Diplomatic pouch | Mike Peters

A necklace with a diamond worthy of a princess, an exclusive trip to Belgium, thousands of chocolates, watches, flowers and beer. That's just a few of the hundreds of prizes worth over 650,000 yuan that Belgian Ambassador Patrick Nijs says will be awarded to the participants of the Belgium-China Diplomatic Relations 40th Anniversary Quiz.

You must be a Chinese national to enter. The online quiz takes about 10 minutes and the embassy hopes participants "will discover unknown facts about our country and perhaps become our lucky laureates". More info at www.belgiuminchina.org/quiz.

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Australia's new ambassador to China, Frances Adamson, will "toss the coil" Sept 25 at 11:55 am to start a friendly cricket match between teams from her country and the UK. The fun is part of "The Great Aussie BBQ" hosted by the Australia Chamber of Commerce and Invocare at Dulwich College Beijing, including plenty of food and drink and a soccer clinic for kids. More info at austcham.org.

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Lithuania's Ambassador to China Lina Antanaviciene hosted a reception last week celebrating the 20th anniversary of diplomatic relations with China. Guests at the Marriott Hotel enjoyed jazz from the Lithuanian band D. Pulauskas Group, which moved on to play at the international jazz festival in Hong Kong.

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UK Foreign Secretary William Hague recently spoke to members of the UK-China Leadership Forum in London as the group marked its fifth year. The forum brings together UK political parties and China's Communist Party to discuss and debate current political issues affecting both countries.

The Forum meets annually, alternating between capitals in Britain and China, to discuss issues, build lasting relationships between politicians in both countries and strengthen the strategic relationship between the UK and China.

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The Norwegian Institute for Agricultural and Environmental Research (Bioforsk) and Heilongjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences last week celebrated the opening of their new joint research center in Harbin, China, Norway's embassy in Beijing announced.

"The research tasks will be concentrated around potato-research, climate issues and sustainable agriculture," says Jihong Liu Clarke, China project coordinator at Bioforsk.

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Danish Ambassador Friis Arne Petersen recently participated in the opening ceremony of Mengniu-Arla Nutrition Research Centre in Beijing.

The new Nutrition Centre focuses on creating better nutrition for children and mothers and to contribute to research and development of infant formula. Vice-President of Arla Frede Juulsen, CEO of Mengniu-Arla Simon Tao and the president of Mengniu Dairy Yang Wenjun also participated in the opening ceremony.

Arla Foods is a global dairy company and a co-operative owned by Danish, Swedish and German dairy farmers.

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The embassy of Iceland is cooperating with local festivals to bring two exhibitions of Icelandic art and design to Beijing. As a part of the Notch festival, artist Gudrun Kristjansdottir worked with locals to create a mural on an old factory wall using volcanic ash from the Eyjafjallajokull eruptions and broken Chinese glass. The festival theme is "Feedback" with the aim to recycle social resources from the residential area. The second exhibition will be of 32 posters by graphic designer Goddur at the Beijing Design Week. The exhibition will take place in the L-Building on Power Square in the newly refurbished 751 D-Park, a former power plant. The exhibition will be open from Monday until Oct 3.

Embassy news can be sent to mike.peters.cd@gmail.com.

(China Daily 09/25/2011 page6)