Hoist the sail

Former fishing boats set out to sea with tourists aboard. During the non-fishing period between June 16 and September 16, fishermen at Peach Blossom Island (Taohua Dao) in the Zhoushan Archipegalo in Zhejiang Province are busy entertaining visitors.

SHANGHAI

Plum rains set in

THE plum rains are drawing near Shanghai and it is getting hot and suffocating. Next week will see a lot of drizzle, and several cloudy days are in the offing. The temperature will be around 29 degrees centigrade. Experts said this kind of weather will last for about one month.

Family education favoured

MORE than 96 per cent of newlyweds, pregnant women, and parents who have children aged 14 and under have received some form of family education, according to local authorities. The municipal education commission, women's federation, health bureau and federation of trade unions have jointly established parent schools, held community-based family education activities, and set up consultation centers on family education. Statistics show that by the end of last year, over 760,000 Shanghai residents had had consultation services on family education. Over 99 per cent of kindergartens, primary schools and middle schools opened parent schools, and most newlyweds received health education. Latest survey results show that more than 70 per cent of the families investigated favour family education.

Cash in cab returned

A MAN who left 40,000 yuan ($4,825) in a taxi got his money back after just six minutes thanks to the taxi company. On Sunday afternoon the man, named Dong, suddenly discovered that he had lost an envelope containing a large amount of money in a Qiangsheng Taxi Ltd Co cab which he had just taken. At 1:42pm, he called the hotline of the taxi company for help. The staff informed the dispatch centre and the centre called all taxis through the interphone system. Six minutes later, a taxi driver named Tang Renjie replied that the lost envelope was in his taxi. Tang had looked for the owner at the entrance to the expressway several times.

Brand-name thief caught

A THIEF who stole high-grade clothes was caught in a store in Nanjing Xilu recently and sentenced to two years in jail. Since last May, the suspect identified as Zhou had been stealing clothes from open counters. Last December, he took an expensive wool coat valued at 5,800 yuan ($700) from the fourth floor of Pacific Department Store. He sold the coat for 1,200 yuan ($145). From then on, he stole brand-name jackets, coats, and woolen T-shirts from the Oriental Shopping Centre, Shanghai CITIC Square and other up-scale stores. The total value of the clothes was 16,026 yuan ($1,933).

Baby-sitter seized

A BABY-sitter suspected of theft was seized by her master on the street and taken to the local police station recently. The woman, identified only as Ye, is a native of Anhui Province. She was hired as the baby-sitter in May 1999. Last November, Ye allegedly took advantage of her master's trust and stole a wallet containing 1,400 yuan ($169). Although her master suspected Ye, he had no evidence. An additional 2,100 yuan ($250) disappeared, and then she quit suddenly, raising the suspicions of the family, who informed local police. Her master happened to come across Ye in the street on Sunday evening. She was placed under arrest.

Tires damaged

SINCE last month, bus tires in Yangang Town, Chongming County, have been damaged by steel nails on the roads. In 10 days, 12 Dazhong Public Transportation Company buses were damaged in this way, putting the kibosh on the company's transportation plan. After being informed, local police searched the roads for three days and investigated other drivers who frequent this road. Eventually a suspect identified as Dong was found, who confessed that four local drivers headed by a villager identified as Lu committed the offence.

Low-rent homes

A TRIAL low-rent apartment programme has been expanded to eight districts to improve the living conditions of poor local families. A crucial part of the city's housing reform, the low-rent plan is expected to cover the whole city. All participants are required to have received financial aid of 280 yuan ($34) a month for at least six months. Their average living space must be under 5 square metres. Participants can get monthly rental aid of 25 to 40 yuan ($3 to 4.8) per square metre or move into State-owned apartments by paying rent equivalent to five per cent of their monthly income.

Railway con

POLICE arrested a "warm-hearted" woman thief at Shanghai Railway Station recently. She allegedly stole from passengers while pretending to help them look after their property. Nineteen-year-old Yu Wei, a native of Guizhou Province, is suspected of cheating woman passengers at the station since she arrived in Shanghai. According to police reports, on April 11, Yu befriended a woman from Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province and promised to watch her bag after convincing the inexperienced woman to check her railway ticket at the window. Yu is accused of taking that bag and also the bags of 10 other women, valued at up to 23,000 yuan ($2,780).

Art auction

More than 200 potential buyers attended last weekend's spring auction at the Hilton Hotel sponsored by the Duoyunxuan Auction Company. Nearly 70 per cent of the 560 pieces on offer were auctioned off for 13 million yuan ($1.56 million). The works included contemporary paintings and ancient paintings and calligraphy and ancient books. The contemporary works sold best, attracting bids totalling 7.8 million yuan ($936,000). The most expensive contemporary art work was Cheng Shifa's "Same Root for Generations," which sold for 528,000 yuan ($63,400).

NANJING

Human smuggling

POLICE in East China's Jiangsu Province recently cracked three human smuggling rackets, leading to the arrests of 19 human traffickers and other suspects. The fall of the groups is the result of an anti-stowaway campaign launched by the border police in the port city of Lianyungang in March. Human smugglers Xu Guangli and Zhang Genxi were intercepted by Shanghai police while at sea in May last year when they were attempting to smuggle a group of stowaways, said the police. Two other human smugglers, Liu Yifu and Song Shihua, are suspected of trafficking in over 50 persons abroad since 1996, collecting charges totalling nearly 1 million yuan ($120,000).

GUANGDONG

Rainstorms kill 17

A SERIES of rainstorms in South China's Guangdong Province since June 2 have left 17 people dead and caused direct economic losses of 534 million yuan ($64 million). About 1.45 million people in the province have been affected by the torrential rains, along with the cave-in of more than 5,000 houses, inundation of 470,000 hectares of cropland, closure of over 200 enterprises, and destruction of a great number of highways, telecom and water conservation facilities. The worst hit area is Yangjiang City in western Guangdong, where the rainfall from late at night on June 7 through the evening of June 8 amounted to 650 mm, a record high.

QINGHAI

Glaciers shrink

OWING to global warming and deterioration of the environment, glaciers at Mount Qilian on China's Qinghai-Tibet Plateau have shrunk at an annual rate of between two and 16 metres in recent years. As a result, the flow of the Heihe River, China's second largest inland river which originates from Mount Qilian, reduced by 16.8 per cent since the early 1950s, affecting production of 1,000 industrial firms and crops on 266,000 ha of land in the Hexi Corridor in Northwest China's Gansu Province. Mount Qilian borders Qinghai and Gansu provinces for a total length of 800 km and has an elevation of 4,000 metres on average. The mountain range has 3,200 glaciers with hundreds of millions of cubic metres of snow. Shrinkage of glaciers and ascension of the snowline have led to fewer sources of water for over 40 rivers originating from Mount Qilian.

(Star-Xinhua)