IN BRIEF (Page 2)

Chinese student art troupe on Africa tour

A Chinese student art troupe sent by China's Confucius Institute headquarters staged a Chinese art performance in Gaborone, the capital of Botswana, on Oct 4.

The troupe consists of students from China's Nanjing Tech University and is touring six universities in three southern African countries. It went to the University of Botswana after performances in South Africa. Namibia will be its last stop.

The art tour is part of the celebrations marking the second annual Global Confucius Institute Day. Last year, the Confucius Institute headquarters designated Sept 28 as the Global Confucius Institute Day.

Soft loans to Uganda reach $2.5b

China's soft loans to Uganda have reached $2.5 billion, a signal of the two countries deepening relationship, said Zhao Yali, Chinese ambassador to Uganda.

He said most of the loans are funding infrastructure projects that are critical in boosting the country's economic and social development.

China is funding the construction of Karuma and Isimba Hydro Power Stations, the Standard Gauge Railway and the expansion of the country's international airport, among other projects.

Zhao said China's investment in Uganda had reached $1.1 billion. Major investments are in Uganda's oil sector, where China National Offshore Oil Corp has a stake.

President Xi Jinping announced a new development assistance fund for the least-developed countries, with an initial investment of $2 billion that could grow to at least $12 billion by 2030.

Botswana eyes closer ties in AIDS fight

Botswana is eyeing closer collaboration with China in the fight against HIV/AIDS, especially in education and monitoring programs, a senior health official has said.

In a recent interview with Xinhua News Agency, the national coordinator of Botswana's National AIDS Cooperating Agency, Grace Muzila, said China has expertise and technology in this field.

"We could use the expertise in China to come up with tools to monitor our programs," she said.

She said education was important and that it would be useful for China to access Botswana's schools and educate people on health issues including, HIV.

"Botswana should break the walls between sectors and put education, health and finance together and make sure that China, having seen what was happening in Beijing, can help us in the education and health sector," she added.

Uganda's military chief hails support to Africa

Uganda's military chief has welcomed commitments made by President Xi Jinping to boost military support to Africa and the United Nations' peacekeeping efforts.

General Katumba Wamala, chief of defense forces, told Xinhua News Agency that the Chinese aid to the African Union will be critical in the conflicts affecting the continent, which have left thousands of people homeless and many others dead.

President Xi said China plans to set up a UN permanent peacekeeping force of 8,000 troops and would provide $100 million to the African Union to create an immediate response unit capable of responding to emergencies.

"It is a welcome idea because what has been lacking is not will or soldiers but a lack of capacity in terms of training and equipment," he said on Oct 1.

He said that the AU peacekeeping troops in Somalia face a shortage of force multipliers.

"What we need is force multipliers in the form of attack helicopters and also force enablers in terms of engineering equipment and transport aircraft," he said.

S. African delegation learns from exchanges

South African executives and officials say they have learned a lot from China's experiences after a visit to the country.

"The trip was made to understand how they managed to build their economy and also to understand their reforms and the economic rebalancing. We wanted to ask, what does the story of China's rise mean for South Africa? What lessons can we take and plough back into South Africa?" said Martyn Davies, who organized the trip.

The South African delegation visited China from Sept 23 to Oct 2. The team comprised South African Revenue Service, Trade and Investment KwaZulu-Natal, Absa Bank, Barclays Bank, Nedbank, Amka, Atio Telecoms and students from Henley Business School.

The group interacted with various organizations in China including the China-Africa Development Fund, the New Development Bank and the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

Railways report record daily passenger volume

China Railway Corp said passengers made around 12.54 million train journeys on Oct 1, China's National Day and the first day of a weeklong holiday.

The figure reached a record high, up 6.9 percent year-on-year, thanks to the fast development of China's high-speed rail, it said.

On Oct 2, the Chinese railway operator dispatched 244 more trains to guarantee that all passengers reached their destinations.

China has 17,000 kilometers of high-speed rail covering much of the country.

Police crack down on driving along shoulder

Traffic authorities have tightened up the monitoring of drivers using the shoulder on freeways, hoping to ease congestion.

The Ministry of Public Security launched a campaign targeting the issue, which is commonplace across China, during the holiday, which led to police dealing with 60,000 cases nationwide.

Among the violations, more than 53,000 were for driving on shoulders illegally, and more than 7,000 were for parking on them, according to the Traffic Management Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security.

Drivers using emergency lanes or shoulders illegally have six points deducted from their license and are fined 200 yuan ($31). Bus drivers will lose 12 points, which means they lose their license.

More support for cultural industries

The Ministry of Finance has earmarked 5 billion yuan ($785 million) to help support cultural industries.

This year, 850 cultural projects have received financial support, up 6.25 percent from last year, according to a statement by the ministry.

The funding was mainly used to help integrate new media with traditional media, the ministry said, adding that financial support will be made available to more important areas, such as film and television, bookstores and foreign cultural trade.

The ministry has provided 24.2 billion yuan in funding since the initiative began supporting more than 4,000 cultural projects. The money has played an important role in restructuring and developing the cultural industries.

Illustrated Harry Potterbook arrives in China

Book one of the illustrated full-color edition of Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, arrived on bookshelves in China on Oct 6, the same day as its global launch.

The book would be available at Xinhua Bookstores as well as online bookstores, the People's Literature Publishing House, the series' sole publisher on the Chinese mainland, announced Oct 5.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, illustrated by British award-winning artist Jim Kay, is the first book of the full-color series. The rest of the series will be presented annually.

This year marks the 15th anniversary of the introduction of Harry Potter into China. The book is immensely popular in the country.

Nature reservesare flourishing

The ecological systems in China's natural reserves are stable, with numbers of some endangered animals and plant species growing, the Ministry of Environmental Protection said.

Nature reserves at various levels are providing protection to more than 85 percent of rare species, it said.

China has 428 natural reserves at national level, covering more than 96 million hectares. The population of endangered and rare species, such as golden monkeys, Asian elephants and dawn redwood trees, have been growing in these areas.

China has more than 60 natural reserves for giant pandas. The number of wild giant pandas has risen from about 1,100 in 2000 to about 1,600.

Efforts to protect the crested ibis and its habitat have helped the population grow from only seven in 1981 to about 1,000 today.

Vessel returns afterepic Arctic journey

The Chinese vessel Yong Sheng has finished a record-setting round trip from Europe to North China docking at Tianjin port on Oct 4.

The cargo ship, operated by China Ocean Shipping (Group) , the country's top shipping line, is the first Chinese merchant ship to sail from Europe to China via the Northeast Passage, an icy path across the top of Russia and Scandinavia that is believed to alter the way commodities flow to Asia and goods return to Europe.

Yong Sheng sailed nearly 20,000 nautical miles (37,040 kilometers) during the 55-day voyage, a shortcut compared with the route passing through Malacca Strait and the Suez Canal, the shipping company said.

Premier opens armsto foreign talent

Premier Li Keqiang has said China welcomes foreign talent to start their own ventures in the country.

He made the remark when meeting foreign experts who this year won the Chinese government's Friendship Award at the Great Hall of the People.

Li said China is driving growth with innovation and that the government is encouraging people to set up businesses and engage in innovation, mobilizing enthusiasm and creativity of all sections of society, so as to transform China from dependence on natural to human resources.

After the meeting, the award-winning foreign experts and their families attended a reception to commemorate the 66th anniversary of the founding of New China.

Biggest fall in 20 years hits forex reserves

China's foreign exchange reserves shrank by $180 billion in the third quarter - the largest fall in two decades - following the central bank's move to hold the yuan's value through selling US dollars.

However, the reserves fell by $43 billion in September after an unprecedented drop of $94 billion in August, suggesting that depreciation pressure on the yuan is easing.

The figures, released by the People's Bank of China on Oct 7, also showed that by the end of September the foreign exchange reserves stood at $3.51 trillion - still the world's largest.

Declines in the reserves in recent months have sparked fears among investors about their sufficiency, liquidity and usability. Another question being raised is whether the squeezed reserves can cover the nation's foreign debt.

Tsinghua ranked world's best in engineering

Tsinghua University overtook the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to become the world's No 1 university for engineering research, according to the newly published 2016 Best Global Universities Rankings by US News and World Report.

US News has been ranking US universities since 1983. The company began publishing global rankings last year, listing the world's top 750 universities overall, as well as by region and country. A school's research influence by academic subject is the benchmark for its rank.

Although Tsinghua University ranked 59th in the global list - compared with MIT's No 2 and Peking University's No 41 - the university exceeded all of its competitors in the field of engineering research.

Tsinghua was No 1 in publications, total citations and the number of publications among the 10 percent most-cited papers in engineering.

China Daily-Xinhua

(China Daily Africa Weekly 10/09/2015 page2)