BEIJING July 31 (Xinhua) — Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi and his British counterpart David Miliband discussed the upcoming Beijing Olympics by phone on Thursday.

    Yang said the Chinese side welcomes British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics and hopes British athletes could achieve good performances during the event.

    Miliband said the British people are deeply interested in the Beijing Olympics and wish the Games success.

    Both sides committed to step up efforts to guarantee the success of the Asia-Europe Meeting in Beijing this year.

    They also exchanged views on international and regional issues of common concern.

    HONG KONG, July 31 (Xinhua) — The Hong Kong stock market tracked gains on the Wall Street to open higher on Thursday but narrowed its gains thereafter as the mainland market closed sharply lower.

    Higher oil prices pushed the share price of mainland oil producer CNOOC higher, which closed up 0.42 HK dollars, or 3.71 percent, at 11.74 HK dollars, to contribute 33.25 points of the gains recorded by the benchmark Hang Seng Index.

    The blue-chip index rose 188.16 points, or 0.83 percent, to open at 22,878.76, which was also its highest during the day’s trading. It once dipped to as low as 22,695.73 before closing at 22,731.10, up a modest 40.15 points, or 0.18 percent.

    Turnover totaled 56.47 billion HK dollars (7.24 billion U.S. dollars), down slightly from Wednesday’s 53.32 billion HK dollars (6.84 billion U.S. dollars).

    Analysts said the blue-chip index may rise further on reasonably low valuations, though it was likely that the benchmark index will move in a narrow range in the near term due to external and policy uncertainties.

    Market heavy weight China Mobile closed down 0.7 HK dollars, or 0.66 percent, at 104.9 HK dollars, while its competitor mobile carrier China Unicom closed up 1.63 percent, or 0.26 HK dollars, at 16.18 HK dollars.

    HSBC edged up 0.4 HK dollars at 128.9 HK dollars while its local unit Hang Seng Bank lost 1.3 HK dollars, or 0.84 percent, at153.8 HK dollars.

    The finance sub-index added 66.85 points, or 0.19 percent, at 35,263.61, while the properties category gained 0.31 percent to close at 27,328.91.

    ICBC, the largest of the mainland-based commercial banks, edged up 0.01 HK dollars to 5.9 HK dollars and Bank of China was unchanged at 3.58 HK dollars, while China Construction Bank went down 0.04 HK dollars, or 0.58 percent, at 6.88 HK dollars.

    Sun Hung Kai Properties, the largest residential developer in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, added 0.3 HK dollars at 117 HK dollars, while Li Ka-shing’s conglomerate Cheung Kong went up 0.82 percent at 110.2 HK dollars.

    PetroChina went up 0.12 HK dollars, or 1.17 percent, at 10.42 HK dollars, while competitor mainland oil refiner Sinopec lost 1. 81 percent at 8.14 HK dollars.

    The commerce and industry sub-index added 0.29 percent at 12, 526.37, whereas the utilities genre lost 487.38 points, or 1.16 percent, at 41,482.62. (7.8 HK dollars = 1 U.S. dollar)

    BEIJING, July 31 (Xinhua) — Beijing is deploying 25,000 security personnel on public buses and bus stations to ensure safety, after deadly bus explosions in southwest China’s Kunming city killed two and injured 14 on July 21.

    The security personnel, comprising mechanics, management and support personnel of the Beijing Public Transport Holdings Ltd., will be deployed “at every bus station and on every bus” starting from Aug. 1, according to Zhang Guoguang, company president.

    In total, 15,000 security personnel would work at bus stations while the rest would be on buses to check luggage they found “suspicious.” They would be identified by a red band on their arm reading “Beijing bus security check” in Chinese.

    Passengers carrying contraband goods would be asked to discard the goods, otherwise they would be advised not to take the bus. The security personnel would report to the police if suspicious passengers insisted on boarding the bus, Zhang said.

    Bus drivers and conductors would also help with security checksif necessary, he said.

    Beijing has about 350 existing bus routes. The public transport system will be able to move 21.1 million passengers daily during the Olympics and Paralympics.

    Zhang said the move was to ensure the safety of passengers during the Olympics, but did not say when the security checks would end.

    Explosions, just over one hour apart, on two public buses in Kunming, Yunnan Province, killed two and injured 14 earlier this month.

    A group calling itself the Turkistan Islamic Party claimed responsibility on Saturday for the explosions as well as several other incidents. They included an attack on police in the eastern city of Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, on July 17 with an explosive-laden tractor, and the bombing of a plastics factory in the southern city of Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, on the same day.

    But Chinese authorities refuted the claims, citing they had no evidence the group was involved. Yunnan police have tripled the reward to 300,000 yuan (43,864 U.S. dollars) for information that could help to solve the two blasts.

    BEIJING, July 31 (Xinhua) — The Chinese government is allocating more than 2.7 billion yuan (395 million U.S. dollars) for the development of rural healthcare infrastructure next year, a Ministry of Health official said on Thursday.

    Zhao Zilin, the ministry’s financial department director, revealed the special fund would be used mainly for building hospitals for women and children and hospitals of traditional Chinese medicine as well as health centers.

    The average cost for health centers would be 80,000 yuan, 380,000 yuan for hospitals for women and children hospitals, and 1 million yuan for Chinese medicine hospitals.

    The funding would also provide 21 types of medical equipment, such as B-ultrasonic scanners, sterilizers and ECG monitors.

Special report: 2008 Olympic Games

    BEIJING, July 31 (Xinhua) — Exchange services for 17 foreign currencies are available in Beijing, including at the Olympic venues.

    At the Bank of China (BOC), the official Games partner bank, visitors can exchange U.S., Canadian, Australian and Singaporean dollars, U.K. sterling, Swiss francs, Swedish krona, Danish krone, Norwegian krone, Japanese yen, euros, Thai baht, South Korean won, Philippine pesos, and Hong Kong, Macao and New Taiwan dollars, said BOC spokesman Wang Zhaowen on Thursday.

    The other three major state-owned banks and other banks also offer currency exchange services, but in fewer currencies than the BOC.

    According to the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) website, the bank offers exchange services in 15 currencies. It does not provide services for the Thai baht, the Philippine peso and the New Taiwan dollar, but the New Zealand dollar can be exchanged.

    The China Construction Bank (CCB) offers services for 12 currencies and the Agricultural Bank of China (ABC) seven.

    Only the BOC operates at the Olympic Village, the Media Village, the International Broadcast Center, the Main Press Center and the Beijing Hotel, where Olympic delegations will stay.

    Its counters at the Beijing airport and Olympic venues will run round the clock, he added.

    At 78 of the 119 Olympic contracted hotels, 17 currencies can be exchanged, Wang said.

    BEIJING, July 31 (Xinhua) — China’s registered urban and township unemployment rate stood at four percent in the first half, down 0.2 percentage point from the same period last year, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (MHRSS) said on Thursday.

    A total of 8.35 million people were registered unemployed across the country’s urban areas and townships in the first half, according to MHRSS.

    Ministry spokesman Yin Chengji said the nation had created 6.4 million new jobs in the first half, accounting for 64 percent of the annual 10 million goal set by the ministry, and 2.82 million laid-off workers found new jobs in the first half, 56 percent of the annual goal of 5 million.

    Yin said 788,000 people had found employment in the provinces of southwest Sichuan, and northwest Gansu and Shaanxi, which were worst affected by the May 12 earthquake, as of July 27.

    The number included 146,000 employed outside the quake-stricken areas under the nation’s cross-region employment program that had designated 19 provinces and the southern city Shenzhen in Guangdong Province as places to employ the jobless a chance from the three provinces.

    According to conservative estimate, more than 700,000 people had lost their jobs due to the earthquakes in Sichuan province as of June 30.

    Yin urged governments at all levels to make efforts to create new jobs.