Category Archives: Asia Pacific

Get the latest Asian news from Codewit News in Asia: breaking news, features, analysis and special reports plus audio and video from across the Asian continent.

Japan launches talking humanoid robot into space

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TOKYO (AP) — Japan has launched the world's first talking humanoid robot "astronaut" toward the International Space Station.
 
Kirobo — derived from the Japanese words for "hope" and "robot" — was among five tons of supplies and machinery on a rocket launched Sunday from Tanegashima in southwestern Japan, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, said.
 
The childlike robot was designed to be a companion for astronaut Koichi Wakata and will communicate with another robot on Earth, according to developers. Wakata is expected to arrive at the space station in November.
 
Robot designer Tomotaka Takahashi, of the University of Tokyo, advertiser Dentsu and automaker Toyota Motor Corp. worked on the robot.
 
The challenge was making sure it could move and talk where there was no gravity.
 
Ahead of the launch, the 13-inch tall Kirobo told reporters, "one small step for me, a giant leap for robots."
 
Japan boasts the most sophisticated robotics in the world, but because of its "manga" culture, it tends to favor cute robots with human-like characteristics with emotional appeal, a use of technology that has at times drawn criticism for being not productive.
 
But Takahashi said sending a robot into space could help write a new chapter in the history of communication.
 
"I wish for this robot to function as a mediator between person and machine, or person and Internet and sometimes even between people," he said.
 
JAXA said the rocket launch was successful, and the separation of a cargo vehicle, carrying the robot to the space station, was confirmed about 15 minutes after liftoff.
 

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Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
ionyclaret@gmail.com
https://www.codewit.com
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Magnitude 6.0 quake shakes northeastern Japan

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TOKYO (AP) — A strong earthquake shook northeastern Japan on Sunday in the same region devastated by a giant tsunami and temblor 2-1/2 years ago, but there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.
 
The quake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.0 struck shortly after midday, and was centered off the coast of Miyagi Prefecture, and 30 miles below the seabed.
 
The quake shook a wide region, including Fukushima and Iwate prefectures, and there was no risk of a tsunami, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.
 
Tokyo Electric Power Co., the utility that runs Fukushima Dai-ichi, said no problems were reported there or at another one of its nuclear plants in Fukushima, and that there were no power outages and radiation monitors did not show any change.
 
Fukushima Dai-ichi plant went into multiple meltdowns after the March 2011 tsunami, and tons of water are being used daily to keep its reactors under control. Decommissioning is expected to take decades.
 
Tohoku Electric Power Co. also said no problems were detected at its Onagawa nuclear plant in Miyagi Prefecture.
 
Some roads were blocked off and some trains stopped running temporarily for safety checks, broadcaster NHK TV said.

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Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
ionyclaret@gmail.com
https://www.codewit.com
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Woman freed after plea agreement in baby’s death

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INDIANAPOLIS — Bei Bei Shuai walked out of an Indianapolis courtroom Friday to have an ankle monitor removed — and to move on with her life, free of legal weights.
 
But the 36-year-old originally from China is likely to move forward with the weight of memories, regrets she acknowledged and continued public attention as her case is debated by women's rights advocates and legal scholars.
 
Shuai had been facing charges of murder and attempted feticide after her daughter, Angel, died a few days after birth. Prosecutors alleged Shuai killed her child by eating rat poison in December 2010, when she was pregnant.
 
After a surprise plea agreement was offered Friday morning, Shuai pleaded guilty to criminal recklessness.
 
The murder and attempted feticide charges were dropped. She was sentenced to 178 days in jail and given credit for 89 she actually spent at the Marion County Jail and for another 89 days of "good time."
 
EARLIER STORY: Murder charge raises women's rights questions
 
Marion County Superior Judge Sheila A. Carlisle accepted the agreement worked out between Shuai's attorney and Marion County Prosecutor Terry Curry's office.
 
Shuai's trial was scheduled to begin Sept. 3, and it was expected to attract national media attention.
 
"It feels great," the soft-spoken Shuai said after the hearing at the City-County Building.
 
Said Linda Pence, her attorney: "From the beginning, I have been convinced that this case was not a criminal case. It should never have been filed."
 
Curry, reached later by telephone, said his decision hinged on two issues: The judge's previous ruling that limited prosecution evidence related to the baby's cause of death, and concern that conviction of anything other than a misdemeanor could have triggered deportation efforts.
 
Curry said no one wanted to jeopardize Shuai's immigration status, and that he always had been open to finding a resolution that fit the "unique circumstances" of the Shuai case.
 
But, Curry said, those circumstances also included a note that Shuai wrote before taking the rat poison, indicating she specifically wanted to kill the baby as well as herself.
 
The saga began Dec. 23, 2010, when a friend of Shuai's found her in her car at a gas station in Anderson. He thought she looked ill and suggested he take her to his home so his wife could help her.
 
Shuai later acknowledged she ate rat poison in her Indianapolis home to kill herself because her boyfriend — the father of the child she was carrying — had left her.
 
She first went to an Anderson hospital but was transferred to Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis, where she gave birth to a daughter, Angel, on Dec. 31 via Cesarean section. Angel was put on life support, but those machines later were removed and she died Jan. 3 from bleeding in her brain.
 
The case drew widespread attention because it involved at least two highly emotional and complex legal issues: the rights of women and the rights of unborn children.
 
Advocates for Shuai, who had planned a rally for Tuesday to support her in her legal battle, said they were thrilled about Friday's outcome. But they acknowledged that thorny legal questions remain unanswered.
 
"I hope this is debriefed a lot in the public forum," said Sue Ellen Braunlin, co-president of the Indiana Religious Coalition for Reproductive Justice.
 
Other women in similar circumstances — pregnant, suicidal and depressed — might fear prosecution if they take desperate actions and then consider seeking medical help, Braunlin said.
 
They might simply not seek help, for fear of being arrested, she said.
 
"Suicide attempts happen a lot, and they happen when women are pregnant," Braunlin said.
 
Curry doesn't necessarily agree with Shuai's advocates, but he did agree that a review of Indiana laws — outside a courtroom, focused on a specific case — would be useful.
 
"It would be appropriate for the Legislature to determine: What was their intent?" Curry said.
 
In Shuai's case, he said, the defense claimed the law never was intended to apply to pregnant women, but his reading was that it did in this case, partly because of Shuai's note indicated the child's death was part of her intent. And, Curry noted, the Indiana Court of Appeals agreed with his interpretation of the law.
 
Part of the discussion, said Carolyn Meagher, also co-president of the Indiana coalition, is whether it's even possible to write a law that fairly and completely covers all possible scenarios of tough issues raised in cases like this.
 
"Absolution not," Meagher said. "There are so many circumstances."

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Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
ionyclaret@gmail.com
https://www.codewit.com
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East Jerusalem thorniest of issues ahead of peace talks

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As Israeli and Palestinian negotiators prepare for preliminary talks in Washington on Monday, the future of Jerusalem looms as the thorniest and most difficult issue to resolve.
 
The State Department announced Sunday that the two sides had accepted invitations from Secretary of State John Kerry to come to Washington "to formally resume direct final status negotiations." The department said two days of initial meetings will begin Monday evening.
 
The announcement came shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Cabinet approved the release of 104 Palestinian prisoners, a key part of the Kerry-brokered deal.
 
Netanyahu has said Jerusalem — which Israel unified in the 1967 Six-Day War and claims as its capital — is the heart of the Jewish nation and will never be divided.
 
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas says there can be no agreement and no end to the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis without a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem, home to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the last remnants of the Jews' Second Temple and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.
 
"Jerusalem will be a huge problem" to overcome for any final agreement, says Aaron David Miller, a former adviser on Arab-Israeli peace negotiations to Democratic and Republican secretaries of State. "Down the road, (talks) will fail if Jerusalem is not resolved."
 
Miller says the parties will tackle other issues first, such as borders and security, to build trust and confidence on both sides before moving to more difficult "identity issues" such as Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees and a demand by Netanyahu that Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish homeland.
 
Before announcing that Israeli and Palestinian leaders agreed to meet on resuming talks, Kerry obtained a pledge from Qatar that it would sweeten an Arab proposal initially put forward by Saudi Arabia in 2002 that offered Israel peace with 22 Arab nations and 35 Muslim nations if it returned all lands it seized in 1967 and agreed to a "just solution" for Palestinian refugees.
 
Under Qatar's new proposal, the Gulf state said border disputes between Israelis and Palestinians could be solved through land swaps. The Qatari statement meant that Arab states would endorse a compromise on Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
 
In the 46 years since Israel took control of the land there, it has built Jewish neighborhoods in and around East Jerusalem, and cities in the West Bank that Netanyahu and previous Israeli leaders have pledged to retain in any future deal. How much of the West Bank Israel would retain is yet to be decided, but Israel is expected to compensate Palestinians with territory from territory that was considered part of Israel before 1967, Miller says.
 
The two sides will also have to agree on security, including what kinds of weapons a Palestinian military would be allowed to have, whether a new Palestinian state could sign defense treaties with other nations and whether Israel could maintain its military presence in the Jordan River Valley, which separates the West Bank from Jordan.
 
Hussein Ibish, a senior fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine, predicts agreement on such issues is achievable because security is a prerequisite for economic development and is in the Palestinians' self-interest. However, compromise on the fate of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees scattered across the Arab world and on the Palestinian claim to Jerusalem will be much harder, Ibish says.
 
Ibish says Palestinians will have to accept that refugees and their descendants who've lived for decades without full citizenship in other nations will never be allowed to return to the homes they left. Their numbers would outnumber the Jewish population, which Israel would never accept, Ibish says.
 
On Jerusalem, however, there will either be a compromise or no deal, he says.
 
Competing claims on the land are most intense in the Temple Mount-Haram al Sharif area and the stone-paved 1-square-kilometer area of Jerusalem's Old City. But Jewish neighborhoods and construction in and around East Jerusalem have given rise to various creative solutions for resolving the riddle of how two people can share the same place:
 
• Palestine or Israel could have exclusive sovereignty over individual areas of the Holy Basin and the Old City. However, Ibish says such an option is not viable because neither side will trust the other, and the city has to somehow operate as a municipality with shared transportation, electrical grid and other services.
 
• Another option is shared sovereignty or some kind of international administration for the Holy Basin, where it would be managed by a United Nations committee headed by a party agreed to by both sides.
 
• A light-rail system along the border of Israel and the West Bank boundary of the new Palestine could include train stops that would incorporate border crossings from one side to another. A sketch of this notion was reportedly put on the table during 2008 negotiations between Abbas and then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
 
Edward Djerejian, U.S. ambassador to Israel from 1992 to 1995 under President Clinton, has made fresh proposals of his own as director of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in Texas. The two sides will have to agree upon a unified city that serves as a capital for two states and has joint municipal planning for shared systems such as the electrical grid and transportation, Djerejian says.
 
"At the end of the day, it is going to be intermingled in many ways," and it would be a first arrangement of its kind in the world, he says. "I can't think of another city where that pertains."

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Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
ionyclaret@gmail.com
https://www.codewit.com
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Tension as Chinese toddler dies after parking row attack

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A two-year-old Chinese girl who was thrown to the ground by a man in his 40s during a row with her mother over parking has died, state media reported Saturday.

The toddler died on Thursday night in hospital in Beijing where she was receiving treatment for the injuries suffered during the incident on Tuesday, the China Daily reported. The death has also been reported by the Beijing News.

A witness told the Beijing Times earlier in the week that the man, identified only by his surname Han, wanted to park by a bus stop in Beijing.

But the toddler’s mother, who was on foot, would not move out of his way as she was checking on her daughter at the time.

Han got out of his car and hit the woman before taking the toddler out of her pram, holding her up and throwing her “forcefully” to the ground, said the witness, a street stall owner surnamed Zhou.

“The baby made no noises after being dropped, not even a cry of pain,” the newspaper quoted Zhou as saying.

Another man came out of the car and also beat the mother before the pair drove away, it added.

Police found Han, who was released from prison this year after serving a sentence for theft, in a hot spring bathhouse and detained him, said the Legal Daily.

“Han was put in criminal detention on suspicion of intentional homicide on Thursday afternoon,” Xinhua said, citing the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau.

Han could face the death penalty if he is charged with murder, Chinese reports said.

Another man who also has a criminal record has surrendered to police, Xinhua reported.

The incident sparked outrage on Chinese social media as weibo users vilified the attackers and expressed grief over the toddler’s fate.

“When you come back in another life, dear baby, be sure to be born in another country,” one user wrote.

Another weibo user called the attackers “perverse animals” and a third called for the death penalty as punishment.

“For this kind of murderer with an evil nature, the death penalty should be carried out immediately,” the post said.

Social tensions have been mounting in China in recent years against the backdrop of a widening income gap and abuses of public power. AFP

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Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
ionyclaret@gmail.com
https://www.codewit.com
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Arrest of former Egypt President Morsi ordered

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CAIRO —Egyptian authorities ordered that former President Mohammed Morsi be detained for 15 days pending investigation into a slew of accusations, further upsetting a fragile political scene more than three weeks after the elected president was unseated.
 
The accusations against Morsi include that he conspired with the Palestinian group Hamas to carry out acts of violence in Egypt, the state news agency MENA said.
 
The development precedes a day of rival protests to support or oppose Morsi, who was unseated July 3 when General Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi ushered in a transition plan that suspended the constitution and dissolved the legislature. Adly Mansour was appointed interim president and a new cabinet was formed. The country is preparing for fresh parliamentary and presidential elections.
 
On Wednesday, Sisi interfered in civilian politics again, calling for Egyptians to take to the streets to "give me, the army and police a mandate to confront possible violence and terrorism."
 
The call for protests may indicate impending heightened crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, analysts and activists said, and threaten to propel more violence that in recent weeks has included attacks on security outposts in the Nile Delta city of Mansour, and in the restive Sinai Peninsula. At least 100 people have also died in clashes.
 
"The state has nothing but a security approach to deal with this crisis, which will lead to a lot of violence, and killings and blood," said Khalil Al-Anani, an expert on Egyptian politics and Islamist movements.
 
Since July 3, authorities have shut down Islamist television stations, Brotherhood leaders and members have been arrested and more than 50 people were killed after security forces opened fire on a pro-Morsi demonstration. The Brotherhood and Morsi's supporters reject the transition plan and demand the ousted president be reinstated.
 
Mohamed Kadry Said, a retired general and head of the security studies unit at Cairo's Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, said Sisi might be planning to increase military action in the Sinai Peninsula as well as against Morsi supporters, who continue to hold protests and sin-ins.
 
"Maybe he is saying to them: This is a serious step to close the book, to end this struggle," Said said.
 
At the very least, it will lead to human rights violations by the state, said Nadine Sherif, international advocacy officer at the Cairo Institute or Human Rights Studies.
 
"It's unacceptable," Sherif said. "The military should not be policing people."

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Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
ionyclaret@gmail.com
https://www.codewit.com
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PHOTO: Strange Discovery How Some tribes in Asia bury their dead

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These remarkable photos give a glimpse into the closely-guarded tradition of Tibetan sky burials, where bodies are chopped up and fed to the vultures. Sky burials are a funerary practice in the Chinese provinces of Tibet, Qinghai, and Inner Mongolia and in Mongolia. The majority of Tibetans and many Mongolians adhere to Vajrayana Buddhism, which teaches the transmigration of spirits.
 
This means they do not see a need to preserve the body, as it is now an empty vessel, so they dispose of it through a sky burial.  Morbid: A lama walks past a flock of vultures after a sky burial. The sky burial is a funerary practice in which the body is cut up and fed to the vultures
 
View: Local lamas and tourists look at a flock of vultures. Sky burial is the usual means for disposing of the corpses people who are not high lamas
 
 
Beliefs: A vulture sails above a flock resting on a hillside. The majority of Tibetans and many Mongolians adhere to Vajrayana Buddhism, which teaches the transmigration of spirits. There is no need to preserve the body, as it is now an empty vessel
 
Dispoasal: The function of the sky burial is to dispose of the remains in as generous way – the donation of human flesh to the vultures is considered virtuous because it saves the lives of small animals that the vultures might otherwise capture for food
 
Ritual: The body parts are left in the Tower of Silence for a year, exposed to the elements and birds – men and women are placed in different sections
 
{gallery}stories/galleries/Sky-burials{/gallery}
 
These remarkable photos give a glimpse into the closely-guarded tradition of Tibetan sky burials, where bodies are chopped up and fed to the vultures.   Sky burials are a funerary practice in the Chinese provinces of Tibet, Qinghai, and Inner Mongolia and in Mongolia.
 
The majority of Tibetans and many Mongolians adhere to Vajrayana Buddhism, which teaches the transmigration of spirits.
 
This means they do not see a need to preserve the body, as it is now an empty vessel, so they dispose of it through a sky burial. 
 
Tradition: A lama prays in front of a flock of vultures. Prior to the procedure, monks may chant mantra around the body and burn juniper incense. When only the bones are left, the pieces are broken up with mallets, ground with tsampa (barley flour with tea and yak butter, or milk), and given to the crows and hawks that have waited for the vultures to depart
 
High spirits: Eyewitness accounts suggest the body-breakers do the grim task in high-spirits – according to Buddhist teaching, this makes it easier for the soul of the deceased to move on
 
Some stories suggest the body parts are left in the Tower of Silence for a year, exposed to the elements and birds – men and women are placed in different sections. 
 
Then when only the bones are left, the pieces are broken up with mallets, ground with tsampa (barley flour with tea and yak butter, or milk), and given to the crows and hawks that have waited for the vultures to depart.
 
The function of the sky burial is simply to dispose of the remains in as generous a way as possible  – this donation of human flesh to the vultures is considered virtuous because it saves the lives of small animals that the vultures might otherwise capture for food.
 
The function of the sky burial is simply to dispose of the remains in as generous a way as possible reports TravelChina- the process is considered virtuous because it saves the lives of small animals that the vultures might otherwise capture for food.
 
 

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Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
ionyclaret@gmail.com
https://www.codewit.com
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Boat with possible asylum seekers capsizes off Indonesia; 4 dead

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(CNN) — Two children are among four people who died after a boat carrying at least 160 people capsized off the coast of West Java, Indonesian rescue officials said Wednesday.  Fisherman, who saw people floating in the water on Tuesday night, alerted search and rescue teams that worked in the dark to find survivors, said Rochmali, the head of Indonesia's National Search and Rescue Team. Rochmali — like many Indonesians — only uses one name.
 
Some made it to land on their own and were found along the beach just off Cianjur District, south of Bandung, the capital of West Java Province, he said. So far, 156 survivors have been taken to temporary shelters and clinics on the island. Rescuers in rubber boats and local fisherman continue to search the water for remaining survivors in choppy sea within 5 nautical miles of the shore.
 
Some media reports suggested that as many as 60 people were missing, though that number could not be confirmed as the boat was not registered and carries no official passenger list.
"We don't know how many people were on board, because the survivors are reluctant to tell us," said Rochmali. It's uncertain where the boat was headed, although Rochmali said Indonesian officials believe they were on their way to Australian waters near Christmas Island to seek possible asylum. "They don't want to talk to officials frankly about their intention and who they are. Even some of them tried to run away, or maybe already run away after being saved," he said.
 
Those who had spoken to officers claimed they were nationals of Iran, Iraq, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, Rochmali said. "But whether it is true or not, we still have to reconfirm," he added.
Last week, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced that asylum seekers arriving in Australian waters would no longer be resettled in the country. Instead, they'll be sent to Papua New Guinea for processing and will be settled there if found to be refugees. If their bids fail, they'll be sent home or to another country, Rudd announced. 
 
Rights groups have condemned the policy, accusing the Australian government of shirking its responsibility for asylum seekers. "It cannot possibly be presented as an example of regional cooperation because it is little more than a wealthy country paying a much weaker neighbor to take on its international responsibilities to people seeking asylum," said Paul Power, chief executive officer of the Refugee Council of Australia.
 
On Wednesday, Rudd said the tragedy off West Java emphasized the need for policy changes to send "a clear message to people smugglers to stop sending people by boat to Australia."
"We're seeing too many drownings, we're seeing too many sinkings, too many innocent people being lost at sea," according to Rudd. Australian agencies were monitoring the situation, he said.
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority declined to comment on the rescue to CNN, saying it was being handled by Indonesian authorities.
 

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Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
ionyclaret@gmail.com
https://www.codewit.com
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China leaders offer stimulus as growth lags

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China's government has announced a host of minor stimulus measures as its leaders confront a slowing economy and worries over future growth prospects.
The measures include a tax break for small businesses, reduced export fees and a pledge to accelerate railway construction and investment. The policy shifts were announced by the State Council following a meeting of the group led by Premier Li Keqiang.
 
The strategy is something of a departure for China, which responded to a slowing economy in 2008 by unleashing a tidal wave of fiscal stimulus — mostly in the form of government spending on infrastructure projects.
The stimulus measures announced Thursday are much more focused, hitting only a few key sectors of the economy. "I think [growth is slow] enough for them to start rolling out some so-called fine tuning measures," Standard Chartered economist Kelvin Lau told CNN. "I wouldn't even call it stimulus. It's very targeted."
Starting in August, some small businesses will be exempt from paying value-added tax — which should leave more cash in the pockets of business owners and encourage hiring. Six million businesses will benefit from the tax break, according to government estimates.
Railway construction will be focused in poorer, mostly rural areas in China. Beijing also announced an initiative to attract more private investment by establishing a railway investment fund.
 
Earlier this month, China reported that GDP growth slowed to 7.5% in the second quarter. Expansion at that pace would make most countries green with envy, but was among the slowest rates China has reported in the past two decades.
China has more typically averaged growth of around 10% a year, and the slowdown, coupled with weak manufacturing data, has triggered alarm bells in some quarters.
 
China's economy relies heavily on investment, a trend that has distorted the country's housing market and placed great emphasis on exports over consumption. In addition, the rules governing the country's equity markets make raising capital difficult for some businesses.
Weaker growth puts China's ruling Communist Party in a tough spot, and could derail efforts meant to shift the world's second-biggest economy to a more sustainable growth model. President Xi Jinping is by all accounts determined to proceed with reforms, even if it means tolerating slower growth for now.
"We have known for months that China is in a cyclical soft patch within a structural slowdown," Lau said. "The numbers just confirm that China is not turning around anytime soon."
— CNN's Esther Pang contributed reporting.  

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Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
ionyclaret@gmail.com
https://www.codewit.com
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Bribery scandal will hit Glaxo’s China growth

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The corruption scandal sweeping through China's healthcare sector will dent GlaxoSmithKline's rapidly-growing business in the country, the company said Wednesday.
GSK (GSK) admitted this week that some of its executives may have broken the law, and promised to change its business practices, after Chinese police accused the company of facilitating a bribery ring to artificially boost drug prices.
 
The British drugmaker is accused of channeling nearly $500 million through a network of 700 travel agencies to pay bribes to government officials, medical associations, hospitals and doctors.
"Clearly, we are likely to see some impact to our performance in China as a result of the current investigation, but it is too early to quantify the extent of this," GSK CEO Andrew Witty said in a statement.
Four senior GSK executives have been detained. State television has aired an apparent confession by one of the four, Liang Hong, explaining how the scheme worked, including the use of fake conferences and travel agencies to create receipts for services that were never performed. The surplus funds were allegedly then used to pay bribes.
In addition, Steve Nechelput, finance director for GSK China, has been prevented from traveling outside the country since the end of June.
Related: China drugs scandal set to grow
Chinese police accused 39 hospital workers of taking more than $450,000 in kickbacks from pharmaceutical firms over a three-year period, state media reported Wednesday. Nine of the doctors involved had been suspended or had their licenses revoked, and a case involving a trade union official was referred to the judicial system.
China appears determined to clean up its healthcare sector. It is investigating price-setting practices at 60 pharmaceutical companies and lawyers believe firms other than GSK may be caught up in the anti-corruption drive.
Two managers working for a second British drugs firm, AstraZeneca (AZN), have been questioned by police after a local sales representative was detained last week. The firm said it saw no link to the GSK investigation.
Witty said he believed the probe was focused on individual GSK senior managers in China who had set out to defraud the company and the healthcare system, and he saw no link with an ongoing industry-wide probe by U.S. authorities into potential corrupt practices in foreign countries.
"As far as we're aware, the China situation is a China situation. And the investigation is a domestic investigation," he said on a call with analysts.
Big pharmaceuticals companies have rushed to invest in China in recent years to take advantage of rapid growth for medical treatments, but they're now under enormous pressure to reduce costs as the population ages, straining the country's medical system and care facilities.
GSK's sales of pharmaceuticals and vaccines in emerging markets grew by 2% in the second quarter, double the rate for the division as a whole. Revenue from China spiked 14% to £212 million ($18 million). Emerging markets account for about 23% of revenue in the division.
Witty said China appears to have reached "an inflection point" in its bid to modernize healthcare. He added that GSK has commissioned an independent review to establish what went wrong, and continues to see China as a key investment location.  To top of page

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