The State Council, China’s cabinet, announced the appointment and removal of several senior officials Wednesday.

Luo Wen was appointed vice minister of industry and information technology; Shi Yugang was appointed deputy director of the state ethnic affairs commission.

Sun Meijun becomes deputy head of the China Food and Drug Administration.

He Jing was appointed deputy director of the liaison office of the Central People’s Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

Hu Keming will no longer be deputy director of the legislative affairs office of the State Council.

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Zuoquan County in Shanxi Province convened a seminar commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Taihang Anti-Japanese Aggression Base from July 30 to 31. The seminar, aimed at remembering revolutionary martyrs during the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, conveyed “Taihang revolutionary spirit” and inherited folk culture.

A seminar commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Taihang Anti-Japanese Aggression Base is held in Zuoquan County, Shanxi Province, from July 30 to 31, 2017, [Photo by Yuan Xiao /China.org.cn]

Zuoquan County is located in the southeast of Jinzhong, Shanxi Province and to the west of Taihang Mountain. After General Zuo Quan sacrificed his life in the Chinese People’s War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, Liao County was renamed Zuoquan County in his honor.

Between 1937 to 1945, Zuoquan County took up an important place in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.

The Eighth Route Army (led by the Chinese Communist Party during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression) was located in Zuoquan County for five years. During this period the “Taihang revolutionary spirit” was formed whereby the Eighth Route Army worked and cooperated with local people, overcame hardship and poverty, united to fight against the Japanese invaders,

“We not only should honor martyrs and inherent their spirit, but also pass down the ‘Taihang revolutionary spirit’ of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression to the younger generations,” said Liu Wu, grandson of General Zhu De, senior colonel of the People’s Liberation Army Strategic Support Force.

Also, the unveiling ceremony of Taihang Anti-Japanese Aggression Academy was held during the seminar. The academy, which focuses on studying the history of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in the Taihang Mountain, promotes the “Taihang revolutionary spirit” and will improve historical research on this topic.

Instead of a group of stereotypical young men defending their village from fires, a group of women whose average age is 50 years old are fighting fires in their village in East China’s Fujian province, according to a report by Xiamen Evening News.

Wu Shuchun carries a firefighting hose at Shantou village, Dadeng Island in East China’s Fujian province, on July 24, 2017. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Due to the village’s remote location, professional firefighters cannot arrive in time at Shantou village in Dadeng Island once a fire is reported. Also, most male laborers in Shantou village work outside the community. So beginning in 2008, the women stepped in.

Called the Haixia Women’s Volunteer Firefighter Brigade, the group has 12 members. The oldest is 69 years old, while the youngest is 36 years old.

Since most of the volunteer firefighters have grandsons or granddaughters, they nicknamed their group, “The Grandma Firefighter Brigade”.

“In the early days, the brigade was poorly equipped. Nowadays, we have fire hoses, firefighting lances and other equipment. Since we are not professional firefighters, we are used to receiving more than two hours of relevant training twice or three times a week at night,” said Zheng Shuxian, who organized the brigade in 2008.

The fire hoses they used before weighed 3.5 or 4 kilograms. Wu Shuchun,53, a brigade member, said she ran about 10 kilometers a day to improve her physical strength.

In the past 10 years, the women have responded to almost 100 fires and have won praise from locals.

Scientists in Yunnan province have strong evidence that sun bears live in China.

A sun bear.[Photo provided to China Daily]

A video taken by scientists with infrared cameras on the evening of Oct 23 in Yingjiang county, clearly shows the features of sun bears－a stocky, muscular build, small ears and a short muzzle－which earned them the nickname “dog bear”.

The images, captured by researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Kunming Institute of Zoology, confirms the presence of sun bears in Yunnan for the first time in 45 years. Gathering data is difficult because of the animals’ remote habitat and shy personality.

“This precious video is the first recorded image of the species in China, and strongly supports the existence of sun bears here,” said Jiang Xuelong, a researcher at the institute, who conducted the study.

The sun bear is the smallest species of bear. It grows to about half the size of a North American black bear. Males, which are slightly larger than females, are about 1.5 meters in length and weigh up to 75 kilograms.

Sun bears are nocturnal. They have an excellent sense of smell and extremely long claws. They also sport a long tongue that’s used for extracting honey from bees’ nests－giving them another nickname, “honey bear”.

The bear is a tree-dwelling species that inhabits tropical forests in Southeast Asia, including Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. It is among the top species on China’s endangered wildlife list and is under top-level protection.

In 1972, two Chinese researchers recorded a female sun bear in southeast Yunnan’s Lyuchun county, marking the first time a sun bear was officially recorded in China, Jiang said.

Even though there have been reports of sun bears since 1972, he said most of them are controversial because of a lack of detail and no photos. Some scholars have even wondered whether the sun bear was extinct in China.

“The major threats to sun bears are habitat loss and commercial hunting,” said Li Fei, the lead author of the study and a conservation officer at Kadoorie Conservation China, a department under the Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden, who focuses on conservation work.

“China has no previous research on the sun bear. The 10-second video is surely exciting,” he said.

“It has critical meaning in verifying the existence of the species in China. In the future, more extensive studies and necessary conservation measures will be carried out in related areas. The video will guide our further studies of the sun bear, which is crucial for its protection.”

Currently, official data about the number of wild sun bears in China is not available. The country has about 20 sun bears in a breeding center. Worldwide, 164 sun bears live in zoos, according to one report.