China is awash with images of orange and black-striped big cats as the country prepares to usher in the Year of the Tiger on Sunday.

Yet for all the traditional sentiment toward one of the most revered animals in the Chinese Zodiac, 2010 could be a make-or- break year for wild tigers in China.

Since the last Year of the Tiger 12 years ago, the worldwide population of wild tigers has almost halved to 3,200.

Zhu Chunquan is the conservation director of the wildlife protection group WWF in Beijing. He says unless action is taken now, there will be no more wild tigers in China by the next year of the Tiger.

“If no immediate action is taken to protect the wild tiger’s population and habitat, then there is a high risk of extinction in 12 years,” he said.

The South China tiger has not been seen in the wild for 25 years and is believed to be extinct.

China’s three other species are also in peril.

The WWF this week said there are fewer than 50 Chinese tigers left in the wild – and the pressure on them is mounting as the country continues its breakneck economic development.

As cities and farms expand, tigers lose places to live and food to eat. Poachers threaten both the tigers and their prey.

Compounding the threat is the illegal trade of tiger parts used in traditional Chinese medicine, which continues despite a 17-year ban on the practice.

In northeastern China near the Russian border, the struggle to bring the Amur – or Siberian – tiger back from the brink has the backing of the World Bank.

It is funding a program worth several billion dollars to boost the population to a sustainable level.

The head of the bank’s China environment program, Carter Brandon, says the survival of the species is no longer an issue of conservation but instead one of development.

“The area required for a sizable tiger population is much greater than China can put aside in the form of formal protective areas,” explained Brandon. “Protective areas are great but there’s a lot of people up in the northeast, and each tiger requires something like 70,000 hectares – 700 square kilometers – for a sustainable area for 50 tigers. That’s a huge area,” he said.

Despite the grim warnings, the WWF’s Zhu says there is room for optimism.

He says China shows the political will to save wild tigers by signing on to international agreements.

And efforts similar to those used to save the panda from extinction are now being used to help the tiger.

“With awareness increasing and also more government actions and investment and with also local communities and local forestry support, and the global community’s help, we believe the tiger’s recovery in China has great hope,” Zhu said.

The battle to save the tiger is of course not exclusive to China.

The first Asian ministerial conference on the issue was held in Thailand last week.

It set a goal of doubling the wild population by the start of the next tiger year in 2022.

And an international tiger summit will convene in September in Russia.

Via

“1235 airlines,
80,000-kilometer railway,
3,730,000-kilometer road,
and enormous number of rivers,
like blood vessels spread,
dedicated to the peak of public transport in the Spring Festival travel season,
year by year.

150,000,000 Chinese people left their family,
to cities, big cities, the capital city,
for better jobs, better schools and hospitals,
now they are on their way home.

Seeing the whistling trains come close,
please salute,
to one tenth of wandering China,
to those Chinese living elsewhere.”

– http://news.163.com/special/000137OF/chunyun2010.html

This taphrogeny is caused by the digging work of several gypsum mining plants in Ginkgo Town. The underground has been gradually emptied. Hundreds of acres of fertile farmland were damaged in this incident.

Former Party chief of Fujian Province Lu Zhangong was appointed secretary of the Henan Provincial Committee of the CPC, replacing Xu Guangchun.

Sun Chunlan was appointed secretary of the Fujian Provincial Committee of the CPC.

Former Party chief of Jilin Province Wang Min was appointed secretary of the Liaoning Provincial Committee of the CPC, replacing Zhang Wenyue.

Former Minister of Agriculture Sun Zhengcai succeeded Wang as the Party chief of Jilin Province.

Former governor of Hebei Province Hu Chunhua was appointed Party chief of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, replacing Chu Bo. (Xinhua)

Biography of Hu Chunhua (胡春华, April 1963 – )

Hu Chunhua is seen as one of the more promising sixth-generation leaders of the CPC. He was born in Wufeng, Hubei in April 1963. He received his B.A. degree from Beijing University in August 1983. After graduation, he began work as a cadre in the Organization Department of the Communist Youth League in Tibet. Hu subsequently held various government and Youth League positions in Tibet, ultimately serving as deputy secretary of the CPC Tibet Autonomous Regional Committee from November 2003 to November 2006 and vice chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Regional Government from November 2003 to November 2005.

From 1997 to 2001 Hu served in the Secretariat of the Communist Youth League and as a Vice Chairman of the All-China Youth Federation. He returned to Beijing to become the First Secretary of the Communist Youth League from December 2006 to March 2008. On April 15, 2008, he was appointed as the acting Governor of Hebei, China’s youngest. On January 12, 2009, he was appointed Governor.

Hu is a current member of the 17th Central Committee. On December 27, 2008, he was admitted as a substitute delegate to the 11th National People’s Congress (NPC) representing Hebei Province.

Biography of Lu Zhangong (卢展工, May 1952 – )

Born in Cixi, Zhejiang Province, Lu Zhangong started working in March 1969, and joined the Communist Party of China (CPC) in January 1975.

In September 1988, he became the vice secretary of the CPC Jiaxing city committee and the secretary of the discipline commission there. He was elevated to the position of secretary of the CPC Jiaxing Committee in December 1989. In March 1991, he became the vice director of the organization department of the CPC Zhejiang committee. He was promoted to director of the organization department and a member of the standing committee of the CPC Zhejiang committee in December 1992. One year later, he became the vice secretary of the CPC Zhejiang committee and head of the organization department. In July 1996, he was appointed vice secretary of the CPC Hebei committee. In October 1998, he became the vice chairman of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, secretary of its secretariat and vice secretary of its Party group. In January 2001, he was appointed vice secretary of the CPC Fujian committee, and became vice governor and then acting governor of Fujian in October 2002. His post of governor was confirmed in January 2003. In February 2004, he became acting secretary of the CPC Fujian committee, and on December 16 of that year, he resigned from his post as governor of Fujian and became the CPC party chief of the province. In January 2005, he was elected chairman of the standing committee of the Fujian People’s Congress.

Lu was an alternate member of the 15th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and a full member of the 16th Central Committee. He currently serves as a member of the 17th Central Committee.

Biography of Sun Chunlan (孙春兰, May 1950 – )

Sun Chunlan was born in Raoyang, Hebei Province. She joined the Communist Party of China in May 1973. She has been an alternate member of the 15th and 16th Central Committees of the Communist Party of China, and a full member of the 17th Central Committee.

Biography of Sun Zhengcai (孙政才, September 1963 – )

Sun Zhengcai was born in September, 1963 in Wendeng city of Shandong province. In July 1988, he joined the Communist Party of China. He has been a researcher of agricultural science in Beijing, and held many political positions in the Beijing region. In February 2002, he became the Party Secretary of the Shunyi District outside of Beijing. In December, 2006, the 25th plenary session of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress appointed him to his current position as head of the Ministry of Agriculture. He is a member of the 17th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.

Wu Xiaoqing has obtained 3,575,000 yuan, 100,000 Hong Kong dollars in bribery crime, and further 5.18 million yuan could not explain the legitimate origin. He left a suicide note, chose the nap time to avoid the surveillance video and hanged himself by using pant rope.

Two guards have been put under investigation.

29th, November, more than one million people took the national civil service exam to compete for 15000 jobs, the admission ratio approaches to 69:1. Exam results will be published on the official websites of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and the State Administration of Civil Service in mid-January, and those who passed will be interviewed. Considering the world economic crisis, corporate layoffs and pay cuts, it appears that only civil servants hold solid position and decent wage.

Some people claimed that China had been ruled by poets for over a thousand years, as the civil service exam is a tradition deeply rooted in Chinese culture. The order of social classes in Chinese feudal society is “士农工学商” (civil servant, farmer, worker, student, businessman). Today civil servants are still highly respected and well paid. Recent years China has deployed a so called “Sunshine Wage System” to eliminate the inefficiency and enhance financial transparency of bureaucratic system. In a changing society like China, people show great preference of risk avoidance to hedge the uncertainty and ambiguity of health care system, educational system and social insurance system. The civil service exam system also stimulates social mobility, which is very important to China today.

Chongqing Geleshan martyrs cemetery is the former site of Kuomintang concentration camp named “Institute of Sino-US cooperation”. November 27, 1949, the KMT killed more than 300 detained communists and social activists, only 35 survived from the holocaust.

The poem below was written by a martyr named Zhou Conghua. Zhou was a communist with identity of high-ranking commander in KMT army, he was killed in November 27, 1949. The poem was engraved on the wall of prison cell using chopsticks.

My sacrifice will fertilize the motherland, 失败膏黄土，
My success will save the people. 成功济苍生。

The identities of some martyrs who died in 27th, November 1949 are still unknown. They were pro-communist students and social activists. The youngest victim in Geleshan was Song Zhengzhong, an eight-year-old boy. He stabbed to death with his parents in 6th of September 1949. Song’s father was the adjutant of General Zhang Xueliang. General Yang Hucheng’s family were killed on the same day. Yang’s daughter was only nine years old when she was murdered.

“Имя твоё неизвестно. Подвиг твой бессмертен.”
(你的名字无人知晓，你的功绩永世长存。)

Government officials were on site when self-immolation took place, the demolition was done by over 300 people including policemen, firefighters and unidentified men wearing camouflage clothes. The house has been demolished already.

The incident was first reported by HNCNN.com (新湘报)

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