Briefly

Shenzhou XIII crew to give lecture from space

Crew members of China's Shenzhou XIII mission will soon give their second open lecture from the orbiting Tiangong space station to students around the world, the China Manned Space Agency said on Tuesday. It said in a statement that the lecture will take place in the coming days and will be livestreamed worldwide. The astronauts will carefully plan for the event and will cover topics solicited from the public, it added. The Shenzhou XIII mission crew－Major General Zhai Zhigang, Senior Colonel Wang Yaping and Senior Colonel Ye Guangfu－conducted their first open lecture from the station in December as it traveled in an orbit about 400 kilometers from Earth. They showed viewers how they live and work inside the station and carried out experiments to display interesting physical phenomena in space, such as "disappearing buoyancy" and a "water ball".

Former Hebei legislator charged with graft

Song Taiping, a former senior legislator in Hebei province, has been indicted on a charge of taking bribes, the Supreme People's Procuratorate said on Tuesday. Song, former vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the Hebei People's Congress, took advantage of the posts he held to seek unjustified gains for others and accepted colossal amounts of money and gifts in return, which merited a criminal charge of bribery, the indictment said. The prosecution was brought by the procuratorate of Yuncheng, Shanxi province, following the completion of a probe by the National Supervision Commission. Prosecutors had informed the defendant of his rights, interrogated him and listened to the defense counsel's opinions, the SPP said.

Xinhua - China Daily