China: Round Up on May 7

Whistleblower website

The Supreme People's Court in Beijing yesterday launched a whistleblower website – jubao. court.gov.cn – to collect tip-offs on corruption.

Tips must be based on facts. Tipsters can use their real names or remain anonymous, said Zhou Xiaoying, a member of the court’s Judicial Committee.

Every report would get a response within five weekdays, he said.

Smoking rules axed

A Hubei Province county government has abolished a regulation urging county officials to smoke local cigarettes after its regulation made national and international headlines, the Xinhua News Agency reported yesterday.

The Global Times ran a report Monday detailing how the Gong’an county government in March issued a regulation requiring all local government agencies and institutions to aim to consume 230,000 packs of Hubei Province-produced cigarettes a year, worth about 4 million yuan ($588,235).

Departments that failed to consume sufficient cigarettes or consumed non-local brand cigarettes would be fined.
Landslide clogs river

More than 120 people were evacuated after a landslide occurred in Hubei Province Tuesday morning. No one was killed or injured.

The landslide in the province’s Yunxi county devastated furniture factories and trade markets scattered along the local Jixian River. It also broke a 500-meter optical fiber line, according to a Hubei Daily report on its website.

Local authorities appealed to experts to work out measures to clear the river channels clogged by the landslide to prevent possible flooding as the rainy season is expected this month, the report said.

Wal-Mart bomb hoax

A Wal-Mart branch in Kunming, Yunnan Province was evacuated yesterday morning after a bomb threat, which local police dubbed a hoax.

According to a Xinhua report, at 8:58 am an unknown individual called the service desk at the Wal-Mart located at the Daguan Commercial City claiming a bomb was in the store. A police statement said the caller was attempting to extort money from the store.

Police evacuated customers and searched for a bomb.

They are investigating who was responsible for placing the call.