International Judge

(SHEN HONG)

Veteran Chinese diplomat and international law expert Xue Hanqin was elected judge of the UN International Court of Justice on June 30.

Xue, a member of the International Law Commission, was elected by the UN General Assembly and the Security Council in separate votes.

She is the only woman among the 15 judges of the International Court of Justice, and the third Chinese to serve on the court.

Xue won all 15 votes in the Security Council on June 29 and a majority of votes in the 192-nation UN General Assembly.

The election was held to fill the vacancy when Chinese judge Shi Jiuyong resigned on May 28.

Located in The Hague in the Netherlands, the International Court of Justice is the principal judicial organ of the UN. It settles legal disputes between states and gives advisory opinions to the UN and its specialized agencies. Its statute is an integral part of the UN Charter.

Acrobatic Stunner

(CNSPHOTO)

Adili Wuxor, a Uygur wire-walking performer, created a new world record for tightrope walking on July 2 after walking on a 3.3-cm tightrope 60 meters over the National Stadium in Beijing, also known as the Bird's Nest, for 198 hours and 23 minutes in 60 successive days. He lived in a cabin on the roof of the stadium during the challenge.

The Shanghai-based record-keeping organization Great World DSJJNS has recognized Adili's achievement.

Adili, 39, was born in a Uygur family with a 430-year history of acrobatics in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. He began his tightrope walking career at 8. In 2002, Adili completed a remarkable feat in suburban Beijing by staying on a wire for 25 days and tightrope walking for a total of 123 hours and 48 minutes, an accomplishment recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the greatest living-on-wire feat in history.

Adili said he planned to conduct a cross-Taiwan-Straits tightrope walking in October 2011. The distance of the prospective crossing, between Gulangyu Island off the southern mainland city of Xiamen and the Lesser Kinmen Island of Taiwan, is 5,400 meters.

HK Hero

(QI HENG)

Charles Kao Kuen, the laureate of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics, has been awarded a Grand Bauhinia Medal, Hong Kong's highest honor.

Kao, 77, is widely regarded as the "father of fiber optics." His innovation was pivotal to the establishment of the information superhighway that laid the foundation for today's global network community.

Kao also played a key role in promoting research and shaping the landscape of Hong Kong's higher education during his tenure at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) as well as the establishing of the Hong Kong Science Park. He first joined CUHK in 1970-74, when he founded the Department of Electronics, which later became the Department of Electronic Engineering. From 1987 to 1996, he was vice chancellor of CUHK.

"China took only 30 years to produce the environmental problems that had gradually emerged in developed countries over 200 to 300 years. As a big developing country with a population of 1.3 billion, China is under unprecedented pressure for both economic development and environmental protection."

Zhou Shengxian, Minister of Environmental Protection of China, on environmental challenges to the country at a theme forum of the World Expo in Shanghai on July 4

"I do not feel any different today than usual. The memories of the July 5 riot [in 2009] are fading and it should not be intentionally mentioned. We should look forward."

Dilare, a freshwoman at the Foreign Language School of Xinjiang University in Urumqi, talking about the deadly riot that scarred the city last year

"The newest member of the UN family has been born today. This is truly a watershed day."

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, after the UN General Assembly approved the establishment of the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, also known as UN Women. The new UN body is tasked to accelerate progress in meeting the needs of women and girls around the world

"Those who still pretend that we are not a nation at war are complicit in these deaths."

Farahnaz Ispahani, a spokeswoman for Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, after a July 1 attack on a Sufi shrine in Lahore by two suicide bombers that left at least 37 people dead and 175 injured

"We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression...and this third depression will be primarily a failure of policy."

Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize-winning economist, on his theory spending cuts by the world's richest nations will hurt the world economy rather than improve it

"We're in danger of raising the first generation who could live sicker and die younger than the generation before them."

James Marks, Senior Vice President of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation based in Princeton, New Jersey, on results of a study of the institution that found that adult obesity rates rose in 28 U.S. states over the past year and that more than one third of children and teens are obese