China is participating in more international cooperation and competition to improve national development, said Vice Premier Wu Yi in Beijing Monday.
Addressing the opening ceremony of “WTO and China: Beijing 2003 International Forum”, Wu said China is determined to ensure its people are leading a relatively comfortable life by 2020.
She said that to realize this goal and to conform to the trend of globalization, China is participating in more international economic and technical cooperation and competition and fully uses both the international and domestic markets.
Wu said that since its accession to the World Trade Organization, China has actively participated in the WTO new round talks and seriously fulfilled its promises.
She said that if the Doha Development Agenda can realize the theme of development and the interests of both developed and developing members, it will push the multilateral trade system in a fair and reasonable direction and create a sound international environment for China’s construction of a well-off society.
China’s construction of a well-off society will bring more opportunities for the development of a global economy and provide a broader market to all nations and regions, said Wu.
The theme of this two-day forum is the WTO new round talks and China’s construction of a well-off society.

China’s “Go-West” campaign should focus on the long-term and all-round development in vast western regions, a senior expert suggested.
Du Ping, director of the Institute of Land Planning and Regional Development at the National Development and Reform Commission, cautioned that the “developing the west” drive will have to be a long-term strategy aimed at enhancing all-round development in western China.
“Any hasty practices to gain short-term payoffs and ideas exclusively focusing on economic profits while neglecting overall development should be ruled out.”
Du said the campaign was being carried out cautiously and that “six major improvements have taken place since the government kicked off the drive in 2000.”
The following is a list of some of these improvements:
*Infrastructure construction is being accelerated and includes a 50 billion yuan (US$6 billion) road-building plan in western China.
*Environmental and ecological conditions have greatly improved, thanks to an increasing awareness of environmental protection among people and government’s efforts. Annually, about 50,000 square kilometres of deserts and spoiled highlands are treated.
*Companies, particularly private ventures, continue to sharpen their competitive edge to position themselves to become more influential on domestic and international markets.
*Overall progress has been made on education, healthcare and other social services.
*The central government intensified its programmes for the western regions. About 100 preferential regulations and policies were launched in the past four years.
*Progress was also made on the legal framework. More than 2,000 local regulations and measures were revised or cancelled to facilitate development and to keep China’s World Trade Organization commitments.

A zoo in northern Thailand has isolated two endangered giant pandas over fears they may catch bird flu after a leopard in another zoo is believed to have died from the disease, officials said Saturday.
The pandas are healthy. But authorities are worried that scores of chickens scampering freely around the Chiang Mai Zoo in the country’s north may sicken the pandas if the birds are infected with bird flu, the zoo’s director Tanapat Pongpamorn said.
The avian virus has killed millions of chickens across Thailand as well as five humans. On Friday, authorities said tests had shown that a clouded leopard died from the disease on Jan. 27 at Khao Khiew Zoo, south of Bangkok.
Zoo officials said the leopards may have become infected with bird flu after eating raw chicken meat.
Workers at the Chian Mai zoo were trying to keep wild roosters and hens from coming close to the pandas, Tanapat said.
“Those chickens were born in the wild. They roam the zoo everywhere,” he said. “We’re doing our best.”
He said veterinarians were checking the health of the pandas regularly and discussing the results with Chinese experts. The pandas have been rented from China for 10 years for US$250,000.
Last month, officials ordered the closure of the bird sections at zoos across the country over bird flu concerns after the carcasses of two crows - which tested positive for the virus - were found near a flamingo cage at Bangkok’s Dusit Zoo.
Natural Resources and the Environment Minister Prapat Panyachatraksa said Friday that more test results were being awaited to confirm the exact type of bird flu the leopard had.
Based on early tests, it wasn’t clear whether the leopard had the same variety of avian flu that has infected people, or a milder strain.
The World Health Organization said it had little information about the case, but if confirmed, it could be the first known time the disease has jumped to exotic animals or members of the cat family.

The Journal of the American Medical Association, or JAMA, has published its yearly issue on violence and human rights.

One report is on a study of a mental health program for children affected by political violence in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia.

The study of the school-based intervention involved about five hundred children. The average age was ten. Some took part in a therapy program for five weeks. They met fifteen times with locally trained mental-health workers. The other children, a control group, received no therapy.

The researchers say the therapy appeared to moderately reduce signs of post-traumatic stress disorder. It also helped support feelings of hope. But it did not reduce signs of depression or abnormal fear.

A team from the Netherlands, at the nonprofit organization HealthNet TPO and Vrije University Medical Center, did the study.

In an audio commentary on the JAMA Web site, the journal’s editor in chief, Cathy DeAngelis, expressed regret at the findings. In her words: I guess violence to children has its toll no matter what you do.

Another study in the special issue looked at alcohol use among American troops back from war. At the beginning of the study, more than forty-eight thousand service members answered questions about their use of alcohol. Some went on to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, and some were deployed in non-combat duties. Most were not deployed.

Later, the men and women answered questions again about their drinking.

New cases of heavy drinking were highest among younger service members and members of the Reserve and National Guard returning from the wars. These normally part-time forces have played an important part in Iraq and Afghanistan. But those who fought in the wars were sixty-three percent more likely to later abuse alcohol than non-deployed personnel.

Active-duty service members involved in combat were thirty-one percent more likely to begin binge drinking when they returned home. Drinking four to five drinks within about four hours is considered binge drinking.

More than seven hundred thousand teenagers a year get pregnant in the United States. The teen pregnancy rate has fallen thirty-eight percent since the early nineteen nineties. And the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy says the teen birth rate has fallen by almost as much. Six out of ten pregnant teenagers in two thousand six gave birth.

The nonprofit campaign says these changes have been driven by decreases in sexual activity and increases in contraceptive use. But it points to recent findings that reductions in teen sex and increases in contraceptive use have leveled off. And the teen birth rate is rising for the first time in fifteen years.

Last week, many Americans talked about the news that the seventeen-year-old daughter of Sarah Palin is pregnant and will get married. Sarah Palin is the governor of Alaska and the Republican nominee for vice president. Campaign officials said the family released a statement because of claims on the Internet that the candidate’s baby son was really her daughter’s baby.

But there have been other reasons why teen pregnancy has been more of a subject of national discussion lately.

The movie “Juno” came out last December. A teenager gets pregnant and decides to have the baby and give it up for adoption. This comedy about a serious subject won an Academy Award.

And this past June, Jamie Lynn Spears gave birth. The TV star and sister of Britney Spears was sixteen when she got pregnant. Many parents of her young fans were not happy to have to discuss it.

Eight out of ten pregnancies in teenagers are unplanned, compared to half of all pregnancies nationally.

A two thousand one UNICEF report on teenage births in rich nations showed that the United States had the highest rate. But, as a New York Times columnist just noted, the United States did not have the highest rate of sexually active teens. A few others had higher rates. Denmark had the highest. Yet its teen birth and teen abortion rates were much lower than America’s.

Part of the debate over what to do about teen pregnancy is how to deal with sex education. Some people argue for an expansion of “abstinence-only” programs. These center on the message that young people should not have sex until marriage. Other people argue that while this may be a good message to teach, it should not be the only one taught in schools

Bisphenol A is a chemical widely used to make hard, polycarbonate plastic. Food storage containers, reusable water bottles and baby bottles are among the many different products that may contain BPA. BPA is also commonly used in protective coverings inside metal food and drink cans.

People can swallow small amounts of BPA as they eat or drink. An industry Web site says more than forty years of safety research shows that products made with bisphenol A are safe.

But others question the safety of BPA. Now, a large study has linked it to diabetes and heart disease in adults.

Researchers divided almost one thousand five hundred American adults into four groups based on BPA levels in their urine. All the levels were within the limits considered safe by the United States Food and Drug Administration. Yet the study found that the highest group was more than twice as likely as the lowest group to have heart disease or diabetes, or both.

The Food and Drug Administration and chemical industry officials said the study does not show that bisphenol A caused the diseases. The researcher who led the study, David Melzer at England’s University of Exeter, agrees. He says the findings must be reproduced and that other studies are also needed.

But he also says that if BPA is a cause of these conditions, then just reducing contact with it might prevent some cases. The study appeared last week in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Earlier this month, United States government scientists from the National Toxicology Program released a final report on BPA. They found that the chemical is of “some concern” for effects on development of the prostate gland and brain in fetuses, infants and children. They made the same finding for behavioral effects.

The scientists based their findings mostly on studies of laboratory animals. Even so, the program director said “the possibility that BPA may affect human development cannot be dismissed.”