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The battle for wetlands rages in China as farmers eager to boost meager incomes butt heads with government initiatives to preserve biodiversity.
China's vast area of wetlands remains under constant threat from human activities. Despite their crucial role preserving water resources and biodiversity, they are often the first casualties of rapidly expanding cities and growing demands for agriculture.
In one of the wetlands in northeast China's Heilongjiang province, although the government is increasing efforts to curb the degradation of wetlands, local residents are still attempting to convert them to agricultural lands as incomes remain low in the undeveloped region.
Local authorities are under heavy pressure to curb conversion of wetlands for other benefits.
China has a total of 54 million hectares of wetlands, making up more than 5 percent of the country's total terrain. In the past decade, almost 9 percent of wetlands have disappeared, converted to farmland or for infrastructure.
Sometimes referred to as the "Kidney of the Earth", wetlands play a crucial role in helping preserve and filter water resources while offering sanctuary for migratory birds and many other species.
Environmental experts suggest that to better protect the wetlands, China needs to single them out as an independent category to specify regulation in the sector.
This is NEWS Plus Special English.
China's manned deep-sea submarine, Jiaolong, has returned home in the coastal Jiangsu Province after a 52-day scientific expedition in the northwest Pacific Ocean.
This is the first expedition this year for Jiaolong and its carrier vessel.
Jiaolong dived 10 times to survey cobalt-rich crusts and life forms inhabiting the bottom of the sea, clocking around 99 hours in total.
The submarine collected biological, rock and seawater samples from the Pacific Ocean. The expedition team also tested a remote control underwater vehicle.
Some repairs need to be made to Jiaolong before it heads for the southwest Indian Ocean for scientific study in a mission in November.
China began to work on its ambitious ocean exploration program 12 years ago.
Named after a mythical dragon, Jiaolong reached 7,000 meters underwater in the Pacific's Mariana Trench with a dive in June 2012.
You are listening to NEWS Plus Special English. I'm Yun Feng in Beijing.
A key discovery may soon lead to the creation of a limitless supply of life-saving stem cells in laboratories.
Australian scientists have uncovered a mechanism essential for forming the stem cells, a very special group of cells in the early embryo that generates all the blood and immune cells in the human body.
The team's major discovery was a gene that triggers the production of these stem cells, which treat cancers and other disorders of the blood and immune system.
Currently, researchers are unable to find a way of producing this type of stem cells in the laboratory, leaving supplies dependent on matched bone marrow donors.
This is NEWS Plus Special English.
South Korean President Park Geun-hye has met with Jack Ma, founder and chairman of China's e-commerce giant Alibaba, to discuss ways to boost e-commerce cooperation between the two countries.
Ma says the meeting mainly focused on strengthening cooperation on e-commerce, films, games and medical industries.
They also discussed helping Alibaba's Cainiao logistics, China's largest logistics network, enter South Korea's market.
Park says she hopes Alibaba can offer more convenience for South Korea's small- and medium-size enterprises to enter China's e-commerce market.
You are listening to NEWS Plus Special English. I'm Yun Feng in Beijing.
Hollywood blockbuster Transformers 4 has set records for its massive box office returns. But it's also drawing massive controversy.
Wulong Karst Tourism Company believes that Paramount Pictures, as the producer of Transformers 4, and the holder of the rights and obligations from the cooperation, should be responsible for violating the agreement.
Producers promised to prominently show the words "China Wulong" in the movie. But they didn't deliver.
The Chinese company that co-produced Transformers 4 says the omission was simply a mistake made by foreigners who don't speak Chinese, and who thought a stone tablet that reads "Qinglong Bridge" meant "China Wulong".
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