Guests attend the opening ceremony for
the 12th Pyongyang Spring International Trade Fair in Pyongyang, May 11,
2009. Over 220 enterprises from 19 countries and regions attended the
fair, which is to be concluded on May 14. (Xinhua/Gao
Haorong)
Photo
Gallery
People visit the exhibition hall of the
12th Pyongyang Spring International Trade Fair in Pyongyang, May 11, 2009.
(Xinhua/Gao Haorong)
Photo
Gallery
WASHINGTON, May 8 (Xinhua) -- Pace of job losses in
the United States slowed down in April to 539,000, while jobless rate rose to
8.9 percent, the Labor Department reported Friday.
Unemployment, a real stress test for
U.S. economy
BEIJING, April 29 (Xinhua) -- The news of further layoffs
by big companies and the increasing concern about swine flu are casting new
shadows over the U.S. economy. As new college graduates are pouring into the
labor market, job creation becomes a real "Stress Test" for the U.S. government.
Full story
U.S. unemployment rate may reach 10%,
labor market expert warns
CHICAGO, April 9 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. unemployment will
continue to get worse and the rate of unemployment may reach 10 percent this
year, a U.S. labor market expert has predicted.
In an exclusive interview with Xinhua this week in
downtown Chicago, John A. Challenger, Chief Executive Officer of the Challenger,
Gray and Christmas Inc., said: "We haven't seen unemployment rate at this level
in 25 years and it looks like the rate will continue to get worse before it gets
better, so we may see an unemployment rate of 10 percent this year." Full story
U.S. unemployment rate rises to 8.5%
in March
WASHINGTON, April 3 (Xinhua) -- The unemployment rate in
the United States rose to 8.5 percent, the highest level since late 1983, as
employers slashed 663,000 jobs in March, the Labor Department reported Friday.
The March reading for unemployment rate matched analysts'
expectations but was above the 8.1 percent jobless rate in February, when
employers eliminated 651,000 jobs. Full story
More than 3,700 unemployed flock to
New York job fair
NEW YORK, March 5 (Xinhua) -- More than 3700 unemployed
people flocked to a job fair in New York Thursday.
The fair, sponsored by jobs Web site Monster.com, was one
of a string of huge career expos held in New York in the past couple of months.
Full story
Special
Report: Global Financial Crisis
By Xinhua writer Li Huiying
ZHANGZHOU, Fujian, May 8 (Xinhua) -- Construction of a controversial chemical plant started Friday in Zhangzhou, in southeast China's Fujian Province, two years after work to build an identical plant was halted in another Fujian city nearly 100 km away.
Authorities in Xiamen, site of the first aborted factory plan, had to called off the project in 2007 after protests over potential pollution and health problems.
Construction on the paraxylene (PX) plant sparked no protests or disputes in Gulei peninsula, which has a population of 135,000,an official with the local publicity department said, declining to give his name.
The peninsula is more than 100 km from Zhangzhou's urban area, which has a population of about one million.
The PX plant passed an environmental impact assessment by the Ministry of Environmental Protection in January, and gained approval from the National Development and Reform Commission two month later.
Officials in Zhangzhou have since then made every effort to convince residents that the plant's environmental impact would be under control.
They also put up bulletin boards in residential areas to brief villagers with basic knowledge of PX.
The plant involves a 13.8 billion yuan (2 billion U.S. dollars)investment by the Tenglong Aromatic PX (Xiamen) Co. Ltd and has a designed annual production capacity of 800,000 tonnes.
The official told Xinhua that of the total, 830 million yuan will be earmarked for tackling environmental problems.
Construction on another massive chemical plant in the city also begun Friday. The plant will use PX to produce annually 1.5 million tonnes of purified terephthalic acid (PTA), commonly used in polyester coatings and resins.
Investment on the PTA project, including sewage treatment and environmental management facilities, totals 5 billion yuan.
The PX plant provoked heated protests by residents in Xiamen in May 2007. They argued it would be detrimental to the environment and public health.
After a series of public hearings and debates, the plant in the densely populated coastal city was suspended in May 2007, and in Dec. 2007, it was announced that it would be built in Zhangzhou instead.
(Xinhua reporter Xiang Kailai in Fuzhou and Li Baojie in Beijing also contributed to this report)
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