Students at Banda Middle School in Dexing city, East China's Jiangxi province, stand in a circle and lift a globe to show their support for the environmental protection called for by the organizers of the 42nd World Earth Day which falls on April 22. Zhuo Zhongwei / For China Daily

Overseas student numbers swell

China has the largest number of overseas students in the world, with a record 1.27 million studying abroad at the end of 2010, according to the latest statistics from the Ministry of Education.

About 285,000 of them were new students who began their overseas studies last year, up 24 percent over 2009, said the ministry.

Self-financed students now make up the largest group of those going overseas, and among more than 100 countries they selected, more than 90 percent of the students chose to study in the top 10 destinations - the United States, Australia, Japan, the United Kingdom, South Korea, Canada, Singapore, France, Germany and Russia.

Culture

German exhibition in Beijing

After four years of renovation, the Chinese National Museum in Beijing reopened on April 1 with the international exhibition "Art of Enlightenment".

Jointly presented by the Chinese National Museum, and the state galleries of Berlin, Dresden and Bavaria, it is Germany's largest-ever overseas art exhibition.

It will last for a year and display nearly 600 top works of art and science.

The exhibition includes masterpieces in painting, sculpture, graphics, handcrafts and fashion as well as valuable scientific instruments. Nine sections are divided into 17th and 18th century topics.

Health

AIDS deaths on the rise

AIDS deaths are believed to be peaking on the Chinese mainland as many from the large number of people infected with HIV in the 1990s because of unsanitary blood-selling schemes develop full-blown AIDS, Hao Yang, deputy director of the disease prevention and control bureau at the Ministry of Health, said on April 19.

By the end of last year, the total reported number of AIDS deaths had reached 68,000, according to statistics from the ministry.

Since 2008, AIDS has become the country's top infectious killer and it claimed the lives of 7,700 people in 2010 alone.

IPR

Courts beef up IPR protection

China's efforts to prevent infringements of intellectual property rights (IPR) have been gaining ground and judges are now hearing more cases than they did in the past, the country's top court announced on April 19.

A total of 42,931 civil cases involving intellectual property rights were accepted in 2010, which was 40 percent more than in 2009, and verdicts were reached in 41,718 of them, the Supreme People's Court said in its annual report on intellectual property rights protection.

It put the total value of disputed intellectual property at almost 8 billion yuan (852 million euros).

Reining in copyright piracy

China's publishing regulator is placing a high priority on reining in copyright piracy and making the coutnry's press-and-publication industry better able to stand up foreign competitors.

The General Administration of Press and Publication wants more than 100,000 computer software products and 600,000 other products to be under copyright protection by 2015, up from the 81,000 software products and 370,000 other products protected by 2010.

From 2006 to 2010, the administration and its local offices issued administrative penalties in 49,416 copyright infringement cases, closed more than 128,493 illegal companies and confiscated 317 million pirated products.

Central government agencies and the headquarters of 129 large State-owned enterprises have fulfilled their pledges to respect the copyrights in the software they use, and 12,200 other large enterprises have met similar goals, according to statistics from the administration.

Construction

Tibetan monasteries to be restored

Rebuilding of 62 Tibetan monasteries damaged in last year's 7.1-magnitude earthquake that leveled the plateau county of Yushu in Northwest China will be finished this year, Wang Yuhu, head of the prefecture government of Yushu, Qinghai province, said on April 17.

Main structures of the other 25 monasteries will be completed by the end of 2011, as the reconstruction is in full swing, Wang said.

The government has earmarked 1 billion yuan (106.4 million euros) for monastery restoration after the devastating earthquake that struck Yushu on April 14, 2010, killing nearly 2,700 people in the predominantly Tibetan region with a population of 350,000.

Eighty-seven monasteries were damaged, 10 of which were reduced to rubble.

China Daily