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1. Chinese mainland, Taiwan sign historic agreement
2. Mainland, Taiwan organizations hold first talks in 9 years Agreed to set up representative offices in each other's side
3. China calls off alert on main "quake lake" ,
4. China quake death toll rises to 69,163
5. Health official: China HFMD outbreak peaks in May
6. China, EU pledge to deepen ties
1. Chinese mainland, Taiwan sign historic agreement
The Chinese mainland and Taiwan on June 13 agreed to begin weekend chartered flights across the Taiwan Strait, over which direct flights have been operated only at major festivals.
Chen Yunlin, chairman of the mainland-based Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS), and Chiang Pin-kun, chairman of the Taiwan-based Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), signed a minute of talks on weekend chartered flights in Beijing.
The service, scheduled to start from July 4, will include 36 return flights for every weekend, from each Friday to the following Monday, and the number will increase according to demand, the minute said.
The flights would be divided evenly between mainland and Taiwan airlines, it said.
The mainland will first open Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Xiamen and Nanjing to the flights, and will gradually add Chengdu, Chongqing, Hangzhou, Dalian, Guilin and Shenzhen, and possibly more if needed.
Taiwan will have eight terminals: Taipei, Taoyuan, Kaohsiung, Taichung, Penghu, Hualien, Kinmen and Taitung.
According to the minute, the flights from Taiwan to Shanghai will be restricted to a maximum of nine every weekend and those from the mainland to Taichung to six.
All passengers with legal passes to travel across the Strait can take the flights, the document said.
"The environment is favorable. Now there is a beginning, the next step will follow. We can't expect to reach the final target in one step," said Michael Lo, former chairman of the Taipei Airlines Association (TAA), in an interview with Friday's Beijing News.
The mainland and Taiwan would start discussing the direct flight route "as soon as possible" and before that all chartered flights will have to fly over Hong Kong, according to the documents.
Also on the agenda would be air traffic control system coordination to facilitate direct flights across the Strait, and the start of regular scheduled flights, but no timetable has been set.
Through chartered services, airlines across the Strait were testing the demand and collecting information for future regular scheduled flights, said Lo. "The mainland market is huge, but so far Taiwan airlines do not have a full picture. If Taiwan opens its tourism market fully to mainland tourists, they will have more confidence."
He expected a good business future for weekend charter flights due to lower costs and shorter times and said they would affect passenger flow through Hong Kong.
About 80 percent of passengers between Taiwan and the mainland transfer in Hong Kong, but the number might reduce by half due to the weekend services, he said.
However, Hong Kong would still have the advantage of operating flights linking many more mainland cities than terminals for weekend chartered service, he said.
Negotiations on chartered freight flights will be held within three months after the weekend services start, according to the document.
The two sides agreed that airlines will swap representative offices. Taiwan promised to allow mainland airline companies to set up offices in the island within six months. Mainland companies are allowed to send staff to prepare for the founding of offices.
Taiwan-based China Airlines has set up six offices in the mainland, according to its official website.
Efforts would be made to simplify entry-exit and custom procedures for passengers and cargo, the document said, and the two sides will continue charter flights for festivals.
The two sides started chartered flight service for the Spring Festival, a major event for Chinese family reunions, in 2003 and since 2006, the service has been expanded to three other major Chinese festivals: the Qingming, or Tomb Sweeping, Festival; Dragon Boat Festival; and Mid-Autumn Festival.
The mainland-based Cross-Strait Aviation Transport Exchange Council and TAA were entrusted to discuss and implement details of the agreement, which will take effect from June 20.
Source: Xinhua (www.chinaview.cn)
2. Mainland, Taiwan organizations hold first talks in 9 years Agreed to set up representative offices in each other's side
BEIJING, June 12 (Xinhua) -- The chairmen of the Chinese mainland's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) and the Taiwan-based Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) on Thursday convened their first talks in nine years.
ARATS chairman Chen Yunlin and SEF chairman Chiang Pin-kun started their talks at around 9 a.m. in Beijing. Established in 1991 and 1990, respectively, the ARATS and SEF are authorized non-governmental organizations (NGO) engaged in talks on issues related to exchanges across the Taiwan Strait.
"As wished by people on the two sides, the talks resumed today after nearly 10 years' suspension," Chen said.
"We feel the great responsibility of this glorious mission and we must spare no effort in realizing the aspirations of people on the two sides."
Echoing Chen, Chiang said the two organizations had established mutual trust after recent benign contacts and would play an important role as a bridge for cross-Strait consultation.
"Many problems in economic, cultural and social fields need to be addressed after a long time was idled away," Chen said.
Both sides expressed hope that ARATS and SEF could reach consensus and sign an agreement as soon as possible during the talks.
During their talks, Chen proposed to strengthen the exchange of visits between ARATS and SEF personnel and carry out economic, cultural and social visits at various levels.
Chiang agreed to conduct regular personnel exchanges and actively promote the visits of the two organizations' officials in the name of the two organizations.
Chen and Chiang agreed to resume the emergency liaison officer system to effectively handle emergency cases related to life and property safety of the people on both sides.
The two sides agreed to set up representative offices to each other's side and Chen accepted his Taiwan counterpart's invitation to visit the island this year.
Chiang proposed to establish more smooth channels for timely exchanges of information. Chen said he would carefully consider Chiang's suggestions.
"In a gradual approach of economy before politics, the easy problems before the difficult ones, the two sides need practical outline topics for consultation in the near term," he said.
In 1992, the two groups held negotiations in Hong Kong and reached the famed "1992 Consensus."
In 1993, ARATS chairman Wang Daohan and SEF chairman Koo Chen-fu held talks in Singapore in the first public meeting between high-level figures in the name of non-governmental organization (NGO) leaders since 1949.
Chen on Thursday praised contributions made by the two late chairmen and vowed to carry on their unfinished tasks.
Talks between the two sides were suspended in 1999 after Taiwan's leader at the time, Li Teng-hui, proposed his "special state-to-state" model for cross-Strait relations.
Chen and Chiang's talks in the morning were followed by consultations on cross-Strait weekend charted flights and mainland tourists traveling to Taiwan. The two sides also planned to sign related agreements on June 13.
Source: Xinhua (www.chinaview.cn)
3. China calls off alert on main "quake lake" ,
China cancelled an alert on the main Tangjiashan "quake lake" on Wednesday, June 11, after experts said there was no more danger of flood.
The outflow from the lake dropped to 56 cubic meters per second at 11:15 a.m. June 10, far below the threshold for alert of 1,000 cubic meters per second, according to the Tangjiashan Lake emergency rescue headquarters.
The alert was called off at 4 p.m. as experts with the headquarters said the outflow was unlikely to cause flooding for downstream areas.
The lake's water level kept dropping on Wednesday, June 11 as drainage efforts continued. The level stood at 714.13 meters at 2 p.m., down from Tuesday's highest mark of 743.1 meters.
Liu Qibao, Communist Party chief of the southwestern Sichuan Province, declared on June 10 the drainage of the swollen lake has scored "a decisive victory."
More than half of the 250 million cubic meter volume had been discharged and the number of people under threat had dropped from 1.3 million to less than 50,000, he said.
The quake relief headquarters of the State Council (cabinet) Tuesday sent a congratulatory telegram to the Tangjiashan lake emergency rescue headquarters for the successful drainage of the quake lake.
"After more than 10 consecutive days of hard work, you successfully drained the Tangjiashan quake lake and eliminated a huge threat of secondary disaster after the May 12 quake," the telegram said.
"Your work has ensured the people's security, avoided a huge loss and created a miracle in dealing with large quake-formed lakes," it said.
Faster drainage of the Tangjiashan Lake had eased the peril on the lower reaches, but the emergency headquarters was still on alert for further landslides and dam bursts, said Commander-In-Chief Jiang Jufeng.
Hydrological workers had already observed cracks in the dam, and helicopters were arranged to evacuate all the emergency workers, mostly soldiers with the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and the armed police.
More than 200 armed police officers worked round the clock for four days to drain the lake. Once overflowed, it could threaten some 1 million residents living on the lower reaches.
A man-made spillway started to drain from the lake on June 7 and military engineers used recoilless guns, bazookas and dynamites on June 8 and June 9 to blast boulders and other obstructions in the channel and speed up the outflow.
As a result of two massive blasts on Monday evening which broke through the "bottleneck" in the spillway, the water outflow speeded up drastically on Tuesday compared with 80 cubic meters on Monday night.
The Tangjiashan quake lake, formed after quake-triggered landslides from the Tangjiashan Mountain, blocked the Tongkou River running through Beichuan County, one of the worst-hit areas in the May 12 quake.
Source: Xinhua (www.chinaview.cn)
4. China quake death toll rises to 69,163
The death toll of China's massive earthquake increased by four overnight to 69,163 as of 12 a.m. June 13, the State Council Information Office said.
A total of 374,142 people were injured and 17,445 others were still missing after the 8.0-magnitude quake rocked southwestern Sichuan Province and neighboring regions on May 12.
Source: Xinhua (www.chinaview.cn)
5. Health official: China HFMD outbreak peaks in May
China reported more than 176,000 cases of hand-foot-mouth disease (HFMD) last month, but the outbreak peaked on May 14, Ministry of Health spokesman Mao Qun'an told reporters on June 13.
Daily reported cases declined from 11,501 at the peak to 3,922 on June 5, Mao said.
Central Anhui Province, which first reported the outbreak of HFMD, had 10,700 cases in May including four deaths, according to Mao.
The worst-hit provinces and regions were Guangdong, Zhejiang, Hebei, Shandong and Hunan, he said.
The disease was also found in regions hit by the devastating May 12 earthquake but, earlier this month, Mao told the press that it had been brought under control.
"The Ministry of Health required that HFMD cases must be reported since May 2 this year," said Mao, "Any HFMD case in the quake-hit areas will be reported immediately through our reporting system."
Nurseries in Fuyang City, Anhui, the worst-hit city, resumed classes on Children's Day (June 1) as health authorities considered the situation was under control.
Between late March and the end of April, the city reported about 22 death cases of HFMD but, in May alone, it reported 4,444 cases, including one death.
HFMD can be caused by a host of intestinal viruses, but EV71 and the Coxsackievirus are the most common.
HFMD usually starts with a slight fever followed by blisters and ulcers in the mouth and rashes on the hands and feet. Those with EV71 often show serious symptoms. It can also lead to meningitis, encephalitis, pulmonary edema and paralysis in some children. There is no vaccine.
Source: Xinhua (www.chinaview.cn)
6. China, EU pledge to deepen ties
China and the European Union (EU) should promote cooperation and deepen ties in a globalized world, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said Wednesday.
Yang, who paid an official visit to the EU today, said at a meeting with Barroso that China is willing to strengthen dialogue with the EU both on bilateral cooperation and on international and regional issues.
The two sides should join hands to meet challenges in a fast-changing world and resolve differences in a proper way, he said, adding the bilateral ties should be based on equality, mutual benefit and mutual respect.
Echoing Yang's remarks, Barroso said the EU attaches great importance to the strategic partnership with China and values China's role in international affairs.
The EU expects for constructive cooperation with China and hopes to enhance bilateral ties to a new level, he said.
Barroso praised China's achievements of reform, which he said makes China well adapted to globalization.
Earlier today, Yang met the EU's foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
The Chinese foreign minister told Solana that this year China is welcoming the Beijing Olympic Games, the 7th Asia-Europe summit and the 11th Sino-EU summit in Paris, which would provide opportunities for China and the EU to expand cooperation and exchange.
China hopes the two sides would strengthen cooperation to make those events each a success, Yang said.
Solana pledged the EU's cooperation on those events, adding the upcoming Beijing Olympic Games is in line with the Olympic spirit, which is not only in the interests of the Olympic Family, but also beneficial to world peace, stability and development.
The two senior officials also exchanged views on international and regional issues.
Source: Xinhua (www.chinaview.cn)
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