Football Head

(CHEN SHAOJIN)

Zhang Jilong, Director of the International Exchange Center of the General Administration of Sport of China (GASC), has been appointed acting president of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) on May 31 in place of AFC's former president Mohamed Bin Hammam, who was suspended from all football activities over bribery allegations.

"My priority in the new post is to ease the negative effect of the Bin Hammam corruption allegations on Asian soccer. We should aim to improve AFC operations and make it run more transparently," said Zhang, 59, the most senior vice president of AFC before the appointment.

Zhang was appointed deputy chairman of the Chinese Football Association in 1978 and deputy director of the Chinese Football Administrative Center under GASC in 2008.

CWA Member

(NEWSPHOTO)

Liang Fengyi, Hong Kong's famous writer and entrepreneur, has been included in the list of this year's 349 new members of the Chinese Writers' Association (CWA).

Liang, 62, has been a best-selling author since her first novel Needless to Say in 1989. Up to now, she has published more than 100 novels and essays.

She studied literature, philosophy, library science and drama in Hong Kong, the UK and the United States. Since 1986, she has written for Hong Kong newspapers as a columnist and, in 1989 she began to write fiction.

Liang writes well about love, marriages and families of professional businesswomen. Most of her novels are based on the urban business world, and her novels have become widely known as "financial fiction." Liang is also an outstanding businesswoman who started her own business in 1979.

Talented Conductor

(CNSPHOTO)

Li Xincao, Resident Conductor of the China National Symphony Orchestra, conducted the classical opera The Bat by Johann Strauss in Beijing on June 3.

Li, 40, is one of the most well-known and talented young conductors in China. In 1993, he won the first prize in the first National Conducting Competition of China while he was still a 22-year-old college student in Central Conservatory of Music. In 1997, he took second place in the 45th International Competition for Young Conductors, the world-famous annual music competition for talented young conductors held in the city of Besançon, France.

He became conductor of the orchestra of the National Ballet of China in 1994 and is now its principal conductor.