China stands at a crucial crossroads with a slowing
economy and increasing calls for social and economic reforms. At top-level meetings beginning Saturday,
Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang
are expected to outline a road map for the country
for the next 5 to 10 years. For the past three decades,
China’s economic growth has lifted millions out of
poverty and created a global power second only to
the United States. But now as growth slows and social problems multiply, there is a growing consensus
that China’s long-successful economic model needs
to change. Analysts say China has relied too much on
cheap labor, cheap exports and cheap resources such
as coal to fuel its economic growth. Now, that strategy is under scrutiny as wages rise, the global economy
continues to flounder and the Chinese public grows
he death toll from one of the strongest storms on increasingly concerned about the environment and
record that ravaged the central Philippine city of Ta- pollution.
cloban will exceed 10,000 people. In the typhoon-ravaged central Philippines emergency workers are trying
to push their way through piles of debris to recover
bodies and get aid to people who have been stranded
without food and water. Officials expect the number
of dead to be more than ten thousand. Most of those
deaths are in Tacloban, a coastal city of Leyte Province. That is where Super Typhoon Haiyan first bore
down on the country, leaving a trail of devastation
across dozens of islands. Myriad houses have been
reduced to rubble, while crumpled cars lie smashed Chinese police have arrested an ex-convict suspectinto each other and splintered trees and power lines ed of setting off a series of explosions outside Comclog muddy ground. Haiyan created a five-meter high munist party offices in a northern city that killed one
storm surge that pounded Tacloban and left bodies person and wounded eight. Feng Zhijun was appretossed about in its wake. The Philippine Red Cross hended at around 2am on Friday and confessed to
said its people on the ground estimated more than the crime, the Shanxi provincial government said in a
1,000 people have died there. The Civil Defense office statement. The 41-year-old had been previously sensaid about 450,000 people were currently displaced. tenced to nine years in prison for theft, but gave no
Video footage from local news programs showed word on a motive for the blasts. Bomb-making matesome residents looting grocery and other stores.
rials and other evidence were found at Feng’s res
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Bomb-making materials ad
other evidence were found
at Feng’s residence.