IN BRIEF (Page 2)

Space

Three astronauts return to Earth

Three Chinese astronauts were back sitting comfortably on chairs on the grasslands of Inner Mongolia on the morning of June 26 after completing the country's fifth and longest manned space mission.

Shenzhou X, the spacecraft carrying crew commander Nie Haisheng, astronaut Zhang Xiaoguang and female astronaut Wang Yaping, landed at 8:07 am on the grasslands of north China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region.

Nie first left the spacecraft's reentry module at about 9:30 am, after a 15-day stay in low earth orbit. He also set a record for time spent in space by Chinese astronauts with more than 470 hours over two missions.

The Shenzhou X spacecraft conducted the country's first test flight around the Tiangong-1 space module on Tuesday. Future vessels will need to dock from more than one direction. Before they left, each of them used sign language to express their gratitude to scientific staff on the ground and others following the space mission.

Incident

27 killed as rioting hits Xinjiang

Riots left 27 people dead in a remote town in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region early on June 26, local authorities said.

The riots happened at about 6 am in Lukqun township, Shanshan county in Turpan prefecture, about 250 km from the regional capital Urumqi.

Knife-wielding mobs attacked the township's police stations, the local government building and a construction site, stabbing people and setting fire to police cars, officials with Xinjiang's regional Party committee said.

Seventeen people - nine police officers and security guards and eight civilians - were killed before police opened fire and killed 10 rioters, the officials said.

Three rioters were caught at the scene and police were chasing those who fled, the officials said without clarifying how many were at large.

Cybersecurity

US 'stole' Chinese citizens' SMS data

Cyberattacks on China that originate in the United States may be partly backed by the US government, Chinese experts have said, asking Washington to explain.

Their call came after US National Security Agency whistle-blower Edward Snowden told The South China Morning Post, a Hong Kong newspaper, that US spies have hacked into Chinese mobile phone companies and a backbone Chinese network to steal text messages and data of millions of Chinese citizens.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said China is concerned with reports of US government hacking on China and has made representations to the US. The National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team/Coordination Center of China said that in the first five months of this year, 13,408 overseas trojan horses or bot control servers - two popular hacking tools - hijacked about 5.63 million mainframes in China.

Education

Students, parents await gaokao results

More than 9 million students across the country face an important choice in the coming few days as education authorities have begun to release the results of the gaokao, the annual national college entrance exam. They have to decide on a list of universities or colleges to apply for.

About 9.12 million applicants took this year's college entrance exam, compared with 9.15 million in 2012, according to the Ministry of Education.

Technology

Yangtze Delta trial for satellite system

A demonstration project was launched on June 21 in the Yangtze River Delta for China's Beidou satellite navigation system, which will provide precise navigation, positioning and time services to the nation's richest region. The system had a successful trial in southern China's Pearl River Delta last year.

The Shanghai government-led pilot plan is expected to deploy the Beidou system, China's version of the global positioning system, for various daily uses, including supervision of key transport, monitoring the elderly and children, and high-precision positioning.

The trial plan has a construction period of 18 months and investment of 190 million yuan ($31 million; 24 million euros). About 50,000 Beidou terminals will be supplied for daily activities.

Project may be redesigned near tomb

A multibillion-yuan construction project in Beijing is likely to be redesigned to protect an important ancient tomb site in Changgou town, Fangshan district, discovered during a preliminary investigation in 2012.

"We'll soon coordinate with the relevant sectors to adjust the original construction plan to protect the tomb on its original site," said Yu Ping, a spokeswoman for the Beijing Cultural Heritage Department. Yu said she hoped a museum for the tomb would be built and opened to the public in the future.

(China Daily Africa Weekly 06/28/2013 page2)