| Actress Honored
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(XINHUA) |
Chinese actress Zhao Tao won the best actress prize at Italy's David di Donatello 2012 Awards on May 4. Zhao received the award for her leading role in Io Sono Li, a movie co-produced by China and Italy, becoming the first Asian to win the prestigious Italian award.
"The movie was a perfect example of joint cinematic efforts by Italians and Chinese," said Zhao. "I think the movie has succeeded in showing how people from two different cultures learn from each other at a profound level."
Directed by Andrea Segre from Italy, Io Sono Li is a love story between a Chinese immigrant who works as a barmaid in the Venice lagoon town of Chioggia, and a local fisherman nicknamed The Poet. In 2011, the movie was screened in the Venice Days section of the 68th Venice International Film Festival.
Zhao, 34, was born in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province. She enrolled in the folk dance department at Beijing Dance Academy in 1996. After graduation, she became a dance teacher in Taiyuan Normal University. She gained instant fame for her performance in Chinese director Jia Zhangke's movie Platform. Her most famous films include Unknown Pleasures, The World, and Still Life.
China will continue to carry out strict management measures to cope with water shortages, said Chen Lei, Minister of Water Resources, on May 8.
He said that the measures include strengthening water resources protection and promoting the restoration of aquatic ecosystems.
China sees a 50-billion-cubic meter water shortage annually, with two thirds of its cities having trouble accessing water. The country's annual water consumption now exceeds 600 billion cubic meters, accounting for 74 percent of the country's exploitable water resources.
China's water consumption should be controlled below 700 billion cubic meters by 2030, and its efficiency of water usage will reach advanced levels, the Chinese Government said in a document issued in January.
The country aims to reduce water consumption per 10,000 yuan ($1,597) of industrial value-added output to less than 40 cubic meters by 2030, raise the effective water use coefficient of farmland irrigation water to above 0.6 and improve water quality, according to the document.
The Chinese Government has formulated a plan to train 1.45 million social workers by 2020.
"By the end of 2015, licensed social workers will total 500,000, and another 950,000 will be added during 2016-20," Minister of Civil Affairs Li Liguo told Xinhua News Agency on May 9, citing the long-term plan (2011-20) for developing a national social work system.
China currently has 320 colleges with undergraduate programs in social work and 60 colleges and academies offer master's degrees in social work. At present only 20,000 social workers graduate every year.
More than 600 private social work institutions are operating in China, providing services in fields concerning people's livelihoods, national unity, community services and criminal rectification, figures from the China Association of Social Workers show.
According to the plan, social service-oriented communities and government organizations should first consider qualified social workers when recruiting staff. They will also be given preference when applying for public servant posts with governments at all levels.
The World Health Organization (WHO) designated the Chinese Medicine Division (CMD) of the Health Department in Hong Kong as the Collaborating Center for Traditional Medicine (CCTM) on May 9.
It is the first such center of its kind in the world and will focus on assisting the WHO to formulate policies and strategies as well as setting regulatory standards for traditional medicine.
The CMD of the Health Department, founded in 1997, is a designated division tasked with regulating, promoting and improving the safety, quality and efficacy of Chinese medicine.
At the center's opening ceremony, Secretary for Food and Health of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, York Chow, said, "Traditional medicine is no doubt a precious resource which has much to offer in complementing conventional medicine."
Following the ceremony, a three-day meeting of global experts was held to develop the next WHO traditional medicine strategy. The new global strategy will take into account various countries' progress and new challenges in the field with an ultimate goal of supporting member states in integrating traditional medicine into their respective national health systems.
China's Supreme People's Court (SPC) published on May 8 a judicial interpretation on civil lawsuits filed against monopolistic acts, the first of its kind, in a bid to smooth such claims and promote fair competition.
According to the interpretation, an individual, company or organization may bring a civil anti-trust lawsuit directly to the court without having to obtain a government determination on a certain monopolistic act.
Moreover, the new rules have reduced the plaintiff's burden of proof in such cases.
The plaintiff need not prove the existence of monopoly hazard in typical monopoly cases with evident and serious threats to the market, such as the acts of illegal price or market segmentation collusion, said Kong Xiangjun, Chief Judge with the Third Tribunal for Civil Trials of the SPC.
An inspection of more than 430 major hospitals across China showed that the prescription of antibiotics accounted for 15 percent of the total prescriptions in hospitals in 2011, down from 27.8 percent in 2006, according to the Ministry of Health.
Antibiotics were applied in about 58 percent of surgeries involving open wounds in 2011, down from 99 percent in 2006, and were applied on less than 30 percent of hospitalized patients, down from 51.5 percent, said Wang Yu, a senior official with the ministry.
The country launched the campaign last April to curb the prevailing abuse of antibiotics.
In addition, a new regulation on the medical application of antibiotics will take effect on August 1, which upgrades the management on the purchase and applications of antibiotics in hospitals and interference in abuse.
China will train 8,000 doctors in rural areas to prevent and treat diabetes, covering 279 counties in nine provinces, the Chinese Diabetes Society (CDS) under the Chinese Medical Association said on May 4.
The year-long program will allow doctors to receive both face-to-face and remote online training in the provinces of Jiangsu, Hebei, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, Sichuan, Yunnan, Shandong and Henan, the CDS said.
A CDS survey indicated that China has more than 40 million diabetes patients in rural areas, similar to the number found in urban areas.
However, nearly 70 percent of rural patients are not even aware that they have the disease because of the poor quality of rural medical care.
Ji Linong, Director of the CDS, said the training program is aimed at improving the knowledge and skills of rural doctors for the purpose of standardizing diabetes prevention and treatment.
Diabetes specialists from the CDS will train the counties' most highly qualified doctors, who will then pass on their knowledge to clinical doctors through training courses and seminars, Ji said. | 
