Basketball Hero

(XINHUA)

Stephon Marbury, a former NBA guard, led the Beijing Jinyu Ducks, a basketball team based in Beijing, to their first-ever championship of the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) league on March 30. Marbury was widely praised by his teammates and the coach for his great performance this season.

Marbury lifted the team with 41 points and 7 assists in the final in which Beijing beat Guangdong Hongyuan 124-121. Beijing won the CBA championship series 4 games to 1. Beijing's rival Guangdong has been crowned champion seven times in the past eight seasons.

"I kept my promise. When I first came to China, I promised that I would win a CBA championship. I have a different life in China, and I cherish this opportunity. I will retire in China, and I'm still playing basketball," said Marbury.

Marbury, 35, was born in New York City and played in the NBA from 1996 to 2009, with the Minnesota Timberwolves, New Jersey Nets, Phoenix Suns, New York Knicks and Boston Celtics. He was an NBA All-Star in 2001 and 2003. In January 2010, Marbury joined the Shanxi Zhongyu Brave Dragons of the CBA. And he left the team in December 2010 to join the Foshan Dralions. He joined the Beijing Jinyu Ducks in 2011.

Chinese audiences have said Marbury should be selected as this year's MVP, but the CBA MVP must be Chinese, according to present regulations. Besides his great career success, Marbury is also committed to charity in China.

Aid for the Disabled

About 2.12 million impoverished handicapped people were covered by various poverty relief programs in 2011, according to the China Disabled Persons' Federation.

Last year, 87,000 handicapped individuals found employment through 4,000 poverty support centers across the country. These employment opportunities also uplifted the lives of a further 156,000 family members and dependents.

A further 71,000 disabled people in rural areas benefited from a favorable loan policy that offered reduced interests, while a pairing project enabled 328,000 individuals and 52,000 units to provide long-term financial support to impoverished handicapped persons.

Local governments throughout the country also spent 950 million yuan ($151 million) to renovate the homes of 94,000 families with disabled members.

The overall population of impoverished disabled people in China's rural areas is estimated at about 25 million.

Highways in Tibet

Southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region will invest heavily in constructing rural highways to provide road transportation to remote villages, local authorities said.

A total investment of 3.11 billion yuan ($494.2 million) will be made and 13,385 km of rural highways will be built in three years, according to a statement issued by the regional Department of Transportation.

The extended network will end the seclusion of 669 villages by linking them to the highway network.

Heavy investment in Tibet's infrastructure had expanded the region's network of highways to cover about 90 percent of villages as of 2011, but officials said 714 Tibetan villages still lacked access to road transport.

Gender Ratio

Census data indicates that the gap between the number of boys and girls born in China has reduced for three consecutive years. China's imbalanced gender ratio is a major demographic problem and Chinese families traditionally prefer male to female children.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, China's gender ratio stood at 117.78 newborn boys for every 100 baby girls in 2011, a decline from 119.45 in 2009 and 117.94 in 2010.

This result indicates that government measures, including crackdowns on illegal prenatal gender tests and selective abortions, are proving effective, said the National Population and Family Planning Commission.

A natural gender ratio at birth should be somewhere between 103 and 107 boys to every 100 girls.

Satellite Access

The State Oceanic Administration on March 30 gave the public access to data products from the oceanic survey satellite Haiyang-2, which monitors the maritime environment and extreme weather.

The satellite provides services for oceanic disaster prevention and relief, resources exploitation, environmental protection, oceanic research, as well as safeguarding oceanic rights, according to the administration.

The administration said it will further expand the scope for the use of the data from the satellite, and make as much use of its capacity as possible in a bid to provide first-class services to data users.

The satellite was launched in mid-August last year.

Cross-Straits Military Trust

The Chinese mainland agreed to exchange views with Taiwan on military issues "in due time" and discuss establishing a mechanism of cross-Straits military mutual trust, a mainland official said on March 28.

Such a mechanism is aimed at "stabilizing the situation across the Taiwan Straits and alleviating security concerns," said Yang Yi, a spokesman for the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office at a regular press conference.

"We are glad to see scholars discuss the issues," Yang said.

Furthermore, Yang said the all issues are open to discussion so long as both sides across the Taiwan Straits recognize that there is one China.

Grassland Restoration

Qinghai Province in northwest China has earmarked 1.95 billion yuan ($309 million) for the restoration of degraded grasslands this year, local authorities said.

The bulk of the fund will be spent on subsidizing herders who observe pastoral bans on degraded grasslands, said Zhang Huangyuan, Director of the Qinghai Department of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry.

Expanding human settlements and excessive herding have degraded Qinghai's 3.6 million square km of grasslands, threatening the development of local agriculture and the fragile ecosystem in the headwater area of the Yangtze River, China's largest waterway, Zhang said.

The provincial government has unveiled a plan to cull and resettle more than 6 million heads of cattle in the overgrazed area within three years.

Language Learning

More than 700 foreign language training institutions have been set up in Beijing to encourage people to learn another language, according to the Organizing Committee of Beijing Speaks Foreign Languages Program.

In addition, the government has developed lectures popularizing foreign languages and introducing other cultures to enable people to get involved in picking up another language.

To encourage citizens to get involved in foreign language learning, some 100 public lectures on foreign languages and cultures given by renowned professors will be provided in 2012, the committee said.

War Tribunal Research

China has established a center for research of the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal (1946-48), an international military court established to try Japanese war criminals after World War II.

The National Library of China and Shanghai Jiao Tong University signed an agreement on setting up the center on March 31. The center will combine the library's abundant archives and the university's excellence in researching history, law and international relations.

China was the biggest victim of Japanese aggression and a key member of the World Anti-Fascist Alliance. Its judge, prosecutor, and assistants present at the tribunal made a leading contribution to listing war crimes suspects, collecting evidence and testimony and drafting judgments.