China Braced For Surname Reform

SINO DAILY

by Staff Writers
Beijing (RIA Novosti) Jun 15, 2007
The Chinese Public Security Ministry has proposed changing the system of naming newborns in an effort to end confusion caused by a large number of identical surnames, the local media reported Wednesday. Currently, married people in China do not change their surname and newborns can take either of their parents' name, although it is traditional to adopt the father's surname.

But this is causing real problems for China because there are only 1,600 surnames in use in a country with a population of 1.3 billion, and 85% of Chinese only use 100 of these.

Ninety-two million people have Lee as their last name, and 88 million Chang.

The Public Security Ministry has repeatedly expressed concern about the situation, since repeated surnames are a nuisance to the government and citizens.

Under the new proposals, parents will be able to register their babies by combining their names. The project is being considered by local authorities.

Memory Foam Mattress Review

SPACE MEDIA NETWORK PROMOTIONS
Solar Energy Solutions
Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison ...

Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily
XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News

SINO DAILY

Chinese City Panics Over Undrinkable Water Supply

Beijing (AFP) May 31, 2007
Authorities in a major Chinese city issued emergency orders Thursday to stem panic water-buying after heavy pollution in a lake contaminated drinking supplies for millions of people. The Wuxi city government said it was doing everything it could to rid the Taihu lake of a huge algae bloom that was triggered by the pollution, but in the meantime drastic measures were needed to supply residents with water.

AEROSPACE easyJet Plans Greener Aircraft By 2015 Airbus Wants To Cut CO2 Emissions By Half By 2020 Airlines To Order Nearly 30,000 New Planes In Next 20 Years Airlines Pledge Emissions Cuts But Warn EU Curbs Could Jeopardise Sector	CAR TECH Toyota To Make Diesel Engines With Isuzu Honda To Produce Green Diesel Cars Toyota Develops More Fuel-Efficient Engine System GM Wants To Drive Green But Easy On The Rules
MILITARY COMMUNICATIONS KVH Receives Order For Fiber Optic Gyro-based TACNAV II Vehicle Navigation System Northrop Grumman To Begin Developing New Satellite Communications System For B-2 Bomber Boeing Demonstrates Integrated Voice, Data And Video Services With TSAT Tests Boeing Completes Critical Wideband Global SATCOM Satellite Tests	MISSILE DEFENSE Northrop Grumman And Raytheon Team Completes Third Successful KEI Motor-Fire Test US Air Force And Raytheon Demonstrate First Powered Flight Of Miniature Air Launched Decoy Apropos ABM Without Hysterics WEU Takes Stand For BMD
FARM NEWS Annan Leads Drive To Reverse African Farming Decline University Of Colorado Invention May Allow Thirsty Crops To Signal Farmers Livestock Virtually Fenced In A Crop Containment Strategy For GM Farms	DISASTER MANAGEMENT Locals Block Work At Indonesian Mud Volcano Steel Dam Plan To Plug Indonesian Mud Volcano Chinese Space Agency Joins The International Charter Space And Major Disasters LSU And Los Alamos Team Up To Improve Evacuation Plans
TECH SPACE Plastic That Grows On Trees The Space Junk Threat Complexity Part 2 The Growing Problem Of Space Junk Thales To Provide S-Band Transponders Argentina Saocom and Aquarius Missions	ROBO SPACE Japanese Robot Receptionists For Hire Japanese Researchers Help Robots Brush Up Communication Skills Guessing Robots Predict Their Environments For Better Navigation Saving Robots To Save Battlefield Lives

The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright Space.TV Corporation. AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space.TV Corp on any Web page published or hosted by Space.TV Corp. Privacy Statement