Chang’e 5 mission

The ascender of Chang’e-5 probe successfully rendezvoused and docked with the orbiter-returner combination in lunar orbit at 5:42 a.m. on Sunday, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) has announced.

This is the first time Chinese spacecraft have carried out rendezvous and docking in lunar orbit. The samples collected on the moon had been transferred from the ascender to the returner safely by 6:12 a.m. yesterday, said the CNSA. Chang’e-5 is one of the most complicated and challenging missions in Chinese aerospace history, as well as the world’s first moon-sample mission in more than 40 years.

Mummified Buddha

A court in Fujian Province on Friday ruled in favor of local villagers demanding the return of a stolen Buddha statue from a Dutch collector.

It contains the mummified body of a Song Dynasty (960-1279) Buddhist monk. It had been housed in a temple in Fujian’s city of Sanming and worshipped by local villagers for more than 1,000 years before it was stolen in 1995. The villagers have been looking for the lost statue ever since and only found it when it was exhibited in Hungary in 2015. They later negotiated with the statue’s holder, Oscar van Overeem from the Netherlands, for its return, but to no avail.

Poverty reduction

China relocated over 9.6 million people to complete its poverty alleviation relocation plan during the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020) period, said Zhao Chenxin, secretary-general of the National Development and Reform Commission, at a briefing in Beijing on Thursday morning.

About 35,000 centralized resettlement areas — 5,000 urban areas and 30,000 rural sites — were built and about 600 billion yuan (US$91.74 billion) was invested in a variety of funds.

Disposable plastics

China has urged the business sector to reduce the consumption of single-use plastic products, encouraging plastic recycling and the use of recyclable and degradable substitutes, according to a document from the Ministry of Commerce.

The ministry has set up a nationwide reporting system to record the use and recycling of disposable plastic products, according to the document. Retailers, e-commerce platforms, and takeaway food outlets are required to report their use and recycling of such products, the document said.

(SD-Agencies)