ASIA - Est

IF you look up the word "beauty" in the dictionary, it would be no surprise if there were a picture of Estefania Ruiz Ramirez, a flamenco dancer at the Spain Pavilion. She has an angelic face, perfect body and, best of all, dances with passion and purpose. The authentic flamenco performance has become one of the pavilion's highlights, attracting thousands of visitors every day. The pavilion comes highly recommended by people writing about their Expo experiences online. Ramirez presents four to five flamenco performances on a marble stage every day. The performance, choreographed by well-known Spanish flamenco master Aida Gomez, includes a five-minute video about Spain and a 90-second flamenco dance. For most of the performance, Ramirez "sleeps" on the marble stage until lights "wake" her up. The moment signifies when humans witnessed the beginning of the world. Ramirez said it was funny that many visitors don't understand why she is sleeping on the stage, thinking she was too tired to give them a show. "Sometimes young children come up to grab my hair, trying to wake me up, while others will also touch my body to see if I'm still alive," said Ramirez. She said pavilion officials had to guard dancers from curious visitors who were eager to "wake them up." While dancing, Ramirez presents all the inner feelings with every movement of her body and expression on her face. Every time she repeats the dance, she tries hard to put in some new elements that are inspired by her mood at that time. "Dancing allows me to show all the true feelings inside. I am quite shy in daily life, but when I am on that stage, you see my passion, the changing of moods and sometimes, my bad temper too," Ramirez said. Her performances attract a lot of "pursuers." Ramirez, who is single, said some visitors will wait until the end of the performance to exchange telephone numbers. She said many staffers from pavilion restaurants and bars invited her to give live shows at their homes. The 24-year-old performer fell in love with dancing at the age of eight, when she participated in a local traditional ceremony. Since then, she has spent most of her life learning and practicing dancing. "If I cannot dance one day, I won't feel like being alive," Ramirez said.

FENG Weimin, 44, from east China's Anhui Province, spent 30 yuan yesterday morning to hire a tour bus at the Expo site to get him, his wife and daughter to the Saudi Arabia Pavilion ahead of other visitors. It felt a bit expensive to him. But the investment proved worth it an hour later when he won two round-trip flights to Saudi Arabia as the 2 millionth visitor to the Saudi pavilion. Feng was rather stunned when the pavilion director presented him the certificate and the tickets. A dozen Saudi dancers surrounded him, each taking a wooden stick to cross over the winner's head in a traditional Saudi wedding ritual called "mizmar." Feng said he felt like he was in a dream. "It was totally unexpected, because it was the first prize I won in my life," he said. He said he will buy another flight ticket so that the family of three could go to the country together. Or he might come to the pavilion again in October to try to be the 3-millionth visitor to the pavilion and win more tickets, he said. Abdulhamid Hasan, the director, said he was happy, too, because the pavilion had passed another milestone. Earlier, it had presented two tickets to another Shanghai couple as the first millionth visitor to the pavilion. He said he felt time was flying, with half of the Expo already gone. "I will cherish more the rest of the time of the Expo and keep trying to cut waiting time for visitors," he said. Also yesterday, the Lithuania Pavilion welcomed in its 3 millionth visitor, Zhang Huiguo from Zhejiang Province. Aivaras Kriauciunas, Lithuanian commissioner general to the World Expo, said 3 million is a special figure for the country, because Lithuanian population is about 3 million. "This is an exciting moment," he said. The 3-millionth visitor Zhang got a basketball and other gifts from the pavilion. Lithuania will host the FIBA European Basketball Championship next year and basketball can be a bridge of friendship between people of different countries, Kriauciunas said. The design of the Lithuania Pavilion in Zone C comes from flowers in bloom, symbolizing a vigorous, prosperous and booming country and its cities. The exhibition centers on the success stories of urban development, architectural and cultural heritage, natural protection, sports and scientific development, among others.

THE Democratic People's Republic of Korea Pavilion has surprisingly become a hot venue, especially among foreign visitors. The pavilion attracts 30,000 to 40,000 people a day despite its bland appearance and being situated in the very east corner of the Pudong side of the Expo. The number of visitors nearly doubles those going to the star-attraction Saudi Arabia Pavilion not far away. This Shanghai Daily reporter found the pavilion attracts people from around the world for different reasons. Some Americans said they were interested in the pavilion and wanted to know more about the country because they have little chance to visit North Korea. American visitor Brian Killingsworth, 27, spent 27 yuan (US$4) for a North Korea national flag and another 30 yuan for a pin to show his friends and family in the United States. The flag and the pin were the only things he bought at the Expo. People from European countries said they thought North Korea was exotic. Elisa Frenz from Germany said the country was far away from her hometown and was very mysterious and different from European nations. The pavilion seemed to have little appeal to Asians, apart from Chinese people. Yuichi Kitawo of Japan said he would rather visit the pavilions of European countries because there was not enough time to see everything. Some Chinese said they were curious to see the pavilion since North Korea shares a border with China. "North Korea is also a Communist country, so I want to visit its pavilion," said a tourist surnamed Xu from Fujian Province. "North Korea has also been a hot topic recently," Xu added. The pavilion's main exhibits include a model of the Tower of Juche Idea, a monument in Pyongyang, and a Korean-style rock garden and small stone caves. Four screens broadcast videos about the theaters, highways, universities and supermarkets in the country. Interesting clips included some North Korean women driving private cars and how a family celebrated the New Year's Festival with neighbors. Some counters near the exit sell stamps, books, postcards, DVDs and other souvenirs, which were also popular among visitors. A memoir of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, the son of Kim Il Sung, is available in both English and Chinese. A set of six books in Chinese sold for 60 yuan each. The pavilion did not accept media interviews. Some Chinese staffers at the pavilion said they were also not allowed to exchange the pin of the pavilion with others. However, staffers behind the bar, mostly North Korean women, were friendly and patient. All of them can speak fluent Chinese.

THREE performances of traditional dances and folk arts will be held at the City Square at the Urban Best Practices Area today at 10am, 4:30pm and 7:30pm to celebrate Ningbo City, Zhejiang Province. Ningbo's pavilion, which expects to receive 1 million tourists during the six-month event, displays the balance between tourism development and environmental protection at the UBPA.

THERE'S never a dull moment with the Kalles World Tour - in reality, Kalle Mathiesen, a high-energy drummer and one-man band who will perform in the Denmark Pavilion on Wednesday at 7:45pm. Mathieson sings and plunks on a six-string bass to create a tune over which he performs impressive solos. He has been described as "a modern European version of Buddy Rich and Frank Zappa,"

MAKING sure every visitor has a "good experience" has been the Expo bureau's real aim - not reaching a record-setting 70 million visitors, which was just an expectation, the top Expo organizer said yesterday as the Expo reached the halfway mark in its 184-day run. Nearly 35 million visitors from both home and abroad, half the total projected attendance, have visited the Expo. Hong Hao, director general of the Bureau of Shanghai World Expo Coordination, denied rounding up any school students or employees of state-owned companies to reach the 70-million number, in order to break the record of the Expo Osaka in Japan in 1970 that attracted 64 million visitors. Some online rumors claimed some domestic schools ordered students to visit the Expo while some state-owned companies threatened to deduct wages unless its employees visited the Expo site. All visitors, including students, came to the Expo site voluntarily, Hong told a press conference. Hong said the Expo bureau intends to improve services for visitors every day until midnight of October 31 when the closing ceremony concludes, he said. Hong said he felt satisfied with the first half of the Expo period: its smooth operation, growth in visitor numbers and increasingly good feedback from visitors. New ticketing To crack down on a snowballing number of fake tickets to the China Pavilion, the bureau plans early last month to change the ticket to be like a credit card and incorporate anti-counterfeiting chips, Hong said. A total of 30,000 of these tickets, same as the current amount, will be issued at every entrance to the Expo site every day. The current paper tickets are collected by staffers as visitors enter the pavilion. The color of the tickets changes every day to thwart forgers, but Hong said the counterfeiters have been able to make a perfect copy within five hours after they knew the color of the day. He urged visitors not to buy the new tickets from scalpers. While they might look genuine, they won't be recognized by machines being set up in front of the pavilion. More than 30 other pavilions - including the pavilions of Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, as well as the Spain and SAIC-GM pavilions - have issued reservation tickets to visitors. Hong said any pavilion may decide whether and how to issue reservation tickets and the bureau will assist them. The Saudi Arabia Pavilion plans to follow the China Pavilion's example and hand out reservation tickets at Expo entrances to cut down waiting time to 90 minutes from the current five hours and more. The bureau will also require the pavilions to leave some tickets at night for people who buy night tickets to enter the Expo, Hong added. The bureau has inspected the pavilions and facilities to ensure safety during the coming typhoon season, Hong said. The five main Expo structures - the Expo Boulevard, China Pavilion, Expo Culture Center, Expo Center and Theme Pavilions - can resist winds of more than 120 kilometers per hour, Hong said. In 2006, Typhoon Matsa, the largest typhoon to hit the city in 10 years, packed winds up to 100 kilometers per hour. About 90,000 Expo tickets in the gift packs for July distributed by the Shanghai government went unused and will expire today. Hong said the number was better than in June when 120,000 such tickets went unused.

ABOUT 4,260 of the 7,000 chemical barrels that were swept into a major river in Jilin Province Wednesday had been recovered by noon today, local authorities said. But the unrecovered barrels are now flowing faster...

　

(ChinaPost.com.tw) - China has overtaken Japan to become the world's second-largest economy, the fruit of three decades of rapid growth that has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.

　

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[청주(충북)=뉴스엔 이은지 기자]황정음 윤시윤 김수로 티아라 지연 주연 영화 ‘고사 두번째 이야기: 교생실습’(이하 고사2)이 개봉 첫주 30만 관객 동원 흥행돌풍을 예고한 가운데 출연배우들이 무대인사에 나서 팬들의 박수갈채를 받았다. 7월 31일 충북 청주의 무대인사에는 유선동 감독, 티아라의 지연(박

[청주(충북)=뉴스엔 이은지 기자]황정음 윤시윤 김수로 티아라 지연 주연 영화 ‘고사 두번째 이야기: 교생실습’(이하 고사2)이 개봉 첫주 30만 관객 동원 흥행돌풍을 예고한 가운데 출연배우들이 무대인사에 나서 팬들의 박수갈채를 받았다. 7월 31일 충북 청주의 무대인사에는 유선동 감독, 티아라의 지연(박

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쌍둥이 형제가 버스에 치여 동시 사망했다. 7월 31일 오전 9시 40분께 충남 천안시 서북구 성거읍 한 아파트 앞 도로에서 쌍둥이 형제가 버스에 부딪혀 즉사했다. 쌍둥이 형제는 아파트 앞 횡단보도에서 길을 건너던 도중에 이같은 교통사고 변을 당했다. 버스 운전기사는 경찰조사에서 좌회전 신호를 받아 진

[청주(충북)=뉴스엔 이은지 기자]황정음 윤시윤 김수로 티아라 지연 주연 영화 ‘고사 두번째 이야기: 교생실습’(이하 고사2)이 개봉 첫주 30만 관객 동원 흥행돌풍을 예고한 가운데 출연배우들이 무대인사에 나서 팬들의 박수갈채를 받았다. 7월 31일 충북 청주의 무대인사에는 유선동 감독, 티아라의 지연(박

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[청주(충북)=뉴스엔 이은지 기자]황정음 윤시윤 김수로 티아라 지연 주연 영화 ‘고사 두번째 이야기: 교생실습’(이하 고사2)이 개봉 첫주 30만 관객 동원 흥행돌풍을 예고한 가운데 출연배우들이 무대인사에 나서 팬들의 박수갈채를 받았다. 7월 31일 충북 청주의 무대인사에는 유선동 감독, 티아라의 지연(박