China's success in economic reform draws praise

Since the founding of the People's Republic of China 60 years ago, the Chinese economy has developed into a model of prosperity under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party.

China's efforts have drawn praise from around the globe.

Thanks to its huge development, China has become a member of the world's major rising markets and is wielding increasing influence on the global economy. To many experts, China's economic success is a miracle of Asia and the world as well.

The Chinese economy has long been a driving force for the world's economic development. From 1979 to 2007, it registered an annual growth of 9.8 percent, 6.8 percent higher than the world average, and its rate of contribution to the world economy rose from 2.3 percent in 1978 to 14.5 percent in 2006, second only to the United States.

During a series of interviews with Xinhua, many foreign experts expressed their appreciation of China's economic reform.

Mohan Guruswamy, director of the Indian Center for Policy Alternatives and a former adviser to the finance minister, has been surprised at how the Chinese economy has kept its high speed of development over a long period of time.

The reform and opening up policy brought China into fast development, Guruswamy said, adding that the resulting achievements show the wisdom and far-sightedness of China's leaders.

Guruswamy said a huge volume of foreign direct investments stimulated industries on China's Mainland and helped build the country into a major manufacturing base.

China's infrastructure was improved, the commercial market was enriched, and the Chinese people's living standard was greatly enhanced at the same time, he added.

Luiz Antonio Paulino, an international relations professor at Brazil's Saint Paulo state university, said China's development process can be divided into two stages.

In the first stage from 1949 to 1978, the Chinese people's major task was to consolidate the basis of their new country.

"Only the competent Chinese Communist Party could succeed in uniting all of the people and setting the country's progress as the common target of each citizen," said Paulino, also president of the San Paulo Confucius College.

Paulino said that in the second stage, from 1978 on, China began to experience deep changes, especially after late leader Deng Xiaoping's symbolic tour of southern China in 1992.

"All those who have visited China were impressed by the hopeful and dynamic society and could feel the Chinese people's pride in their culture and tradition," Paulino said. "They found that people in the country were confident of the future and were united for a stronger and more prosperous nation."

Russian scholar Yakov Berger appreciated China's choice of a development mode suitable for its own situation.

China received help from the former Soviet Union during its industrialization process, but it did not copy the the Soviet mode. Instead, it made arduous efforts to explore a development plan designed for its own needs, said Berger, a senior research fellow with the Institute of Far Eastern Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Facts prove that China made the right choice, he said.

Berger said one of the main reasons that the reform and opening up policy has succeeded was that China's leaders revised their thinking and have adhered to the principle of moving step by step.

Japanese scholar Takashi Sekiyama said the socialist market economy is the fruit reaped from years of exploration and examination of China's economic construction.

"Great changes have taken place since China adopted the policy of reform and opening up in 1978, and China's rapid economic growth has attracted worldwide attention," said Sekiyama, a research fellow at the Tokyo Foundation, a government-related think tank.

Lauding the measures taken by China in building its socialist market system, Sekiyama said that the government staged a series of reforms, including those aimed at reforming State-owned enterprises, separating the functions of government from those of enterprises and revitalizing the non-State-owned sector of the economy.

China, Sekiyama said, has "learned from the failure of the planned economy," and "made decisive and skillful use of the power of the market to achieve an unprecedented economic leap forward."

"China has followed a development path characterized by comparative advantages and open economy, and has set a fine example for most developing countries," he added.

Kenneth Dewoskin, a senior researcher at the accounting firm Deloitte, said China's economy and living standards have experienced significant improvements during the past several decades.

Residents in the cities and in the countryside have benefited since the implementation of the reform and opening up policy in 1978, said Dewoskin, who has studied China for more than 40 years.

Dewoskin said China's economic development mode has two key characteristics. One is that the concept of reform has become a part of the economic culture. The other is that the concept of private capital and markets has become a major component of the reform.

Furthermore, the adjustment of China's economic policies appears to be in better order and the government's economic administration level is rising, he added.

Many economists attribute China's development to its balanced relationship between the market and the government.

Justin Lin Yifu, chief economist and senior vice president of the World Bank, said that it was not necessarily good to undertake a comprehensive market economy.

Reviewing China's experiences in development, Lin said the government should engage in the market.

Sociologist Paul Lim, a senior academic advisor at the European Institute for Asian Studies, said that the Chinese economic model has worked well after its transition from a planned economy to a market economy.

Lim believes that China's economic recovery amidst the ongoing global financial crisis will give a boost to the world.

Peter Lewis, director of the African program at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, said African nations can learn a lot from China's development experiences.

China was poor several decades ago, but now sees fast growth in its economy and a dramatic improvement in people's lives, Lewis said.

Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate in economics, said he thinks the success of China's new growth model will "benefit the rest of the world."

Touring Ontario's West Coast

Many Huron County travellers are just passing through, en route to the Great Lake, with its sparkling waters and sandy beaches, but there's every reason to stop and taste the local bounty. You'll enjoy good food, drink and treats in abundance once you shift into park.

Huron boasts it is "the most agriculturally productive county in Ontario." A leisurely drive will lead you through vast swaths of farm fields, sometimes flat, sometimes rolling, delineated by borders of trees. The county is famous for it pork and corn, but you'll find everything from herb gardens to apiaries here. In local food boutiques, fans of chocolate or garlic will discover products to please their palates. Get close to the lake and there's fresh, fish to take home or to enjoy in homey eateries.

Stay a while. Huron's waterfront towns are famous for their glorious sunsets. In Goderich, you can even catch the sunset twice, once from the beach, once from the bluffs.

BAYFIELD-Marlene O'Brien has been described as Bayfield's canning and preserving diva. This makes her blush. She doesn't like it. Sure, she knows her way around a mason jar, but she's a country girl, born and raised nearby, reticent and soft-spoken.

There's no diva in sight as we stroll around examining examine the shelves of jams and jellies at the barn-sized shop at Bayfield Berry Farm. O'Brien runs the place, and it looks as if she keeps busy. Besides browsing for treats to take home, visitors can stop for a bite at the café or indulge in a creation at the sundae bar. There's a lot of action out in the fields, too, for pick-your-own enthusiasts.

The 80-acre farm has been in the family since 2001. They grow all kinds of berries, as well as apples, rhubarb, peaches, plums, squash and asparagus. O'Brien's pet project nowadays is the five-acre swath of Saskatoon berries; she's campaigning to make this fruit more familiar to the public.

The harvests bring in a lot of raw material for baking and preserves.

Pies are baked with whatever happens to be ripe and ready from the fields just outside the door. Talk about a light carbon footprint.

O'Brien's latest project is a line of juices. Saskatoon berries, raspberries or elderberries are blended with apple, pressed and bottled right here.

As for preserves, O'Brien prepares the usual favourites, but also indulges her creativity. You may spot sumac flower or prickly pear jellies, for instance. Bayfield is known for its "butters," she says, pointing out jars of apple butter and pumpkin butter. She also sells gluten-free and no-sugar-added jams and jellies.

"It's a big thing," O'Brien says. "I always try for the niche market."

Prices are $5.75 to $5.95 for 250-millilitre jams, $4 to $5.50 for 500-millitre preserves.

O'Brien says she learned at her mother's knee. She grew up in nearby Benmiller in an industrious German family, where preserving and baking were ongoing kitchen projects.

"That was the norm," she says. "My mom is a big influence."


HENSALL - Interior decorator by day, garlic connoisseur by night - it was a busy life for Jackie Rowe. She had to choose, so she opted to dedicate her life to garlic.

"I eat massive amounts of garlic," Rowe proudly admits.

As you open the door at the head office of The Garlic Box, her business, the delicious scent wafts out. It's everywhere, even in the company's mail. Fresh Ontario garlic is sold here in the showroom, but there's much more, too, from dipping oils to dehydrated scapes.

"We dry it, we freeze it, we chop it," says Rowe, a grandmother of seven. "Garlic is so schizophrenic. It will go in sweet things. It will go into pickled things. You can cook it or eat it raw."

She and husband Jim started farming garlic in 1997 with one acre, then seven, then 100, then 400. They opened The Garlic Box for practical and enthusiastic reasons: to use up the heads that got dinged by the harvester and "to find a pulpit to stand on and preach the merits of Ontario garlic."

Rowe says China produces 65 per cent of the world's garlic and floods our markets with it, but local, hardneck garlic is superior. The "neck" is not soft and braidable, the cloves are big and fat, there's a round basal plate at the root, and the content of allicin (a healthful compound) is five times that of offshore garlic, Rowe boasts.

No longer farming, Rowe expects to process 52,000 lbs. of garlic purchased from growers across the province this year. Her creations - 34 and counting - are sold at gourmet food shops, farmers' markets and, of course, the office in Hensall. "We're cooking non-stop and developing products non-stop," she says.

Garlic steak splash and dry garlic blends for mashed potatoes are top sellers. Pickled cloves may be flavoured with Niagara Chardonnay or local honey. Friends in the maple syrup business prompted the creation of fabulous Maple Orange Garlic Sauce, which is smashing on duck or chicken.

As we browse the shelves, Rowe picks up a bottle of relish with garlic scapes. "This will make a hot dog worth eating," she says.


EXETER-It's hard to believe Huron County's chocolate masterminds learned candy-making by trial and error. They still laugh about the time they ruined their first batch of caramel - 40 pounds of it.

"We carried it and buried it in the backyard," Cherie Earle confesses.

We are in the 3,000-square-foot factory and shop at Sugar & Spice Chocolates. In the back, Earle's partner in life and business, Gerhard Kuhn, is squirting chocolate over nutty caramel Hippos (named after a fan commented she'd look like a hippo if she kept eating them). The caramel is just fine, thank you.

The shop's decor is a glorious jumble, inside and out. Call it country eclectic meets ye olde candy store. You can hardly see the porch for the twig furniture, flowers, antiques, figurines and birdhouses. Inside is a knick-knack browser's paradise crammed with everything from beer bottle tags to candles. And, of course, chocolates, candies and fudge in an antique showcase.

Sugar & Spice goes way beyond old-fashioned boxed chocolate. You can buy bars with labels featuring text messaging symbols, for instance, or order chocolate-covered licorice as wedding favours.

Earle is prone to jumping up in the middle of the night with new ideas. "We try to step out of your normal," says the spiky-haired grandmother of four. "We try to give them something they can't get everywhere else."

It's been 30 years since the Tilbury lady and the doughnut baker from Kitchener got into the chocolate business, and now Earle and Kuhn have five shops in the area. They fill many a custom Internet order, but their regulars are mainly local and loyal.

"I've had kids coming to see me and now they bring their kids," Earle says.

They certainly don't have to bury the Hippos, or the killer toffee crunch, or their signature, melt-in-your mouth Mint Smoothies. Life is sweet.

"We still eat a lot of chocolate," Earle says. "We call it quality control."

Kangaroo attack lands man in hospital

A MAN, 64, has been admitted to hospital suffering from multiple cuts after wrestling a kangaroo that attacked him from behind.

Paramedics said the man passed a group of kangaroos while he was walking yesterday morning in Sunbury.

''It was almost as tall as he was, and he wrestled it until he could break free,'' advanced life support paramedic Dennis Prendergast said of the attacking animal. The man had cuts to his eyelid, lip, stomach and leg.

He was admitted to Sunshine Hospital in a satisfactory condition. No report was available on the state of the kangaroo.

The incident is the third in which a kangaroo has attacked a person in Sunbury in the past year.

A male jogger suffered extensive injuries when he was attacked by a kangaroo in Sunbury in September last year.

A Sunbury woman was mauled by a kangaroo in April this year, suffering deep cuts.

Gender row: Semenya tests cast new doubt

Tests on controversial world champion South African runner Caster Semenya have reportedly revealed high levels of testosterone.

The dramatic improvement in Semenya's results both before and at the world athletics championships in Berlin prompted calls for a gender test from the sport's governing body, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF).

The IAAF is trying to definitively determine her gender and subjected her to tests before she became the women's 800 metres world champion.

Now reports indicate she was found to have levels of the male hormone testosterone three times higher than normally expected in a female sample.

Controversy continues to grow around the South African runner, who returned home to a rapturous welcome.

"I don't know what to say, it's pretty good to win a gold medal and bring it home," she said on her arrival.

The South African Government has condemned the speculation about her gender, while the runner herself has refused to discuss the matter.

Semenya was among several South African athletes welcomed home by President Jacob Zuma.

The South African leader says the 18-year-old runner has the government's full support and maintains that she won her world title fairly.

Sources in Australia have been blamed for initiating the controversy, but Leonard Chuene from Athletics South Africa disputes this.

"The story that Caster is this and that is not coming from Australia - Australia is a scapegoat. The story comes from South Africa," he said.

'Caster is a girl'

Semenya is a tall, powerfully built athlete with a deep voice and facial hair. Her birth certificate states she is female but questions remain.

Her mother has tried to silence the doubters.

"Caster's enemies says that she is a boy, because they're jealous. Caster is a girl, Caster is a girl," she said.

Winnie Mandela, the former first lady, sat at Semenya's side.

"We are here to rally around you and South Africa will rally behind you," she said.

"This is our little girl and nobody's going to perform any tests on her. Don't touch us, don't touch us, because you dare, if those who want to challenge us continue to incite us using our own people."

Murder-plagued Venezuela moves to ban video games

Venezuelan lawmakers are moving to outlaw the sale of violent video games and toys in an attempt to fight rampant crime in the country.

A bill to ban sales of violent games passed its first hurdle in the National Assembly on Tuesday evening, the legislative chamber said in a statement issued on Wednesday.

Dozens of people are murdered every week in the capital Caracas, one of Latin America's most dangerous cities, sometimes for as little as a pair of shoes or a mobile phone.

Opponents of President Hugo Chavez say 100,000 people have been murdered since he assumed office in February 1999. The government says its opponents and Venezuela's private media exaggerate the problem.

Police release crime statistics irregularly and officials frequently say they do not know how many homicides have taken place.

To become law, the bill must pass a second vote in the National Assembly and be signed by Mr Chavez. The National Assembly has not set a date for a second vote.

Some countries ban violent video games and many restrict their sale to children. Although few studies have shown that such games cause aggressive tendencies, they have often been the subject of controversy.

British film board bans sale of Japanese horror movie

LONDON —

Britain’s film board banned the sale of a Japanese horror DVD, saying Wednesday its violence is so extreme that it could cause psychological harm to audiences.

The film “Grotesque” devoted most of its running time to the sexual assault and torture of its two main characters, the British Board of Film Classification said.

“‘Grotesque’ features minimal narrative or character development and presents the audience with little more than an unrelenting and escalating scenario of humiliation, brutality and sadism,” the board said in a statement.

The board has refused to classify the film, meaning it cannot be legally sold or supplied anywhere in Britain.

The board said the movie’s nonstop scenes of torture—including amputation, eye-gouging, castration and evisceration—make it impossible to edit the film in a way which would make it acceptable for British viewers.

The board, which rates about 10,000 films for DVD release each year, said the ban was “very rare.”

The last movie turned down by the board was 2004 film “Murder-Set-Pieces,” which was rejected in early 2008. In 2005, it refused “Terrorists, Killers And Other Wackos“—a film that carried clips of real torture and execution.

WHO warns of swine flu pandemic's second wave

GENEVA: The World Health Organisation is urging the planet to brace for a second wave of the swine flu pandemic as the heavily populated northern
hemisphere edges towards the cooler season when flu thrives.

"The WHO is still mobilised and worried," spokesman Gregory Hartl said as the global health watchdog kept an anxious eye on some "mysterious" patterns of illness associated with the new A (H1N1) virus that appeared in April.

Influenza traditionally surges to its peak during the northern autumn and winter.

WHO Director General Margaret Chan warned on Friday that there had been second and third waves in previous pandemics.

"We cannot say for certain whether the worst is over or the worst is yet to come," Chan said in a videotaped address to a symposium on flu in the Asia-Pacific region.

"We need to be prepared for whatever surprises this capricious new virus delivers next," she added.

Some 1,799 people have died since the A(H1N1) was uncovered in Mexico and the United States nearly six months ago, according to the UN health agency.

By comparison, an estimated 250,000 to 500,000 people die around the world every year from seasonal flu, and overall the symptoms of the new pandemic virus have proved to be mild in the great majority of known cases.

However, it has spread swiftly into 177 countries, proving to be more infectious than seasonal flu and more durable through warmer months.

Through a full season in the southern hemisphere, the pandemic strain gradually became dominant.

WHO monitoring showed that it was now on the decline there, except in South Africa, and in some later affected areas of Argentina, Australia and Chile.

Some 182,000 people worldwide are known to have caught swine flu based on laboratory confirmed cases, but the WHO has long advised countries to give up counting; the true number may in the millions, according to some experts.

It is also striking those in a more physically fragile phase of life, such as pregnant women or the chronically ill, as well as those who are obese and younger age groups than usual.

Many of the most severe cases are among 30 to 50 year -olds.

WHO officials are also mystified at the "most worrying" characteristic of this flu virus, Hartl explained.

About 40 percent of the most severe or fatal cases occur in people who are in perfect health, he said.

However, he was unable to say how many severe cases had occurred, although they are generally regarded as a small proportion of the outbreak so far.