CHINA'S ENVIRONMENT MINISTER HOLDS PRESSER

China's Minister of the State Environmental Protection Agency Zhou Shengxian answers journalists' questions concerning the pollution accident in the Songhua Rivrer last year, at a press conference in Beijing on January 24, 2006. Following the explosion in a petro-chemical plant of the CNPC Jilin Petrochemical Corporation on November 13, 2005, a major pollution accident in the Songhua River occurred. Nitrobenzene flowed for 42 days in Jilin Province and Heilongjiang Province in China, before entering Russian waters on December 25. (UPI Photo/Stephen Shaver)