SOCIETY

ROBOT COMPETITION

The Second National Robot Design Creative Competition was held at the Harbin Far East Institute of Technology on July 15.The two-day event saw contests involving robots singing and playing sports.

Out of Danger

Relief workers carry a child to a helicopter in Caopo Township in Wenchuan County,southwest China’s Sichuan Province,on July 16 after a flood inundated the region.The provincial government reported on the day that rainstormtriggered floods and a landslide in the previous week had claimed 58 lives and left 175 people missing in Sichuan.The Ministry of Finance said on July 17 that 250 million yuan ($41 million) from the central budget had been allocated to Sichuan for rebuilding damaged homes and as allowance for flood victims.

Legal Aid

A volunteer legal aid campaign has benefited more than 17 million people over the past year,one of its co-organizers revealed on July 15.

In the 1+1 Volunteer Legal Aid Campaign,launched by the Ministry of Justice and the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League in 2009,about 180 volunteers have handled 13,280 cases and helped solve 2,600 disputes in the past year,according to the China Legal Aid Foundation.

The campaign aims to provide legal services in areas lacking lawyers.Lawyers and law students are sent to the regions to provide assistance for a year at a time.

More than 100 Chinese counties still have no lawyers working in them.The absence has caused a bottleneck in economic and social development of these areas.This year’s campaign will see more than 200 volunteers sent to 123 counties across China to dispense legal advice and assistance to those in need.

HK Suffrage

Zhang Xiaoming,Director of the Liaison Office of the Chinese Central People’s Government in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region(HKSAR),said on June 16 that the Central Government’s sincerity toward universal suffrage in Hong Kong is undoubted,and the whole process must follow the course set in 2007 by the HKSAR Basic Law and the National People’s Congress Standing Committee.

“We should get to know clearly the terms and regulations of the Basic Law concerning the Chief Executive and Legislative Council elections to find what problems are yet to be solved and what problems have already been tackled,”Zhang said.

“Then we should concentrate on studying those unsolved problems,explore their possible solutions and finally have a concrete solution plan.That would be the right approach,”he said.

Zhang stressed that the HKSAR’s approach to universal suffrage must be compatible with its administrative status,comply with the principle of“one country,two systems”and respect the relationship between Hong Kong and the Central Government,adding that the electoral setup must ensure state sovereignty and the Central Government’s lawful rights.

CULTURAL MEETING

The International Youth Summer Camp on Chinese World Heritage opens in Suzhou,Jiangsu Province,on July 17.Teenagers from 21 countries and regions spent eight days visiting world heritage candidate sites in China

Voc-Ed Employment

The employment rate for graduates of higher vocational schools in China rose slightly from 2010 to 2012,according to a report released on July 16.

The report,jointly conducted by the Shanghai Academy of Educational Sciences and educational research company MyCOS Institute,said that the employment rate of vocational graduates increased to 90.4 percent in 2012,just below the 91.5-percent employment rate for college graduates in the same year.

Researchers surveyed about 200,000 graduates of higher vocational schools in the 31 provinciallevel regions on the Chinese mainland over the past few years.

According to the report,more than 40,000 technical courses were jointly developed by vocational schools and companies,and 1,318 majors were created in higher vocational education.The survey also shows that the incomes of higher vocation school graduates rose 120 percent from 2009 to 2012.

YELLOW HARVEST

A villager gathers corn in Yixu Village,Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region on July 15.About 108,000 hectares of summer grain in Guangxi are entering the harvest season

Space Research

Scientists from all over the world will conduct advanced interdisciplinary studies at a Beijing branch of the International Space Science Institute(ISSI).

Launched on July 16 by the ISSI,based in Bern,Switzerland,and Beijing-based National Space Science Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences,the Beijing institute will contribute to a deeper understanding of the results from different space missions,groundbased observations and laboratory experiments.

The newly established ISSI-Beijing will advance the internationalization of space science research,and provide an important window on Chinese space science to the scientific community,according to a statement of the branch.

This year,ISSI-Beijing will support one international team and four forums on science topics,including x-ray timing and polarization,as well as solar polar orbit observation.

The ISSI was established in 1995 and funded by agencies including the European Space Agency,the Swiss Federal Government and the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Air Delay Payoff

China’s civil aviation authority is considering a standardized national compensation scheme for delayed flights,according to a Chinese media report.

The plan,likely to follow an EU model basing compensation on the length of the delay,is expected to reduce mass claim disputes,the21st Century Business Heraldreported on July 15,citing an anonymous insider.

Under the country’s current guideline for flight delay compensation,each airline is allowed to set its own compensation standards,often fueling the discontent of passengers.

Data published by the Civil Aviation Administration of China(CAAC) in May showed that more than 500,000 flights were delayed across the country in 2012,the worst record in the past five years.

Deep Exploration

China’sChang’e-2deep space probe has reached a distance 50 million km away from Earth,said the State Administration of Science,Technology and Industry for National Defense.

The probe,now“in good condition,”set a“new height”in the nation’s deep space exploration at 1 a.m.on July 14,said an administration statement.

Chang’e-2will be able to travel to a distance as far as 300 million km away from Earth,according to calculations of scientists at the Beijing Aerospace Control Center.

The probe was launched on October 1,2010 from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China and later orbited the moon.

After finishing its lunar objectives in June 2011,the probe left its lunar orbit for an extended mission to the Earth-Sun L2 Lagrangian point.

On December 13,2012,it flew by Toutatis,an asteroid about 7 million km away from Earth,making China the fourth after the United States,the EU and Japan to be able to examine an asteroid by spacecraft.

Urban Drainage

A guideline for upgrading drainage systems has been developed for cities across China,the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development said on July 13.According to the guideline,drainage facilities in downtown areas in 36 large cities should be upgraded to handle heavy rain and prevent floods from occurring.

The ministry requires municipal authorities to submit compiled construction plans in accordance with the guideline before mid-2014.

A heavy downpour that occurred in Beijing last July paralyzed the city,prompting authorities to reflect on poor drainage systems.

Graduation

Principal Zhukang Tubdain Kaizhub (right) confers a graduate diploma to a student at the Tibet Buddhist Theological Institute in the township of Nyetang,Quxu County in Tibet Autonomous Region,on July 15.

The first batch of 150 students came from 128 monasteries in Tibet.They began their studies in October 2011 when the institute opened.The institute is Tibet’s only regional-level Buddhist theological academy.