Yahoo Inc. said Thursday that it would shut down its GeoCities free Web-hosting service after paying about $3 billion for the unit in 1999.

Yahoo pointed GeoCities users to its paid Web-hosting service. The company will give users more details on saving GeoCities' data later this year.

U.S. visitors to GeoCities dropped 25% to 12 million in March from the year-ago period, according to research firm ComScore Inc. in Reston, Va.

China Monday unveiled a blueprint for health-care over the next decade, kicking off a much-anticipated reform to fix the ailing medical system and to ensure fair and affordable health services for all 1.3 billion citizens.

The core principle of the reform is to provide basic health care as a "public service" to the people, which requires much more government funding and supervision.

The reform is aimed at "solving pressing problems that have caused strong complaints from the public," the document said, referring to long-standing criticism that medical services are difficult to access and increasingly unaffordable.

Many factors were blamed for causing problems - huge development gap between cities and rural areas, low government funding, weak health-care facilities at grassroots level, and increasing disease burdens - despite the country's effort to double the average life expectancy over the past 60 years.

Soaring medical bills further strained China's social security network, already burdened by expensive education, fast population ageing and unemployment. This forces many ordinary Chinese to save money, instead of spending, as precautionary measures.

After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, governments covered more than 90 percent of medical expenses for urban residents, while rural people enjoyed simple but essentially free health care.

But when China began its economic reforms in the early 1980s, the system was dismantled as the country attempted to switch to a market-oriented health care system.

Due to low government funding, doctors at state-run hospitals were forced to "generate" incomes for the hospitals through prescribing highly-profitable, sometimes unnecessary drugs and treatment. In many places this could account for 90 percent of a hospital's income.

Soaring fees plunged many into poverty and made medical services less affordable to ordinary citizens.

Statistics from the Ministry of Health show that the personal spending on medical services has doubled from 21.2 percent in 1980to 45.2 percent in 2007, while the government funding dropped to 20.3 percent from 36.2 percent in 1980.

Health care reform could be prescription for employment

CHENGDU, China - To see the Chinese countryside in the western Sichuan Province in spring is a chance to behold some truly spectacular scenery. The yellow flowers in the fields blaze across the landscape and farmers turn the earth by hand.

But the beauty belies the hard life of China's peasants.

Some 800 million people live much the way they have for centuries, with few of the amenities of modern life. Just 10 months ago, Sichuan Province was hit by a massive 8.0 magnitude earthquake that left 70,000 people dead, 18,000 missing and millions homeless.

Knowing that the eyes of the world were watching and that its response would be judged by its own people, the Chinese government pledged a $150 billion reconstruction effort.

....

Life in China's rural areas has never been easy. The average person in Sichuan Province earns only about $400 a year, so with the promise of well-paying factory jobs people have left by the hundreds of thousands and headed for China's booming cities. In the best of times factory workers could make five times what they could toiling in the fields of their small villages.

But for many, these are the worst of times. As a result of the global financial crisis, demand for Chinese-made goods has declined and within the last year an estimated 70,000 factories and businesses have closed, leaving 20 million "migrant workers" without jobs.

"Times are tough," said Li Yuan Zhen, who used to work at a garment factory in Guangdong Province earning about $150 a month.

"Since the company went bankrupt there is no work," she said. Hundreds of thousands of workers from Sichuan are in a similar position and have been forced to return to their rural homes with no prospect of work anytime soon.

Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong believed that if the party lost the support of the peasants it would lose control of China. Mindful of that, the government had set a goal of 8 percent growth this year, fearing less would cause such high unemployment it would result in mass civil unrest.

That hasn't happened yet, but after two decades of economic growth, the global downturn is seen as the most serious test for the ruling Communist party in a generation.

Back home to clean air, nature and another century of sustainable lifestye.

Related: Agriculture in China, Rural Tax, Village Elections

Guangdong resumes week-long May Day holiday

Editor:Sharon Lee
Source:Xinhua

GUANGZHOU - China's southern Guangdong province will resume the week-long May Day holiday this year in a bid to revive the economy, local officials said Wednesday.

In 2007, China cut the May Day holiday from seven to three days to ease overcrowded travel.

The holiday in Guangdong will fall on May 1-7. Two days will be paid leave and local residents will have to work over the weekend of May 9-10.

Guangdong is the country's first province to resume the week-long holiday.

Liu Xiaojie, deputy secretary-general of the provincial government, said the move would help encourage travel and spur domestic demand.

The local economy in export-oriented Guangdong has been hit hard by reduced global demand for its goods.

Update: Banned by Beijing: Guangdong’s Holiday Plan, Seeking a golden spur for lagging economy

China's rural migrant workers top 225 million

BEIJING, March 25 (Xinhua) -- China, the world largest agriculture country in terms of farming population, has 225.42 million rural migrant workers as of 2008, according to statistic from the National Statistics Bureau (NBS) on Wednesday.

Among all the migrant workers, 62.3 percent or 140.41 million were working outside their home county, while the other 37.7 percent or, 85.01 million, worked in their hometowns.

Migrant workers from the central areas accounted for 37.6 percent of the 140.41 million ones. Other 32.7 percent and 29.7 percent were from the western and eastern regions, respectively.

The NBS said 70 million migrant workers went back to hometowns before February. Currently, 56 million have returned to the cities, 45 million have found jobs, and the other 11 million are still unemployed.

The statistics are based on a survey conducted by NBS, involving 68,000 rural households from 7,100 villages in 31 provinces.

"We have lent a huge amount of money to the United States," Wen said at a press conference in Beijing's Great Hall of the People. "I am a little bit worried. I request the U.S. to maintain its good credit, to honor its promises, and to guarantee the safety of China's assets."

Think of it as bad investment and cut the losses.

Obama soothes China on US debt -AFP

"By continuing to support American Treasury instruments the Chinese are recognizing our interconnection. We are truly going to rise or fall together," Clinton said.

Domestic critics have charged that, as a developing country, China should be investing at home instead of subsidizing the world's richest country, or else diversifying into other foreign assets.

KHARTOUM (AFP) — The bodies of Chinese hostages and colleagues recovering from a kidnapping ordeal were to be flown to Khartoum on Tuesday as Sudan vowed to step up security for foreign oil workers across the country.

On Tuesday, China's foreign ministry said four workers were killed, four were "rescued" and one was missing.

Southern China to shed millions of jobs as economic crisis bites

DONGGUAN, China (AFP) — At least 2.7 million factory workers in southern China could lose their jobs as the global economic crisis hits demand for electronics, toys and clothes, according to industry estimates.

Now 9,000 of the 45,000 factories in the cities of Guangzhou, Dongguan, and Shenzhen are expected to close before the Chinese New Year in late January, the Dongguan City Association of Enterprises with Foreign Investment estimates.

Clement Chan, chairman of the Federation of Hong Kong Industries, said a quarter of the 70,000 Hong Kong-owned companies in southern China, 17,500 businesses, could go to the wall by the end of January.

Farm reform will force China to grow -Kent Ewing

HONG KONG - While the rest of the world is fixated on the biggest financial meltdown since the Great Depression of last century, it may seem odd that the highest decision-making body of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been holed up for four days talking about farmers. There is, however, an important connection.

The collapse of the global financial system has made reform of China's land-use regime - a hot-button issue since former paramount leader Deng Xiaoping first began pushing the country toward a market economy more than 30 years ago - all the more urgent.

China sets limits on melamine levels in milk products -Wu Jiao

The limits were set at 1 mg per kg for infant formula, and 2.5 mg per kg for other dairy products including liquid milk, according to a joint statement issued by five government agencies including the Ministry of Health.

Melamine, used in products including plastics, paint and adhesives, can lead to kidney stones and other urinary tract problems. The chemical has been blamed for the deaths of at least four babies, and more than 54,000 children have fallen ill after being fed milk formula tainted with melamine.

Chinese astronaut Zhai Zhigang walks outside the orbit module of the Shenzhou-7 spacecraft for a spacewalk Xinhua / AP

China gets a jump on US in space -Peter J Brown

The fact that the Chinese have multiple missions underway is one thing, but the sudden arrival of BX-1 on the scene - let alone the ISS incident - may signal that the US and the Europeans may not enjoy as a big a lead over China in space as once thought.

I watched the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics on tv and have to say became bored after a while. Athens was still fresh and had more of a grip at the time.

Farmers' incomes up 10% in 1st half -Hu Yinan

For the past five years, rural issues have been at the core of China's No 1 central documents - the name given to the first document issued by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council each year.

Increasing farmers' incomes was the keynote of the 2004 No 1 central document, while consolidating the nation's agricultural foundations is the theme of this year's.

Having several overcome socioeconomic barriers and natural adversities, the country's early rice harvest "is here to stay" and autumn crops are "doing well", Sun said.

However, he said the foundations of wage increases are thin, and long-term mechanisms to ensure the sustainable growth of rural incomes are still not fully in place, especially in the face of further uncertainties expected later in the year.

The urban-rural income gap, for example, has risen sharply, he said.

With the urban per capita net income at 13,786 yuan, against 4,140 yuan in the countryside, the ratio was 3.3:1 last year, the highest since China launched its reform and opening-up policies, Sun said.

Chinese defend Olympic ceremony lip-synch -ROHAN SULLIVAN

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese officials defended their decision to pass off the voice of a 7-year-old songbird as that of another girl at the Olympic opening ceremony, calling it a simple casting choice. Critics said it was a step too far in China's obsession with the perfect Olympic Games.