Scientist Honored

(CFP)

Pan Jiazheng, a prestigious hydrologist, was conferred with the Achievement Award at the Ninth Guanghua Engineering Science and Technology Awards on June 13. The prize was given by the Chinese Academy of Engineering for honoring top experts in engineering science and technology.

Pan, 85, is one of the pioneers of China's water conservancy and hydropower science and technology. He has been responsible for the construction of several hydropower stations around the country. He is one of the major supporters of the Three Gorges Dam project and was the leader of the project's quality control panel.

He became an academician for the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1980 and an academician as well as vice president of Chinese Academy of Engineering in 1994.

Food Safety Plan

China has released a five-year plan to upgrade its food safety regulations as part of the country's ongoing efforts to address food safety concerns.

The government will improve national food safety standards by revamping outdated standards, reviewing and abolishing any contradicting or overlapping standards and working out new regulations, according to the plan posted on the website of the Ministry of Health on June 15.

China has more than 2,000 national food regulations and more than 2,900 industry-based regulations.

Many of the regulations are overlapping or contradict each other, since multiple government agencies were given the responsibility of compiling their own standards years ago.

According to the plan, 14 government departments, including the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Agriculture, will work together to finish revamping the existing standards by 2015.

The government will prioritize safety standards for dairy products, infant food, meat, alcohol, vegetable oil, seasoning, health products and food additives so as to specify limits for dangerous ingredients in these foods, says the plan.

Moreover, the government will make special efforts to set standards for testing various contaminants, food additives, microorganisms, pesticides and animal drug residue in food production by 2015.

Cross-Taiwan Straits Ties

The Chinese mainland introduced a package of preferential policies on June 17 in the areas of the economy, science, culture and education to strengthen ties with Taiwan.

Four banking institutions from the mainland, including the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Bank of China, China Construction Bank and China Development Bank, will offer credit of 600 billion yuan ($94.41 billion) to Taiwanese-invested businesses in the mainland, said Wang Yi, Minister of the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, at the Fourth Straits Forum in the southeastern coastal city of Xiamen, Fujian Province.

The mainland will also open the market to rice imports from Taiwan, Wang said.

The new policies also include further easing employment restrictions for Taiwanese students and residents on the mainland. Taiwanese residents will be allowed to apply for a teacher's certificate at mainland colleges and universities.

The mainland will increase the number of Taiwanese tour operators on the mainland and expand the range of personal travel.

To deepen scientific cooperation, the National Natural Science Foundation of China will launch a "union fund of promoting scientific cooperation across the straits" with Fujian, according to Wang.

All natural science research programs across the Taiwan Straits can apply for money from the fund, which will have an annual investment of 30 million yuan ($4.72 million), he said.

Fraudulent Sites Closed

Chinese authorities have closed 89 websites for fraudulent activities in the name of government organs or charity groups, according to a statement released on June 19 by the State Internet Information Office.

Many of the websites, tackled in a spate of closures beginning in March, claimed to serve anti-corruption and law enforcement agencies. Their operators would fabricate negative news stories and threaten to post them online if the organizations or individuals targeted didn't pay hush money, said the statement.

In other cases, counterfeit media licenses and journalist certificates were on sale for thousands of yuan each in the name of administrative organs.

Healthcare Reform

County-level hospitals are to lead China's reform of public healthcare facilities, under a program announced on June 15 on the Central Government's website.

It introduces a pilot program covering 300 county-level hospitals, which are expected to undergo reforms in finance, management and human resources by 2015 to enhance their capacity.

The program plans to wipe out the existing financing mechanism of hospitals that relies heavily on medicine sales while their services are undervalued.

County hospitals are known as the backbone of China's healthcare network in rural areas, and directly serve more than 900 million residents. Rural patients, however, tend to flood into major hospitals in cities to seek better quality services.

The program has set a goal of restoring people's trust in county-level medical facilities and serving 90 percent of all the patients within each county.

Heritage Status Bidding

The Great Hall of the People and other modern buildings in Beijing that form the city's central axis will be recommended to the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) for inclusion in the list of World Cultural Heritage sites, The Beijing News reported on June 19.

Lu Zhou, Director of the National Heritage Center at Tsinghua University, said that such modern buildings represent national dignity and reflect respect for and reinforcement of Beijing's central axis, which has a far-reaching influence on construction in the city.

The application of the buildings along Beijing's central axis will be put in a preliminary national list, which will later be delivered to UNESCO.

Cultural Relics Protection

China will build an offshore supervision platform to help protect cultural relics around the Xisha Islands in the South China Sea, said a cultural relics official in south China's Hainan Province on June 25.

The platform will consist of a geographic information system, remote sensing satellite and video surveillance system to supervise the waters, said Wang Yiping, Director of the Hainan Provincial Cultural Relic Bureau.

According to Wang, special underwater preservation zones will also be designated in areas where cultural relics are vulnerable to theft.

A total of 124 historic underwater sites have been found in the South China Sea. An examination of some of the sites in 2011 showed that 26 of 48 examined sites had been damaged by thieves.