Famed Mathematician Passes Away

(XINHUA)

The renowned Chinese mathematician Gu Chaohao passed away in Shanghai on June 24.

Born in 1926 in Wenzhou, east China's Zhejiang Province, Gu received his doctorate in physics and mathematics from Moscow State University in 1959. He was vice president of Fudan University in Shanghai and president of the University of Science and Technology of China in Anhui Province. He became an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1980 and an academician of the Russia-based International Higher Education Academy of Sciences in 1994.

Gu won the nation's top science and technology award in 2009. He was honored for his important contributions to differential geometry, partial differential equations and mathematical physics, three subdisciplines of modern mathematics.

In August 2009, with the approval of the Minor Planet Center, an asteroid was named after Gu to honor his contributions to humankind.

Corruption Assets

China will strengthen the measures it uses to recover corrupt officials' illicit assets transferred abroad and demand concerned countries to freeze such assets to cut off the officials' means for living overseas, a member of the Anti-Corruption Bureau of the Supreme People's Procuratorate told Xinhua News Agency on June 27.

The official, who wished not to be named, said China has prevented a large amount of illicit assets from being transferred abroad by coordinating with other countries and regions.

However, there is an obstacle to the work, as procuratorates can only seal or freeze illicit assets involving crimes committed while in public duty for a limited period of time if the suspects are still at large or have escaped custody, instead of permanently confiscating assets.

The official said that the work will be fully carried out after the amendment to the Criminal Procedural Law takes effect on January 1, 2013, adding that procuratorates will improve measures to trace illicit money in the future and make breakthroughs in major cases.

Safe Drinking Water

The number of rural Chinese residents who lack access to safe drinking water was reduced by 221 million from 2004 to 2010, according to Vice Minister Du Ying of the National Development and Reform Commission.

"The feat was accomplished after the country launched a government-led rural drinking water project, which attracted an investment of 109.3 billion yuan ($17.2 billion) from 2005 to 2010," Du said in a report to the bi-monthly session of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, the country's top legislature, on June 27.

The Chinese Government will strive to solve the problems concerning drinking water safety for millions of rural residents in accordance with the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-15) for the country's social and economic development.

By 2015, nearly 80 percent of the rural population will have access to safe drinking water through centralized water supply facilities, Du said.

Earthquake in Southwest

A 5.7-magnitude earthquake jolted the border of southwest China's Yunnan and Sichuan provinces at 3:59 p.m. on June 24, said the China Earthquake Networks Center.

The epicenter, with a depth of 11 km, was located at the border area between Ninglang County in Yunnan and Yanyuan County in Sichuan.

As of June 27, three people had been reported dead and another 394 injured.

The quake also damaged or destroyed the homes of 6,768 families in the disaster zone. More than 28,000 people needed to be evacuated. Provincial and city authorities sent relief supplies, including tents, coats, quilts, bottled water and food to Ninglang.

Healthcare Reform

Missions set in a three-year plan for China's healthcare reform program in the 2009-11 period have been completed on schedule, according to the Healthcare Reform Office of the State Council, China's cabinet.

The three-year plan missions included establishment of a basic medical care insurance system, implementation of the basic drug system and improvement of primary-level medical services.

Between 2009 and 2011, the Chinese Government invested 450.6 billion yuan ($70.83 billion) in the country's medical care services, the office said.

By the end of 2011, over 95 percent of the country's population were covered by basic medical care insurance programs designed for employees, urban residents and rural residents.

The annual government subsidy for urban and rural residents' insurance was increased from 80 yuan ($12.57) per person in 2008 to 200 yuan ($31.43) in 2011, and the sum will be raised to 240 yuan ($37.72) this year.

In the past three years, state investment in the construction and improvement of 33,000 primary-level hospitals totaled 63 billion yuan ($9.9 billion).

Furthermore, reform programs have been launched in more than 2,000 public hospitals across the country.

Animal Epidemic Survey

Tibet Autonomous Region in west China has launched a large-scale animal epidemic survey, the first in more than 20 years in the region, to boost disease prevention efforts.

Veterinaries will fan out to 40 key spots and epidemic-prone areas in Tibet over the next 18 months to collect samples and conduct clinical studies, said Tsedrum, head vet of the regional government's Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Bureau.

The survey results will help the government draw epidemic prevention plans from 2015 to 2025 and set up a database for Tibet's animal epidemic situations, Tsedrum said. The last such survey was conducted in 1989.

This year's survey, funded by the government, is estimated to cost 24 million yuan ($3.77 million), the official said.

Earth Monitoring Project

China is to invest 517 million yuan ($81.25 million) to build a modern national network to monitor movements in the Earth's crust and other Earth sciences in the next four years, according to an announcement by the National Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geoinformation (SBSM) on June 26.

The program will mobilize more than 3,000 technicians nationwide to build a three-dimensional and dynamic "geodetic" network with high precision, it said.

The national geodetic network aims to build 360 GPS (Global Positioning System) reference stations, and a satellite-geodesy control network consisting of 4,500 control points.

SBSM Deputy Director Li Weisen said that the network will ensure people can get timely geodetic information for any point in the country's land area.

The network is also expected to offer services for construction projects, natural disaster relief and mineral resources development.

Divorces on the Rise

More cases of divorce and marriage were handled across China in 2011, according to a bulletin released by the Ministry of Civil Affairs on June 28.

In 2011, more than 2.87 million couples divorced through court ruling or civil affairs administrative procedures, up 7.3 percent year on year, the bulletin said.

The number of divorces per 1,000 people was 2.13 in 2011, 0.13 points higher from the previous year.

Civil affairs authorities nationwide also registered 13.02 million marriages in the same year, a rise of 4.9 percent year on year.