LinkChinese UK News

Banks Albach of Califonia’s San Jose Mecury News reports:

The federal government is offering the Palo Alto Unified School District nearly $800,000 over three years to fund its recently created Mandarin immersion program.

The grant, which the board of trustees will discuss Tuesday night but take no action on, is part of the U.S. Department of Education’s Foreign Language Assistance Program and requires renewal each of the three years.

According to a staff report, the district would receive $197,809 the first year, $279,191 in the second and $283,264 in the third. The district is required to match the grant, dollar to dollar.

“It’s bringing additional money into the district,” Board Member Mandy Lowell said.

But the grant has also prompted some words of caution from Board Member Gail Price. Yes it’s free money, she said, but the district should plan ahead for when the grant is no longer available.

After a long debate over Mandarin immersion, the district board approved the program in a 4-1 vote in June, just weeks before news of the grant came in. The immersion program is set to start in the fall of 2008 in the Ohlone Elementary School. Mandarin I and II are already offered at each of the high schools.

Full report

 

By John Tagliabue, New York Times News Service | September 23, 2007

PALAZZOLO SULL’OGLIO, Italy - They have names like the Brilliance BS6, the Landwind Fashion, or the improbable Hover Wingle, and though these sedans, vans, and sport utility vehicles are hardly as familiar to Europeans as, say, a Volkswagen Golf, they are beginning to show up on European roads.

“I’ve got air conditioning, ABS brakes, and air bags,” said Carlo Scalvini, describing his Hover, a big and boxy sport utility vehicle built by the Great Wall Motor Co., with headquarters in Baoding in eastern China. “And the price is competitive: You pay 10,000 euros less in the end,” more than $13,000.

The enthusiasm of people like Scalvini could influence the global auto industry and China’s place in it. China’s quiet inroads into Europe are the first test of rich markets by Chinese automakers as they build dealer networks and deliver small shipments of cars to test the reaction of drivers and auto industry experts.

Many of the dealers who have signed on with the Chinese previously worked with the Japanese and the South Koreans, and so have experience in coaxing Europeans to purchase cars with unfamiliar names and unusual looks, but sweet prices.

Read more…

 

From Associated Press:

LOS ANGELES - Mattel tried to save face Friday with Chinese officials, taking the blame for the recent recalls of millions of Chinese-made toys as it strives to mend a strained relationship with the nation that makes most of its toys and fattens its profit.

The world’s largest toy maker sent a top executive to personally apologize to China’s product safety chief, Li Changjang, as reporters and company lawyers looked on.

“Mattel takes full responsibility for these recalls and apologizes personally to you, the Chinese people, and all of our customers who received the toys,” Thomas A. Debrowski, Mattel’s executive vice president for worldwide operations, told Li.

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Jane Macartney reports for The Times from Beijing

Aleksandr Zverev sheltered for three weeks in caves after being flung from his raft in the Chinese wilderness.

By night he covered himself with leaves and branches to ward off frostbite. By day he drank river water and hoped for a miracle. He went without food for 25 days.

What started as the adventure holiday of a lifetime, shooting the rapids of one of the fastest-flowing and most dangerous rivers in western China, was ending in tragedy.

Mr Zverev believed that the river, which swells for only two months a year, had claimed the lives of his five companions. The remote Taklamakan Desert — its name means “you go in but you don’t come out” — was threatening to do the same to him.

Full report

 

The Times newspaper reports that Chinese ambassy in London has critized Channel 4’s programme about child trafficking in China. It has been in touch with the broadcasting regulator Ofcom and is expected to write to Channel 4’s board. The report also says Chinese ambassy is considering seeking an injunction to prevent the programme being shown on Channel 4. Zhao Shangsen, press counsellor to the embassy, wrote to the programme makers saying: “The programme is deeply flawed, ignorant and simplistic.” The ambassy is also said being angry that it is not given an advance screening and right of reply of the programme.

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China’s Terracotta Army on BBC TWO

Sat 15 Sep, 8:00 pm - 9:00 pm  60mins

Dan Snow follows the making of the British Museum’s biggest exhibition in a generation and tells the story of its subject, the First Emperor of China. Qin Shihuangdi is one of the most important but least well-known men in history. He founded the world’s oldest political entity and created the spectacular Terracotta Army to guard his vast tomb.

With exclusive access to the BM team for over a year, Dan follows the curator Jane Portal, and the design team, as they create a blockbuster exhibition in the historic Round Reading Room and he travels to China to see the original Great Wall, the sacred mountain Tai Shan, and the great necropolis at Xian with its thousands of warriors.

 

The Prime Minister Gordon Brown will announce new English tests as additional requirement for skilled migrants from non-EU countries today when addressing at a TUC conference.

The Guardian reports:

All skilled workers entering Britain from outside the EU will from next year be required to be proficient in English equivalent to GCSE level with the same requirement likely to be imposed on intermediate skilled workers soon after.

The home secretary, Jacqui Smith, told BBC 1’s Sunday AM: “One of the ways in which I think we can make sure that people integrate more quickly…is by expecting people who are coming here through the skilled and slightly less-skilled route to actually be able to speak English.”

At the moment only workers in the “highly skilled” category need to demonstrate that they can speak English before they are given permission to work in the UK. Separate language tests exist for those seeking right of abode or citizenship in the UK. The government estimates 35,000 of the 95,000 skilled migrants who entered the UK last year would not have been able to show they could speak the language. The requirement cannot be imposed on migrants from the EU since they enjoy free movement of labour under EU rules.

The Conservative immigration spokesman, Damian Green, said: “This will be a relatively minor measure unless it leads to a cut in the numbers of people coming here.”

 

From Chinese Movie Database

Ang Lee’s second world war drama Lust, Caution won the Golden Lion Best Film Award at the 64th Venice Film Festival. Rodrigo Prieto also won the Osella Award for Best Cinematography.

Lust, Caution, starring Tony Leung Chiu-Wai and newcomer Tang Wei, tells the story of a young student (Tang Wei) who is asigned a mission to seduce and destroy a senior official (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai) who works for the pupet government under Japanese control. The script is based on an Eileen Chang’s novel. The cinemetographer Rodrigo Prieto also worked with Ang Lee in Brokeback Mountain. At the award ceremony, Ang Lee dedicated the award to the late Swedish director Ingmar Bergman.

In the other awards, Taiwanese director Lin Jingjie’s The Most Distant Course won the International Critics’ Week Awards.

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The First Emperor: China’s Terracotta Army will open at the British Museum, from 13 September 2007 until 6 April 2008. This is the largest overseas exhibition of Terracotta Army. A total 120 pieces from Xi’an have been traveled to Britain, including 20 terracotta figures, of which 12 are warriors, as well as a bureaucrat, a musician, an acrobat, a strongman and a chariot and horses. Among other objects is a bronze crane.

The British Museum

Some reports:

The Times: Well wrapped up, a terracotta army is prepared to take Britain by storm

The Times: The terracotta invaders

Telegraph: The march of Xi’an Terracotta army

Guardian: The immortals

Guardian: Preparing for Terracotta Army

 

The Chinese cultural festival opened on Saturday in Norway’s capital of Oslo as part of both countries’ efforts of to boost ties and friendship.

Around 1,000 people, including Chinese living or studying in Norway and local Norwegians, took part in the opening ceremony in downtown Oslo, holding the two countries’ national flags as well as other types of colorful flags, said reports reaching here.

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