Diplomatic pouch Mike Peters

The most carnivorous friends of Uruguayan Ambassador Rosario Portell must have thought they'd died and gone to heaven last week - though they really only got as far as Beijing's Kempinski hotel.

That's where grills were set up in the hotel garden to put a flaming kiss on beef striploin, rib-eye steak, lamb chops and shoulder oyster lamb cuts the embassy had shipped in for the Shanghai Food Fair, where the whole entourage was headed the next day.

The Beijing preview party was co-hosted by Fernando Perez Albella, vice president of Uruguay's National Meat Institute. As guests sampled the barbecue with the robust red wines of his country, Perez touted the meat's premium qualities: grass-fed, free-range, no hormones by law, no antibiotics by law and 100 percent traceability.

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Head of EU delegation to China Markus Ederer hosted a Europe Day reception for more than 1,000 guests on Wednesday.

May 9 has become a European symbol, along with the flag, the anthem, the motto, the single currency and the euro - all of which define the political entity of the EU.

On May 9, 1950, after two world wars consumed Europe in less than five decades, French foreign minister Robert Schuman presented his proposal for an organized Europe to maintain peace. His proposal, known as the Schuman Declaration, is considered to be the seed for what is now the European Union.

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The recent Greek movie production Mustafa's Sweet Dreams got enthusiastic audience reviews at a screening in the Chinese capital during the Beijing International Movie Festival.

The film, by Greek director Angelos Abazoglou, was screened at three different theaters. Greek Ambassador to China Theodore Georgeakelos and his staff arranged a special screening at the China National Film Museum for students and professors from the Communication Art Center of Peking University. Guests from the Turkish embassy in Beijing were also invited, since the movie was shot in Turkey.

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French voters at home handed the country's presidency to Socialist Francois Hollande, but the incumbent seemed more popular with his countrymen in China. Of the more than 58 percent of eligible French citizens who voted in Shanghai, for instance, about two-thirds supported President Nicolas Sarkozy. The findings were according to unofficial results posted on the French embassy website.

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Three Chinese students won a chance to cruise around one of Beijing's embassy districts with German Ambassador Michael Schaefer in the official embassy car. The students were among about 200 young guests who signed up for Germany's open house this week.

The open house included a presentation on the embassy's work, a short piano program of Lizst arrangements of songs by Robert Schumann, competitions to compose posts for the embassy's micro blog and a barbecue buffet in the embassy garden hosted by Schaefer.

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Every three months, the Danish embassy in Beijing will display works by upcoming artists in its new meeting center, beginning with the current collection of paintings by Li Yiwen.

The new program means "Danish business people, politicians, diplomats, and students will get the opportunity to see what happens on the Chinese art scene", Ambassador Friis Arne Petersen says.

Li was born in 1982 and studied at the Central Academy of Fine Arts.

"My works are usually focusing on questioning reality, history and existence," he says.

Send embassy news to michaelpeters@chinadaily.com.cn.

Tim Ding, chef at the Uruguayan embassy, chats with Ambassador Rosario Portell at a tasting of that nation's meats and wines. Mike Peters / China Daily

(China Daily 05/13/2012 page5)