介绍:
完整文稿看周六微信第三条，你懂得
This is NEWS Plus Special English. I'm Mark Griffiths in Beijing. Here is the news.
A total of 9.4 million Chinese high school students have sat for the Gaokao, the annual national college entrance exam which fell on June the 7th to 9th this year as always.
The test is often called a battle to determine a student's future, as the results can decide whether a student goes to college, back to school for another year, or starts a career.
Because the stakes are high, cheating is a recurring problem.
During the first day, two hours after the test began, media reports alleged a surrogate exam-taker in Nanchang, the capital of Jiangxi Province in east China, have been detected.
The provincial education department immediately investigated and apprehended the suspect in a high school exam room with the police in attendance, less than half an hour before the first test ended.
The suspect admitted to being a stand in, and further investigations are under way.
The Ministry of Education, meanwhile, says it has asked the public security ministry to oversee the investigation. Cheating in the Gaokao can amount to a punishable crime in serious cases.
Though the scams will never disappear, the Gaokao has become a fairer game since last year with new rules being enforced. It was the biggest change since the exam was reintroduced in 1977.
This is NEWS Plus Special English.
As the rainy season arrives, local authorities in China have been urged to give more attention to protection and safety efforts.
A government statement has called on local governments to carry out thorough safety inspections on reservoirs, building sites, roads, railways and tourist attractions. The joint notice has been issued by the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters and the State Administration of Work Safety.
Priority should be given to formulating emergency plans, rescue and relief work, and the preparation of relief supplies.
China's National Meteorological Center has issued a yellow alert for storms in southern China. China has a four-tier color-coded weather warning system, with red representing the most severe weather, followed by orange, yellow and blue.
This is NEWS Plus Special English.
The National Health and Family Planning Commission has issued a manual on Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, or MERS, for health departments and hospitals.
It contains a detailed introduction to the history of the disease, its symptoms, laboratory testing, preventative measures, treatment and care.
Control measures at hospitals will be heightened and patients complaining of fever will be screened.
The organization has promised to keep the public well informed and give timely warnings.
China reported its first MERS patient a week ago in Guangdong Province, southern China. It is a traveler from South Korea.
MERS is a respiratory illness caused by a coronavirus, similar to Sever Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS. The first human case emerged in Saudi Arabia in 2012. It has a fatality rate of 40 percent.
There is no effective treatment for MERS and medical care just focuses on alleviating the symptoms.
According to the manual, person-to-person transmission of MERS is limited.
You're listening to NEWS Plus Special English. I'm Mark Griffiths in Beijing. You can access the program by logging onto NEWSPlusRadio.cn. You can also find us on our Apple Podcast. If you have any comments or suggestions, please let us know by e-mailing us at mansuyingyu@cri.com.cn. That's mansuyingyu@cri.com.cn. Now the news continues.
Chinese scientists and the European Space Agency have decided that their joint space satellite program will focus on an X-ray imaging satellite to study the Earth's magnetosphere.
The project, known as SMILE, was selected from 13 proposals and is due to launch in 2021. It will study the effects of the Sun on the Earth's environment. The study aims at creating images of the interactions between solar winds and the Earth's magnetosphere with innovative X-ray and ultraviolet technology.
Previously, the European Space Agency contributed to China's Double Star, similar satellite mission launched in 2003 to focus on the impact of the Sun on the Earth's environment.
SMILE will be the first comprehensive collaboration between China and the European Space Agency with joint efforts in definition, implementation and data utilization. The next step will be a project feasibility study.
This is NEWS Plus Special English.
China and the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization have signed a 50-million-US-dollar agreement to support developing countries in building sustainable food systems in the fight against extreme hunger and poverty.
The effort is a new contribution to the FAO-China South-South Cooperation Trust Fund. It will support the exchanges of Chinese agricultural experts with countries in the southern globe, particularly in low-income food-deficient areas, over a period of five years.
Chinese officials said that since 1990, China has successfully lifted 138 million of its people out of chronic hunger.
China is the leading agricultural producer among the developing countries. It is ready to enhance cooperation with the FAO. The effort will not only benefit agricultural development, but also the poor and hungry people of the world.
You're listening to NEWS Plus Special English. I'm Mark Griffiths in Beijing.
A student in Shanghai Jiaotong University has made a cockroach move using the human mind.
Li Guang-ye, a postgraduate student of the university, implanted live cockroaches with microelectrodes that stimulate certain nerves in the insects' antennae, allowing him to control the insect using a remote control.
To achieve this, the controller needs to wear a portable wireless brain wave collecting device to ensure the controller's directional intention is recognized by a computer.
Then the computer transfers the directional intention into controlling signal and sends it to the electronic backpack receiver on the back of the cockroach; then according to the commanding signal of the controller, the electronic backpack sends specific pulse to the nerve of the cockroach's antennae which has been implanted with a microelectrode.
By virtue of the Bluetooth communication technology, the controller can form a wireless communication link between the computer and the electronic backpack through intrusive electrical nerve stimulation techniques. This enables the control of the cockroach by human beings.
The invention won a second prize in a nationwide students' video contest earlier this year and will be displayed in one of the top-level technology conferences in China later in 2015.
This is NEWS Plus Special English.
Two grocery stores with unmanned checkouts have completed a one-day trial in Beijing and the eastern city of Hangzhou, with the intention of testing the integrity of customers.
A QR code and guidance were placed in a cashier-free outlet belonging to the Vanguard supermarket chain in downtown Hangzhou.
Customers assume the job of the cashier by scanning bar codes themselves. They have been able to pay via mobile phone or put cash in an honesty box.
The grocery store sold products worth 16,700 yuan, roughly 2,700 U.S. dollars, but only received payment to the amount of 13,700 yuan from customers. In the Beijing outlet under AMPM, a convenience store chain, staff said some customers stole products or paid less.
A Vanguard executive said cashier-free supermarkets reduce queuing time and are developing fast abroad. With an improved credit system, the Vanguard executive expects more cashier-free grocery stores to open in China.
There are cashier-free stores in other parts of China including the northeastern province of Jilin and eastern province of Shandong.
The trial was jointly run by the two store chains and Sesame Credit, a credit scoring service introduced by a financial affiliate of e-commerce giant Alibaba.
This is NEWS Plus Special English.
Twenty-six Chinese students studying in the United States have received an annual Chinese government award.
The award-winning ceremony has been held at the Chinese Consulate General in Houston. Consul General Li Qiang-min handed out the National Scholarship for Outstanding Self-Financed Chinese Students Abroad.
The recipients came from more than 10 colleges in the southern United States, and their majors covered physics, chemistry, biology, medicine and electronic engineering.
The scholarship award was set up in 2003 by the China Scholarship Council to honor overseas Chinese students with outstanding academic accomplishments. It aims to encourage research excellence and to recognize the achievements among Chinese students abroad. The award consists a 6,000 U.S. dollar prize and a certificate.
More than 4,000 overseas Chinese students have received the award. A total of 500 students received the award this year.
You're listening to NEWS Plus Special English. I'm Mark Griffiths in Beijing. You can access the program by logging onto NEWSPlusRadio.cn. You can also find us on our Apple Podcast. If you have any comments or suggestions, please let us know by e-mailing us at mansuyingyu@cri.com.cn. That's mansuyingyu@cri.com.cn. Now the news continues.
The State Forestry Administration of China has published guidelines on protecting the country's desertified land.
The guideline advised more than 1.2 million square kilometers of desertified land in China be closed off as a protection zone so as to control drifting sand and improve the environment.
The guidelines will be effective from July this year to the end of 2020. The guidelines ban activities including cutting down trees, cultivating land, animal grazing, and misuse of water in the protected zones. Construction of railways and highways is forbidden. No immigrants should be settled in the zones.
According to the guidelines, the protected areas should be important locations that have an impact on regional and national ecology and have suffered from frequent human activity.
Desertified land, which is land that has become barren due to constant water shortages and excessive exploitation, makes up more than half of the total desert area in China.
China had a desert area of around 2.6 million square kilometers, accounting for 27 percent of its total land mass.
This is NEWS Plus Special English.
China will launch a five-month campaign to regulate the online market and protect the rights and interests of online consumers and operators.
The campaign will be effective from July to November, and will target fake and inferior commodities that have been widely complained about by consumers and dealers, as well as dishonest shopping websites.
The State Administration for Industry and Commerce said the items being checked include electronic products, car accessories, clothing, electrical materials and other important commodities.
The market regulator will strictly supervise the rules and standards of E-commerce platforms, make sure sales promotion rules are transparent to consumers, and market rules are well implemented.
A real-name registration system will be established for online stores in an effort to combat illegal trade activity and fake shopping sites.
China's online sales volume surged 50 percent year on year to reach almost 2.8 trillion yuan, roughly 450 billion U.S. dollars, last year, accounting for almost 10 percent of the country's total retail sales.
This is NEWS Plus Special English.
