Mission Accomplished

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  A tugboat approaches Xuelong, China’s primary icebreaker and polar research vessel, to welcome the return of the Chinese Antarctic expedition team at the mouth of the Yangtze River near Shanghai on April 9.
  The team completed its 163-day mission after travelling roughly 30,000 nautical miles aboard Xuelong.


   Occupation Pension
  China announced detailed standards of occupational pension for government employees on April 6 as a move to build a multi-level and sustainable pension mechanism.
  The welfare fund, as a supplementary part of the basic pension system and commercial insurance, will require a government department to pay 8 percent of its total salary and a government employee to contribute 4 percent of their taxation-based salary, according to an announcement released by the State Council, China’s cabinet.
  The benchmark of payment bases are the same as basic pensions and the fund sources also include related investment yield and other legal contributions.
  The fund will be left to qualified institutions such as securities houses, asset management companies, as well as insurers to manage the pension and conduct investments.
  The introduction of occupational pensions are expected to retain talent as recent reforms in the basic pension system for government institutions might compromise their employees’ welfare. China started pilot reform programs in government organizations that require them to pay social insurances and pension fund like other private employers back in 2008 to promote fairness. Before that government employees only had to pay income tax.
   Ban on Vehicles
  Beijing will ban gasoline-powered vehicles that fail to meet the National Emission Standard II starting January 1 of next year to cut pollution, the local environmental authority said.
  The vehicles will be banned from entering the city’s Sixth Ring Road, according to the municipal environmental protection bureau, which held a pollution prevention and control conference on April 8.
  Beijing currently imposes the National Emission Standard V for ve- hicles, similar to the Euro V standard in Europe. The city imposed the National Emission Standard I in 1999 and the National Emission Standard II in 2004. With each new standard, actual pollutant amounts have dropped by 30 to 50 percent per vehicle.
  Beijing scrapped 1.44 million old vehicles between 2011 and 2014. More than 90 percent of those vehicle owners bought new vehicles, contributing 8.1 billion yuan ($1.3 billion) in taxes to the municipal government, according to the bureau.   Beijing currently has 5.57 million vehicles, which discharge 700,000 tons of pollutants annually. Vehicle discharge is the top cause of pollution in the city, accounting for 31 percent of the total.
   Licensed Lawyers
  China had more than 271,000 licensed lawyers working at around 22,000 law firms by the end of 2014, according to statements made by the Ministry of Justice on April 8.
  About 90 percent of lawyers are full-time professionals, with the rest including professionals in government agencies and companies.
  The ministry also revealed in the statement that around 74,000 of the lawyers were members of the Communist Party of China.
  It said there were 330 offices set up in China by 265 foreign law firms from 21 countries and regions by the end of 2014.
  In 2014, lawyers working in China handled more than 2.8 million lawsuits. They also took care of 360,000 cases requiring legal assistance.
  In a separate statement, the ministry said there were a total of 3,006 notary services, employing 12,960 notaries, in China.
   Journalism Report
  The English version of a report on the future of journalism in China was released on April 7, highlighting an emphasis on new media.
  Issued by the All-China Journalists Association (ACJA), the Chinese journalism development report was released in Chinese at the end of 2014.
  The English version, available in full at www.zgjx.cn, will help “the international community, especially the overseas press” acquire a detailed and accurate understanding of the Chinese press, the ACJA said in a statement accompanying the report.
  News organizations on the Chinese mainland employ approximately 1 million people. Over 250,000 of them hold official certification as journalists, 55.9 percent of whom are male.
  Over the past few years, authorities have regulated journalistic practice and promoted higher journalistic standards by setting up ethics committees.
  In response to strong public concern, a campaign launched in March 2014 took blackmail and false reporting as focal points. As a result, a number of companies and news workers were investigated and publicly sanctioned.
   Rural School Teachers
  China’s Ministry of Education on April 2 said the country has added some 358,000 new teachers to rural primary and middle schools in the past year. In a report on the “balanced development of China’s compulsory education,” the ministry said it will also allocated 4.4 billion yuan ($710 million) to provide professional training for Chinese teachers and organized exchange programs for more than 500,000 teachers in 2014.   The figures came just one day after central authorities approved a plan to support rural teachers over the next five years by improving teachers’ political and moral awareness, increasing their income, and persuading urban teachers to work in rural schools, among others.
   Red Moon
  A total lunar eclipse is witnessed in Jinan, capital city in Shandong Province, on April 4.
  The eclipse, which took only 12 minutes, was the shortest one to happen this century so far.
  A total lunar eclipse is sometimes called a blood moon because of the red color that is cast upon it by light refracting from Earth’s atmosphere.


   Cycling Abroad
  Globe-trotting cyclists Lai Likun (right) and Zhang Hui pose at Heroes’ Square in Budapest, Hungary, on April 6. Hungary is the 46th country Lai has visited by bike, and the 23rd for Zhang.
   Body Donation
  The southern city of Guangzhou has passed a regulation to allow donors to bypass family consent requirements in the latest effort to alleviate a severe shortage of donations for China’s medical schools.
  The regulation passed by Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong Province, removed a provision that said consent from all direct relatives must be obtained before a body is donated, Ouyang Binghui, Deputy Director of the Red Cross Society of Guangzhou, told Xinhua News Agency.
  The family consent provision, which has been adopted in a number of Chinese cities, is thought to have led to many failed donations as traditionally minded family members can veto the wishes of deceased donors.
  The latest regulation also allows institutions, including nursing homes and residents’ committees, to donate the bodies of elderly people who have elected donation but have no children or spouse to carry out their wishes after death.
  The traditional belief that one’s body must remain complete after death has long hampered organ donations in China. Many medical students complain that they have little or no experience coming out of university due to a lack of donated bodies.
   Urbanization Plan
  On April 5, China unveiled a plan to develop city clusters along the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, the country’s longest waterway, in a move to create a new economic growth engine and promote further urbanization.
  The plan will mainly involve areas near Wuhan in Hubei Province, the Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan city group in Hunan Province and regions around Poyang Lake in Jiangxi Province, which cover a combined area of approximately 317,000 square km.   The new division will integrate all motor-related businesses within the group and provide car owners with a variety of O2O (online-to-offline) motor services, Alibaba said.
  The move comes as Chinese Internet giants move into the motor services.
  Alibaba and SAIC Motor Corp. announced on March 12 the establishment of a 1-billion-yuan ($163 million) fund to develop Internet-connected vehicles.
  Also in March, another Chinese IT giant Tencent launched a partnership with Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. and luxury car dealer China Harmony Auto Holding to explore a business model to manufacture and sell smart electric cars.
   New Business in Town
  People view helicopters for sale at a newly opened sales center in Ningbo, east China’s Zhejiang Province, on April 8.


   Cheaper Power
  China will lower prices of coal-fired power and power consumption for industrial and commercial purposes to reduce business costs, the State Council said on April 8.
  Prices for coal-fueled electricity will be cut by around 2 yuan ($0.33) per 100 kWh, and commercial electricity consumption will also enjoy lower prices with a reduction of about 1.8 yuan($0.29) per 100 kWh, said a statement released after an executive meeting of the State Council presided over by Premier Li Keqiang.
  The adjustment aims to reduce business costs amid falling coal prices and sluggish production activities.
  The government will continue to charge more for large energy consumers and enact harsher electricity price punishments for high energy consuming and polluting productions, the statement said.
  The price cut is expected to ease structural problems to encourage more environmentally friendly power generation methods to reduce emission and air pollution.
  China cut coal-fired power price both in 2013 and 2014 to encourage power plants to take more denitration, dedusting and other environmentally friendly technologies in electricity generation.
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