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Despite short-term separations and local divisions in Chinese history, unification has always been the mainstream and trend, said a white paper published here Sunday.

The vast territory of China, the time-honored and splendid Chinese culture and the unified multi-ethnic country are all parts of the legacy built by all ethnic groups in China, said the document issued by the Information office of the State Council.

The long-standing existence of a unified multi-ethnic state in Chinese history greatly enhanced the economic, political and cultural exchanges among different ethnic groups, said the paper, entitled China’s Ethnic Policy and Common Prosperity and Development of All Ethnic Groups.

This reinforced the allegiance of ethnic groups to the central government and their identification with Chinese culture, it said.

It also strengthened the cohesion force, vitality and creativity of the Chinese nation, giving rise to the unification and diversity of Chinese civilization, it said.

All ethnic groups were bound closer together by a common destiny of sharing weal and woe, and felt a stronger sense of responsibility as creators of Chinese history.

The common cultural and psychological characteristics of all ethnic groups in China became increasingly “more mature and outstanding,” the paper said.

“Today, the Chinese nation has become a name with which all ethnic groups in China identify themselves and to which they give their allegiance,” said the paper.

A second dust storm in a week originating from South Australia has progressed to northern New South Wales on Saturday.

Visibility in Sydney was reduced to 5,000 meters on Saturday, compared to 500 meters on Wednesday, when thick red dust blanketed the city, Sydney Morning Herald reported.

An area of dust particles swept up in the storm measured up to 200km wide, Jane Golding, forecaster with Bureau of Meteorology in Sydney, was quoted as saying.

The storm front reached Armidale at about 3 p.m. on Saturday, and cleared the town half an hour later. It would continue to reach Brisbane and Lord Howe Island.

As it continued its journey north, the storm front was slowing down, Golding said, adding that “The further away from the source it gets, it loses a bit of dust.”

Some of the dust has been swept out to sea.

The storm front passed through central western NSW late on Friday, and reached Sydney in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Struggling with a contentious issue, world leaders have reached basic agreement on limiting the bonuses of bankers whose risky behavior contributed to the global financial meltdown, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Thursday at a summit of the world’s largest economies. In the streets outside, protesters tussled with police on the opening day.

At a news conference, Geithner also expressed optimism that summit partners would endorse the broad outlines of a U.S. proposal to deal with huge imbalances in the global economy such as large trade surpluses in China and record budget deficits in the United States. He also said the U.S. supports China’s efforts to gain greater voting rights in the International Monetary Fund over the reservations of European nations, who would lose influence.

Given the rise of China’s economic powers, “it’s the right thing,” and Europe recognizes that, Geithner said.

World leaders descended on the comeback city of Pittsburgh to debate how to nurture a recovering but still-wobbly global economy. Nerves are still on edge, but this summit of the world’s 20 leading economies seems free of the crisis atmosphere that hung over the past two — despite the clashes between protesters and police.

The treasury secretary said the G-20 countries had reached a consensus on the “basic outline” of a proposal to limit bankers’ compensation by the end of this year. He said it would involve setting separate standards in each of the countries and would be overseen the Financial Stability Board, an international group of central bankers and regulators.

Until now, European countries had pressed harder than the U.S. for limits.

“We want to have very strong standards to limit the risks that compensation practices” encourage, Geithner said.

The issue of compensation has been one of the more difficult ones facing the summit.

Europeans in particular pressed for strict limits on salaries and bonuses for executives of financial institutions to keep them from being rewarded for the risky practices that contributed to the financial crisis.

“Europeans are horrified by banks, some reliant on taxpayers’ money, once again paying exorbitant bonuses,” said European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso. Insisting “this is not a witch-hunt against bankers,” Barroso said the EU was urging G-20 partners to stop the pay practice, “building on measures already taken in Europe and elsewhere.”

The U.S. favors some restrictions but did not want numerical limits and wanted them linked to the health of the companies involved.

Geithner said that on Friday, the concluding day of the summit, “you will see a really far-reaching, pretty detailed set of standards.”

He said that summit partners “made it clear that we are going to move in each country to put in place the mix of regulations, laws, advisory measures that are necessary to give those standards force.”

The treasury secretary also reported progress in getting G-20 nations to go along with President Barack Obama’s proposal to move toward eliminating government subsidies on fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas that contribute to global warming.

Obama, who arrived from U.N. meetings in New York at mid-afternoon Thursday, chose Pittsburgh as the summit site because the formerly struggling Rust Belt city has transformed itself economically into a rebounding, environmentally conscious community with a diversified economy.

It is the third time within a year that the G-20 leaders have met to deal with the global financial meltdown.

Protests notwithstanding, the atmosphere is a lot more relaxed than at the fear-driven sessions in Washington last November and in London in April. Still, the global recovery remains fragile, with many big financial institutions under strain.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, speaking with reporters in New York before heading to Pittsburgh, said he hoped the group would agree to a new compact on jobs and growth. He warned, as President Barack Obama has, that nations should not move to quickly to end low-interest rates and stimulus spending packages.

“The recession is not automatically over,” Brown said.

The Communist Party of China (CPC) on Tuesday for the first time held a briefing for foreign diplomatic envoys and correspondents in Beijing on the outcomes of the just-concluded Plenary Session of the CPC Central Committee.

The International Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee invited two experts to explain how the new initiatives came out of the 4th Plenary Session of the 17th CPC Central Committee on anti-corruption and expansion of intra-Party democracy.

The two experts were Liu Mingbo, director-general of the Research Bureau of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, and Wang Changjiang, director-general of the Education and Research Department of Party Building Division of the CPC Central Party School.

The diplomatic envoys and journalists raised a wide range of questions at the briefing, focusing on a property declaration system of Party cadres, Party building in ethnic minority areas, election within the Party and wealth disparity in Chinese society.

They welcomed the immediate arrangement of the news briefing after the Fourth Plenary Session of the 17th CPC Central Committee, saying such activities would help the international community get a timely, accurate and comprehensive insight into the important information of the CPC.

They also hoped such activities would be held frequently in the future when major CPC meetings were convened or when major policies were introduced.

Since China started the reform and opening-up drive more than three decades ago, the CPC had been committed to studying the country’s politics, society and economy and tackled problems in a scientific way, Sudanese Ambassador to China Mirghani Mohamed Salih said.

Salih said his country was eager to learn China’s experience infighting corruption by legislation, administrative methods and accountability system.

Jordanian Ambassador to China Anmar A. Al Nimer Al-Hmoud said he had some knowledge of the relationship between the CPC and the government since he had been working in China for five years,

He characterized today’s discussions as very open and democratic and thanked the CPC for briefing them on its Party building efforts.

“It really spells out the Party’s democratic and open spirit,” Al-Hmoud said.

More than 150 representatives of foreign embassies in China from over 100 countries and about 50 correspondents from nearly 30foreign media in China attended the briefing.

The chief of opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Nawaz Sharif Monday reiterated to struggle for the trial of former president Pervez Musharraf and vowed to reach the “dictator” to their logical end, local TV channel reported.

“The violators of constitution must be punished. Those nations can’t ever be successful who ignore to punish their offenders,” the former Prime Minister said while addressing Central Executive Committee (CEC) meeting of his party, according to the private TV ARY News.

The CEC met Monday and discussed party affairs and its reorganization. Sharif has been appointed chairman of the central organizing committee until new party elections.

He has been authorized to appoint committees at center and all tehsil levels and make all political and management decisions.

Moreover, all organizational bodies of the PML-N have been dissolved and their office-bearers discharged.

In his address, the party chief said that his party did not want to discuss the matters for toppling someone’s government, adding that PML-N would not be part of any plan to destabilize Pakistan, its democracy and the democratic institutions.

On July 31, Pakistani Supreme Court ruled that Musharraf’s decision to impose emergency rule and dismiss dozens of senior judges in 2007 was unconstitutional.

Musharraf’s rival Nawaz Sharif has been demanding of the government to put Musharraf on trial for suspending constitution and high treason.

Iran’s opposition leaders were forced to quit Tehran rally by angry crowds of marchers on Friday, which marks the “Quds (Jerusalem) Day,” Iran’s official IRNA news agency reported.

Reformist opposition leaders — Mir-Hossein Mousavi, Mohammad Khatami and Mehdi Karoubi — were confronted with protest of angry crowds when they were showing up at Tehran streets and squares for “Quds (Jerusalem) Day” rally, IRNA’s report said.

The report said Khatami was forced to leave the area when marchers shouted “Death to the hypocrite” upon seeing him, while Karoubi’s appearance also arose harsh protest by marchers.

Mousavi was also confronted with such protest when he appeared at a crossroad at about 12:00 (0730 GMT), the report said, adding that some marchers hit windows of his car and forced him to leave.

Thousands of supporters of opposition leaders, especially Mousavi, protested against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Friday, a witness told Xinhua.

“They were shouting ‘Death to the dictator’ and riot police were stopping them from entering main squares and streets where Quds day rally was held by the government,” the witness said, “but some of them were marching towards Tehran University where Ahmadinejad was delivering a speech.”

Another witness said that riot police armed with batons were beating protesters in central Haft-Tir square and detained tens of them.

According to local English-language Press TV, millions of Iranians took to the streets in different cities to mark the annual Quds Day march in solidarity with Palestinians.

At the end of the rallies, a statement was issued in support of Palestinians, which said that the Iranians “support Palestinian resistance and Israel must avoid any new adventurism” in the region.

Friday’s protest rally by supporters of opposition leaders was the latest since mid July.

After the disputed June 12 presidential election, Iran has been the scene of a series of protests and unrest.

According to Press TV, Iran’s police have arrested 457 people in the post-election violence which has left at least 20 dead and hundreds of others injured.

On June 29, Iran’s Guardian Council confirmed the vote result, announcing the election file as closed.

An operation to raise the water level in the Three Gorges’ reservoir to 175 meters began early Tuesday.

The level rose to 146.3 meters at 11 a.m. Tuesday from the 145.87-meter mark when the operation began, said Yuan Jie, chief of the control center of the China Three Gorges Project Corporation.

“All 26 turbogenerators have been operating normally, and all spillways and other points issuing water in the dam were shut down to lift the water level,” said Yuan.

The only son of beloved late Philippine president Corazon Aqunio would have won the presidential election by big margin in the vote-rich Luzon region if it was held in early September, results of a latest opinion poll show.

Senator Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino was already preferred by 50 percent of 1,200 respondents polled by the Social Weather Station, an independent survey firm, before he actually announced his candidacy for the president, local media reported Monday.

The survey was conducted on Sept. 5 to 6 after Aquino’s colleague in the Liberal Party — Senator Manuel “Mar” Roxas II, son of late President Manuel Roxas, withdrew his presidential bid in favor of Aquino.

Other competent presidential aspirants, Senator Manuel Villar, deposed former President Joseph Estrada, Senator Francis Escudero and Vice President Noli de Castro, came way below Aquino by more than 30 percent in preference statistics, said the survey, which has a margin of error of 3 percent.

The survey was conducted in National Capital Region, central and southern Luzon region. Though it was not a nationwide survey, political analysts considered the public opinion in this vote-rich Luzon corridor a “good indicator of a candidate’s chances,” the local TV news network ABS-CBN said.

Aquino’s chances only surged in August when millions of Filipinos took to streets to mourn the passing of her mother, former President Corazon “Cory” Aquino. She is considered a national icon of democracy as the housewife-turned-politician led the mass revolt in 1986 to unseat the country’s strongman ruler then-President Ferdinand Marcos.

Despite Cory Aquino’s six-year term being peppered with failed coup attempts, she is remembered for leading a relatively corruption-free government.

Political analysts said people have the same hope for Senator Aquino at a time when corruption is believed to have deeply plagued the current administration. But it is unclear if the nostalgia and the outpour of support at the wake of Cory’s death could last until May when the election is slated to be held.

Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping met visiting Laotian President Choummaly Saygnasone on Thursday, pledging to strengthen ties with the country and step up cooperation in various areas.

“The Communist Party of China would like to work closely with the Laotian People’s Revolutionary Party to enrich channels for bilateral cooperation, to make a greater contribution to the two countries’ socialist building,” Xi said.

Chinese President Hu Jintao and Choummaly agreed on Wednesday to lift bilateral ties to the level of a comprehensive strategic partnership and pledged to boost relations between the two countries and their ruling parties.

Xi said the decision of the two state leaders to upgrade bilateral ties had reflected the common wishes of the two peoples and unveiled new prospects for closer cooperation in all fields.

Choummaly, also secretary general of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party Central Committee, spoke highly of his fruitful talks with Hu, adding the upgrading of bilateral ties is of important strategic significance to boosting friendship between the two countries and peoples.

“The CPC and the government have taken efficient measures to counter the global economic downturn, and maintained steady and relatively fast economic growth,” he said, which revealed the advantage of the socialist system and contributed to regional economic development.

China’s new yuan-denominated lending in August rose to 410.4 billion yuan (60.02 billion U.S. dollars) from July’s 355.9 billion yuan, the People’s Bank of China, the central bank, said Friday.

The August figure brought new yuan-denominated loans in the first eight months to 8.15 trillion yuan, 5.04 trillion yuan more than the same period of last year.

The broad measure of money supply, M2, which covers cash in circulation and all deposits, rose 28.53 percent from a year earlier to 57.67 trillion yuan at the end of August.

The narrow measure of money supply, M1 (cash in circulation plus current corporate deposits), was up 27.72 percent to 20.04 trillion yuan.