Army Day

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Army Day

Officers and soldiers line up to form the number “89” on the Chinese missile destroyer Xi’an to celebrate the 89th anniversary of the establishment of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) on August 1.

The warship was part of a Chinese fleet participating in the Rim of the Pacific multinational naval exercises in the area of the Hawaiian sea.

Maritime Jurisdiction

The Supreme People’s Court (SPC) on August 2 issued a judicial interpretation to clarify China’s jurisdiction over its territorial seas.

The document, which took effect on August 2, is based on China’s laws, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and judicial practices. It states that Chinese citizens and foreigners will be pursued for criminal liability if they engage in illegal hunting or fishing or killing endangered wildlife in China’s jurisdictional seas.

According to the interpretation, jurisdictional seas not only include inland waters and territorial seas, but also cover regions including contiguous zones, exclusive economic zones and continental shelves.

It also addresses Chinese citizens or organizations operating in fishing zones or the open sea under co-management between China and other countries according to signed agreements.

The interpretation specifies the standards of conviction and punishment for illegal marine fishing: Those who illegally enter Chinese territorial waters and refuse to leave after being driven away, or who re-enter after being driven away or being fined in the past year, will be considered to have committed “serious” criminal acts and will be fined and sentenced to less than a year of imprisonment, detention or surveillance.

This penalty also applies to those who illegally enter China’s territorial seas to fish but do not engage in “illegal fishing” under the law, it says.

Poverty Relief

Around 1,000 technical schools in China will provide free technical training to impoverished people from 2016 to 2020, according to a circular jointly issued on August 1 by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development.

Anyone from a poverty-stricken household who is able to work will be eligible for the training, and families involved in the project should receive an annual subsidy of 3,000 yuan ($450) per student from a poverty-relief fund.

Local governments should implement national policies on student subsidies and free tuition and formulate regional policies on the deduction and exemption of other fees as well as on offering living allowances, the circular said.

Presently, more than 3.2 million people, over 75 percent of whom

come from rural areas, attend 2,454 technical schools nationwide.

Transparency Monitor

Social groups working in China must publicize specific key information, or they may be banned from operating, according to a draft amendment to an administrative regulation.

The draft amendment, which was released on August 1 by the Ministry of Civil Affairs in order to solicit public feedback, aims to safeguard people’s freedom to set up social groups and to better protect social groups’ interests.

The social groups subject to the amendment—non-profit social organizations such as environmental protection agencies or mental health assistance associations—must publicize details of their members and leaders as well as donations they receive and other required information, according to the draft amendment.

At the end of 2015, China had nearly 329,000 registered social groups, which play an important role in “promoting economic development, improving social governance and expanding exchanges with the outside world,” according to the ministry.

S. China Sea Site

A website devoted to the South China Sea was launched on August 3.

Run by the National Marine Data and Information Service, the Chinese language site has 10 sections that cover basic information, news, historical archives, development and management, expert opinion, lawand regulations, a timeline of major events, pictures and videos, and Q&A.

“The South China Sea has drawn huge attention, but some information online is not accurate,” said Zhang Haiwen, an official with the State Oceanic Administration (SOA). “We hope that this website will enable domestic and overseas people to better understand it and learn about the truth behind the ‘dispute’over it.”

The website contains not only maps and archives but also exclusive analysis and expository articles

based on experts’ research of thousands of maps.

Zhang said that new findings will be published on the website once verified.

According to the SOA, information on the website must first be reviewed by an expert panel and be “comprehensive, authoritative, detailed and accurate.”

The website has six domain names, including www.thesouthchinasea.org and www.china-nanhai. org, due to “information unification and security concerns,” according to the SOA.

Cancer Assistance

The 18th Beijing Hope Run will take place at 9 a.m. on September 10 in the city’s Chaoyang Park.

The non-competition charity event was organized by the Cancer Institute and Hospital (CIH) under the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences in partnership with the China Cancer Foundation. The Canadian Embassy to China was among the contributors in the coordination efforts. Other places including Chongqing Municipality as well as Hebei and Hunan provinces will also host their own Hope Run, to show solidarity in fighting against cancer.

The Hope Run was inspired in part by the Terry Fox Run, which was the largest single-day cancer fundraiser in the world. The international activity has been held in memory of Terry Fox, a Canadian bone cancer patient who ran 5,373 km across Canada in 143 days whilst battling the illness in order to raise funds for cancer research in 1980.

According to He Jie, President of the CIH, more than 290,000 people have participated in the Beijing Hope Run since 1999, and over 10 million yuan ($1.5 million) has been raised in China through the annual event.

Human Gene Editing

Chinese scientists will initiate the world’s first genetic-editing trial on humans later in August in an attempt to find a cure for lung cancer.

A group of oncologists at the West China Hospital of Sichuan University in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, will inject patients with cells modified using the gene-editing technique known as CRISPR-Cas9.

CRISPR, which is short for “clustered, regularly interspaced, short palindromic repeats,” was named the“2015 Breakthrough of the Year” by the U.S. journal Science.

The technique allows scientists to selectively edit genome parts and replace them with new stretches of DNA. Cas9 is an enzyme that can edit DNA, allowing the alteration of genetic patterns by genome modification. CRISPR is a collection of DNA sequences that direct Cas9 where to cut and paste.

“We plan to select 10 volunteers, all advanced lung cancer patients who have undergone chemotherapy, radiation therapy and other types of treatment. We have received a lot of applications, and we’re busy screening and drawing up our final list,”said Lu You, Director of the Chengdu hospital’s Thoracic Oncology Department, who leads the trial.

Doctors will extract T-cells, a type of immune cell, from each patient’s blood and then knock out the gene that encodes a protein known as PD-1, which normally limits a cell’s capacity to launch an immune response. The edited cells will be multiplied in the lab before being returned to the patients.

Panda Theme

A panda-themed train debuts on July 31 in southwest China’s Sichuan Province.

The train’s carriages have handles shaped like panda heads, while the pole grips are painted to resemble bamboo. Seats and walls are decorated with panda patterns and pink bear footprints speckle the floor.

For the Winter Event

The Organizing Committee of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics launches an international contest to find an emblem for the games at the Badaling section of the Great Wall in Beijing on July 31.

Beijing and Zhangjiakou in Hebei Province won the bid to co-host the 2022 games on July 31 last year.