Tianjin Launches Energy Efficiency Initiatives

A small town turned into the largest financial, industrial and economic center, Tianjin had been enjoying a wealth of resource in the delta of Haihe River until 1949. The communism party decided the selected capital city Beijing should be the largest of all in China in every aspect. The enlarged Beijing sucked in living and development resource from the entire nation, and particularly from its neighboring areas, Hebei Province and Tianjin Municipality. Miles from the border of Beijing, the luxury showcase city, lies a ring of the most poverty area in China, the Hebei Province. 60 miles down soutcheast, Tianjin the once most prosperous city in northern China is facing the realty with no water to drink and no electricity to light residents' houses.

In a way, it inspired the Tianjin government expedite the exploration and adoption of new energy and new technology to save energy. The TEDA (Tianjin Economic and Technology Development Area) tower makes use of the wind power and takes consideration of the energy flow is one example of the effort, and the first eco-friendly building in China. TEDA is also experimenting LED lights in street illumination, the first city wide effort in China. A Sino-Singapore eco-city campus was signed last November and has begun construction in Tianjin also.

Photo Triggered 'Political Accident'

A photo reporter was fired on a photo which failed to portrait a county leader from a more flattering angle.

County newspaper "Tongzhou Communication" fired its photo reporter after a 'political accident' over a less flattering photo showing the county leader was published. The picture, which shows the county leader reporting to local legislature, was deemed having conveyed a misleading political signal and thus a political accident. The reporter Mr. Wang Lili, who had been the chief photographer of the local newspaper in the past 4 years, was fired hours after the photo made publication.

According to the publisher, Wang took six pictures of the county leader reading the report in the duration of half hour. Because the county leader was reading the notes, Wang couldn't take a picture with the leader's face looking up, the positive gesture. The said picture appeared ok on computer screen when the editor made the paper with some of the leader's eyes showing. In the print edition however, it looks the leader's eyes were closed. Pragmatically, a photo reporter shoots photos, while the text reporter and editors make decision on which photo to pick. In other words, Mr. Wang should not be technically held responsible for the 'accident'.

Tongzhou is a county of Beijing. The county leader who was photoed was Deng Naiping. What made this tragedy more troubling is that it happened in Beijing. Comparing to similar events happened across country, it make it not as easy to make excuse of isolated incident in rural areas while implying officials in major cities to be more qualified than their country side counterparts. While Chinese people often make fun of the shortage of consumer goods in North Korea, they sadly discovered China was not that farther away from its northern neighbor.

The story exploded when it was first reported by the Southern Metropolitan Weekly (SMW), a national media. It could also be tracked back to a blog by narrative (pangbai) on Jan 11, 2008, which was picked up by EastSouthWestNorth on Feb 14, 2008. News media in mainland China was ordered by the State Council News Office to delete the story immediately.

Indian Labors Out Numbered and Out Paid Chinese Workers

According to numbers released by the Labor Department, 85,000 PERM were issued to applicants from 176 countries and areas in FY2007, among which 55,214 are H-1B type visa intended for solving the shortage of high-skilled workers, mostly in the Informational Technology field.

PERM issued in FY2007

	Indian	Chinese
Total Number	24573	6846
Average Salary	$75,646	$63,585

Comparing the top 2 populations in high-tech immigrants. Chinese are better trained (4 times PhD owners over Indian), doing advanced work (much higher EB2/EB3 ratio), but paid much less. For Chinese, there are much to learn besides work skills.

PERM is an abbreviation of Permanent Employment Certification. Category EB2 type visa is issued to applicants holding advanced skills or graduate degrees, while EB3 for normal workers.

Little Inflation in Scinece and Engineering Doctorates Awarded in the Past Decade

The graph shows the doctorate recipients in Science in the past decade in the US from 1996 to 2005. It's a visually flat line, with an actual negative slope after linear regression. The blue line represents the total doctorate degrees in science awarded from 1996 to 2005, and the red line indicates the number of non-US citizens.

Similar trend can be observed in the engineering field as shown by the graph on the right. Again it's a visually flat line with an actual negative slope after linear regression.
According to NSF data of year 2005, 11.3% of PhD degrees were awarded to students from China. The largest population of foreign PhD recipients, second by 3.2% from India.

Made In China Refrigerator Sank Japanese Warship

Japanese warship was burned down last December, days after Japanese media criticized visiting Chinese destroyer was not properly fireproof. At the time it was a big irony, maybe not as much because it was just revealed that a Made-in-China refrigerator was responsible for the fire.

昨年12月、海上自衛隊の横須賀基地（神奈川県）に停泊中の護衛艦「しらね」（基準排水量5200トン）で発生した火災で、隊員が無許可で持ち込んだ「保冷温庫」が原因だった可能性が高いことが24日、判明した。防衛省首脳が明らかにした。保冷温庫は中国製で、戦闘指揮所（CIC）で隊員が飲む缶入り飲料を冷やしたり温めたりする目的で使われていたといい、何らかの理由で過熱、発火したとみられる。
　護衛艦の修理には約60億円が必要といい、同省は関係者の処分を検討している。同首脳は「他の艦艇でも同様に無許可で持ち込まれた電化製品がないか調べている」と説明した。

DDH-143 しらね (Shirane) Helicopter Destroyer was complete construction in 1980, and went through modernization in 1984. The warship belonged to First Escort Flotilla. With standard displacement 5,200T (full displacement 6,800T), the ship carries three helicopters and was the first Japanese warship to be fitted with 3D radars.

Fresh PhD Graduate Salary Survey 2006

Among 23 disciplinarian surveyed:
1. Business Administration/Management: $81,438;
2. Electrical/Electronics & Communications Engineering: $81,297;
3. Metallurgical Engineering: $80,667;
4. Computer Science: $76,630;
5. Chemical Engineering: $75,659;
......
19. Psychology: $49,374;
20. Humanities: $48,938;
21. Social Sciences: $48,487;
22. Biological Sciences/Life Sciences: $43,916;
23. English Language & Literature/Letters: $41,405

The origin and accuracy of this survey, which appeared mostly in Chinese media, are not clear.

Frederick area the No 2 smartest in the US

An article published by Forbes ranked the Bethesda-Gaithersburg-Frederick 'metropolitan division' the No. 2 'smartest cities' in the US. With a population of 1,158,319, among those ages25 and older, 49.88% hold a bachelor's degree or higher; 4.30% hold a Ph.D; 5.60% hold a professional degree and 89.92% graduate high school.

Also, the area is the only ranked that is not a college town or sits a major research university. The No. 1 area on the list is Boulder, Colorado and the No. 3 is Ithaca, New York. Washington D.C. and its northern Virginia area ranked No. 13 on the same list. No. 14 is Durham, North Carolina.