Extracts. Great Changes in China A Miracle: Jiang Jiang Zemin, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, Sunday hailed the remarkable changes that have taken place in China as " a historic miracle". Jiang was speaking at a grand gathering at the Great Hall of the People marking the 80th founding anniversary of the CPC. The CPC now has a membership of over 64 million, and the Chinese people are living in their prosperous socialist motherland, Jiang said. **** China Marks 80th Founding Anniversary of CPC A grand gathering is held to mark the 80th founding anniversary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) at the Great Hall of the People Sunday morning. Jiang Zemin, Li Peng, Zhu Rongji, Li Ruihuan, Hu Jintao, Wei Jianxing and Li Lanqing attended the meeting. Jiang Zemin, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, will deliver an important speech at the meeting. **** CPC Anniversary Arouses Booming Revolutionary Tourism A unprecedented number of Chinese tourists have flocked to old revolutionary bases across the country recently, stimulated by the upcoming 80th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC) on July 1. The number of tourists to Xibaipo, Yan'an, Jinggangshan and many other historic revolutionary bases, desiring to recall the arduous and glorious history of the Party, has reached a peak in June. Statistics show that Xibaipo Village, Hebei Province, where a significant CPC conference was held on the eve of the countrywide victory of the Chinese people's revolution, has received nearly 8, 000 tourists everyday this month. Jinggangshan, located in the southwest part of Jiangxi Province, was the first revolutionary base established in the countryside by the first generation of Chinese Communist Party leaders like Mao Zedong and Zhu De. It has attracted more than 300,000 travelers in the first half of the year, increasing 40 percent over the same period last year. Various nationwide activities, including exhibitions, performances and seminars, have been staged to mark the 80th anniversary since early this year. Books and Video CDs concerning China's revolutionary age have been well sold. A series of films and TV programs depicting CPC history and Party leaders have also had a large audience. People are obviously not satisfied with just reading about or history of the Party. They have either consulted tourist agencies, which have been promoting popular routes in these areas since early this year, or planed budget travel to the real sites of the revolutionary years to experience history by themselves. "Besides the beautiful natural scenery, the hallowed revolutionary bases can also offer us a spiritual feast," said Dong Fan, a traveler from Jiangsu Province. People cherish today's prosperity and mightiness much more than before, especially after reviewing the heroic deeds of the old generation of revolutionaries, Dong added, standing in front of a revolutionary memorial in Yan'an city, in northwest China's Shaanxi Province. Analysts said that the CPC founding anniversary is a major stimulus for the current booming revolutionary trips, but people's passion about the historic sites was totally different with the plague of zealotry during the Culture Revolution period. People came to seek those spiritual qualities, such as unswerving political faith, hard work and self-dependence, and the principles of being practical and realistic, said Li Zhongquan, vice president of Shaanxi Party History Research Society. Their spiritual wealth, fostered by CPC members under extremely harsh circumstances decades ago, will continue to urge the Chinese people in their efforts to build a powerful modern socialist country, Li added. The popular revolutionary tourism has not only brought more fame to the isolated localities either hidden in mountainous areas or in the countryside, but also activated the local economy. During the January-May period this year, over 900,000 visitors swarmed to Yan'an city, which was the CPC headquarters during the war against Japanese aggression in the 1930s and 1940s. Over the past five years, the city has had more than 5.5 million tourists both from home and abroad, netting a total tourist income of over one billion yuan (over 120 million U.S. dollars), including nearly 2 million U.S. dollars in foreign exchange. The thriving tourism sector is not the only focus of residents in revolutionary bases, they are also making blueprints for a prosperous economy in the future. The revolutionary bases, also known as "red bases" by most Chinese, are now undergoing a green campaign to turn huge areas of barren farmland into forests, aiming to stop the deterioration of the ecological system caused by excess land reclamation during the wartime period. Farmers in Yan'an have given up traditional ploughing and cultivating and begun planting fruit trees outside their cave houses on the barren hills surrounding their villages. According to Zhang Shenian, mayor of Yan'an, more than 6.6 million ha of farmland will be planted with trees and grass by the end of 2010, and the city's green coverage rate will increase to 70 percent. Apart from the afforestation drive, the exchange of human resources, commodities and information with the outside world have also been promoted in recent years, and local governments are launching more powerful advertising programs in some large cites across the country to attract more investment. **** Construction of Qinghai-Tibet Railway Starts Construction of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, the first railway linking Tibet with the rest of China, began at 11:00 am in this capital city of southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region Friday. The opening ceremony for the project was held at Zao'erfeng Tunnel, on the southern bank of Lhasa River, this morning. The 1,118-kilometer railway will extend from Lhasa in Tibet to Golmud in Qinghai province in northwest China. It will be the longest and most elevated railway built on highlands in the world. More than 960 kilometers, or over four-fifths of the railway will be built at an altitude of more than 4,000 meters. And over half of it will be laid on earth that has been frozen for a long time. **** China Sets Five-Year Targets for Chemical Industry China will focus on the development of agricultural chemical products, new chemical materials, refined chemical products as well as energy-efficiency and environmental-friendly products in the coming five years. The State Economic and Trade Commission (SETC) announced the state five-year plan for the development of the chemical industry in Beijing Saturday. According to the plan, the sector is projected to keep an average annual growth rate of 7 percent during the period, on par with the national GDP growth rate. Facing an impending entry into the World Trade Organization ( WTO), the industry is to step up efforts to tackle such bottlenecks as outdated equipment and technique, small and scattered production pattern, inadequate funding and insufficient self-development capacity, a spokesman with the commission noted. The development of chemical products for agricultural use, including nitrogenous fertilizer, phosphoric fertilizer and potassium fertilizer, will be given top priority, while development of effective and low-toxin chemicals will be stressed, according to the plan. China will encourage foreign participation, in forms of establishing joint ventures or opening wholly-foreign owned firms in China, to develop the country's chemical industry with advanced technologies. **** Cuba Celebrates 80th Founding Anniversary of Communist Party of China A stable, prosperous and socialist China is a guarantee to peace in Asia and the rest of the world, a leader of the Cuban Communist Party (CCP) said in Havana Friday at a celebration marking the 80th founding anniversary of the Communist Party of China (CPC). Esteban Lazo, member of the Political Bureau of the CCP Central Committee and first secretary of the Havana Municipal Committee of CCP, lauded the historic achievement of the CPC in leading the Chinese people to get independence and found the new republic. The ceremony was presided over by Vice President of the Council of State Juan Almeida and Jose R. Machado, both members of the Political Bureau of the CCP Central Committee. Lazo hailed the great achievements China has made, saying they show "every day the vitality of socialism." He said that China stood side-by-side with Cuba in the harshest years of economic crisis in the island. He noted that "China and Cuba share the same defense of socialism," and wished the CPC further success in the construction of socialism and the accomplishment of its goals. **** Cuba Demands Release of 5 Cubans Arrested by U.S. Cuban leader Fidel Castro headed Friday a demonstration in Havana, demanding the release of five Cubans arrested in September 1998 in the United States as presumed spies. The demonstration, in which nearly 40,000 people participated, took place in front of the U.S. interests office in Cuba. The United States accused the five Cubans, Rene Gonzalez, Ramon Labanino, Fernando Gonzalez, Antonio Guerrero and Gerardo Hernandez, of gathering military information, involving in murder cases and endangering the country's security. The Cuban government describes the five Cubans as "heroic patriots" who gathered information on U.S.-organized terrorist activities by individuals opposing the socialist regime in the island. One of the defense counsels said the five Cubans, who have been imprisoned for 17 months, were sent to isolated prison cells last Tuesday. In a massive protest last Saturday, Castro said the defense of the five Cubans will be a long and tough battle. The U.S. authorities will have no other choice but to rectify, "for they will not be able to afford the political and moral cost of holding to such accusation," he added. The case has turned into a new confrontation between Washington and Havana, almost one year after the return of boy Elian Gonzalez to Cuba. **** Yugoslav Prime Minister Resigns Over Milosevic's Extradition Yugoslav Prime Minister Zoran Zizic resigned Friday in protest against the handover Thursday of former president Slobodan Milosevic to The Hague-based U.N. war crimes tribunal, according to local press reports. Zizic said the handover of Milosevic was a price "beyond any dignity". "I cannot accept this in my name and in my people's name, and therefore I resign from the post of federal prime minister," he said. Meanwhile, about 6,000 Milosevic supporters rallied in front of the federal parliament Friday to protest the decision to extradite the former president. In face of the mounting tensions, President Vojislav Kostunica met army leaders and said after the talks that the crisis "must be resolved by political means". **** Russia Opposes Smart Sanctions Against Iraq: Envoy Russian Envoy for Special Tasks Nikolai Kartuzov said in Damascus on Saturday that Russia opposes the U.N. draft resolution on "smart sanctions" against Iraq. Speaking to reporters after meeting with Syrian Foreign Minister Faruk Shareh, Kartuzov said that he delivered to Shareh a message from Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov on the deliberations of the United Nations on proposed "smart sanctions" against Iraq. He was referring to the proposal submitted by the United States and Britain to the U.N. Security Council to revise the sanctions imposed on Iraq since its invasion of Kuwait in 1990. The Russian envoy said that his country expects that the smart sanctions, which are allegedly designed to sharpen the cutting edge against the Baghdad regime but make the embargo less painful to the Iraqi people, will have serious impacts on Iraq and all the countries in the region. He added that the goals of the "smart sanctions" are merely pretexts and excuses and will aggravate the situation of the Iraqi people. Kartuzov also said that he and Shareh shared the opinion that the Iraqi people's suffering due to the 10-year U.N. sanctions should be ended. Kartuzov arrived at Damascus on Friday on an official visit to Syria. _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. 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