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China will upgrade the 15-minute community life circles to provide easier access to essential services for urban residents.
That is, according to a notice released jointly between by the Commerce Ministry and eight other government departments.
By 2030, the government plans to create 10000 convenient life circles, ensuring residents can access community services, including child care and elderly care, cultural and sports facilities and health care centers, within a 15-minute walk from their homes.
According to the notice, over the next five years, 100 pilot cities will be selected as to expand the coverage of these life circles, targeting both central urban districts and eligible counties.
Priority will be given to ensuring the supply of essential services, including breakfast outlets, wet markets and repair services.
Elderly care will be mandatory in such communities and there will be more public childcare facilities.
The notice stated that efforts will also focus on promoting a diverse mix of businesses, such as specialty restaurants, bookstores and pet shops, and encouraging the sharing economy through initiatives like shared living rooms, study spaces and toolboxes.
The government will strengthen policy support by providing at least 30 square meters of community service facilities per 100 households.
Essential stores will be integrated into emergency supply systems, while smart parcel lockers and express delivery terminals will be included into public service infrastructure planning.
According to the notice, localities are encouraged to support low profit and public interest businesses, such as community canteens and small repair shops, through ways like rent reductions.
Financial subsidies will also go to the renovation of community commercial centers and wet markets.
This is Special English.
Shanghai's Pudong New Area, China's first artificial intelligence innovation pilot zone, has recently inaugurated the Zhangjiang AI Innovation Town, aiming to cluster 1000 new AI enterprises by 2030, targeting a 100 billion yuan about 14 billion us dollars industry scale and establishing a globally influential ai innovation hub.
Located in zhang jiang science city's core, The two-square-kilometer town integrates research and development ecology, application and living spaces.
It features 700000 square meters of industrial areas and one million square meters of supporting facilities, such as conference halls and residential zones, all designed to promote a synergistic AI ecosystem.
Ten high-quality development policies were also released to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship in Zhangjiang, offering subsidies such as computing power vouchers and support for public service platforms.
A 2 billion yuan seed fund set up by Pudong, will partner with more than to provide full life cycle capital services.
Standing 175 meters tall, weighing some 30 kilometers and dressed in a blue short-sleeved shirt, The Xueba 1 embodied robot has been recently welcomed as the first robot doctoral student at the Shanghai Theatre Academy.
Over the next four years it will pursue a degree in the digital performance design at the Department of Stage Design.
Launched by the Shanghai Theatre Academy and the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, the program aims to develop experimental training methods for a new generation of embodied agents, emphasizing multimodal interaction, artistic expression and cognitive growth.
Throughout the four-year program Xue Ba, I will systematically learn the fundamental movements, routines and performance techniques of traditional Chinese operas.
Li Qingdu, a co-supervisor of the robot, said that the robot incorporates a world-leading ultra-lightweight tendon-based bionic structure and human-like facial technology.
It can perform delicate movements, as well as over a hundred lifelike expressions and real-time interactions.
Li, also executive director of the Institute of Machine Intelligence at the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, said that the robot can flexibly adjust its height and appearance, perform continuously for over six hours, even under high-intensity conditions.
Li noted that, at this stage, Xue Ba Wen can sing pieces from Henan Opera, Shanghai Opera and Peking Opera, but its movements still lack smoothness and aesthetic appeal, adding that the research team used motion capture technology to record human performers' movements, expressions and gestures and to form training datasets.
According to Li, in the future, the robot could learn directly from video footage, which provides richer data and helps generate more natural performances.
Yang Qingqing, a professor at the Academy and a co-supervisor of the robot, said that the teaching model integrates technical refinement and humanistic inspiration, adding that on the humanistic side, they focus more on discussion and inspiration.
For example, Yang would explain a character's background, motivations and emotional layers to Xue Ba Wen, and it will use its language processing technology to interpret her guidance and generate corresponding performance proposals.
Yang emphasized that the initiative offers valuable insights for arts education in China, breaking down disciplinary barriers and underscoring the need for contemporary artists to combine technological literacy and interdisciplinary thinking with traditional skills and humanistic knowledge.
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The Ningbo Zhoushan Port in East China's Zhejiang Province has launched its first China-Europe Arctic Container Express route, marking the first time the port has extended a route to the Arctic Ocean.
According to the port, The move is expected to provide strong support for foreign trade enterprises to expand into new international logistics channels.
Sun Xuejun, chairman of Zhejiang Seaport Logistics Group Company, said that the new service is a container route that passes through the Arctic, specifically developed for cross-border e-commerce and high-value goods.
The new route crosses directly to Europe via the Northeast Arctic Passage, slashing the transit time from Zhoushan Port to Britain's Felixstowe Port to just 18 days.
According to local customs authorities in Ningbo, the route's maiden voyage is set to reach Felixstowe on October 10th.
The shipment includes a mix of goods such as daily necessities clothing, spare machinery parts, as well as high-value items like energy storage cabinets and power batteries.
Once in Felixstowe, These goods will be distributed across Europe.
According to the National Immigration Administration, China saw visa-free entries by foreign nationals surge 521 year-on-year to 1589 million from January to August this year.
During the same period, border inspection agencies processed 5127 million foreigner entries and exits, up 278 from a year earlier, with visa-free travels accounting for 621 of the total entries.
Overall, The country recorded 460 million entries and exits, marking a year-on-year rise of 14.9%.
The administration pledged to streamline procedures to make cross-border travel more convenient and efficient for both domestic and foreign travelers.
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According to the National Energy Administration, China's electric vehicle charging infrastructure has maintained rapid growth, with the total number of facilities reaching nearly 173 million units by the end of August, up 53 from a year earlier.
Public electric vehicle charging facilities stood at about 43 million units, an increase of 378 year on year.
Their combined rated power hit 196 million kilowatts.
The administration said that private charging facilities expanded at an even faster rate, jumping 596 year on year to 13 million units.
The robust growth in charging infrastructure is in line with the steady expansion of China's new energy vehicle market.
From January to August, both production and sales of new energy vehicles posted double-digit increases.
According to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, during the period, New energy vehicle production surged 373 year-on-year to about 96 million units, while sales jumped by 367 to 96 million units.
Chinese researchers have identified new landslides on the moon that have formed since 2009.
According to the research article recently published in the journal National Science Review, The primary trigger of such landslides was seismic activity originating within the moon, or moonquakes, rather than asteroid impacts.
The researchers from Sun Yat-sen University in South China's Guangdong Province analyzed multi-temporal images of the moon's most unstable terrains.
The study revealed that these new landslides are shallow and small, with each displacing less than 100000 cubic meters of material.
Most of these landslides measure less than one kilometer in length and 100 meters in width.
After investigating the geological conditions of the new landslides, the researchers identified a large number of newly formed impact craters, with the largest diameter exceeding 70 meters.
Yet, fewer than 30% of the new landslides appeared to have been triggered by these impacts.
According to the research article, most new landslides were likely induced by moonquakes and they display distinct spatial clustering in the east of Embryum Basin, implying heterogeneous distributions of seismic zones in the lunar interior.
Previously, active seismic zones deep within the Moon had remained largely undetectable.
This study shows that the spatial pattern of lunar landslides can be used to identify the active seismic zones.
It provides a clear strategy for targeting future seismometer deployments and probing the moon's internal structure.
This is Special English.
That's the end of this edition of Special English.
To recap, I'm going to read two of the news items again at normal speed.
Please listen carefully.
By 2030, the government plans to create 10000 convenient life circles, ensuring residents can access community services, including childcare and elderly care, cultural and sports facilities and healthcare centers, within a 15-minute walk from their homes.
According to the notice, over the next five years, 100 pilot cities will be selected to expand the coverage of these life circles, targeting both central urban districts and eligible counties.
Priority will be given to ensuring the supply of essential services, including breakfast outlets, wet markets and repair services.
Elderly care will be mandatory in such communities and there will be more public child care facilities.
The notice stated that efforts will also focus on promoting a diverse mix of businesses, such as specialty restaurants, bookstores and pet shops, and encouraging the sharing economy through initiatives like shared living rooms, study spaces and toolboxes.
The government will strengthen policy support by providing at least 30 square meters of community service facilities per 100 households.
Essential stores will be integrated into emergency supply systems, while smart parcel lockers and express delivery terminals will be included into public service infrastructure planning.
According to the notice, Localities are encouraged to support low-profit and public interest businesses, such as community canteens and small repair shops, through ways like rent reductions.
Financial subsidies will also go to the renovation of community commercial centers and wet markets.
You're listening to Special English.
The Ningbo-Zhouxian Port in east China's Zhejiang Province has launched its first China-Europe Arctic Container Express route, marking the first time the port has extended a route to the Arctic Ocean.
According to the port, the move is expected to provide strong support for foreign trade enterprises to expand into new international logistics channels.
Sun Cuijun, chairman of Zhejiang Seaport Logistics Group Company, said that the new service is a container route that passes through the Arctic, specifically developed for cross-border e-commerce and high-value goods.
The new route crosses directly to Europe via the Northeast Arctic Passage, slashing the transit time from Joshan Port to Britain's Felixstowe Port to just 18 days.
According to local customs authorities in Ningbo, the route's maiden voyage is set to reach Felixstowe on October 10th.
The shipment includes a mix of goods such as daily necessities clothing, spare machinery parts, as well as high-value items like energy storage cabinets and power batteries.
Once in Felixstowe, these goods will be distributed across Europe.
This is the end of today's program.
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