¡¡YICHANG, Hubei, July 31 (Xinhua) — The Three Gorges Dam has successfully controlled the biggest flood crest on the Yangtze River this year, officials said on Tuesday.

  The Three Gorges Reservoir reduced the discharge of floodwater to 44,000 cubic meters per second on Tuesday morning from the previous 48,000 cubic meters, to protect the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River.

    Meanwhile, the water level in the reservoir rose from 144.03 meters at midday on Monday to 145.19 meters at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday.

    ”The flood crest passed the Three Gorges Dam smoothly,” said Cao Guangjing, deputy general manager of the China Yangtze Three Gorges Project Corporation (CTGPC).

    Cao said it was the first time the dam had to control flood crest since construction of the world’s largest dam was completed on May 20 last year.

    The inflow was 50,000 cubic meters per second on Tuesday, 2,500cubic meters less than Monday’s peak.

    It was earlier predicted that inflow would top 56,700 cubic meters per second on Tuesday as more rains were forecast. However, winds dispersed the rain clouds on Monday afternoon, said Cao.

    Officials said the two-way traffic on the Three Gorges ship lock that was halted at 8:00 a.m. on Monday might resume on Wednesday evening.

    Water levels on the middle and lower reaches of the river were on the rise, said Cheng Haiyun, general engineer of the Yangtze River Hydrological Bureau.

    Hubei Province, where the Three Gorges project is located, is on high alert. The provincial government had ordered a round-the-clock monitoring of the levees.

    The Three Gorges Reservoir is capable of holding 39.3 billion cubic meters of water, including 22.15 billion cubic meters extra in the flood season when it reaches its 175 meters.

    At more than 6,300 km long and falling 5,400 meters from west to east, the flood-prone Yangtze River is the largest in China and the third largest in the world.

    Most of the flood-prone areas are located at the middle and lower reaches, in economically developed regions that are home to 15 million people and contain 1.5 million hectares of farmland. Four major floods have occurred there in the 20th Century, with the most recent in 1998 killing 1,526 people.

Central China braces for biggest flood crest of Yangtze River

    WUHAN, July 30 (Xinhua) — The Three Gorges Dam is preparing to control the biggest flood crest from the upper Yangtze River this year to protect the middle and lower reaches as central China’s Hubei province goes on high flood alert.

    The Three Gorges Reservoir began to release floodwater Monday noon at 48,000 cubic meters per second. The water inflow into the reservoir measured 51,000 cubic meters per second at 8:00 a.m. due to continuous rain in the upper reaches. Full story

Three Gorges Dam withstands largest flood peak

    YICHANG, July 22 (Xinhua) — The highest flood peak in this flood season on the Yangtze River has passed through the Three Gorges Dam area as of Sunday.

    The flood, the third in the season formed due to continuous rainstorms upstream since mid July, poured into the reservoir in central China’s Hubei Province at a peak speed of 44,000 cubic meters per second Saturday afternoon.  Full Story
    

    BEIJING, July 31 (Xinhua) — China had repatriated 413 criminal suspects from more than 20 countries and regions since 1998, according to a senior official with the Ministry of Public Security.

    Deputy Public Security Minister Meng Hongwei said on Tuesday at a national conference that the repatriations “had contributed to social stability and fight against corruption”.

    The ministry’s statistics show Chinese police have traced more than 300 wanted officials who have allegedly fled abroad with illegal earnings since 1998, and 37 were arrested and returned to China in 2006 alone.

    Chinese police had strengthened their intelligence on the activities of fugitive suspects and the government had stepped up international cooperation, concluding 72 judicial cooperation agreements with 48 countries and treaties on extradition with 24 countries.

    China is seeking the repatriation of alleged smuggling kingpin Lai Changxing from Canada.

    Lai was accused of being the mastermind behind the country’s largest smuggling ring. He fled to Canada in 1999 and remains there. China is seeking to bring him back to face charges of smuggling, bribery and tax evasion.

Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi (R) meets with United States Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson in Beijing, capital of China, on July 31, 2007. (Xinhua/Li Xueren)

    BEIJING, July 31 (Xinhua) — Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi met here Tuesday with visiting U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, paving way for the third China-U.S. Strategic Economic Dialogue (SED).

    “They have exchanged views on the principles, topics and the arrangement of the coming third dialogue”, said a source with Chinese Foreign Ministry who attended the meeting.

    The biannual SED, launched by Wu and Paulson in Beijing in September last year, serves as a platform to discuss long-term, strategic and comprehensive issues in the bilateral trade relationship.

    The third SED will be held in Beijing in December.

    Wu said the success of the two previous rounds resulted from the efforts made by the two sides to improve the trade relations and to address the trade disputes.

    A statement from China’s Foreign Ministry after the meeting said that Wu told Paulson the dialogue should be continued with a comprehensive, long-term and strategic perspective and be given full play in developing bilateral relations with the emergence of “new situations”.

    China would make joint efforts with the U.S. side to further implement the projects or programs agreed in the previous dialogue and make preparations for a successful dialogue, Wu said.

    Paulson agreed, calling for the two nations to handle the trade relations from a more strategic angle, said the statement.

    The United States would maintain close consultation with China on the third SED, Paulson said.

    After arriving in Beijing on Sunday afternoon, Paulson traveled to Xining, capital of northwest China’s Qinghai Province, for an “environmental tour”, which includes environmental protection programs and rural households in remote areas on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

    This is Paulson’s second visit to China this year, following his short tour in March.

    HONG KONG, July 31 (Xinhua) — Hong Kong Financial Secretary John C Tsang will leave for Australia Tuesday night to attend the 14th Finance Ministers’ Meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) in Coolum, Australia, according to Hong Kong government Tuesday.

    During the two-day meeting, Tsang will exchange views with finance ministers of other member economies on issues about the policy themes of this year, which are “Making private capital markets work better” and “Transparency and sustainability of the public balance sheet”. He will also hold bilateral meetings with his ministerial counterparts.

    After the APEC meeting, Tsang will fly to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to meet senior government finance officials and have discussions with major banks and financial investment entities on global and regional financial development.

    MACAO, July 31 (Xinhua) — The number of the commercial flight movements at the Macao International Airport reached 24,407 at the end of June, seeing a year-on-year rise of 4 percent, according to official statistics issued Tuesday.

    The figures released by the government-run Statistics and Census Service showed that China’s Taiwan and the Chinese Mainland were the major routes, which accounted for 44 percent and 34 percent, respectively, of the total commercial flights to and from Macao.

    The total weight of the outward cargo handled at the Macao International Airport fell by 20 percent year-on-year to 33,495 tons in the first half of 2007, the figures showed.

    DALIAN, July 31 (Xinhua) — Plastic futures (linear low-density polyethylene, or LLDPE) premiered Tuesday at Dalian Commodity Exchange in Dalian, a coastal city in northeast China’s Liaoning Province.

    The move would help boost development of China’s petrochemical industry, Li Yongwu, head of China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Association, said.

    Li said China depended heavily on imported petrochemical products. The start of plastic futures trading would be conducive to hedging against risks for downstream enterprises of the petrochemical industry. It would give China influence in international plastic markets.

    Shang Fulin, head of China Securities Regulatory Commission, rang the bell at the Dalian exchange to launch trading.

    He said China’s futures industry was growing rapidly with product innovation accelerating.

    The revised regulations on futures trading had taken effect, providing legal guarantees for the steady development of the market, Shang said.

    China launched its first futures exchange in Zhengzhou, capital of the central Henan Province, in October 1990.

    Seventeen futures items are traded on the Chinese mainland, including cotton, sugar, wheat, soybean, maize, LLDPE, copper, aluminum, natural rubber and fuel oil.

    According to the China Futures Association, Chinese futures markets in four exchanges — two in Shanghai, one in Zhengzhou and one in Dalian — recorded 14.5 trillion yuan (1.9 trillion U.S. dollars) in first-half turnover, a growth of 43.5 percent from the same period last year.