Chinese Daily Photos, 2011 to 2019!

BEIJING (AFP) – Chinese police have released detained artist Ai Weiwei on bail after he confessed to tax evasion and because he suffers from a chronic disease, the state-run Xinhua news agency said Wednesday.

The outspoken dissident was taken into custody in April during the government's biggest crackdown on activists in years, with authorities later saying he was accused of evading tax and destroying accounting documents.

Xinhua reported late Wednesday that Ai had offered to repay the taxes, and would be released because of "his good attitude in confessing his crimes".

Relatives have said they did not know where the artist was being held, while his detention sparked an international outcry, with the United States and European Union condemning the move.

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Dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei waves from the entrance of his studio after being released on bail in Beijing June 23, 2011. Ai, detained since April, was released on bail on Wednesday, state media said, citing Beijing police. The agency, in a late evening announcement, said the artist had been freed "because of his good attitude in confessing his crimes as well as a chronic disease he suffers from". Ai was detained at Beijing airport on April 3, igniting an outcry about China's tightening grip on dissent, which has triggered the detention and arrest of dozens of rights activists and dissidents.

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Beauty pageants are becoming increasingly popular in modern China, as young women and private enterprises seek to benefit from a more tolerant attitude towards events that were regarded as decadent years ago.

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Chen Hong shows his bribery webpage on his laptop computer at a cafe in Beijing, China Wednesday, June 22, 2011.

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These photos taken on June 21, 2011 shows Chinese police watching over a group of massage girls suspected of prostitution during a raid on a massage parlour in Beijing in a vice crackdown ahead of the celebrations for the founding of the Chinese Communist Party 90 years ago.

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This photo taken on June 21, 2011 shows Chinese police taking away a group of people suspected of prostitution during a raid on a massage parlour in Beijing in a vice crackdown.

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ZAOZHUANG, CHINA - JUNE 22: Soldiers and civilians perform songs at Wenhualu Primary School on June 22, 2011 in Zaozhuang, Shandong Province of China. This year's celebrations will mark the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China.

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Qie ZhengFu of China performs during the final rehearsal of 'The Legend of Shangri La' at the State Theatre in Sydney on June 22, 2011. Directed by Yang Liping, the dynamic showcase of traditional and modern choreography officially opens the Year of Chinese Culture in Australia.

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Rescue workers are seen entering the tunnel of the flooded Duxing Coal Mine in Sandu township, Leiyang city of Central China's Hunan province in a bid to rescue the trapped miners on June 22. Four miners are dead,three are believed to be trapped and two miners escaped after the accident,Safety Supervision Bureau of Hunan province confirmed. The cause of the accident is still under investigation. [Photo/Asianewsphoto]

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Rescue workers clear raw coal scattered outside the leaking Duxing Coal Mine in Sandu township, Leiyang city of Central China's Hunan province, June 22, 2011. [Photo/Asianewsphoto]

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A police car outside the Tongxing kindergarten in Shanghai on Tuesday. [Hu Yanxun / for China Daily]

SHANGHAI - A male staff member of a kindergarten in Minhang district has been detained on suspicion of sexually violating five girls, Minhang police said on Tuesday.

Police said they received reports on June 16 from two parents that their daughters had been violated at the Shanghai Minhang district's Tongxing kindergarten.

Police investigated the case immediately and decided that a 35-year-old male staff member, surnamed Han, was a suspect. They detained Han later that day.

Police have been visiting students and parents since June 16 to further investigate the case.

Han might have sexually violated the girls when they took an afternoon sleep, according to investigators' initial findings.

Police detain man on suspicion of violating 5 preschool girls

The kindergarten is a privately run preschool. Its monthly charge is about 400 yuan ($62). Currently more than 200 students attend the school.

Parents said the kindergarten has been running for more than a year. However, approval for planning and constructing the kindergarten by Minhang education bureau was dated Dec 28, 2010, according to a file published on the Minhang district government's website.

The registered fund of the kindergarten is 400,000 yuan and the entire investment is 800,000 yuan. The purpose of the kindergarten is to educate migrant workers' children aged from three to six, according to the file.

Han, the suspect, is a cousin of one of the kindergarten's supervisors, Shanghai Television reported.

A girl told her parents that a man at the kindergarten had been constantly "touching" her for more than a year, and the parents later found similar cases at the kindergarten and called the police, said a parent who spoke on condition of anonymity, reported xinmin.net, a Shanghai news website.

The kindergarten was still operating normally on Tuesday, according to xinmin.net.

A clerk with Minhang education bureau, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told China Daily on Tuesday afternoon that the bureau was aware of the case, and discussions about the case were to be held on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, but he declined to make any comment before police have concluded their investigation.

The police are still looking into the case, according to the district police bureau.

This case draws attention to the quality of privately run kindergartens, which have been encouraged to open in Shanghai to satisfy demand for preschool education for the increasing number of migrants workers' children.

Earlier reports said the number of migrant workers' children in Shanghai who are of preschool age would increase to 200,000 by 2012 from the current 80,000.

To increase resources for preschool education and seek ways to accommodate these migrant children, the Shanghai education commission announced last year that it plans to build more than 400 kindergartens within five years.

These kindergartens will be built mainly in migrant population areas, such as Baoshan district, Minhang district and Pudong New Area.

"The government should increase supervision for these private kindergartens," said Gao Shuang, a teacher at a public kindergarten in the city.

"Meanwhile, a comprehensive training and assessment system should be set up for the kindergartens' staff members to ensure the healthy growth of children."

A local resident, surnamed Xie, whose son will enter kindergarten next year, said: "While setting up more kindergartens in the city, under no circumstances should authorities neglect the quality of instruction at these preschools, especially privately run ones.

"Unlike public kindergartens, teachers, facilities and education standards at private kindergartens are still cause for concern," Xie said.

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LONDON, ENGLAND - JUNE 23: Li Na of China reacts to a play during her second round match against Sabine Lisicki of Germany on Day Four of the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Championships at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club on June 23, 2011 in London, England. As of this posting the match is still in session.

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Wang Zhisen, 71, cleans a badge featuring the late Chinese leader Mao Zedong and the Tiananmen Square next to his collection of commemorative badges at his home in Nanjing, Jiangsu province June 23, 2011. Wang, who has collected more than 5,000 badges of the late leader in 50 years, will later hold a exhibition in his residential community to celebrate the upcoming 90th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC), local media reported.

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People walk past advertising for luxury brands in Hong Kong on June 1, 2011. Some of the world's top luxury brands are set to list on the Hong Kong bourse to tap China's deep capital markets -- and draw more customers -- as demand for premium goods soars in Asia, analysts say.AFP PHOTO/MIKE CLARKE.

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Two visitors walk past a 60-year-old steam locomotive on display at a railway museum in Beijing on June 23, 2011. China's much-anticipated high-speed rail link between Beijing and Shanghai will go into service on July 1

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People walk next to a high-speed train at the railway test complex in Beijing on June 23, 2011. China's much-anticipated high-speed rail link between Beijing and Shanghai will go into service on July 1, state media said on June 23, after a corruption scandal that toppled the former railways minister.

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Activist artist Ai Weiwei opens the gate to talk to journalists gathered outside his home in Beijing, China, Thursday, June 23, 2011. Ai, the most high-profile target of a sweeping crackdown on activists in China, returned home late Wednesday after nearly three months in detention. The official Xinhua News Agency said Ai confessed to tax evasion, accusations his family had long denied and which activists had denounced as a false premise for detaining him.

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Journalists stake out activist artist Ai Weiwei outside his home after he returns from detention in Beijing, China Thursday, June 23, 2011.

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Students hold candles as they sing a revolutionary song around a cake which they made to celebrate the upcoming 90th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China at a vocational education school in Chongqing municipality June 23, 2011. The cake, measuring nine square metres, weighs about 300 kilograms, local media reported.

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A vendor plays Chinese chess at his beef and mutton stall in a market in Beijing June 23, 2011.

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A Chinese model poses in front of a Mercedes SL-500 displayed at the Shanghai Motor Show in this December 9, 2001 file photo.

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Soccer fans try to take pictures of Manchester United South Korean player Park Ji-sung during his autograph session for fans as part of a promotional event in Hong Kong Thursday, June 23, 2011.

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People stand on the Peak as they look at the Hong Kong skyline on June 21, 2011. Tropical depression Haima was estimated to be about 370 kilometres south-southeast of Hong Kong, and was forecast to move west or west-northwest intensifying gradually towards the coast of western Guangdong.

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Cathay Pacific staff members present the new uniform at a news conference in Hong Kong Wednesday, June 22, 2011. Cathay Pacific announced the July 8 launch for the roll out of the airline's new uniform to 13,000 staff members worldwide, including more than 8,000 cabin crew and 4,000 staff members working in airports reservations and cargo teams around the network.

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WIMBLEDON, England (AP) — French Open champion Li Na wasted two match points and lost to wild-card entry Sabine Lisicki of Germany 3-6, 6-4, 8-6 in the second round of Wimbledon.

Li served for the match twice in the final set Thursday but was broken each time. She had won 14 of her previous 15 Grand Slam matches in 2011, reaching the final at the Australian Open, then becoming China's first major singles champion at Roland Garros.

But Lisicki has won 12 of her last 13 matches on grass courts, including reaching the Wimbledon quarterfinals in 2009 and winning a tuneup tournament in Birmingham this month. She missed five months last season with a left ankle injury, and she fell out of the top 200 in the rankings. Lisicki is back up to 62nd.

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HK slashes mainland babies quota
Posted: 24 June 2011 1926 hrs

HONG KONG: Hong Kong on Friday announced a sharply reduced quota for mainland Chinese women allowed to give birth in its public hospitals, as it struggles to cope with the tens of thousands arriving yearly.

"There is a surge of demand for Hong Kong's obstetric services by non-local residents, in particular mainland women, in recent years," the city's health chief York Chow said in a statement.

Places for non-local women to deliver in public hospitals will be reduced to 3,400 in 2012 subject to the availability of maternity ward beds, health authorities said, to curb the influx of expectant mothers.

"We have decided in 2012, the Hospital Authority will only accept bookings for non-local women when spare capacity is available," Chow told reporters.

Mainland mothers reportedly accounted for nearly half of the 88,000 births in the glitzy financial hub in 2010.

Women from mainland China are keen to give birth in Hong Kong -- a city of seven million that has had semi-autonomous status within China since it ceased to be a British colony in 1997 -- because it entitles their child to rights of abode and education.

Public hospitals have been giving priority to local mothers for several years, a Hospital Authority spokesman told AFP. In 2010 the number of foreign women giving birth in local hospitals was restricted to 9,899.

Chow said that 10 private hospitals with maternity units had also agreed to cut next year's allocation, with a total of of 31,000 places to be available for foreign pregnant women.

The government has come under pressure in recent months after doctors made a rare public call for a cap on the number of babies delivered in the city as resources for local mothers are stretched thin.

-AFP/wk

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Corrupt Chinese officials flee with US$120b
Posted: 17 June 2011 2143 hrs

BEIJING - Corrupt Chinese officials siphoned more than US$120 billion out of the country in less than two decades, the central bank has said in a study highlighting the widespread scourge of government graft.

Between 16,000 and 18,000 government officials and executives of state-owned firms have fled China or simply vanished with up to 800 billion yuan (US$123.7 billion) in illegal gains, according to the study.

Higher-ranking officials carrying larger sums of money mostly fled to developed nations such as the United States, Canada and Australia, while others tended to choose nations closer to home such as Russia and Thailand, it said.

A number of defectors used Hong Kong as a springboard to Commonwealth states while others hid out in small nations in Africa, Latin America and eastern Europe before they could get the documents needed to go to the West, it said.

Official graft remains pervasive in China and is a major source of public resentment towards the government despite numerous clean-up campaigns.

President Hu Jintao and other top leaders have repeatedly called endemic corruption in China a threat to the Communist Party's legitimacy and have pledged to stamp it out.

The rampant transfer of graft money out of China could "undermine the foundation of the Party's rule" and has harmed the world's second-largest economy, warned the study, which was based on data compiled in June 2008.

It will also "severely tarnish China's international image" because such practices "undoubtedly exposed problems such as political corruption, loopholes in the legal system, and incomplete financial supervision" in China, it said.

"Firmly punishing and effectively preventing corruption are critical to the winning or losing of public support and the life or death of the Party and therefore is a key political task the Party must handle well," it said.

The report, which was prepared by the central bank's anti-money laundering supervision and analysis centre, was initially stamped "for internal use only" but was posted on the People's Bank of China website this week.

It was reported in some Chinese media but was no longer showing on the website Friday. AFP accessed it via a cached link.

Some offenders highlighted in the central bank report simply carried cash in their suitcases when they crossed the border out of China or transferred money via illegal, private channels, the report said.

More sophisticated transactions included forging fake contracts, stealing from state-owned companies by siphoning overseas assets or setting up front companies in offshore markets, it said.

In more recent times, many officials have sent their relatives or lovers abroad first to buy properties and other assets, or set up companies to receive their illegal gains, it added.

Some notable cases include three managers at a Bank of China branch who fled to the United States and Canada in 2001 with $483 million and Cheng Kejie, a former vice chairman of the country's parliament, who parked tens of millions of yuan in ill-gotten gains in overseas bank accounts.

Luxury car dealers in New Zealand had listed Chinese students as their most prized clients, and property costs in areas of New York and Los Angeles soared due to an influx of Chinese families with dubious backgrounds, the study said.

The bank said authorities would boost oversight over "sensitive" industries such as the financial, land, transport and construction sectors and step up supervision of officials, managers at state-owned firms and their relatives to prevent graft.

According to an annual report by Chinese prosecutors published in March, 1,282 graft suspects who went on the run were apprehended last year, in cases involving 7.4 billion yuan in ill-gotten gains.

- AFP/ir

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Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (L) is greeted by Hungarian children at the University of Budapest, to start a two-day visit to Hungary, June 24, 2011. Wen is expected to talk about potential trade links with Hungary's leaders before flying on to London on June 25.

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PERTH, AUSTRALIA - JUNE 24: The Chinese team line up for a team photo during the international friendly match between the Australian Boomers and China at Challenge Stadium on June 24, 2011 in Perth, Australia.

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PERTH, AUSTRALIA - JUNE 24: Chinese fans show their support during the international friendly match between the Australian Boomers and China at Challenge Stadium on June 24, 2011 in Perth, Australia.

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PERTH, AUSTRALIA - JUNE 24: Zhou Peng of China lays up aganst Luke Nevill of the Boomers during the international friendly match between the Australian Boomers and China at Challenge Stadium on June 24, 2011 in Perth, Australia

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LONDON, ENGLAND - JUNE 24: Shuai Peng of China (L) shakes hands with Elena Baltacha of Great Britain after winning her second round match on Day Five of the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Championships at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club on June 24, 2011 in London, England.

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This photo taken on June 23, 2011 shows the traffic jam due to rainstorms which flooded a large part of the city of Beijing. China, already hit by torrential downpours that have left more than 260 dead or missing, braced Tuesday for more rains and wind as a tropical storm neared its southern coast, weather authorities said.

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Vendors clean up the floodwater out of their stores on a flooded street during heavy rainfalls in Chuzhou, Anhui province June 24, 2011. Persistent downpours have wreaked havoc in southern China since June 3, leaving at least 175 dead and 86 missing and forcing nearly 1.64 million people to evacuate, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said on Monday, Xinhua News Agency reported.

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BEIJING, CHINA - JUNE 23: A worker wears a panda head to attract visitors during the 2011 Beijing Summertime Real Estate Trade Show at China World Trade Center on June 23, 2011 in Beijing, China. The five-day 2011 Beijing Summertime Real Estate Trade Show opened on Thursday

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NANJING, CHINA - JUNE 23: A CRH high-speed train arrives at Nanjing South Railway Station during its test run on June 23, 2011 in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province of China. Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway starts to sell tickets on Friday, and it will open on June 30.

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Passengers rest at the Beijing capital airport as flights were delayed due to rainstorms which flooded a large part of the city on June 23, 2011. China, already hit by torrential downpours that have left more than 260 dead or missing, braced Tuesday for more rains and wind as a tropical storm neared its southern coast, weather authorities said.

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Rina Bovrisse (3rd L), a former Prada manager in Japan, protests with Hong Kong lawmaker Lee Cheuk-yan (2nd L) outside the Hong Kong Stock Exchange during the debut of Prada SpA in Hong Kong June 24, 2011. Italian fashion house Prada SpA is suspected of discriminatory practices towards female employees in Japan, and that such complaints are still currently under investigation, according to a press release by the Association for the Advancement of Feminism. Chinese characters on the banner reads "Against Prada. No sexual discrimination".

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A policemen (L) escorts alleged drug traffickers during a press conference at the judicial police office in Macao, south China, June 22, 2011. Macao's police captured in the airport a 64-year-old drug trafficker carrying 5,028g cocaine wrapped in 124 small packages on Wednesday. Following the clue, another Colombian, alleged to be the participant, was also arrested in a hotel on the same day. [Xinhua/Cheong Kam Ka]

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