介绍:
This is Special English. I'm Mark Griffiths in Beijing. Here is the news.
A policy of promoting and standardizing the transfer of the right to use farmland from rural residents to commercial entities is expected to raise the efficiency of agricultural production in China.
According to the policy, rural residents will enjoy greater freedom of transferring the land they have been contracted, while their right to collectively own the land remains unchanged.
Most of China's farmland is owned collectively by the people who work on it. As the rural workforce migrated to better paid jobs in the big cities, China began, in 2008, to allow farmers to rent out, transfer and merge the land they have contracted, amid a reform to bolster modern farming and reuse unattended land.
The use of farmland is a big issue in the world's most populous country where food security and the well-being of both current and former rural residents are matters of high priority.
As China becomes increasingly urbanized, many farmers are migrating to the cities, leaving their farmland unattended. There has been a growing demand from rural residents for the transfer of farmland to others for management and production.
The new policy will lead to the formation of mechanisms that will make the transfer more standardized, while the land owners' rights will be better protected.
This is Special English.
When China relaxed its four-decade-old one-child policy at the start of this year, there were a variety of predictions on whether the change in family planning rules would encourage enough people to have a second child.
Some said there would be too few to offset the effects of an aging population, citing reluctance by urbanites to increase the size of their families in the face of increased costs and new lifestyles. Others predicted a baby boom.
Now the numbers are in: In the first half of this year, the proportion of Chinese newborns who were second children grew to 45 percent of total newborns.
That's an increase of some 7 percentage points over the proportion of second-child newborns for the whole of last year, which was 38 percent. A total of 8 million newborns were registered nationwide this year by the end of June.
Some regions, mostly large cities, are beginning to see second children comprising more than half of local newborns.
Available data indicate it's the highest proportion of second children since China introduced its family planning policies in the late 1970s, limiting most couples to just one child.
The universal two-child policy was adopted by China's top leadership in October last year, and it began to be implemented nationwide this year.
You're listening to Special English. I'm Mark Griffiths in Beijing.
Leading environmental authorities in China have released a new report suggesting a quarter of all of China's cities are living with excess levels of noise.
An official of the environmental ministry said it means a quarter of cities go to sleep in noise; and the lack of clear definitions about who should be responsible within the government is making it harder to solve the problem.
Environmental, cultural, traffic, industry and commerce departments, as well as urban inspectors and local police all have the power to control noise. But when confronted with a specific problem, it remains unclear which department has jurisdiction.
An environment official from the southern province of Hainan says that as such, the top priority is to distinguish who has the responsibility.
Statistics from the central authorities show that 350,000 complains were received about noise nationwide last year, making up 35 percent of all environmental complains through the year.
Construction noise was the biggest complaint, accounting for 51 percent, while noise from industrial companies made up 17 percent. Other complaints were related to human-generated noise and vehicle traffic.
Last year, 60 percent of all noise complaints received occurred in eastern China.
The World Health Organization estimates that noise has become another environmental factor affecting human health, and may result in increased mental health issues and coronary disease.
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The Palace Museum in Beijing will build a new gallery in the northern part of the city to showcase more items, as current exhibits displayed each year account for less than 1 percent of its collection.
The curator of the museum made the announcement during the International Smart Tourism Conference in Hangzhou in Zhejiang province. He said the Palace Museum, which is a tourist destination and a cultural education institution, cannot display its abundant collection in full.
Major museums around the world usually display around 10 to 20 percent of their collections, while the Palace Museum is able to display just 0.5 percent of its entire collection over around 80 exhibitions each year.
The plan to build a new museum has been approved by the authorities and is already underway.
The new museum, which is 25 kilometers from the current site, is in a picturesque area near other tourist attractions, north of the Old Summer Palace, and south of the Great Wall and the Ming Tombs.
Cover an area of 12,500 square meters, it will showcase a large number of exhibits with different themes, and the public will be able to view the process of cultural relic restoration.
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Development of the internet of things in China faces a major challenge from a lack of industry standards.
According to a white paper released recently, the central government has put much effort into building the Internet of Things, a network of devices or objects fitted with software that allows data exchanges.
The document cited a favorable policy environment and pilot projects in sectors including agriculture, transportation, environmental protection and healthcare.
It said a coordinated multilevel working mechanism has been created on the standardization of the Internet of Things, or IoT.
However, the research and formulation of IoT standards still needs further improvement to meet the demand.
The document said IoT involves many industries, and each of them is at different development levels. The development of industry application standards is lagging behind.
A vice-president of the Wuxi IoT Industry Research Institute said creating the standards will require the combined efforts and wisdom of various departments. He said developing standards not only includes technology, but also industry knowledge.
In addition to developing more IoT standards and forming a complete system, the white paper suggested China play an active role in developing international standards.
You&`&re listening to Special English. I&`&m Mark Griffiths in Beijing. You can access the program by logging on to 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.
Ireland is seizing opportunities to boost student exchanges with China.
According to Irish education officials, the recently concluded China Annual Conference for International Education saw Irish higher education institutions sign partnership agreements with their Chinese counterparts.
Niamh Madden is a Beijing-based education market executive from Enterprise Ireland, a government agency focused on accelerating the development and growth of Irish enterprises in world markets.
The conference, the 17th of its kind, was held in Beijing in October. It was aimed at improving mutual knowledge and cooperation on education between China and other countries.
Irish Minister for Education and Skills, Richard Bruton, described the conference as a "very important milestone" for Ireland-China relations.
Ireland has been made the country of honor at the conference.
Statistics from Education in Ireland showed that more than 5,000 Chinese students are studying in Ireland, forming the second-largest international student group there after the United States.
Education in Ireland is managed by Enterprise Ireland under the Ministry for Education and Skills. Its mission is to promote Irish higher education institutions overseas.
This year, more than 1,800 Chinese students applied for visas to study in Ireland, a 10-percent rise from last year. And the visa acceptance rate has grown from 96 percent to 98 percent.
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Higher education institutions and companies in Denmark are seeking Chinese students and graduates to learn and work in the European country to improve its communications with China.
Six Danish companies and a dozen higher education institutions and universities have participated in "Denmark Day" events held at Peking University in Beijing, offering education and career opportunities to Chinese students.
The event marked the sixth annual Denmark Day, and was also celebrated in Shanghai and Hong Kong.
Denmark's ambassador to China A. Carsten Damsgaard said "Denmark Day" has become an important initiative for his country, in tandem with ongoing massive and fast development of research, higher education and talent in China.
The ambassador made the remarks during the Beijing event, adding that Denmark's competitiveness depends on its companies being able to recruit qualified candidates with international experience.
One Chinese student in Demark, Mei Zhu is on the staff of an industrial association at China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. She is studying for a master&`&s degree in Copenhagen.
Zhu said Denmark is highly internationalized. She participated in many international events and made friends from all around the world during her stay. It helped her to gain a global perspective on things.
You're listening to Special English. I'm Mark Griffiths in Beijing.
China's top health authority will take steps in the next few years to improve maternal health, as mortality rates have risen following the adoption of the universal second-child policy in January.
The National Health and Family Planning Commission said that 89,000 obstetrics beds will be added to hospitals across China, and local health authorities will be guided to optimize their resources.
The commission will also help local authorities improve their ability to save pregnant women and newborn babies in critical condition and better equip hospital obstetrics and pediatrics departments to deal with emergencies.
The commission will select some national training bases for midwifery techniques and organize emergency training to help pregnant women in critical condition. The commission will cooperate with other departments in the training of obstetricians and midwives, aiming to produce 140,000 more in the next few years.
More than 8 million babies were born in the first half of this year in China.
The maternal mortality rate in China in the first half of the year was 180 deaths per 1 million people, a rise of more than 30 percent over the same period last year.
The rate is slightly higher than that in the United States which was 140 deaths per million last year, but far less than the average maternal mortality rate in developing countries globally.
This is Special English.
The first textbook designed specifically for male pupils in primary schools has received positive feedback from parents, students and education professionals.
Earlier this month, the Shanghai Educational Publishing House unveiled the book, entitled Xiaoxiao Nanzihan or Little Man in English, aiming to help male students in the fourth and fifth grades understand sexual physiology and psychology, as well as enhance their self-protection.
The textbook, focusing on the mental health of male pupils, comes as nationwide discussion about what is called the "boys' crisis" are rife.
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