[Widespread,Labor,Unions]unions听力

[Widespread,Labor,Unions]unions听力

In the first half of the year, 99.29 million, or 72.95 percent, of the

companies’ staff joined labor unions.

Wang said that trade union organizations have been working on

promoting collective salary negotiations between enterprises and workers,

with the number of enterprises signing collective wage contracts

increasing by 56.1 percent from 2022年 to the current 1.74 million.

New Generals

The Central Military Commission conferred the rank of general on six

senior military and police officers on July 30.

The senior officers include Deputy Director of the General Political

Department of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Du Jincai,

Political Commissar of the PLA National Defense University Liu Yazhou,

Political Commissar of the Jinan Military Area Command Du Hengyan,

Political Commissar of the Chengdu Military Area Command Tian Xiusi,

and Commander Wang Jianping and Political Commissar Xu Yaoyuan of

the Chinese People’s Armed Police Force.

China began to confer military ranks on military officers in 1955 but

abolished the practice in 1965. The military ranking system was resumed in

1988. Since then, 141 senior military officers and armed police officers

have been promoted to the rank of general.

The PLA recognizes 10 military ranks for officers in active service:

general, lieutenant general and major general; senior colonel, colonel,

lieutenant colonel and major; captain, first lieutenant and second

lieutenant.

Free Cancer Tests

A program that includes free cervical and breast cancer screenings will

be offered to more rural women over the next three years, according to a

statement issued on July 27.

The Chinese Government has decided to expand the program until

2022年, with plans to offer cervical cancer screenings for 10 million rural

women and breast cancer tests for 1.2 million in 2022年 alone, the

statement said.

With 562 million yuan ($88.17 million) in government funding, the

program has allowed 11.69 million rural women to receive free cervical

cancer tests, as well as another 1.46 million women to undergo breast

cancer tests, during a trial period that ran from 2022年 to 2022年 in

about 200 counties nationwide.

China initiated the program as part of the country’s ambitious 850-billion-yuan($133.35 billion) health care reform plan.

FUN WORLD Children visit a painting exhibition during the Tianjin

International Children’s Cultural and Art Festival that kicked off in the

northern city Tianjin on July 29

Westward Bound

A total of 17,000 college graduates will be sent to west China to

provide volunteer service and hold positions at the community level,

according to a statement from a symposium held by the Central

Committee of the China Communist Youth League on July 31.

At present, the plan of sending college graduates to serve in the west,

jointly established by government bodies, including the Ministry of

Education and the Ministry of Finance, in 2022年, has dispatched more

than 170,000 college graduates in 10 groups to serve at the community

level in central and western regions for one to three years.

Moreover, more than 6,500 young volunteers have been sent in 14

groups to teach in poverty-stricken areas for one year since the first group

of volunteer teachers was dispatched in 1999.

Plateau Lake Protection

China has approved a conservation program for an inland plateau

lake in northwestern Qinghai Province, local environmental protection

authorities said on July 31.

According to the program, 430 million yuan ($67.46 million) will be

invested over three years to protect the environment of the Keluke Lake

on the Qinghai Plateau.

The lake, located in the northeast of the Qaidam Basin, is a major

water conservation area in Qinghai. It covers 57.4 square km and has been

dubbed Lovers’ Lake, as birds migrate there in spring and summer to

mate.

Local industrial development, population growth and over-fishing in

recent years have caused pollution in the lake as well as wetland

degradation.

__FUL VOYAGE China’s first aircraft carrier platform departs for its

ninth sea trial from Dalian City, northeast China’s Liaoning Province, on

July 6. The latest trial lasted 25 days, longer than any previous ones. It

returned to Dalian on July 30

Tibetan Seeds

Chinese botanists have collected the seeds of more than 1,100 plant

species found in Tibet Autonomous Region and preserved them in a

national germplasm bank.

The seeds were gathered over the past five years mostly near the

upper reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo River and on the Qiangtang

Grassland, according to researchers with the Institute of Tibetan Plateau

Research under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The samples were derived from plant species either native to Tibet or

with considerable economic value, such as varieties of grass and traditional

Tibetan herbs. They are being kept in the China Germplasm Bank of Wild

Species, a leading bio-resource storage facility dubbed the Noah’s Ark of

the country’s plant species.

Tibet has one of the most diverse gene pools in the world, with more

than 9,600 wild plant species, including 855 unique to the region.

Tests on Rocket Engine

China on July 29 successfully conducted tests on its new 120-ton-thrust liquid oxygen and kerosene engine for its new generation carrier

rocket, the Long March-5, according to the China Aerospace Science and

Technology Corporation (CASC).

The test was conducted in Xi’an, capital city of northwest China’s

Shaanxi province, according to the CASC’s Sixth Research Institute.

The engine underwent a high rotational speed test of nearly 20,000

revolutions per minute and a high temperature test of 3,000 degrees

Celsius that lasted for 200 seconds, national broadcaster CCTV reported.

The high-performance engine, which is the first kind of high-pressure

staged combustion cycle engine for which China has proprietary

intellectual property rights, is non-toxic, pollution-free and highly reliable,

according to CCTV.

The engine is much more powerful than the 75-ton-thrust engines of

the launch vehicles used in the already-launched Shenzhou spacecraft, the

institute said.

China is the second country in the world, after Russia, to grasp the

core technologies for a liquid oxygen/kerosene high-pressure staged

combustion cycle rocket engine.

HAPPY __L Tibetans celebrate the annual Ongkor Festival on July 30.

The occasion is also known as the Fruits-Awaiting Festival, in anticipation

of a bumper harvest

Anchorman Hosts Flood Heroes

Cui Yongyuan, a famous anchorman from China Central Television

(CCTV), treated 154 migrant workers to dinner on the evening of July 30 to

show respect for their heroic rescue of about 200 people trapped in a

torrential downpour a week earlier. The migrant workers, who work for a

water treatment factory in Fengtai District of Beijing, raced to move people

stranded by floodwaters on the Beijing-Hong Kong-Macao Expressway

when the heaviest rainfall in 61 years lashed Beijing on July 21.

The TV icon responded to an online campaign on Sohu Weibo, a

popular micro-blogging site, to take the workers out for dinner after he

read about the life-saving stories. The campaign, organized by three

scholars in May, called for urban residents to treat migrant workers to

dinner as a way to promote equality among different social groups and

eliminate class discrimination. Cui toasted all the migrant workers seated

around 18 tables. He paid 14,400 yuan ($2,250) for the dinner.

Cui, 49, won fame by hosting the CCTV talk show Tell It Like It Is, the

first of its kind on the Chinese mainland. His humor has attracted many

fans, and though a bout with depression forced his retirement from the

show in 2022年, he resumed his position several years later.