Sun Baoshu, vice minister of China's Ministry of Labor and Social Security, disclosed at a recent meeting that China is drafting a Salary Rule to solve such social problems as low salaries, slow increase of salaries, problems of collecting back pay for workers and establishing a normal salary increase and payment mechanism. Read More >

Johnson Medtech, the medical products network of Johnson Electric, one of the world's largest providers of motion actuators, announced the opening of a new facility in Shajing, China and reported that the plant has also received ISO 13485 certification. Read More >

According to local media reports, Carrefour China has asked its over 40,000 employees across China, except those who have already signed a non-fixed term labor contract with the company, to re-sign a two-year labor contract with it before December 28, 2007 regardless of the length of the employees' service in the company or whether their current labor contract with Carrefour will expire by then. Read More >

Crowne Plaza Pudong Shanghai held its "Green Expo, Start from Myself" signing ceremony where the first group of hotel green ambassadors received a special card and promised that they would help to monitor five basic points of environmental protection in the hotel: switch of the lights and water taps when not necessary; use recycled paper for internal communication; collect used batteries; no food waste; and use staircases when going two floors up or three floors down. Over 300 hotel staff signed their name on the board as an environmental protection promise.

Hong Kong says it will introduce the Product Eco-responsibility Bill into the Legislative Council to provide a legal framework for implementing producer responsibility schemes, with the environmental levy on plastic shopping bags as the first scheme under the bill. Read More >

Fudan University's Academic Regulation Commission has announced on the university's official website that nine teachers and students at the school, including some mentors for doctors, had been involved in plagiarism when preparing their respective books and theses. Read More >

Ford Motor Company says it has delivered another record year in China, not only in terms of sales, but also with the ongoing introduction of a pioneering program that helps improve the standards and working conditions of companies in its supply network. Read More >

Overseas insurance company Lloyd's says it will fund the building of a new primary school in southern China. Read More >

Chinese Internet search engine Baidu.com has announced expansion of its agreement with the China Patent Information Center of the State Intellectual Property Office to supply authoritative and professional patent searching services for netizens, starting on January 1, 2008. Read More >

Hebei Provincial Forestry Department says that they will build 19 new wetland protection areas around Beijing and Tianjin by 2015 and this will bring the total number of wetlands in the region to 23. Read More >

American pharmaceutical company Merck has announced a recall about one million doses of a vaccine that might have been contaminated, including about 100,000 that are being sold in China. Read More >

China's Ministry of Education, Ministry of Personnel and Ministry of Labor and Social Security have asked comprehensive measures to be taken to try to ensure that half of the unemployed university graduate students can be fully employed by the end of 2008. In the meantime, MOLSS has asked for special aid to be given to students who have been registered as jobless. Read More >

A Chinese consumer surnamed with Yang has submitted an application to Beijing's Shijingshan District Court, asking the court to force Wal-Mart to fulfill a previous court's sentence. Read More >

A class action lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on behalf of all purchasers of securities of Focus Media between September 27, 2007 and November 19, 2007. Read More >

DuPont and Beijing Weiming Kaituo Agriculture Biotechnology Company announced the formation of a joint venture to accelerate the discovery of genes for high value agronomic traits such as stress tolerance and efficient nutrient utilization to improve the performance of important crops for farmers in China and throughout the world. Read More >