BEIJING, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- Coupons worth almost 10 million yuan (1.5 million U.S. dollars) in discounts are to be handed out to tourists in the scenic city of Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang cheap runescape gold province, to boost visitor numbers during the financial crisis.

    The vouchers will be targeted at people living in the Yangtze Delta region and Shanghai, China Daily cited Hangzhou tourism committee as reporting on Wednesday.

    Visitors will be able to use the coupons to pay entrance fees to the city's most popular scenic sights, as well as buy tickets for entertainment events or food, according to the tourism committee.

    "Boosting tourist spending is an immediate necessity for Hangzhou. Not everyone who gets the coupons will actually come, but the odds increase a lot," said Li Hong, an official for the city's tourism committee.

    Apart from the 10 million yuan from the city's tourism committee, the government will also help fund the Hangzhou tourism stimulus package, an official from the tourism committee said without revealing the specific amount.

    Details of how the coupons will be distributed have not been finalized yet but the stimulus plan will be implemented soon if everything goes well.

    Hangzhou tourism committee will subsidize the businesses that participate in the stimulus project, local media reported.

    The World Tourism Organization predicts only a 0-2 global growth this year for the number of tourists who holiday in a destination for at least one night, compared to last year.

    Even the Asia Pacific region, regarded as one of the fastest growing tourism markets, will not see an increase runescape gold of more than 2 percent, it said.

    And it is also feared the continued appreciation of the renminbi will undermine the competitive cost advantages of visiting China.
 
 
Editor: Zhang Mingyu 

The Yangtze River Valley is one of the national cheap runescape gold cultural cradles in China and Hubei is situated in the middle-reaches of Yangtze River. Hubei have nurtured countless politicians, strategists, writers and other famous people, which gives Hubei a name of Talents Born in Chu Only.
Qu Yuan is a great poet and statesman of the Warring States Period and one of the four cultural celebrities in the world. He was born and brought up in Yuantuo, Zigui of Hubei. His major poems include "Lisao (Lament at Parting)," "Jiuge (Nine Lyrical Poems)" and "Guoshang (The Sacrificial Songs), all classical magnificent masterpieces and a treasure of world literature.

Zhuge Liang is a famous politician and strategist in the Three-kingdom Period, and lived as a hermit in Longzhong of Xiangyang for ten years. Liu Bei visited him for three times and asked him for assistance. His famous statement of Liu Bei Longzhongdui contributes to the formation of the triangular balance of the power of the there kingdoms.

Wang Zhaojun, one of the Four Beauties in Chinese ancient history was born in Nanjun of Zigui in Western Han (xiangshan County today). She married to Xiongnu ethnic minority nationality and has enhanced unity between the Han and Xiongnu people which won her great respects.

Tang Dynasty witnessed many excellent poets and writers. The poet Meng Hanran and the writer Pi Rixiu are among them both of who were born in Xiangyang and left many poems and poetry comments. Tea-Sage Lu Yu of Tang Dynasty wrote the first monograph on tea Tea Scripture in the world and he was born in Jingling of Hubei (Tianmen today).

The famous calligrapher in Song Dynasty Mi Fu was born in Xiangyang. The inventor of the type printing Bi Sheng was born in Yingshan County. Both of them made great contribution to Chinese civilization.

In Ming Dynasty, litterateurs The Three Yuans (Yuan Zongdao, Yuan Hongdao and Yuan Zhongdao) lived in Gongan County of Hubei and they formed Gongan School. The medical sage Li Shizhen in the same contemporary was born in Qizhou (Qichun County today). He wrote the medical monograph Compendia of Materia Medica, which was a treasure of Chinese medicine and has been translated into several foreign languages. Born in Jiangling, Zhang Juzheng is a famous politician and Head of Prime Ministers in Ming Dynasty. runescape gold He made reforms in politics, which developed China's economy.

In a word, many talents have been nurtured in the fertile land of Hubei.

In modern history, revolutionary pioneer Chen Tanqiu, Wuhan elite Yun Daiying, famous scholar and poet Wen Yiduo, famous geologist Li Siguang, economist Wang Yanan, writer Ye Shengtao, Beijing Opera leader Tan Xingpei and drama master Cao Yu were all form Hubei.

Hongan county is a place for generals while Qichun for professors. Students from city of Tianmen became the first in national entrance examination for science and literal arts for several years in succession. With many universities and scientific research institutes, Hubei has become a province with great human resources.

All kinds of special qualified people go out of this cradle to the whole country and the world as pillars in all trades.

NEW DELHI – An Indian woman has given cheap runescape gold birth to her first child at the age of 70 after receiving IVF treatment, newspapers reported her doctor as saying Monday.

An Indian nurse carries a new-born baby in a hospital in Calcutta, India, file photo. [Agencies]

Rajo Devi, who married 50 years ago, gave birth to a baby girl on November 28 after in vitro fertilisation, said Anurag Bishnoi, a doctor at the Hisar fertility centre in Haryana state.

"Rajo Devi and (her husband) Bala Ram approached the centre for treatment and the embryo transfer was done on April 19," he told the Hindustan Times. "Both the mother and child are in good health."

Bishnoi claimed runescape gold Devi was the world's oldest mother.

Another 70-year-old Indian was reported to have given birth to twins via IVF in July this year, while a 66-year-old Spanish woman had twins in 2006.

Devi's husband, aged 72, had also wed his wife's sister after 10 years of his first marriage did not result in children. His second wife also failed to become pregnant.

It was not clear whose egg and sperm were used in the successful treatment.

"IVF has revolutionised the way we look at infertility," said Bishnoi. "Infertility is no longer a social taboo or a divine curse. It can be treated scientifically."
SOURCE: Chinadaily EDITOR: ??

LONDON, Dec. 9 (Xinhua) -- A contaminated meat scare has spread from runescape gold Irish pork to beef after tests found illegally high levels of chemicals in cattle, Sky news reported on Tuesday.

Three beef farms have been linked to the contamination, with PCBs -- or Polychlorinated Biphenyls -- being found in 11 herds tested, Ireland's Agriculture Minister Brendan Smith has confirmed.

However, Smith said the public should not be worried as the levels of PCBs found in the beef were two to three times above safe limits, compared to 200 times for pork.

Officials said the contaminated animals which ate oil-tainted food are being taken out of the food chain.

Results are still pending for 34 more farms that received the contaminated feed.

The beef industry is Ireland's largest and most important farming sector and is worth 2.1 billion pounds (about 3 billion U.S. dollars) a year.

Since the cancer-causing dioxins runescape money were first found in Irish pork, products have been recalled from 21 countries.

Less than three days into the crisis, more than 1,700 pig factory workers had lost their jobs after a total of 56 farms in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland have been linked with the contamination.

But there are currently no plans to take beef products off the shelves, the officials said.

The meat became contaminated after unlicensed oil used in a burner tainted breadcrumbs which were supplied to 56 farms in the Republic of Ireland and nine farms in Northern Ireland.
 
SOURCE: Xinhua EDITOR: ?? 

list of our tour group on January 11th. There are 100 people, quit a lot."

    "One reason wow gold that many people choose to go to Taiwan during Spring festival, is they want to see how the festival is celebrated in Taiwan. And some want to spend the festival with their families and friends there."

    Some of the rules for Taiwan tours have been changed. For example, the minimum number of people in buy wow gold each group should be more than five, instead of 10. And tourists can also stay longer, the limit has now been extended from 10 days to 15.

    (Source: CCTV.com)
 
 
Editor: Sun Yunlong 

MIAMI – Seeking a getaway despite the downturn, Olivia Gonzalez called her travel agent with an agenda.

"I said, what kind of deals do you have?" said the Miami resident, who is in her 60s, standing outside the Port of Miami. What she buy wow gold found was a six-day, five-night cruise through the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos for $299 a person.

That was all the convincing Gonzalez and thousands of other passengers have needed lately to set sail. Though vacations are disposable when money gets tight, the cruise industry has kept ships full with deep discounts and some itinerary changes to shorter, cheaper voyages. Norwegian Cruise Line is sailing three-and four-day swings for the first time since 2004. Carnival Corp. is offering free state room upgrades and more Caribbean choices — a quick skip from the Miami port — in 2009 to accommodate demand.

"Consumers are looking for more value for their vacation dollar," said Howard Frank, Carnival's chief operating officer, on a recent conference call with analysts. "And our shorter, less expensive Caribbean cruise products are performing much better than our premium and luxury, longer cruise products. So we are seeing a consumer trade-down to value."

The major cruise lines are also seeing vacationers wait longer to commit. Before the downturn, bookings averaged about six months in advance, maybe eight months for luxury trips, said Bob Sharak, executive director of the Cruise Lines International Association.

"People are deferring their purchases to the last minute," he said. "They're booking, but it causes the operators some degree of agitation, because it takes longer to put that sailing on the books.

"I don't think that's something unique to our cruise business right now. I think all travel is like that."

Carnival is offering three- and four- day trips to Mexico and the Bahamas starting at $209 for the lowest-level rooms at the last minute, a nearly 50 percent discount in some cases. A four-day Baja California, Mexico cruise sailing in February and now selling at that rate would cost $399 later, while a three-day Bahamas vacation leaving Jan. 23 is available for $219 instead of $349. Norwegian's short Bahamas cruises were starting at $229 through mid-April.

Long considered a good vacation value, the cruise industry is holding up better than some competitors in this climate. The Port of Miami saw record cruise traffic of 3.8 million passengers from January to November 2008, a 10.5 percent increase over the previous year. Sharak predicts overall occupancy will continue to increase, despite grim predictions for 2009 in the industry and economy overall.

Both Carnival and Royal Caribbean have suspended stock dividends, a sign of some distress, and last month Carnival lowered its revenue predictions for 2009.

"I'm not minimizing today's situation. We've not seen an economic situation like this in America or globally in my lifetime," Sharak said. "However, if history is an indicator of the future, the business itself has been resilient in these varied markets, and I think right wow gold now we're showing that as well."

Carnival has rolled out a new pricing scheme to entice further advance commitments. The "Early Saver" program offers 25 percent discounts for certain trips booked up to three months before departure, plus a guarantee those passengers will get the same savings if rates drop.

"The good news is that consumers are still taking their vacations, but the vacation decision is for next month, rather than next year," Frank told investors.

For consumers, the cruise lines' push to fill big ships can mean big savings. Shannon McClelland was shopping for a birthday gift for her boyfriend two months ago when she found a five-day cruise sailing out of Miami for $1,500 a couple, including airfare from New York.

"Today is his birthday, so this is his birthday present," said McClelland, of New York. "I was just looking for something nice, it seemed doable, so we did it."
Source: chinadaily.com.cn