Secessionist Activities Doomed to Fail

Chinese President Hu Jintao said on March 4 that secessionist activities in Taiwan have become the greatest menace to China's national sovereignty and territorial integrity, but such activities are doomed to fail.

Hu made the remarks when meeting with political advisors attending the First Session of the 11th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

He pledged that the mainland will strive to safeguard peace in the Taiwan Straits and promote the peaceful reunification of the motherland.

Hu reiterated that the mainland's belief in promoting the peaceful development of cross-Straits relations will be firm and unswerving.

"We are committed to our pledges to our Taiwan compatriots. We will never sway upon temporary fluctuations of the situation, or change upon a few individuals' deliberate disturbances," said the president.

First Inland Nuclear Plant

China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group (CGNPG) and Hubei Provincial Government on March 4 signed an agreement to build the country's first inland nuclear power plant.

The two sides said the project will be located in Xianning City, 421 km southeast of Yichang City where the Three Gorges Dam lies.

China currently has 11 nuclear generators in six nuclear power plants, all located along the eastern coast, with a combined installed capacity of 9.07 million kilowatts. The CGNPG's installed capacity is 3.95 million kw, or 43.5 percent of the total.

At present, another 12 nuclear generating units have been approved for construction, with a combined power capacity of 12.24 million kw.

City of Cultural Symbols

A "Chinese cultural symbolic city" will be built in Shandong Province, home of ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius, said governor of the region Jiang Daming, speaking at a news conference on March 1 in Beijing.

With the aim of reviving traditional values including Confucianism, the city will cover 300 square km with an estimated investment of at least 30 billion yuan ($4.22 billion).

The project will be in the city of Jining, one of the cradles of Chinese civilization and the birthplace of Confucius and his main disciple Mencius.

The cultural city will incorporate the county-level city of Qufu, ancestral home of Confucius; Zoucheng, home of Mencius; and the Jiulong Mountain range between the two cities. Designs and plans for the city will be solicited from the public until September.

Care for Children

Louise Shackelton, the British Foreign Secretary's wife, opened the new project center of Care for Children (CFC) in Shunyi District, Beijing on February 28.

The CFC Center will continue to train local staff from all over China in the best practices in childcare and also set up a model of excellence in special needs education and clinical services.

Shackelton and Zhao Pengqi, Vice President of the China Association of Social Workers, both delivered speeches at the ceremony and said they wished the project would further facilitate care for orphaned children in China.

CFC is a small focused charity registered in China, Hong Kong, the UK and the United States, which since 1998 has been working with the Chinese Government to facilitate the integration of orphaned children into loving long-term foster homes.

Online Exam Boom

Educational Testing Service (ETS) and China's National Education Examinations Authority (NEEA) recently announced that after proactive network construction and capacity expansion, 7 TOEFL iBT (Internet-based Test) test sites have been added since the beginning of the year. There are now 100 test sites located in 33 cities throughout China, representing a 100 percent increase over the same period last year.

NEEA and ETS have worked closely through several effective joint efforts to ensure that test takers have more convenient access to testing services and to solve the issue of overwhelmingly high registration.