| Academic Ambassador
 |
|
(WEI YAO) |
Ambassador Joseph Verner Reed, Under Secretary General of the UN, won an award for special contribution to Chinese books presented by the General Administration of Press and Publication of China on August 28, in a ceremony tied to the 19th Beijing International Book Fair.
Launched in 2005, the national award is given to foreign writers, translators and publishers with outstanding contribution to the promotion of Chinese culture and publications to the world. So far, a total of 33 people have received the award.
Born in 1937 in the United States, Reed was a graduate of Deerfield Academy and Yale University, Class of 1961. In 1987, he was appointed under secretary general of the UN for Political and General Assembly Affairs. In early 1989, President George H.W. Bush appointed Ambassador Reed chief of protocol of the White House, where he served until late 1991.
Since 1990, Reed has been involved in a publishing project entitled The Culture and Civilization of China, initiated by Yale University Press and the China International Publishing Group. The planned 10-book series ranges from painting, architecture, ancient philosophy, sculpture, calligraphy, ceramics and silks. The project marks the largest cooperative publishing effort between China and the United States, garnering a great deal of attention in international publishing circles.
The State Council, China's Cabinet, on August 29 approved a string of new measures to narrow the gap in fundamental educational levels between the country's urban and rural areas.
China has provided children with universal access to fundamental education, or the nine-year compulsory education system that covers elementary and junior high education, but the quality of education differs among regions and schools, according to an executive meeting of the State Council presided over by Premier Wen Jiabao.
The government pledges to raise educational investment in rural and poverty-hit areas. Educational facilities in rural schools such as books, laboratory equipment, accommodations and cafeterias will be improved, and excellent teachers will be encouraged to go to rural schools in order to ensure the equal allocation of educational resources.
Latch-key children, the children of migrant workers and orphans should be guaranteed equal rights in receiving education. Moreover, the measures require county-level governments to determine the locations of their elementary and primary schools in accordance with local population ratios.
The closing or merging of rural schools must strictly adhere to relevant rules and procedures, and parents and teachers should be invited to offer their suggestions, according to the measures.
The measures urge local governments to strictly implement the Regulation on School Bus Safety Management created in April by the State Council to ensure safe transportation for students.
According to statistics from the Ministry of Health, the mortality rate for children under the age of 5 dived from 61 deaths per 1,000 births in 1991 to 15.6 deaths per 1,000 births in 2011. The government has set a target of reducing the ratio to less than 13 deaths per 1,000 births by 2020.
However, the infant mortality rate in rural areas is nearly three times that of urban areas, with premature births, pneumonia, congenital heart disease and accidental asphyxia claiming many young lives.
To narrow the yawning urban-rural gap, the Central Government launched a campaign to promote hospital births in central and western rural areas in 2000, expanding it nationwide in 2009. The campaign provides a subsidy of 400 yuan ($63) for women who choose to give birth in hospital.
From 2009 to 2011, the Central Government poured 7.9 billion yuan ($1.24 billion) into the program, raising the country's rural hospital birth rate to 96.7 percent from 92.3 percent in 2008.
The China Meteorological Administration (CMA) said on August 24 that it had accelerated the building of an emergency alert system.
Sun Jian, Director of CMA's Public Weather Service Center and also head of CMA's emergency alert system, said that the country aims to build a multi-tier network, including one state-level, 31 provincial-level and 342 municipal-level platforms. That will improve the function of the warning system.
The aim of the project is to ensure residents receive a warning within 10 minutes after messages are released via the Internet, text messages, telephone, fax, radio, electronic screens, loudspeakers in rural areas, marine radio and other channels, Sun said.
It is a key part of the country's emergency response system and was initially set up in 11 provincial-level regions.
Investment in the system had hit 136 million yuan ($21.42 million), earlier reports said.
China on August 24 launched a massive project to archive ancient medical books in order to promote the preservation of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM).
The project, part of an ancient document preservation program introduced in 2006, will be the most comprehensive archival of TCM writings since 1949, according to a statement from the Ministry of Culture and State Administration of TCM.
The size of the project is not yet known, although a report issued last June said it will include at least 2,800 documents.
The statement said the project will also include medical writings by minority ethnic groups and writings from overseas.
The Consulate General of the People's Republic of China in New York commemorated the 40th anniversary of "Ping-pong Diplomacy" during a reception on August 28.
Henry Kissinger, former U.S. Secretary of State, Jan Berris, Vice President of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, George Braithwaite, one of the members of the U.S. table tennis team that went to China in 1971, and hundreds of members from Chinese and U.S. communities attended the reception.
"Ping-pong Diplomacy" refers to the exchange of table tennis players between China and the United States in the early 1970s. The friendly competitions marked a thaw in then-strained China-U.S. relations, paving the way for the normalization of diplomatic ties.
"The exchange of visits of the Chinese and U.S. table tennis teams signified that 'a small ping-pong ball can move the big globe ahead,'" said Consul General Sun Guoxiang. "Ping-pong Diplomacy brought the two peoples closer, opened a new chapter in China-U.S.
relations and brought about profound changes in the international political landscape. Those leaders' great vision, wisdom, courage and commitment have continued to inspire us to this day," he added.
A maternity hospital built jointly by medical institutions from the Chinese mainland and Taiwan—Baodao Healthcare—went into trial operation in Beijing on August 28.
Baodao Healthcare has a medical staff of 226 and provides 50 beds for expectant mothers.
Jin Dapeng, head of the Beijing Medical Association, said at the hospital's opening ceremony that Baodao Healthcare had passed the association's assessment and was operating in accordance with national standards.
Baodao Healthcare is the first joint mainland-Taiwan hospital to be registered in Beijing since the signing of the landmark Cross-Straits Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement in 2010. The hospital is scheduled to officially go into operation in October, expanding in-patient capacity to 100 beds. | 
