Taiwan, China bust joint kidnapping case (AP)

TAIPEI, Taiwan – Prosecutors say a businessman from Taiwan who was kidnapped in China by a team of Chinese and Taiwanese gangsters has been freed.

Taiwan and China cooperated to free the businessman, who Taiwanese prosecutors say was kidnapped in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou in early January and held for ransom.

The District Prosecutors' Office in Kaohsiung city says the businessman was rescued by coast guard personnel on an uninhabited Taiwanese islet Tuesday. Two Taiwanese were arrested in connection with the case.

Taiwanese officials were alerted to the case by Chinese police after the victim's family complained the man was not released despite their wiring ransom money to a Hong Kong bank.

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European stocks fall as China tightens, traders eye G20 (AFP)

LONDON (AFP) – Europe's stock markets and the euro fell on Friday as investors reacted to fresh monetary tightening in China ahead of an eagerly-awaited Group of 20 finance meeting in Paris.

London's FTSE 100 index of top shares sank 0.48 percent to 6,058.08 points in late morning deals.

Frankfurt's DAX 30 dipped 0.12 percent to 7,396.24 points, the Paris CAC 40 retreated 0.18 percent to 4,144.93 and the Stoxx 50 index of top eurozone companies was off 0.26 percent to 3,056.55.

China's central bank announced Friday it would raise the amount of money banks must keep in reserve as it struggles to keep inflation under control in the world's second biggest economy.

The reserve requirement ratio will be raised by 50 basis points from February 24, the People's Bank of China (PBoC) said.

"China seems to be becoming increasingly concerned with its property market spiralling out of control as it applies the brake to bank lending yet again," ETX Capital trader Manoj Ladwa said.

The announcement from China, which has a voracious appetite for commodities, hit London's FTSE particularly hard because of its high gearing towards the mining and resources sector, according to Ladwa.

Shares in Anglo American dived 3.02 percent to 3,208.50 pence, despite news that net profits almost tripled to $6.54 billion (4.82 billion euros) last year, boosted by high commodity prices and emerging markets demand.

Earlier this week, the world's top miner BHP Billiton said its half-year net profits soared 72 percent to $10.52 billion while giant Rio Tinto said its annual net profits almost tripled to $14.32 billion.

However in Friday trade, BHP lost 3.30 percent to 2,402 pence and Rio Tinto shed 1.13 percent to 4,395 pence.

Meanwhile, in foreign exchange deals, the euro slid to $1.3554 as finance ministers gathered in Paris to hammer out common criteria for measuring global economic imbalances.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has vowed to reform the world monetary system and commodities markets during his year at the G20 helm, saying he aims to defend poor economies from currency and trade turbulence.

"The G20 meeting ... is also expected to ratify the agreement earlier this week by (eurozone zone ministers) to double the EFSF bailout fund to 500 billion euros, though Germany will no doubt want some onerous strings attached," noted CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson.

"Overshadowing all of this has been increased tensions across the Middle East," he added.

Financial markets were on edge this week after violent protests from Bahrain to Libya, with tensions also heightened by Iran's reported efforts to send naval ships into the Mediterranean.

Demonstrators in various Arab states have drawn inspiration from pro-democracy protests that led to the recent oustings of leaders in both Tunisia and Egypt.

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China official warns of domestic unrest and "hostile" West (Reuters)

BEIJING (Reuters) – The Chinese government faces a turbulent time of domestic unrest and challenges from "hostile Western forces" that it will fight with more sophisticated controls, a Communist Party law-and-order official said.
Chen Jiping, deputy secretary general of the Communist Party's Political and Legal Affairs Committee, gave the toughly worded warning in this week's issue of Outlook Weekly, and blamed Western democratic countries for fomenting unrest.
He did not mention the protests that have rocked authoritarian governments in the Middle East, and his words reflect the Communist Party's own homegrown fears.
But the uprisings that deposed Egypt's long-time president Hosni Mubarak and are now threatening Libya's strongman Muammar Gaddafi are likely to reinforce the views of Chinese security officials like Chen.
"The schemes of some hostile Western forces attempting to Western and split us are intensifying, and they are waving the banner of defending rights to meddle in domestic conflicts and maliciously create all kinds of incidents," Chen told the magazine, which is published by the official Xinhua news agency.
"Mass incidents continue at a high rate," Chen said, using the Party euphemism for protests, riots, strikes and mass petitions.
"Our country is in a period of magnified conflicts within the populace, high crime rates and complex struggle against foes, and these features are most unlikely to change any time soon," he said. The magazine reached subscribers on Tuesday.
To counter such worries, Chinese leaders have promoted more of the stringent security steps that they brandished over the weekend, when police snuffed out feeble attempts to emulate the "Jasmine Revolution" street protests that have bloomed across the Middle East.
Chen said the government was honing policies to defuse and smother unrest and crime. Those policies include more monitoring of citizens to nip threats in the bud.
"That will include comprehensive roll-out of a social stability risk assessment system that covers major projects and policies that have a direct bearing on public interests," he said.
"Before decisions are made, there'll be a double assessment -- of their economic outcome and risks to social stability."
The Party Political and Legal Affairs Committee that Chen helps run oversees the courts, police and prosecutors. Chen is also a senior official of an office that develops and enforces anti-crime and domestic security policies.
The Communist Party already spends heavily on domestic security, and experts have said that budget now rivals spending on the military, crimping outlays for welfare.
Even most dissidents and other critics of China's one-party rule see scant prospect of serious challenges to it soon. Police regularly detain or confine dissidents at sensitive times.
In 2007, China had more than 80,000 "mass incidents," up from more than 60,000 in 2006, according to sociologists at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. More up to date estimates are not available, but some experts think improved welfare and the abolition of a hated tax on farmers have reduced the number.
(Reporting by Chris Buckley; Editing by Robert Birsel)
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Canada hit by cyberattack from China computers: report (Reuters)

OTTAWA (Reuters) – The Canadian government was hit by an unprecedented cyber attack from Chinese-based computers last month that penetrated two key economic ministries, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp reported on Wednesday.

The CBC cited sources as saying the hackers broke into computer systems at the Finance Department and Treasury Board. Once the attack was detected, Internet access in both ministries was cut off.

The Finance Department is preparing the federal budget, which will be delivered next month.

The CBC said the hackers had apparently managed to take control of computers in the offices of senior government executives as part of a scheme to steal the passwords that unlock entire government data systems.

A spokesman for Treasury Board Minister Stockwell Day said officials had detected an unauthorized attempt to access the ministry's computer networks.

"There are no indications that any data relating to Canadians was compromised," he said in an e-mail. He did not say whether the attacks had been traced back to Chinese servers, as the CBC reported.

No one from the office of Finance Minister Jim Flaherty responded to a request for comment.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu denied there was a China link to the hacking.

"What you mentioned is purely fictitious and has an ulterior motive," he told a regular news briefing in Beijing when asked about the accusations.

"China attaches great importance to computer security and consistently opposes and cracks down on hacking activities according to relative laws and regulations," Ma added. "Hacking is an international problem and China is affected also."

Canada's spy service complains regularly about what it says is industrial espionage by China and other states.

U.S. cables released by WikiLeaks show diplomats blaming China for hacking into Google systems that prompted the Internet giant to pull back from mainland China.

In 2009, The Wall Street Journal said cyber spies who appeared to be based in China had breached the Pentagon's Joint Strike Fighter project.

The CBC story comes at an awkward time for Canada's minority Conservative government, which has markedly toned down its criticism of China's human rights record as it tries to boost bilateral trade ties. (Reporting by David Ljunggren; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard and Sabrina Mao in Beijing; Editing by Alex Richardson)

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Canada hit by cyberattack from China computers: report (Reuters)

OTTAWA (Reuters) – The Canadian government was hit by an unprecedented cyber attack from Chinese-based computers last month that penetrated two key economic ministries, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp reported on Wednesday.

The CBC cited sources as saying the hackers broke into computer systems at the Finance Department and Treasury Board. Once the attack was detected, Internet access in both ministries was cut off.

The Finance Department is preparing the federal budget, which will be delivered next month.

The CBC said the hackers had apparently managed to take control of computers in the offices of senior government executives as part of a scheme to steal the passwords that unlock entire government data systems.

A spokesman for Treasury Board Minister Stockwell Day said officials had detected an unauthorized attempt to access the ministry's computer networks.

"There are no indications that any data relating to Canadians was compromised," he said in an e-mail. He did not say whether the attacks had been traced back to Chinese servers, as the CBC reported.

No one from the office of Finance Minister Jim Flaherty responded to a request for comment.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu denied there was a China link to the hacking.

"What you mentioned is purely fictitious and has an ulterior motive," he told a regular news briefing in Beijing when asked about the accusations.

"China attaches great importance to computer security and consistently opposes and cracks down on hacking activities according to relative laws and regulations," Ma added. "Hacking is an international problem and China is affected also."

Canada's spy service complains regularly about what it says is industrial espionage by China and other states.

U.S. cables released by WikiLeaks show diplomats blaming China for hacking into Google systems that prompted the Internet giant to pull back from mainland China.

In 2009, The Wall Street Journal said cyber spies who appeared to be based in China had breached the Pentagon's Joint Strike Fighter project.

The CBC story comes at an awkward time for Canada's minority Conservative government, which has markedly toned down its criticism of China's human rights record as it tries to boost bilateral trade ties. (Reporting by David Ljunggren; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard and Sabrina Mao in Beijing; Editing by Alex Richardson)

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Canada hit by cyberattack from China computers: report (Reuters)

OTTAWA (Reuters) – The Canadian government was hit by an unprecedented cyber attack from Chinese-based computers last month that penetrated two key economic ministries, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp reported on Wednesday.

The CBC cited sources as saying the hackers broke into computer systems at the Finance Department and Treasury Board. Once the attack was detected, Internet access in both ministries was cut off.

The Finance Department is preparing the federal budget, which will be delivered next month.

The CBC said the hackers had apparently managed to take control of computers in the offices of senior government executives as part of a scheme to steal the passwords that unlock entire government data systems.

A spokesman for Treasury Board Minister Stockwell Day said officials had detected an unauthorized attempt to access the ministry's computer networks.

"There are no indications that any data relating to Canadians was compromised," he said in an e-mail. He did not say whether the attacks had been traced back to Chinese servers, as the CBC reported.

No one from the office of Finance Minister Jim Flaherty responded to a request for comment.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu denied there was a China link to the hacking.

"What you mentioned is purely fictitious and has an ulterior motive," he told a regular news briefing in Beijing when asked about the accusations.

"China attaches great importance to computer security and consistently opposes and cracks down on hacking activities according to relative laws and regulations," Ma added. "Hacking is an international problem and China is affected also."

Canada's spy service complains regularly about what it says is industrial espionage by China and other states.

U.S. cables released by WikiLeaks show diplomats blaming China for hacking into Google systems that prompted the Internet giant to pull back from mainland China.

In 2009, The Wall Street Journal said cyber spies who appeared to be based in China had breached the Pentagon's Joint Strike Fighter project.

The CBC story comes at an awkward time for Canada's minority Conservative government, which has markedly toned down its criticism of China's human rights record as it tries to boost bilateral trade ties. (Reporting by David Ljunggren; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard and Sabrina Mao in Beijing; Editing by Alex Richardson)

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China AIDS activist gets 1-year prison sentence (AP)

BEIJING – A Chinese AIDS activist has been sentenced to a year in prison for smashing equipment at the hospital where he was infected, his lawyer said Saturday.

Tian Xi plans to appeal the punishment, handed down a day earlier in Xincai County People's Court of central China's Henan province after he was convicted of intentionally damaging property, lawyer Liang Xiaojun said.

"Tian told the court it did not consider the links between the cause and effect, and only punished him and not the hospital," Liang said.

Phones in several offices at the Xincai County No. 1 People's Hospital and the court rang unanswered Saturday.

Police took Tian into custody in August after a run-in with an administrator at the hospital, where he had been given a tainted blood transfusion as a boy.

Tian lost his temper and smashed office equipment after the official said there was nothing he could do about Tian's case and walked out of their meeting, Tian's father has said.

The 24-year-old has petitioned for compensation for years and has been outspoken in his advocacy for others who have contracted HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, through tainted blood supplies.

After ignoring or demonizing people with AIDS for much of the 1980s and '90s, China's authoritarian government has taken a more compassionate line on the disease and combating its spread in recent years. But people with AIDS still face difficulties in getting treatment and compensation, and authorities remain deeply suspicious of independent activists.

Liang said Tian was physically weak at his court appearance on Friday and was still recovering from a serious cold. Tian is being held an unheated cell at the Shangcai County Detention Center along with a half-dozen other inmates with HIV or AIDS, the lawyer said.

Infected inmates are more common in Henan due to unregulated blood-buying schemes there in the mid-90s that contaminated blood supplies.

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20 dead of swine flu in China in 2011: ministry (AFP)

BEIJING (AFP) – At least 20 people have died of swine flu in China this year, the health ministry said, but officials said there was no reason to panic even as the flu season reaches its peak.

The fatalities from A(H1N1) influenza have been recorded in at least nine locations since mid-January, the ministry said on Friday.

The official Xinhua news agency reported another death in Guangdong province in the south, citing local officials, but an official at the ministry said he could not confirm that the toll had risen to 21.

Swine flu has killed more than 18,400 people and affected practically all parts of the world since it was uncovered in Mexico and the United States in April 2009, according to the World Health Organization.

At least 800 people died in China of swine flu as of April 2010, according to the health ministry.

In August last year, the agency said swine flu had "largely run its course", declaring an end to the pandemic but warning that "localised outbreaks of various magnitudes" were likely to continue.

Several countries have recently reported deaths from A(H1N1) influenza as the flu season peaks but not on the scale seen when the outbreak first emerged, due in part to mass vaccination campaigns.

Shu Yuelong, director of China's National Influenza Centre, said while the number of serious cases and deaths could increase, the outbreak was not as bad as that seen in 2009, according to the government-run Health News.

Wang Yu, spokesman for the Beijing Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said the threat posed by A(H1N1) should not be overestimated.

"Now we know it as a new, but common kind of flu," Wang was quoted saying by the Global Times on Friday.

"There's no need to panic."

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China openly backs North Korea succession plan: KCNA (Reuters)

SEOUL (Reuters) – A top Chinese official has backed ailing North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's plans to hand power to his son, the North's state media said on Tuesday, hailing the "successful solution" to allow continued socialist rule.

Meng Jianzhu, China's public security minister, congratulated Kim's youngest son Jong-un on his appointment as vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission last year, "hailing the successful solution of the issue of succession to the Korean revolution," KCNA news agency reported.

Experts said the term "succession" did not refer directly to family rule, but was a commonly used expression referring to a continuation of the North's current political system.

"(But) we can interpret that as a sign of acceptance on the part of China's political and power elite with regards to North Korea's succession," said Park Young-ho, of the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul.

Meng gave gifts to both Kim Jong-il, who celebrates his 69th birthday on Wednesday, and his son, KCNA reported.

Kim Jong-un was last year named as a four-star general and given high ranking political positions, signaling the start of the third-generation power transition in the secretive state.

Until the younger Kim's appointments, state media had never even reported the existence of Kim's children. Little is known about Jong-un other than that he is in his late twenties, and was educated in Switzerland.

China is the North's main ally and benefactor, and has stood by Pyongyang despite international criticism over the North's revelations last year of big advances in its nuclear programme, as well as two deadly attacks on the peninsula.

China provides more than 80 percent of the North's food and oil and has invested heavily in the isolated state in recent year, when Pyongyang has been under international sanctions for nuclear and missile tests.

The North's reclusive leader, suspected of having suffered a stroke in 2008, visited China twice last year, trips analysts and officials say were mainly aimed at winning Beijing's support for his hereditary succession process.

Beijing has nudged Pyongyang to change its ways and follow China's path of economic reform, but its paramount concern is stability and it sees a continuation of family rule as the best guarantee of this.

China worries that any regime change in the North could cause a flood of refugees to cross its border, precipitate reunification of the peninsula on the South's terms and bring American influence right up to its border.

Kim Jong-un was appointed in September as vice chairman of the Central Military Commission of the ruling Workers' Party, which oversees the North's 1.2 million-strong military headed by his father.

Meng is in the North Korean capital on the first leg of a tour that will also take him to Laos, Singapore and Malaysia.

(Reporting by Jeremy Laurence; Editing by Jonathan Hopfner and Daniel Magnowski)

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