2nd July 09

The New York Times

Zimbabwe Says China Is Giving It Loans

JOHANNESBURG — Zimbabwe’s prime minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, said Tuesday that an official he had appointed had secured lines of credit worth $950 million from China, President Robert Mugabe’s longtime ally.

The Age

China steel association eases stance on iron ore price cut
John Garnaut, Beijing

CHINA'S tough-talking steel association has buckled to criticism from its members and the reality of China's economic recovery, signalling that it is ready to accept a smaller cut in the benchmark iron ore price than it had previously said was possible.

Asia Times Online

Beijing aims to stem mass incidents
By Shi Ren-hou

The Shishou mass incident, which saw tens of thousands of public protesters engaging in open conflict with armed riot police in the central Chinese province of Hubei, has led to a call from the People's Daily for greater transparency on the part of the government and the mainstream media within China.

SINOGRAPH
Hu embarks on a political pilgrimage
By Francesco Sisci

BEIJING - Next week, Hu Jintao starts an official visit to Italy, the first for a Chinese president in 10 years. As with his predecessor, Jiang Zemin, Hu will have a chance to look first-hand at what was for millennia - from the Magna Grecia in the south to the Roman Empire to the Renaissance - the cradle of Western civilization. He will thus get a glimpse at the origin and development of the process of modernization - or "Westernification" - that China is embracing at the moment.

Dollar's future in US hands
By Henry C K Liu

Since 2008, I have been widely recognized on the Internet as the person who changed China's policy regarding the US dollar by advocating since 2002 that Chinese exports should be denominated in yuan. Chinese readers doing a Google search on my Chinese name will find numerous posts to that effect.