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2017-05-23 Special EnglishThis is Special English. I'm Ryan Price in Beijing. Here is the news.Beijing will award scholarships to students from the Belt and Road countries studying in 160 programs at universities in the city by 2020.The scholarship program was jointly initiated by the municipal education commission and finance bureau in December 2016. So far, a total of 64 programs have been covered by the scholarships, benefiting some 1,100 students.From 2016 to 2020, 32 undergraduate and postgraduate programs will be chosen each year.Last year, 32 programs of 23 universities were chosen, and 32 programs of 32 universities were chosen in 2017. The programs cover subjects including aerospace, legal studies and Traditional Chinese Medicine.Officials with the commission said they hope more high-level talent from Belt and Road countries will come study in Beijing and more educational cooperation will be carried out between Beijing and those countries.This is Special English.Chinese central government has called for more efforts in helping college graduates get jobs or start businesses. That's according to a statement issued recently after a national teleconference on employment.Premier Li Keqiang's written instruction on employment was read out at the conference, which was attended by other state leaders.The employment of college graduates matters to China's social stability, as a total of almost 8 million college students are expected to graduate this year.The central government asked local authorities and schools to encourage the students to work in the grassroots. They are also encouraged to seek jobs and start businesses in advanced manufacturing, strategic emerging industries, service and agriculture.In terms of general employment, the central government stressed enhanced vocational training and other public services.China has set employment targets of 11 million new urban jobs and a registered urban unemployment rate under 4.5 percent this year.You're listening to Special English. I'm Ryan Price in Beijing. The length of Shanghai metro system is now the longest in the world, surpassing the size of networks in other world cities, including New York and Paris.Shanghai Party Secretary Han Zheng said infrastructure transportation within the city is now an important part of the development between urban and rural areas of Shanghai. Han added that Shanghai strengthened its position as global port city, with the transport of containers leading the world for the past 7 years. Freight transport out of Shanghai's main airports ranks the third in the world. Air passenger volumes have reached 100 million, which tops in China.In the next 5 years, more efforts will be made in the transportation integration of the Yangtze River Delta. Plans are in place to make every city within the Yangtze River Delta region reachable within 90 minutes of one another.Additionally, Shanghai will work to make public transport the most convenient means of transportation for its citizens.This is Special English.China has started a yearlong experiment using an airtight advanced life-support system to house eight volunteers as a way to help with the nation's goal of long-term manned deep-space exploration.The project's operator said the Lunar Palace 365 experiment was launched at the Lunar Palace 1 bio-regenerative life-support laboratory in Beihang University in Beijing. The eight volunteers are all postgraduate students at the university. They are divided into two teams and will undertake the experiment in three shifts. Once the team has entered the lab, team members will stay for 60 days before another team takes over. The second group will live in the lab for 200 days before the first team will complete the remaining 105 days. Lunar Palace 1 is capable of providing a habitable environment similar to Earth's biosphere and can support four people each time. It was designed to test and verify technologies to be used on space missions of extended duration in deep space, and with multiple crews. The 500-cubic-meter lab is sealed from the outside. During the experiment, volunteers will not leave the lab during their shifts unless they encounter emergencies.You're listening to Special English. I'm Ryan Price in Beijing. China will carry on phasing out sub-standard production capacity, especially in the fields of steel and iron, coal-mining, as well as coal-fired power plants, to keep up with targets set for the year.The decision was made at a State Council executive meeting, which was presided over by Premier Li Keqiang.Li listened to reports on the latest progress of this year's campaign to cut excess capacities of steel, iron, coal-mining and coal-fueled power generation, as well as the findings of inspections over the drive in concrete and glass sectors.Li said the reforms offer the way forward in cutting overcapacity, which is a vital part of the supply-side structural reform.Li said China takes the initiative to reduce production capacity based on its own national conditions. The efforts are to make the growth model and economic structure shift to new economic drivers.The government work report Li delivered in March set targets for this year to cut steel and iron overcapacity by 50 million tonnes and coal mining by 150 million tonnes respectively. The targets also include phasing out coal-fired power generation capacity of more than 50 million kilowatts.This is Special English.A senior Chinese leader has urged more cooperation between Chinese and overseas Taoist circles in contributing to world peace and harmony.The chairman of China's top advisory body made the remarks in a congratulatory letter to the fourth International Taoist Forum.The three-day event was held in the Wudang Mountains in central China's Hubei Province, with representatives from 30 countries and regions attending.The chairman said Taoism is rooted in Chinese culture, and could boost harmony between nations and religions. By supporting the forum, the Chinese government would like to promote exchange and understanding between Taoists in the world.The chairman called on Taoist circles and figures to building a global community of a shared destiny, world peace and humanism.Taoism is a religious belief originated from the writings and philosophy of Lao Tze who lived 2,500 years ago. According to his thoughts, everything in the universe was born from a vacuum, and a balance must be achieved between humans and nature. This is Special English.The collapse of a tunnel containing radioactive waste at the Hanford nuclear weapons complex in the United States underscored what critics have long been saying: The toxic remnants of the Cold War are being stored in haphazard and unsafe conditions, and time is running out to deal with the problem.Kevin Kamps of the anti-nuclear group "Beyond Nuclear" said that unfortunately, the crisis at Hanford is far from an isolated incident.For instance, at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, the government is laboring to clean up groundwater contamination along with the 40 million gallons of radioactive liquid waste stored in tanks that are decades past their projected lifespan. The site opened in the 1950s and produced plutonium and tritium. The cleaning job is likely going to take decades.In addition to the tunnel collapse discovered recently, dozens of underground storage tanks at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State are leaking highly radioactive materials. Some of the storage tanks dated to World War II.Anti-nuclear activists say the problem is that the U.S. government rushed to build nuclear weapons during the Cold War with little thought given to how to permanently dispose of the resulting waste.You're listening to Special English. I'm Ryan Price in Beijing. You can access the program by logging on to crienglish.com. You can also find us on our Apple Podcast. Now the news continues.Mandarin signs are being added at airports and railway stations in Italy, and free Wi-Fi services are being set up at public venues to make Chinese tourists' visits to the country easier.A senior Italian official said the Italian government is also encouraging hotels to provide more Chinese-friendly services in preparation for the 2018 European Union-China Tourism Year. The vice-minister of culture and tourism Dorina Bianchi made the remarks during an interview in Shanghai. She said such services will include hotel staff who are fluent in Chinese, rooms with China Central TV channels, acceptance of China UnionPay cards and hot drinking water to cater to Chinese stomachs.China has become the seventh-largest source of tourists for Italy after years of continuous leaps since a wave of outbound travel to Italy began in 2004.Statistics from the Italian consulate general in Guangzhou show that Italy received a record 900,000 visitors from the Chinese mainland last year, and the numbers have maintained double-digit annual growth for the past decade. Longer stays are being considered for Chinese with tourist visas. Italy guarantees that its visa application process will be completed within 36 hours for Chinese tourists.This is Special English.A group of college students from the China West Normal University in Sichuan province launched a fundraising to buy a cell phone for a sanitation worker who lost his phone during work.The sanitation worker surnamed Ren rejected the offer at first, saying a phone is too much for the students who were not making any money. But the students insisted, and he finally accepted the phone.Sixty-three-year-old Ren lost his phone when he was cleaning a street near the university. Students tried to help him by putting up posters but the effort ended in vain.Later one of the students suggested a fundraising; and more than 100 students donated 800 yuan, roughly 120 US dollars, to buy the cell phone.You're listening to Special English. I'm Ryan Price in Beijing.A photo competition on giant panda conservation and research is being held in Sichuan province in southwest China. The event lasts from May till early November.The competition is jointly organized by the China Conservation and Research Center for the giant panda and Jiuzhaigou, a scenic attraction in the province. A total of 200,000 yuan, roughly 30,000 U.S. dollars will be offered as prize to the winners.Award-winning works will be displayed overseas in locations including the headquarters of the United Nations in New York. Organizers say the competition aims to increase people's attention on panda conservation and research. Entries are welcome from both at home and abroad.Jiuzhaigou is a UNESCO World Heritage site and a natural habitat for pandas.This is Special English.For three hours, a dog was running back and forth at the beach, picking up waste cans, abandoned slippers and floating plastic bags. This happened in the seawater at a tourist attraction in the coastal city of Xiamen in east China's Fujian Province.The 8-year-old golden retriever named Tiger has become an online celebrity for its dedication to cleaning the beach over the past five years. A video featuring its efforts has been viewed more than 70,000 times.Its owner says the dog showed a keen interest in picking up floating objects five years ago. Whenever Tiger spots garbage in the seawater, it will rush to pick it up and bring it back. But as it grew old, the dog lost some of its vision and is showing other health problems.This is the end of this edition of Special English. To freshen up your memory, I'm going to read one of the news items again at normal speed. Please listen carefully.This is the end of today's program. I'm Ryan Price in Beijing, and I hope you can join us every day, to learn English and learn about the world.