Chinese judges on Monday strongly condemned the murder of a retired judge in south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

Fu Mingsheng, who worked at a court of Luchuan County in Guangxi, was reportedly killed with a knife at his residence on Jan. 26. by suspect Long Jiancai, a defendant in a divorce case that Fu heard in 1994, according to a statement released by the committee in charge of protecting judges’ rights and interests under the China Association of Judges.

Details of the case are not yet available.

There have been frequent cases of assaults and insults of judges in recent years. Some have been followed, harassed and threatened. Such incidents have diminished the authority and credibility of the judiciary, according to the statement.

Venturefest Bristol and Bath 2017 opened last week with a seminar on future cities. Leading businesses from the region discussed the technologies and challenges involved in developing cities that are fit for the future, in the first of a series of activities designed to help find solutions.

The Venturefest events help to identify fast-growth tech companies and start-ups within a region. They also provide a forum for organisations that are developing future cities technologies.

These might include communication networks and connectivity, seamless automation and robotics, as well as intelligent buildings, smart building bricks and in-home technology.

If you are an innovator based in Bristol or Bath over the next 9 months you can attend events that explore the themes from the opening seminar. The programme will include:

Smart city marketplace

Some of Bristol and Bath’s best future city-focussed start-ups and scale-ups exhibited at the launch event. They will be back in October to showcase new developments in their ideas. The marketplace will also see the launch of a crowdfunding bootcamp programme in association with CrowdCube.

Innovation showcase

The showcase will highlight the strengths of the region’s tech cluster, including solutions that are either in development or already in use, which are helping to meet the smart cities challenge.

Investor showcase

Delegates will have the chance to meet a select audience of angel investors and venture capitalists. The investor showcase is part of the Silicon Gorge Partnership, which includes SETsquared, Idea Squares, Invest Bristol & Bath, TechSPARK.

Thought leadership conference

The progress, productivity and promise of the region will be highlighted in the October conference. You can see first-hand what the future of urban living looks like in Bristol and Bath. The conference themes will include smart energy, intelligent transport and smart money.

About Venturefest Bristol and Bath 2017

Venturefest Bristol and Bath is one of a series of Venturefest events across the country, supported by Innovate UK. Ian Meikle, Director for Infrastructure Systems at Innovate UK, said:

Bristol & Bath is one of the UK’s most important technology clusters, playing a global role in the development of smart city technology.

Chinese scientists started their 38th ocean scientific expedition on Monday, with the country’s first deep-sea manned submersible Jiaolong.

The mother ship, “Xiangyanghong 09”, left east China’s Qingdao carrying the sub and more than 150 personnel for a 124-day trip, the longest for Jiaolong.

The researchers will carry out surveys in the northwest Indian Ocean, the South China Sea, Yap Trench and the Mariana Trench in the west Pacific Ocean.

With Jiaolong, more discoveries are expected in the northwest Indian Ocean, said chief scientist Han Xiqiu.

The trip lasts until June 9.

Named after a mythical dragon, Jiaolong reached its deepest depth of 7,062 meters in the Mariana Trench in June 2012.

On Monday, “Hailong 2”, or Sea Dragon 2, and “Qianlong 1”, both unmanned submersibles, were officially deployed at the National Deep Sea Center in Qingdao.

“Hailong 2”, which needs a wire to link to the support ship, can work at a maximum depth of 3,500 meters. In 2009, the home-made underwater robot discovered a deep-sea hydrothermal “chimney” vent near the equator in the eastern Pacific.

Wireless “Qianlong 1” can operate at a depth of 6,000 meters.

The three types of subs are all domestically-made and each has its own specialties, according to researchers.

A new mother ship for Jiaolong is estimated to be put into use in March 2019. It will be capable of carrying the three sub types together, said Yu Hongjun, director of the center.

A healthy baby boy has been born from an embryo frozen 16 years ago, a hospital in south China announced on Monday.

A 46-year-old woman gave birth to a son at the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University in Guangdong Province in early February. Her other first son, already 16 years old, was from the same batch of embryos frozen in 2000.

“I’m just really ecstatic to have another child,” said the woman. She gave birth to her first child through IVF in 2000, when the hospital froze her 18 other embryos.

Last year, the mother came to the hospital asking to get pregnant again, after China lifted the one-child policy.

“There were a few issues to handle when she asked to unfreeze her embryos,” said Xu Yanwen, director with the reproductive center of the hospital. “It was not easy to awaken the frozen embryos because of freezing techniques and there were also problems with her womb.” Xu added that risks were also high for women of advanced maternal age.

Both the baby and mother are doing well and will be discharged from hospital soon.

Xu Yanwen said that embryos frozen in the hospital date back as early as 1994.

“As more mothers come to have their embryos unfrozen, the record may probably be broken any time,” Xu said.

With the end of the one-child policy, an increasing number of woman of advanced maternal age have visited the hospital to conceive with the help of Assisted Reproductive Technology, Xu said.

“In 2016, we received about 1,000 woman above 40 years old seeking to have more babies, and the average age of women to have their eggs retrieved rose from 32.7 years to 33.7 years,” Xu said.

Angela
Rayner MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Education, commenting on the Government’s
announcement regarding the sale of the student loan book, said: 


“The Tories have tried to sell-off the student loan book before, but
abandoned the idea when they realised it was a bad deal for students and a bad
deal for the tax-payer.

"This Government never learn any lessons – this sale will do nothing to
ease the burden of debt piled on students by the Tories who have trebled
tuition fees and scrapped maintenance grants.

“Labour
has committed to restoring maintenance grants to help young people from all
backgrounds have access to University.”

Ends