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Hong Kong top player Zhang Ling advanced to the quarterfinals of the New Zealand Hamilton ITF tennis tournament, according to the reports reaching here on Thursday.

In a press released by the Hong Kong Tennis Association (HKTA),the fifth seeded Zhang Ling trounced Dianne Hollands of New Zealand 7-6(7-3), 6-1 to book a berth in the top eight of the tournament.

Zhang, who was crowned a week earlier in the ITF North Shore City tournament, New Zealand, will face the third seed Montinee Tangphong from Thailand.

The Hamilton tournament, running from March 16-22, has a total prize of 10,000 U.S. dollars.

All staff of Sanlu Group, the bankrupt dairy company at the center of the melamine contamination scandal, will be reemployed by November, the company’s new owner said Thursday.

So far, Hebei Sanyuan Foods Co. Ltd., a subsidiary of the Beijing Sanyuan Foods Co. Ltd. that bought Sanlu Group in an auction in March, has signed contracts with 2,594 former employees of Sanlu, said Gao Qingshan, board chairman of the subsidiary firm.

“We will sign contracts with the remaining workers and all of them will have returned to work by the end of November,” Gao said.

As of the end of 2008, Sanlu had 4,332 registered active-duty staff, 455 retirees and three employees with industrial injuries.

Gao said the new company’s current production capacity was about 60 percent of that of Sanlu and the revenue is expected to reach 1.2 billion yuan (176 million U.S. dollars) this year.

The revenue is expected to catch up with Sanlu’s best level in three years, when the new company will become a leading dairy firm among other domestic competitors, said Gao.

Sanlu has promised to recruit all Sanlu’s staff when it won the bid of the scandal-hit dairy group’s assets, in response to the call of the Shijiazhuang municipal government to guarantee worker’s interests.

Sanlu had been China’s leading seller of milk powder for 15 years until the melamine scandal broke in September last year. The group’s revenue hit 10 billion yuan in 2007, while Sanyuan’s revenue was 1 billion yuan.

Sanlu stopped production on Sept. 12 after its melamine-tainted baby milk powder was found to have caused the deaths of at least six children and sickened some 300,000 children.

China’s leadership recently decided to assess the performance of government officials not just by how fast they managed to spur economic growth but also by the environmental soundness of that growth.

This was a continuation of measures China rolled out during recent months highlighting its commitment to turn financial risk into a green recovery.

In early June, Premier Wen Jiabao affirmed that China would put in place carbon emissions reduction targets in national development programs. In other words, China would assess its economic performance by how much less carbon it would emit per unit of GDP growth.

Experts believed the decision and announcement had “ample policy implications”. They said that once commitment was translated into action, China would accelerate the pace of restructuring its energy mix and economic structure, and seek a “green recovery path” out of a worsening financial crisis.

“These are vital decisions and pledges. The implications will largely go beyond China’s stated commitment to fight global warming,” He Jiankun, deputy head of the State Council’s Expert Panel on Climate Change Policy told China Business Weekly during an exclusive interview recently.

He said China might be considering reduction of carbon emissions per unit of GDP as early as the start of the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-15), and that it would decide the career path of bureaucrats by their performance in carbon reduction.

If that were the case, China would enter a new era in terms of climate change policy compared with its 20-percent energy saving target for the 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-10).

“To reduce carbon intensity, we should focus on low-carbon technologies and clean solutions,” He said. “That will be the new economic engine for China’s further growth.”

China is expected to witness steady economic recovery when its GDP likely climbs to 8 percent after the current economic downturn.

Vice-Premier Li Keqiang has repeatedly voiced the central government’s desire to find new growth points to sustain economic development.

Li has pinned high hopes on efforts to tackle climate change, develop clean energy and strengthen environmental protection. “If we take action on all these fronts, then it can help us shake off the negative impact of the global recession,” he has said.

Liu Qi, the deputy director of the National Energy Administration, said his colleagues were working on a new energy development draft following instructions from the State Council, the nation’s Cabinet. This would be ready for approval as soon as possible, he said.

Liu said that new energy programs would involve investment of trillions and that new energy output was likely to exceed the targets set by the nation’s overall energy and renewable energy plans.

The first phase of the program would see a strategic shift in three years to nuclear, solar, wind, biomass power and clean coal technologies - with investment opportunities worth as much as 3 trillion yuan ($438.9 billion), Liu said. Phase two encompasses the period up to 2020 and would entail far more investments, he pointed out.

The research panel of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the nations’ top planner, has predicted that China’s clean energy development strategy would create huge investment opportunities for private and State investors.

China needs to spend at least 40 trillion yuan by 2050 to go ‘green’, according to the expert panel of the NDRC’s Energy Research Institute.

“Roughly, we need to spend an extra 1 trillion yuan every year to raise energy efficiency,” Bai Quan, a senior member of the panel, said. The panel will publish its research findings on China’s low-carbon roadmap this month.

Explaining the mathematical model that his colleagues had built, Bai said the money would be mainly used to introduce technologies that raise the energy efficiency of end-users in industry, construction and transportation.

If the investment showed results, it would mean the country’s per capita greenhouse gas emissions would increase by only 50 percent during the 2010-50 period - to 6 tons from the present 4 tons. Per capita emissions stood at 3.58 tons in 2004.

The target could be made a national goal, given that per capita income is expected to increase 10-fold to 200,000 yuan by 2050 from 20,000 yuan in 2010.

Jiang Kejun, another researcher at the NDRC institute, said the project would offer a low-carbon alternative for the consideration of top policymakers.

Low-carbon emissions should be made standard State policy, at least in the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20) if not in the 12th plan period itself, Jiang said.

He Jiankun said the country’s carbon dioxide emissions were likely to peak in 2035, at 8.8 billion tons, when industrialization and urbanization would be in an advanced stage, compared with around 5.5 billion tons in 2010.

Spending on climate increased nearly 100%

But from 2035 to 2050, emissions would remain stable or decline marginally if the proper technological route was followed, He said. “This is our ideal carbon map,” He said.

The government’s stimulus effort has already won international recognition. The Washington-based World Resources Institute said recently that about 38 percent of China’s stimulus package investment was “directly or indirectly” related to environmental protection.

The Ministry of Finance said that, between January and May, spending on environmental protection rose 93.5 percent over the corresponding period last year.

Despite the low-carbon roadmap and the central government’s commitment to sustainable development, some regions in China had yet to make progress in “green recovery.”

Li Ganjie, the vice-minister of environmental protection, said the central government would continue to pump enough investments into environmental protection. “But, I doubt whether the local governments would be able to fully implement these environmental standards,” said Li.

To change the situation, He said the solution was to alter the assessment system of officials. “If we fire them when they fail in environmental protection and carbon reduction goals, our economy will see more sustainable development.”

Gold futures on the COMEX Division of the New York Mercantile Exchange went slightly up on Tuesday as the U.S. dollar fell after a tow-day rally, raising gold’s safety appeal. Silver and platinum both finished higher.

Gold price for August delivery gained 2.20 U.S. dollars, or 0.2percent, to settle at 954.70 dollars an ounce. The rate of dollar which took a tumble on Tuesday still was the main factor that affected the yellow metal’s trend.

Last week’s data on U.S. unemployment pointed at a slowdown in layoffs. That helped prompt a dollar rally amid hope that the Federal Reserve would boost interest rates sooner than expected as the economy recovered. However, now it seems that is too optimistic to see an interest hike in the near future, resulting in dollar’s slip during the session.

Dollar against euro dropped to 1.4016 dollars by the end of gold floor trading time from 1.3891 dollars late Monday, while the British pound jumped to 1.6273 dollars. Investor’s had more interest in buying the precious metal in order to hedge dollars’ depreciation risk.

The rising crude oil in New York also gave some support to gold as the benchmark July contract went up as much as 2 percent to near 70 dollars a barrel.

July silver finished at 15.14 dollars per ounce, up 18.5 cents. July platinum rose 13.90 dollars to 1257.90 dollars an ounce. 　

The dollar fell against major currencies on Tuesday as investors bet that recovery of global economy will remove safety haven demand for the dollar.

The U.S. currency has been a refuge in the past months, getting stronger on bad news. It is expected to lose its attraction for safety as more signs showed that economy is on the track to recovery.

The dollar rose across the board on Friday after a report showed much better than expected U.S. payroll in May. Investors have expected that the U.S. Federal Reserve may raise interest rates earlier than expected. But the expectations pulled back on Tuesday.

“Investment is slowly leaking out of the dollar, into emerging markets and other higher-yielding countries on signs of a green-shoot recovery,” said Michael Woolfolk, senior currency strategist in New York at Bank of New York Mellon Corp., the world’s largest custodial bank. “We are in a long-term trend of a controlled decline in the dollar.”

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. advised buying the euro versus the dollar as risk aversion eases, prices of commodities rebound and talk of alternative reserve currencies undermine confidence in the greenback. The financial institution recommends taking a long position in the euro against the U.S. dollar “with a stop on a close below 1.3720 for an initial target of 1.45.”

The U.S. government said on Tuesday that 10 of the nation’s biggest banks got approval to repay a combined 68 billion dollars of bailout money. The

Obama administration hopes that money paid back into the 700-billion-dollar bailout fund by healthy banks will show that its financial recovery programs are working.

The euro bought 1.4086 dollars in late New York trading compared to 1.3891 dollars it bought late Monday. The pound rose to 1.6340 dollars from 1.6045 dollars.

The dollar fell to 1.1000 Canadian dollars from 1.1183 Canadian dollars, and fell to 1.0777 Swiss francs from 1.0917 Swiss francs. It fell to 97.37 Japanese yen from 98.40 Japanese yen.

Wall Street capped lower Wednesday, as technology and consumer shares retreated on concerns that rising interest rates will block the economic recovery.

Stocks opened moderately higher, as oil prices touched a new high for the year above 71 U.S. dollars a barrel after the unexpected drop in weekly inventories, helping to push commodity stocks higher. While the transportation sector was hit as crude continuously advanced.

However, technology and consumer companies lost ground, as yields on 10-year bonds climbed to the highest level since October, spurring concern consumers and companies will see higher borrowing costs.

Stocks extended declines and Dow briefly lost over 100 points as an auction of 10-year notes drew a yield of 3.99 percent, the highest since August. Financials posted the steepest decline among10 industries in the S&P 500.

The market seemed unfazed, after the released of the beige book report from the Federal Reserve, which measures economic activity by region. The report found that five of the Fed’s 12 regions said that the “downward trend is showing signs of moderating.” But weakness in the jobs market persisted nationwide.

The Dow Jones lost 24.04, or 0.27 percent, to 8,739.02. Broader indexes also retreated. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index dipped 3.28, or 0.35 percent, to 939.15; and the Nasdaq fell 7.05, or 0.38 percent, to 1,853.08.

Hundreds of demonstrators from across California gathered in the state capital Sacramento on Wednesday to protest against proposed budget cuts in anti-AIDS programs.

“California has been a leader in AIDS care, and it’s definitely slipping out of that role,” said Michael Weinstein, president of Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which organized the rally.

“There’s a grave concern from a public health point of view that capping these programs is going to result in the spread of the disease and much greater expenses down the road,” said Weinstein.

Due to a budget crisis, California plans to cut 80.1 million dollars in state funds for the fight against AIDS and HIV.

The reduction would wipe out state funding of most prevention, education and surveillance programs that help fight and track the disease, anti-AIDS activists say.

The cuts affect such things as HIV testing, types of drugs available to the poor and prevention programs that target those most at risk of contracting the HIV virus, according to the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday.

The state proposed the cuts even as between 5,000 and 7,000 new AIDS cases are identified statewide each year, the paper noted.

Advocates of AIDS and HIV programs say that now more than ever, education and prevention are necessary. Last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it had underestimated by 40 percent the number of Americans infected with HIV each year.

At the same time, the number of Americans naming HIV/AIDS as the most urgent health problem facing the nation has dropped from 44 percent in 1995 to six percent, according to a recent survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

“When the lifetime cost of care is 600,000 dollars, cutting HIV prevention dollars is not a good long-term investment,” said Craig Thompson, executive director of AIDS Project Los Angeles.

Dr. Michelle Roland, chief of the state’s Office of AIDS, said that although poor HIV patients would still be able to obtain medication, there would be other repercussions, which include:

— New infections may not be as effectively prevented;

— People wouldn’t receive the same level of care, and

— Health officials may not be able to as effectively track trends in the spread of the disease.

Sudanese opposition parties called Thursday for the formation of an interim unity government till the elections in April 2010, pan-Arab al-Jazeera TV reported.

Farouk Abu Eissa, a member of the National Democratic People’s Assembly, said the incumbent government will lose its constitutional legitimacy by July 9, the deadline set for conducting presidential and parliamentary elections, warning against a constitutional vacuum.

Leader of the opposing National Umma Party Al Sadik Al-Mahdi said it is time to end the “stiff unilateralism trend” and to realize the challenges in the country where the national comprehensive accord is needed.

However, the ruling National Congress rejected the idea of forming an interim unity government and called the opposition to refer to the Constitutional Court if they see so.

The National Congress said the opposition’s calls for a unity government aim to escape the coming elections, pointing out that the current government draws its legitimacy from the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) and the constitution itself.

Ibrahim Ghandour, a senior official of ruling National Congress, said if the constitution or the CPA stipulated the formation of a unity government in case elections postponed, the opposition’s demands would have been true, but this is not the fact. Hence, the current government will continue holding the elections, he added.

On the other hand, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM)which shares the authority with the ruling party hold the National Congress responsible for the current situation but, however, rejected the formation of a unity government, saying that this suggestion was proposed earlier by the movement but the current situation prompts the political powers to consensus.

SPLM spokesman Yien Matthew Chol said the National Congress has set up a strategy to ‘revive ‘ the peace agreement but this strategy led to much delay in conducting elections. “The accord has been signed four years ago and the elections had to be run now, but through their strategy they put obstacles and postponed elections for phony reasons”.

Sudanese government and SPLM — the main Sudanese opposition movement — signed in 2005 the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) ending more than 21 years of civil war.

The Sudan civil war sparked in 1983 after the Sudanese government tried to impose the Islamic law on South Sudan which has a majority of Christians. Over two millions have been killed during the 21 years conflict, many of starvation.

The CPA set July 9, 2009 as the deadline for holding the presidential and parliamentary elections. However, the Sudan electoral board decided to delay the elections twice since its establishment a year ago, saying there is a dire need for further preparations and resolving crucial outstanding issues.

It seems Katie Holmes is someone Victoria Beckham can rely on when she needs a friend to look after her children at the last minute.

After reportedly falling out with her mother-in-law over babysitting arrangements, it was Katie Holmes’ turn to take charge yesterday.

The actress was seen out and about in Los Angeles with two-year-old daughter Suri and Victoria and David’s youngest two boys, Cruz, four, and Romeo, six, MailOnline reported.

Along with another helper, thought to be a nanny for the Beckhams, they all ventured out in Santa Monica to go to The Children’s Arts Studio.

Suri looked cute as she held Katie’s hand, dressed in a blue-spotted dress and red-striped cardigan, complete with her favourite accessorry - a cuddly toy.

Meanwhile Cruz and Romeo cut a cool look in jeans and shirts and looked excited as they headed into the centre.

Perhaps Victoria had asked Katie to babysit as a favour after falling out with her mother-in-law Sandra recently.

The fashion designer was reportedly forced to rush back from Milan last week, where David is on loan to A.C. Milan, after her mother-in-law Sandra decided she wanted to go home to London.

Sandra was babysitting her three grandchildren, including Brooklyn, 10, while Victoria was househunting in Milan.

But a source revealed: ‘Victoria had been househunting in Milan, but then Sandra decided she wanted to be at her daughter’s birthday, so Victoria had to fly back early. Sandra and Victoria had a row.’

After looking gaunt and tired recently following a punishing detox diet, Katie is said to have undergone a £30,000 makeover during a recent trip to Tokyo.

She reportedly spent just under 48 hours camped out at the Ritz-Carlton in Tokyo for intensive pampering sessions by a team of beauty experts.

Among the purchases were hair extensions, spa treatments and tooth veneers.

The US coffee company Starbucks launched a promotion early last year to give out 10,800 tickets for a Kunqu opera in Shanghai. To win a free ticket, people were required to join the Starbucks members club on its website.

Starbucks executives soon found that at in-store promotions at Starbucks outlets, less than 200 tickets were claimed in the first few weeks.

They advertised on Touchmedia, a touch-sensitive interactive LCD screen mounted in the back of the passenger seat in taxis in Shanghai. Within four weeks, all the remaining tickets were claimed and more than 43,000 customers’ email addresses were collected. The campaign was a success.

The man who has made full use of computer touch technology to offer interactive advertising is Micky Fung, the Chinese-American founder and CEO of Shanghai-based Touchmedia.

Today, his interactive LCD touch screens have been installed in over 100,000 taxis in major cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou. Fung hopes that he will get taxis in another 20 second and third-tier cities nationwide to carry his LCD touch screens.

Fung’s theory is that taxis provide a remarkable reach to educated Chinese in major cities. In Beijing and Shanghai, over 6 million passengers ride taxis daily, with more than 90 percent coming from upper income groups.

An average taxi ride is 18 minutes. In that 18 minutes in the taxi, Touchmedia can help them find the information they want, Fung said. He believes customers will be “delighted”.

The red-framed color LCD screen is divided into three parts: video commercials, tool bars and 10 icons of advertisers. A passenger can tap the icons with their finger, and take part in lucky-draws and interactive games to win free tickets or souvenir gifts from the advertisers.

“The success of touch media is all about interactivity. You give consumers a choice, and involve them,” Fung said.

This creates a dialogue between advertisers and consumers, he said, allowing viewers to choose content, such as product demonstrations, games and quizzes. All of the viewers’ responses and actions are then measured, recorded and can be presented back to the advertisers, so that they can ascertain how many people saw their ads, and their consumer preferences.

According to Fung, Touchmedia’s sales for 2008 increased tenfold over the previous year. Despite the sluggish domestic market, Fung says he has not seen any downturn in the last few months.

He said Touchmedia would double its investment in China in 2009 and forecast that revenues would reach some 200 million yuan.

Fung said he first got the idea from a taxi ride in Las Vegas more than a decade ago. He saw a simple LCD player showing some blurry DVD programs in the taxi.

“I got excited - why not integrate this into taxis in China?” he said.

He wanted a better product and one with a touchscreen.

A challenge to develop

It proved far more challenging than he had expected. After five years and some $30 million, he developed the first-generation of interactive touchscreen LCDs to be used in taxis.

“It was hard, but it was fun,” Fung recalled of the five year R&D period. “Back then there was no such product. I couldn’t just go and get it off the shelf, so we ended up having to build the unit ourselves.”

The lowest point, he said, was after developing the technologies and software for the unit, they just could not get the image stabilized. Now his company is putting the final touches to the fourth-generation touchscreen LCD. Other than to say that it will enhance the passenger’s interactive experience. Fung would disclose no further technological details.

In 2003, Fung founded Touchmedia in Shanghai. In the past three years, the company has grown from a 20-member advertising firm into a new media conglomerate with four offices nationwide employing 400 staff. Most are under 30 years old. Fung said the company is planning to hire 150 more people this year.

“You need to be both enthusiastic and idealistic to stay in the business of the new media,” Fung said. “Most of the staff in my company are very young, but they are the ones that often come up with the most brilliant ideas, such as launching our community service programs.”

So far, Touchmedia has received over 20 patents based on their proprietary hardware and software. The company was recently listed in the high tech magazine Red Herring’s Global Top 100, a first for a domestic Chinese mobile media company.

“Many people think of China as just a factory for making things developed and designed elsewhere. However, we have created all our hardware and software right here in Shanghai, which shows China can also lead the world in technological innovation,” said Fung.

So what do taxi drivers think of Fung’s innovation?

“Each time you press the taxi meter down, the screen is activated and a touchable interface will appear, so many people will try it out of curiosity,” said Du Huaiquan, a 40-year-old taxi driver from Yuyang Lianhe Taxis in Beijing, where such touchscreens are less popular than those in Shanghai.

“I think such screens are mostly favored by young girls, because they can find a lot of fashion and clothing information, such as what’s hot in town and where to buy it,” said Du.

However, the driver also said sometimes his customers complain about the noise it makes, and will ask him to turn off the sound.

“Many of my customers at night, for example, when they finish drinking at the Sanlitun, will tell me that it is too loud,” Du said. “Besides, I think such screens should provide more useful service information, or news programs in addition to video commercials.”

Fung said he and his colleagues are well aware of the problems. The new generation touchscreens now allow users to turn off the sound. Besides, Fung said, his company has been working hard to increase the proportion of useful and community-related information.

Last year, 15 percent of all the materials inputted in the touchscreens were related to community-services, Fung said. During the Beijing Olympics last year, the screens in Beijing’s taxis carried Olympics-related information, interactive games and news. He also sponsored a four-month 2010 Shanghai Expo promotional campaign from July to September last year, and over 30 million viewers registered for the promotional materials.

“We also have programs on education, on helping under-privileged children, on ecology, and on community help and safety,” Fung said.

“We are also very proud to work with the Shanghai Expo, and 10 million people will have access to the expo information each month,” he added.

Micky Fung and his family have been doing business in China for decades, including running a taxi company in Tianjin.

Fung began his ventures on the mainland with Milanese, a women’s clothing company. He was CEO of the company from 1982-94.

After that, he was development director of his family-owned business, HSR group, which runs residential and commercial building projects in New York and surrounding areas.