Fighter Jet Executive Dies

Luo Yang, Chairman and General Manager of the Shenyang Aircraft Corp., which develops and manufactures the J-15 fighter jet, died of a heart attack on November 25 in Dalian, northeast China's Liaoning Province. Luo, who worked under severe stress, died at 51 years old on the day the J-15 completed its first successful landing and take-off tests on the Liaoning, China's first aircraft carrier that entered the service in September.

Chinese people nationwide, including Luo's colleagues, acquaintances and netizens, have mourned his death. The Liaoning sounded its siren shortly after 10 a.m. on the morning of November 27 in a show of respect for Luo.

Luo studied high-altitude equipment at Beihang University and graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1982. After graduation, he joined the Shenyang Aircraft Design Institute and was gradually promoted to deputy director of the institute. In 2002, Luo was appointed vice chairman of the Shenyang Aircraft Corp. and later became general manager and chairman. Both the design institute and corporation belong to Aviation Industry Corp. of China, the country's top aircraft manufacturer.

Poverty Rate

The poverty rate in regions populated by ethnic minorities is 13.8 percentage points higher than China's national average, according to official statistics.

A survey released on November 28 by the State Ethnic Affairs Commission revealed that in 2011, there were 39.17 million impoverished people living in rural areas in eight provinces and autonomous regions predominantly inhabited by ethnic minorities—Inner Mongolia, Guangxi, Tibet, Ningxia, Xinjiang, Yunnan, Guizhou and Qinghai.

They accounted for 26.5 percent of the total rural population in those regions, and made up 32 percent of the poor people living in the countryside in the 31 provincial-level regions on the Chinese mainland, according to the commission.

China in 2011 raised the national poverty threshold for farmers to 2,300 yuan ($369) in annual net income from the previous 1,274 yuan ($205) set in 2010, including more people in the government's poverty alleviation programs.

Under the new threshold standard, 122 million Chinese people, or 12.7 percent of the rural population, were eligible for government anti-poverty subsidies last year.

Ethnic minority regions are still the most challenging and crucial parts of the country's poverty alleviation efforts, the commission said.

More Affordable Housing

China should increase affordable housing and expand property tax reforms, says to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS).

As more rural migrants move to cities, the government should increase the supply of low-income housing to guarantee "affordable, reasonable and suitable living space" for all city residents, the CASS said in a report released on November 28.

The think tank suggested the government speed up public housing construction, introduce differentiated property tax policies and expand pilot programs for property tax reform.

The government should levy property taxes on all homes featuring more than 40 square meters per person, the report said.

In October, half of 70 major Chinese cities recorded higher new home prices than a month earlier, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

Nutritious Meals

The Central Government allocated 15.05 billion yuan ($2.42 billion) in meal subsidies to improve the nutrition of rural students this year, the Ministry of Finance said on November 28.

The subsidies benefited more than 26 million rural students, according to a ministry statement.

The Central Government has also set aside 19.42 billion yuan ($3.12 billion) to support renovation of school cafeterias.

A report, based on physical examinations of 1,458 rural students aged between 10 and 13, was released in 2011 by the China Development Research Foundation, a major organization campaigning for the government-led nutrition program. According to the report, 12 percent of students in central and west China's rural regions suffered from growth retardation due to lack of nutrition.

To address the issue, China started a nutrition improvement program in 680 less developed counties in 2011. Under the program, each rural student in the nine-year compulsory education period in the counties is entitled to a 3-yuan ($0.48) daily meal subsidy.

Sansha Map

China has published the first official map of the newly established city of Sansha, located in the South China Sea.

The map displays geological locations, oceanic terrain, natural resources, marine and land transportation, airports and harbors as well as administrative boundaries of the city and South China Sea islands.

The map has been verified and finalized by a unit in charge of surveying, mapping and navigation under the General Staff Headquarters of the People's Liberation Army, according to a statement issued by its publisher on November 23.

The State Council, China's cabinet, in June approved the establishment of Sansha, a prefectural-level city in south China's Hainan Province, to administer the Xisha, Zhongsha and Nansha islands and the surrounding waters in the South China Sea.

Aid to Africa

China and the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on November 22 jointly launched an $8-million program to support educational development in Africa.

The four-year program, named Enhancing Teacher Education for Bridging the Education Quality Gap in Africa, aims to accelerate progress toward the achievement of Education for All (EFA) and the Millennium Development Goals. It focuses on providing a sufficient number of qualified teachers in Africa through training programs.

Cote d'Ivoire, Ethiopia and Namibia have been chosen as the first-year beneficiaries of the program.

The program will also benefit five other African countries. They will be selected according to priority status in UNESCO programs in sub-Saharan Africa, including those countries whose efforts in the EFA initiative are seriously hampered by a shortage of teachers.

Grassland Keepers

As many as 9,400 herders have been hired in northwest China's Qinghai Province as part-time guards to protect grasslands from exploitative activities including overgrazing, officials said.

The herders will oversee 316,000 square km of grasslands before the end of the year, said Gong Aiqi from the Qinghai Provincial Department of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry.

The herders will be paid 1,400 yuan ($225) a month. Their roles include checking livestock numbers, enforcement of cattle-reduction policies, patrols and reporting illegal grassland use.

"The policy is not just about motivating herders to protect the grasslands but also a way to increase their income," Gong said.

Global warming and excessive herding have degraded Qinghai's grasslands, jeopardizing local agricultural development and the fragile ecosystem near the sources of the Yangtze, Yellow and Lancang rivers.

In 2005, local authorities embarked on a 7.5-billion-yuan ($1.2 billion) program to restore grassland ecology, including the resettlement of 50,000 Tibetan herders that was completed in 2011.

Over the past years, central and local governments have been adding funds to the project. This year, Qinghai earmarked 1.95 billion yuan ($309.52 million) for subsidizing herders who have not grazed livestock on grasslands.