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China perspective goes worldwide

Xinhua News Agency launched its English language TV service, CNC (China Xinhua News Network Corporation) World on July 1.

Xinhua's Chinese-language TV service has already been airing across the Asia-Pacific and in parts of Europe since Jan 1 and started airing on Hong Kong cable television this month.

Enabled by its branches in over 130 nations and regions, Xinhua is the first Chinese news agency to run a television news network internationally.

The new TV service broadcasts English news programs 24 hours a day. It covers breaking news and major political, economic and cultural news around the globe, of which 80 percent is concerned with international events.

"CNC will present an international vision with a China perspective. It will broadcast news reports in a timely fashion and objectively and be a new source of information for global audiences," says Xinhua president Li Congjun.

The English channel is part of Xinhua's initiatives to keep pace with today's fast-developing global media industry.

Xinhua is striving to build a modern, comprehensive media group with all kinds of news releases, including a wire service, newspaper, website, economic information service, database and search engine, cellphone and mobile network service, and television broadcasting.

According to its strategy, Xinhua will promote production of TV programs in English, Russian, French, Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese and Arabic, with contributions from its overseas bureaus.

Dadawa boosts ethnic minority crafts

The Chinese Ethnic Handicraft Collection Tour kicked off Monday in Beijing.

Singer Zhu Zheqin (aka Dadawa), the United Nations Development Program (UNDP)'s national goodwill ambassador is behind the program. She wants to promote culture-based development for ethnic groups in China as part of her joint initiative with UNDP's Show the World plan.

After the debut event at the head office of Bank of China, Dadawa will lead the team, which brings together designers, marketing and branding professionals, cultural enterprises and the media, to head to Yunnan, Guizhou, Tibet, Qinhai and Inner Mongolia to explore local ethnic cultural heritages and record handicraft production process.

The aim, over the following two months, is to help ethnic communities develop marketable brands, so that their culturally rich handicrafts can reach wider and higher-end markets.

The inspiration for the tour's focus on culture-based development is that China has the world's largest ethnic population, but this population is disproportionately poor.

Last year, when Dadawa and her Goodwill Action team launched their Chinese Ethnic Music Collection Tour, they traveled 20,000 km to make field visits ethnic areas, collecting cultural music samples over two months, then later compiled a CD album.