chambers, who works as a mechanic for the Panola County Sheriff's Department, said he hopes his daughter's last words will lead to her killer. 

Anyone with information on the murder is urged to contact the Panola County Sheriff's Office at 662-563-6230.

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/

Crocodile served as food at wedding banquet

It's been reported that a crocodile has been served at a wedding banquet in Xiaoshan city, east China's Zhejiang province.

A netizen said one of his friends went to the city to attend the ceremony. The friend was surprised to see a crocodile at the party. The animal was dissected and served to the guests.

Numerous netizens have been shocked by the report and are urging people to be kind to protected animals.

Although the credibility of this story hasn't been confirmed yet, more netizens said crocodiles were often seen at wedding banquets in Xiaoshan and Yuhang in the province.

According to one local official, crocodiles are legally-protected animals in China.

In 2003, the State Forestry Administration of China lifted a ban on commercial use of 54 artificially domesticated wild animals, including crocodile.

In the meantime, administration procedures are strictly implemented. The killing, breeding, and trading of wild animals requires government approval in China.

Source: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/

Beijing in first smog alert of year

Beijing is blanketed with thick smog on Tuesday, a sharp contrast to the blue skies during the APEC meetings in the capital in November.

Hazy days set to last until Friday

Beijing issued its first smog alert of 2015 on Tuesday, with the PM2.5 index passing the 200 level.

The alert will probably remain in force until Friday, the municipal environmental authority said.

Based on the official daily air quality forecast, the capital issued a yellow alert and adopted emergency measures to rein in emissions on Sunday, one day before the smog descended. A yellow alert is the third-highest level among four grades.

Shanghai, which emerged from three days of smog on Monday, will experience another round of air pollution on Wednesday, according to the regional air quality forecast center.

The air quality forecast, which is as important as the daily weather forecast, has begun to attract more attention, especially from people living in large cities like Beijing and Shanghai, which witness frequent air pollution.

By the end of 2014, cities in three major industrial zones - the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area, the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta - were required to provide a daily air quality forecast, according to the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

This will be expanded this year to more cities that have the requisite equipment and technology.

Beijing, one of the first cities to issue such forecasts, can predict changing air quality over five days. This enables it to provide accurate statistics for the authorities to take emergency measures to reduce air pollutants a day before smog arrives.

Xie Shaodong, an environmental professor at Peking University, said: "The technology is not a problem. With better cooperation and smoother exchanges of information between meteorological and environmental bureaus, the forecast can be more accurate."

Yu Yong, a spokesman for the National Meteorological Administration, said it plans to deepen cooperation on air pollution forecasting through regular discussions and exchanges of technology.

According to a development plan released on Dec 17 to help control air pollution, the meteorological administration will build more laboratories in six regions to strengthen weather forecasting by 2020.

Under the plan, by that year China will have built a well-functioning weather modification system and have made progress in experiments on reducing fog and smog through human effort.

Source: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/