People read books in a public library at Gongshu District of Hangzhou, capital of east China’s Zhejiang Province, Dec. 28, 2016. [Photo/ Xinhua]

China approved a draft law on public libraries at a State Council executive meeting on Wednesday, which will be forwarded to the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress for deliberation.

The draft law illustrates the government’s role in strengthening the library functions, and encourages more social support in the responsibilities of libraries.

The new functions of libraries, such as digital resources and online services, are also included in the draft.

“It’s an important step to further institutionalize public cultural services in China,” said Li Guoxin, member of the national panel for the public cultural service system.

“It will better combine guidance of the government and the support of the public,” he added.

According to the Ministry of Culture, a network of libraries covering both urban and rural areas had 838 million books around the country at the end of 2015.

Also, a total of 404 million yuan (59 million U.S. dollars) were earmarked by the central government to support free public libraries in 2015.

China has been improving public cultural services, with a law on public cultural services taking effect on March 1.

An unsupervised flower shop operated by a college student in Beijing is attracting many young customers, Chinese media reported.

Different from traditional shops in the capital, the young storekeeper surnamed Wang opened the first unsupervized flower shop where people can select flowers and pay via mobile payment systems including WeChat and Alipay.

Born after 1995 and a lover of fiction, the young man said he began the startup because it will not take up his time. “People go to flower shops at any time,” he said. “I cannot focus on reading when I have to serve customers.” So Wang opened the self-service flower shop after doing market research.

Most young customers like shopping in a free environment, and hate promotion from clerks, he explained, adding that customers can have their questions answered about categories and names of flowers through mobile apps.

Even though there is no shopkeeper, the operation has attracted many young customers and proved to be a success, at least for now.

Although he does not sell flowers in the shop in person, Wang said he would call at it at odd intervals everyday.

“It is a business with small investment, and it cannot cause a huge loss if a burglary occurs,” he said, adding that he trusts people.

LilacSat-1, a satellite developed by students at the Harbin Institute of Technology. [Photo/China Daily]

A nanosatellite made by students at the Harbin Institute of Technology was launched in the United States on Tuesday as part of a mission to the International Space Station.

The satellite, LilacSat-1, was on a Cygnus cargo spacecraft launched atop an Atlas 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida at 11:11 am, according to Wei Mingchuan, the 26-year-old team leader and a second-year PhD candidate in astronautics at the institute in Heilongjiang Province.

LilacSat-1 consists of two conjoined cube units, each with a side length of 10 centimeters. The 2-kilogram satellite will be deployed at a height of about 400 kilometers above the ground from the space station within three months of docking with the cargo craft. Docking is scheduled for Saturday.

In its three-month life span in orbit, the satellite will conduct investigations on Earth’s mid-lower thermosphere, a section of the upper atmosphere about 200 to 400 kilometers above the ground.

“We will take measurements of the upper layers of the atmosphere using an ion-neutral mass spectrometer,” Wei said. “In addition, we have a new type of radio repeater to provide two-way communication resources to amateur radio operators, as well as a CMOS camera to take photos from space.”

Nanosatellites are small satellites that weigh between 1 and 10 kg, according to the team.

Lifted along with LilacSat-1 were 27 other nanosatellites of the QB50 project, a European Union-funded miniaturized satellite constellation created by students in more than 20 countries.

“This project is the very first international, real-time, coordinated study of thermosphere phenomena,” said Davide Masutti, QB50 project manager at the Von Karman Institute, a scientific organization based in Belgium.

Wei said the data retrieved by LilacSat-1 would be shared by the science community and amateurs, as the programs will be released as open-source and require no special tools.

Chinese scientist Yao Tandong received 2017 Vega Medal in Stockholm on Wednesday, recognizing his contributions to research on glaciers and the environment on the Tibetan Plateau.

Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf awarded 2017 Vega Medal to Prof. Yao at the Royal Palace of Stockholm on Wednesday afternoon, and congratulated him personally for his outstanding achievements.

Sten Hagberg, chairman of Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography (SSAG) said that Yao’s “basic researches on ‘the Third Pole’, monsoon and glaciers” are crucial to the understanding of the process of climate change. “His researches also concerns more than two billion population, it is a global topic”, Hagberg added.

Earlier, SSAG announced Professor Yao as 2017 Vega Medal laureate, for his outstanding contributions to glacier research and to the society at large.

His research focuses on glaciers and environment on the Tibetan Plateau, especially within the cryospheric research field.

Yao is internationally acknowledged as one of the most accomplished scientists in the field of cryospheric study. He has led several research programs — often together with American, French, German and Japanese scientists — in the last 20 years.

One of his later works shows that global warming, as causing the decline of glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau, interact with Indian monsoon winds and westerly winds. The research program Third Pole Environment (TPE) which is led by Professor Yao, has become internationally significant.

China has published stricter regulations on officials’ personal information declarations, requiring them to report to the Communist Party of China (CPC) their personal and family assets and investments, marital status and overseas travel, among others.

The rules, jointly issued by the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council, are a further attempt to curb corruption.

According to the revised regulation on leading cadres’ personal information declarations, officials at deputy county level or above are required to report information, including their marital status, overseas travel, criminal records, wages and other earnings, family properties, stocks, funds, insurance and other investment.

The revised rule has specified verification of such reports, including the methods and the sampling rate for random checks. The rate for random verification has been increased to one in 10.

Punishments have been stipulated for false declarations and deliberate concealment of personal information.

The report of personal information is an important assessment of loyalty to the Party and commitment to the CPC code of conduct. It should be linked to promotion by Party committees and departments, the Organization Department of the Central Committee of the CPC said in a statement.

More than 9,100 officials have been overlooked for promotion after they were found to have concealed personal information, while 124,800 have been punished for making false declarations.

Stipulating the consequences of false declarations and concealment is a clear warning to officials and is crucial for the mechanism, according to the statement.

It called on CPC committees at various levels to implement the rules strictly and treat it as an important political mission of strengthening Party self-governance.

In addition, it also urged leading officials to be loyal and honest, and put themselves under organizational supervision in accordance with the rules.