Society

UNILEVER develop China market with Chinese new portal - Sohu.com - on 2010.12.15

Consumer product giant Unilever Plc (UNc.AS) has raised prices on some of its products in China, three weeks after Beijing fined the company for talking about price increases, the local Guangzhou Daily reported on Wednesday.

Many supermarkets and shopping malls in China's southern city of Guangzhou were told by Unilever to raise prices for its Lux and Hazeline brands of shampoo and shower gel by around 10 percent, the newspaper said, citing supermarket workers and its own findings.

Unilever declined to comment on the report.

Vietnam has accused Beijing of "violating" its marine sovereignty and worsening a row over disputed areas of the South China Sea after Chinese ships damaged a PetroVietnam exploration boat, state media said.

The Vietnamese Foreign Ministry called on China to prevent any further incidents within what it described as its exclusive economic zone and provide compensation, Vietnam News Agency reported on Friday.

Hanoi said three Chinese marine surveillance vessels had approached a ship operated by the state oil and gas firm PetroVietnam and cut its exploration cables.

A complaint to the Chinese embassy in Hanoi said the incident "seriously violated Vietnam's sovereignty" and a 1982 United Nations convention on the law of the sea.

Beijing considers plans to improve its car registration system by punishing those who have the license plate but fail to purchase car within 6 months as the city still battles over traffic congestion.

The car license plate lottery system management office is working on an online survey about the expected restrictions for car plate abandoners, from May 26 to June 8, 2011. The most severe punishment is that abandoners are not allowed to apply for the license plate in two years.

Full disclosure by the Forbidden City of its 2008-10 gate income and spending has been demanded by three people associated with Peking University Law School, domestic news media reported Thursday.

Law school graduate Cheng Xiezhong and doctoral graduate students Li Yuanyuan and Chen Yan applied to the Ministry of Finance on Wednesday and sent a fax of the same application to the Palace Museum – the official name of the Forbidden City – on Tuesday, Beijing News reported.

"Recent scandals involving the museum including the stolen curios and the private club at the Jianfu Palace hall have reminded us of problems with the management of the museum," Li told the Global Times Thursday. "So we applied in the hope of knowing more about its management."