China expresses “serious concern” over Korean peninsula

A Chinese diplomat has met ambassadors from the United States and both Koreas to express “serious concern” over the situation on the Korean peninsula, China’s Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday, following a spike in tension.

“Yesterday afternoon, Deputy Foreign Minister Zhang Yesui met the ambassadors of North and South Korea and the United States and expressed serious concern about the present situation on the peninsula,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters at a daily briefing.

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Ben Blanchard, Reuters via CHINA US Focus http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ChinaUsFocus/~3/HzTxhVI95KU/

Japan’s Car Makers Struggle in China

Japan’s three major auto makers suffered continued sales setbacks in China last month, adding urgency to efforts to reignite sales in the vast but increasingly competitive market.

Toyota Motor Corp., Nissan Motor Co. and Honda Motor Co. reported year-over-year declines in March as they grapple with a territorial dispute between China and Japan over a group of rocky islands in the East China Sea, a row that inflamed anti-Japanese sentiment in China and caused boycotts and general wariness of Japanese car brands.

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Wall Street Journal via CHINA US Focus http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ChinaUsFocus/~3/h6pbYTQ1ajE/

New Bird Flu Kills Third Person in China as Cases Rise to Nine

A third person died of a new strain of bird flu in eastern China, as cases of the deadly virus were reported in a fourth location.

Two people in Hangzhou city were infected with the H7N9 strain of avian influenza, one of whom died, China’s official Xinhua News Agency said today. The virus has infected at least nine people and killed three of them since China’s health ministry reported the first cases last month. The other two deaths were in Shanghai, while cases have also been reported in Anhui and Jiangsu provinces.

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Simeon Bennett, Bloomberg News via CHINA US Focus http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ChinaUsFocus/~3/PxtiMOHOoUI/

Two Major Air Pollutants Increase in China

In the first three months of this year, two major air pollutants increased by almost 30 percent here in Beijing, the Chinese capital, over the same period in 2012, according to a report Wednesday by a Chinese news organization.

Levels of the pollutants — nitrous dioxide and particulate matter that is between 2.5 and 10 micrometers in diameter, called PM 10 — appeared to have surged sharply in January, when they increased 47 percent over the same month last year, according to the report by The Economic Observer, a respected Chinese newspaper. The report cited as its source Chen Tian, head of the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau.

A third pollutant, sulfur dioxide, decreased slightly over the same three-month period.

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Edward Wong, New York Times via CHINA US Focus http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ChinaUsFocus/~3/ewBDycFlGFc/

Baidu, China’s Google, Is Developing Product Similar To Google Glass

Baidu Inc , China’s largest search engine, is developing prototype digital eyewear similar to Google Inc’s Google Glass that will leverage Baidu’s strengths in image search and facial recognition, a Baidu spokesman said on Wednesday.

Internally known as project “Baidu Eye”, the glasses are being tested internally and it is not clear whether the product will ever be commercialized, said Kaiser Kuo, Baidu’s spokesman.

Kuo said the device will be mounted on a headset with a small LCD screen and will allow users to make image and voice searches as well as conduct facial recognition matches.

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Melanie Lee, Reuters via CHINA US Focus http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ChinaUsFocus/~3/AVFxrFkDbgs/

Experts expect drought to last until May

Higher temperatures and low rainfall are forecast for those regions this month and next, the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters said on Tuesday.

By Tuesday, about 6.61 million people, mainly in Yunnan, Gansu, Henan, Sichuan and Hubei provinces, did not have adequate drinking water because of the drought, which has also affected 7.3 million hectares of farmland, the agency said.

“At present, the drought in the whole country is light compared with previous years,” said Zhang Xu, an official at the agency, at a news conference in Beijing. “But it is severe in some provinces, such as Yunnan and Sichuan.”

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Jin Zhu via CHINA US Focus http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ChinaUsFocus/~3/L-R5z3f8LBw/

Hong Kong’s retail sales up 22.7 pct in February

The value of Hong Kong’s total retail sales in February 2013, provisionally estimated at 41.4 billion HK dollars (about 5.34 billion U.S. dollars), grew 22.7 percent over a year earlier, the city’s Census and Statistics Department said on Tuesday.

After netting out the effect of price changes over the same period, the volume of total retail sales increased by 21.9 percent in February 2013 compared with a year earlier.

The revised estimate of the value of total retail sales in January 2013, at 47.7 billion HK dollars, increased by 10.5 percent over January 2012, while the volume of total retail sales increased by 10.4 percent.

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English.news.cn via CHINA US Focus http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ChinaUsFocus/~3/nPumji1aXCE/