The New Dominion

Merry Christmas and Blessed Qurban Festival from The New Dominion! Beginning last Thursday Musilms throughout Xinjiang and China celebrated Qurban Heyt, which commemorates Abraham’s obedience to God when commanded to sacrifice his eldest son Ishmael.

This week saw a massive migration of herds and their flocks take a detour through Aletai City, the opening of a massive, Xinjiang funded tin-zinc mine in Tajikistan, the completion of this year’s Patriotic Muslim Cleric Training Program, new highs in yearly cotton and gold production, the first draft of the translation of the Kyrgyz epic poem Manas to Mandarin Chinese, and more, under the break.

Xinhua Network News Xinjiang Channel 新华网新疆频道

• 17 December 2007:The “port” of Kalasu (see in Google Earth) on the China-Tajikistan border in Tashkorgan County of Kashgar Prefecture, officially closed for the winter on the 30th of November. The original closure was scheduled for the 30th of October but an extension was requested due to the volume of traffic through the port. This year Kalasu saw record highs, including the export of 4046 vehicles, 55 thousand tons of various goods, and 250 million American dollars worth of materials. Workers at Kalasu attribute this rise in commerce and trade to improvements in the Tajik economy.
• 17 December 2007: An explosion in a coal mine exploration well located in Wuqia County resulted in 4 deaths and 2 injuries.
• 17 December 2007: Herders and their flocks crowded the streets of Aletai City recently due to a recent drought that caused their customary winter pastures to supply insufficient water and feed for the animals. Snows in northern Xinjiang have come a month late, throwing off the ecological balance in the area by delaying the much needed water supply which constitutes the base of the region’s wintertime environmental structure. Aletai officials quickly mobilized and organized a program to migrate the herders from their traditional winter pastures in the E’erqisi and Wulungu river valleys to untouched pastures in the Sawu’er Mountains. Units of cadres, doctors, and veterinarians escorted 10 thousand herders and their 55 thousand animals from their old pastures, through Aletai City, to their destination from the 8th to the 14th.
• 18 December 2007: A cooperation agreement was drafted and signed by delegates from Xinjiang Medical University’s Erfu Hospital and Zhongnan University’s Xiangya No. 2 Hospital. The agreement was announced in a ceremony on the 15th. The Erfu hospital, located in Hunan, is renowned across China for being one of the top hospitals in the country, particularly in the field of cardiovascular surgery. The cooperative effort will focus on improving cardiovascular facilities in the Xinjiang hospital and devising better systems for providing better treatment to high-risk Xinjiang residents.
• 18 December 2007: The groundbreaking ceremony for Xinjiang’s largest foreign project, the A’erdeng-Tuopukan lead zinc ore mine in Tajikistan, was held on the 15th. The event was notable enough for XUAR Vice-Chairman Hu Wei to personally attend. The Xinjiang Tajikistan-China Mining Company invested 73 million dollars for the creation of the facility which, after constructed, will have the ability to mine and process 100 million tons of the projected 600 million tons total. Later expansions of the facility will permit continued exploitation of the mine’s underground resources.
• 18 December 2007: This year’s Patriotic Muslim Cleric Training Program ended satisfactorily and XUAR Chairman Ismail Tiliwaldi attended the closing ceremony and gave a talk exhorting the imams and religious workers who participated in the program to vigorously contribute to socialism and social harmony.
• 18 December 2007: The regional Gold Administration Bureau has announced that for the year of 2007 from January to November, a total of 6665.73 kg of gold has been minded so far. Given average monthly mining rates and mining forecasts, the total accumulated amount of mined gold is expected to pass 7 metric tons by the end of the year, making a new all time high.
• 18 December 2007: The Agricultural Bureau of the XPCC has verified that a cotton farm run by the 33th regiment of the 2nd Agricultural Division has reached a yield of 280 kg of cotton per mu, breaking a national record and demonstrating for the fourth year in the row that the XPCC cotton fields along the Tarim river north of the Taklamakan are the highest producing cotton fields in China.
• 19 December 2007: Pollution has gotten even worse in Urumqi over the past few days, with the pollution index hitting a high of 340. According to the article, the air has becoming so thick that an artificial fog has enshrouded the city and a choking smell hangs in the air. It even goes so far as to strongly recommend wearing face masks when outdoors.
• 19 December 2007: 200 million yuan is going to be invested in a new effort to reduce class sizes in Urumqi. Starting next year, elementary school classes will be limited to 50 students and middle school classes will be limited to 46 students. The 200 million yuan investment will be used to construct 22 new school campuses in 4 of the city’s center neighborhoods in order to accommodate the reallocation of students.
• 19 December 2007: 18,850 extremely impoverished households across Xinjiang will receive a bag of flour, a bag of rice, and two buckets of cooking oil. The donations are a part of the effort to help impoverished households prepare festivities for Qurban, New Year’s, and/or Spring Festival.
• 20 December 2007: The first draft of the Chinese translation of the Kirghiz epic poem “Manas” has been completed by over 30 scholars from the XUAR Literary Union and from the Kizilsu Kirghiz Autonomous Prefecture. All 230 thousand lines of the poem have been translated but the draft is currently being reviewed by experts from Chinese Academcy of Social Sciences and the Central Nationalities University. The final edited version of the epic poem is expected to be published August of next year.
• 21 December 2007: Hospitals in Urumqi are reporting the continuous, high-level pollution that has been plaguing the city for the past several days is having a significant effect on the health of residents. The respiratory, ear-nose-throat, and fever departments of Urumqi’s major hospitals are seeing almost 100 patients with pollution related ailments every day. The lead physician of Urumqi’s health care advisory service has no doubts whatsoever that pollution is the cause of this spike of ailments; furthermore, he recommends that all residents, especially the elderly and children, minimize their time outside and wear face masks should going outdoors become an absolute necessity.
• 22 December 2007: As part of a continuing effort to improve the food production industry in Urumqi, the city government has closed over ten thousand unlicensed food industry businesses over the past year. Restaurants, wholesale food businesses, and foodstuff markets must pass sanitary inspections, safety inspections, and obtain the proper licenses or otherwise face the possibility of being shut down by the city’s Industrial and Commercial Bureau.

Other News

• 17 December 2007: Forbes announces that the Asian Development Bank will provide 150 million American dollars to help Xinjiang develop its transportation infrastructure, particularly to improve the Korla-Kuche stretch of the Urumqi-Kashgar road system.
• 20 December 2007: Reuters covers the recently launched joint anti-terrorism exercises conducted by India and China. Although the exercises are being held in Yunnan, both countries have stated anti-terrorism as one of the goals of the training regimen and Reuters cannot help but note similarities between Xinjiang in China and Kashmir in India.
• 21 December 2007: China View has an English language version of a Xinhua article on this year’s total gas production in the Tarim Basin. By the end of the year, the total gas produced by the Tarim gas fields is expected to reach 15.5 billion cubic meters, a 40% increase since last year. Moreover, this year 12 billion cubic meters of the extracted gas were sent to China’s east coast through a pipeline that begins in Lunnan in Southern Xinjiang and ends in Baihe outside of Shanghai (See in Google Earth).

Tags: accidents, annual statistics, coal, cotton, education, gold, google earth, herders, holiday, india, international loans, international projects, international trade, kyrgyzstan, literature, medical care, military, mining, natural gas, pollution, ports, sanitation, social welfare, statistics, tajikistan, trade, XPCC