Chinanews, Beijing, August 31 ¨C The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has released a list of 145 candidates for its new academicians.

Seventy-two candidates are in their 40s or just 50. Apparently, Chinese academicians are becoming younger and younger.

Pan Jianwei, the youngest of the nominated candidates, is only 37 years old. It is also the first time for CAS to include such a young person as a candidate. Pan is an optical physicist in the University of Science and Technology of China.

All the 145 candidates were selected from 771 recommended ones. The final result will be announced in December. No more than 60 of them will eventually become academicians. The candidates aged over 65 will need recommendations by at least 6 academicians, of whom 4 should in the same field of study.

    ZHENGZHOU, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) — At least 12 miners went missing after an explosion occurred in a colliery in central China’s Henan Province on Friday.

    The blast ripped through the Shunli Coal Mine in Baofeng County of Pingdingshan City at about 8:50 a.m. when the miners were repairing the shaft, according to initial investigation.

    Rescuers and police officers are struggling to get into the pit after clearing up the entrance.

    The mine, with a legal business license, has been under technological renovation this year in accordance with the government’s order to improve production safety.

    No more details are available so far.

(China Daily)

    BEIJING, Aug. 31 — Every day, Li Peiyi, a railway policeman in Xi’an, capital of Northwest China’s Shaanxi Province, begins his daily inspection of the tracks with a big plastic bag and a wire hook, picking up empty drink bottles dropped by passengers.

    ”This simple and seemingly boring scavenging has greatly reduced the hidden danger of accidents,” said Li, 58.

    Li, a policeman assigned to maintain order in Lintong Railway Station, a small station in Lintong District of Xi’an, has now become a keeper of track safety.

    ”On Apr. 18, the sixth speeding-up was implemented on China’s railways, putting a halt to passenger business. So policemen like me who used to work at the station have turned to patrolling the tracks,” he said.

    Li, who has just two more years to retire, walks 7.5 kilometers of the tracks that come under the jurisdiction of his station. He patrols the line two or three times, spending more than three hours each time.

    During his inspections, Li found that scavengers got onto the tracks from both sides of the protective net to pick up the waste dropped by train passengers.

    ”This is very dangerous, given the high-speed trains. So I decided to pick up the waste myself,” he said. His tools are his big plastic bag and two iron hooks with 1.5-meter long handles.

    ”Li not only picks up the waste himself but actually hands it over to the scavengers who try to come on to the tracks,” said Quan Bingde, a co-worker. Not surprisingly, no accidents have been reported on this line for the past three months.

    Not only that, over the same period, Li has also earned some 200 yuan (26 U.S. dollars) by selling more than 3,000 bottles collected from the tracks.

    ”Li used the money to buy mosquito-repellent, flashlight bulbs and bicycle tires to help us in our patrolling,” said Wang Peng, deputy chief officer of the police unit of the Lintong Railway Station.

    ”Initially, I only wanted to stop scavengers from entering the tracks,” Li said.

    ”But he has managed to kill three birds with one stone - decreasing accidents by stopping the scavengers, helping keep the railway surroundings clean and adding money to our station,” Wang said with a smile.

    (Source: China Daily)

    BEIJING, Aug. 31 — The winner of a 41.7-million-yuan (5.52 million U.S. dollars) lottery jackpot in Henan Province turned up at the lottery center to collect his money yesterday, but dressed to keep his identity secret, the Beijing Morning Post reported today.

    The winner looked thin and was about 170 centimeter tall. He wore a pair of sunglasses, a white gauze mask, and a long coat to cover himself, the report said.

The winner of  41.7-million-yuan (5.52 million U.S. dollars) lottery jackpot looked thin and was about 170 centimeter tall. He wore a pair of sunglasses, a white gauze mask, and a long coat to cover himself, the report said.(Xinhuanet Forum Photo)

    ”I’m surprised to win so much money and I haven’t decided how to spend it,” the man said.

    The provincial lottery center scheduled a ceremony for the winner at 2 p.m. but he didn’t arrive until 3:30 p.m. He received a medal that represented the prize and left the center within two minutes, the report said.

    The winning numbers were drawn on Monday night. The winning ticket was sold at a lottery booth near Zhongyuan Road of Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan.

    However, the booth owner surnamed Wang said the man who attended the ceremony was not the one who bought the ticket.

    ”This man might be the winner’s brother,” Wang said.

    The winner paid 15 yuan for five tickets in the Super Lotto.

    ”He’s really an infatuated lottery fan, and he’s been buying tickets at my booth for nearly two years,” said Wang.

    The 41.7-million-yuan jackpot is the third biggest prize in Chinese lottery history. A person in Tangshan City of Hebei Province won 50 million yuan in a lottery on Oct. 12 last year, and a resident of Shanghai won 48.57 million yuan in Feb. 2004.

    (Source: Shanghai Daily)

    JAKARTA, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) — Two Xinzhou-60 passenger planes will enter service in Indonesia’s state-run air carrier Merpati Nusantara Airlines next week to become the first Chinese-made planes in commercial flights for a local company.

    Merpati plans to operate the Xinzhou-60s for short-distance routes in eastern Indonesia, leading economic daily Bisnis Indonesia reported Friday.

    The turboprop-powered planes, each has 60 passenger seats, will fly between Bali and the neighboring provinces of East Nusa Tenggara and West Nusa Tenggara.

    ”The planes will arrive next week and we will use them for short-distance routes,” Merpati president Hotasi Nababan was quoted as saying.

    The company has agreed to buy 15 Xinzhou-60s from the China Aviation Industry Corporation I in Shaanxi.

    UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) — China, in a UN letter made public Wednesday night, strongly condemned an attempt by “very few” countries to request the UN General Assembly to consider the so-called question of “Taiwan’s application for United Nations membership.”

    The letter from Chinese UN Ambassador Wang Guangya to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was in response to a letter submitted earlier by the Solomon Islands and a very few other countries to the UN chief. These countries asked the forthcoming session of the General Assembly to consider “Taiwan’s application for United Nations Membership.”

    This is “a blatant attempt to clamor for and create ‘Taiwan independence’” and is “absolutely preposterous,” Wang said in the letter dated Aug. 17.

    It “wantonly tramples on the purposes and principles” of the UN Charter and General Assembly resolution 2758, “seriously violates China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, gravely intervenes in China’s internal affairs and seriously hurts the feelings of the 1.3 billion Chinese people,” Wang said.

    ”The Chinese government and people strongly condemn and firmly oppose such an act,” Wang continued.

    Since 1993, the General Committee of the successive sessions of the General Assembly have all flatly refused to include the so-called issue of “Taiwan’s participation in the United Nations” in the agenda of the General Assembly, he said.

    This has fully demonstrated the determination of the vast number of UN member states to safeguard the UN Charter and General Assembly resolution 2758, and also shows that the Taiwan authorities will never obtain international support in their attempt to split China by raising the so-called issue of “Taiwan’s participation in the United Nations,” Wang said.

    China values its relations with all UN member states and has never done anything harmful to the interests of the cosponsor countries, but those countries, on the question of Taiwan, have been repeatedly undermining the national interests of China and hurting the feelings of the Chinese people, he said.

    Their act has also gravely obstructed the work of the General Assembly and wasted the precious resources of the United Nations and its member states, he said.

    ”We strongly urge those countries to change their positions, strictly abide by” the UN Charter and General Assembly resolution 2758, and “identify themselves with the great number of member states on the Taiwan question,” Wang added.