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The year in review
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WHETHER it was the first year of the 21st century, as many people wrongly assumed, or the last year of the 20th century, as scientists have argued, the year 2000 has proved to be a year of milestones.
The execution of Cheng Kejie, the highest ranking Chinese official put to death since 1949, and the indictment of the Xiamen Yuanhua smuggling ring, the biggest smuggling case in New China, both of which shed a very bright light on the ugly side of society, marked the start of a new era in which the Chinese Government means what it says to degraded officials and crooked businessmen.
The Florida hurricane in the US presidential election offered the world some food for thought on American democracy, while the Estrada impeachment trial suggests that Asia is no exception from the belief that no one is above the law.
Here we present a glance at some of the events in the year that we regard worth remembering.
●Big haul of medals: China wrapped up its amazing Olympic run on October 1 in Sydney in its best showing ever, with 59 medals, including 28 golds, 16 silvers and 15 bronzes, finishing third behind the United States and Russia.
●Capital penalty: China declared a full-scale war on corruption as Cheng Kejie, former vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, and Hu Changqing, former vice-governor of Jiangxi Province, were sentenced to death.
Cheng, executed on September 14, was found guilty of accepting huge bribes, in collaboration with his mistress Li Ping.
●Taiwan election: The election of Taiwan's new leader ended on March 18. The Taiwan Affairs Offices of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council released a statement reiterating the “One China" principle.
●Fatal inferno: A devastating fire in an illegal disco in Luoyang City, Henan Province, killed 309 people, most of them young Christmas revellers, on the evening of December 25.
The blaze was China's deadliest in the past five years.
Henan Province already came under criticism for public safety problems in March when a fire killed 74 people in a cinema in Jiaozuo City that was illegally showing adult movies.
●History rewritten: A project on a chronological list of China's ancient Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties, a key national scientific and technological research programme for the Ninth Five-Year Plan period (1996-2000), was appraised and ratified. The chronological list extends China's chronological annals by more than 1,200 years from 841 BC.
●20 years of glory: Shenzhen officially marked the 20th anniversary of the creation of the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) on November 13. President Jiang Zemin, who attended the ceremony, called for China's first SEZ to continue leading the country's economic development. He unveiled a bronze statue of Deng Xiaoping, father of the country's SEZs, on the hilltop of the Lotus Hill Park.
●City in bloom: Shenzhen finished first in the Nations in Bloom 2000 Finals in the category with a population of more than one million on December 4, the first time a Chinese city has won the award.
●A far cry from a cultural desert: Shenzhen's piano prodigy Li Yundi won the gold prize at the 14th Frederic Chopin International Piano Competition on November 1.
He is the first Chinese to win the gold medal.
●Kims smile: The groundbreaking summit between the leaders of North and South Koreas from June 13-15 in Pyongyang replaced the five-decade Cold War hostility with detente.
In their joint declaration, Kim Jong-il, president of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, and Kim Dae-jung, president of the Republic of Korea, promised further efforts that would eventually lead to the reunification of the peninsula.
●Old foes fight on: The bloody Israeli-Palestinian conflicts, triggered by Israeli hardliner Ariel Sharon's visit to Jerusalem shrine on September 28, have claimed hundreds of lives, most of them Palestinians, and plunged the Middle East peace process into a renewed crisis.
●Chad hurricane: The five-week US presidential election disputes ended up with the intervention by the Supreme Court that on December 12 ruled in favour of George W Bush who became the first US president since 1888 to be elected despite losing the popular vote.
●Hard to swallow: Rising oil prices bit into the world economy. In September, oil prices topped US$30 a barrel, the highest price in a decade.
●Decoding life: Scientists announced on June 26 that they had completed a working draft of the “Book of Life", the entire human genetic code.
The historic achievement was a result of a 10-year international effort participated by thousands of scientists from the US, Britain, Germany, Japan, France and China.
China now ranks fourth in the world in terms of gene sequencing capacity, thanks to its active participation in the Human Genome Project (HGP) and successful completion of the one hundredth of the project.
(caption)Doctor John Sulston speaks in front of a genetic model at the Human Genome Project press conference in London.
●Back on track: US President Bill Clinton on October 10 signed a bill on permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) with China, ending the US practice of reviewing China's “most-favoured-nation" (MFN) status on an annual basis.
●Deep-sea tomb: All 118 sailors aboard the Russian nuclear-powered submarine Kursk died after an explosion on August 12 that sent the vessel to the bottom of the 108-metre deep Barents Sea.
●Estrada trial: Philippine President Joseph Estrada became the first president in Asia to stand an impeachment trial when the Senate opened the hearings on December 7 on corruption and bribery charges which could lead to his removal from office.
●New guy in the Kremlin: Vladimir Putin was elected Russia's president on March 26, securing 52.52 per cent of the ballot. Putin vowed to build a strong nation and a multipolar world.
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