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Three world-class trade fair opened on Monday at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center (HKCEC).

The Hong Kong electronic Fair, the International ICT Expo and the Hong Kong International Lighting Fair opened with a total of 3,600 booths and thousands of exhibitors and visitors from around the world.

The opening of the three international shows also marked the launching of the HKCEC’s newly completed expansion.

Raymond Yip, Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC) assistant executive director, said that the three fairs will assist companies in overcoming the financial tsunami, providing one-stop support services, market trends and exhibitor and product information.

“In addition, the opening of the HKCEC expansion means that exhibitors and buyers at the three fairs are the first to experience the new facilities. With more space and upgraded services and amenities, the expansion strengthens the HKTDC’s status as one of the world’s premier trade event organizer,” he added.

A new research finds that rivers in some of the world’s most populous regions are losing water due to changes in climatic conditions.

Scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., suggests that the reduced flows in many cases are associated with climate change, and could potentially threaten future supplies of food and water.

The Colorado River in the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, the Yellow River in northern China, the Ganges in India and the Niger in West Africa are losing water, says the study.

The study examined stream flow in 925 of Earth’s largest rivers, and found significant change in about one third of them over the past 50 years. These rivers, all key sources of water for the regions they flow through, were found to be funneling less water through their channels.

“Reduced runoff is increasing the pressure on freshwater resources in much of the world, especially with more demand for water as population increases,” says NCAR scientist Aiguo Dai, the lead author of the study. “Freshwater being a vital resource, the downward trends are a great concern.”

Many factors may affect river discharge, including dams and the diversion of water for agriculture and industry.

Climate change’s influence on river flow comes through its effects on precipitation and evaporation. The authors compared the river discharge changes to previous studies that looked at changes in precipitation and found that areas of decreased discharge matched closely with areas of decreased precipitation (likewise, areas of increased discharge matched those of increased precipitation).

“As climate change inevitably continues in coming decades, we are likely to see greater impacts on many rivers and water resources that society has come to rely on,” said study co-author Kevin Trenberth, also of NCAR.

Penguin Group has become the first international publisher to sign an e-book distribution agreement to make e-book titles in English available in China, the head of the group said at the London Book Fair on Tuesday.

“We are excited to be signing this landmark agreement with Founder Apabi,” said John Makinson, chairman and CEO of the Penguin Group. “For Penguin, both the Chinese market and the digital arena represent areas of great opportunity and future growth.”

Penguin Group is the first international publishing company to sign a distribution agreement to make its front and backlist English titles available in e-book form to readers in China.

Penguin e-book titles from the UK and Dorling Kindersley, which currently number more than 2,000, will be made available in Apabi’s Chinese e-book (CEB) format.

“In Apabi we believe we have found the right partner to develop our e-book offering. We look forward to using our relationship with Apabi as a springboard for a range of digital projects over the coming years,” Makinson added.

Starting in May 2009, titles will be available in English for download to Chinese readers, including a wide range of fiction, nonfiction, classics, children’s, lifestyle, and travel books.

“Penguin is a world-leading publisher of consumer books. It is also the most popular publishing brand among readers,” said Fang Zhonghua, senior vice president of Beijing-based Founder Apabi Group. “It is our pleasure to work with Penguin to promote the Chinese e-book market, which boasts the world’s largest number of Internet users.”

But Founder officials told China.org.cn that they will not reveal details until May.

Currently, the e-book market in China is composed mainly of library books and academic works. Although consumer books make up only a tiny market share, they have developed rapidly in recent years. At present, Founder Apabi holds about 80 percent of the Chinese e-book market. Its database contains more than 500,000 e-book titles from some 500 Chinese publishers. According to estimates, by 2008 the total value of the Chinese e-book market had grown to 200 million yuan.

On April 20, the 38th London Book Fair opened officially in the Earls Court Exhibition Center. Under the impact of the global financial crisis, the number of participants was down by 2 percent compared with 2008. However, the fair still managed to attract more than 1,600 participants from 54 countries and regions. A delegation of 27 publishers and book trading corporations from China took part in the fair.

This year’s book fair has a unique new feature - a digital zone and theatre. With the growing popularity of the Internet and mobile phones, e-books are becoming the new publishing phenomenon. In spite of one of the most challenging retail environments in recent times, John Makinson told reporters on Tuesday that its e-book sales for the first three months of the year in the U.S. were about seven times the level of the previous year.

“The underlying growth in e-book sales is very significant in the U.S. and we expect over time that in the international markets that we are here to talk about (Britain, China, India, South Africa and Australia) it will be very significant too,” Makinson said.

Sales of e-books by Penguin Group (USA) have surged as the company has invested in making 6,400 books available in the United States and a total of 8,500 e-books across the Group on a variety of electronic reading devices. It has also published exclusive new content in e-book form. Penguin saw its e-book sales in the U.S. jump close to 500 percent over 2007.

Chinese e-book market leaps in 2008

According to the April 21 issue of China Book Business Report, by December 31, 2008, China had 810,000 e-book titles, growing by 150,000, or over 22 percent, against 2007. The development of e-books is maintaining a strong momentum. In 2008, the total number of e-books traded in China was 49.5 million copies, increasing year-on-year by 15 percent; the sales revenue of e-books was 226.3 million yuan, increasing year-on-year by 34 percent. In sharp comparison with the stagnant development of hard-copy books, e-books are growing rapidly in variety, numbers, and sales value.

From 2003 to 2008, the number of e-books traded in China increased by an annual average of 24 percent; the sales value by 27 percent. From 2002 to 2008, the number of e-books traded grew from less than 14 million copies to 49.5 million copies, rising more than threefold; the sales value of e-books grew from some 50 million to over 200 million yuan, rising more than fourfold.

In 2008, China had 79 million e-book readers, growing by a remarkable 34 percent from 2007. As a new reading trend, e-books make reading a fashionable recreation activity. As young people easily fall prey to such fashions, juveniles and people with lower educational attainment have become the major readers of e-books, and this group of readers is still growing rapidly.

Science and non-fiction books constitute a large part of the e-book market. From 2006 to 2008, however, the proportion of science and non-fiction books dropped from 57 percent to 52.5 percent. The proportion of non-fiction in particular dropped by 3 percentage points.

On the whole, best-selling e-books and paper books in 2008 were similar to those in 2007. Time travel, fantasy and health books remained the most popular among readers, and political themes also attracted public attention. At particular times, the Chinese book market was dominated by books on hot issues like the Olympics and the financial crisis, and popular figures like Barack Obama. In 2008 web fiction maintained its rapid pace of growth. More and more writers chose the Internet to release their works and a growing number of works of fiction were published on the web. While the market share of specialty e-books dropped, literature and fiction grew significantly by 1.2 percentage points compared with 2007.

With regard to the age structure of e-book readers, from 2006 to 2008, the number of readers under the age of 18 had grown from 1.73 million (17.3 percent of the total) to 2.17 million (21.7 percent), and those under the age of 24 had grown from 4.29 million (42.9 percent) to 4.95 million (49.5 percent). With regard to the readers’ educational background, from 2006 to 2008 the number of readers with lower educational and senior high school (or secondary specialized school) backgrounds grew from 3.86 million (37.7 percent) to 4.1 million (41 percent), and those with polytechnic or lower educational background grew from 6.95 million (68.6 percent) to 7.31 million (73.1 percent).

According to China Book Business Report, another important feature to be noticed in 2008 was the significant growth of Chinese mobile phone users. In 2008, mobile phone prices and fees dropped further in China. Big-screen phones and smart phones came into extensive use. The performance, function, Internet connection speed and storage capacity of mobile phones all improved significantly. In this situation, more and more people began to use mobile phones to read e-books. In 2008, about 6.3 percent of e-book readers were using mobile phones, while in 2006 and 2007, the proportion was 2.7 percent and 5.9 percent respectively.

The rise of mobile phone readers has led to a dramatic growth of e-book sales: From 2002 to 2008, the revenues generated by mobile phone e-book readers grew from less than 200,000 yuan to 30.3 million yuan, showing a 150-fold increase. In 2008, revenues generated by mobile phone e-book readers saw the largest growth rate, up by a factor of nearly five against the 6.5 million yuan in 2007.

Publishing on the Internet is convenient, cheap and fast. Besides, web-published books can also be issued in paper form. As a result, an increasing number of writers, especially new writers, are inclined to release their works online. Another reason for the growth of e-books was the increase in the volume of Chinese netizens. Although the growth rate of e-book readers was relatively lower than that of netizens, the total number of e-book readers still managed to grow to 79 million in 2008. In 2009, the number of e-book readers is expected to reach 83 million. According to estimates, about 1.17 million copies of e-books will be published online in 2009 - 1.09 million copies had already been published in 2008.

As China is making greater efforts to protect e-book copyright, crack down on piracy, and make readers pay for e-books, e-book sales will see further rapid development in coming years. From 2006 to 2008, the annual sales revenue of e-books was 30 million yuan, 36 million yuan and 69 million yuan respectively. This indicates that the market is maturing, and it is estimated that sales revenues of e-books will hit 91 million yuan in 2009.

Sangria is a refreshing, fruity wine drink that originates in Spain and Portugal and is best shared with friends over tapas. This flavored wine, as well as vermouth and gluhwein, was developed as a solution to the fact that, before the invention of the cork, wine was preserved either by a wooden stopper and oily rags, or with a layer of olive oil, meaning much wine was past its peak when consumed. First used more than 400 years ago, the cork was another ingenious solution to this problem of storing wine. Sourced largely from the cork forests of Portugal and the Mediterranean, the cork is a natural product that allows wine to mature slowly with minimal air contact. These days there are a greater range of closures on wine bottles—real cork (cut from a single piece of bark), composite cork (granules of cork glued together), screwcaps, glass stoppers and plastic corks. Fortunately, you can still enjoy the legacy of winemaking before corks with a glass of sangria at Olas Tapas Caféand Scarlett, or a whole pitcher at Taverna.

There will be no major or immediate change in the U.S.-China relations following President-elect Barack Obama’s nomination of Hillary Clinton as U.S. secretary of state, some U.S. experts on China said on Monday.

U.S.-China Institute Associate Director Clayton Dube from University of Southern California said in an interview that he based his assumption on the fact that Washington had a number of important issues to resolve immediately, such as dealing with the two wars, the fight against terrorism and problems in the Middle East.

“In solving some of those issues, there needs a closer cooperation with China. I think that over time, the Obama Administration will be a little bit more vigorous in pushing China on a number of issues, but I do not expect overall the relationship to change,” Dube said.

“I can expect that Obama and Hillary Clinton are going to work harder to involve and engage China in a number of issues. Hillary has experience in dealing with China on several of those things,” Dube added.

Asked whether Hillary Clinton will stick to her husband former President Bill Clinton’s foreign policy, Dube said that depended on which stage of the Clinton Administration.

According to him, during Clinton’s presidency, he first pushed China hard on human rights issues, but later he decided that it was more important to push for issues to help the U.S. economy and concentrate on trade.

Dube said Hillary Clinton knew how to build a coalition within the leadership, the U.S. Congress and the American people on various foreign policy issues, adding the former first lady was quite experienced in conveying complicated issues to voters.

“She is an outstanding mobilizer, and it is important to mobilize the American people to support the U.S. foreign policy,” he said.

Currently, the focus, according to Dube, is on two things: the war and the economy.

He said there would be difficulties in the U.S.-China relations such as trade, currency, human rights and the Taiwan issue. “Those issues are going to come up, but would come up with broad structure where no single issue can be allowed to derail the important cooperativeness that has been forged on economic issues, on nuclear non-proliferation and on environmental issues. Within that structure, they will continue to have a productive relationship.”

Stanley Rosen, a China expert and professor at the University of Southern California, expressed similar opinions on the possible development of the U.S.-China relations after Hillary’s nomination as Secretary of State.

The China expert shared the view with Dube that Hillary’s nomination would not make any major difference in the U.S. policy toward China.

Rosen noted that some China experts in the Obama team would give advices to Hillary on China issues and Obama had to spend much effort on economic issues and the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“There is no benefit at all to alienate China. I do not think there will be dramatic changes in the relations between the two countries,” he added.

He also said there might be some tensions between the two countries, but the overall trend would be toward a positive direction.

Schalke 04 and Leverkusen ended their decline in Bundesliga battles as both beat rival teams on Saturday.

Gerald Asamoah helped push the Royal Blues in the right direction, scoring the only goal - a header in the 65th minute - in a 1-0 match against Hertha Berlin.

With the win, Schalke put an end to a poor string of performances that saw them lose five out of six matches. The crucial three points help the side reposition themselves in an upward trend.

Leverkusen were also back on track after suffering back-to-back defeats, winning 3-1 at struggling Moenchengladbach and climbing into third place.

Newly-promoted Moenchengladbach, who haven’t won against Leverkusen at home since 1989, dropped down to the bottom of the Bundesliga standings following their sixth home defeat.

Moenchengladbach had started the match the better team, but Leverkusen were more clinical in front of goal. Stefan Kie Bling scored a well-taken brace in the 25th and 37th minute to take his season’s tally to eight.

The match was over as a contest nine minutes into the second half when German international Patrick Helmes leapfrogged Moenchengladbach keeper Christopher Heimeroth to make it 3-0 with his twelfth of the season.

The host’s 18-year-old Tony Jantschke pulled one back seven minutes later with what was his first goal in his first Bundesligagame.

Also on Saturday, Karlsruher left the bottom of the Bundesliga standings with a hard-fought 1-0 victory over Bundesliga giant Werder Bremen.

Karlsruher secured their first win since Oct. 3, ending a nine-game winless streak in coach Edmund Becker’s 50th Bundesliga match.

Bremen are now winless in five away games and missed out on a confidence boost ahead of their last Champions League game against Inter Milan on Tuesday.

For new Stuttgart coach Markus Babbel, a 3-0 win at Cottbus saw his second victory in two Bundesliga matches.

Goals from Roberto Hilbert, Jan Simak and Sami Khedira secured Stuttgart’s first away win since Matchday 1.

Cottbus haven’t won against VfB in eight matches and since 2000,and captain Timo Rost picked up his fifth booking and will miss the next match at Bayer Leverkusen.

On Saturday, Bochum’s winless run was extended to twelve matches with a 4-0 defeat at Eintracht Frankfurt. Bochum also lost goalkeeper Daniel Fernandes, who was sent off for a professional foul after just five minutes.

The only draw on Saturday is the clash between Bielefeld and Dortmund, the match ended goalless.

On Sunday, Wolfsburg will travel to Hannover while Hamburg will face the challenge of Koeln at home.

China Construction Bank became the fourth Chinese commercial bank allowed to do business in the United States, receiving a permit in December to open a branch in New York City.

The Chinese bank’s timing could prove fortuitous, with a lot of recently unemployed finance professionals floating around the city.

“We have been recruiting local people including those laid-off from Wall Street since we established our business here,” said a representative from a Chinese bank which opened their New York branch only a few months ago, speaking anonymously and declining to reveal his company’s name.

“They have qualifications, experience and local knowledge,” he said.

Many financial observers agreed. “Wall Street has innovative energy. New banks can benefit from its talents and experience,” said Thomas Ho, a risk management and financial modeling analyst.

“I will definitely consider working for one of these Chinese banks in New York if I get an opportunity,” said Chris Sun, a laid-off UBS researcher.

“Once these banks consider starting more derivative products in their business, I will have a better chance getting in given I speak Chinese and have work experience in a US bank,” said Sun.

New York State Governor David Paterson said in September that as many as 40,000 jobs on Wall Street could be lost as a result of the New York financial industry’s crash.

“This talent will diffuse outside Wall Street to the rest of the world, accelerating financial globalization,” said Ho, something he said he expects will become a trend.

A recruitment event in early December 2008 saw representatives from more than 25 financial institutions in Shanghai visit New York, Chicago and London to hire experienced finance professionals .

The recruiters said they preferred “bilingual candidates” with knowledge of international markets and research experience.

China Construction Bank is currently waiting for its business license in New York and declined to comment on whether they were hiring Wall Street layoffs. The bank has 7 trillion yuan in assets as of June 30, 2008, according to its financial reports.

Bank of China set up its New York branch in 1983. Today it has branches in New York and Los Angeles and 85 percent of its US employees were hired locally, said Li Xiaojing, general manager of Bank of China’s New York branch.

The other two Chinese commercial banks that operate in the US are the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (started Aug 2008) and China Merchants Bank (started Oct 2008).

Fewer tourists may gawk at New York City sights such as the Wall Street Bull, the city’s symbolic statue of financial optimism and prosperity, this winter as fallout from the financial crisis tightens wallets around the world.

But city’s tourism officials could have a warm spot in an otherwise gloomy winter in the increasing number of visitors from China.

NYC & Company, the official tourism marketing organization for New York City, is counting on the strong purchasing power of Chinese tourists flocking into the city’s major shopping districts amid the holiday season.

“Tourism is an important industry that can keep New York City strong and profitable in uncertain financial times,” said George Fertitta, CEO of the NYC & Company.

International travelers represent 19 percent of the all visitors to New York City but account for more than 50 percent of total visitor spending. And Chinese tourists spend more money per trip than other international visitors, said Fertitta.

The average Chinese visitor spends approximately $205 a day and $2,148 per visit to New York City. The combined spending power of the Chinese market in 2007 was $329 million, according to NYC & Company’s statistics.

“Our strategy is not about selling the city based on the weak dollar or an unstable economy,” said Fertitta. “We simply use these facts to point out the further benefit for overseas visitors in terms of the value of shopping.”

The city is actively promoting retail spending in shopping districts beyond downtown Manhattan in an effort to get visitors to spend their holiday dollars in places that need an extra push.

The Harlem for the Holidays program, for example, gives visitors free transportation from midtown Manhattan to Harlem, a major African-American cultural and business center.

Travel agencies in China are also promoting tours to the US, hoping the upcoming Spring Festival golden week holiday boosts the outbound travel market.

China International Travel Service (CITS), a leading travel agency, offers a nine-day, 17,800-yuan-a-person group tour to the west coast of the US during the Chinese New Year holiday.

“We sold 70 percent of our tours by mid December, which is quite satisfying,” said Lin Kang, deputy general manager of the CITS outbound department.

The company is selling more US trips, although the overall number of international trips is slightly down from 2007, mostly likely due to the global financial meltdown, said Lin.

“The crisis’ immediate impact is not as big as expected,” he said. “Demand still outweighs supply in the Chinese outbound tourist market.”

China is quickly becoming a tourist source country as the growing middle class in its metropolitan areas begins to spend its newfound wealth. The US Department of Commerce has projected the number of Chinese visitors to the US will reach 579,000 by 2011.

Chinese leisure travelers will soon outnumber Chinese business travelers in the US, a trend kick-started by a Beijing-Washington agreement in 2007 making it easier for Chinese tour groups to get visas.

Local American tourism organizations are taking advantage of the new wave of incoming Chinese tourists.

NYC & Company launched a campaign to heighten the city’s overseas presence and promote travel and tourism.

The New York City opened its first tourism marketing office in Shanghai in 2007 to facilitate closer cooperation with local travel agencies. It also stepped up Mandarin services at many New York attractions, museums, department stores and bus companies.

“The financial crisis will not influence our targets in the Chinese market,” said Fertitta.

Chinese equities concluded Thursday’s trading more than 2 percent lower, with the banking sector leading the downward trend.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index lost 45.83 points, or 2.38 percent, to 1,878.18. The Shenzhen Component Index fell 108.84 points, or 1.62 percent, to 6,616.98.

Combined turnover was 87.63 billion yuan (12.81 billion U.S. dollars) from 97.619 billion yuan for the previous trading day.

Climate change appears to be helping Argentina’s mighty Perito Moreno glacier, which is thriving in defiance of the global warming that is shrinking its peers.

While most of the world’s glaciers are melting away because of warmer temperatures, scientists say the Perito Moreno ice field, known as “The White Giant”, is gaining as much as 3 meters (10 feet) a day in some parts, pushed forward by heavy snowfalls in the Patagonia region.

“Glaciers don’t respond solely to temperature changes,” said Martin Stuefer, a Patagonian expert from the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

He said the area’s heavy precipitation has apparently increased along with the world’s recent climatic shifts, combining with strong, cold Patagonian winds to reinforce the glacier.

“Climate change is not the same everywhere,” Stuefer said by telephone from Alaska.

The creaking Perito Moreno is one of the largest glaciers in South America and by far the most famous because it is so accessible to tourists despite its location about 3,000 km (1,900 miles) southwest of Buenos Aires.

Visitors crowd onto boats and viewing platforms to see the 30 km-long (18 mile-long) glacier noisily hurl huge blocks of blue-tinged ice into Lake Argentino.

Scientists say nearly 90 percent of the glaciers in Antarctica and Patagonia — at the southern tip of South America — are melting quickly. The same is happening in the Arctic, the Andes, the Alps, the Himalayas and elsewhere in response to climate change linked to human activity.

The average melting rate of the world’s mountain glaciers has doubled since the year 2000, the U.N. Environment Programme and the World Glacier Monitoring Service said in a recent report.

Melting glaciers threaten to cause rising sea levels and dry up steady sources of fresh water that people now depend on for farming, drinking and even hydropower.

But glaciers are also affected by other factors such as snowfalls, winds, altitude and shade, and the Perito Moreno is among the few resisting the broad trend.

“A small percentage seems to be doing strange things,” David Vaughan, a British Antarctic Survey glaciologist and member of the United Nations climate panel, said by telephone from a field mission in Antarctica. “The odd 13 percent are either stable or advancing a little.”

There are limits to the Perito Moreno’s aggressive advance, however. It periodically reaches as far forward as it can toward the Magallanes Peninsula and then sheds a large section of its front in a spectacular phenomena known as “la ruptura,” or the rupture.

More than 190 governments have agreed to work out by the end of 2009 a new U.N. treaty to rein in fossil fuel emissions and slow global warming, fearing that rising seas could swamp low-lying islands or flood coastal cities from Amsterdam to Sydney.