介绍:
This is Special English. I'm Liu Yan in Beijing. Here is the news.
Police in East China's Shandong province have detained 37 suspects implicated in a vaccine scandal that has shocked the nation and raised questions over vaccine safety.
Shandong police arrested a mother and daughter alleged to have illegally sold improperly stored and expired vaccines worth more than 570 million yuan, roughly 88 million US dollars, across 20 provincial-level regions since 2011.
According to the working group handling the case, three pharmaceutical companies are being investigated by police.
Of the three, Shandong Zhaoxin Bio-tech Company has had its good supply practice certificate for pharmaceutical products revoked and was ordered to halt operations.
The investigation involves 12 types of vaccine, 2 types of immune globulin and one therapeutic product.
Meanwhile, the working group has ordered a sweeping check-up of local vaccine makers, wholesalers and buyers.
China's drug regulator has found nine vaccine wholesalers from six provinces suspected of filing fraudulent reports of buyers' identities.
China's top drug regulator, health authorities and police have issued a circular ordering drug and health departments to trace the manufacturing source and to remove any of the substandard vaccines off the market as soon as possible.
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China has taken a further step to fight legal ivory trade by banning imports of ivory and related products acquired before July 1, 1975, when the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora took effect.
China's wildlife watchdog, the State Forestry Administration, said the ban took effect on Sunday, and will last until Dec 31, 2019.
The event marks another step after two actions taken in February and October last year, when the administration imposed separate one-year bans, one on imported ivory acquired after July 1, 1975, and the other on ivory acquired during trophy hunting in Africa.
In the statement, the administration says the two bans issued last year cannot prevent ivory and related items that were pillaged and stocked up by countries during the colonization of Africa from finding their way into China.
It says if China does not put ivory acquired before 1975 on the import blacklist, it cannot stop people from making illegal profits by selling ivory and related products to China.
In addition, the two documents will be extended to Dec 31, 2019.
The new measures will not affect activities with no commercial purposes, including public exhibition, scientific research and cultural exchange.
You're listening to Special English. I'm Liu Yan in Beijing.
China has started to build infrastructure for its gravitational wave research project "Tianqin" in the southern coastal city of Zhuhai.
Sun Yat-sen University, the initiator of the program, held a foundation stone laying ceremony for a research building, an ultra-quiet cave laboratory and an observation station on its Zhuhai campus.
Meanwhile, the university is recruiting research staff for the international cooperation program dominated by Chinese scientists.
With an estimated cost of 15 billion yuan, roughly 2.3 billion U.S. dollars, the program will be carried out in four stages over the next 15 to 20 years, ultimately launching three high-orbit satellites to detect the waves.
The discovery of gravitational waves by American scientists in February has encouraged scientists worldwide to accelerate their research.
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China has 88 universities that have at least one subject ranking among the worlds' top 400 higher learning institutions. That's according to the latest report by London-headquartered education company QS.
The report looked at 42 individual subjects taught around the world and named the top 400 institutions in each of those subjects, based on the institutions' academic reputation, employer reputation and research impact.
A total of 58 colleges and universities from the Chinese mainland, eight from Hong Kong, 21 from Taiwan and one from Macao were included in the ranking for breaking into the top 400 in at least one subject. The good performance of the 88 educational institutions was second only to the United States, which had 164 colleges and institutes ranked.
However, most Chinese universities that made the list only have one world-leading subject, despite the fact that China has surpassed the UK, France and Germany in reaching second place worldwide.
In contrast, universities including Harvard and MIT were leaders in dozens of subjects.
One member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences says the number of universities with world-leading subjects is limited in China and the number of world-class universities is even less in the country.
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China's average annual rise in sea level from 1980 to 2015 was 3 millimeters, higher than the global average.
The decade between 2006 and 2015 saw the fastest rise of the past 30 years, with the mean sea level increasing by 32 millimeters and 66 millimeters respectively, compared with the figures from 1996 to 2005, and 1986 to 1995.
The report stated that thermal expansion of seawater, as well as the melting of glaciers and ice sheets on land due to global warming collectively contributed to the accelerated rise in global sea level.
China has seen its air and seawater temperatures increase due to climate change, along with lower air pressure in coastal regions, resulting in rising sea levels.
Statistics showed that China's sea level drops during El Nino weather patterns. The sea level in 2015 was down by 21 millimeters from 2014 due to a strong El Nino that affected the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean.
The report also suggested authorities take sea-level rises into consideration when planning coastal cities to ensure safety and effective disaster prevention and relief efforts.
In another development, oceanic disasters in China last year killed 30 people, and caused direct economic losses of more than 7 billion yuan, roughly 1 billion U.S. dollars.
You're listening to Special English. I'm Liu Yan 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 film authorities are determined to increase the international presence of domestic films, with a fresh government circular promising to award those performing well in the overseas market.
A Chinese producer or agent authorized to handle the overseas business of a domestic film will be awarded if the film's overseas box office reaches at least one million yuan, roughly 153,000 U.S. dollars.
The film authorities did not specify how much money will be given out, although it did say that the award amount will not exceed one percent of the film's international box office.
The move is aimed at guiding more Chinese movies into the global stage and encouraging more production of well-performing movies overseas.
The authorities also said it will award 20 Chinese films with good "social and economic benefits" each year. Each production will receive "no more than six million yuan" if selected by a commission established by the institution.
It won't be easy to compete for that award, however. To be eligible, each film should be viewed by at least 100,000 people, with its domestic box office reaching 20 million yuan.
Experts say China's box office sales could reach as high as 66 billion yuan in 2016 before probably overtaking North America's box office in 2017, but the country is struggling to boost the development of domestic films, with quality remaining a stumbling block.
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China's film market watchdog has suspended the distribution license of a distributor that committed fraud to jack up the box office figures for martial arts film "Ip Man 3".
Filmgoers and industry observers have been questioning the authenticity of the film's box office data after it reportedly raked in more than 500 million yuan, roughly 77 million U.S. dollars, in just four days after its premiere.
Beijing Max Screen, the film's distributor, admitted to having bought 56 million yuan's worth of the tickets itself, and the conspirators fabricated more than 7,600 screenings of the film that they claimed generated 32 million yuan in ticket sales.
China's film bureau said it had ordered Beijing Max Screen to suspend distribution for a month while it rectifies all malpractices, and that it had given formal warnings to three electronic ticket-selling groups involved in the fraud.
Seventy-three cinemas were also given warnings. They will be named and shamed on the website of the China Association of Film Distributors and Cinemas.
Max Screen said in a statement that it has fully accepted the punishment and pledged to learn from the experience and comply with the rules.
The Chinese film industry has been blighted by cinemas and distributors cheating to inflate box office, through means including taking a film's earnings into another's count or claiming ticket sales for screenings far above that auditorium's capacity. Cinemas have even been known to sell hand-written tickets.
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The sloth in Disney's latest animated hit "Zootopia" has become a social media sensation in China, where the film is dominating cinemas.
"Zootopia" raked in more than 820 million yuan, roughly 130 million U.S. dollars, in box office sales in the first two weeks since its debut on March 4.
The movie is expected to beat "Kung Fu Panda 3" to become the highest-grossing animated film in China. Meanwhile, "Flash the Sloth" is fast becoming an Internet celebrity in his own right.
The department of motor vehicles in "Zootopia" is staffed by sloths, the world's slowest mammal, a sly jab at inefficient government workers.
Pictures of Chinese Internet users mimicking Flash's dopey facial expression are making the rounds online. Animated gifs, known as "stickers", featuring the character have also been shared across instant messaging app WeChat.
"Flash the Sloth" has stolen the spotlight from the film's two main characters!
For most Chinese, "Zootopia" is the first time that they have paid attention to a sloth, but people now are keen to know more about the animal.
China News published a series of sloth photographs taken by its photojournalists based in America as well as stories on the animal on its social media accounts, receiving tens of thousands of "likes" from Internet users.
The American animal enclosure at Beijing Zoo is home to several two-toed sloths. The area became very popular in recent days.
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