济南痛风跟风湿(北京轻微的痛风能治好吗) (今日更新中)

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is imposing further trade sanctions against China, South Korea and Indonesia in a dispute involving glossy paper. The decision, announced Wednesday by Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, came a week after US and Chinese officials met for a second round of high-level talks aimed at lowering trade tensions between the two nations. "This administration continues to aggressively and transparently enforce our trade laws to ensure a level playing field for American manufacturers, workers and farmer," Gutierrez said in a statement announcing the decision. In the new ruling, the government determined that imports from the three countries of glossy paper - used in art books, textbooks and high-end magazines - were being sold in the United States at less than fair value, a process known as dumping. The dumping penalties will be collected immediately although they will not become final until this fall after further investigations are conducted. The preliminary dumping penalty for the paper products from China ranged from 23.19 percent to 99.65 percent. The dumping penalty imposed on imports of glossy paper from Indonesia was 10.85 percent while the penalty on South Korean imports ranged as high as 30.86 percent. These dumping penalties will be imposed on top of economic sanctions levied in March after the administration found that paper companies from those three countries were receiving improper government subsidies that allowed them to undercut the price of American producers. The March decision reversed 23 years of US trade policy by treating China, which is classified as a nonmarket economy, in the same way other US trading partners are treated in disputes involving government subsidies. The paper case was brought by NewPage Corp., a Dayton, Ohio-based paper company which contended that its coated paper was facing unfair competition because of the government subsidies and sale of imports at unfairly low prices. The government trade sanctions have received the support of the United Steel Workers union, which represents about 90 percent of the workforce in the US coated paper industry. The glossy paper is produced at 22 paper mills in 13 states. The penalties in the case involving government subsidies are known as countervailing duties. In that case, the trade sanctions ranged as high as 20.35 percent for Chinese glossy paper imports, 1.76 percent for South Korean imports and 21.24 percent for Indonesia. Chinese officials denounced the decision in the government subsidies case saying that it went against the consensus of both countries to resolve disputes through dialogue rather than imposing trade sanctions. The second round of the Strategic Economic Dialogue, which was launched by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson in December, was held in Washington last week. Paulson and Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi announced a series of modest agreements including the boosting of airline flights between the two nations. But they failed to make progress in one of the biggest rade irritants, the value of China's currency, which American manufacturers contended is being kept artificially low against the dollar to give Chinese companies unfair advantages against US firms.

DALLAS -- Several leading US airlines have asked federal regulators for the right to operate new nonstop flights between the United States and China beginning in March 2009.American, the largest US carrier, said it applied Monday for a route from Chicago's O'Hare Airport to Beijing. A similar bid failed several months ago, partly because American's management and pilots couldn't agree on work rules for the flights.Continental applied Monday to fly between Newark, N.J., and Shanghai. The Houston-based airline said its flights would serve the financial hub of New York and a large Chinese-American population in the area. US Airways said it is seeking to offer nonstop service between its Philadelphia hub and Beijing, China. Delta Air Lines Inc. asked to fly from Atlanta to Beijing and Shanghai; and Northwest Airlines Corp. filed to offer service between Detroit and the same two Chinese cities. UAL Corp.'s United Airlines proposed to fly between San Francisco and Guangzhou starting in 2008, and between Los Angeles and Shanghai in 2009. Air service between the two countries is restricted by agreements between the two governments. US airlines eager to tap the growing Chinese market must apply to the Department of Transportation for new routes. In the competition for Chinese routes, US airlines gather support from politicians and customers to sell their proposals to federal regulators. For example, American, a unit of Fort Worth-based AMR Corp., boasted support from four US senators and three governors. Schwarzenegger favors proposal for non-stop flights to China California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said Tuesday that he favored a proposal for non-stop air services to China from two major Californian cities. Schwarzenegger made the remarks after United Airlines submitted an application to the US Department of Transportation Monday to add daily, non-stop services from San Francisco and Los Angeles to China in 2008 and 2009. "China's more than 1 billion citizens represent an important market for Californian products and services," Schwarzenegger said in a statement e-mailed to Xinhua. "United Airlines' proposal to add a daily, non-stop service between our state and China is a great opportunity to promote California tourism and pump up our state's economy," said the governor. "Direct flights between California and China will only have a positive impact on our state and I look forward to working with United Airlines in the future as we continue to strengthen our economic ties with this important Pacific Rim partner," he added. United Airlines' application proposes a non-stop service between San Francisco and Guangzhou in 2008, and a daily non-stop service between Los Angeles and Shanghai in 2009. In 2006, exports from California to China totaled almost 10 billion dollars, up from 5.5 billion dollars in 2003 when the governor took office, according to the statement. California is the number one US state in terms of total exports to China and the top exports include computers and electronic products, waste and scrap materials, transportation equipment and heavy machinery.

BEIJING -- China may entirely switch to non-food materials such as cassva, sweet potato, sorgo and cellulose in producing ethanol fuel as a substitute for petroleum, said a government official. The country would approve no projects designed to produce ethanol fuel with food from now on, an official of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) told a seminar on China's fuel ethanol development held in Beijing on Saturday. "Food-based ethanol fuel will not be the direction for China," said Xu Dingming, vice director of the Office of the National Energy Leading Group, who was also at the seminar. China has been trying to avoid occupation of arable land, consumption of large amount of grain and damages to the environment in developing the renewable energies. The current four enterprises engaged in producing corn-based ethanol would be asked to switch to non-food materials gradually, according to the NDRC official who declined to be named. The four enterprises in Jilin, Heilongjiang, Henan and Anhui have a combined production capacity of 1.02 million tons of corn-based ethanol per year. The country has become a big producer and consumer of ethanol fuel in the world after the United States, Brazil and European Union, according to the NDRC official. China Oil and Food Corporation (COFCO), the country's largest oil and food importer and exporter, would focus on sorgo in the production of non-food-based ethanol fuel, said Yu Xubo, president of COFCO at the seminar. COFCO, which owns the Heilongjiang enterprise and has a twenty-percent stake in the Anhui enterprise, aims to produce five million tons of ethanol fuel based on sorgo in the near future. COFCO is leading the way in developing cellulosic ethanol fuel under a cooperation agreement with Denmark-based Novozymes, which leads the world in researches into the key enzymes needed in large-scale production of cellulosic ethanol. The current cost for producing ethanol fuel from stalks of corn, which are discarded by farmers, is still too high. Novozymes is working on the commercialization of cellulosic ethanol both in the United States and China. "We are optimistic about China's prospect of making it work ahead of the US, as the cost of collecting the stalks of corn are much cheaper in China," said Steen Riisgaard, president and CEO of Novozymes. There is much opposition both in China and in the world to corn-based ethanol fuel, which is believed will lead to higher corn price.

After 18 months of deliberation and public consultation, legislators passed the long-awaited Labor Contract Law on Friday to improve workers' basic rights. The law, which would take effect on January 1 next year, won 145 of the 146 votes of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC). One vote was not cast. The new law is considered the most significant change in the country's labor rules in more than a decade. It establishes standards for labor contracts, use of temporary workers and severance pay. It makes mandatory the use of written contracts and strongly discourages fixed-term contracts. According to the law, severance should be paid if a fixed-term contract expires but is not renewed without an appropriate reason. It is also stipulated that employers must submit proposed workplace rules or changes concerning pay, work allotment, hours, insurance, safety and holidays to the workers' congress for discussion. After the recent exposure of forced labor in brick kilns in Central and North China, the final draft added stipulations that government officials guilty of abuse of office and dereliction of duty would face administrative penalties or criminal prosecution. Xin Chunying, deputy chairperson of the NPC Law Committee, said the law is not intended to replace the current Labor Law but rather, to further standardize labor contracts in favor of employees. Li Yuan, one of the legislators in charge of drafting the law, said the law targeted bosses and officials who exploited workers. The draft law was first proposed in 2005 amid complaints that companies were mistreating workers by withholding pay, requiring unpaid overtime or failing to provide written contracts. Many workers were also becoming trapped in short-term contracts. Last March, the draft was made public for consultation, and legislators received about 192,000 public responses in a month. Only the Constitution, drafted in 1954, received more. However, business lobbies are worried that stricter contract requirements could raise costs and give them less flexibility to hire and fire employees. Both the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China and the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai (AmCham Shanghai) had made submissions to the NPC, suggesting the law might exert negative influence on foreign investment in China. In a letter to the NPC last year, Serge Janssens de Varebeke, then-president of the European Union chamber, warned the "strict" regulations could force foreign companies to "reconsider new investments or continuing their activities in China" because of possible cost increases. But Xin said there wouldn't be a substantial cost increase for companies that strictly follow the existing Labor Law. "All the principles have been included in the current law. The new law just details the provisions to facilitate implementation," she said.

来源：资阳报