This is NEWS Plus Special English.
A new science award with a million-dollar prize has been announced to honor China's top scientists, with a view to creating China's own version of Nobel Prize.
The Future Science Awards were initiated by a group of elite Chinese scientists and business leaders, including Shi Yigong, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Rao Yi, president of life sciences of Peking University, Li Yanhong, Chairman and CEO of Baidu, and Yang Yuanqing, CEO of Lenovo.
The awards comprise two categories, the Life Science Award and the Materials Science Award. A prize of 1 million U.S. dollars will be given to each winner starting from 2017.
The new honor is regarded by some as the Chinese version of the Nobel Prize. As the Nobel Prize was established by Swedish scientist Alfred Bernhard Nobel, the Future Science Awards are founded by private organizations, instead of the government.
Baidu CEO Li Yanhong says the Future Science Awards will bring creative talents from different fields together and help them communicate and breed new ideas.
This is NEWS Plus Special English.
A total of 85 enterprises working with hazardous chemicals in the Binhai New Area of north China's Tianjin municipality will be closed or relocated after district safety checks concluded.
Among the 85 enterprises on the alert list, nine have improved and were removed from the list, 10 have worked out plans for relocation, and the remaining 66 have signed a deal with the government to restructure.
The investigation tallied 580 chemical works in the area, including 430 hazardous chemical factories, 90 companies transporting dangerous materials, 60 companies dealing with dangerous cargo at Tianjin Port and 3 fireworks warehouses.
Other enterprises have passed safety inspections and resumed operations.
The district administration on work safety is also drawing a geographic information map of the chemical works in the area, while integrating the Internet, data mining and cloud computing techniques into the daily monitoring and emergency command.
A digital risk map covers surveillance of 300 enterprises and will be expanded to 380.
On Aug. 12, two explosions ripped through a warehouse storing hazardous chemicals and residences at Tianjin Port. The blast claimed 173 lives, including 104 firefighters.
