Home Port

China’s first aircraft carrier,the Liaoning, anchors at its home port in Qingdao, east China’s Shandong Province, on February 27.

The carrier base in Qingdao has become operational after four years of construction, according to a People’s Liberation Army Navy statement.

Qingdao is ice-free throughout the year for berthing civilian and naval vessels. The city is also the base of the PLA Navy’s Beihai Fleet headquarters.

Pension Coverage

China’s pension system covered 484 million people at the end of 2012,according to figures revealed by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security on February 27.

Vice Minister Hu Xiaoyi said at a national conference on social insurance funding that 304 million urban Chinese were covered by the pension system, 50.9 percent higher than the number registered in 2007.

Gross revenues for social insurance funds totaled 2.85 trillion yuan($458 billion) and gross expenditures reached 2.21 trillion yuan ($355 billion) last year, respectively 2.63 times and 2.8 times those of five years ago.

Basic endowment insurance per capita has increased 86 percent compared with five years ago, Hu said.

Organ Donation

A trial human organ donation project has brought in 1,804 human organs since March 2010, according to a statement from the Ministry of Health and the Red Cross Society of China (RCSC).

Nineteen provinces are participating in the program, according to a statement issued at a joint press conference on February 25.

Zhao Baige, Executive Vice President of the RCSC, said that the program should be extended to all provincial-level regions before the end of the year.

Zhao said that relevant departments will build an information

BAMBOO BOOK

The Charm of Bamboo—100 Selected Ancient Chinese Poems on Bamboo, the first anthology of poetry praising the perennial evergreen plant, which includes a preface written by former Chinese President Jiang Zemin, debuts in January in both Chinese and English platform for organ donations, revise related laws, train staff, regulate donation funds and establish a sound supervision system.

China is facing a shortage of human organs for transplantation.About 300,000 patients are waiting for undergoing transplant surgery each year, but only 10,000 can receive such operation.

Aging Society

China will have 202 million elderly people in 2013, accounting for 14.8 percent of the total population, the China Research Center on Aging said on February 27.

According to a report released by the center, there were 194 million Chinese people aged 60 and over at the end of 2012, making up 14.3 percent of the country’s total population in 2012. The age group added 8.91 million people last year.

The report said that a bigger proportion of the population will require aid. lt estimates that 45.94 percent of the total population will need to be supported by other people in 2013, compared with 44.62 percent in 2012. The elderly with chronic diseases will exceed 100 million this year from 97 million a year earlier, it added.

INK WORLD

People attend a media preview of The Moment for Ink at the Chinese Culture Center in San Francisco, the United States, on February 22. The joint exhibition features 150 ink paintings by 50 painters from China, the United States, Germany and Nigeria

ln order to cope with an aging society, 3.1 billion yuan ($498 million)has been allocated to a pilot program to set up the social service system for the elderly, said the report. China has also revised relevant laws to guarantee pension insurance for people in both rural and urban areas.

Poverty Relief

The National Bureau of Statistics announced on February 22 that 2012 saw some 23.39 million rural dwellers edge above the poverty line,currently set at 2,300 yuan ($370) in annual net income per capita.

The decrease brought the total number of impoverished rural residents to 98.99 million at the end of 2012.

ln 2012, however, China boosted its rural residents’ average per-capita net income to 7,917 yuan ($1,272), up 10.7 percent in real terms, according to data released earlier by the bureau.

Rare Disease Alliance

Seventeen medical institutions launched China’s first national organization against rare diseases in Jinan, east China’s Shandong Province, on February 27.

The alliance is committed to establishing treatment centers nationwide, researching cures,publicity and medical education of rare diseases, said Han Jinxiang, an official with the Shandong Academy of Medical Sciences.

The academy is a founding member of the alliance, and the 17 medical institutions are from 13 provinces on the Chinese mainland.

The alliance will assist in data collection of rare diseases, carry out epidemiological studies and improve treatment, Han said.

According to the World Health Organization, a rare disease is one that affects a small percentage of the population, ranging from 0.65-1 in 1,000. More than 6,000 rare diseases have been con firmed so far.

Ecosystem Evaluation

China on February 25 launched a pilot gross ecosystem product(GEP) evaluation system in Hobq Desert in northern lnner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

The scheme was introduced by the lnternational Union for Conservation of Nature (lUCN) and the lnner Mongolia-based Elion Green Foundation. Hobq, China’s seventh largest desert, will be the first pilot area.

The GEP, created and advocated by the lUCN, is an account system that corresponds to the GDP and measures the status of an ecosystem.

lt will reflect ecological conditions by tallying the gross product of both natural ecosystems, including forests, deserts and wetlands,and art ificial ones such as farmland,pastures and aquaculture farms.

The pilot is significant in testing whether the GEP is scientific and feasible, and the trial paves the way for integrating the GEP into the national account system and introducing it globally, said Zhang Xinsheng,President of the lUCN.

Homemade Centrifuge

China’s largest atomic energy developer on February 23 announced the successful installation of a domestically produced uranium enrichment centrifuge for industrial use.

The centrifuge was built in a uranium enrichment plant in Lanzhou,northwest China’s Gansu Province,said the China National Nuclear Corp.

Uranium centrifuges are necessary to obtain concentrated U235, which is used as fuel for nuclear power plants.

Top Maker

The total industrial output value of China’s agricultural machinery industry reached 338.2 billion yuan($54.35 billion) in 2012, ranking first globally, a senior official said on February 26.

Zhang Taolin, Vice Minister of Agriculture, said that the sector has been growing by about 20 percent annually for the last six years.

The sector’s output surpassed that of the EU and the United States for the first time in 2012, according to the China Association of Agricultural Machinery Manufacturers. China produced more than 2 million tractors and 1 million harvesters in 2012,more than any other country.

China needs to improve quality, safety and technology in the sector and produce more mid- and large-sized high-end agricultural machinery, according to the official.

Press Center

Journalists check data at the Telecom & Network Service Room of the press center for the 2013 sessions of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) at the Media Center Hotel in downtown Beijing on February 26.

The CPPCC National Committee, the country’s top political advisory body,convened its annual session on March 3, followed by the NPC,China’s parliament, on March 5. They will elect new state and government leaders of China.