OBAMA TO VISIT CHINA

China is gearing up for the arrival of the US President Barack Obama, who’s expected for his first official visit to the country. He is going to be arriving on Sunday for a wide-ranging series of discussions with President Hu Jintao, the most delicate of which is likely to be trade.

H1N1 MASK FRAUD

A facemask which was marketed as an effective shield against contracting H1N1 has been revealed to be bogus. The private science and technology company in Tianjin has been closed down. The public have been warned against similar scams.

CLEAR UP CONTROVERSY

Beijing is clearing up after a week of disruption caused by heavy snow, during which subway lines were closed, and also 200 flights were either cancelled or delayed. But controversy has emerged over the so –called ‘snow melting agents’. These agents are added to snow to help with the clear-up, with the main part of them is chloride. The concern is that they will be weakening building structures, by eroding steel.

CAR SALES REV UP

Car sales in China have breached 10-million for the first time with 10.9 million vehicles sold in the first 10 months of this year, a 40 percent increase on this time last year. And car sales are expected to continue to rise, despite the price hike in fuel this week.

SHOP FOR YOUR COUNTRY

It seems the Chinese are shopping their way out of the global financial crisis, with retail figures in October showing a 16.2 per cent increase on this time last year. And there is expected to be a further boom in the run up to New Year.

"DADDY" VISITS GIFT PANDAS

Now, who doesn’t like a visit from their Dad, even when they’re panda. Well, Zhang Hemin, dubbed the "father of pandas" and the director of China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda, has paid a visit to Taipei Zoo to visit the panda pair that were given to Taiwan as gifts last December. "Tuan Tuan" and "Yuan Yuan" are said to be in good health and growing up well.

MINIATURIZATION TOO FAR?

But is this miniaturization too far?We’ve had the iPod nano and the Chinese small car QQ. Now a man in Guangzhou has made a violin that is 1cm long – rather shorter than the traditional violin which is 35.5cm. The 66-year-old violin maker calls it the ‘a(chǎn)nt violin’.

Rather hard to play a concerto on that…..

YOUR VIEW: OBAMA'S VISIT

Before we go, let's go back to our top story…President Obama’s impending visit. Is he going to talk about tough topics? Chinese and Americans that we spoke to hope ‘yes he will’ and these are someof their suggestions…