介绍:
This is NEWS Plus Special English. I'm Yun Feng in Beijing. Here is the news.
China's top party discipline watchdog has announced a new round of inspections nationwide to fight against corruption.
The Party's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection says inspectors will be sent to provincial-level regions across China including Beijing, Tianjin, Liaoning Province in northeast China and Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in western China.
The commission will also send anti-graft teams to the Ministry of Science and Technology, Fudan University in Shanghai and the China Oil and Foodstuffs Company.
The inspection is aimed at uncovering harmful behavior by officials, including trading power for money, abusing power, and bribery, as well as harmful work styles such as formalism, bureaucracy and extravagance.
The Communist Party of China began routinely sending teams to oversee the performance of officials in 2003. The practice was written into the Party's Constitution five years later.
This is NEWS Plus Special English.
China is considering a plan to expand a major Siberian tiger reserve in northeast China and move out half of the residents in order to better protect the rare species.
The plan will see the expansion of an existing Siberian Tiger Nature Reserve in Hunchun city in Jilin Province. The 100,000-hectare nature reserve will be enlarged by more than 500 hectares if the proposed plan is approved by the State Council, China's cabinet.
The plan will see half of the 6,000 residents living in the reserve relocated to other areas. The remaining population will be moved out gradually in the local urbanization process.
The relocation program aims to reduce human disturbance to wild Siberian tigers. Deforestation by the locals and their frog breeding businesses have seriously affected the living environment of the species.
Worldwide, almost 500 Siberian tigers are believed to live in the wild, and most of them in eastern Russia. Around 20 of the big cats are found in northeast China's Heilongjiang and Jilin provinces.
For the past decades, the local governments have strengthened efforts to protect the natural environment and crackdown on poaching. The tiger population in Hunchun has doubled in the past 15 years.
In 1998, 4 tigers were found in the mountains in Hunchun in a survey jointly conducted by experts from China, Russia and the United States. The latest survey, conducted in 2012, found the number to be seven in the city.
You're listening to NEWS Plus Special English. I'm Yun Feng in Beijing.
The HTC One might be the best smartphone you never heard of.
HTC is updating its flagship HTC One smartphone by giving it a larger screen, better software and more camera features.
The original HTC One received good reviews and was named the best smartphone of 2013 at the wireless industry's premier trade show in Barcelona, Spain in February this year.
The updated One expands on some of the features that made it notable.
The new One has a metal design like last year's model, but it feels smoother and more comfortable. The back edges are more curved and remind people of the sleek finish in Apple's latest iPads.
HTC also turns its hub for personalized content, the BlinkFeed, into a companion rather than an unwelcomed guest.
HTC is making the Android phone available through all major carriers simultaneously, starting last week online, and in retail stores by next Thursday.
The new phone, known officially as HTC One, or M8, will cost about 200 to 250 US dollars with a two-year service contract, or about 650 dollars without a contract.
This is NEWS Plus Special English.
The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide hit 400 parts per million two months earlier, setting another record in human history.
That was according to Climate Central, a United States based nonprofit news organization that analyzes and reports on climate science.
Climate Central says this intensity is expected to linger for a while in the northern hemisphere.
For example, the reading for Hawaii is currently standing at 401 ppm.
Seasonal growth of plants has been affected, due to the fact that carbon dioxide peak was usually in May.
Scientists warn that global greenhouse effect may speed up, as human activities continue to push up the emission of carbon dioxide.
Last year, the concentration of carbon dioxide peaked at 400 ppm for the first time in human history. That was a milestone for global warming.
You're listening to NEWS Plus Special English. I'm Yun Feng in Beijing. You can access our program by logging onto NEWSPlusRadio.cn. If you have any comments or suggestions, please let us know by e-mailing us at mansuyingyu@cri.com.cn. That's mansuyingyu@cri.com.cn. Now the news continues.
Researchers in the United States have revived a giant virus more than 30,000 years old.
The virus was recovered from the permafrost of northeast Siberia, and it poses no threat to humans.
The virus is considered giant when compared to other viruses, but it is microscopic. It is a new kind of giant virus, joining a group of others that was first discovered 10 years ago.
Researchers say the finding suggests that dangerous germs might emerge in the future, when permafrost thaws because of global warming.
They say sampling permafrost to look for ancient viruses is an inexpensive and safe way to assess that potential threat.
This is NEWS Plus Special English.
In a similar move: Scientists have revived a moss that was frozen beneath Antarctica for about 1,600 years.
When it was dug up from ice, the simple moss was black, and looked dead.
But when it was thawed in a British lab's incubator, something happened. The seemingly lifeless plant grew again.
British scientists say the moss was visibly greening with new shoots after three weeks. They didn't do anything to make it grow except squirt it with distilled water.
大家还在听
