HAPPY FATHER'S DAY: Chang Le, a resident in Shenyang, Liaoning Province, holds his newborn son at a local hospital. He was doubly blessed, as not only did he become a dad but he became one on Father's Day, which fell on June 15 this year (XINHUA)

Island School

Sansha, China's youngest city in southernmost Hainan Province, began building its first school on June 14.

The construction of Yongxing School, which included a kindergarten and a primary school, is expected to be completed in 18 months, said Mayor Xiao Jie.

With a total investment of about 36 million yuan ($5.78 million), the school will cover 4,650 square meters.

Sansha, on Yongxing, one of the Xisha Islands, was officially established in July in 2012 to administer the Xisha, Zhongsha and Nansha islands and their surrounding waters in the South China Sea.

About 40 school-age children have parents living and working on Yongxing. With no school, most had to go to schools elsewhere or were left with their grandparents.

Full Bellies

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) on June 16 awarded a prize to China, along with Chile and Morocco, for having met the first Millennium Development Goal of halving the proportion of people who suffer from hunger by 2015 compared with 1990-91 figures, in a special ceremony at the agency's headquarters in Rome, Italy.

According to the FAO, China reduced the prevalence of undernourishment from 22.9 percent in 1990-92 to 11.4 percent in 2011-13, bringing the estimated number of chronically hungry people down from 272.1 million to 158 million.

Jose Graziano da Silva, Director General of the FAO, spoke highly of China's policies of maintaining the current size of farmland for agriculture through setting a "bottom line" to contain urban erosion of land for agricultural production.

Meanwhile, the FAO chief also voiced hope that China would continue to achieve even greater success under the framework of the Zero Hunger Challenge, an anti-hunger blueprint launched by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in 2012.

He praised a plan unveiled by the Chinese Government in January for rural reforms, further modernization of agriculture, and improvement of farmers' incomes.

Peacekeeping Training

China's Ministry of Defense and the Department of Peacekeeping Operations of the United Nations on June 16 started a 12-day training session for peacekeepers from 18 countries.

The 33 trainees include 10 Chinese, and officers from India, Pakistan, Malaysia, the Republic of Korea, and other Asian countries.

The training session is held once or twice a year at major peacekeeping facilities around the world, using the latest training criteria and modules.

In the past four years, China has held three peacekeeping training sessions with the UN.

China has established a fairly complete training system for peacekeepers, according to the Peacekeeping Office of the Ministry of Defense.

"China has already made outstanding progress toward this goal, in part due to policies that support targeted investments in agriculture, reforms in the agricultural system, and impressive increases in domestic food production."

Jose Graziano da Silva, Director General of the Food and Agriculture Organization