BEIJING -- China saw fewer "rat trading" cases in 2017 as financial regulators stepped up supervision to curb market irregularities.Rat trading is when fund managers use their personal accounts to buy shares before the share price is boosted by large purchases from their funds, therefore "front-running" their clients to earn profit.The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) said that it placed 13 rat trading cases on file in 2017, down 60 percent from the previous year.The reduction came after strengthened financial supervision last year, with regulators maintaining a tough stance on inspections and law enforcement.The CSRC dealt with 90 major cases of market violations last year, double that of 2016.Irregularities mainly involved misrepresentation, market rigging and insider trading, the regulator said, adding that it placed 101 new insider trading cases on file, accounting for 32 percent of the total. embossed printed wristbandcustomized rubber braceletsanimal bracelets rubber bandsplain black silicone wristbandsorder rubber bracelets cheap
A Chinese crested tern forages in the wetlands of Jiaozhou Bay in Qingdao, East China's Shandong province. [Photo/Chinanews.com.cn] HANGZHOU -- The Chinese crested tern, the world's most endangered tern species, is in danger of hybridizing with a sister species because of its small population, said Chinese ornithologists. The hybridization of two closely related species may erode their gene pools and accelerate the rate of the rare bird's extinction, said Chen Shuihua, deputy director of the Zhejiang Museum of Natural History in East China's Zhejiang province. He said the museum and two other Chinese institutes have collected non-invasive DNA samples from five Chinese crested terns for genetic conservation studies, as they have observed that hybridization is likely to occur between the rare bird and its more abundant cousin, the great crested tern. The white migrating bird with a black beak was first spotted in 1861, and has remained small in number, listed as critically endangered by the IUCN Red Data Book with fewer than 100 individuals globally. Chen said that at all of the bird's breeding sites in the Chinese mainland and Taiwan, nests of the Chinese crested tern were found within great crested tern colonies. He said although the two species are members of the same Sternini tribe, they diverged about a million years ago. The scientist said hybrids are difficult to identify. Only molecular genetic analysis can provide reliable identification and determine the extent of interbreeding between the species. But if the hybridization continues, the bird will eventually lose its natural appearance, as its white feathers evolve into gray ones like those of the great crested tern. Since 2013, Chen's team has started to use artificial means to attract the wild birds to breed on conservation islands in Ningbo city, Zhejiang, in order to increase the success rate of pure breeding. By the end of 2017, 51 more of the rare birds had been born at the sites. The team's research paper was published in the latest issue of the international ornithological journal IBIS.
