CHINA, ONE OF ONLY THREE COUNTRIES SENDING ASTRONAUTS FOR SPACE WALK TONIGHT

Shenzhou VII taikonauts (from left) Jing Haipeng,
Zhai Zhigang and Liu Boming wave to people at
a press conference in Jiuquan, Gansu Province, September 24, 2008. [Xinhua]


Shenzhou VII lifts off tonight
By Hu Yinan (China Daily)
2008-09-25

JIUQUAN, Gansu -- Shenzhou VII will lift off between 9:07
pm and 10:27 pm Thursday, carrying three astronauts, one of
who will become the first Chinese to walk in space, senior
space program officials said Wednesday.

One of the astronauts, Zhai Zhigang will walk in space
around 4:30 pm on Saturday, media reports said.

The spacecraft will carry astronauts Liu Boming and Jing
Haipeng, too.

One of the major tasks of the three-day mission is
extra-vehicular activity (EVA), or spacewalk in this case,
mission spokesman Wang Zhaoyao said at a news conference
Wednesday. The success of the task will mark a remarkable
step forward for China.

The other tasks include releasing a small monitoring
satellite and satellite data relay trials, said Wang, who
is also deputy director of China's manned space program
office.

"The Shenzhou VII mission marks a historic breakthrough in
China's manned space program. It is a great honor for all
three of us to be part of the mission, and we are fully
prepared for the challenge," Zhai Zhigang said when he and
the other two astronauts met the media Wednesday.

Tonight's mission will be the second stage of China's
three-stage manned space program, which eventually is aimed
at building a space lab and a space station by 2020.

Engineers began loading fuel in the carrier rocket at 4 pm
Wednesday, a process that would take seven hours and meant
the launch was "irreversible", Jiuquan Satellite Launch
Center officials said.

Shenzhou VII will be launched from atop the Long-March II-F
carrier rocket into orbit 343 km from Earth.

Two of the astronauts will enter the orbital module, put on
EVA spacesuits and prepare for the spacewalk. One of them
will put on a China-made "Feitian" EVA suit and the other,
a Russian Orlan-M "Haiying" suit.

And "one of the two will get out of the cabin and retrieve
the test samples loaded outside the module," Wang said.

Compared with the previous two manned space flights, the
Shenzhou VII mission faces unprecedented technical
difficulties, he said, even though China has achieved a
series of technical breakthroughs, including making an EVA
suit and airlock module.

During the mission, the astronauts will have to assemble
and test the 120-kg EVA suits, depressurize and
re-pressurize the cabin, and exit and re-enter the orbital
module.

"The process of EVAs cannot be simulated completely on the
ground and some of the newly developed products have to be
tested in flight for the first time," Wang said.

Thirteen Orlan-M spacesuits, three for actual EVAs, were
received from Russia under a contract signed in April 2004,
he said. Moscow developed the spacesuits, while Beijing
gave the power supply and communication systems.

"Russian experts have provided technical assistance
throughout the mission," he said.

Thanks to the collaboration, China took only three and half
years to design the EVA spacesuit. Or else it would have
taken eight years to do so, Chen Shanguang, head and chief
designer of the project's astronaut suits and other
accessories, said.

Russia helped train the astronauts and develop the Shenzhou
spacecraft, too.

But soon China could train foreign astronauts, Xinhua
quoted Chen as having said. "China's two successful manned
space missions have showed it has the technical ability to
independently train astronauts in future."

In 2003, China became the first country after the US and
Russia to send a man into space. It followed it with a
two-man mission in 2005.

CHAVEZ: “Thank God there is a revolution in China; thank God there is a revolution in Venezuela; thank God we met each other and we shook our hands"

The Strategic Fund China-Venezuela
to be injected with 12 billion dollars
in three years

ABN 24/09/2008 Caracas,

Caracas, Sept 24. ABN.- The President of the Bolivarian
Republic of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez Frías, informed that in
three years 12 billion dollars will be injected to the
Strategic Fund China-Venezuela.

During his fifth visit to China, Chávez explained that he
sent the request to China three months ago and he will take
advantage of his visit to renew the fund.

President Chávez detailed that in a first stage, China
contributed with 4 billion dollars and Venezuela with 2
billion. “These resources are being invested in the country
(Venezuela) in hundreds of small and medium works that are
currently under construction.”

“Chinese Government, with a prove of friendship and
confidence to Venezuela, has answered positively,” he said.

Venezuelan Head of State commented that China and Venezuela
are able to resist the consequences of the current crisis
of the capitalism because both countries had and have
revolutions; and, thanks to that, it is also possible the
close bilateral relation that has been developed since
almost a decade ago.

He reminded that the relation went stronger when both
countries decided to establish a strategic alliance and
demonstrate that Venezuela and China could create strong
links despite geographical distance and the excuses of some
people saying it was impossible to send oil to that
country.

“They kept us tied to the empire. We were a colony. The
Government was not in Caracas, but in Washington,” Chávez
said explaining the dependence Venezuela had to the North
American market.

“Now, we are free to travel to Beijing. We are working to
increase the oil processing to China,” he stressed.

“Soon, we will reach 400,000 barrels a day (sent from
Venezuela to China), then 500,000 barrels next year, and we
are going to keep working until we reach 1 million barrels
a day,” he said.

Chávez explained that to face worldwide energy crisis,
Venezuela and China are increasing their trade and
relations in oil sector with agreements to build refineries
and tank ships, as well as increasing oil supply to China.

In reference to the financial crisis, President Chávez
insisted that, nowadays, when there are banks going to
bankruptcy and it is so hard to get a credit, both
countries decided to double their joint fund of 6 billion
dollars in order to support the development in sectors like
energy, housing, sanitation, aqueducts, agriculture, among
others.

Regarding food crisis, Chávez pointed out that both
countries keep a close cooperation in agriculture and food
industry since two years ago.

“All of them (the agreements) allow us to overcome the
(worldwide) crisis,” said Chávez with respect to the
bilateral cooperation, while the world is passing through
hard moments.

“Thanks God there is a revolution in China; thanks God
there is a revolution in Venezuela; thanks God we met each
other and we shook our hands,” he insisted.

Translated by Ernesto Aguilera

CHINA-VENEZUELA DEVELOP STRATEGIC ALLIANCE

"Maoist" Chavez eyes closer China

By Emma Graham-Harrison

BEIJING (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on
Tuesday unveiled early plans for two new refinery projects
in China, kicking off a visit to the energy-hungry nation
that could aggravate stormy ties with top oil user the
United States.

Fiery leftist Chavez paid tribute to China's autocratic
late leader Mao Zedong minutes after stepping onto Chinese
soil, and said he hoped to build a joint tanker fleet and
nearly double oil exports to the world's number two
consumer next year.

"We are talking about three refineries, to bring our crude,
which is heavy, and process it here in China," he told
journalists beside his official plane.

"We are also working on a project to construct a joint
Chinese-Venezuelan oil fleet."

China is cautious about handing out permits for refineries,
which are highly sought after by foreign oil companies and
crude-producing nations itching for access to its vast
markets.

The two countries in May agreed to build a 400,000 barrels
per day (bpd) plant in southern Guangdong province, the
first such investment deal between Caracas and Beijing. It
would be unprecedented for China to approve two more in the
near future.

But Chavez does have large amounts of oil to offer in
return, and the self-styled revolutionary and florid critic
of Washington is keen to reduce his nation's traditional
reliance on energy markets in the United States.

China's big energy appetite and Communist Party government
make it an attractive alternative. Chavez has visited China
five times over the last decade and often plays up
political ties between the nations, which contrast with his
ideological war against the "imperialist" regime in
Washington.

"We are in the land of Mao Zedong and I pay tribute to him.
I am a Maoist," he announced to journalists and a
bemused-looking Chinese policeman on the airport's VIP red
carpet, before recommending Bolshevik leader Vladimir
Lenin's book 'Imperialism: The Highest Stage of
Capitalism'.

China's current reformist leaders are respectful of Mao as
the country's revolutionary founder but, now focused on
capitalist-friendly policies, avoid praising his visions of
farming communes and perpetual revolution.

BUSINESS NOT POLITICS

Chavez's colorful rhetoric contrasts with the cautious,
muted tone of Chinese diplomats who prefer to focus on the
business side of the two nations' ties.

"Sino-Venezuelan relations have no ideological hue, are not
aimed at any third party and do not affect Venezuela's ties
with any other country," foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang
Yu told a regular news conference on Tuesday.

But the nature and value of the socialist nations' growing
embrace may anyway spark concern in the United States,
which gets around 10 percent of its oil from Venezuela.

Chavez earlier this month threatened to cut off supplies to
the United States "if there were aggression against
Venezuela" and warned that doing so would push crude prices
above $200 a barrel. But Caracas would need to find a new
buyer for exports that in the five months to May were near
1 million bpd.

Beijing lent Caracas $4 billion this year and the two have
signed a deal to produce and upgrade the country's heavy
oil that will cost around three times as much, or $12
billion.

China will launch Venezuela's first satellite this year and
Chavez said in May he planned to buy Chinese military
training planes, expanding recent arms purchases.

Jiang declined to comment on any deals that might be
signed, but Chavez said more than 20 were drawn up,
covering areas from food cooperation to telecoms and
energy.

He added that Venezuela aims to increase oil exports to
China to 500,000 bpd next year, from around 300,000, and
hit 1 million bpd in four years.

If they can meet Chavez's target for China sales next year
they would supply over 6 percent of the country's oil, but
although imports have risen strongly this year customs data
suggests that Caracas may have set itself a difficult goal.

Venezuelan crude imports over the first eight months
climbed by more than 60 percent compared with a year
earlier, but were still only 5.18 million tonnes, or
155,000 bpd. Export volumes were boosted by nearly 3
million tonnes of diesel and fuel oil.

CHAVEZ: 'CHINA ARE SOLDIERS OF PEACE'

Chávez, China Agree to Build Oil Refineries

WSJ

BEIJING -- China and Venezuela agreed to jointly build two
oil refineries, one in each country, Venezuelan President
Hugo Chávez said Tuesday.

Speaking to journalists on the first day of a two-day
official visit to China, Mr. Chávez said the refinery to be
built in Venezuela will be located in the oil-rich region
of the Orinoco Basin. A formal agreement on the issue is
expected to be signed during Mr. Chávez's stay in China.

China is already building a refinery to process Venezuelan
oil, following an agreement reached this year. Mr. Chávez
didn't provide details on when or where the second Chinese
refinery would be built.

"Venezuela has enough oil to last for 200 years," Mr.
Chávez said. "And the Chinese are already working to tap
that."

He hopes to bolster ties with China through increased oil
sales, partly to reduce dependency on the U.S., which still
buys about 60% of Venezuelan exports despite years of
tensions.

"China is showing the world that it isn't necessary to harm
anyone to be a great power. They are soldiers of peace," he
said, according to a Venezuelan government statement. Asked
about his absence from talks this week on the sidelines of
the United Nations in New York, Mr. Chávez said: "It's much
more important to be in Beijing than in New York."

China is the second stop in a six-country tour that Mr.
Chávez started in Cuba on Sunday. Mr. Chávez and his
Chinese counterparts are also expected to discuss a joint
$6 billion investment fund the two sides agreed to this
year. He plans to fly Thursday to Russia, and then to go on
to Belarus, France and Portugal.

The trip comes amid stepped-up confrontation with the U.S.,
including Russia's dispatch Monday of a naval squadron to
hold joint maneuvers with Venezuela's navy. The deployment
of Russian military power to the Western Hemisphere is
unprecedented since the Cold War and follows a weeklong
visit to Venezuela by a pair of Russian strategic bombers.

"The only thing we demand is that our nation be respected,"
Mr. Chávez said. "We're no longer the backyard of the
United States."

CHINESE SOCIALISM ACHIEVES WORLD HISTORIC SOCIAL PROGRESS

China halves poor population
since millennium

Xinhua, 2008-09-19

BEIJING -- China halved its impoverished population over
the past three decades, according to Huang Yanxin, deputy
director of the regulation department under the Ministry of
Agriculture.

The accomplishment makes China the first nation to fulfill
its objective under the Millennium Development Goals (MDG)
framework.

Huang made the comments at a press briefing on Premier Wen
Jiabao's attendance at the UN MDG summit in New York on
September 25.

According to Huang, China had fulfilled the goal of halving
poor population, compared with the time when MDG project
was established.

Set in 2000, the MDG include eradicating extreme poverty,
achieving universal primary education, promoting gender
equality and improving maternal health, all by 2015.

The percentage of people living in absolute poverty in
rural areas plunged from 30.7 percent in 1978 to 1.6
percent in 2007, Huang said.

"According to China's standards, the number of poor people
dropped from 250 million in 1978 to 14.8 million in 2007,"
said Huang.

China's achievements in relieving poverty had been felt by
all, Huang stated. China's poverty reduction promoted
development in rural areas, fostered harmony in communities
and sped up the process of international poverty relief
work.

Huang noted that 2008 marks the 30th anniversary of China's
reform and opening up. One of the first steps the country
took was to improve rural living standards.

Huang said China had solved the problem of feeding 1.3
billion people during the past 30 years. Compared with
1978, grain output had increased from about 300 billion kg
to 500 billion kg in 2007. Amid world shortages of food and
soaring prices, China's food supply and prices remained
stable.

"It's the important contribution Chinese agriculture made
to domestic development and global agriculture," Huang
said.

CPC/PRC STEP-UP RIGHTS OF WORKERS

China Tells Businesses to Unionize
By DAVID BARBOZA

September 12, 2008
NY Times

SHANGHAI — Some of the world’s biggest corporations are
facing intense pressure from China to allow the
state-approved union to form in their Chinese plants and
offices. But many companies fear admitting the unions will
give their Chinese employees the power to slow or disrupt
their operations and will significantly increase the cost
of doing business here.

The companies, many of which moved to China to lower
manufacturing costs and some to avoid unions in their home
countries as well, are now being asked to meet a Sept. 30
deadline to make their offices and factories union shops.

Companies that do not comply risk being publicly vilified
or blacklisted by the union, and perhaps penalized by the
government, since businesses are required by law to allow
unions to form.

Lawyers and analysts say that demands of the All China
Federation of Trade Unions, the only union the Communist
Party allows, could sharply alter business practices of
foreign companies in China, including giving lower-level
workers the power to bargain over anything from pay raises
to whether a Chinese headquarters should be moved elsewhere
in the country.

“This will dramatically change the landscape here,” said
Andreas Lauffs, a lawyer at Baker & McKenzie’s Shanghai
office who is an authority on China’s labor laws. “At the
very least, company management must now consult, and in
many cases bargain, with employees and unions on a wide
range of matters, whereas in the past they enjoyed almost
unlimited autonomy.”

The union push is coming at a time when global corporations
are already facing rising labor and commodity costs in
China, which is struggling to contain inflation.

Hundreds of big corporations, like Wal-Mart, McDonald’s and
Yum Brands, which operates KFC and Pizza Hut, have agreed
to set up unions in their Chinese operations.

But union officials say that some nonmanufacturing
companies are resisting. Microsoft’s China operation did
not respond this week to questions about the union drive.
The consulting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers said that its
workers were not unionized but that it was studying the
matter.

Union officials say they are focusing on global companies,
but Chinese companies make up the bulk of the manufacturing
work force and they are also expected to face audits and
pressure to unionize.

For years, Western labor activists have taken aim at
China’s manufacturing industry, exposing hundreds of
exploitive factories that employ child labor, force workers
to toil as many as 100 hours a week without overtime pay or
benefits, and violate labor and safety rules.

And some of the world’s biggest brand names, like Wal-Mart,
Disney and Adidas, have been singled out for using
contractors that violate China’s labor laws. The companies
have, in many cases, investigated the claims and fired
contractors.

The new government pressure seems to be part of a sweeping
effort aimed at addressing some of the ugly consequences of
China’s dynamic economic growth, like rampant pollution, a
growing income gap and widespread labor abuse.

Up until now, though, the state-controlled union has done
little to agitate on behalf of workers, legal experts say,
and has often done more to control workers than to benefit
them. The union’s reputation for allowing abuses to exists
has led some to doubt whether it can properly represent
workers.

But the union, which says it already has 200 million
members, is promising to truly represent workers, and is
gaining standing with Communist Party leaders.

In 2004, the National People’s Congress, the state
legislative body, carried out inspections of companies
operating in China to ensure that they were following labor
laws and had dues-paying union members. Union officials,
using increasingly bold tactics, have zeroed in on the
China operations of the 500 biggest global corporations,
which would mean millions of new union members. The union
says it intends to combat worker exploitation.

“Some foreign companies in China haven’t behaved well in
dealing with their workers’ interests and rights,” Wang
Ying, an official at the All China Federation of Trade
Unions in Beijing, said in a telephone interview this week.
“As the economy and society develops, China needs to
improve workers’ legal rights and interests, which is a
demand of a civilized society.”

Forming unions could be costly, lawyers and labor experts
say, because a union could fight for higher wages and
benefits and because companies are required to pay 2
percent payroll dues. The dues could amount to millions of
dollars in additional costs for big companies. Yum Brands,
for instance, has about 160,000 employees in China.

Manufacturers are already coping with soaring labor costs,
which have jumped by 30 to 40 percent in some coastal
manufacturing zones over the last four years. Also, a new
contract labor law and stricter enforcement of older labor
rules means some companies can no longer avoid paying
overtime costs, which can be substantial because many
factories insist that some employees work six days a week.

But whether unions can really protect workers and bargain
collectively on their behalf is still in question.

“It all depends on how they are set up,” said Anita Chan,
an authority on labor issues in China who is a visiting
research fellow at the Australian National University in
Canberra. “After you set up a union, these groups have to
know how to become representatives of the workers, and
really collectively bargain.”

Mr. Lauffs, the labor law expert, said it was too early to
tell what impact new unions would have on companies here.
But union members would need to be consulted on all
employee-related and operational matters.

“Employees may have a say in major operational matters,” he
said. “And employees may have the right to strike.”

Many big corporations in China that have recently allowed
unions to form under pressure have declined to comment on
the union drive. Some company spokesmen have admitted
privately that they do not want to raise the ire of the
state-controlled union or anger China’s political leaders,
who are backing the effort.

But several big companies said they were working well with
the union. Wal-Mart, which for years has fought against
unions in the United States and elsewhere, now has unions
operating in nearly all of its 108 stores in China.

“We have a good relationship working with the union,” said
Jonathan Dong, a Wal-Mart spokesman in China. “The union
provides a complement to what we do.”

The top executive in China at PricewaterhouseCoopers, Frank
Lyn, said accounting and professional services firms like
his could not be equated with manufacturers.

“We’ll continue to monitor the situation,” Mr. Lyn said.
“At this juncture we don’t see a pressing need for a
union.”

Ms. Wang, the official at the All China Federation of Trade
Unions, said that by the end of September about 80 percent
of the top 500 global corporations operating in China would
have unions here. “We are making great progress,” she said.

Chen Yang contributed reporting.

PRC - VENEZUELA - AFRICA - MULTIPOLAR STRATEGY

Foreign Policy with a Multipolar Vision
Noticias

The Venezuelan Foreign Affairs Vice-minister for Africa
Reinaldo Bolívar mentioned the multipolar vision of the
Bolivarian Government’s foreign policy and stressed that
“Venezuelan will be always willing to provide the greatest
possible humanitarian help to Africa in the event that this
continent be victim of natural disasters or wars.”

Bolívar informed that Venezuela has recently talked to the
authorities of the People’s Republic of China in order to
develop triangular relations in favor of Africa’s political
and economic development.

“The result has been positive; we have even received
specific gestures through the Chinese Embassy to Ethiopia,
which has cooperated with the school equipment of the
schools sponsored by Venezuela,” Bolívar explained.

The Venezuelan official highlighted that the importance of
an alliance with China is due to the huge presence of this
Asian nation in the African continent.

“China buys 40% of its oil form Africa, and in the recent
years it has considerably invested in infrastructures,
construction of bridges, hospitals and roads,” assured
Bolívar.