【专题】慢速英语（英音）2016-06-07

英语环球 NEWSPlus Radio

This is Special English. I'm Mark Griffiths in Beijing. Here is the news.
To push for the nation's economic transition and industrial upgrading, Chinese leaders have pledged greater commitment to the research and application of science and technology.
In a show of unprecedented importance, both President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang addressed an event combining three top-level science conferences attended by 4,000 scientists and science officials.
Xi said the central government's commitment is aimed at making China a leading power in science and technology by the middle of the century, or around the 100th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.
Xi stressed the role of science and technology as bedrock that "the country relies on for its power; enterprises rely on for victories; and people rely on for a better life."
The president said that "Great scientific and technological capacity is a must for China to be strong and for people's lives to improve". He is calling for new ideas, designs and strategies in science and technology.
Premier Li told the event that China's overall research and development input will keep rising to account for 2.5 percent of its GDP by 2020, from the current 2.1 percent.
The conference is calling for more policy reforms to provide incentives for the talent needed in research and innovation.
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A UN report has lauded Beijing's efforts to battle air pollution but said it needs to do more to meet particulate matter standards.
Published by the UN Environment Program, the report is entitled "A Review of Air Pollution Control in Beijing: 1998-2013".
In the past 15 years, the number of registered vehicles increased by 300 percent in Beijing and energy consumption rose by 77 percent.
The UN Environment Program executive director Achim Steiner remarked in the foreword to the report. He says concentrations of key pollutants decreased remarkably, and Beijing improved air quality even as it maintained fast paced growth.
Steiner says Beijing's experience in controlling air pollution against a backdrop of rapid expansion is a story that should be shared with other emerging economies and burgeoning cities.
An environment expert from Tsinghua University says the report recognized Beijing's continual efforts to improve air quality; and Beijing's solution was a combination of energy structure optimization, coal-fired emission control and enhanced air quality monitoring.
The report also offered some suggestions, including improving city planning and optimizing the layout of city functions.
You are listening to Special English. I'm Mark Griffiths in Beijing.
Australian experts say Australia will have a very meaningful role to play in the healthcare sector in China.
HSBC Australia head of commercial banking James Hogan has said there were three key markets Australian businesses were set to benefit from in China, namely food, energy and healthcare.
The research at HSBC found that 70 percent of Chinese mainland citizens say that health is their number one biggest concern.
Hogan said China's demand for healthcare will certainly increase rapidly over the coming year, as healthcare reform becomes a priority for the Chinese government.
He said there were opportunities across the healthcare space in China awaiting Australian investment.
Macquarie University health economy center director Dr. Henry Cutler believes any investment within China would have to be long term.
Cutler says that obviously, developing relationships with those in China to make sure that services delivered are culturally appropriate is important. He added that dumping in a model from Australia would not work.
HSBC noted the recent China-Australia Free Trade Agreement provides Australian medical services and healthcare providers with favorable access to expand into or do business with China.
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Sixty-six kinds of Chinese medicinal herbs have been added to the European Pharmacopoeia, an authoritative reference work for quality control of medication.
Professor Dr. Gerhard Franz is Chairman of the Traditional Chinese Medicine Working Party of the European Pharmacopoeia. He says the event means there are clear quality standards for Chinese herbs exported to Europe, which help the drugs gain wider acceptance in foreign markets.
Franz made the remarks at an international conference on the future of Traditional Chinese Medicine. The conference, entitled TCM's future, was held in Hangzhou, the capital of east China's Zhejiang Province.
The professor said the herbs have undergone strict examination and discussion, and been approved by all 37 signatory countries.
The listed Chinese herbs, including ginseng, account for almost a third of all herbs in the pharmacopoeia. The professor said their goal is to include at least 300 commonly used Chinese herbs.
Exports of traditional Chinese drugs have been impeded by misuse and substitutions for similar plants, as well as contamination by heavy metals and microbial insecticides.
An official from Zhejiang's health and family planning commission said that due to lack of quality standards, China's traditional medicine industry lags far behind its counterparts in Japan and South Korea in foreign markets. He added that modern technology and concepts must be applied in developing Traditional Chinese Medicine.
You are listening to Special English. I'm Mark Griffiths in Beijing.
A farmer in central China's Henan Province is seeking 2 million yuan, roughly 300,000 U.S. dollars, in compensation after he was wrongly diagnosed with HIV and AIDS.
Fifty-three-year-old Yang Shou-fa was diagnosed with HIV and AIDS during a provincial-wide check in 2004, during which more than 280,000 people were tested. It was not until 2012 that he found out that the result was false.
The local disease control center still has samples from 2004, and a retest of Yang's sample came up positive, again.
The center says the test equipment did not fail, so someone must have mixed up Yang's blood with an HIV patient.
Yang had taken HIV medication from his diagnosis until 2012. He had to attend annual health checks, which only tested the amount of CD4+T cells in his blood. In people with HIV, this is the strongest indicator of HIV progression and the most important indicator of how the immune system is working.
Yang's CD4+T cell count was higher than other AIDS patients, but concerns were never raised, as no one doubted the diagnosis.
Before Yang was incorrectly diagnosed in 2004, his health had been failing. He had donated blood once and then suffered from repeated fever. When he was told he had AIDS, he was convinced.
The local health department is considering compensation for him.
You're listening to Special English. I'm Mark Griffiths in Beijing. You can access the program by logging on to newsplusradio.cn. You can also find us on our Apple Podcast. If you have any comments or suggestions, please let us know by e-mailing us at [e-mail]. That's [e-mail]. Now the news continues.
Chinese playwright, author and translator Yang Jiang has died at the age of 105.
Born in Beijing, Yang studied in Soochow University and then Tsinghua University in the 1930s. She was married to Qian Zhongshu, a household name in China. Qian is best known for his sarcastic novel "Fortress Besieged" that depicted the lives of Chinese intellectuals in the 1930s. He died in 1997.
After studying in Britain and France together with Qian, Yang returned and became a foreign language professor at Tsinghua University. She was a literature researcher with Peking University in the 1950s.
Fluent in English, French and Spanish, her translations of such classics as Don Quixote and French picaresque novel Gil Blas remain the definitive versions for Chinese readers.
Yang also penned numerous plays, novels and essays and is known for her plain but resonant style. Her most popular works include "We Three", a 2003 essay collection recalling her husband and daughter, who died of cancer. The book became an instant hit both in China and overseas.
In 2001, Yang and her husband donated all their royalties to Tsinghua University and established a scholarship that has benefited more than 1,000 students.
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Researchers have confirmed that snow leopards live in areas south and north of Qinghai Lake in Northwest China's Qinghai province.
The animals' presence had been rumored but was never proved, as experts have tried to understand the distribution range and habitat selection patterns of the rare big cat.
The new finding was released by the Wildlife Conservation Society of China, which did not reveal specific locations, in a bid to protect the snow leopards. It referred to the two locations only as areas A and B.
The Wildlife Conservation Society of China says researchers spotted snow leopards in Area A and found evidence of them, which were hours-old footprints, in Area B.
Previously, there were reports from herdsmen and other witnesses, but they were unconfirmed. There were no scientific reports supporting the claims.
The new findings will offer basic information for people studying snow leopards and attempting to protect them.
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature has placed the snow leopard on its Red List of Threatened Species as globally endangered.
The Wildlife Conservation Society says that so far, China still has the largest population of the animal, known as the "ghost of the mountains".
You're listening to Special English. I'm Mark Griffiths in Beijing.
The authorities in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region plan to recruit more than 11,000 teachers from around the country to ease its teacher shortage.
The teachers will be recruited for primary and middle schools, high schools, kindergartens and special education schools this year.
Of those, 60 percent will work in four prefectures in the southern part of Xinjiang, where a dearth of bilingual teachers poses a challenge for education. The recruits in these areas should be able to speak mandarin and a language of the local minorities.
Xinjiang has hired more than 72,000 teachers in the past five years, with around 62,000 of them bilingual.
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Lhasa, the capital of southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, has passed a law to protect its ancient villages.
The law came into effect on June 1. It stipulates principles on ancient village protection and restoration, funds, responsibilities and building a long-term protection mechanism. It also demands a "supervisor mechanism" and encourages volunteer groups to help with protection efforts.
Lhasa has around 1,000 villages, which feature unique landscapes and traditions. As the local economy speeds up, many ancient villages have yet to be restored, and the law was enacted to address the issue.
The local government says the law will enhance protection efforts for precious cultural resources in Lhasa.
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