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Yi Jianlian, a Chinese basketball star, was named the most influential male athlete at the Sina Micro-blogging Night held in Beijing on January 4.
Yi, 24, signed a one-year contract with the NBA champion Dallas Mavericks on January 7.
Yi entered the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) in 2002 when he was 15. He was a member of China's national team in 2004 and became the youngest most valuable player in the history of the CBA in 2005. In 2007, Yi entered the NBA after being picked by the Milwaukee Bucks. He was traded to the New Jersey Nets in 2008 and Washington Wizards in June 2010.
Diplomat Appointed
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(XINHUA) |
Qin Gang, former spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry and Deputy Director General of the ministry's Information Department, was recently appointed director general of the department, taking over from Ma Zhaoxu, who has been in the post since 2009. The Information Department is responsible for releasing information on China's major diplomatic events and stating China's foreign policy.
Qin, 45, was the ministry's spokesman and deputy director general of the Information Department from 2005 to 2010. He worked as minister at China's Embassy to the UK from 2010 to 2011.
Land Reforms
The Ministry of Land and Resources said China is planning new pilot programs to promote land reforms this year.
"The new pilot programs will cover the examination and approval of urban land use, the transferring of land under collective ownership, land management that supports economic zones, and differentiated policies on land control," said Minister Xu Shaoshi.
The reforms have drawn on the experience of previous land protection and compensation trial programs, according to Xu.
Official statistics show that Beijing's air has seen a marked decrease in the density of PM2.5, particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 microns or less, over the past decade and the downward trend is expected to continue.
The average annual PM2.5 density in Beijing has decreased from 100-110 micrograms per cubic meter of air in 2000 to 70-80 micrograms per cubic meter in 2010, said the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau.
Although Beijing did not monitor air-quality using the PM2.5 gauge 10 years ago, PM2.5 data were available for laboratory use, according to the bureau.
China currently uses PM10, or particulate matter under 10 microns in size, to measure air quality. But finer PM2.5 particulates are considered more hazardous to people's health as it can go deeper into the lungs.
The Ministry of Environmental Protection said it has been considering revising present standards and a new index standard that includes measurements of PM2.5 and ozone density is scheduled to be fully implemented nationwide in 2016 with pilot projects conducted in certain regions ahead of the national deadline.
China has made significant progress in expanding the coverage of social security services for religious personnel over the past year, said the State Administration for Religious Affairs.
In Beijing, all religious personnel are covered by the social security system, and in southeastern Fujian Province, the coverage of health insurance for local religious personnel has reached 99 percent.
In Tibetan-inhabited areas of southwest China's Sichuan Province, religious personnel are covered by the same social security schemes that are available to local rural residents.
In other provincial-level regions, including Anhui, Henan, Hubei, Yunnan, Gansu and Qinghai provinces and Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, social security services cover more than 80 percent of the clergy.
The country plans to include all religious personnel in its social security system by the end of this year.
China's welfare lottery sales hit a record 127.8 billion yuan ($20.24 billion) in 2011, up 32 percent year on year, said the Welfare Lottery Distribution and Management Center.
It was the first time welfare lottery sales exceeded 100 billion yuan ($15.84 billion) in China. Around 96 billion yuan ($15.20 billion) in welfare lottery tickets were sold in 2010, according to official data.
The lottery raised a total of 39 billion yuan ($6.18 billion) for public welfare funds in 2011.
China began to raise welfare funds through lottery sales in 1987.
China unveiled five software applications designed to further promote and standardize the use of minority languages on January 6.
These programs include electronic dictionaries for the characters of the Yi and Zhuang ethnic groups, a proofreading tool for the Zhuang ethnic language, and trans-coding applications for the languages of the Tibetan, Uygur, Kazakh and Kyrgyz ethnic groups.
These applications are highly compatible and can be used in "various operating systems," said a statement released by the State Ethnic Affairs Commission.
"Promoting the country's minority languages is significant for boosting ethnic cultures, as well as consolidating and developing equal and harmonious socialist ethnic relations," said Wu Shimin, Vice Minister of the commission.
China has some 30 million minority citizens who use their own languages. | 
