【专题】慢速英语(英音)2016-09-19

【专题】慢速英语(英音)2016-09-19

2016-09-18    25'00''

主播: NEWSPlus Radio

7605 1314

介绍:
This is Special English. I'm Mark Griffiths in Beijing. Here is the news. The world's largest radio telescope will be completed and in use in late September, accompanied by regulations to protect the facility. The construction of the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope, or FAST, has entered its final phase in the mountainous southwestern province of Guizhou. With a dish the size of 30 football pitches, the telescope, which measures 500 meters in diameter, dwarfs Puerto Rico's 300-meter Arecibo Observatory. The provincial legislature passed a rule to guarantee the safe operation of the facility. The rule will come into effect later this month. Under the regulation, the telescope requires radio silence within a 10-kilometer radius. Construction of irrelevant projects will be prohibited in the core area and violators will be fined up to 100,000 yuan, roughly 15,000 U.S. dollars. The regulation also bans activities including hunting, wood gathering or land reclamation in the core area, and underscores forest fire prevention work. The rule sets Sept. 25 as the prefecture's astronomical science day. Construction of the telescope began in March 2011 at a cost of 1.2 billion yuan. Some 8,000 people in the core area will be relocated. This is Special English. China's top legal authorities have for the first time clearly stipulated that victims of miscarriages of justice have the right to compensation for mental anguish. The Supreme People's Court has revealed a judicial explanation saying that compensation applications can be filed in non-criminal cases where people have been wrongfully subjected to law enforcement. To redress judicial infringement, the court and its staff should eliminate ill effects, rehabilitate reputations and extend formal apologies to victims. For mishandled cases which result in serious harm, the judiciary should apologize and pay compensation for mental suffering. Those who have had their assets illegally frozen or sold off by the court can also ask for compensation. This is Special English. China is moving quickly to implement the anti-corruption consensus reached at the Group of 20 Summit by setting up the group's first anti-graft research center in Beijing. The center will provide intelligence support in the hunt for economic fugitives and confiscation of their ill-gotten assets. The center is based at Beijing Normal University and will officially begin operations in a few months. Dozens of experts and professionals who specialize in graft-related studies from China and other G20 economies will be recruited. The country's top discipline watchdog said the establishment of such a center will lay a solid foundation for studies of cross-border corruption crimes and offer intelligence support to fight corruption globally. The center will conduct in-depth research among G20 members on corruption crimes, including comparing domestic and foreign laws, procedures for confiscating illegal assets and extradition and judicial assistance. Transnational commercial bribery will also be studied. The center will also set up a database of experts and lawyers from G20 members with knowledge of anti-corruption law enforcement, criminal law and asset recovery. These experts will conduct research and training and will share their experiences in tackling such problems. You're listening to Special English. I'm Mark Griffiths in Beijing. Authorities and experts have warned of the risks of the Zika virus spreading in China and are urging precautionary measures, as the number of cases in Southeast Asia increases. Authorities responsible for entry and exit inspection and quarantine across China are urged to intensify monitoring and cooperation in the prevention and control of the virus. Visitors to countries and regions with a Zika outbreak should take precautionary measures, including wearing long-sleeve clothes and long trousers, and should see doctors quickly if they are bitten by mosquitoes and display symptoms such as fever and rash. Those who plan to return from such countries should make declarations to the exit-entry inspection and quarantine authorities. Southeast Asian countries including Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand, and many South American countries, have reported Zika cases. According to the World Health Organization, more than 2 billion people living in Asia, Africa and the Pacific could be at risk. The risks for China will depend on importation of the disease, the presence of a suitable host and the country's capacity to detect and respond to its spread. The Zika virus is primarily spread through mosquitoes, and around 20 percent of those infected could display symptoms including fever, rash or headache. Death may occur in rare cases. This is Special English. A 144-hour visa-free entry policy, which allows greater flexibility for foreigners who go to Shanghai and nearby provinces, has boosted the number of inbound tourists in the Yangtze River Delta. The Shanghai General Station of Immigration Inspection said that as of Sept 1, more than 18,000 foreign tourists had taken advantage of the policy to enter Shanghai for a short stay. That's 60 percent more than in 2015. Since Jan 30, when China enacted the expanded visa-free policy, eligible visitors or businesspeople traveling in the Yangtze River Delta area, including Shanghai, Hangzhou and Nanjing, automatically qualify for 144 hours for business or simply to explore the region. Visitors from 51 countries can enjoy the policy, including the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan. In the past, Shanghai and other important mainland tourism destinations only offered a 72-hour visa-free stay for inbound foreign visitors. Travel industry insiders say the average stay of foreign visitors is around 102 hours. Industry insiders all attribute the growth to a rebound in inbound tourism in China. In the first half of this year, almost 68 million visits were paid by overseas visitors, a jump of 4 percent year-on-year. Visits by foreigners reached 13 million, a 9 percent increase. You're listening to Special English. I'm Mark Griffiths in Beijing. You can access the program by logging on to newsplusradio.cn. You can also find us on our Apple Podcast. 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. The Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum hopes that documents about Jewish refugees' life experience in Shanghai during World War II will eventually be listed in China's national legacy archives. The museum said it will continue enriching and improving its collection of historical materials and make the material part of the national legacy archives, and then global archives. It revealed the plan at the third Jewish Studies Youth Forum. At least 20,000 Jewish people sought shelter in Shanghai during the war, or used the city as a jumping-off point for other safe destinations. Documents related to Jewish refugees' lives in Shanghai during the 1930s and 1940s were listed in the municipality's legacy archives last year. The museum has registered 550 items documenting the Jewish experience so far, including tickets for the voyage from Europe to Shanghai, certificates for job applications, as well as audio and video recordings of interviews with former refugees. The Hongkou district was Shanghai's Jewish quarter in the 1940s, when a large number of Jewish refugees poured from Europe into the open harbor of Shanghai, which didn't require a visa for entrance. Shanghai had a Jewish community as early as the late 19th century. The Jews there engaged in various businesses including running cafés and photo studios. You're listening to Special English. I'm Mark Griffiths in Beijing. Chinese researchers at Stanford University have developed a plastic-based textile that can cool the human body and may someday reduce demand for air conditioning. The material cools by not only taking away sweat like ordinary fabrics do but also by allowing the heat that the body emits as infrared radiation to pass through, which makes the wearers feel cooler than they would when wearing cotton clothes. The researchers' study was recently published in the journal Science. The lead author of the study, Yi Cui, is an associate professor of materials science and engineering at Stanford. He said by cooling the person rather than an entire building, a substantial impact could be made on global energy use. The human body emits mid-infrared radiation, an invisible and benign wavelength of light. That contributes to more than 50 percent of the total body-heat loss in a typical indoor setting like an office. However, traditional textiles are not designed for infrared radiation control. This is Special English. The Bruce Lee Club in Hong Kong founded by fans of the legendary kung fu star has closed, after 15 years of operation due to rising rent in one of the world's most expensive property markets. This mini-museum and souvenir shop in Kowloon has action figures, toys, films and memorabilia related to the martial arts icon. It held an auction of its collection on Sept. 3 including a rare porcelain figure of Bruce Lee with an estimated market value of 100,000 Hong Kong dollars, roughly 13,000 U.S. dollars. Income from the auction will be used to cover expenses and for redundancy pay. The club said it aimed to bring members from around the world together to express and exchange their feelings towards Bruce Lee and to promote martial arts, philosophy and arts films. The shop had already cut its space by half to reduce costs, but was still unable to cover the rising rent. Chairman W Wong said the shop was in operation for 15 years, and it was more like a venue for fans to meet rather than a profit-making business. This is Special English. Preliminary competitions are going on for the first ever national contest of the traditional Chinese poker game "The Landlord", or Dou Di Zhu in mandarin. The competition, entitled "Two-Against-One Poker Championships" was co-sponsored by China's General Administration of Sport. The winner will be rewarded with five million yuan, and all players can cumulate their master points that will be the basis for a national ranking of Landlord poker players. Online registrations are open and free of charge. Preliminary matches will be held online and last until June next year. More than 2,000 players will be selected for the final competition. A deputy director from the administration said she is confident that the competition will become a popular event. The administration is expected to see a total of more than 100 million people enrolling online. The event came after the administration granted official status to the poker game in the "card and chess category" for the national games earlier this year. The authority also published a set of rules and regulations for the poker game and an assessment system for points and ranking. "The Landlord" normally consists of at least three players: one being the landlord and the other two, the uprising peasants. The peasants play in a team against the landlord. Any player who feels confident about his or her cards can claim to be the Landlord at the beginning and receive three extra cards. This is Special English. (全文见周六微信。)