DAP: The breaking news in Cambodia: “2nd LD: Small plane carrying 18 missing in Indonesia's Sumatra” plus 9 more

JAKARTA, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- A small plane operated by PT Nusantara Buana Airline with 18 people on board lost contact on Thursday in Indonesia's Sumatra, spokesman of Transport Ministry Bambang Ervan said.

CASA 212 aircraft had given emergency signals which were received by a small plane Susi Air passing the area, the spokesman told Xinhua over phone.

The missing plane left Medan, the capital of North Sumatra province, at 7:15 a.m. local time (0015 GMT) and was scheduled to arrive at Kutacane town of Aceh province at 8 a.m. local time ( 0200 GMT), said Ervan.

There were two pilots, one technician, and 15 passengers on the plane, he said.

Head of Search and Rescue Office Hadi Tugiman told Xinhua over phone that they were trying to locate the plane now.

The rescuers predicted the plane could have crashed in Bahorok, the border of North Sumatra province and Aceh province or in Kutacane of Aceh province as the rescuers had received other emergency signals which they predicted it came from Bahorok or Kutacane, said Tugiman.

"Emergency signals had been received by rescuers. We think it was from Bahorok or Kutacane," said Tugiman.

Nevertheless, Tugiman could not confirm whether the plane had crashed or carried out an emergency landing at nearby airport.

Poor safety standard is usually blamed for air crash in Indonesia.

HOUSTON, Sept. 28 (Xinhua) -- The amount of the global generating capacity for hydroelectric and other renewable energies will rise 2.7 percent per year through 2035, more than any other electricity generating sources, according to a report released Wednesday.

The installed hydroelectric power capacity is expected to increase more than other renewable sources between 2008 and 2035, said the report issued by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

However, the world is projected to see its installed solar power capacity enjoy the largest growth rate over the period, expanding 8.3 percent per year, followed by 5.7 percent for wind, 3.7 percent for geothermal, 2 percent for hydropower, and 1.4 percent for other renewables such as wood waste, landfill gas, and agricultural byproducts, the report said.

Long-term annual growth rates for the global installed generating capacity will be 2 percent for nuclear, 1.6 percent for natural gas-fired power plants, and 1.3 percent for coal.

The report also estimates that the installed capacity of power plants running on petroleum products will fall by one percent a year, as higher oil costs and climate change concerns encourage a switch to cheaper and cleaner generating fuels.

JAKARTA, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- The Indonesian police suspect that members of the terrorist network who bombed a church in Solo city of central Java province have fled to East Java province, prompting authorities to tighten security in several areas, thejakartapost.com online news reported here.

Jombang Regency Police has distributed photographs of wanted suspects linked to Solo bombing network.

Meanwhile, Magetan Regency Police chief Adj. Sr. Comm. Awi Setiyono said that his institution has received from intelligence that Solo suicide bomb network members have run to the East Java area.

As the result, Magetan Police have conducted raids in several districts near its borders, he added.

Setiyono said that radical groups exist in Magetan and police concern that the suspects could be hiding behind those groups.

Police were thus keeping the groups under observation.

On Sunday, the GBIS Bethel church in Solo was the target of a suspected suicide bombing orchestrated by Pino Damayanto aka " Ahmad Yosepa Hayat".

Pino, who died in the blast, is said to have belonged to a network implicated in another suspected suicide bomb attack that occurred in Cirebon regency in April.

BEIJING, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- Sinohydro Group Ltd., China's largest hydroelectric power plant builder, said Thursday that it has raised 13.5 billion yuan (2.11 billion U.S. dollars) so far this year from its initial public offering (IPO) on the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE).

Sinohydro set its IPO price at 4.5 yuan per share, the lower end of the pricing range of its 3-billion-share offering, according to a statement filed to the SSE.

Sinohydro's IPO set a record in China's domestic A-share markets this year. Its offering price indicates a 15-time price-earning ratio for the company.

CHONGQING, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- Cold rice. A few slices of dried beancurd.

Tan Biyue takes the same lunch box to school every day.

The eight-year-old never complains, knowing it is the best her aging grandparents can prepare for her.

Her real agony comes from missing her parents.

Tan's mother, fed up with the tough life in the poor village in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, walked out when Tan was still a baby.

Unable to support the family on the meager farming income, her father spends most of his time in the country's south, working as a migrant worker.

"I cannot remember what my mom looks like, but I'm sure she's sweet," said Tan, her eyes filled with tears.

LONELY CHILDHOOD

Tan belongs to a lonely group that is known in China as left-behind children -- an estimated 58 million children who are cared for by a single parent, grandparents, and sometimes a distant relative or even a neighbor. Their parents have migrated to cities in search of work.

Of all the 58 students at Tan's Caoping Primary School, 35 are left-behind children.

Across Chongqing, the number of left-behind children is estimated at 2.35 million.

"My parents came home to celebrate the Moon Festival two weeks ago," said Tan's classmate Huang Yinshen. "My friends were so jealous that they didn't talk to me for days."

China Youth and Children Research Center found in a survey that more than 57 percent of the rural left-behind children suffer psychological problems, including cowardice, self-contempt, belligerence and resentment for their parents.

Child psychologist Wei Zhizhong, however, believes the percentage could be even higher.

"Almost 80 percent of the left-behind children have problems getting along with other people," said Wei. "Some are autistic and lack basic communication skills, while others are defiant and hostile."

Last week, three girls, aged from 10 to 12, jumped off a two-story building in the eastern Jiangxi Province, fearing they might be punished at school for failing to finish their assignment.

All the girls survived with injuries, as tree branches broke their fall.

The girl who thought up the suicide plan, 11-year-old Huang Jing, is a left-behind child. Her parents work as migrants in Jiujiang's city center and are rarely home.

"We should take a lesson from this tragedy and care more for these left-behind children," said the school principal Zhou Liangqi.

The local education authority has also called on schools to provide counseling to these students.

SAFETY CONCERN

Due to a lack of caring, left-behind children often become victims in accidents and natural disasters.

Earlier this month, two preschoolers died of suffocation after being left on a school bus for more than eight hours. The girls were both left-behind children and had apparently fallen asleep when everyone else was getting off the bus.

Of the 12 people who were drowned after a ferry sank in central China's Hunan Province in early September, nine were left-behind children, including eight primary school students and a junior high who were taking the ferry home after school.

Left-behind children accounted for at least half of all the 20,000 minors killed in accidents across China in 2008, the most recent time that data are available, according to a report published by All-China Women's Federation.

It said 34 percent of the caregivers for rural left-behind children surveyed in 2008 said they cared about children's safety "only occasionally." Eight percent of them said they were always too busy even to think about the safety issue.

The report quoted police authorities as saying that left-behind children in the countryside were the second biggest target for child traffickers, next only to migrant children in cities.

HELPING HAND

Starting in 2003, Chinese central and local governments made new policies encouraging the society to take over parents' role in caring for the left-behind children.

Across China, more than 7,600 boarding school and 6,500 nursing homes have been set up for left-behind children.

In addition, at least 30,000 family education service providers have opened their arms to left-behind kids, with 3.15 million volunteers working as their "acting parents."

Wang Xiaolong, 12, attends a boarding school in Qijiang County in outer Chongqing and visits his grandparents on Fridays. He spends weekends and holidays at his village's nursing home, accompanied by his peers and volunteers.

"The food is much better: at home we only have potatoes; but here we have meat almost at every meal."

Starting in 2007, a government-financed "egg and milk project" was promoted in rural schools to improve nutrition for the children.

In Chongqing alone, the project has benefited 2.78 million students at more than 5,000 schools.

"I rarely had eggs or milk at home," said Chen Quan, 7, who stays with his grandmother most time of the year. "I can't ask too much. My grandmother is 65 and still toils in the field."

Though most rural families have a chicken coop, eggs are often saved for sale. Milk, on the other hand, is rarely considered a must on the breakfast table.

An industrial park under construction in the suburbs of Chongqing carries many children's hope of being reunited with their parents. "Factories will move into the park and offer jobs to local peasants when it opens," said Wan Tingxiu, head of a nursing home in Qijiang County.

NEW DELHI, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- As many as 25 students, aged from 10 to 16, were injured, four of them critically, when their school bus overturned in northern Indian state Uttar Pradesh's Moradabad district Thursday, police said.

The accident took place in Civil Lines area, some 250 km from state capital Lucknow, when the speeding bus of Modern Public School overturned. The driver escaped.

"With assistance from locals, we rescued all the students trapped inside the bus," police inspector S.K. Pratap said.

Traffic accidents take place frequently in India with at least 110,000 people killed on the road each year, according to official estimates.

BANGKOK, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- The blast, from a bomb planted by roadside, occurred on early Thursday morning in the restive south of Muang district of Yala province, injuring one soldier.

The bomb hidden by side of Yala-Lam Mai Road was detonated at around 7.15 a.m. while an eight-member military unit providing protection for teachers was patrolling.

Sgt Suthep Kongchuay was wounded as shrapnel cut into his left- side body and then admitted to Yala hospital.

The police said the bomb was stuffed inside metal box, weighing about 5 kilograms and might have been detonated by radio transmitter.

The police chief blamed militants of the Runda Kumpulan Kecil movement.

There were 11,074 violent incidents in the southernmost provinces from January 2004 to August 2011. Altogether over 4,800 people, mostly villagers, have been killed in violent incidents instigated by suspected secessionists in the Muslim-dominant southernmost provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat which were once independent sultanate of Pattani before being annexed by predominantly Buddhist state in 1909.

HANOI, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- Floods, with highest waves in the past ten years, have caused at least three deaths in south Vietnam' s An Giang province, the Central Committee for Storm and Flood Control (CCSFC) said Thursday.

High-rise floods, plus the aftermaths of tropical storm Haitang, inundated thousands of local houses and rice fields, along with landslides on local river sides.

In addition, hundreds of kilometers of dykes were also flooded, which threatened rice fields and fish raising ponds.

Soldiers from Military Zone 9 and local policemen, totaling more than 14,000, were sent to reinforce the dykes, protect the local residents and provide rescue when needed.

Meanwhile, the Hydro-meteorological Forecasting Center (HFC) warned localities from northern Quang Ninh to central Nghe An to be ready coping with Typhoon Nesat, which is forecast to arrive on Friday afternoon.

The storm may cause rough seas and heavy rainfall of up to 300 mm, in central coastal and northern provinces, including capital Hanoi.

HFC also said another typhoon, Nalgae, has been forming off the coast of the Philippines and is moving towards Vietnam. It is forecast to become stronger over the next few days, with winds of around 133 kph, and may enter the South China Sea on Sunday.

JAKARTA, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- A small plane operated by PT Nusantara Buana Airline with 18 people on board lost contact when it was passing Kutacane of Aceh province in northern tip of Sumatra island of Indonesia on Thursday, spokesman of Transport Ministry Bambang Ervan said.

CASA 212 aircraft had given emergency signals which were received by a small plane Susi Air passing the area, the spokesman told Xinhua by phone.

The missing plane left Medan the capital of North Sumatra province at 07:15 a.m. local time (0015 GMT) and should have arrived at Kutacane town of Aceh province at 08 :00 a.m. local time (0200 GMT), said Ervan.

HANOI, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam will hold a conference on investment promotion in the north central region on Oct. 17 in Nghe An province, said Do Nhat Hoang, director of the Foreign Investment Agency under Ministry of Planning and Investment here Thursday.

Co-chaired by the Vietnam's Ministry of Planning and Investment and six provinces in the northern central region, the conference is an event of the National Investment Promotion Program 2011.

According to Hoang, the north central region, including Nghe An, Thanh Hoa, Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, Quang Tri and Thua Thien Hue, has the advantage of coastline and borders with Laos and Cambodia.

However, the investment in the region has been uneven so far, especially in attracting foreign direct investment, said Hoang.

The conference will give a good opportunity for relevant ministries, agencies, specialists, investors, businesses to meet, consult and find the investment opportunities in various areas such as economic zones, industrial zones, development of mutual- support industry, commercial services, tourism, training of human resource, processing of agricultural, forestry and fishery products, according to Hoang.

During the conference, Ho Duc Phoc, Nghe An provincial people's committee chairman, said that Nghe An is the biggest of the six north central region provinces with potential of land, human resource, geographical location and mineral resources.

The province is creating a foundation to become a basic industrial province by 2020 and to build Vinh city into the economic and cultural center of the north central region.

As of Sept. 26, the north central region has attracted 243 foreign investment projects with the capital of 19.9 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for 10 percent of the total country's FDI.

The conference is expected to draw the participation of over 500 representatives.