Word: kong
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...stakes are high on both sides. Given the importance that Beijing places on China's economic development, commodity-price data could be considered vital and sensitive information, says Joshua Rosenzweig, Hong Kong--based manager for the Dui Hua Foundation, a human-rights group. "The success of China's economy is tied up with the legitimacy of the government in a very big way," he notes. Foreign mining companies--very much including Australian ones--have profited greatly by feeding China's ravenous appetite for raw materials. But recently, wild fluctuations in commodity prices and friction over trade deals have increased tension...
...Shanghai Composite Index lost as much as 7.7% of its value before ending the day down 5% on record-breaking trading volume of $43.3 billion. The sell-off was the largest one-day decline in Chinese stocks in eight months, and set off panic purging in Hong Kong, where the Hang Seng Index lost 2.4%. Even the U.S. got dinged, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average ending the day off by 26 points...
...vortex, which some scientists estimate to be twice the size of Texas. And as plastic use increases, especially in rapidly growing developing nations on the western end of the Pacific, that vortex will continue to grow. "It's huge," notes Doug Woodring, an entrepreneur and ocean conservationist in Hong Kong. But "unfortunately the ocean is a big place, and once it's out of sight, it's out of mind." (See TIME's photos: Fragile Planet...
...Friday, July 24, thousands of workers at the state-owned Tonghua Iron and Steel Group in Jilin province protested the planned takeover of their employer by the privately held Jianlong Steel, according to reports in the Chinese press and from the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy. Some of the steelworkers rioted and beat to death Chen Guojun, a Jianlong representative. Jianlong had previously purchased a stake in Tonghua, and workers feared that with a takeover the company would lay off thousands of Tonghua employees. "Chen disillusioned workers and provoked them by saying most of them...
...consolidate the estimated 5,000 cement producers. Such restructuring should leave China with stronger, more stable industries. But the process will be painful. Workers often find themselves with little say in matters and few chances to negotiate for better severance or retraining, says Geoffrey Crothall, spokesman for the Hong Kong-based China Labour Bulletin, a workers'-rights NGO. "Downsizing and consolidation in and of itself is not the problem. It's the way in which that process is undertaken," Crothall says. "What has been the case for many years is the privatization and restructuring of state-owned enterprises. The selling...