Briefly

Former SOE manager jailed for corruption

Xu Baoyi, a former senior manager of a major central grain reserve company, was sentenced to 17 years in prison for taking bribes, negligence in public duty and insider trading, a court announced on Tuesday. The Datong Intermediate People's Court in Shanxi province declared the verdict, adding that Xu, former deputy general manager of China Grain Reserves Group, or Sinograin, was also fined 1.3 million yuan ($182,000). The court found that Xu took advantage of various positions, including those in charge of local initial public offerings, State-owned assets supervision affairs and as Sinograin deputy general manager, to offer help in project contracting and enterprise operation, and took in bribes equating to 13.8 million yuan. During his tenure as chairman of the board at China Co-op Petro in 2014, illegal financing under his leadership led to the losses of 101 million yuan in State assets.

23 persistent organic pollutants eliminated

China has eliminated 23 types of toxic chemicals listed in the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, according to the Ministry of Ecology and Environment. The international community reached the global treaty in 2001 to reduce, eliminate and prevent pollution from POPs and to protect human health and the environment from the effects of POPs. In a recently released regulation document, the ministry, together with other relevant authorities, detailed the prohibition on the production, use, import and export of five types of POPs, including polychlorinated naphthalene.

Early warnings prevent conflicts with elephants

As of Monday, over 10,000 early warnings have been sent to villages, helping ward off potential human-elephant conflicts in the major wildlife habitat in Xishuangbanna Dai autonomous prefecture in Yunnan province. Launched in August 2020, the early warning system monitors any presence of wild Asian elephants near the villages surrounding the Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve. With the help of 600 infrared cameras and 177 intelligent broadcasting sets, the system can cover the 38 areas where the wild species frequently appear. As of Monday, the system had sent 10,849 early warnings, with more than 2.69 million pictures captured by its infrared cameras, said Tan Xuji, head of the Asian elephant monitoring center with the reserve's scientific research institute.

China Daily - Xinhua