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2017-02-27 Special English
This is Special English. I&`&m Mark Griffiths in Beijing. Here is the news.
New kinds of vaccines for the H7N9 strain of bird flu virus have been approved for clinical trials by China&`&s top drug regulator.
The Beijing Food and Drug Administration said it will continue to provide assistance and guidance for clinical trials of the vaccines so they can enter the market as soon as possible.
The vaccines have been developed by a state-owned enterprise in Beijing.
There are currently no vaccines for the H7N9 strain of bird flu available on the market in China or overseas. The flu is most active in winter and spring.
Two human cases of H7N9 have been reported in Beijing this year, with both patients suspected of having been exposed to live poultry. Both are in critical condition.
One woman died after being infected with the bird flu in southwest China&`&s Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.
The central government has intensified measures to control the spread of the flu, including shutting down live poultry markets.
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The World Health Organization says the shortsightedness rate among Chinese juveniles ranks first in the world, with 70 percent of high school and college students being shortsighted. The rate is almost 40 percent in primary school students, while it is only 10 percent for their peers in the United States.
A World Health Organization research report says the number of shortsighted people in China has reached 600 million, approaching half of the country&`&s total population.
Experts attribute the soaring shortsightedness rate in China to the unhealthy lifestyles and learning styles which parents impose on their children.
On the one hand, to achieve high scores in exams, children spend too much time studying indoors and don&`&t enough time outside in the sunlight. On the other hand, a growing number of high-tech products, including smart phones and tablet PCs, make children focus their eyes and attention on fluorescent screens for long periods of time, resulting in excessive eye fatigue.
Experts suggest that youngsters maintain a proper balance between study and rest so as to protect their eyesight, and parents should play a correspondingly active role in the process.
You&`&re listening to Special English. I&`&m Mark Griffiths in Beijing.
China will launch its most advanced communications satellite in April. The new satellite will be part of a huge network to expand the nation&`&s Wi-Fi access.
The satellite and its large capacity network will enable passengers on planes and high-speed trains to access the internet.
The satellite weighs around 5 metric tons. It will stay in a geostationary orbit around 36,000 kilometers above Earth for 15 years.
This is the most powerful communications satellite China has ever developed. Its transmission capacity will double that of the current ones, allowing more television channels and clearer signals to be transmitted; and internet user costs will be reduced.
China plans to establish a constellation of advanced communications satellites by 2025. After the plan is fulfilled, users will be able to access high-quality Wi-Fi services anywhere and anytime, including on bullet trains and planes.
Scientists say China still needs to catch up with the top developers in the United States and Europe, when it comes to satellite technology and capacity.
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China&`&s deep-sea manned submarine "Jiaolong" has departed its home port in Qingdao in eastern China to start its longest mission to date, a 124-day expedition.
The submarine is scheduled to explore northwest part of the Indian Ocean, the South China Sea and the Mariana Trench in the Western Pacific during this oceanic exploration mission. The trip is set to conclude on June 9.
Organized by the National Deep Sea Center, the mission will be carried out by more than 150 researchers from around 20 scientific research institutions nationwide.
The expedition will cover the widest range of investigation area with diversified tasks. The submarine will dive 31 times, including seven times below 6,000 meters.
The submarine holds China&`&s manned diving record. It reached a depth of 7,062 meters in the Mariana Trench in 2012.
According to the mission plan, it will perform a task in the northwest Indian Ocean polymetallic sulfides zone for the first time.
The Qingdao-based National Deep Sea Center is a supportive station for deep sea facilities. It is one of the five such deep sea centers in the world.
You&`&re listening to Special English. I&`&m Mark Griffiths in Beijing.
Beijing and its neighboring city Tianjin are planning a monthly pass for high-speed intercity trains linking the two cities. The two sides are also considering canceling expressway toll fees.
The mayor of Tianjin says the move will facilitate the integrated development of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei province. The outline was given in 2015 to improve transportation links in the area. It also includes moving some of Beijing&`&s low-end industries to neighboring areas.
The high-speed intercity trains aim to build a modern transportation system. A unified smart prepaid traffic card has been used in 12 cities in the region, and more cities will be included by the end of the year.
In addition, a network of high-speed trains covering the whole region has been approved; and another intercity railway linking Beijing and Tianjin&`&s Binhai New Area is expected to be completed by 2020.
The Beijing-Tianjin Intercity Railway was the first of its kind in China. With a maximum speed of 350 kilometers per hour, a single trip between the two cities will be kept within 40 minutes. The trains will depart and arrive every 10 to 15 minutes.
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In 2015, every student at China&`&s almost 3,000 universities spent an average of 1,100 yuan, roughly 160 U.S. dollars, on online purchases. Each of them received 16 parcels on average last year, making university campuses key areas of competition for express delivery companies.
The volume of deliveries and on-campus management of the companies&`& operations pose problems for college administrators.
Two years ago, parcels delivered to university campuses accounted for 5 percent of the national total, which helped to create 70,000 jobs.
A report says that without unified and centralized distribution terminals, the "last kilometer transport" to campuses remains chaotic in many universities.
More than 65 percent of express companies in Guangdong Province conduct their on-campus business via a "stall model". Parcels are scattered on the ground in the care of a courier who waits to pass them on to the recipients. Different companies&`& stalls open at different times and in random locations. This means that many students do not receive their parcels on time.
The report says that the situation is the same in Beijing, which has the largest overall campus delivery business in China.
The report suggests that on campus courier stations should be designated as public welfare facilities and should be part of the campus infrastructure serving teachers and students.
You&`&re listening to Special English. I&`&m Mark Griffiths in Beijing. You can access the program by logging on to crienglish.com. You can also find us on our Apple Podcast. Now the news continues.
Pakistan is to start exporting seafood to China&`&s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, using a land route that China will also use to ship oil and natural gas from the Middle East.
The journey is around 1,500 kilometers. Frozen seafood will depart Pakistan&`&s Gwadar Port on the shores of the Arabian Sea in container trucks and enter China via the Khunjerab Pass, a land port in southern Xinjiang&`&s Kashgar prefecture.
Regular shipments are to start on April 1, after a successful trial last month.
Normally, it takes more than 30 days to transport seafood by sea from Pakistan to ports in South China&`&s Guangdong province. Now it takes only around 10 days for the seafood to be transported and cleared by customs on the land route.
The wholesale price of those seafood products will drop by 10 to 20 percent after the shipments become regular.
China is Pakistan&`&s biggest seafood importer, with around 75 percent of the country&`&s shrimp products sold to China.
China will provide 1 billion U.S. dollars in loans for three new road projects, to further enhance the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor along the land route.
You&`&re listening to Special English. I&`&m Mark Griffiths in Beijing.
Despite winds and deep winter chills, snow-covered areas in north China have seen quick growth in tourism during the Spring Festival holiday.
The China National Tourism Administration reported a record 340 million domestic visits paid by mainland travelers during the seven-day holiday which started on January 27th. This marks an increase of 14 percent compared with last year. Total tourism revenue reached 420 billion yuan, roughly 62 billion U.S. dollars.
The administration said ice-and-snow tourism is gaining in popularity as Beijing gears up to host the 2022 Winter Olympic Games. For example, the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region received 15 million travelers in the seven days, an increase of 20 percent, compared with last year. The total tourism revenue reached 1.6 billion yuan, up almost 22 percent. Xinjiang shares a common border with countries including Russia, Kazakhstan and Afghanistan.
In northeast China, a national forest park in Heilongjiang province, known sometimes as the Snow Town, received more than 20,000 tourists in a single day on Jan 31.
China has invested heavily in the development of winter sports and recreation. There are over 200 skating rinks and 500 ski resorts spreading across 25 provinces. Around 30 million people have participated in winter sports and related activities in these areas.
China plans to build a total of 650 skating rinks and 800 ski resorts by 2022.
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After three days of searching, an injured finless porpoise has finally been found in central China&`&s Poyang Lake, the largest freshwater lake in the country.
Volunteers discovered the injured animal through a long-focus lens. It was seen to have a large fishhook in its back. But it was soon out of sight and disappeared before people could offer any help.
The authorities and scientists conducted a search for the animal in an area of the lake which was 400-meter in diameter and 20 meters under the water.
The finless porpoise is a mammal similar to the dolphin. It is an endangered species with a total population of around 1,000, fewer than the giant panda. Around 450 of them are found in Poyang Lake.
You&`&re listening to Special English. I&`&m Mark Griffiths in Beijing.
East China&`&s Zhejiang Province used to be a "Jurassic Park", with a great number of dinosaurs some 100 million years ago.
According to a six-year research project, 82 dinosaur fossil sites have been found in the area. The fossils came from a dozen species, eight of them new in China.
The research covered an area of 11,000 square kilometers in the province. Various study techniques were adopted in the research, making it one of the most comprehensive in China.
The study shows that there were many dinosaurs in the area during the Cretaceous Period around 100 million years ago. Zhejiang has the largest number of dinosaur fossils among other southeastern provinces.
Scientists say the discoveries also support the idea that a comet or asteroid was the cause for the extinction of the dinosaurs.
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More than 100 plant seed grains dating back 2,000 years have been unearthed at an ancient tomb in northern China&`&s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
According to the regional institute of archaeology, the discovery was made during the excavation of a civilian tomb in western Inner Mongolia.
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