英文摘要

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China' s high-speed railways

China' s high-speed railwaysattract attention from around the worldagain since the Beijing-Shanghai HighSpeed Railway opened to the public onJune 30th.

Furthermore， many technologicalindicators used by China's high-speedrailways are the best in the world，including the minimum radius of curve，maximum gradient， track gauge and tunnelclearance of the high-speed railwayslinking Beijing to Tianjin， Wuhan toGuangzhou， Zhengzhou to Xi'an， Shanghaito Nanjing， Shanghai to Hangzhou， andBeijing to Shanghai.

The Chinese government has playeda guiding role in the development of high-speed rail technology and has establisheda re-innovation platform integratingproduction， education and research. It isno wonder that the country has made threesignificant achievements in this field inless than six years.

Many cities along the line areexpected to enjoy the location advantagesof the new rail service. Experts say homeprices in third-tier cities are expected tohave more room to grow than in first andsecond-tier cities， where prices arealready high.

Heavy Rain Causes Gridlock inCentral City of China

A sudden downpour submergedparts of a major city in central China inJune， turning throughways into rivers andhalting transportation， in the latest casethat highlights Chinese cities' woes indealing with emergencies.

As the capital of central Hubeiprovince， Wuhan is dubbed the \"rivercity\" due to its location along the banks ofthe Yangtze River. However， this nameadopted new meaning after torrential rainsliterally turned it into a \"river city\".

The downpour started to batterChangsha， capital city of Hunan Province，at noon on June 17th. Streets in the urbanareas were soon in knee-deep water，flooding a number of vehicles on the road，Xinhua reporters witnessed.

Similar conditions were to be foundin other cities， such as Beijing andShanghai. Lots of citizens called on thegovernment to pay more attention onimproving urban sewerage system.

Astronauts on Last Spacewalkof Shuttle Era

Astronauts making the lastspacewalk of NASA's space shuttle era onJuly 13th retrieved a broken pump fromthe International Space Station andinstalled a fill-up experiment for a robot.

In a departure from previous shuttlevisits， the spacewalking job fell to spacestation astronauts， Michael Fossum andRonald Garan Jr.， who teamed up for threespacewalks in 2008. The four-personAtlantis crew is the smallest in decades，and so the lone spacewalk of the missionwas handed over to the full-time stationresidents.It was the 160th spacewalk inthe 12-year life of the orbiting outpost，and the last one planned for Americans fornearly a year.

Until now， the shuttle has hoisted thebulk of supplies to the space station.Cargo runs by Russia， Japan and Europewill continue.

NASA is turning to privateenterprise in the post-shuttle period， so itcan meet the White House goal of sendingastronauts to an asteroid by 2025 andMars the decade after that. The 13-dayflight by Atlantis is the last for the 30-year shuttle program. Atlantis is due toreturn July 21 to Kennedy， where it will goon display at a tourist center.