Today's Shanghai | News(2000)

April

One-third of children from six to 14 years old are maladjusted, a survey launched by the Ministry of Education has indicated. The result was obtained after interviewing a survey sample of about 20,000 children in different provinces and cities around the country.

The torch for the Fifth National Games for the Disabled was formally passed to Shanghai on April 27 to inaugurate the games to be held here on May 6-14.

The Municipal Higher Court on April 14 rejected an appeal from a laid-off worker found guilty of killing his own daughter in "an apparent attempt to win sympathy from a friend".

The National Domestic Trade Bureau recently released a ranking of chain enterprises with total sales exceeding RMB50 million yuan in 1999. Among the top ten, five come from Shanghai and Lianhua Chain Supermarket, with RMB7.306 billion yuan for sales, took the lead.

More than 500 computers in the city because of the outbreak of the CIH virus on April 26. All the major computer networks were working in good order.

A working meeting on technological innovation of China's information industry was held in Shanghai on April 26. The meeting set the targets for the entire industry during the Tenth Five-year Plan.

Speakers at the international conference on business incubation and technology in Pudong last week agreed university-based science and technological parks are playing a significant role in the development of high technologies in China.

Trolleybuses which run on electricity through overhead cables and carry neon advertisements are making a comeback in the city.

Short-haul itineraries are all the rage for Shanghainese. Local travel agencies have been working to their full capacity and said they won't add more groups as they don't have enough guides, and the hotels in the destination cities are already booked out for the seven-day break from May 1 to 7.

Customs officials in Shanghai have uncovered a trademark infringement case involving illegal use of world-famous sporting goods brand names Nike and Adidas.

As an integral part of the nationwide "Year 2000 Earth Day--China in Action," Shanghai Zoo launched four theme activities for the Earth Day, namely an animal knowledge quiz, waste battery retrieval and water conservation.

More than 1,000 high-level English interpreters and translators will be brought to the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation meeting to be held in Shanghai next year.

The unprecedentedly long seven-day May Day Holidays this year are forcing Shanghai Exit-Entry Control Administration departments to work extra hours to issue passports.

International Labor Day will be celebrated with a week's holiday from May 1 to May 7. As the city government regulates, April 29 and 30 (Saturday and Sunday) will be two working days to create an unbroken week of holiday.

A new policy adopted since early March this year regarding granting residence status to overseas Chinese and foreigners is benefiting a growing number of people.

Municipal Party Secretary Huang Ju and Mayor Xu Kuangdi met with visiting Singaporean Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong over the weekend.

on April 18, Pudong New Area ushered in Shanghai's first major international conference this year with United Nations officials and foreign scholars attending to discuss business incubation and technology innovation.

Shanghai's aged population has reached 2.35 million, which is about 18% of the city's entire population, according to a survey conducted by Shanghai Municipal Committee on Aging and Shanghai Public Security Bureau.

Police have detained 1,000 suspects in 12 days since the start of a campaign against thieves who use motorbikes.

The Municipal Procuratorate solved 126 corruption cases in the first quarter of this year and recovered over US$1.09 million in the process.

Century Boulevard, another landmark infrastructure project in Pudong New Area, opened to traffic recently. Said to be the Champs-Elysee of the east, the boulevard is five-kilometer long, connecting Pudong's Liujiazui Financial and Trade Zone, Shanghai New Commercial Square, Zhuyuan Commercial Zone, Huamu Cultural and Administration Zone and Pudong's Century Park.

The usual peak season for international tourists to Shanghai lasts from May to December, but this year the peak season has arrived much early, in mid-April.

Chinese and foreign doctors gathered at Shanghai International Convention Center on April 14 to discuss eye problems involving refraction.

If the city's cyberportal project which has already been approved by the State Council goes ahead as planned, residents could soon be surfing the Internet via their TVs and enjoying cheaper, faster online access.

The Royal Danish Consulate General in Shanghai has a number of events planned for April to May to mark the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between Denmark and China.

Shanghai General Motors announced on April 13 that it would be slashing the price of Buick sedans by an average of 7% from the next day provoking fears of a price war in the car market.

Two years after its withdrawal from Shanghai's hotel market, the Sheraton Hotel Group has returned to Shanghai with the declaration of an agreement with two partners to establish a "Four Points Hotel" in Pudong.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, an international film star as well as the spokesperson for Special Olympics International, will lead a delegation to visit China in May to help raise money for and awareness of the Special Olympics China.

More and more large corporations from other provinces are moving into Shanghai. The number now has reached more than 50. Their fix-assets investment has amounted to US$6 million and registered capital US$12 million.

The reform in enterprises in the city's commercial sector has been successfully carried out. More than 54% of such enterprises have completed restructuring. As a result, there are now 37 shareholding companies and 1,153 limited-liabilities companies.

Cultural and educational cooperation between China and the United States helps build up trust between the two countries, said Joseph Prueher, US Ambassador to China.

More flights will take off from Pudong International Airport when Hongqiao Airport starts its refurbishment in mid-May.

Four international shows displaying sensors, automatic technology, digital machine tools and hydropneumatic machinery open at the Everbright Convention Center on April 11.

Five orphaned Chinese children aged between one and four years old were sent to the United States for medical treatment aboard an inaugural Shanghai-Detroit direct flight launched by Northwest Airlines.

After ten years of opening-up, Pudong New Area has experienced great changes in its medical care sector. In 1999, the life expectancy of the local residents reached 78.64, up 2.88 from the figure ten years ago.

In the biggest corruption scandal in the shipping business the city has ever seen, four corporate leaders were recently brought before magistrates at Nanshi District Procuratorate accused of receiving over US$72,000 in bribes and embezzling US$149,000.

A five-year-old girl attacked by a tiger in a local wildlife park received US$2,176 in compensation over the weekend.

The largest Australian education show ever held in China is expected to have more than 2,000 visitors when it opens in Shanghai in mid-April.

Shanghai has been slotted into the global rank of medium-level developed cities, like Budapest and Warsaw, but it still trailed metropolises like New York, London, Paris and Hong Kong, a leading official Chinese think tank study found.

A new dealership, the 4,500-square-meter Shanghai Yongda Automobile Co., Ltd., opened in Pudong over the weekend to sell Chinese-made Audi cars.

A German family of four were murdered by four burglars at their home in Nanjing, capital of East China's Jiangsu Province, in the early hours of the morning of April 2.

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