China Marks 110th Birthday of Chairman Mao ...SMS Interoperable Between Telecom and Netcom ...Beijing Auto Shows to Merge ...U.S. Web Site Picks Year's Word ...  
 
Various activities are held across China Friday to mark the 110th anniversary of the birth of Chairman Mao Zedong.

In Beijing, a seminar was held at the Great Hall of the People, next to the mausoleum of Chairman Mao.

Chinese President Hu Jintao attended the seminar after paying a visit to the mausoleum.

Chairman Mao was born on December 26th, 1893 and died in 1976.

He's the founder of the Chinese Communist Party, the Liberation Army, and the People's Republic.

Also at the Great Hall of the People, a concert is scheduled for Friday evening in honour of the late Chinese leader.
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Little Smart, a wireless phone sold in China, has successfully expanded its market by allowing subscribers to send short messages between two previously separated networks: China Telecom and China Netcom.

Commonly known as "Xiaolington", Little Smart has been built into the existing fixed-line network. When compared with cell phones, it is less expensive in terms of per minute rates and monthly fees, and also charges calls one-way.

China Telecom says there were more than 15 million Little Smart users by the end of last month while China Netcom's figure stands at 10 million.

A China Telecom official says that they are discussing with giant cell phone providers, China Mobile and China Unicom, to facilitate the transfer of short messages between Little Smart users and mobile phone owners.

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Beijing's two international automobile exhibitions will be merged into one in 2004. The new expo will be called Auto China 2004.

The show will run from June 6th to 16th at the China International Exhibition Centre and Beijing Agricultural Exhibition Hall.

Organizers say over 120,000 square metres of exhibition space will be used at the two exhibition halls during the auto show.

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A U.S. Web site specializing in language has named what it called the top word, phrase and name of the year on, picking them all from the war in Iraq.

"Embedded," as in the reporters assigned to accompany military units during the war, beat out "blog" and "SARS" as the top word of 2003.

Web site yourDictionary.com says "embedded" was the best word to distill the events of an extraordinary year into eight simple letters.

"Shock-and-awe," the phrase the U.S. military used to describe the type of campaign it would wage in Iraq, topped other Iraq-related terms like "rush to war," "weapons of mass destruction" and "spider-hole" as the top phrase of this year.

The name most on people's lips during the year was Saddam Hussein, the former Iraqi leader recently captured in a hole in the ground.

He beat out "Ahh-nold" as in newly-elected California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and "W." as in U.S. President George W. Bush.